From: Dan Fabulich (dfabulich@warpmail.net)
Date: Tue Oct 15 2002 - 20:00:15 MDT
gts wrote:
> I really need to pack and get out of here (my flight leaves in the
> morning and I have other things I must do later tonight) but as always
> your messages are intriguing and worth addressing in as much detail as
> possible...
Thanks, good luck. :)
> In the second case above, in which we refer to two identities of the
> same person, past and present, we have in my view no moral obligation to
> keep a past promise unless breaking the promise would be morally
> repugnant to the identity we are *presently*. This is to say we are in
> no way obligated by our former self who made the promise.
>
> In other words, contrary to your words above, your moral obligation to
> keep a promise made by your past-person is not as you claim "on account
> of your special relationship to your past-person." It is rather on
> account of your current moral assessment of the need to act consistently
> with the promise.
I think we can also bracket a certain set of questions about when promises
ought to be kept, to consider directly the question of why you would have
*any* present reason at all to keep any promises whatsoever.
Suppose we're in an ordinary and uncontroversial case of promise keeping.
You need money for the bus; I lend you that money on the condition that
you pay it back to me the following day. The next day, you have enough
money on you and are more than capable of paying me back. Suppose as well
that you have no other moral obligation to do something else/better with
that money.
Whether or not you're the "same person" you were the day before, you have
*some* present moral obligation to pay me back. Why? Why (within our
moral context) would your moral assessment of the situation show that you
should pay me back?
Obviously, others might argue that it has to do with the fact that you're
the same person who made the promise. You can reject that, and even use
that rejection to give an account of why promise-keeping isn't something
we want to do at all costs. But then you've got to give some other
account within our moral context.
I'd argue that it at least has to do with at special relationship you have
with the person who made the promise, regardless of whether it's called
"identity." What's wrong with that picture? How could anything be wrong
with the idea of an unnamed "special relation"?
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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