Selves, Persons, and the Neo-Lucretian Symmetry Problem

Philosophia 52 (1):69-86 (2024)
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Abstract

The heavily discussed (neo-)Lucretian symmetry argument holds that as we are indifferent to nonexistence before birth, we should also be indifferent to nonexistence after death. An important response to this argument insists that prenatal nonexistence differs from posthumous nonexistence because we could not have been born earlier and been the same ‘thick’ psychological self. As a consequence, we can’t properly ask whether it would be better for us to have had radically different lives either. Against this, it’s been claimed we can form preferences as to which ‘thick’ (psychological) self our ‘thin’ (metaphysical) self would be better off ‘associated’ with. I argue that these discussions draw the right distinction, but do so in the wrong place: understanding the ‘thin’ self phenomenally instead of metaphysically allows us to understand how we can rationally form preferences to have been somebody else.

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Patrick Stokes
Deakin University

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Why We Should Reject S.Derek Parfit - 1984 - In Reasons and Persons. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 43 (2):399-403.
Selves: an essay in revisionary metaphysics.Galen Strawson - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Mortal Questions.Thomas Nagel - 1980 - Critica 12 (34):125-133.

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