2.1.3 FACTOR PREDISPONENTES Y DESENCADENANTES ASOCIADOS A TRASTORNOS DE ANSIEDAD:

Parfit distinguishes two broader claims one could endorse in light of the foregoing objections.

The Extreme Claim “[I]f the Reductionist View is true, we have no reason to be specially concerned about our own fu- tures.”68

This claim concerns reductionism, which is closely related if not equiva- lent to the complex view (5.1.2). I assume here that the extreme claim also applies to the complex view. The alternative is:

The Moderate Claim Continuity relations (for Parfit: relation

R) give us a reason for special concern.69

These claims allow for different readings. Whiting distinguishes the fol- lowing variants.70_{First, special concern for one’s own future can be either}

irrational or merely not rationally required. Second, as anabsolute claim, there isnoreason to care about my future selves. As acomparative claim, there is no reason to care about our own futures more than about the futures of others, or no special reason for such concern.71 _{Whiting thus}

recommends that we think of the extreme and moderate claims as “a family of claims”72. Whenever I speak of ‘future-directed concern’ in the

68_{Ibid., p. 307.} 69_{Ibid., p. 311.}

70_{Whiting1986, p. 549.} 71_{Hummel2012, p. 20.} 72_{Whiting1986, p. 549.}

following, I intend to be neutral between a comparative and an absolute kind of concern.

Proponents of the claims are not always explicit about which version they endorse. As quoted earlier, Butler suggests an absolute extreme claim, given that it would be fallacious to be interested in anything that will befall us tomorrow. Immediately thereafter, Butler makes the com- parative claim that

“if the self or person of today, and that of tomorrow, are not the same, but only like persons, the person of today is really no more interested in what will befall the person of tomorrow, than in what will befall any other person.”73

Moreover, Butler speaks of a fallacy to care about the future if Locke’s position was true. This suggests that he thinks the theory makes it irrational to have future-directed concern. Parfit seems to understand the extreme claim in a similar way when he draws parallels74 between future-directed concern within the complex view and Future Tuesday Indifference,75 _{i.e. ordinary future-directed concern, except for being}

wholly indifferent about any pains or pleasures on future Tuesdays—one of Parfit’s paradigm cases of irrational concern.

The extreme claim and the moderate claim are not explicit about the exact source of this rational status. For example, Street distinguishes attitude-dependent from attitude-independent conceptions of normative reasons.76 _{According to attitude-independent accounts, there are facts}

about how an agent has most normative reason to live that hold inde-

73_{Butler1736, p. 102.} 74_{Parfit1986, pp. 832-3.} 75_{Parfit1984, p. 124.} 76_{Street2009, p. 274.}

pendently of that agent’s evaluative attitudes in combination with the non-normative facts. According to attitude-dependent accounts, no such facts exist; an agent’s normative reasons derive solely from her evaluative attitudes and what is entailed by them together with the non-normative facts. I believe that the extreme claim and the moderate claim are com- patible with either conception. The rationality status of concern against the backdrop of the complex view can be seen as arising from facts that are independent of the agents’ attitudes. For example, we can under- stand the absolute version of the extreme claim such that regardless of the agent’s actual values and desires, she would make a mistake in car- ing about the future if the complex view was true. But alternatively, we could also understand the extreme claim as making a point about our actual evaluative attitudes. They presuppose something which the complex view cannot provide. Given the insight that there are no deep further facts of personal identity, caring for our futures becomes incoher- ent, relative to our antecedent attitudes.

D. Shoemaker77 _{describes a distinctive sense in which a theory of}

personal identity can be expected to give reasons for future-directed con- cern and other practices. The theory shall not only capture and explain facts that arenecessary for these practices and their reasonableness. We expect more: a satisfying theory of personal identity articulates condi- tions that aresufficient for the reasonableness of future-directed concern and other attitudes. The conditions shall make it sensible that we have special concern for those future person stages that are related to us as

specified by the theory.78 The suggested claim is not just that identity matters. Instead, accounts of personal identity can be expected to give us an idea about how and why identity is what matters.79 _{It is plausi-}

ble to understand the extreme claim as a complaint about the complex view’s failure to make it sensible why we care about our futures.

The extreme claim is formulated and discussed in the literature mostly with respect to concern for our futures. It is fruitful to think about vari- ations in theattitude and the temporal direction figuring in the extreme claim. The attitude ofconcernlooks inherently future-directed, but there are also past-directed instances or analogues, e.g., concern about whether it was me who did a wrongful action. Related attitudes such as regret, pride, and feelings of responsibility are paradigmatically past-directed. The extreme claim in this more general form, covering several kinds of practices and temporal orientations, might be much more difficult to defend. D. Shoemaker argues that practices like concern, moral respon- sibility ascriptions, compensation, etc. are too diverse and not unified enough for there to bejust onegrounding relation between them and per- sonal identity.80 _{The plausibility of the extreme claim might differ across}

the practices. Parfit’s formulation of the extreme claim is restricted to future-directed concern. In the following, I will focus on this version of the claim.

Parfit acknowledges that the extreme claim is defensible if one be- lieves in deep further facts of personal identity. Compared to them, con- tinuity relations seem unimportant. For example, in Swinburne’s picture

78_{For a similar point, see S. Shoemaker1984, p. 71.}

79_{As I explain below (4.5), D. Shoemaker himselfdiscards this claim (2016, p. 323).} 80_{D. Shoemaker2007, pp. 353-4.}

of fission, even if continuity relations branch symmetrically, the further fact of personal identity obtains for at most one of the offshoots. The other offshoot “will not be a mere stranger”81_{, and thus should not be}

treated by the fissioner like everyone else. But the fissioner should re- gard this offshoot as a “mere instrument”82_{, and can rationally will the}

offshoot’s death if it threatens to interfere with the fissioner’s projects. Within Swinburne’s picture, continuity relations are not enough to mo- tivate special concern that normally goes with the deep further fact.

Moreover, the extreme claim is defensible if one does not believe in deep further facts of personal identity. In that case, Parfit believes that the relation to the offshoots is as good as ordinary survival. This claim is neutral on whether special concern is warranted in ordinary survival.83

The moderate claim is defensible, too. We care specially about people we love even without a deep further fact of personal identity between us and them. However, Parfit is unsure if this does the trick:

“Suppose I learn that someone I love will suffer great pain. I shall be greatly distressed by this news. I might be more distressed than I would be if I learnt thatI shall soon suffer such pain. But this concern has a different quality. I do not anticipate the pain that will be felt by someone I love.”84

He thus agrees that the moderate claim can be denied. In conclusion, he suspends judgement on whether the extreme or the moderate claim is correct: “I have not yet found an argument that refutes either.”85

81_{Parfit1984, p. 309.} 82_{Ibid., p. 310.} 83_{Ibid., pp. 310-11.} 84_{Ibid., p. 312.} 85_Ibid.

I close with one constructive suggestion. If we draw Whiting’s dis- tinction between absolute and comparative versions, a possibility arises for combining the extreme claim with the moderate claim: comparative extremism (the complex view does not give us reasons for special con- cern for our own futures) is compatible with absolute moderatism (the complex view does give us reasons to care for our futures). Maybe Parfit struggles to choose between the extreme and the moderate claim because his preferred, particular versions of the claims are not in opposition. For example, he seems to sympathize with idea that absence of a deep further fact motivates comparative extremism: the relation between me and my future selves is less deep than we thought, and thus special concern for my future selves is unmotivated. Moreover, fission shows that identity is not what matters in survival. If anything does matter in survival, it is relation R, a combination of psychological continuity and connectedness. This motivates absolute moderatism: continuity relations do give us a reason for future-directed concern.