Intrinsic survival, multiple survival, and vague survival

内在生存、多重生存和模糊生存

• 批准号: AH/E004288/1
• 负责人: John Williams
• 金额: $ 2.93万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE004288%2F1
• 关键词: Intrinsic; survival; multiple; vague

Up to the present day, people are being prosecuted for crimes committed in the second world war. A person might have led a blameless life for sixty years; their current personality may be entirely without malice; they may have little memory of the crimes they committed. Yet we hold them morally and legally responsible for those past events. One natural rationalization for this practice is that the person today is the very same individual who committed those crimes: this fact creates at least a prima facie case for holding them responsible for the earlier actions.Philosophers, lawyers and the general public debate the merits of cases such as these. Philosophers in particular have struggled with the question at the heart of the matter: what it is for one person to survive to a later point in time? Some have thought that, for the war criminal in 1940 to be the very same person as the old man in 2006, there must at least be significant psychological connections---perhaps memories, perhaps shared goals and projects---between the two. If that is right, it will be a substantial question---and one on which key legal and moral claims should turn---whether the old man really stands in the right kind of psychological relations to (what we would usually call) his 'earlier self'. On such a view, absent these relations we no longer have someone morally or criminally resonsible for the crimes (and insofar as current moral and legal practice fails to fit with this, it stands in need of revision). A leading defender of such psychological constraints on personal survival is Derek Parfit; and his discussion of these issues in the seminal 'Reasons and Persons' is the starting point for this project.This project focuses on metaphysical questions about survival: and in particular, on the nature and consequences of a Parfittian claim I call the 'principle of intrinsic survival'. This is, at basis, the idea that survival in the sense in which it is relevant to issues of moral or criminal responsibility can't be something that depends on what goes on 'external to' the person themselves. To determine whether or not the old man is the surviving war criminal, and so can be held responsible for war crimes, we should look only to the bodily and psychological relations the old man bears to the young man who committed those crimes. This principle rules out theories which would make facts about survival depend on facts about the surrounding environment, the activities and opinions of others, and so forth. It is a substantive and disputable principle, but one that Parfit holds to be at the core of anything worth calling personal survival. The core of the project is to provide an exact formulation of the principle of intrinisic survival, which despite its influence and intuitive appeal has not received the focused attention it deserves. This provides the basis for evaluating the consequences of the principle, which turn out to be sensitive to its exact formulation (to begin with, one question might concern the scope of the principle: should it just govern the survival of persons, or does it equally constrain the persistence through time of other natural objects and artefacts?) I bring this sharpened tool to bear on fundamental questions in the philosophy of persistence, vagueness, and personal identity. In particular, I argue that among its consequences are claims about the nature of persons so extreme that many will prefer to reject the priniciple itself, rather than accept its implications. In this way this project makes available an evaluation of the principle of intrinsic survival itself, as well as tracing its implications for other philosophical debates.

直到今天，人们仍因在第二次世界大战中犯下的罪行而受到起诉。一个人可能已经过了60年无可指责的生活;他们现在的个性可能完全没有恶意;他们可能对自己犯下的罪行几乎没有记忆。然而，我们认为他们对过去的事件负有道义和法律责任。这种做法的一个自然的合理性是，今天的人就是犯下这些罪行的那个人：这一事实至少创造了一个初步证据确凿的案件，要求他们对以前的行为负责。特别是哲学家们一直在努力解决问题的核心问题：一个人生存到后来的时间点是什么？有些人认为，1940年的战犯与2006年的老人是同一个人，他们之间至少必须有重要的心理联系-也许是记忆，也许是共同的目标和项目。如果这是正确的，这将是一个实质性的问题-一个关键的法律的和道德主张应该转向的问题-老人是否真的与他的“早期自我”（我们通常称之为）处于正确的心理关系中。根据这种观点，如果没有这些关系，我们就不再有一个人在道德上或刑事上对这些罪行有合理的解释（只要目前的道德和法律的实践不符合这一点，它就需要修改）。德里克·帕菲特（Derek Parfit）是这种对个人生存的心理约束的主要捍卫者;他在开创性的《理性与人》（Reasons and Persons）中对这些问题的讨论是本项目的起点。本项目关注关于生存的形而上学问题：特别是我称之为“内在生存原则”的帕菲特主张的性质和后果。基本上，这是一种观点，即在与道德或刑事责任问题相关的意义上，生存不可能取决于人本身“外部”发生的事情。要确定这位老人是否是幸存的战争罪犯，因此可以追究战争罪的责任，我们应该只看这位老人与犯下这些罪行的年轻人之间的身体和心理关系。这一原则排除了那些使生存的事实取决于周围环境、他人的活动和意见等事实的理论。这是一个实质性的和有争议的原则，但帕菲特认为这是任何值得称之为个人生存的核心。该项目的核心是提供一个内在生存原则的确切表述，尽管其影响力和直观的吸引力，但尚未得到应有的关注。这就为评估该原则的后果提供了基础，而这些后果又对该原则的确切表述十分敏感（开始，一个问题可能涉及该原则的范围：它应该仅仅管理人的生存，还是同样限制其他自然物体和人工制品的长期持续存在？）我用这个锋利的工具来解决哲学中的一些基本问题，如坚持、忠诚和个人同一性。特别是，我认为，在其后果是索赔的性质的人如此极端，许多人宁愿拒绝priniciple本身，而不是接受其影响。通过这种方式，本项目提供了对内在生存原则本身的评估，以及追踪其对其他哲学辩论的影响。

项目成果

Oxford Studies in Metaphysics

牛津形而上学研究

• DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603039.003.0002
• 发表时间: 2011
• 作者: Cameron R

VAGUE PARTS AND VAGUE IDENTITY

模糊的部件和模糊的身份

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0114.2009.01335.x
• 发表时间: 2009
• 期刊: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
• 影响因子: 0.9
• 作者: BARNES E

Aristotelian Indeterminacy and the open future.

亚里士多德的不确定性和开放的未来。

• 作者: Ann Bruce (Author)

Vagueness, Conditionals and Probability

模糊性、条件和概率

• DOI: 10.1007/s10670-008-9145-7
• 发表时间: 2009
• 期刊: Erkenntnis
• 影响因子: 0.9
• 作者: Williams J

Part-Intrinsicality

部分内在性

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2011.00837.x
• 发表时间: 2011
• 期刊: Noûs
• 作者: Williams J