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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that 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.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Parfit's reductionist view holds that personal identity consists in overlapping chains of psychological continuity, not in a strictly bounded singular entity.
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    • 2.On reductionism, there is no principled barrier preventing earlier psychological chains from constituting the same person, contra Kaufman's modal claim.
      ?

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    • 3.Kaufman's argument smuggles in a non-reductionist conception of persons without defending it against Parfit's influential challenge.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Animalists like Eric Olson argue that persons just are human organisms, making the person/organism distinction Kaufman relies on metaphysically unwarranted.
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    • 2.If animalism is true, any scenario allowing earlier organismic existence ipso facto allows earlier personal existence, undermining Kaufman's asymmetry.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Persons (properly understood) cannot exist earlier than they do.
      ?

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    • 2.Persons are distinct from organisms and have psychological persistence conditions.
      ?

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