The Survival of Persons: A Reply to Parfit’s Psychological Reductionism
Issue: Issue 09 • Author/s: Andrew Ward
Topics: Metaphysics
The psychological reductionist claims that what is important to our survival just consists in a series of causally related experiences. Our belief in a separately existing subject of experiences is held to be unjustified. In reply, it is contended that we need to distinguish between persons (continuing subjects of experience) and any related series of experiences (their lives). A number of objections to this conception of a person are considered and rejected.