Worm-theoretic Persistence and Temporal Predication: a reply to Johnston's Personite Problem (original) (raw)
Related papers
On the Moral Problems Raised by the Existence of Personites
Mind, 2024
According to the worm theory, persons are (maximal) aggregates of person-stages existing at different times. Personites, on the other hand, are non-maximal aggregates of stages that are very much like persons. Their existence appears to make instances of prudential self-sacrifice morally problematic: the personites that exist at the time of the sacrifice but not at the time of the reward seem not to receive future compensation for their sacrifice. Instances of punishment appear to give rise to a similar problem. We argue that these impressions arise from a mistaken assumption about the primary bearers of properties such as suffering, receiving compensation (in the future) and having (previously) committed a crime. According to the worm theory, stages, rather than persons or personites, possess these properties. Persons and personites have these properties only derivatively. As we show, once this clarification and related ones are made, the apparent moral problems raised by the existence of personites dissolve.
Temporal Parts and Moral Personhood
Philosophical Studies
Ethical consequences of metaphysical theses are often underexplored. Contemporary metaphysics has recently seen a wonderfully interesting debate which revolves around the topics of diachronic identity and mereology. Specifically, a discussion is underway between the proponents of Three Dimensionalism (i.e., those who maintain that an object persists over time by being wholly present at more than one time) and the proponents of Four Dimensionalism (i.e., those who maintain that an object persists over time by having different temporal parts at different times). Although a substantial literature exists on the alleged advantages, disadvantages, defenses of and objections to Three Dimensionalism and Four Dimensionalism, little work has been directed at exploring the ethical significance of the opposing views. As a contribution in this latter area, the present essay is an attempt to argue for a thesis about the implications of Four Dimensionalism on a pair of specific issues of moral concern, namely, on the question of how to formulate the criterion of moral personhood and on the question of just which individuals satisfy that criterion.
Temporality and Moral Formation
While Aristotle’s account of the voluntary nature of moral formation--that an agent can and should be held responsible for his or her own character formation--seems right, the argument that follows will show how Aristotle’s overall thought needs to be understood as leaving space for the importance of temporal context (i.e. narrative and community) for the formation of character. Additionally, through a brief look at Stanley Hauerwas' work, it will be shown how such a space must be appropriated for character formation within the Christian tradition.
Philosophical Studies, 2019
Mark Johnston and Eric Olson have both pressed what Johnston has dubbed the personite problem. Personites, if they exist, are person-like entities whose lives extend over a continuous proper part of a person's life. They are so person-like that they seem to have moral status if persons do. But this threatens to wreak havoc with ordinary moral thinking. For example, simple decisions to suffer some short-term hardship for long-term benefits become problematic. And ordinary punishment is always also punishment of the innocent, since it punishes personites that didn't exist when the crime was committed. An initially attractive way around the personite problem may be to simply deny that personites exist. But as I discuss in this talk, relating to contemporary discussions in metaontology (the doctrine of quantifier variance, and Ted Sider's ontological realism), this response for princi-pled reasons doesn't work. The problems I discuss illustrate the significance of metaontological considerations for issues in ethics and metaethics, and generalize widely beyond the personite problem.
It can seem implausible that a merely bodily existence could be also a personal existence. Two related lines of thought can mitigate this implausibility. The first, developed in the first part of this paper, is the thought that our bodily existence is better described as an organic, animal existence. Organisms, I argue, are essentially temporal; this essential temporality makes sense of the possibility that some organisms are persons. The second line of thought, addressed in the second part of the paper, considers the relationship between the notion of a person, and temporal existence. Persons need not exist in time, but some do. Consideration of what the temporal existence of a person must be like makes organic existence seem an appropriate way for temporal persons to exist.
Edwin Mellen Press, 1992
This work is a bold and imaginative foray into the hallowed preserves of philosophy, political theory, and theology.
Personhood Cybernetic Immortality: A Thomistic Evaluation
Enwisdomization Journal, 2022
Technology is often regarded as a blessing and a curse because of the possibility of using it for good as well as destruction. As such, transhumanism which seeks to overcome human disabilities through technology is also by earmarked possibilities and fears. The quest for cybernetic immortality, perceived as an extreme ambition of transhumanism has generated heated debates on its implications to personhood. This is all the more compounded by the difficulty in conceptualizing personhood. However, in lending credence to an ontological understanding of personhood as espoused by Thomas Aquinas against a technical one, this research finds that under the pretext of human advancement, the reductionist ideology driving cybernetic immortality that conceives of man in a functional sense as a physical machine, rather dehumanizes us by stripping away the essential metaphysical and transcendental elements of personhood with varying undesirable moral, social and political implications at the intersection of justice, rights, equality and other universal values germane to the sustenance of a stable society. Thus, employing the expository, analytic and evaluative methodology, this research seeks to provide an analysis of the various perspectives to personhood with the aim of revealing a broad range of results in favour of the claim that personhood is an essential characteristic of the human species with an indispensable metaphysical foundation. Against this backdrop, it seeks to evaluate the various implications of a functionalist interpretation of personhood as projected in the transhumanist's quest for cybernetic immortality. In the wake of the dangers it portends, this project argues for a metaphysical conception of personhood as evinced by Thomas Aquinas as a better precautionary anthropological framework for approaching technological advancement in a way that maximizes its benefits and minimizes its dangers.