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The Biological Turn on Personal Identity: The Role of Science as a Response to Children’s Appropriation in Argentinian Dictatorship (1976–1983)

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Abstract

The philosophical problem of personal identity has been widely discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. The disputes over identity throughout time abound in references to thought experiments, excluding any connection to practical problems or to scientific knowledge and biotechnological practices. Nevertheless, some real cases challenge the pure metaphysical formulation of the problem and also show how science has an indubitable impact on the issue of identity. I will discuss the case of approximately 500 children who were appropriated during the most recent Argentinian dictatorship (1976–1983), as well as their restitution thanks to Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo’s fight and certain genetics outcomes. I will examine an alleged notion of genetic identity thought to have stemmed from the restitution phenomenon; and I will argue against some criticisms to that notion departing from contemporary philosophy of biology and philosophy of science. Particularly, I will discuss if a genetic stance of personal individual identity can be considered as supported by contemporary biological knowledge; and if a pluralistic perspective on scientific practice that appraises the role of values allows us to maintain the reference to DNA regarding identity but overcoming aforementioned criticisms.

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Notes

  1. Locke rejected every relation between identity and substantialism. He argued that PI should not be confused with substantial identity: the former does not depend on or imply the latter. PI only consists in the identity of a flux of consciousness. It is interesting to notice that the debate subsequent to Locke forgot this main idea.

  2. Some approaches extend the Lockean criterion beyond memory and assert that a present being is the same as a future being when the latter inherits the former’s mental features—beliefs, preferences, the capacity of rational thinking, and so on, in addition to memory. So, it is psychological continuity (broader than memory continuity) what is necessary and/or sufficient in order for persistence to be possible. According to other philosophers, it is not psychological continuity what guarantees identity, but psychological connectedness—a relation that can have degrees—: a present being can be more or less connected to a past being while he or she has or lacks of continuity whatsoever. (See for instance Noonan 2003; Parfit 1984; Shoemaker 1999).

  3. http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/20000-24999/21782/norma.htm.

  4. http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/0-4999/249/norma.htm.

  5. http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/160000-164999/160779/norma.htm.

  6. APM’s strategy pursuit different purposes since its foundation: to reach the whole society, to make it possible to prove the crime of appropriation, to convoke people who had doubts about their identity to approach the institution, and, of course, to find the appropriated grandchildren. It can be said that APM’s strategy reached a turning point of legitimacy by means of the creation of the BNDG and the development of the grandparenthood index. By them, APM managed to engage the State in the search for truth, being it now the guarantor of APM’s demand, which became a public demand for democracy and justice.

  7. It is beyond the scope of this paper to analyse the narrative concepction of identity. I am only interested here in the criticisms Ricoeur directs to forgotting the distinction between idem and ipse identity, since DNA as an idem-dimension can be read as a partial, a thing-dimension of identity.

  8. Meincke claims that the horns of the personal identity dilemma are, on the one hand, the reductionist positions, which hold that the identity criterion is the relation of psychological continuity or the relation of spatio-temporal continuity and, on the other hand, the further fact views, which consider identity to be a non-analyzable issue. I do not refer here to the non-reductionist positions (see Parfit 1984).

  9. It is interesting to notice that Putnam had defended external realism in 1975, and to give support to that thesis, he formulated his causal theory of reference. In 1981 he rejects that position and embraces an internal realism, rejecting externalism with a Kantian inspiration.

  10. That factor is some kind of “rough material” by means of which objects are constituted. When our conceptual schemes contribute in constituting objects, they “interact” with something that constrains and permits our theories and our constructed descriptions of the world. That rough material, that external factor is independent from our will.

  11. Chang defends an active (minimal) realism, which is characterized, as well as his pluralism, as ideological. That is the case because he considers those positions as having nothing to do with metaphysical assumptions, they work as guides for our actions.

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  1. Instituto de Filosofía “Doctor Alejandro Korn”, CONICET/UBA, Puán 480, 4to piso, of. 431, C1406CQJ, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Mariana Córdoba

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Córdoba, M. The Biological Turn on Personal Identity: The Role of Science as a Response to Children’s Appropriation in Argentinian Dictatorship (1976–1983). Found Sci 26, 405–427 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-019-09628-1

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