PHLC07H3 - Section 2: Identity, Immortality, and Personal Continuity

Bernard Williams

Critiques the desirability of immortality by showing that infinite life would eventually frustrate human goals.

Categorical Desires

Deeply motivating goals that drive a person's behavior regardless of conditional circumstances.

Immortality Dilemma / Boredom

Proposes that eternal life leads either to boredom or loss of personal identity.

Boredom

Results from the inevitable exhaustion of worthwhile goals over infinite time.

John Martin Fischer

Offers a counterpoint to the Immortality Dilemma, suggesting repeatable pleasures could mitigate boredom.

Personal Identity

Concerns whether the self at one time is the same as the self at another time, linked to psychological continuity.

Jeff McMahan

Applies the Psychological Continuity view to bioethics, emphasizing loss of cognitive capacities.

Advance Requests (ARs)

Written instructions allowing a person to receive MAID if they later lose decisional capacity.

Deprivation Account of death

Accepted by McMahan, points out paradoxes in cases involving congenital or degenerative conditions.

Psychological Continuity

The view that identity is tied to psychological capacities and continuity rather than the biological organism.

Ethical Dilemmas

Created by losing continuity, such as in dementia, regarding respecting prior wishes versus present welfare.

Public Support for ARs

High, but medical practitioners often hesitate to implement them due to legal uncertainty or ethical concerns.

MAID

Medical Assistance in Dying, relevant in the context of Advance Requests.

Life Extension

The moral weight of life extension and assisted dying decisions is assessed through categorical desires.

Meaningful Engagement

The tension between continuing consciousness and sustaining meaningful engagement with life.

Ethical Importance of Mortality

Highlights how mortality shapes life's meaning.

Fulfillment of Categorical Desires

Explains why infinite life could become undesirable or meaningless.

Advance Requests' Moral Priority

Questions which self should have moral priority—the past competent self or the present incompetent self.

Ethical Duties

Should prioritize the person's continuity and welfare according to McMahan.