Self-versus-Self Conflicts

Barry Lam (University of California, Riverside)

Abstract   People change over time, sometimes in drastic ways, but we usually take the latest version of a person to be the one whose autonomy, interests, and wishes ought to be respected. There are interesting times when this is not true. Some people feel they owe it to their younger selves to carry out projects and commitments that were important then, but not now. Sometimes people give instructions for others to ensure that their current and not future self is the one whose wishes matter, like precommitment devices or binding directives for medical treatment. A self-versus-self conflict is when one version of yourself decides to limit or violate the autonomy or interests of a later version of yourself. It is not clear when doing this is morally permissible. I will be talking about the many ways people try to resolve self-versus-self conflicts and offer a unifying solution to them.

The 16th Gavin David Young Lecture in Philosophy