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What Matters in Survival

What Matters in
Survival
Personal Identity and Other Possibilities
DOUGLAS EHRING
1
3
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DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894717.001.0001
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To my amazing wife, Ann, and my wonderful daughters, Kat and Bella.

Acknowledgments
My interest in the topic of personal identity goes back to a metaphysics class

I took from Bernard Berofsky in graduate school at Columbia University. It
was in that class that I first read Derek Parfit. As a consequence, Parfit
became one of my philosophical heroes and has remained so for these many
years. My debt to Parfit will be obvious to the reader throughout this work.
I have also benefited from the conversations and comments of my colleagues
in the Philosophy Department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
Texas. I am especially grateful to Robert Howell and Brad Thompson, who
read and commented on the entire manuscript. I am also grateful to
Southern Methodist University for a number of research leaves that made
possible much of the research that went into this book. I am also quite
thankful for the extensive and insightful comments from the referees at
Oxford University Press. I would also like to thank Rebecca Marin for her
very detailed editorial work on the entire manuscript. My wife, Ann, and
children, Kat and Bella, also deserve to be thanked for their support and
encouragement.
This book incorporates material from several published articles, listed
below. Permission of the original publishers (Oxford University Press, John
Wiley and Sons, Taylor & Francis, and Springer) is gratefully acknowledged.
“Survival and Trivial Facts.” Analysis 47 (1987): 50–4
“Personal Identity and Time Travel.” Philosophical Studies 52 (1987):
427–33
“Personal Identity and the R-Relation.” The Australasian Journal of
Philosophy 73 (1995): 337–46
“Fission, Fusion and the Parfit Revolution.” Philosophical Studies 94
(1999): 329–32
“Why Parfit Did Not Go Far Enough.” Philosophical Studies 165 (2013):
133–49
“Why Parfit Cannot Generalize from Fission.” Analytic Philosophy 59
(2018): 413–25
“Johansson on Fission.” Acta Analytica 34 (2019): 155–63
“Why Parfit Can Rebut Johnston’s Reductio.” Theoria 86 (2020): 583‒594
“Fission and Anticipating Having an Experience.” Synthese (2020) https://
doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02860-4
Contents
Introduction 1
1. The Divergence Argument 10
2. Fission and Shared Stages 46
3. Fission and Indeterminacy 73
4. Generalizing from Fission 96
5. The Triviality Argument 122
6. The Non-Triviality Principle and Objections to Its
Application 163
Epilogue: Possible Implications for Rationality and Ethics 201
Bibliography 219
Index 223
Introduction
What relation to a future individual, if any, gives me a reason to have

prudential (“special”) concern for that future individual and, in the absence
of that relation, I have no reason to have prudential concern for that
individual? Call this the “Future Person Question.” The commonsense
answer is that I have such a reason just in case I am identical to that person.
This answer can be alternately phrased as the claim that identity is “what
matters in survival” if the latter is taken to mean “reason to have prudential
concern with respect to a future individual.” There is also the related
question, the Future Time Question, to which common sense gives a closely
related answer: what relation to a future time, if any, gives me a reason to
have prudential (“special”) concern for that time and, in the absence of that
relation, I have no reason to have prudential concern for that time?¹ The
commonsense answer is that I have a reason to direct my prudential concern
to that time just in case I am identical with someone at that time.
Might these answers be wrong? There are many relations between me
now and me in the future, and personal identity cannot consist in all of
them, so there are other possible answers.² Could it be that one of these
relations—not personal identity—gives me a reason to direct my prudential
concern to the future me? Or, perhaps, there is no relation that gives me a
reason for future-directed prudential concern. These questions can be clar-
ified by briefly characterizing the notions of “prudential concern” and
“reason” at issue.
The special concern that one normally directs towards oneself differs in
kind from the concern one normally directs towards others.
There is a difference in how you would respond to being told that someone
other than yourself will be tortured next week and how you would respond
to being told that you will be tortured next week. In both instances, you will
¹ For the distinction between these questions, see (Johansson 2010: 31).
² The later you can remember some of the experiences of the earlier you. They have the same
brain. They have the same body. They have some of the same hairs. And, so on.
What Matters in Survival: Personal Identity and Other Possibilities. Douglas Ehring, Oxford University Press (2021).
© Douglas Ehring. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894717.003.0001
2    
be concerned. However, the kind of concern you would have in the second
instance would be different in nature than in the first instance.
What are the distinctive features of prudential concern? First, our special
concern is instinctive. On being told that you will be in pain, your concern is
immediate, entirely natural, and, most probably, selected for by evolution
(Johnston 1992: 599). In addition, self-concern is not voluntary. We seem to
be “bound to be specially concerned about ourselves” (Parfit 2007: 23).
Third, our self-concern is generally stronger than other-directed concern,
but not necessarily so. “If I know that my child will be in pain, I may care
about this child’s pain more than I would about my own future pain” (Parfit
2007: 80). Fourth, our special concern for ourselves is not derivative; it does
not derive from some other concern, desire or interest (Parfit 2007: 20–1).
For example, we don’t derive our self-concern from our concern for others
or from our interest in the completion of our various projects. Fifth, this
kind of concern is closely associated with the ability to anticipate having the
experiences of the future person to whom it is directed. “Though I may care
more about my child’s pain, I cannot, it seems, fearfully anticipate that pain”
(Parfit 2007: 22).³
By “reason” I will mean normative reason, not motivating reason.
A normative reason is something that counts in favor of taking a certain
action or having a certain attitude. On the other hand, a motivating reason is
something that explains why someone took a certain action.
If you ran away from the angry snake, your motivating reason would be
provided by your false belief that this act would save your life. But . . . you
have no normative reason to run away. (Parfit 2011, Vol. 1: 37)
Given that standing still is the best reaction to an angry snake, your
motivating reason is not a normative reason, and your normative reason
(“staying still is safest”) is not a motivating reason. I will also assume an
“externalist,” rather than an “internalist,” conception of normative reasons.
On the latter conception, a consideration is a reason for an agent to take a
certain action or have a certain attitude only if certain motivational facts
³ Parfit thinks that prudential concern should not be explicitly defined as a relation between
a person at one time and that same person at another time. Rather, it should be characterized as
the kind of concern we have towards ourselves in the future so as to leave open the possibility
that we might direct this concern towards someone with whom we are not identical (Parfit
2007: 20).
 3
hold of that agent. For example, a simple internalist view might hold that we
have a reason to do only those things that would fulfill some desire that we
now have. More sophisticated forms of internalism appeal not to one’s
actual present desires, but to certain hypothetical, non-instrumental desires
(aims or choices)—desires that we may not currently have, but would have
had now had certain circumstances obtained, such as having no false beliefs,
having full information, or having deliberated rationally. For a “reasons
externalist,” some fact may give an agent a reason, even in the absence of
a corresponding actual desire or aim and even in the absence of correspond-
ing hypothetical desires or aims that he would have now had certain con-
ditions obtained. For example, it is arguable that I have a reason now to
avoid future pain, even if I do not now care about my future pain and even if
I would not care about my future pain were I now to have no false beliefs,
have full information, or have deliberated rationally with full information
(Parfit 2011, Vol. 1: 73–82). Assuming “reasons externalism,” as I do, our
questions are about what, if any, external reasons there are for directing
one’s distinctive egoistic concern towards a future individual or a
future time.
According to common sense, identity and only identity gives one a reason
for directing one’s prudential concern towards a future individual.⁴
Identity Always Matters (1) For any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ has a reason r to

direct his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂, then the fact that P₁ is identical to P₂
gives P₁ that reason. (2) For any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ is identical to P₂ at t₂,
then the fact that P₁ at t₁ is identical to P₂ at t₂ gives P₁ at t₁ a reason to direct
his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂.⁵
Given (1), for any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ is not identical to P₂ at t₂, then P₁ at t₁

has no reason to direct his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂.⁶
⁴ There might be reasons that are not decisive, sufficient, or required in some domains.
Suppose, for example, that there is a set of facts—say, xyz—such that xy is a decisive reason to do
w and as is xz and as is yz, but that each of x, y and z is by itself not a decisive or sufficient reason
to do w. Each fact—x, y, and z—in each pair is required for that pair to be decisive or sufficient,
but no sub-fact, say, x, is a required reason for doing w. If x under these conditions is a reason to
do w, a reason for doing w may fail to be a required, sufficient, or decisive reason for doing w.
⁵ I will sometimes say that certain facts are reasons for us but this should be taken to mean
that certain facts give us reasons.
⁶ That something gives one a reason, say, to do x does not mean it gives one a decisive reason
to do x. For example, one might have a reason to do x, but there may be other reasons against
doing x such that one does not have most reason to do x. In addition, a reason r for doing x may
be sufficient but not decisive: r might be a strong enough reason to permit doing x, but there is a
4    
But, according to Parfit, we are wrong to follow the thinking of common

sense in this domain. In particular, common sense is wrong at least with
respect to the scope of the claim that identity matters in survival. There are
at least some cases of survival in which what matters is not identity.
Fission The hemispheres of Mr. Fissiony are each transplanted into a new,
brainless body, a different body for each hemisphere. Each of the post-
fission people, Lefty and Righty, is psychologically continuous/connected
to the pre-fission person.
By Parfit’s accounting, it is not true that the fissioner is identical to either

fissionee. However, the fissioner does get what matters in survival with
respect to each fissionee, so he must do so by way of a relation other than
identity. Mr. Fissiony has a reason to direct his special concern to Lefty and
Righty that is not identity.⁷
For Parfit, (1) fission is a case of survival—there is a sense in which Mr.
Fissiony survives as Lefty and as Righty—and (2) Mr. Fissiony has a reason
to direct his prudential concern to Lefty and Righty.⁸ With respect to (1),
although we normally associate “survival” with identity, since fission is not
reason to do something other than x that may be equally strong (Parfit 2011, Vol. 1: 32–3). We
might add to this “Identity Always Matters” formulation that identity always gives one a decisive
reason for prudential concern—outweighing any other reasons, no matter the situation, which
favor one’s not directing prudential concern to oneself in the future. I will leave it open as to
whether or not common sense goes this far. In particular, I will leave it open that common sense
might allow for exceptions; for example, if one’s future is so horrific, common sense might allow
that one might have a very strong reason not to direct one’s prudential concern to one’s future
self that is not outweighed. Whether we add in an “always decisive” clause will not be crucial to
our discussion.
⁷ More precisely, Parfit thinks that his claim that identity does not matter in fission can be
demonstrated on either the assumption that it is true that the fissioner is not identical to either
fissionee, or that it is indeterminate that the fissioner is identical to either fissionee.
(1) My relation to each of the resulting people would contain what matters. (2) It is
not true that this relation would be identity. Either (A) it is not true that I would be
either of these people, or (B) it is true that I would be neither of them. Therefore (3)
Identity is not what matters. Premise (2) could be defended in two ways. We might
claim that there is no true answer to the question ‘Would I be either of the resulting
people?’. That would support (2)(A). Or we might claim that it’s determinately true
that I would be neither of these people. That would support (2)(B) (Parfit 1993: 26).
⁸ Belzer points out that this view fits better with Parfit (1971) than with Parfit (1984). In the
former, Parfit allows that “I will survive” does not entail “there will be someone alive who is the
same person as me,” but in the latter Parfit “argues not that survival should be pried apart from
identity, but that what matters in survival should be pried apart from both survival and identity.
One can have what matters in survival, and one would have it in a fission case, even though one
would not survive” (Belzer 2005: 137). I will assume the former understanding of survival.
 5
equivalent to death, we have a good reason for widening the notion of

“survival” to include fission. According to (2), Mr. Fissiony has prudential
concern for Lefty and Righty, and he has a good reason for such concern
even if it turns out that it is not true that Mr. Fissiony is identical to either.
The fissioner’s “relation to each of these people would contain what matters”
(Parfit 1993: 25).⁹
Thus, in some cases of survival, identity does not matter. Something else
does, if anything does. But Parfit goes even further. He claims that identity
never matters (for short, IDM), rejecting even the intermediate position
according to which identity sometimes matters and sometimes does not.¹⁰
Identity Never Matters (IDM) (1) For any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ has a reason
r to direct his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂, then the fact that P₁ is identical
to P₂ does not give P₁ that reason. (2) For any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ is
identical to P₂ at t₂, then the fact that P₁ at t₁ is identical to P₂ at t₂ does not
give P₁ at t₁ a reason to direct his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂.
It follows from IDM that the fact that P₁ at t₁ is identical to P₂ at t₂ does not
give P₁ at t₁ a required, sufficient, or decisive reason to direct his prudential
concern to P₂ at t₂ since that fact never gives one a reason for prudential
concern.
To be clear, Parfit accepts that we normally think that what matters is
identity, and admits that if our discussion of “what matters in survival” were
about “what we think matters,” then “identity” would be the correct answer.
But that is not the question. The question is what we should think matters in
survival:
By “what matters” I didn’t mean . . . what we take to matter. It cannot be

argued that, in this sense, identity is not what matters. I meant what we have
reason to care about or should believe to matter. (Parfit 2007: 84, n5)
⁹ Parfit does not rule out the possibility that we never have a reason for prudential
concern—including in fission—if reductionism about personal identity is true (the “Extreme
Claim”). However, he tends to support the “Moderate View” that reductionism is compatible
with there being something that matters in survival.
¹⁰ According to an intermediate view, (1) for some situation s, in which P₁ at t₁ has a reason r
to direct his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂, the fact that P₁ is identical to P₂ does not give P₁ that
reason, and (2) for some situation s, in which P₁ at t₁ is identical to P₂ at t₂, the fact that P₁ at t₁ is
identical to P₂ at t₂ does give P₁ at t₁ a reason to direct his prudential concern to P₂ at t₂.
6    
A long list of philosophers has responded to IDM. Some philosophers claim

that IDM goes too far and others that it goes just far enough. In this work,
I claim that IDM does not go far enough. I claim that there is a bigger
mistake made by common sense: the mistake in thinking that there is ever a
relation between a person P₁ at t₁ and P₂ at t₂ that gives P₁ at t₁ a reason to
have prudential concern for P₂ at t₂. So whereas many philosophers argue
that common sense is right that there is some relation that gives one a reason
for prudential concern, which may or may not be identity, I claim that it is
wrong to think there is such a relation.
Not only does personal identity never matter in survival, ordinary or

otherwise, nothing matters in survival (Survival Nihilism).
There is no alternative to identity for what matters in survival. It is false that

there is some relation X that provides a reason for prudential concern. This
is a more radical negative thesis than Parfit tends to put forward.¹¹
In order to clarify Survival Nihilism, it will be useful to compare it to what
Parfit calls the Extreme View. The Extreme View can be read as having a
positive and a negative component.¹² The positive component is that there is
some relation X that includes the identity over time of P₁’s Cartesian ego or
soul (a “separately existing entity”) such that if X held between P₁ and P₂, P₁
would have a reason for prudential concern for P₂. The negative component
is that there is no relation X that does not include the identity over time of
P₁’s Cartesian ego or soul such that if X held between P₁ and P₂, P₁ would
have a reason for prudential concern for P₂. So, for example, if personal
identity is reducible to relations of psychological continuity or connected-
ness, relations of physical continuity or connectedness, or relations invol-
ving some combination of the two, that does not include the identity of a
Cartesian ego or soul, personal identity does not provide a reason for
prudential concern.¹³ Furthermore, there is no relation that is an alternative
¹¹ As indicated, I largely assume that “reasons externalism” is true in my defense of Survival

Nihilism. The assumption implies that this defense, if successful, shows that not even with a
permissive view of reasons (one that, unlike “reasons internalism,” does not say that certain
motivational states are necessary for the presence of reasons) do we have reasons for prudential
concern.
¹² Sometimes the Extreme View is described only in terms of the negative component.
¹³ On a reductionist theory of persons, a person consists in a brain and a body and the various
physical and psychological momentary events associated with that brain and body and various
relations between those events (Parfit 1984: 211). On a reductionist theory of personal identity,
personal identity is wholly reducible to relations of psychological continuity or connectedness,
relations of physical continuity or connectedness, or relations involving some combination of
 7
to personal identity that does not include the identity over time of P₁’s
Cartesian ego or soul, which provides a reason for P₁ to direct his prudential
to P₂. In particular, there are no relations of psychological continuity or
connectedness, relations of physical continuity or connectedness, or rela-
tions involving some combination of the two, whether or not they are
realized in such a way as to constitute personal identity (on a reductionist
theory of personal identity), that provide by themselves a reason for pru-
dential concern. My main thesis includes the negative component of the
Extreme View, but I reject the positive component of the Extreme View. My
view is the More Extreme View.¹⁴
Some philosophers defend the negative component of the Extreme View
on the basis of the claim that the relata of the relevant psychological
continuity and connectedness relations (and the relevant physical continuity
and connectedness relations) are themselves momentary entities (e.g.,
momentary episodes of the consciousness or temporal parts of persons).
For example, if persons have temporal parts and the relevant continuity and
connectedness relations hold between temporal parts, it is argued that there
can be no reason for the prudential concern directed from one temporal part
to any future temporal part that is wholly distinct. In contrast, I try to get to
the negative component of the Extreme View by a route that focuses on the
candidates for the “mattering” relation, not on the possibly momentary
nature of the relata of that relation.
The negative component includes, but is not exhausted by, IDM on a
reductionist account of personal identity. I will work my way to the negative
component of the Extreme View by focusing on IDM. In particular, I focus
on two lines of argument for IDM. The first fails as an argument for IDM,
while the second succeeds in not only demonstrating IDM but also, more
broadly, the negative component of the Extreme View.
The first argument for IDM begins with fission cases. It is argued, first,
that identity does not matter in fission (IDMF) and, second, from IDMF
(along with other “divergent” cases if there are any) we can generalize to all
cases of survival. In attempting to demonstrate IDMF, there are three
the two. Personal identity is not a further fact about a Cartesian ego or immortal soul over and
above facts about such physical and psychological relations. Nor does personal identity even
partially involve a further fact about Cartesian egos or souls. According to a non-reductionist
account, personal identity does consist in or include a further fact of this sort.
¹⁴ According to the Moderate View, there is some relation of psychological continuity and
connectedness that can give one a reason for prudential concern whether or not those relations
are realized in such a way as to constitute identity.
8    
possible approaches. One approach is to determine the correct way of

mapping identity onto the fission case, and then argue that this mapping
shows what matters in fission is not identity. Another approach is to argue
that all mappings of identity onto fission lead to IDMF. The third is to argue
that some interpretations are incorrect and the remaining ones lead to
IDMF. I will follow the second approach to IDMF. Parfit mainly takes the
first approach but shows some inclination to the third approach in (1976).
In adopting this second approach to IDMF, I will structure Chapters 1
through 3 around the following six ways of construing fission in terms of
identity. (Each will be recast in terms of Perdurantism in the next chapter.)
1. Mr. Fissiony is identical to Lefty and Mr. Fissiony is identical to

Righty. (Chapter 1)
2. Mr. Fissiony is identical to neither Lefty nor Righty. (Chapter 1)
3. Mr. Fissiony is identical to the fusion of Lefty and Righty. (Chapter 1)
4. Mr. Fissiony is identical to one but not the other of Lefty and Righty.
(Chapter 1)
5. Lefty and Righty wholly or partially overlap pre-fission. (Chapter 2)
6. It is indeterminate that Mr. Fissiony is identical to Lefty and it is
indeterminate that Mr. Fissiony is identical to Righty. (Chapter 3)
I will argue that, from each of these options, it follows that identity does not
matter in fission. Along the way, I try to show that some of these options are
more plausible than they initially appear to be. However, since all these
options lead to the same result—identity does not matter in fission—there is
no need to determine which one is correct.
Nonetheless, I argue in Chapter 4 that we cannot generalize to IDM from
IDMF (along with other “divergent” cases) without a doubtful additional
premise, the premise that there is no such thing as “matter overdetermina-
tion,” according to which both identity and something other than identity
have independent non-derivative importance sufficient for what matters in
survival. So even if identity does not matter in fission and something else
does, that leaves open the possibility that both identity and this something
else matter in ordinary survival.
The second argument for IDM is based on the Non-Triviality Principle.
The idea encoded in this principle is that the important cannot depend on
the trivial. I will call this sort of argument, “the triviality argument.” One can
find in Parfit a triviality argument for IDM consisting in the claim
that any adequate reductionist account of personal identity will violate the
 9
Non-Triviality Principle because such an account will include a non-

branching condition that will lead to such violations. In Chapter 5,
I develop a triviality argument for IDM that is quite different in nature
both in structure and outcome. I focus on the causal nature of identity given
reductionism and on the causal nature of other non-identity candidates for
what matters. My argument demonstrates, if it works, more than IDM: for
any X, either identity, given reductionism, or some non-soul-based, non-
Cartesian-ego-based non-identity candidate for what matters in survival, X
is either highly implausible as what matters or does not satisfy the Non-
Triviality Principle.
If X is what matters in survival, then X cannot fail to hold because of a trivial

difference in the facts. But any plausible candidate for X not involving souls
or Cartesian egos must include a causal component and, because of that
component, will not meet this condition.
In short, the negative component of the Extreme View can be demonstrated

by way of the causal character of plausible non-Cartesian-ego and non-soul-
based candidates for the relation that matters in survival. Furthermore, one
should not infer that my argument has the implication that there is no causal
component in what matters in survival if reductionism is true. I argue that
anti-causalist accounts of what matters fail.
As for the positive component of the Extreme View, I argue against it by
suggesting that the endurance of a Cartesian ego or soul alone would not
provide a reason for prudential concern. Nor would the absence of an
enduring Cartesian ego or soul mean that one has no reason for prudential
concern. Combining the persistence of a Cartesian ego or soul with psycho-
logical or physical continuity or connectedness also does not provide a
reason for prudential concern, for reasons having nothing to do with
Cartesian egos or souls. Hence, on my view, nothing, including personal
identity, matters in survival. Special concern is always without reason. I thus
reject what might be called Matter Realism, the view that there is something
that matters in ordinary survival. Nothing matters in survival in that sense.
This leaves open that I might have a reason to direct some other kind of
concern to a later individual, perhaps altruistic concern or impartial
concern.
1
The Divergence Argument
According to Parfit’s “Divergence Argument,” it can demonstrated that

identity does not matter in fission (IDMF) and from IDMF (along with
other “divergent” cases if there are any) we can generalize to all cases of
survival (Parfit 2007). I will focus on IDMF in this chapter through
Chapter 3. I will consider the generalizing inference in Chapter 4.
There are three ways one might establish IDMF:
(1) Determine the correct way of construing fission in terms of identity

and argue that this construal shows that what matters in fission is not
identity.
(2) Argue that all mappings of identity onto fission lead to IDMF.
(3) Determine that some mappings are incorrect and that the remaining
mappings, which may or may not be incorrect, lead to IDMF.
Parfit largely makes use of the first approach to IDMF but not consistently
(Parfit 1971; 1984; 1993; 2007).¹ I will adopt the second approach.
1.1 Fission
Consider the following fission case:
The hemispheres of Mr. Fissiony are each transplanted into a new brainless
body, a different body for each hemisphere. After the operation, each of the
post-fission people, Lefty and Righty, is psychologically continuous/con-
nected to the pre-fission person, Mr. Fissiony.
Lefty and Righty can each “remember” the experiences of Mr. Fissiony, and
they have the beliefs, plans, and character traits of Mr. Fissiony.
¹ There is some evidence that Parfit does not always follow the first approach (Parfit 1976).
What Matters in Survival: Personal Identity and Other Possibilities. Douglas Ehring, Oxford University Press (2021).
© Douglas Ehring. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894717.003.0002
   11
There are six main ways of construing fission in terms of identity. I will
consider the first four in this chapter. I will make use of the following
provisional assumptions:
Future Person Question: In this chapter, I will restrict focus to the Future
Person Question. “Concerning any future individual, what matters in my
relation to him?” (Johansson 2010: 31)²
Perdurantism: Persons have proper temporal parts, and a person persists
from t to a non-overlapping time t’ by having a temporal part at t and a
distinct temporal part at t’.³
I-Relation Assumption: The proper Perdurantist analogue of “identity” in
the commonsense proposition “identity matters” is the I-relation. Stage s₁ is
I-related to stage s₂ just in case s₁ and s₂ are stages of the same person. For it
to be true/false that “identity” matters in fission is for it to be true/false that
the I-relation matters in fission.⁴
No Shared Stages: For each person stage s, there is only one person P of
which s is a stage.⁵
Our first four mappings of “identity” onto the fission case can be formulated
in the language of Perdurantism as follows:
(1) The pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁, the Lefty stage immediately
after fission, s₂, and the Righty stage immediately after fission, s₃, are
all stages of the same person, Mr. Fissiony.
(2) There is no person P of which the pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁,
and the post-fission stage of Lefty, s₂, are both stages, and there is no
person P of which the pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁, and the
post-fission stage of Righty, s₃, are both stages.
(3) There is a person P of which the pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁,
and the fusion of the post-fission stages of Lefty and Righty, s₂ + s₃,
are both stages.
² In subsequent chapters, I will also expand my focus to include the Future Time Question,
which concerns what matters with respect to a future time.
³ One might also require that P have a temporal part at each time between t₁ and t₂ if
temporally gappy people/objects are not possible.
⁴ I will also assume provisionally Matter Realism: there is a situation s, such that a person C₁
at t₁ gets what matters in survival with respect to a person C₂ at t2, and C₁ at t₁ gets what matters
with respect to C₂ at t₂ in virtue of some relation X between C₁ at t₁ and C₂ at t₂.
⁵ This assumption is not natural to Perdurantism and will be dropped in the next chapter.
12    
(4) There is a person P of which the pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁,
and the post-fission stage of Lefty, s2, are both stages, but there is no
person of which the pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁, and the post-
fission stage of Righty, s3, are both stages, or there is a person P of
which the pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁, and the post-fission
stage of Righty, s3, are both stages but there is no person of which the
pre-fission stage of Mr. Fissiony, s₁, and the post-fission stage of
Lefty, s2, are both stages.
1.1.1 The First Candidate
The first candidate for the mapping of identity onto fission is that
Mr. Fissiony is identical to Lefty, Mr. Fissiony is identical to Righty, and
Lefty and Righty are identical to each other. We have restated this interpre-
tation in the language of person stages. s₁, the pre-fission stage of Mr.
Fissiony, is I-related to both s₂, the Lefty stage immediately after fission,
and s₃, the Righty stage immediately after fission.⁶ It follows that s₂ and s₃ are
I-related on our temporary assumption that there can be no shared stages. s₂
and s₃ are stages of Mr. Fissiony.⁷ Is there an account of personal identity
under which this interpretation is correct?⁸
Consider, first, a theory of personal identity that makes this candidate
interpretation false of fission.
Simple Memory Theory s₁ and a later stage, s₂, are stages of the same
person just in case s₂ includes or could include a memory of an experience
in s₁, or s₂ stands in the ancestral of this relation to s₁.
⁶ This mapping will conflict with the common idea—developed, for example, in Sider (2001:
60)—of a “temporal part” if a person stage is a temporal part since on that common idea a
person stage includes all of the person during the time that the stage exists. In fact, this issue has
already been raised in discussions of time travel and Four-Dimensionalism. In a case in which
Jones travels back in time and meets his earlier self, the Four-Dimensionalist will say that there
are two person stages of Jones that exist side by side at the same time. But on Sider’s definition of
a temporal part that will entail that older Jones stage and younger Jones stage are not temporal
parts since neither of them includes all of Jones at that time. Sider’s suggested solution involves
understanding “person-stage” as “person-like” parts of temporal parts. “Ordinarily my temporal
part at any time is a person stage, but not in case of time travel” (Sider 2001: 101). We might
extend this point to fission under this first mapping—the two post-fission person-stages are the
person-like parts of a single post-fission temporal part.
⁷ As is well known, David Lewis rejects the no-shared-stage assumption in his attempt to
avoid IDMF. For now, however, we will operate under the no-shared-stage assumption.
⁸ Parfit sets this interpretation aside as too counterintuitive.
   13
Simple Memory Theory is incompatible with our first candidate for inter-
preting fission in terms of identity since it rules out that Lefty and Righty are
identical to each other. s₂ does not/could not include a memory of s₃’s
experiences (nor does s₃ include a memory of s₂’s experiences), nor does
either stand in the ancestral of the memory relation to the other. Hence, s₂
and s₃ are not both stages of some common person under Simple Memory
Theory. But consider, second, a sophisticated version of Memory Theory
that is responsive to the following case:
Senile General—A senile general cannot remember—even with the aid of the
sorts of prompting that are compatible with memory—performing a brave
deed as a young officer or any experiences later than that deed, but can or
does remember various childhood experiences. The senile general stage is a
stage of the same person as the young officer stage despite the fact that it
does not and could not contain a memory of the experiences of that stage.
Nor does the senile general stage stand in the ancestral of the memory
relation to that stage.
Perry discusses a revision of Memory Theory that involves a certain kind of

sequence.
There is a sequence of person-stages (not necessarily in the order they

occur in time, and not excluding repetitions), the first of which is A and the
last of which is B, such that each person-stage in the sequence either (i)
contains, or could contain, a memory of an experience contained in the
next, or (ii) contains an experience of which the next person-stage contains
a memory or could contain a memory. (Perry 1975: 19)
Call such a sequence a “memory sequence.” x₁ and x₂ are stages of the same
person just in case there is a memory sequence between them. A sum of
person-stages is a person just in case all the stages in that sum are memory-
sequence related to each other, and there are no stages outside that sum that
are memory-sequence related to any of the stages in that sum. In Senile
General, there is a memory sequence linking the senile general to the brave
young officer—senile general–child–brave young officer. So, the senile gen-
eral is the same person as the brave young officer under this revision.⁹
⁹ Although there are lines of mental causation—but not memory causation—in Senile
General running from the young officer to the general, we can generate a more general version
14    
Now notice that the post-fission stages s₂ and s₃ in our fission case bear the
“memory sequence” relation to each other. s₂ can remember some of the
experiences of s₁ and s₁ contains some experiences that are remembered by s₃.
Hence, on this more sophisticated memory theory, Lefty is identical to Righty.
There is one person, Mr. Fissiony, and he is Y shaped.¹⁰ Hence, this fairly
reasonable version of a memory theory makes some metaphysical sense out of
this first interpretation of fission in terms of identity.¹¹ We could also consider
a sophisticated version of a psychological account of identity that brings into
play psychological relations other than memory, such as character trait
constancy, belief retention, action plan continuity, and the like.
Nevertheless, there are objections to the claim that the simultaneous,
post-fission stages s₂ and s₃ are stages of the same person that must be
considered, even if it follows from this sophisticated memory theory. There
are three characteristics each of which appears to provide conclusive evi-
dence for thinking that these post-fission stages are not stages of the same
person. I will argue that, in fact, none of these characteristics is incompatible
with the I-relation.
(1) The post-fission stages lack the capacity for shared consciousness at the
same time.¹² For example, Lefty immediately after fission may be aware
of seeing something blue, but Righty immediately after fission fails at
that same moment to see anything blue. So Lefty’s stage, s₂, at that time
is not a stage of the same person as Righty’s stage, s₃, at that time.
(2) There are two simultaneous body stages post-fission, one associated
with Lefty immediately after fission and the other associated with
Righty immediately after fission. If two simultaneous but wholly
distinct body stages are associated with person stages, these person
stages are not stages of one and the same person. So s₂ and s₃ are not
stages of the same person.
of Senile General that eliminates any such mental connections from the young officer to the
general—a more general kind of psychological senility.
¹⁰ s₂ is linked by a chain of memories to s₁, and s₁ is linked by “reverse memory” sequence to
s₃, so there is a person that includes all three. s₃ is memory-sequence related to a stage, s₂, and
that sequence includes s₁.
¹¹ Is there also a person that includes s₁ and s₂ but not s₃? No, there is not. Since s₂ is memory-
sequence related to s₁, the person of which s₂ is part will include all the stages to which s₁ is
memory-sequence related, including s₃. This theory also excludes shared stages.
¹² However, there might be a backward-looking notion of diachronic unity. The experiences
of s₂ and s₃ may involve different continuations of the earlier experience of s₁ so that there is
some sense of diachronic-shared consciousness between s₂ and s₃ although there is no syn-
chronic unity.
   15
As it turns out, in point of fact, simultaneous stages of the same

person can have both characteristics. Consider the following time-
travel case:
Self-Meeting Time Traveler—In 2021, Jones gets into his time machine, and
“travels” back to 1956 when he was four years old. He meets his earlier self
and holds a conversation with the younger Jones.
The most natural description of this case is that Jones is talking to himself.
There is really only one person involved in the 1956 conversation. An earlier
stage of Jones, say, Jones-4, is interacting with a later stage of Jones, say
Jones-68. Distinct stages of Jones exist concurrently, and these stages have
characteristics that no one stage could possess. If this time travel case is
possible and it is correctly described as involving two simultaneous stages of
Jones in a conversation, then the first two characteristics—failure of shared
consciousness and the existence of more than one body stage at the same
time—do not guarantee that the relevant stages are not stages of the same
person.
There is, however, a third characteristic, physical-causal independence,
that would seem to rule out the identity of Lefty and Righty. One cannot
cause a scar in Righty after t₂ by injuring Lefty at t₂. Purely physical events
that occur to one fission product cannot causally influence, by way of purely
physical event sequences that run through the stages, any purely physical
event that occurs to the other fission product.
In fact, it is at least arguable that this kind of independence does not
guarantee non-identity.
Fission with Pre-Cognition—The hemispheres of Mr. Fissiony are each

transplanted into a new body, a different body for each hemisphere. Each
of the post-fission people, Lefty and Righty, is psychologically continuous/
connected to Mr. Fissiony. However, Mr. Fissiony has the power of pre-
cognition with respect to Righty. Through a combination of memory and
Mr. Fissiony’s “pre-cognition” with respect to Righty, Lefty can “remember”
experiences had by Righty.
At the level of his mental life, the stages of Lefty bear a relation to the
experiences of Righty that is similar to the relation we bear to our past selves.
For example, Lefty will seem to remember experiences from Righty, and
those memory experiences will be causally dependent upon experiences of
16    
Righty. This similarity to our own mental life makes it reasonable to treat
the stages of Lefty and Righty in this example as stages of the same
person.¹³ Nevertheless, it should be clear that Lefty and Righty display
physical-causal independence. One cannot scar one by cutting the other.
The person stages are independent in the relevant way, but they are stages
of the same person.
In summary, none of these three characteristics automatically rules out
the I-relation. Some metaphysical sense can be made out of our first
reduction-friendly candidate, and the claim that the post-fission stages
are stages of the same person is not quite as implausible as it first
appears.¹⁴
So let us return to the main issue. On this interpretation of fission, Mr.
Fissiony is identical to each of the post-fission people, who in turn are
identical to each other. The pre-fission Mr. Fissiony gets what matters in
survival with respect to each of the post-fission people, if anything does
matter in survival. But the post-fission Lefty does not get what matters in
survival with respect to later incarnations of Righty even on the assumption
that Lefty is identical to Righty.¹⁵ If Lefty is about to be killed, he can take no
solace in the fact that Righty will continue to live.¹⁶ Or, if Righty but not
Lefty is about to be killed, Lefty will not have the kind of dread he does if he,
Lefty, is about to be killed.¹⁷ And Lefty cannot dread the dental surgery
¹³ We can imagine persons that cannot remember, but can pre-cognize their experiences. In
such cases, pre-cognition would play the role of memory in grounding mental continuity. These
acts of “remembering pre-cognitively” would unfold in the distinctive first-person way that
might seem to be essential to the relevant memories that ground personal identity. I would “see”
myself from the inside having these experiences.
¹⁴ I am not trying to argue that it is plausible that Lefty is identical to Righty. I am only
arguing it is not as implausible as we might have thought. Some of the standard reasons for
thinking it is implausible don’t work. Still, since there is no causal influence running from Lefty
to Righty or from Righty to Lefty, it remains implausible even if less so.
¹⁵ Parfit seems to be making this point in (1976: 96).
¹⁶ Or, if Lefty feels some solace, that will be because there will continue to exist someone like
himself who will or might continue to carry on the projects that are important to him.
¹⁷ It might be objected that we cannot flatly say that Lefty takes no solace in the continued
existence of Righty since Lefty and Righty are identical and Righty is not upset at his impending
situation. In fact, this objection fails. For any person P, with multiple stages with conflicting
thoughts or attitudes about x, there will be no clear answer to the question of what P thinks or
feels about x. If P liked apples at age ten but did not like them at age thirty, we cannot say flatly
either that P liked apples or did not like apples. At best we will be able to describe P’s thoughts
about apples at age ten and P’s thoughts about apples at age thirty. We will attribute these
thoughts to stages, not to the continuant. Similarly, in our case, there is the Lefty stage at t₂ and
the distinct Righty stage at t2, and each of these stages has different attitudes towards the fact
that the Lefty branch will cease to exist at t₃. But these attitudes are attributed to the stages, not
to Lefty or Righty as continuants.
   17
Righty will experience. If identity were a reason in fission cases to direct his
prudential concern to the person with whom Lefty is identical, then Lefty
would have a reason to direct his prudential concern to Righty if Lefty is
identical to Righty. But Lefty has no reason to direct his prudential concern
to Righty even on our assumption that they are identical to each other. So
identity is not a reason to direct his prudential concern to Righty even if
Lefty were identical to Righty.
(1) The relation of Lefty’s post-fission stage, s₂, to Righty’s post-fission

stage, s₃, does not contain what matters.
(2) Lefty’s post-fission stage s₂ is I-related to Righty’s post-fission stage
s₃.
(3) Therefore, it is false that the I-relation matters in fission.¹⁸
This assessment cannot be resisted if we substitute Endurantism for

Perdurantism. Given Endurantism, suppose that Mr. Fissiony is wholly
present at two places at the same time after fission given our first candidate
for mapping identity onto fission. Even under this assumption, Lefty does
not have a reason to direct his prudential concern to Righty.
(1) Lefty’s relation to Righty does not contain what matters.

(2) Lefty is identical to Righty.
(3) Therefore, it is false that identity matters in fission.
1.1.2 The Second Candidate
According to our second candidate for construing fission in terms of iden-

tity, the pre-fission Mr. Fissiony is not identical to Lefty and not identical to
Righty, post-fission. s₁ is not I-related to either s₂ or s₃. Mr. Fissiony ceases to
exist. Parfit considers this the “best description” of fission, although he
thinks that the correct description is that it is indeterminate that
Mr. Fissiony is Lefty and indeterminate that Mr. Fissiony is Righty
How can we make metaphysical sense of this candidate? There are two
kinds of reductionist theories of personal identity under which this is the
right assessment, Non-Branching Theory and Closest Continuer Theory.
¹⁸ That Lefty’s stage at t₂ is I-related to Righty’s stage at t₂ does not give Lefty a reason for
special concern for Righty.
18    
According to one version of a Psychological Non-Branching Theory, for

personal identity over time, there must be psychological continuity, and that
continuity must not be branching. Our identity over time consists (a) psy-
chological continuity with the right kind of cause, provided that (b) this
relation does not take a branching form. In the language of person stages,
person stages s₁ at t₁ and s₂ at a later time t₂ are stages of the same person just
in case s₁ and s₂ are psychological continuous, and there is no other stage at the
time of s₂ that is psychological continuous with s₁. According to Closest
Continuer Theory (in the language of person stages), person-stage s₁ at t₁ is
I-related to s₂ at t₂ just in case s₂ is a close enough continuer of s₁ and s₂ is the
closest continuer—closer than any other candidate—of s₁ at t₂ (Nozick 1981).
For Nozick, continuity involves causal relations between s₁ and s₂ and is
determined by both physical and psychological factors. On both theories,
whether or not s₁ and s₂ are I-related, is not just a matter of their intrinsic
properties and relations, but depends on the presence or absence of compe-
titors to s₂. Under both kinds of accounts, in our case of fission, the pre-fission
person is not identical to either of the post-fission people. The pre-fission stage
of Mr. Fissiony is not I-related to either of the post-fission stages.
The “neither” answer also means that personal identity does not matter in
fission or, in the language of person stages, the I-relation does not matter in
fission. The relation between s₁ and s₂ (and between s₁ and s₃) includes what
matters in survival, but s₁ and s₂ are not I-related. There is a reason for
Mr. Fissiony pre-fission to direct his prudential concern to Lefty post-fission,
but that reason is not the I-relation. Even under the “neither” option, it seems
intuitively clear that Mr. Fissiony will not and should not be indifferent
between ordinary death and fission. It also is intuitively clear that he should
not go to any length to guarantee that only one of the hemisphere implanta-
tions succeeds so as to guarantee personal identity. Hence, under the “neither”
option, what matters in fission is not the I-relation, but something else.
(1) The relation of Mr. Fissiony’s pre-fission stage, s₁, to the post-fission
stage of Lefty, s₂, contains what matters, and the relation of
Mr. Fissiony’s pre-fission stage, s₁, to the post-fission stage of Righty,
s₃, contains what matters.
(2) Mr. Fissiony’s pre-fission stage, s₁, is not I-related to the post-fission
stage of Lefty, s₂, and Mr. Fissiony’s pre-fission stage, s₁, is not
I-related to the post-fission stage of Righty, s₃.
(3) Therefore, it is false that the I-relation matters in fission, something
else does.
   19
If we substitute Endurantism for Perdurantism under this mapping of

identity onto fission, Mr. Fissiony does not exist after the fission, although
he is wholly present pre-fission.
(1) Mr. Fissiony’s relation to Lefty contains what matters, and Mr.
Fissiony’s relation to Righty contains what matters.
(2) Mr. Fissiony is not identical to Lefty, and Mr. Fissiony is not identical
to Righty.
(3) Therefore it is false that identity matters in fission, something
else does.
1.1.3 The Third Candidate
According to the third candidate for interpreting fission in terms of identity,

Mr. Fissiony is identical to the fusion of Lefty and Righty. s₁ is I-related to
the fusion of s₂ and s₃ (such that s₂ and s₃ together form a single stage which
is a stage of Mr. Fissiony, as is s₁).
For we might suggest that two people could compose a third. We might
say, ”I do survive Wiggins’ operation as two people. They can be different
people, and yet be me, in just the way in which the Pope’s three crowns are
one crown.” (Parfit 1971: 7–8)
The post-fission person to whom the pre-fission person is identical has

people as parts. So after fission, there are three people. The composite person
is identical to the pre-fission person. In the language of person stages, there
is a person stage before fission, s₁, and there is a person stage after fission,
s₂ + s₃, such that s₁ and s₂ + s₃ are stages of the same person. The person stage
s₂ + s₃ includes person stage s₂ and person stage s₃ as parts of itself.
Certainly this third candidate as formulated lacks plausibility as Parfit
points out. It is not plausible that there could exist a person who has persons
as proper parts of himself: “it keeps the language of identity only by chan-
ging the concept of a person. And there are obvious objections to this
change” (Parfit 1971: 8). However, this third candidate can be made more
plausible by rejecting the claim that the fusion, s₂ + s₃, is itself a stage of a
person. Ross suggests this alternative formulation (unpublished: 17). The
original person is identical to the fusion of the two resulting people post-
fission, but the whole made up of those two people is not itself a person.
20    
There are no “fusion people.” The pre-fission person, Mr. Fissiony, con-
tinues to exist after fission, but ceases to be a person, after fission. Mr.
Fissiony continues to exist as a pair of persons, but not as a person. This
revised version of the third candidate entails that personhood is not an
essential feature of persons.
What does this third candidate mean for the question of whether personal
identity matters in fission? According to this interpretation, the post-fission
stages, s₂ and s₃, form a fusion that is itself a (non-person) stage of Mr.
Fissiony. What of s₂ and s₃ individually, not collectively? Each of these stages
individually is either a (person) stage of Mr. Fissiony too or each is not.
Consider the first possibility. s₂ and s₃ are each stages of Mr. Fissiony.¹⁹
Under this supposition, the I-relation does not matter because s₂ and s₃
stand to each other in the I-relation, but they do not stand to each other in
the relation that matters, if there is such a relation (Parfit 1976: 96). Lefty
after fission will not have any special, prudential reason to care about what
happens to Righty after fission. That s₂ and s₃ are each stages of Mr. Fissiony
gives s₂ no reason to direct his prudential concern to s₃.
(1) The relation of the post-fission stage, s₂, to the post-fission stage, s₃,
does not contain what matters.
(2) The post-fission stage, s₂. is I-related to the post-fission stage, s₃.
(3) Therefore, it is false that the I-relation matters in fission.
In the second case, s₁ and s₂ are not individually stages of any common
person. s₁ and s₂ are not individually stages of Mr. Fissiony or of anyone else.
But s₁ and s₂ are related by the relation that matters, if something matters
(Parfit 1976: 96). The pre-fission Mr. Fissiony stage gets what matters with
respect to the post-fission Lefty stage, but these stages are not stages of the
same person (Parfit 1976: 96).
(1) s₁’s relation to s₂ contains what matters and s₁’s relation to s₃,
contains what matters.
(2) s₁, is not I-related to s₂, and s₁, is not I-related to s₃.
else does.
¹⁹ Each of these post-fission stages, s₂ and s₃, is also part of a “bigger” post-fission stage of Mr.
Fissiony, the post-fission stage that is composed of these same two stages.
   21
Finally, this assessment does not change if we assume Endurantism accord-

ing to which the pre-fission Mr. Fissiony wholly exists pre-fission and
wholly exists post-fission. However, post-fission Mr. Fissiony is not a per-
son, but is the fusion of two people. Either each of Lefty and Righty is
identical also to Mr. Fissiony or neither is.
• In the first case, Lefty and Righty are identical to each other. Lefty after
fission and Righty after fission are identical to Mr. Fissiony while also
being parts of a “bigger” post-fission entity. In that case, identity does
not matter because Lefty and Righty are identical to each other, but
they do not stand to each other in the relation that matters, if there is
such a relation. Lefty after fission will not have any special, prudential
reason to care about what happens to Righty after fission.
• In the second case, the pre-fission Mr. Fissiony is not the same person
as the post-fission Lefty (or as the post-fission Righty). In that case, Mr.
Fissiony gets what matters in survival with respect to Lefty: he has a
reason to direct his prudential concern to Lefty if something matters,
but they are not identical, which would also show that identity does not
matter.
1.1.4 The Fourth Candidate
The first three mappings are consistent with reductionism about personal
identity:
Reductionist Theory of Personal Identity—Personal identity is reducible to

relations of psychological continuity or connectedness, relations of physical
continuity or connectedness, or relations involving some combination of the
two.²⁰ Personal identity is not a further fact about a Cartesian ego or
immortal soul over and above these facts about psychological and physical
continuity/connectedness, nor does personal identity even partially involve
a further fact about Cartesian egos or souls.
The fourth candidate is not consistent with reductionism.
²⁰ For example, one version of a psychological reductionist theory takes personal identity to
consist in non-branching psychological continuity.
22    
The fourth option is that the pre-fission person is identical to one but not
the other of the post-fission people. For example, s₁ is a stage of the same
person, Mr. Fissiony, of which the post-fission s₃ is also a stage, but s₁ and s₂
are not common stages of any one person. Mr. Fissiony survives along one
branch, but not along the other. So there is a fundamental difference
between the fission products. One of the fission products is Mr. Fissiony,
but the other is a new person, not Mr. Fissiony.
This response is inconsistent with reductionism about personal identity
since there is no difference in psychological continuity and connectedness
or in physical continuity and connectedness between the branches of this
fission case. Metaphysical sense can be made of this construal of fission
only if personal identity does not wholly reduce to relations of psycholog-
ical continuity or connectedness, relations of physical continuity or con-
nectedness, or to some combination of the two; for example, if personal
identity is in part or in whole a matter of the persistence of a Cartesian ego
or soul. Given this metaphysical framework, there are two assessments of
fission that are left open: the “one-but-not-the-other” option, which we are
now discussing, and the “neither” option. Mr. Fissiony is identical to one
but not the other of the fission products, or he is identical to neither.
Consider what a soul theorist might say about the “one-but-not-the-other”
option:
In standard cases of fission, it may be that only one of the fission products is
identical to the pre-fission individual in that only one of the fission products
possesses the soul of the pre-fission person. That soul-possessing post-
fission product is a later stage of the pre-fission person, Mr. Fissiony.
Although the evidence may not allow us to tell which person-stage has the
soul, it may be that one of them does, even if it is also possible that neither
does.²¹ Hence, some metaphysical sense can be made of this fourth candi-
date for an answer to the question of personal identity in the case of fission if
we reject reductionism.
²¹ Another view that would open up the “one-but-not-the-other” option would be “brutal-
ism” with respect to personal identity which Olson describes as follows:
someone might say that an infant born after my death could be me but nothing
would have to make it me. It would not have to be me because it had my soul, or
because it bore any psychological relation to me, or because its states then depended
causally in a certain way on mine now, or because God willed that it be so. It could
simply be me, and that would be that. (Olson 2012: 61)
   23
But we can now ask: what implications does the “one-but-not-the-other”

option have for whether personal identity is what matters in fission? Let’s
suppose that s₃ is a stage of Mr. Fissiony because s₃ includes Mr. Fissiony’s
soul, but s₂ does not. s₁ and s₃ are stages of the same person, but s₁ and s₂ are
not stages of any one person. Mr. Fissiony is identical to Righty, not to Lefty.
In addition, Mr. Fissiony gets what matters—assuming something matters—
with respect to Righty. Does Mr. Fissiony get what matters with respect to
Lefty? The answer would seem to be that he does. Mr. Fissiony stands to
Lefty in the same psychological and physical relations to the same degree as
Mr. Fissiony does to Righty, and these relations would seem to be sufficient
for what matters with or without the same enduring soul.²² So even if we
were to grant that the same soul is required for personal identity, it is not
required for what matters.²³
There is, however, an objection to the claim that Mr. Fissiony gets what
matters with respect to Lefty under these suppositions including non-
reductionism:
A Non-Reductionist might reply: ‘After the division, when I am Righty,

Lefty will be someone else who, at least at the start, is exactly like me . . . .
I may have reason to regret Lefty’s existence. Though I have survived as
Righty, the woman that I love would not know this. She might believe
Lefty’s false claim that he is me. . . . Because this is true, I could rationally
hope that Lefty soon dies. Because I could rationally have this hope after
the division, I could rationally have this hope now. This implies that
I could not have a reason to be specially concerned about Lefty’s future.
²² Johansson makes a similar point. He considers a fission case in which he fissions and one
of his fission products does not have his soul or Cartesian ego—Johansson uses “self” to refer to
these entities—but the other fission product does. The one without his “self” ends up in pain,
but the other fission product who does have his “self” does not suffer any pain.
I share a self with the one who is spared the future pain. This could hardly make me
unjustified in having special concern about the experience; for my not sharing a self
with the one in pain seems just as trivial as does the existence of the other fission
product. (2007: 654)
²³ According to this fourth candidate, Mr. Fissiony is identical to Righty, but not to Lefty. If
we assume that people endure when they persist, then that would mean that Mr. Fissiony is
wholly present prior to fission, wholly present after fission, and located where Righty is located.
And, given Soul Theory, that means Mr. Fissiony’s soul exists wholly prior to fission, and exists
wholly post-fission at which point it is possessed by Righty. Nevertheless, our verdict on this
fourth candidate remains the same. Personal identity turns out not to be necessary for what
matters because Mr. Fissiony gets what matters in ordinary survival, if anything does matter,
with respect to each of the fission products, even Lefty, despite the fact that Lefty does not
possess his enduring soul.
24    
If I had such a reason, I ought to be distressed by the thought of Lefty’s

early death. But we have seen that I could rationally welcome this event.
Though Lefty will be psychologically continuous with me as I am now, this
continuity does not here give me a reason for special concern.
On the Non-Reductionist View, if I shall be either of the resulting people, it
can be plausibly denied that I have a reason to be specially concerned about
the other. (Parfit 1984: 309–10)
But this argument is not convincing. This argument relies on an unsup-

ported premise: “because I could rationally have this hope after the
division, I could rationally have this hope now.” This premise would be
justified if the situations before and after fission were perfectly analogous.
But they are not. After division, I, Righty, am both not identical to Lefty
and I am not psychologically continuous or connected with Lefty. Prior
to fission, I am not identical to Lefty, but I am psychologically contin-
uous/connected with Lefty and Lefty shares enough of my brain. (Call
this set of relations of psychological continuity/connectedness and shar-
ing enough of my brain, “being M related.”) So we need some argument
for why this difference does not make a difference with respect to there
being a reason for having a special prudential concern with respect to
Lefty. If it is claimed that that is because being M-related is not sufficient
for what matters in survival, that would beg the question since that is
what the argument is supposed to demonstrate. Furthermore, there are
reasons to think that being M-related is sufficient for what matters in
survival (for short, “M contains what matters”) if non-reductionism is to
be fully defensible.
Consider Locke’s argument against a Soul or Cartesian Ego Theory of
personal identity that begins with the possibility of personal identity across
different material substances:
This can be no question at all to those who place thought in a purely

material animal constitution, void of an immaterial substance. For,
whether their supposition be true or no, it is plain they conceive personal
identity preserved in something else than identity of substance; as animal
identity is preserved in identity of life, and not of substance.
(Locke 1979: 2.27.14)
Locke then suggests that the same possibility applies to immaterial

substances:
   25
And therefore those who place thinking in an immaterial substance only,

before they can come to deal with these men, must show why personal
identity cannot be preserved in the change of immaterial substances, or
variety of particular immaterial substances, as well as animal identity is
preserved in the change of material substances, or variety of particular
bodies. (Locke 1979: 2.27.14)
Locke presents the following case in which we have the intuition that there is
personal identity across changing “substances” (souls/Cartesian egos):
Had I the same consciousness that I saw the ark and Noah’s flood, as that
I saw an overflowing of the Thames last winter, or as that I write now,
I could no more doubt that I who write this now, that saw the Thames
overflowed last winter, and that viewed the flood at the general deluge, was
the same SELF, place that self in what SUBSTANCE you please than that
I who write this am the same MYSELF now whilst I write (whether I consist
of all the same substance material or immaterial, or no) that I was yester-
day. For as to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether this
present self be made up of the same or other substances being as much
concerned, and as justly accountable for any action that was done a
thousand years since, appropriated to me now by this self-consciousness,
as I am for what I did the last moment. (Locke 1979: 2.27.18, my italics)
The same “substance” (soul/Cartesian ego) is not required for personal

identity according to Locke: “it must be allowed, That if the same
consciousness . . . can be transferr’d from one thinking Substance to another,
it will be possible, that two thinking Substances may make but one Person”
(Locke 1979: 2.27.13). The life of a single person can be associated with a
series of distinct souls, none of which endure for the entire period of that
person’s life. Call the intuition that Locke is trying to elicit, the “Persistence-
Across-Souls” intuition.²⁴
If Soul Theory is true, this intuition must be false. There cannot be
personal persistence across non-identical souls. However, even if it is false,
²⁴ Even if we remain neutral on Locke’s anti-soul theory inference concerning identity, we

should reject the claim that what matters requires sameness of soul or Cartesian ego based on
this case. It seems clear from this case that the relation that matters in survival is compatible
with a series of distinct souls/Cartesian egos. If I am told that tomorrow my body and mind will
undergo torture, I will dread that torture and I will have no reason to have less dread if I am then
told my soul will be replaced with an entirely new soul without perceptible effects.
26    
the Soul Theorist must allow that the Persistence-Across-Souls intuition is

quite appealing. Most will feel the pull of this intuition and so the Soul
Theorist must provide a way to explain away the persuasive-seeming char-
acter of this intuition that is consistent with the falsity of that intuition. The
non-reductionist must demonstrate that the appeal of this intuition is the
result of a mistaken belief. How might the Soul Theorist proceed with this
“explaining-away-the-appeal-of ” task?
First notice that the situation facing the Soul Theorist here is analogous to
the one that faces the Animalist with respect to a cerebrum-transplant case.
The latter involves a structurally similar purported counterexample and a
corresponding intuition that must be false if the Animalism is true (see
Olson 1997: 69):
Cerebrum Transplant—Your cerebrum is transplanted into your friend’s

cerebrum-less head. The recipient of your cerebrum comes to possess your
mental life including your memories.
The “transplant intuition” is that the recipient of your cerebrum is you. If

Animalism is true, then this intuition must be false (or, at least it must be
false given the further reasonable assumption that the organism from which
the cerebrum is transplanted is itself not also transferred by way of the
cerebrum transfer). However, even if false, for most this intuition appears to
be persuasive. The Animalist must explain away that appeal:
the transplant intuition is very appealing. . . . animalists . . . must explain it

away. To do so they must explain away the plausibility of the view that
psychological continuity has some special relevance to personal identity. It
is hard to see how this can be done except by invoking some version of the
Parfitian thesis that identity does not matter in survival to explain how we
mistakenly take our intuitions about the presence of what matters in
survival (i.e., psychological continuity) to be intuitions about what suffices
for identity. (Noonan 2001: 84)
One way this explaining-away strategy might be applied to the apparently

persuasive character of the transplant intuition (which we can call the
“Persistence-Across-Organisms” intuition) runs as follows:
You are the cerebrum-less donor animal, since the human animal (you)
from which the cerebrum is removed continues to exist without a cerebrum.
   27
The recipient of the cerebrum is not you, but your friend, despite the fact
that we tend to find the intuition that the recipient is you to be appealing. In
fact, we can explain away the appeal of this intuition. The seeming persua-
siveness of this intuition is the result of a false belief. The false belief is that
since you stand in the relation that matters to the recipient of your cere-
brum, the latter must be you since what matters in survival is identity. In
fact, getting what matters in survival does not imply identity. You do indeed
get what matters with respect to the recipient, but we mistakenly take our
veridical intuitions about the presence of what matters in survival (which is
contained in M) to be intuitions about what is sufficient for identity. (See, for
example, Olson 1997: 69)
This version of the “explaining away” option involves the claim it is suffi-
cient for the donor person to get what matters with respect to the recipient
person if there is a psychological continuity and connectedness between
them and the recipient has enough of the donor’s brain. The fact that the
donor gets what matters in survival with respect to the recipient in combi-
nation with the false belief that identity is required for what matters in
survival gives rise to the appealing character of the Persistence-Across-
Organisms intuition. Note that this strategy is not aimed at showing that
the Persistence-Across-Organisms intuition is false. This strategy begins
only after the assumption that the Persistence-Across-Organisms intuition
is false is in place and it is directed to showing that the appeal of this
intuition can be explained away by demonstrating that that appeal rests in
part on a mistaken belief.
Nevertheless, this is only one way to develop this “explaining away”
approach and, in fact, this version does not extend to all who find the
Persistence-Across-Organisms intuition to be appealing. For example, it
does not apply to a Parfitian who accepts the Persistence-Across-
Organisms intuition as true and appealing, but does not think that identity
is required for what matters in survival. The Animalist must explain away
the appeal of the Persistence-Across-Organisms intuition even to a Parfitian.
How might this go? The Animalist must claim that the appeal of the
Persistence-Across-Organisms intuition for the Parfitian is also based in
part on a mistaken belief concerning the relationship between what matters
in survival and identity, but a different mistaken belief than that what
matters in survival implies identity. The alternative mistaken belief is that
the relation that matters in survival in certain special circumstances does
imply identity. What circumstances? Consider a Parfitian who thinks that
28    
what matters in survival is the R relation, defined as psychological continu-

ity, with the right kind of cause. If this is the relation that matters in survival,
then given the Parfitian account of identity as non-branching R, when this
relation is non-branching, there is identity. So for this kind of Parfitian, if P₁
gets what matters with respect to P₂ at t₂ and P₁ does not get what matters
with respect to anyone else at t₂, then P₁ and P₂ are identical. In the
transplant case, the donor gets what matters with respect to the recipient
at t₂—as the Animalist agrees—and does not get what matters with respect
to anyone else at t₂—as the Animalist also agrees. So the donor must be
identical to the recipient according to the Parfitian of this sort. But the belief
that when the relation that matters in survival—assumed here to be psy-
chological continuity with the right kind of cause—takes a non-branching
form, there is identity is a false belief according to Animalism. First, for the
Animalist, the persistence conditions relevant to a human person are not
psychological at all, but biological, so non-branching psychological conti-
nuity is not sufficient for identity. Second, since if Animalism is true, and,
thus, the recipient is not identical to the donor, whatever relation holds
between them that might be identified as the relation that matters in survival
neither implies identity by itself nor does it imply identity if it is non-
branching. The Animalist claims that the belief that a non-branching form
of the R relation implies identity is mistaken and that it is this mistaken
belief when combined with the fact that the donor gets what matters with
respect to the recipient that gives rise to the appeal of the Persistence-
Across-Organisms intuition for this variant of the Parfitian view. The appeal
of this intuition to this variant of a Parfitian is thereby explained away.²⁵ In
this variation of the “explaining-away” strategy, although the Animalist need
not commit to it being true that psychological continuity with the right kind
of cause is what matters in survival, the Animalist must commit to the claim
that the donor gets what matters with respect to the recipient—through
some form of psychological continuity and/or connectedness and/or brain
²⁵ A Parfitian, on the other hand, who thinks what matters in survival is the R relation plus
psychological connectedness will think that if P₁ gets what matters with respect to P₂ at t₂ and P₁
does not get what matters with respect to anyone else at t₂ because P₁ does not stand in R to
anyone else at t₂, then P₁ and P₂ are identical. In the transplant case, the donor gets what matters
with respect to the recipient at t₂ and does not get what matters with respect to anyone else at t₂
in part because he does not stand in R to anyone else at t₂. So the donor must be identical to the
recipient. It is that latter belief—that when the R relation, a central component relation of the
relation that matters in survival according to this variant of the Parfitian view, takes a non-
branching form there is identity—that the Animalist thinks is mistaken. The Animalist can then
suggest that this belief, for this kind of Parfitian, in combination with the fact that M contains
what matters in survival, gives rise to the appeal of the Persistence-Across-Organisms intuition.
   29
continuity, something contained in the M-relation. So for the Animalist to

adopt this way of explaining away the appeal to this sort of Parfitian of the
transplant intuition, something he must do, the Animalist must affirm that
M contains what matters.
The Soul Theorist is in a similar position with respect to the appeal of the
Persistence-Across-Souls intuition and should adopt an analogous position.
The Soul Theorist should claim that the apparently persuasive character of
the Persistence-Across-Souls intuition can be explained away as deriving
from a mistake, the false assumption that what matters in survival, which is
contained in M, perhaps under special circumstances such as being non-
branching, requires identity:
The old-soul person gets what matters with respect to the new-soul person
and does so by way of relation M or some component of M. Since we
wrongly assume that what matters in survival requires identity, we think
wrongly that this means that the new-soul person is identical to the old-soul
person. But since it is false that M or some component of M (even if non-
branching) requires identity, we can explain away the appeal of the
Persistence-Across-Souls Intuition.²⁶
In this process of explaining away the appeal of the Persistence-Across-

Souls, the non-reductionist affirms that the M relation contains what mat-
ters in survival. So the Soul Theorist must not deny or remain neutral, but
affirm, that either psychological continuity, psychological connectedness or
the continued existence of enough of one’s brain, or some combination
²⁶ It might be suggested that this explaining away strategy only commits the Soul Theorist to
the claim that M+ contains what matters, where M+ includes all that M does plus “the same
human organism.” But in that case since Mr. Fissiony does not stand in M+ to Lefty—since the
organism associated with Lefty is not identical to the organism associated with Mr. Fissiony—it
will not follow that Mr. Fissiony gets what matters with respect to Lefty. Although this seems to
be correct, there are cases combining Locke’s case and the transplant case in which an
explaining away strategy will commit the Soul Theorist to the claim that M contains what
matters.
Soul Replacement/Cerebrum Transplant Case—Your cerebrum is transplanted into your friend’s
cerebrum-less head. The recipient of your cerebrum comes to possess your mental life including
your memories and is M-related to the donor. At the same time your soul is replaced with a new
soul, and this new soul is “transferred” to your friend’s body.
We still have a “transplant intuition” in this case to the effect that the recipient of your cerebrum
is you. If Soul Theory is true, then this intuition must be false, but it is still appealing and the
Soul Theory must explain away its appeal. The latter will involve a commitment to the claim
that M contains what matters in survival.
30    
thereof, but without the persistence of one’s soul, is sufficient for what
matters in survival since otherwise it would seem he would have no basis
for explaining away the appeal of the Persistence-Across-Souls intuition.²⁷ If
the non-reductionist is to respond fully to the Persistence-Across-Souls
intuition including explaining away its appeal, he must affirm that M
contains what matters in survival. Just as the Animalist must, in fully
defending his theory, adopt the view that M contains what matters, the
Soul Theorist is in a similar position.²⁸ So even if there really is a persisting
soul and it is required for personal identity, either psychological continuity,
psychological connectedness or the continued existence of enough of one’s
brain, or some combination thereof alone gives me a reason to have pru-
dential concern for a future person.
In returning to our fission case, the non-reductionist should, therefore,
affirm that Mr. Fissiony gets what matters with respect to Lefty, although
Lefty does not have Mr. Fissiony’s soul, and conclude that there is diver-
gence in the fission case in which Mr. Fissiony is identical to Righty but not
identical to Lefty. Even if Mr. Fissiony and Lefty have different souls/
Cartesian egos, Mr. Fissiony gets what matters with respect to Lefty.
Whatever relation matters in ordinary survival, Mr. Fissiony at t₁ stands in
that relation to Lefty at t₂ and to Righty at t₂. So personal identity does not
matter in fission under the “one-but-not-the-other” option, assuming that
there really is something that matters in survival. Alternately stated, this
“soul-goes-one-way” account of fission has the consequence that the
²⁷ Consider a case in which your left hemisphere is transplanted into a brainless body—call
the recipient of your left hemisphere “Lefty”—while the donor body, retains the right
hemisphere—call the donor after the procedure “Righty”—and there is psychological continuity
and connectedness from the donor prior to the operation to both Lefty and Righty after the
operation. If Righty has your soul, the Animalist and Soul Theory will, then, both say that you
are not identical to Righty. But the Animalist will say that you get what matters with respect to
both Lefty and Righty. It would seem that the proponent of a soul theory of personal identity
should say the same.
²⁸ Johansson also notes a parallel between the Animalist and the non-reductionist “self”
theorist.
Just as someone’s psychology can be transferred from one animal to another, it
seems metaphysically possible for an immaterial self to have its mental features
transferred to another immaterial self . . . Suppose that I am associated with an
immaterial self—where ‘associated’ is intended to be neutral with respect to
identity—and that such a transfer occurs. Suppose also that the former argument,
the one against animalism, was correct. And suppose that my thesis of this paper is
true, so that sameness of immaterial self has no special significance. Then we should
judge that I am justified in having special concern about the future experiences of the
person ending up with the other immaterial self, since he will be psychologically
continuous with me. (Johansson 2007: 655–6)
   31
I-relation does not matter since the relation between s₁ and s₂ includes all
that matters in ordinary survival—assuming something does matter—but s₂
is not I-related to s₁. So, the I-relation does not matter in fission if we set
reductionism aside in favor of Soul Theory. (Recall that s₁ is Mr. Fissiony’s
pre-fission stage, and s₃ is Righty’s post-fission stage.)²⁹
(1) s₁’s relation to s₂ contains what matters.

(2) s₁ is not I-related to s₂.
else does.
1.2 Anticipation Objection
In discussing these first four ways of construing fission in terms of identity,

I have assumed that Mr. Fissiony can have prudential concern for Lefty and
Righty, and Mr. Fissiony has a reason to direct his prudential concern to
Lefty and Righty if anyone ever has a reason for prudential concern. In the
cases of the second and fourth candidate mappings of identity onto fission,
²⁹ Johansson persuasively argues that non-reductionist theories are not in a better position
than reductionist theories with respect to the task of justifying special concern. Johansson finds
fault with a variety of claimed bases for this purported asymmetry including the following. The
non-reductionist “self” (1) is a subject of experience, (2) is unchanging, (3) persists, but not as a
matter of linguistic convention, (4) is immaterial, and (5) provides a basis for co-consciousness
of a present and future experience—occurring to the same “self”—which makes possible
justified anticipation of a future experience. As for (1), Johansson argues that even on reduc-
tionism, there is a subject of experiences. For instance, the reductionist might take me to be
identical with my brain, which is then the subject of experience. As to (2), Johansson argues that
“the self does have certain properties at one time that it doesn’t have at other times” (2007: 645).
As for (3), Johansson says,
from the perspective of each of reductionism and non-reductionism we can say that,
if we know a certain fact—viz., the fact in which the fact of my identity over time
consists—then everything we don’t know concerning my persistence is how certain
words should be used. The content of the fact in question does not affect this.
(2007: 646)
As for (4), Johansson says,
something’s immateriality does not normally give us any reason to care specially
about it. For instance, I don’t seem to have any reason to care specially about the set
with my dog as its only member that I don’t have to care about my dog himself.
(2007: 646)
As for (5), Johansson makes the point that co-consciousness across time is not ruled out by
reductionism. “A reductionist could claim, for instance, that the fact that present and future
experiences occur in the same consciousness consists in the fact that they are parts of one and
the same mental series” (2007: 648).
32    
that assumption has played a key role in trying to demonstrate that identity
does not matter under those mappings. (It also played a role in one way of
taking the third interpretation, but I will set that aside.) But one might
challenge the claim that Mr. Fissiony can have prudential concern for both
of the fission products given these two mappings:
Prudential concern with respect to a person P consists, in part, in the ability to

anticipate having experiences of P, but Mr. Fissiony cannot anticipate having
the experiences of either Lefty or Righty or both on those two ways of
construing fission in terms of identity. That is so because it is a conceptual
truth that one can only anticipate one’s own experiences. Given these two
ways of construing fission in terms of identity—Mr. Fissiony is not identical to
either Lefty or Righty (the “neither” interpretation), or Mr. Fissiony is iden-
tical to one but not the other (made possible by a non-reductionist account of
personal identity)—Mr. Fissiony cannot anticipate the experiences of at least
one of these fission products. So Mr. Fissiony cannot have prudential concern
with respect to one or the other or both of the fission products.³⁰
There are two alternate responses one might give to this objection. The first
is to grant that there is such a conceptual truth about anticipating having an
experience but construct a nearby concept, “quasi-anticipating having an
experience,” characterized in a way that does not require that one can only
quasi-anticipate one’s own experiences.³¹ The second is to challenge the
claim that there is such a conceptual truth by offering an account of
anticipating having an experience that allows for the possibility of standing
in this relation to someone other than oneself. I will follow the second
approach. In particular, I will adopt Velleman’s account of anticipating
having an experience—with some revision along the way—which allows
for anticipating having an experience of someone else.³² However, as we
³⁰ This objection does not apply if Mr. Fissiony is identical to both Lefty and Righty—
admittedly an implausible mapping of identity onto fission.
³¹ One might characterize “quasi-anticipating having an experience” as follows:
P₁ imagines the experiences of P₂ “from the inside” (Parfit 2007: 22).
But this condition allows too much by allowing for the possibility of quasi-anticipating having
the experiences of a complete stranger (Parfit 2007: 22). Something must be added to the
characterization to narrow it down so that “quasi-anticipation” is compatible with standing in
this relation to someone who is not you, but not just anyone who is not you.
³² Another possibility is to characterize “anticipating having an experience” in terms of the
distinctive ways in which one responds to the prospect of an anticipated experience when one
normally anticipates having an experience; it could include “dispositions to feel the way
   33
shall see, Velleman’s account generates a new problem, as he makes clear.

His account seems to exclude the possibility of a fissioner anticipating the
experiences of the fission products whether or not the fissioner is identical to
either or both fissionees. I will try to show that this claimed implication does
not actually hold for all cases of fission on Velleman’s account.
Suppose that Jones (the “actual subject”) imaginatively projects himself
into a future experience of Hillary Clinton (the “notional subject”). There
are two components to this projection. Jones imagines that experience from
the inside and consciously specifies that he, Jones, is attempting to imagine
Clinton’s experience from the inside.³³ Jones can pick out Clinton as his
notional subject only by consciously specifying her as the target. On the
other hand, there is a form of first-personal imaginative access to a future
experience, anticipating having an experience, that does not require con-
scious stipulation of the target. The anticipatory image gets focused or
centered on a certain subject in the future through an automatic, uncon-
scious causal process.
When I frame an image prefiguring an experience that will follow in the

image’s wake, causally speaking, I needn’t specify for whom the experience
will follow: in the context of the image, the experience is simply “to
follow”—to follow the image itself, that is. The image thus prefigures the
experience simply as forthcoming, and so it provides a context for thinking
about the subject of that experience unselfconsciously as “me.”
(Velleman 1996: 73–4)
In short,
P₁ imagines the experiences of P₂ “from the inside” and those experiences

are determined to be P₂’s experiences through an unconscious causal process
without conscious stipulation.
normally he would feel as a consequence of anticipating his having specific kinds of experiences
in the future” as well as cognitive and behavioral “self-regarding dispositions” (Martin 1997:
114). This opens up the possibility of anticipating the experiences of someone other than
oneself. “In other words, in anticipating having others’ experiences the anticipators react
affectively towards those people and their (imagined) experiences as if those people were
themselves and those experiences were their own, even though they know those people are
others” (Martin 1997: 51).
³³ In “imagining from the inside what that person’s experience will be like” I mean imagining
from the inside the experiential character or content of the experience.
34    
This way of characterizing the notion does not have the implication that one
can only anticipate one’s own experiences. It also specifies how anticipatory
concern is distinctive as compared to the merely imaging an experience from
the inside.
Why does Velleman think Mr. Fissiony cannot anticipate the experi-
ences of Lefty and Righty? It is not because one can only anticipate one’s
own experiences. According to Velleman, Mr. Fissiony cannot through
one act of anticipation anticipate being Lefty and Righty at the same time
after fission. However, even if we grant that Mr. Fissiony cannot at one
time, t₁, anticipate having the experiences of Lefty and the experiences
of Righty at t₂, perhaps Mr. Fissiony could first anticipate the experiences
of Lefty at t₂ and then anticipate the experiences of Righty at t₂.
But Velleman rejects that possibility. Mr. Fissiony can only center his
anticipatory image on, say, Lefty’s experience, rather than on Righty’s,
through conscious stipulation, and conscious stipulation is incompatible
with genuine first-personal anticipation of having an experience. So
there is no possibility of anticipating having an experience in the
fission case:
Suppose that I try to think ahead into some future moment at which
I shall have two psychological successors. If I try to picture the moment as
it will appear in an experience specified merely as forthcoming, or to
follow, I won’t succeed in picking out the perspective from which I’m
trying to picture it, since my picture may be followed, in the relevant
sense, by two different experiences of the moment in question . . . In order
to specify the perspective from which I’m trying to picture the future, I’ll
have to identify it with one of my psychological successors or the other.
That is, I’ll have to pick out the person whose perspective is the intended
target and destination of my projective thoughts–whereupon I’ll be doing
exactly what I do when imagining that I am Napoleon. My anticipation of
the future will be nothing more than an act of imagination.
(Velleman 1996: 74–5)
The “unconscious causal processes” can, at best, restrict, the possible

subjects of anticipation to two in our fission case. Conscious stipulation
is required to center Mr. Fissiony’s image on one experience rather than
the other. Mr. Fissiony merely imagines an experience of Lefty from the
inside, as in the Clinton case, and does not anticipate having an
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camp—would stand with hands in pockets, staring after in silent
admiration. Uncle Hank was wiry and grizzled and storm-beaten; his
pointed beard stood out at a strong angle to his determined nose; his
eyes were of a mild and pleasant blue, but the fire in them awaited
only the flint. His laugh was merry, but he had a voice that would
make the most obstreperous horse remember that he was but as the
dust of the earth before this master.
Uncle Hank was at the helm of the transportation system of
Paradise Bar; he and his stage the connecting link between camp
and civilization, the latter represented by the county seat, Meadow
Lark.
Uncle Hank, recognizing his importance in both communities, and
especially in Paradise Bar, was as gracious as an only hope—he
was never forlorn. He was an absolute dictator, it was true; he even
decided the locations of the passengers on the stage, and settled
disputes as to outside and inside. But he was autocratic wisely, and
there was really no reason why he should have been called upon to
divide his sovereignty. Yet, one sad day the Alladin Bonanza
Company built a lumber road down from Paradise Bar to Lone Pine.
At Lone Pine the new road connected with the line of the Gray Eagle
Stage Company, which, as Uncle Hank put it, flopped its way up
from Meadow Lark. So, when the Gray Eagle extended its tri-weekly
service from Lone Pine to Paradise Bar, trouble outcropped on Uncle
Hank’s trail at once. George William Pike, of the Upper Basin, was
the driver to whom Uncle Hank referred as the dry goods clerk who
handled the ribbons for the opposition corporation.
George William surmised here and there and elsewhere, when he
cornered an audience, that the new route was two miles the shorter,
and the grade, calculating ups and downs, at least five per cent
better. The report reached Uncle Hank by air line, of course. He was
silent a little while, and then with elaborate courtesy thanked his
informant, adding that he was greatly obliged, not for the news itself,
but because he had for a long time been trying to recollect the name
of the chap who left Placerville after trying circumstances without
advising his bondsmen. It was indeed strange that a man caught
stealing garments from a poor washerwoman’s clothes line should
be directing horses; remarkably odd, when it was evident that he
was cut out for a Chinaman and not a stage driver. So saying, Uncle
Hank awoke an echo unusually far off, making it jump startled from
the hillside at the crack of his whip, and drove on.
There was some difference of opinion in Paradise Bar concerning
the merits of the two lines; so long as they ran on different days and
at different hours, the question could not be satisfactorily settled, and
the Bright Light kept open an hour later in the evening to permit a full
discussion of the subject—thereby saving shutting up at all. The real
trouble began when the Gray Eagle line, perceiving that Uncle Hank
continued to carry the larger part of the business, borrowed his
schedule and started to operate upon it with their new yellow coach
with vermillion trimmings and four white horses, to say nothing of
George William Pike with his curled mustache, red necktie and
stand-up collar. He would have worn a silk hat too—the owners of
the line were aristocrats, with ideas and winter residences in Lunnon
—but Morosin’ Jones who squirmed his shoulders and clasped his
hands like an awkward maid of fifteen when he talked, begged him
to desist; he, Morosin’, had such an unconquerable inclination to
perforate high hats with his forty-four wherever they might be.
George William wisely desisted. Uncle Hank’s stage had nothing but
a faint recollection of paint, and was written over with history
recorded by bullet holes; the harness was apt to be patched, and
Nebuchadnezzar, the off leader, was wall-eyed, and his partner,
Moloch, sway-backed and short maned. Of the wheel horses, one
was a gray with hoofs that needed constant paring; the other had the
appearance of a whitewashed house at which mud had been flung
with startling effect. Of the two, Rome and Athens, no god could
have decided which was entitled to the palm of ugliness; but Uncle
Hank, who loved them all with the love a man may have for a homely
dog, declared that the wheel-horses were beauty spots in nature
alongside the leaders.
It was a memorable morning on which the two stages left Paradise
Bar together. The yellow stage, with its nickel-plated harness and
white horses and tan-gloved driver, started three minutes first; and
then, as if gathering up his horses and the stage and the reins
altogether, Uncle Hank went down the line. It was a lively experience
for the passengers; bends they went around on two wheels, creeks
they took at a leap, bowlders and ruts only they avoided, and that
because a scientist was using his science. The grade of the other
line must have been at that time very good, for Uncle Hank had been
only four minutes hitched in front of the Elysium Hotel when the other
stage drew up. It was true that he picked his teeth as if he had been
in to lunch, and casually enquired of a passenger, so that George
William might hear, if they had stopped for dinner on the road, or did
they expect to get it at the hotel; whereat the passenger, jolted and
jarred beyond good manners, roared: “Stop for dinner! Great Scott!
We stopped for nothing—bowlders, rivers, landslides and precipices;
if his Satanic Majesty was after us, he found the worst trail he ever
traveled—and I can’t imagine what other reason there could be for
such driving.”
The passenger went into the hotel. George William said something
below his breath, and Uncle Hank smiled. Alas for vanity! Ever it
goes before a stumble, a broken spring or a sick horse. The stages
had different schedules for the upward trip, but on the next journey
downward disaster overtook Uncle Hank. Seven of the nine hours’
ride were accomplished, and the stage was at the mouth of the
canyon. Here a point of rock thrusts itself forward, marking a sharp
turn in the road. Around this turn galloped the horses, and twenty
feet before him, sunning itself in the road, Moloch saw an eleven-
button rattler. He knew what that meant, and sat down and slid with
all four feet plowing the mountain road. They stopped short of the
snake, that had coiled and awaited their coming, and then perceiving
the enemy otherwise engaged, had wisely slipped into the
manzanitas by the roadside. Fifteen precious minutes were used in
repairing the disaster to the harness—and the race was lost. That
night, for the first time in the ten years in which he had been the
oracle of two communities, Uncle Hank, instead of telling stories and
expounding wisdom for the benefit of the unenlightened below, went
up to his room immediately after dinner and retired without lighting
his candle. George William put on a new pink necktie and his
beloved silk hat, and went about, stepping high like one of his white
horses, but casting wary glances abroad for the appearance of one
Morosin’ Jones, who was coy and fidgety and could perforate a
dollar at one hundred feet.
In Paradise Bar every game was settled by the best two out of
three. Life was too feverish and too short to await three out of five,
and it was against the principles of the camp to leave any questions
undecided. Therefore, it was tacitly understood that the winner of the
next race would be the standard of comparison thereafter in matters
pertaining to travel. Other stage lines would be second-class,
ranking just above a mule train. There was another reason: Paradise
Bar was exceedingly fond of excitement, but it had no mind to risk its
neck in stage racing down the mountain-side forever and ever;
precipices yawned too many invitations. The personal feeling and
the betting both heavily favored Uncle Hank, both gratifying and
troubling to him.
There is little doubt that in the third race, under fair conditions,
Uncle Hank would have won; he would either have won or gone over
a precipice. But Rome, who had never before been known to have
anything the matter with him save an abnormal appetite for grain, fell
slightly lame. All day before the race, Uncle Hank worried over this,
all night he tossed in his blankets, and was only partly relieved the
next day when Rome appeared again to be all right, and ate hay as if
under the impression that the sun was shining and there was plenty
more being made. The last two days had greatly changed Uncle
Hank; he carried his head so that his beard touched his breast; his
hat was slouched low over his eyes; he kept his hands in his pockets
and spoke in monosyllables. He ate little and had a far-away look in
his blue eyes. He saw his fame departing, his reputation collapsing,
all that a man may build in this life, whether he creates empires or
digs post-holes, crumbling—the reputation of “being onto his job.”
The next morning with the fear of that lameness in his heart, Uncle
Hank hitched up and drove down the main street. He saw the yellow
stage also ready. There was no evidence of lameness in Rome as
he drove up to the door of the express office, nor when the stage
stopped at the Record Nugget for the hotel passengers. Uncle
Hank’s despondent face became more cheerful; he looked older and
grayer and even bent a little that morning, but he climbed up on the
box with his old-time energy. His courage and spirit were never to be
doubted; only that lameness in Rome worried him. He gathered up
the lines and loosened his whip; but the four did not go with their
accustomed dashing display. Instead there was confusion and
hesitation; in fifteen yards the slight lameness of the right wheel
horse was apparent, and Uncle Hank drew up. He dropped the lines,
and for a moment his face was in his hands.
The other stage had gone. Nothing could ever convince the public
satisfactorily, he thought, that after starting he had not given up the
race through fear. The limp was scarcely apparent. He perhaps
would not have noticed it for some miles had it not been for his
haunting dread and the false start. Yet he knew what it would mean
before the level was reached—a steep down grade and he would
have to go walking into Meadow Lark, a loser by an hour.
Uncle Hank, a broken old man, climbed down from the stage.
“Take ’em, George,” he said to the hostler. “There won’t be no stage
down to-day.” He said no more, but passed amid a dead silence
along the road through the population of Paradise Bar which had
turned out to see the beginning of the deciding race. Some guessed
at the reason; and to all it became apparent when the horses were
taken back to the stable and carefully examined. That day Uncle
Hank did not appear, nor the next; So Bob Allen went up to his cabin
in the evening and, receiving no response to his knocking, kicked
open the door and went in. Uncle Hank lay in his bunk, his face to
the wall. To Bob’s expressions of sympathy and encouraging
remarks, he made no reply; they were to him as the expressions
engraved on tombstones, and but added bitterness now. To his
arguments, Uncle Hank vouchsafed single words in return, and
never turned his face from the wall. From sympathy to argument,
from argument he drifted into bulldozing; alluded to Uncle Hank as a
man afraid of things, among which he specified a large number in
language that I will not reproduce; and when three connected words
was the most he could get out of Uncle Hank even by this, Bob knew
the case was desperate, and retired, defeated.
The friends of Uncle Hank, the entire population of Paradise Bar,
gravely discussed the situation. It was unanimously decided that the
yellow stage should thereafter stop outside of the camp limits, and
Morosin’ Jones publicly announced, his shoulders working up and
down most nervously, that George William would immediately cease
from wearing stand-up collars and red neckties; he would come into
camp with a slouch hat, a flannel shirt and teamster’s warranted-to-
wear gloves—or it was quite likely he would never go out again. This
statement met with the silent approval of the entire assemblage; and
George William, hearing of it, puzzled and bewildered, wisely
refrained from coming into the camp limits at all, but remained by the
stage. He explained in Meadow Lark that Paradise Bar had gone
crazy; and a cheerful miner from that camp acquiesced, but added
that some of the lunatics were not yet corralled, but still straying
about; and said it looking so significantly at George William that the
latter went home and hunted up a flannel shirt at once.
The next morning a committee waited on Uncle Hank, prepared
with arguments that would show him the error of broken-heartedness
—the easiest thing in the world to cure if its victims would but live to
tell us of it. Uncle Hank still lay with his face to the wall, and in a little
while the news was abroad in the camp that Uncle Hank, still with his
face to the wall, had resolutely died. It was a gray day in Paradise
Bar; the melodion in the Red Light was hushed; friends nodded
instead of speaking as they passed by; the camp began to realize
what it had lost. It was determined, as a last mark of the camp’s
esteem for Uncle Hank, to make the journey to the place of the final
tie-up simple but impressive. No formal meeting was held; the boys
just gathered together and acted on a common idea. The whole
camp would be in the procession, and they would go down to
Meadow Lark over the old familiar road. Uncle Hank’s stage carrying
the old stage-driver, would be at the head, of course; then there was
an awkward pause. More than one felt that it would add to the dignity
of the occasion to have two stages, but finally, when Major Wilkerson
arose and suggested that the Gray Eagle stage, carrying leading
citizens, be placed next, there was a murmur of dissent. Then Bob
Allen arose in his place and made the only known speech of his life:
“Friends, you are on the wrong trail and will hit a blind canyon,
certain. Of course we should have the other stage, and Pike to drive
it. Uncle Hank wasn’t the kind of a man to carry jealousy with him
into camp. ’Twasn’t being beat by Pike that broke Uncle Hank’s
heart; it was partly p’haps being beat at all, and partly, to my way of
thinkin’, because Paradise Bar didn’t stand behind him. That was the
main reason, gentlemen; he just died of pure lonesomeness. When
this yaller ve-hicle comes into camp, does we say to it: ‘You’re purty
and you’re new, and probably your springs is all right and maybe
your road; but you might jest as well pass on. Do you observe this
old stage with its paint wore off and its bullet holes? Do you see that
it’s down a little on one side and some of the spokes is new and
some are old? Do you know that these four old hosses have been
whoopin’ her up for Paradise Bar and for nothin’ else these ten years
—and a sunshiny day and one chuck full of snow and sleet was all
the same to them? Be you aware that this is our Uncle Hank, and
that he has been workin’ our lead for us these fifteen years, and
never lost a dollar or a pound of stuff or spilled a passenger, or
asked one of the boys to hoof it because he hadn’t no dinero? Those
bullet holes—men behind masks made ’em, but Uncle Hank never
tightened a ribbon for the whole caboodle. The paint’s been knocked
off that stage in our service, and it’s ours. Therefore, though you be
yaller and handsome, with consid’ble silver plate, we can’t back you
against our own flesh and blood. And that settles it.’ Did we talk that
way, boys? No, we jest stood off and gambled on the result as if
Uncle Hank was a travelin’ stranger ’stead of the best friend we had.
We stood off impartial like and invited the white hoss outfit to git in
and win if it could. And now, gentlemen, have we got the nerve to
dynamite this opposition stage line, when the whole gang of us ought
to be blown sky high?
“Uncle Hank wouldn’t have had it so. He didn’t cherish any ill
feeling pussonly against anybody; whatever he said was because
they was takin’ away from him what he had worked all his life for. He
wasn’t jealous of George William, but of him as a stage driver,
because we made him so. Boys, he loved us and was mighty proud
of our regard—and we didn’t show it in the time of trial. And he’s
gone over the great divide with tears in his eyes, and we are to
blame. Who among any of us poor fools has a right to say that the
other stage shouldn’t follow?”
Bob sat down amid absolute silence, wiping his face vigorously.
Major Wilkerson rose to his feet. “I renew my suggestion,” said he,
“that we have the Gray Eagle stage. I think you’ll all agree that Bob’s
right.”
Morosin’ Jones rose from his stump, suffused with emotion. “In
course he’s right,” he said, huskily, “but the stage ou’t to be painted
black.” A murmur of assent greeted this speech.
The day was beautiful. The procession went slowly down the old
stage road, past Lime Point, through the Roaring River canyon,
beyond up Reddy’s grade, over the First Summit and then through
Little Forest to the watering-place at the head of the last canyon.
Every stream, every tree, every rock along the road was known to
Uncle Hank. He was going home over a familiar way. The pine trees,
with their somber green, were silent; the little streams that went
frolicking from one side of a canyon to another seemed subdued; it
was spring, but the gray squirrels were not barking in the tree-tops,
and the quail seemed to pipe but faintly through the underbrush. The
lupines and the bluebells nodded along the way; the chipmunks
stood in the sunlight and stared curiously.
All would have gone well had not George William Pike been a man
without understanding—and such a man is beyond redemption. He
did not appreciate the spirit of the invitation to join in this last simple
ceremony in honor of Uncle Hank. He accepted it as an apology
from Paradise Bar and growled to himself because of the absurd
request to paint the coach black—which he would not have done
except for an order from the superintendent, who was a man of
policy. A year could have been wasted in explaining that the
invitation was an expression of humility and of atonement for the
camp’s treatment of its own. So he came and wore his silk hat and
his red necktie, and Morosin’ Jones almost had a spasm in
restraining himself.
Down the mountain-side they went, slowly and decorously.
Nothing eventful happened until the mouth of the canyon was
cleared, and then George William became impatient. He could not
understand the spirit of the occasion. Meadow Lark and supper were
a long way off, and the luncheon at Half-Way House had been light.
So he began making remarks over his horses’ heads with the
intention of hurrying up Gregg, who was driving the old stage. “Well
fitted for this kind of work, those horses, ain’t they?” he said. “Seems
curious they were ever put on the stage.” Gregg said nothing, but
tightened rein a bit. “Where will we stop for the night?” asked George
William presently, flicking the off leader’s ear with his whip.
Gregg turned around angrily. “If you don’t like the way this thing is
bein’ done, you can cut and go on in town alone; but if you don’t
keep your mouth closed there’ll be trouble.”
“I don’t want to go into town alone,” rejoined George William
pleasantly, “but I reckon we’d go in better fashion if we was at the
head of this percession.”
“Maybe you’d better try it,” said Gregg, reddening, and thereupon
George William turned out his four white horses and his black stage,
without saying anything to his two passengers, and proceeded to go
around. Gregg gathered in the slack in his reins. “Go back!” he
roared. But Pike, swinging wide to the right to avoid the far-reaching
whip, went on. Nebuchadnezzar pricked up his ears. Rome looked
inquiringly at Athens, and Moloch snorted indignantly. Athens’
expression said very plainly: “Are we at our time of life going to
permit four drawing-room apologies for horses and a new-fangled
rattletrap to pass us on our own road?” The negative response could
be seen in the quiver that ran down each horse’s back. The leaders
gently secured their bits between their teeth. So absorbed was
Gregg in the strange actions of George William that he paid little
attention to his own horses.
Up and down the line behind him men were waving and
gesticulating and shouting. “Don’t let him pass you!” yelled
Wilkerson. That instruction ran up and down the line, clothed in a
variety of picturesque and forcible utterances. But no instruction was
needed by the horses in front of Gregg. They understood, and
scarcely had the other stage turned into the main road ahead when
they at one jump broke from a walk into a gallop. George William
saw and gave his four the rein and the whip. Glancing back, Gregg
watched the whole procession change from a line of decorous
dignity to one of active excitement. Dust began to rise, men on
horseback passed men on mules; men in buckboards passed men
on lumber wagons. George William held the road, and with it a great
advantage. To pass him it would be necessary to go out among the
rocks and the sage-brush, and the white four were racing swiftly,
rolling out behind them a blinding cloud of dust. Gregg set his teeth,
and spoke encouragingly to his horses. George William turned and
shouted back an insult: “You needn’t hurry; we’ll tell them you’ll be
there to-morrow. ’Tend to your new business; there is nothing in the
other for you. We’re going into town first.”
“Maybe,” said Gregg grimly—and loosened his whip. The four
lifted themselves together at its crack; in another half mile they were
ready to turn out to go around. Gregg watched for a place anxiously.
Brush and boulders seemed everywhere, but finally he chose a little
sandy wash along which ran the road for a way.
Turning out he went into the sand and lost ten yards. He heard
George William laugh sarcastically. But the old stage horses had
been in sand before, and had but one passenger besides their driver.
In a little while they were abreast the leaders, and here they stayed
and could gain no farther. For George William laid on the lash, and
the road was good. On they went, the one stage running smoothly
on the hard road, the other swaying, bounding, rocking, among the
rocks and gullies. A little while they ran thus, and then the road
began to tell. Pike shouted triumphantly. Gregg, with despair in his
heart, watched with grief the loss of inch after inch. “What can I do?”
he groaned—and turning, he found himself face to face with Uncle
Hank. The reins dropped from his nerveless hands, and his face
went white.
“Give me a hand!” shouted Uncle Hank, and over the swinging
door he crawled on the seat—and Gregg perceived he was flesh and
blood. The old fire was in his eyes, he stood erect and loosened his
whip with his left hand easily as of yore. And then something else
happened. The line behind was scattered and strung out to perhaps
a mile in length, but every eye was on the racing coaches. They saw
the familiar figure of the old stage driver, saw him gather up the
reins; saw and understood that he had come back to life again, and
up and down that line went a cheer such as Paradise Bar will seldom
hear again. Uncle Hank sent the whip waving over the backs of his
beloved. “Nebuchadnezzar! Moloch! Rome! Athens! Come! No
loafing now. This is our road, our stage—and our camp is shouting.
Don’t you hear the boys! Ten years together, you’n me. Whose dust
have we taken? Answer me! Good, Athens, good—steady, Rome,
you blessed whirlwind. Reach out, Neb—that’s it—reach. Easy,
Moloch, easy; never mind the rocks. Yo-ho! Yo-ho-o-o! In we go!”
At the first words of the master, the four lifted themselves as if
inspired. Then they stretched lowly and ran; ran because they knew
as only horses can know; ran as his voice ran, strong and straight. In
three minutes they turned in ahead of the white horses and the
funeral stage. The race was practically won. Uncle Hank with the
hilarious Gregg alongside, drove into Meadow Lark ten minutes
ahead of all others—and Meadow Lark in its astonishment almost
stampeded. After a while the rest of Paradise Bar arrived, two of its
leading citizens, who had started out in a certain black stage drawn
by four horses, coming in on foot. They were quite non-committal in
their remarks, but it was inferred from a few words dropped casually
that, after the stage stopped, they lost some time in chasing the
driver back into the foothills; and it was observed that they were
quite gloomy over their failure to capture him.
“Oh, never mind,” said Morosin’ Jones, in an ecstasy of joy.
“What’s the good of cherishin’ animosity? Why, for all I care he kin
wear that red necktie now if he wants to”—then after a pause—“yes,
and the silk hat, too, if he’s bound to be a cabby.”
Uncle Hank was smiling and shaking hands with everybody and
explaining how the familiar motion of the stage had brought him out
of his trance. “I’m awful glad to have you here, boys; mighty glad to
see you. The hosses and me are proud. I’ll admit it. We oughter be.
Ain’t Paradise Bar with us, and didn’t we win two out of three, after
all?”—From The Black Cat, June, 1902, copyright by Short Story
Publishing Co., and used by their kind permission.
HUMOROUS DIALECT SELECTIONS IN POETRY
PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES

POPULARLY KNOWN AS THE HEATHEN CHINEE
TABLE MOUNTAIN, 1870
By Bret Harte
Which I wish to remark—

And my language is plain—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name;

And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,

And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,

And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.
Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye’s sleeve:
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played

By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see—
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
Then I looked up at Nye,

And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, “Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,”—
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game “he did not understand.”
In his sleeves, which were long,

He had twenty-four packs—
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers—that’s wax.
Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar—
Which the same I am free to maintain.
—Copyright by Houghton Mifflin & Co., Boston, and used by their

kind permission.
PARODY ON “THAT HEATHEN CHINEE”

[The following remarkable parody was written by the Reverend
Father Wood, Professor of English Literature at St. Ignatius College,
San Francisco. For the annual exercises of his class, a debate was
to be held as to the respective abilities of the various authors and
poets studied during the year. Each had his advocates and
strenuous adherents. The final test adopted was that each adherent
should write out Bret Harte’s Heathen Chinee in the form his favorite
author would have followed. These verses are after the style of
Samuel Lover, the Irish poet.]
Did ye hear of the haythen Ah Sin,

Maginn?
The bouldest of bould Chaneymin,
Maginn?
Oh. He was the bye
Who could play it on Nye
And strip him as aisy as sin,
To the skin.
Oh. ’Twas he was the gossoon to win.
It was euchre we’d play, me and Nye,

Me bye!
An’ the stakes was uproariously high,
Me bye!
Nye’s sleeves they was stocked,
An’ me feelin’s was shocked,
But never a whisper said I—
You know why!
For Bill is outrageously sly!
The game to the haythen was new,

Aboo!
He didn’t quite know what to do,
Aboo!
With the cyards in his hand
He smiled childlike and bland,
And asked us of questions a few,
Wirrastheu!
Which we answered as bad as we knew.
We tuk it the game was our own,

Ochone!
We’d pick him as cleane as a bone,
Ochone!
But the hands that he played
An’ the p’ints that he made,
Made me feel like a babby ungrown,
I must own!
An’ dull as I’d shwallowed a stone!
Nye wud give him a three or a four,

Asthore!
But niver a better cyard more.
Asthore!
Yet he’d dhrop down a king
Just the aisest thing,
An’ jokers an’ bowers galore
By the score!
You may lay he’d been there before!
He was happy as haythen cud be,

Machree!
His manner surprisingly free,
Machree!
But William looked sour
When he played the right bower
Which William had dealt out to me,
Do ye see!
For to euchre the haythen Chinee.
Then William got up in a stew,

Hurroo!
An’ shlated Ah Sin black and blue,
Hurroo!
An’ shuk out of his sleeve,
I’m not makin’ believe,
Of picture cyards quite a good few!
It is thrue—
This shtory I’m tellin’ to you.
We had danced to the haythen’s own tune.

Aroon!
Oh! It’s lucky we got out so soon,
Aroon!
He had twenty-four packs,
On his fingers was wax—
An’ this in Tim Casey’s saloon!
The ould coon!
How he played us that warm afternoon,
Aroon!
KENTUCKY PHILOSOPHY
By Harrison Robertson
You Wi’yam, cum ’ere, suh, dis instunce. Wu’ dat you got under dat
box?
I do’ want no foolin’—you hear me? Wut you say? Ain’t nu’h’n but
rocks?
’Peahs ter me you’s owdashus p’ticler. S’posin’ dey’s uv a new kine.
I’ll des take a look at dem rocks. Hi yi! der you think dat I’s bline?
I calls dat a plain water-million, you scamp, en I knows whah it
growed;
It come fum de Jimmerson cawn fiel’, dah on ter side er de road.
You stole it, you rascal—you stole it! I watched you fum down in de
lot.
En time I gets th’ough wid you, nigger, you won’t eb’n be a grease
spot!
I’ll fix you. Mirandy! Mirandy! go cut me a hick’ry—make ’ase!

En cut me de toughes’ en keenes’ you c’n fine anywhah on de place.
I’ll larn you, Mr. Wi’yam Joe Vetters, ter steal en ter lie, you young
sinner,
Disgracin’ yo’ ole Christian mammy, en makin’ her leave cookin’
dinner!
Now ain’t you ashamed er yo’se’f, sur? I is. I’s ’shamed you’s my
son!
En de holy accorjan angel he’s ’shamed er wut you has done;
En he’s tuk it down up yander in coal-black, blood-red letters—
“One water-million stoled by Wi’yam Josephus Vetters.”
En wut you s’posen Brer Bascom, yo’ teacher at Sunday school,

’Ud say ef he knowed how you’s broke de good Lawd’s Gol’n Rule?
Boy, whah’s de raisin’ I give you? Is you boun’ fuh ter be a black
villiun?
I’s s’prised dat a chile er yo’ mammy ’ud steal any man’s water-
million.
En I’s now gwiner cut it right open, en you shain’t have nary bite,
Fuh a boy who’ll steal water-millions—en dat in de day’s broad light
—
Ain’t—Lawdy! its green! Mirandy! Mi-ran-dy! come on wi’ dat switch!
Well, stealin’ a g-r-e-e-n water-million! who ever yeered tell er des
sich?
Cain’t tell w’en dey’s ripe? W’y, you thump ’um, en we’n dey go pank
dey is green;
But w’en dey go punk, now you mine me, dey’s ripe—en dat’s des
wut I mean.
En nex’ time you hook water-millions—you heered me, you ign’ant,
you hunk,
Ef you doan’ want a lickin’ all over, be sho dat dey allers go “punk!”
—Harper’s Magazine.
OH, I DUNNO!
Anonymous
Lindy’s hair’s all curly tangles, an’ her eyes es deep en’ gray,
En’ they allus seems er-dreamin’ en’ er-gazin’ far away,
When I ses, “Say, Lindy, darlin’, shall I stay, er shall I go?”
En’ she looks at me er-smilin’, en’ she ses, “Oh, I dunno!”
Now, she knows es I’m er-lovin’ her for years an’ years an’ years
But she keeps me hesitatin’ between my doubts an’ fears;
En’ I’m gettin’ pale and peaked, en’ et’s jes from frettin’ so
Ovur Lindy with her laughin’ an’ er-sayin’, “I dunno!”
T’other night we come frum meetin’ an’ I asks her fer a kiss,
En’ I tells her she’s so many that er few she’ll never miss;
En’ she looks up kinder shy-like, an’ she whispers sorter low,
“Jim, I’d ruther that you wouldn’t, but—er well—Oh, I dunno!”
Then I ses, “Now see here, Lindy, I’m er-wantin’ yer ter state
Ef yer thinks yer’ll ever love me, an’ if I had better wait,
Fer I’m tired of this fulein’, an’ I wants ter be yer beau,
An’ I’d like to hear yer sayin’ suthin’ else but I dunno!”
Then I puts my arm around her an’ I holds her close and tight,
En’ the stars away up yander seems er-winkin’ et th’ sight,
Es she murmurs sof’ an’ faintly, with the words er-comin’ slow,
“Jim, I never loved no other!” Then I ses, “Oh, I dunno!”
RORY O’MORE
By Samuel Lover
Young Rory O’More courted Kathleen Bawn,

He was bold as a hawk, she as soft as the dawn;
He wish’d in his heart pretty Kathleen to please,
And he thought the best way to do that was to tease.
“Now, Rory, be aisy,” sweet Kathleen would cry,
(Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye),
“With your tricks I don’t know, in troth, what I’m about;
Faith, you’ve teased till I’ve put on my cloak inside out.”
“Oh! Jewel,” says Rory, “that same is the way
You’ve thrated my heart for this many a day;
And ’tis plazed that I am, and why not, to be sure?
For ’tis all for good luck,” says bold Rory O’More.
“Indeed, then,” says Kathleen, “don’t think of the like,

For I half gave a promise to sootherin’ Mike;
The ground that I walk on he loves, I’ll be bound—”
“Faith,” says Rory, “I’d rather love you than the ground.”
“Now, Rory, I’ll cry if you don’t let me go;
Sure I drame ev’ry night that I’m hatin’ you so!”
“Oh,” says Rory, “that same I’m delighted to hear,
For drames always go by conthraries, my dear;
Oh! jewel, keep dramin’ that same till you die,
And bright mornin’ will give dirty night the black lie!
And ’tis plazed that I am, and why not, to be sure?
Since ’tis all for good luck,” says bold Rory O’More.
“Arrah, Kathleen, my darlint, you’ve tazed me enough,

Sure I’ve thrashed for your sake Dinny Grimes and Jim Duff;
And I’ve made myself drinkin’ your health quite a baste,
So I think after that, I may talk to the priest.”
Then Rory, the rogue, stole his arm ’round her neck,
So soft and so white, without freckle or speck,
And he looked in her eyes that were beaming with light,
And he kissed her sweet lips;—don’t you think he was right?
“Now, Rory, leave off, sir; you’ll hug me no more.
That’s eight times to-day you have kiss’d me before.”
“Then here goes another,” says he, “to make sure,
For there’s luck in odd numbers,” says Rory O’More.
HOWDY SONG
By Joel Chandler Harris
It’s howdy, honey, when you laugh,

An’ howdy when you cry,
An’ all day long it’s howdy—
I never shall say good-by.
I’m monst’us peart myse’f, suh,

An’ hopin’ the same fer you,
An’ when I ketch my breff, suh,
I’ll ax you howdy-do!
It’s howdy, honey, when you sleep,

It’s howdy, when you cry;
Keep up, keep up the howdyin’;
Don’t never say good-by!
I’m middlin’ well myse’f, suh,

Which the same I hope fer you;
Ef you’ll let me ketch my breff, suh,
I’ll ax you howdy-do!
“IMPH-M”
Anonymous
When I was a laddie lang syne at the schule,

The maister aye ca’d me a dunce an’ a fule;
For somehoo his words I could ne’er understand’,

What Matters in Survival Personal Identity and Other Possibilities 1St Edition Douglas Ehring All Chapter

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What Matters in Survival: Personal

Identity and other Possibilities 1st

What Matters in Survival

To my amazing wife, Ann, and my wonderful daughters, Kat and Bella.

My interest in the topic of personal identity goes back to a metaphysics class

What relation to a future individual, if any, gives me a reason to have

2    

Identity Always Matters (1) For any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ has a reason r to

Given (1), for any situation s, if P₁ at t₁ is not identical to P₂ at t₂, then P₁ at t₁

4    

But, according to Parﬁt, we are wrong to follow the thinking of common

By Parﬁt’s accounting, it is not true that the ﬁssioner is identical to either

equivalent to death, we have a good reason for widening the notion of

By “what matters” I didn’t mean . . . what we take to matter. It cannot be

6    

A long list of philosophers has responded to IDM. Some philosophers claim

Not only does personal identity never matter in survival, ordinary or

There is no alternative to identity for what matters in survival. It is false that

¹¹ As indicated, I largely assume that “reasons externalism” is true in my defense of Survival

8    

possible approaches. One approach is to determine the correct way of

1. Mr. Fissiony is identical to Lefty and Mr. Fissiony is identical to

Non-Triviality Principle because such an account will include a non-

If X is what matters in survival, then X cannot fail to hold because of a trivial

In short, the negative component of the Extreme View can be demonstrated

According to Parﬁt’s “Divergence Argument,” it can demonstrated that

(1) Determine the correct way of construing ﬁssion in terms of identity

Consider the following ﬁssion case:

   11

12    

1.1.1 The First Candidate

   13

Perry discusses a revision of Memory Theory that involves a certain kind of

There is a sequence of person-stages (not necessarily in the order they

14    

   15

As it turns out, in point of fact, simultaneous stages of the same

Fission with Pre-Cognition—The hemispheres of Mr. Fissiony are each

16    

   17

(1) The relation of Lefty’s post-ﬁssion stage, s₂, to Righty’s post-ﬁssion

This assessment cannot be resisted if we substitute Endurantism for

(1) Lefty’s relation to Righty does not contain what matters.

1.1.2 The Second Candidate

According to our second candidate for construing ﬁssion in terms of iden-

18    

According to one version of a Psychological Non-Branching Theory, for

   19

If we substitute Endurantism for Perdurantism under this mapping of

1.1.3 The Third Candidate

According to the third candidate for interpreting ﬁssion in terms of identity,

The post-ﬁssion person to whom the pre-ﬁssion person is identical has

20    

   21

Finally, this assessment does not change if we assume Endurantism accord-

1.1.4 The Fourth Candidate

Reductionist Theory of Personal Identity—Personal identity is reducible to

The fourth candidate is not consistent with reductionism.

22    

   23

But we can now ask: what implications does the “one-but-not-the-other”

A Non-Reductionist might reply: ‘After the division, when I am Righty,

24    