In the TV show Severance, employees at the mysterious company Lumon agree to have their consciousness severed between their work-selves (the “innies”) and their non-work selves (the “outies”). This means that when they are at work, they have no memory of their personal lives, and once they leave work for the day, they go back to being their personal selves with no memory of their work environment. One of the main underlying questions in the show is whether the innies and the outies share an identity relation—that is, whether they are the same individuals, or persons, outside of work as they are while at work. Through that question, the series deals with the implications of a severed personal identity and thus functions as a wonderful tool to teach about two theories of identity: animalism and John Locke’s psychological account. It is particularly relevant to the latter, as this appears to be the theory of personal identity the show’s characters most gravitate towards by the end of season two. In this clip from the second season, innie Dylan’s hope of leaving Lumon is shattered when his outie denies his resignation request, largely shaped by an instance of what the latter considered an act of infidelity: his wife and innie Dylan shared a brief kiss.
I use this clip in class to illustrate the psychological account of personal identity that John Locke espouses in “Of Identity and Diversity” in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Lock defines a person as a thinking being with reason and reflection, and argues that the continuation of personal identity has to do with continuing psychological connectedness, especially of our memories:
For, since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done. (§11)
Locke distinguishes between identity persisting as the same man versus identity persisting as the same person. This often confuses students because, as Locke himself notes, typically bodily identity (us as animals) and personal identity (us as persons) “stand for one and the same thing.” However, this clip allows students to conceptualize the difference. Insofar as innie Dylan and outie Dylan share the same organism, or as outie Dylan puts it, the same physiology, they are the same man, but given the complete severance of their memories between their inside and outside selves, they are not the same person.
The characters of the show do not always see themselves as two distinct persons sharing one organism. For example, in this brief scene from season one, Mark (one of the main characters) feels the need to defend his decision to work at Lumon, and rebuts the suggestion that who he is at work is another person: “Well, there is no ‘other one.’ It’s me. I do the job.” One possible way Mark could justify his belief that he and his innie share an identity relation is to appeal to the physicalist theory of identity known as “animalism.” Espoused by Eric Olson, animalism states that we remain the same individual over time so long as we continue to be the same animal, or functional biological organism, over time. According to animalism, there is no identity distinction between innies and outies. The main characters of the show, Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irving, remain who they are whether they are out of work or at work because they remain the same human organism despite their mental severance. Outie Dylan suggests something like this theory when he does not express surprise that he and his innie both love the same woman, since they share the same physiology.
Over the course of the series, however, the innies slowly begin to regard their outies as different persons altogether from themselves. Some of the innies even have radically different personalities from their outie. In this clip, for example, Helly, watches a video from her outie also responding to a resignation request. Her outie makes clear that she considers herself an actual person and the one in charge, while she doesn’t even consider her innie a person at all. Also, in a central point that affects the outcome of the plot, innies and outies sometimes have different, even conflicting, goals and priorities. In this clip, Mark’s innie and outie have a heated discussion through a video camera concerning which one’s goals should take priority when they contradict each other. Once again, through their conversation, it is clear that the innies and outies are indeed distinct persons, and that they view each other in this way, because they have distinct mental properties, mental contents, and memories.
Once the students understand the theoretical differences between animalism and the psychological account, and are able to conceptualize Locke’s distinction between the identity persistence of men versus that of persons, they have a framework for discussing other topics in philosophy: the differences between accidental and essential properties, whether the innies and outies have the same “soul” or two different “souls” and which one would survive in an afterlife, which one of the two is the “real” Dylan (or Helly or Mark), and which one of the two should have the autonomy over their shared lives. Then, in order to emphasize that these abstract topics have practical implications, we begin a section applying Locke’s theory of identity to real cases.
In my bioethics classes, for example, we discuss the “then-self/now-self” problem in cases with advanced dementia and living wills. This is when a pre-dementia self (the “then-self”) expresses through an advanced directive that they do not want certain treatment when in advanced dementia (e.g., nutrition) so that they can die, but then, once they are within the state (the “now-self”), they express contrary desires (e.g., they want to continue being fed). What should happen when prior competent wishes conflict with current wishes? (This is analogous to when an innie wants to resign and their outie does not.) Who has final autonomy, the then-self or the now-self (the innie or outie)? We also discuss what different theories of identity imply about when the person begins and ceases to exist, and how this can affect one’s views concerning the ethics of abortion and end-of-life care. When discussing abortion ethics, the phrase “life begins at conception” implies adherence to animalism, where the person begins to exist when her organism does, whereas mentalist views of identity would put the beginning of personhood much later in pregnancy. Insofar as ethical issues in euthanasia and end-of-life care, we look at the cases of Nancy Cruzan and Terri Schiavo, both of whom have two different death dates inscribed on their tombstones (one noting the day they permanently lost consciousness and one noting the day they physically died). I have noticed that, when discussing end-of-life cases, most students tend to side with a mentalist account of identity, agreeing that a person dies when their mind dies, whereas when we discuss abortion ethics, the class is often evenly divided between a physical and mentalist view of identity.
Philosophy is stereotypically viewed as a subject divorced from practical life and, for that reason, readily dispensable in education (especially since education has been commodified to the point that it is only considered valuable inasmuch as it turns a profit). In every class I teach, from Intro to Philosophy, to Ethics, to Philosophy of Religion, I emphasize the practical applications of each topic we discuss. Showing students the connections between abstract philosophical concepts (metaphysical questions being some of the most abstract ones out there) and common everyday issues helps them to see that philosophy can be useful in their daily lives. Using popular culture to illustrate philosophical ideas helps students to better understand these concepts while enriching their experience of their favorite kinds of entertainment.
Possible Readings
- DeGrazia, David. 2005. Human Identity and Bioethics, Cambridge University Press.
- Locke, John. 2004 (1689). “Of Identity and Diversity,” ch. 27 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Version by Louis deRosset, from the Project Gutenberg edition.
- Manninen, Bertha A. 2009. “The Metaphysical Foundations of Reproductive Ethics.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (2): 190–204.
- McMahan, Jeff. 2002. The Ethics of Killing: Problem at the Margins of Life, Oxford University Press.
- Olson, Eric. 2003. “An Argument for Animalism” (White Rose Research Repository version). Also published in: John P. Lizza, Defining the Beginning and End of Life: Readings on Personal Identity and Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University Press; and Raymond Martin and John Barresi, Personal Identity, Blackwell Readings in Philosophy.
- Thomas, Meg. 2024. “Memory and Personal Identity in Severance: Character Recognition and the Amnesiac Dilemma.”
Other Resources
- Brain in a Vat, with Travis Timmerman. 2025. The Philosophy of Severance. YouTube.
- TeacherOfPhilosophy. 2025. Severance and the Philosophy of Personal Identity. YouTube.
The Teaching and Learning Video Series is designed to share pedagogical approaches to using video clips in teaching philosophy. All posts in the series are indexed by author and topic here. If you are interested in contributing to this series, please email the series editor, Gregory Convertito, at gconvertito.ph@gmail.com.
Bertha Alvarez Manninen
Dr. Bertha Alvarez Manninen is a professor of philosophy at Arizona State University’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies. Her primary areas of research are ethics, applied ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy and film, and philosophy and popular culture. Her main passion is teaching and introducing her students to philosophy and how it permeates so much of our everyday lives - even in kids’ shows!
