Should the Number of Overlapping Experiencers Count?

According to the cohabitation account, all the persons that result from a fission event cohabit the same body prior to fission. This article concerns a problem for this account. Suppose Manuel and Jimena are suffering from an equally painful migraine. Unlike Jimena, however, Manuel will undergo fiss...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Erkenntnis Vol. 88; no. 4; pp. 1767 - 1790
Autor principal: Javier-Castellanos, A. Arturo
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Apr2023
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:According to the cohabitation account, all the persons that result from a fission event cohabit the same body prior to fission. This article concerns a problem for this account. Suppose Manuel and Jimena are suffering from an equally painful migraine. Unlike Jimena, however, Manuel will undergo fission. Assuming you have a spare painkiller, whom should you give it to? Intuitively, you have no more reason to give it to one or the other. The problem is that the cohabitation account suggests otherwise. According to the account, there are two persons cohabiting Manuel's body, in which case you should arguably give them the pill, since doing so alleviates the pain of more beings. One response argues that the two persons cohabiting Manuel's body share one pain. Thus, giving them the pill alleviates no more pain than giving it to Jimena, and therefore you have no more reason to do one or the other. The goal of this article is to show that this response fails.