How to oversurvive? An objection to Braddon-Mitchell & Miller's theory of personal persistence

Abstract

[eng] In this paper I argue that Braddon-Mitchell and Miller's conventionalist theory of personal persistence - conativism - entails oversurvival, which is problematic for a theory of personal identity. I first explain the system in its strongest version, direct-private conativism plus the SP-degree thesis, both on exdurantism, the best semantics of persistence on this account. The oversurvival objection grows from their own example of the embodied backup - a puzzle case like fission or teletrans- portation, consisting in cloning. Since this case is odd, I then extend the problem to a common one - one's offspring - where the same structure makes oversurvival ordinary. I conclude that oversurvival is the symptom of a deeper mismatch and propose that the relation conativism analyses does not isolate personal persistence but tracks self-transcendence.