Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema | Page 8

by plastic surgeons and, with the help of his loving wife,
he gradually recovers his will to live. But he never develops a proper
sense of identity. It is as though he is constantly ill at ease in his own
body. As the plot unravels, Dan is led to believe that he may have
murdered his wife's lover, Jack. This thriller offers additional twists and
turns but, throughout it all, we face this question:
Dan has no recollection of being Dan. Dan does not remember
murdering Jack. It seems as though Dan's very identity has been erased.
Yet, Dan is in sound mind and can tell right from wrong. Should Dan
be held (morally and, as a result, perhaps legally as well) accountable
for Jack's murder?
Would the answer to this question still be the same had Dan erased
from his memory ONLY the crime -but recalled everything else (in an
act of selective dissociation)? Do our moral and legal accountability
and responsibility spring from the integrity of our memories? If Dan
were to be punished for a crime he doesn't have the faintest recollection
of committing - wouldn't he feel horribly wronged? Wouldn't he be

justified in feeling so?
There are many states of consciousness that involve dissociation and
selective amnesia: hypnosis, trance and possession, hallucination,
illusion, memory disorders (like organic, or functional amnesia),
depersonalization disorder, dissociative fugue, dreaming, psychosis,
post traumatic stress disorder, and drug-induced psychotomimetic
states.
Consider this, for instance:
What if Dan were the victim of a Multiple Personality Disorder (now
known as "Dissociative Identity Disorder")? What if one of his "alters"
(i.e., one of the multitude of "identities" sharing Dan's mind and body)
committed the crime? Should Dan still be held responsible? What if the
alter "John" committed the crime and then "vanished", leaving behind
another alter (let us say, "Joseph") in control?
Should "Joseph" be held responsible for the crime "John" committed?
What if "John" were to reappear 10 years after he "vanished"? What if
he were to reappear 50 years after he "vanished"? What if he were to
reappear for a period of 90 days - only to "vanish" again? And what is
Dan's role in all this? Who, exactly, then, is Dan?
II. Who is Dan?
Buddhism compares Man to a river. Both retain their identity despite
the fact that their individual composition is different at different
moments. The possession of a body as the foundation of a self-identity
is a dubious proposition. Bodies change drastically in time (consider a
baby compared to an adult). Almost all the cells in a human body are
replaced every few years. Changing one's brain (by transplantation) -
also changes one's identity, even if the rest of the body remains the
same.
Thus, the only thing that binds a "person" together (i.e., gives him a self
and an identity) is time, or, more precisely, memory. By "memory" I
also mean: personality, skills, habits, retrospected emotions - in short:
all long term imprints and behavioural patterns. The body is not an
accidental and insignificant container, of course. It constitutes an
important part of one's self-image, self-esteem, sense of self-worth, and
sense of existence (spatial, temporal, and social). But one can easily
imagine a brain in vitro as having the same identity as when it resided
in a body. One cannot imagine a body without a brain (or with a

different brain) as having the same identity it had before the brain was
removed or replaced.
What if the brain in vitro (in the above example) could not
communicate with us at all? Would we still think it is possessed of a
self? The biological functions of people in coma are maintained. But do
they have an identity, a self? If yes, why do we "pull the plug" on them
so often?
It would seem (as it did to Locke) that we accept that someone has a
self-identity if: (a) He has the same hardware as we do (notably, a brain)
and (b) He communicates his humanly recognizable and
comprehensible inner world to us and manipulates his environment. We
accept that he has a given (i.e., the same continuous) self-identity if (c)
He shows consistent intentional (i.e., willed) patterns ("memory") in
doing (b) for a long period of time.
It seems that we accept that we have a self-identity (i.e., we are
self-conscious) if (a) We discern (usually through introspection) long
term consistent intentional (i.e., willed) patterns ("memory") in our
manipulation ("relating to") of our environment and (b) Others accept
that we have a self-identity (Herbert Mead, Feuerbach).
Dan (probably) has the same hardware as we do (a brain). He
communicates his (humanly recognizable and comprehensible) inner
world to us (which is how he manipulates us and his environment).
Thus, Dan clearly has a self-identity. But he is inconsistent. His