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On ‘Modal Personism’
Author(s) -
McMahan Jeff
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12167
Subject(s) - modal , scope (computer science) , identity (music) , epistemology , abortion , sociology , philosophy , computer science , aesthetics , pregnancy , chemistry , biology , polymer chemistry , genetics , programming language
In this article I present several challenges to the view that S helly K agan calls ‘modal personism’. First, there is a plausible account of our identity that, if true, greatly diminishes the scope of K agan's view. But the scope of the view is already quite limited because the category of modal persons is restricted to those non‐persons that had but have lost the potential to become persons. If the category were to include non‐persons that retain the potential to become persons, K agan's view would have implausible implications about abortion and about the moral status of certain animals.