Perhaps I did not make my point clear. If you are asking for me to justify the terminal value of altruism, I can’t. By definition, terminal values cannot be justified by appealing to other values. However, I was simply pointing out that our concept of identity can break very easily, as you noted as well. If one thinks that all they should care about are “continuations of their current self” and then they think that only this chunk of matter is a continuation of their current self, then no, this is insufficient to justify altruism. However, as your post reveals, one can imagine switching between person slices spatially, just as one switches between time slices temporally.
Asking “Why should I care about person-slices the conscion visits if they are not my own?” well, you’ve presupposed that they aren’t your own. I am making the opposite connection.
Perhaps I did not make my point clear. If you are asking for me to justify the terminal value of altruism, I can’t. By definition, terminal values cannot be justified by appealing to other values. However, I was simply pointing out that our concept of identity can break very easily, as you noted as well. If one thinks that all they should care about are “continuations of their current self” and then they think that only this chunk of matter is a continuation of their current self, then no, this is insufficient to justify altruism. However, as your post reveals, one can imagine switching between person slices spatially, just as one switches between time slices temporally.
Asking “Why should I care about person-slices the conscion visits if they are not my own?” well, you’ve presupposed that they aren’t your own. I am making the opposite connection.