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Asymmetric Personal Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2018

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THEODORE SIDER*
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Abstract

Personal identity is not always symmetric: even if I will not be a later person, the later person may have been me. What makes this possible is that the relations that are criterial of personal identity—such as memory and anticipation—are asymmetric and ‘count in favor of personal identity from one side only’. Asymmetric personal identity can be accommodated by temporal counterpart theory but not by Lewisian overlapping aggregates of person stages. The question of uncertainty in cases of personal fission (and in Everettian quantum mechanics) is also discussed.

Keywords

personal identitycounterpart theoryfissionquantum mechanicsEverett
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Summer 2018 , pp. 127 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

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Footnotes

Thanks to Don Baxter, Karen Bennett, Tad Brennan, Phillip Bricker, Eddy Chen, Andrew Chignell, Andy Egan, Adam Elga, Hilary Greaves, Liz Harman, Jenann Ismael, Mark Johnston, Tom Kelly, David Kovacs, Peter Lewis, Nan Li, Daniel Manne, Kate Manne, Luke Manning, Andrew McGonigal, Jill North, Daniel Rubio, Jonathan Schaffer, Josh Schechter, Erin Taylor, Briana Toole, David Velleman, and referees.

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