I can understand how you’d draw this implication from the examples I raised, but the only analogy I wished to call attention to was an action’s being lamentable but not morally forbidden. I don’t think these actions need be such that their performance is only prudent or moral if they’re demanded by some compelling reason.
Ok. We can drop it if you like since it’s not my main point anyway, unless you have an example of something that might be lamentable without there being some presumption against doing it. I have no objection in principle to granting this point, since what I am trying to show if that depriving me of my life when I was a fetus is morally objectionable.
I think the fetus became me when it developed the in principle ability to access mental states, like pain.
This would require the claim that the being that was the fetus ceased to exist at that point. But that has a very low plausibility given that there would be very significant material continuity between the being that was the fetus and the being that is I.
The claim that the being that was the fetus ceased to develop at this point is highly implausible also because of what I have pointed out in previous posts. There is nothing we could point to as the death of that organism. On the contrary, what happens is growth. It may develop a new capacity, the ability to access mental states, but it doesn’t follow that it is a new organism, only that the same organism developed a new capacity.
p.s. by access mental states like pain, do you mean for example the ability to be conscious of pain?
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2. But would it require even this? The problem with your objection is that it could work just as well against the claim that I am the same being I was 10 years ago, as the claim that I am the same being I was as a fetus.
I’m not sure what objection you have in mind… I’m not sure which argument you’re talking about.
When I refer to your objection, I mean that your claim that claiming I was a fetus commits us to an implausible consequence, namely, substance dualism.
I read you as launching argument along the lines of:
- If I was once a fetus, substance dualism is true.
- Substance dualism is probably not true
- I was probably not a fetus.
You supported 1 by discussing the metaphysics of personal identity and suggested that since there is no material continuity between the being that was a fetus and I, I cannot say that I was a fetus. In short, I read you as saying:
- material continuity is required for personal identity
- there is no material continuity between the being that was a fetus and myself.
- therefore, the being that was a fetus is not numerically identical to me (I was not a fetus).
It seems to me then, that you are rejecting that claim that I was once a fetus based on your belief that material continuity is required for personal identity.
My reply is that by this logic, you would also have to deny that you are the same person that you were 10 years ago. In short, not only could I not say “I was a fetus,” I could also never say "I was once a child.
This is because the human body swaps out all its particles every seven years. So, in terms of the material making up my body, I am a wholly different person than I was 10 years ago. So, if you are right and personal identity depends on material continuity, then I am a totally different person that I was 10 years ago. Hence, if you are right, not only could I not say that I was once a fetus, I could not even say that I graduated from grade school, which is absurd.
I suggested that this leaves you with a choice:
- withdraw your claim that material continuity is required for personal identity as an objection to my claim that I was once a fetus.
or
- accept the existence of the soul (Since if you maintain that material continuity is required for personal identity, then you are committed to the absurd position that not only were you not a fetus, you were also not a child.
This is actually an adaptation of the Theseus Ship paradox made by Chisolm. He called this adaptation the Entia Successiva argument. Zimmerman uses a version of it in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion.
Cool. thanks for the reference, I’ll take a look.
Between time t1 and t2, the USS Enterprise will have each of its composing particles replaced by a different one. Yet, the USS Enterprise persists throughout this change. Therefore, the Enterprise is other than its composing particles: therefore the USS Enterprise is immaterial.
Maybe, it would be best to do this as a new thread, since I don’t think it is required for this argument, but I can’t resist a reply.
I would reply very simply that the two ships are indeed wholly different ships and that continuity of the name represents a simple semantic move and does not reflect the ontological nature of the ships. (not sure I expressed that as clearly as I could, but hopefully it at least made sense).
In short the proposed counter-example strikes me as weak because it trades on a vague use of the name “enterprise.” By “Enterprise,” do we mean the ship at t1? Well, then, certainly if all its parts are replaced, it is a wholly different ship from t1 and is not the “Enterprise.” We may choose to
call it by the same name “Enterprise,” but it is a wholly different ship. Or put it differently, what if all its parts were replaced and at t2 it was given a new name, “Voyager”? Would it still be the same ship as at t1? I doubt it.
This seems common sense. If I have a computer and I replace every single part of that computer over the course of a day, I think we would have to say that the resulting computer is a different computer than the previous one, even if I replaced it with identical parts. Why would replacing the parts more slowly make a difference? It would be a wholly new computer even if I named it “Barry” before the change and continued to call it “Barry” afterwards.
p.s. I do not really call me computer Barry.
