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    If individual S is descended from N, then S is necessaril... — Carmelics
    Home/Personal Identity
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    If individual S is descended from N, then S is necessarily descended from N.

    Modality & Possibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A person's parentage is essential to them.
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    • 2.Essential properties are necessary properties — they cannot be otherwise.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Modal claims about origin require a principled account of transworld identity, which Kripke's essentialist argument presupposes rather than establishes.
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    • 2.Without an independent criterion for identifying 'the same individual' across possible worlds, the necessity of origin argument is viciously circular.
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    • 3.Nathan Salmon's work shows that the alleged intuitions supporting origin essentialism fail to distinguish metaphysical necessity from epistemic necessity.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Graeme Forbes and others have shown that origin essentialism generates a sorites-style problem: if one gamete could differ slightly, the necessity claim collapses by small steps.
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    • 2.If S could originate from a sperm cell numerically distinct but qualitatively identical to N's, then descent from N is not metaphysically necessary but merely nomologically contingent.
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    Topics

    Personal IdentityModality & Possibility

    Related

    A person's parentage is essential to them.Essential properties are necessary properties — they cannot be otherwise.Graeme Forbes and others have shown that origin essentialism generates a sorites...If S could originate from a sperm cell numerically distinct but qualitatively id...
    +3 moreShow less
    Modal claims about origin require a principled account of transworld identity, w...Nathan Salmon's work shows that the alleged intuitions supporting origin essenti...Without an independent criterion for identifying 'the same individual' across po...

    Similar

    Universals and individuals are really the same but formally distinct.80%Universals and individuals are formally distinct.80%Being descendent from a particular ancestor is necessary and sufficien...79%Being descendent from a particular ancestor is a species essence.78%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: natural-kinds
    View source passageHide passage
    However, Kripke (1980) himself argues that a person’s parentage is essential to them. If that is so, then if individual S is descended from N, then S is necessarily descended from N. McGinn (1976) suggests that this extends to species also. LaPorte (2004) argues that essentialism holds with respect to facts relating individuals, species, and other taxa to the higher taxa (genus and above) within which they are nested. These taxa are clades, that is to say kinds defined by shared descent from a c
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit