Abstract

One of Parfit’s arguments for the thesis that identity never matters involves generalizing from “divergence” cases in which identity arguably does not matter. The primary divergence case for Parfit is fission. According to Parfit’s assessment, it is not true that the fissioner gets what matters with respect to either fissionee by way of being identical to each fissionee but does so by way of the M-relation, psychological continuity with its normal cause, the persistence of enough of the brain. The same is true in all other divergence cases by Parfit’s accounting. Parfit generalizes. From (E) Whenever M and identity diverged, it would be M that mattered, not identity. Parfit infers (F) Whenever M and identity diverge and even when these relations coincide, it is M that matters, not identity. In this paper, I challenge the inference from (E) to (F).