The simple view is somewhat intuitive. From the inside, our survival seems compatible with a wide range of bodily and mental changes. And for one and the same set of facts and relations of bodily and mental continuity and connectedness, it might seem an open question whether the scenario contains us. Complex theorists accept that we might have had good evidence for the simple view. But as a matter of fact, it is not well-supported by further evidence beyond these intuitions and seemings from the inside.
The complex view too has intuitive aspects. In Parfit’s Spectrum, it seems plausible that Parfit does not remain himself throughout the pro- cedure, and that there is no sharp cut-off point where the tiniest change makes all the difference about his survival. It is somewhat attractive to believe that Parfit’s survival depends on the more particular facts that are gradually altered by the procedure. This idea also coheres well with a broadly naturalistic world view, given that personal identity is taken to be nothing over and above bodily and/or mental facts and relations. But the complex view also faces questions. It is quite unclear which attitude we should take towards cases where personal identity is indeterminate. Moreover, if personal identity consists in facts and relations which by themselves seem far less important than our survival, how can it make sense to care about survival, to be concerned about the past and future, to ascribe moral responsibility, and to engage in other person-related practices? This issue might seem particular pressing in view of the in- sight that what Parfit calls the more particular facts at different times
are distinct. For example, my present conscious states are plausibly un- derstood to be numerically distinct from my conscious states tomorrow. Does this not give a sense in which I fail to remain one and the same person over time, and in which my engagement in person-related prac- tices is based on a mistake? I will discuss these and other questions in the following.
Most people maintain some future-directed concern. We plan, set goals, prepare, imagine, compare scenarios, make choices, look forward to future joy and fearfully anticipate pain, and hope that things work out. Even people who live in the moment and do not worry about tomorrow tend to care about more than the present; they just do not extend their concerns as far into the future as others. One assumption on which these activities rest is that it will be us who experience the consequences, benefit from success, take part in the happiness of others, and suffer from accidents or mistakes. When caring in these ways, we make assumptions—if only minimal ones—about our survival into the future.
Unfortunately, assumptions can turn out to be false, and this can affect our investment into activities which presuppose them. If I was told that I will not exist tomorrow, or that I will exist but not in a way that matters to me, I would begin to live differently today. I might seize the day, prioritize efforts, and refrain from working towards goals that have become unreachable. I need not stop thinking and caring about the future. But since I myself will not be part of it, my current perspective on it has changed.
Some philosophers think that we need not receive particularly bad news to be forced to change our attitudes in such ways. If we started believing the complex view, no person could take herself to survive into the future, at least not in a sense that matters. Concern for our fu- tures would become a deeply misguided attitude. If all that being and remaining you involves is the obtainment of relations of continuity and connectedness, there is no reason to care about what happens tomorrow, or at least no more reason to care about what happens to you than to
care about more general matters.
These prospects are troubling. The complex view might be true— does this mean that our future-directed concern is unjustified, and that we should care more about the present? On the other hand, our current attitudes seem clearly justified and so natural that any theory which conflicts with them looks dubious—are we entitled to criticize or dismiss the complex view on the basis of our pre-theoretic concern about our futures?
In the following, I will discuss these questions, and eventually answer both of them in the negative. I begin by describing aspects in which the complex view is supposed to undermine future-directed concern (2.1), before distinguishing two more general claims in view of these findings (2.2). I then sketch an argument for how these practical objections sup- posedly lead to areductio of the complex view (2.3), before characterizing several promising variants of two broad responses (2.4, 2.5) to the idea that the complex view has implausible practical implications. In the end, everything will be fine. We are justified in caring about the future even if the complex view is true. And when choosing between the complex and the simple view, we can set our everyday concerns aside, and, if we prefer, endorse the best option on purely theoretical grounds.
2.1
Practical Objections
The complex view has been accused of having absurd practical conse- quences. According to the critics, these have at least two sources.57
The first source is related to numerical distinctness. As mentioned (1.2.2), Butler complains that for Locke, person stages at different times are related by similarity of consciousness, but remain otherwisedistinct. Thus, no account of identity has been offered.
“[I]t must follow, that it is a fallacy upon ourselves, to charge our present selves with any thing we did, or to imagine our present selves interested in any thing which befell us yesterday, or that our present self will be interested in what will befall us tomorrow; since our present self is not, in reality, the same with the self of yesterday, but another like self or person coming in its room, and mistaken for it; to which another self will succeed tomorrow.”58
Since in Locke’s picture, present and future self are numerically distinct, the former has no reason to care about the latter. They are similar selves, but not the same self. Butler thinks that holding accountable and caring about the future are attitudes that presuppose numerical identity. Thus, the Lockean cannot avoid making
“the inquiry concerning a future life of no consequence at all to us, the persons who are making it”59
Locke’s position that personal identity consists in sameness of conscious- ness inspires psychological continuity theory. Lewis writes:
“I find what I mostly want in wanting survival is that my mental life should flow on. My present experiences, thoughts, beliefs, desires, and traits of character should have appropriate future successors [...] These successive states should be interconnected in two ways. First, by bonds of similarity. Second, by bonds of lawful causal dependence.”60
Such Neo-Lockean positions have received similar criticisms. For exam-
58Butler1736, p. 102. 59Ibid., p. 99.
ple, Schechtman grants Lewis that psychological similarity and interre- latedness of person stages keeps the contents of consciousness stable.
“The moments of consciousness themselves, however, remain dis- tinct from one another, and what [Lewis] describes is more like a Humean bundle than a real unity. [...] My relation to my fu- ture self, on this view, is like my relation to someone very like me psychologically, a kind of super psychological twin. Just as my psychological likeness to a twin does not make it legitimate to hold me responsible for her actions, [...] psychological continuity and connectedness does not make it legitimate to hold me respon- sible for the actions of my past self if that is all that her being me amounts to.”61
Without real unity, psychological continuity falls short of providing rea- sons why the distinct moments of consciousness should extend concern or moral responsibility to each other.62
The second supposed practical absurdity of Lockean positions comes from the relations of continuity and connectedness. Critics argue that by themselves, these relations are unimportant. For example, Swinburne thinks that Lockeans must maintain problematic claims about death and killing. For them,
“to say that existing people would be deprived of future experi- ences is just to say there would not be persons whose bodies are continuous with those of the living, or who had similar memories and character to the living, having experience. But then what’s so important about the persons, who are to have experiences, having bodies continuous with persons now living or having sim- ilar memories and character? Surely in itself nothing at all. If instead there are newly bred persons with healthier bodies, hap- pier memories, and more amiable characters than those murdered, why should killing be wrong just because of the lack of bodily and
61Schechtman2014, p. 36.
62Schechtman (1996, pp. 55-60) thinks this is especially challenging for four-
dimensionalist accounts in which a person’s temporal parts are distinct from each other. For more on this claim, see further below (2.5.1). Schechtman (2014, ch. 1) offers a reading of Locke which she thinks survives the quoted objection.
other continuity? In itself surely such continuity has no value.”63
Swinburne concludes that continuities can at best be evidence for what does have such value: personal identity.
Madell formulates a similar worry about anticipation:
“[I]f I fear that I shall suffer pain what I fear is, not that the person who suffers this pain will have a certain set of memory impressions and a certain set of desires and intentions, but, quite simply, that he will be me. [...] If one is told at this juncture by the supporter of the psychological criterion that the reason I should be concerned is that to have such memories, and so on, just
is to be me, I am again left with the feeling that no explanation has been offered. [...] [I]t is not at all obvious that I have any
reason to be concerned about the fact that the person who will be in pain will have a certain set of memory impressions, and it is no clarification at all to be told that in this sort of context that is all that being me involves.”64
Moreover:
“the only tolerable answer to the question ‘Why fear that future pain?’ is that it is, unanalyzably, mine.”65
For both Swinburne and Madell, continuities are less important and valu- able than personal identity. They think it follows that continuities cannot be what personal identity consists in.66
Parfit describes one rationale for these reservations.67 Simple posi-
tions like Swinburne’s regard personal identity as a deep further fact beyond continuities. They believe that this further fact is what gives us reasons for future-directed concern. Continuity relations might have some derivative practical importance once the further fact obtains. But
63Swinburne1974, p. 246. 64Madell1981, p. 110. 65Ibid., p. 112.
66I disagree further below (2.5.4). 67Parfit1984, pp. 308-9.
if one accepts Swinburne’s picture, continuities are no surrogate for the deep further fact.