Insubstantial Survival : Persons and Lives

There are many competing accounts of what a person’s identity over time consists in. This thesis addresses this topic, but not this question in particular. Like Parfit, I argue that when it comes to our survival, identity cannot be what matters. I try to make the case that creating reductionist accounts of our persistence is a sidetrack to a more interesting problem. When considering ourselves and others in a situation, we automatically apply the idea of a subject. It is also from this perspective that the question of survival seems most important. Under this conception of ourselves, however, we should not think of ourselves as persisting (unless we are prepared to think of ourselves as being souls). Upon realizing this, we become free to investigate the nature of our survival, without the logic of identity restricting us. From this understanding I try to create an account of personal survival, uniting the idea of a subject with that of a life. I also look at how some of the concepts and practices usually thought to depend on personal identity over time (e.g. desert) can be accommodated within this picture