From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Tue Oct 15 2002 - 16:09:06 MDT
Dan Fabulich wrote:
> If we speak in a language in which you must honor past
> promises because you are "the same person", then we'll have a
> moral rule that requires enforcement on account of this. If, instead,
we speak in a
> language in which you must honor past promises made by your
past-person,
> then we'll have a moral rule that requires enforcement on account of
your special
> relationship to your past-person.
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...
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.
A world in which people acted according to their best moral intuitions
at any given moment would be better than one in which people acted
against their moral intuitions at any given moment merely for sake of
keeping bad promises. I think people realize this intuitively, and that
this is one reason people often break promises.
As I wrote to Lee, the fact that people often break promises is evidence
for my case that personality and identity change through time.
Barring intentional deception (some people make promises they never
intend to keep) you who decided today to break your promise of yesterday
must not be the same person who made that promise yesterday, else you
would not be breaking the promise.
-gts
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