a loved one , it is done because , we are told that it is highly likely the patient in an unconscious or vegetative state will not make a recovery . Seeing a healthy woman ( bar dementia ) who can eat , talk etc . and thinking that we should terminate the life of this conscious organism strikes doubt into most . I think it is more than simply seeing Margo happy and alive that strikes doubt into whether we should let her die . Implicitly , we see Margo as a new person . Of course , Margo retains the same name , and has the same records of birth and other records pertaining to her life , but deep down we know that we are dealing with a new Margo . In other words , the Margo that once was , is no more . We see Margo as being ‘ no more ’ precisely because she has little to no rational faculties remaining , she does not have the same memories , thoughts , feelings and so on that she had before she was demented .
It seems to me that a lot of cases that people look at take an assumption that animalism ( the self is merely that biological organism which stares back at you in the mirror ) is the optimal account of the self ( Olson , 2007 : 44 ). On this view , we should respect Margo ’ s past directives because that is what she said all those years ago before dementia struck . The problem with
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the animalist position , in my opinion is that , as Olson notes , some philosophers believe that , ‘ some sort of psychological continuity is both necessary and sufficient for us to persist through time ’ ( Olson , 2007 : 47 ). For my argument , it is not required to spend too much time in formulating an argument in favour of a psychological account of personal identity , but I shall sketch out a brief argument . Transplants , surgeries and replacements of specific physical body parts mean that it is conceivable that the thing that stares back at us in the mirror could be radically different in the space of a year ; I may have a liver transplant , facial reconstruction surgery , a new set of teeth swapped out for my old ‘ parts ’ which constituted myself . Further , my thoughts beliefs and desires can also change ; I may become vegan , support a different football team or vote for a different political party . If I can change all of these things about myself , then what is it that actually persists of ourselves through time ? All these things about myself can change , but what makes me persist is that throughout these changes the same conscious being existed throughout these changes ; accordingly , a stream of consciousness must be the persistence condition for personal identity . This idea is not unheard of and is defended by Barry Dainton in his idea of ‘ c-systems ’ which