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    Persons (properly understood) cannot exist earlier than t... — Carmelics
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    Supports→The thought experiment might provide a way in which a human organism could have come into existence far earlier than she did, but it does not provide a way in which a person could have come into existence far earlier.

    Persons (properly understood) cannot exist earlier than they do.

    Afterlife & Death
    ?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.Persons are objects (distinct from organisms) with psychological persistence conditions, chief among which is psychological continuity.
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    • 2.If mental continuity is constitutive of personal identity, then when a particular consciousness emerges is essential to that person.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Biological organisms have determinate identities prior to the emergence of psychological continuity, as Olson's animalism demonstrates.
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    • 2.If the organism and the person are identical (or if personhood supervenes on the organism), then the person exists whenever the organism exists.
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    • 3.Therefore, persons can exist earlier than their psychological continuity emerges, undermining the claim that earlier existence is impossible.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Parfit's reductionism entails that personal identity is not a deep further fact but is constituted by overlapping chains of psychological connectedness.
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    • 2.If psychological continuity is a matter of degree rather than a discrete threshold, then the boundary marking when a 'person' begins is arbitrary and conventional, not metaphysically fixed.
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    • 3.A claim of metaphysical necessity—that persons cannot exist earlier than they do—cannot be grounded in what is merely a conventional classificatory decision.
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    Afterlife & Death

    Related

    A claim of metaphysical necessity—that persons cannot exist earlier than they do...Biological organisms have determinate identities prior to the emergence of psych...If mental continuity is constitutive of personal identity, then when a particula...If psychological continuity is a matter of degree rather than a discrete thresho...
    +6 moreShow less
    If the organism and the person are identical (or if personhood supervenes on the...Parfit's reductionism entails that personal identity is not a deep further fact ...Persons are distinct from organisms and have psychological persistence condition...Persons are objects (distinct from organisms) with psychological persistence con...The thought experiment might provide a way in which a human organism could have ...Therefore, persons can exist earlier than their psychological continuity emerges...

    Similar

    It is metaphysically impossible for a person to have come into existen...83%God exists timelessly 'without' creation rather than before creation, ...82%God is temporal after creation, even if God was timeless before creati...80%To stand in a relation of 'earlier than' is by all accounts to be temp...79%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: death
    Frederik Kaufman (2016, p. 63)
    View source passageHide passage
    According to Frederik Kaufman (2016, p. 63), this thought experiment (perhaps tweaked a bit) might provide a way in which a human organism could have come into existence far earlier than she did, but it does not provide a way in which a person could have come into existence far earlier. “Persons (properly understood) cannot exist earlier than they do.” He bases this view on the assumption—challenged by animalists but defended by Parfit—that persons are objects (distinct from organisms) with psychological persistence conditions, chief among which is psychological continuity, together with the a...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The passage explicitly attributes both premises to Kaufman's reasoning and presents them as the basis for his conclusion that persons cannot exist earlier than they do, and the premises jointly support the conclusion by establishing that personal identity depends on psychological continuity, which ties a person's existence to the specific time their consciousness emerges.

    Confidence: Clear argument with explicitly stated premises and conclusion.

    Details

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