Temporal Phase Pluralism*

Abstract

Some theories of personal identity allow some variation in what it takes for a person to survive from context to context; and sometimes this is determined by the desires of person‐stages or the practices of communities. This leads to problems for decision making in contexts where what is chosen will affect personal identity. ‘Temporal Phase Pluralism’ solves such problems by allowing that there can be a plurality of persons constituted by a sequence of person stages. This illuminates difficult decision making problems when persons have to choose between different life‐altering choices.

Animal Interrupted, or Why AcceptingPascal'sWager Might Be the Last Thing You Ever Do

“…(We will discuss the Arbitrariness Objection in more detail in section 5). Braddon‐Mitchell and West (), Braddon‐Mitchell and Miller (), and Miller (), for instance, all hold that whether A survives stepping into the transporter depends on whom you ask. If you consider things from the perspective of the pre transfiguration physicalist (or, more precisely, those person‐stages that organize their person‐directed practices around physical continuity) then the answer is “no.” The person with those person‐directed practices dies when she enters the transporter.…”

“…5 See page 261 of the Selby-Bigge and Nidditch edition (Oxford University Press, 1978). 6 See, e.g., Parfit 1984, Unger 1990, Braddon-Mitchell and West 2001, Braddon-Mitchell and Miller 2004, Miller 2009 in one way or another. 7 The version of conventionalism on which we will focus in this paper takes the relationship between personal identity and conventions to be one of constitution.…”

“…Johnston (1989) uses the word 'refiguration' to indicate that it is usually the same person who considers, adopts, and then enjoys the results of the more permissive survival conventions, allowing that the process generates a new person only in particularly radical and unusual situations. Braddon-Mitchell and West (2001), Miller (2004), andMiller (2009), however, all use the term 'transfiguration' to mark their belief that such a shift in conventions always generates a new person. happily announces, "I'm a whole new person!"…”

“…Braddon‐Mitchell and West (, 61). As they go on to note, “When enough of these roles are played by some property, then that property is what it takes to survive for that person or community.”…”

“…As Braddon‐Mitchell and West () put it, “The standard account says (roughly) that ‘I’ refers to the person who uses it. Translated into four‐dimensional talk, this amounts to ‘I’ refers to the person of whom the person stage who utters it is a part.…”