18892
|
Suppose a world where I'm from different gametes; add my gametes; which one is more me? [McGinn]
|
|
Full Idea:
It seems essential that you come from your gametes. Suppose (for reductio) that I come from Nixon's actual gametes. Now add my actual gametes to that possible world, and suppose they become an adult. Which has the stronger title to be me?
|
|
From:
Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976], p.132), quoted by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 7.25.5
|
|
A reaction:
[See Nathan Salmon 1981:209] Feels like the Ship of Theseus. You say 'that's Theseus Ship', until the rival ship appears around the headland. Confusion. If Nixon's gametes can produce McGinn, the second gametes could produce a Nixon! Then what?
|
23059
|
Self-interest is not rational, if the self is just a succession of memories and behaviour [Sidgwick, by Gray]
|
|
Full Idea:
Sidgwick said self-interest is not self-evidently rational. Unless we invoke a religious idea of the soul, human personality is no more than a succession of continuities in memory and behaviour. In that case, why should anyone favour their future self?
|
|
From:
report of Henry Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics (7th edn) [1874]) by John Gray - Seven Types of Atheism 2
|
|
A reaction:
This sounds like Locke's account of the self, as psychological continuity. We can say that our continuous self is a fiction, the hero of our own narrative. Personally I think of the self as a sustained set of brains structures which change very little.
|
4129
|
It is self-evident (from the point of view of the Universe) that no individual has more importance than another [Sidgwick]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is a self-evident principle that the good of one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view of the Universe, than the good of any other, ..and as a rational being I am bound to aim at good generally, not merely at a particular part.
|
|
From:
Henry Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics (7th edn) [1874], III.XIII.3)
|
|
A reaction:
Showing that even a very empirical theory like utilitarianism has an a priori basis. Of course, the principle is false. What about animals, the senile, criminals, androids? What bestows 'importance'?
|