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shminux comments on Stupid Questions April 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Identity may be continuous, but it is not unchanging. You are not the person you were back then and are not required to be bound by their precommitments. No more than by someone else's precommitments. To be quasi-formal, the vows made back then are only morally binding on the fraction of your current self which are left unchanged from your old self.Or something like that.
Would you not object to your neighbor's refusal to return the set of tools you lent him on account of his having had a religious conversion?
What religion would compel you to do that?
Then don't make it a set of tools but a money loan. He switches to Islam and now things that interests on loans is immoral.
Imagine you're elected leader of a country. The last leader defended against an invasion by putting the country into debt. If he hadn't done that, the country would now be under control of the other country's totalitarian regime. You can pay the debt, but if you don't nobody can force you. Should you repay the debt? Are you bound by the precommitments of your predecessor?
A country that is known to elect new leaders cannot credibly precommit to paying back a loan unless it is in a situation that is robust against new leaders refusing to pay back the loans. So you would in fact be bound by the precommitments of your predecessor whether you wanted to be or not, though the exact mechanism can vary depending on exactly what made the precommitment credible.
Suppose the mechanism is that they're electing people that care about the country. Would this mechanism work? Would you and the other leaders consistently pay back loans?
If the mechanism didn't work, then the precommitment wouldn't be credible, and the people making the loans would have known that there is no credible precommitment.
And thus the country will fall. Since the leaders care about the country, they'd rather pay back some loans than let it fall, so the mechanism will work, right?
That's highly misleading. Empirically, many countries have successfully raise debt, and paid it back, despite debt-holders having no defense against a new leader wanting to default.
I think one defence those debt-holders have is that those countries have traditions of repaying debts.
Another is that, regardless of whether you're formally committed to repaying loans, if you default on one then you or your successors are going to get much worse terms (if any) for future loans. So a national leader who doesn't want to screw the country over is going to be reluctant to default.
Derek Parfit, on identity, talks about psychological connectedness (examples: recalling memories, continuing to hold a belief or desire, acting on earlier intentions), and continuity, which is the ancestral of connectedness. It sounds like you are saying that commitments should be binding based primarily on connectedness, not on continuity. But this has certain disadvantages. If I take the suggested attitude, I will be a less attractive partner to make deals and commitments with.
(I didn't downvote your comment BTW. But I bet my worries are similar to those of whoever did.)
Ah, yes, connectedness is indeed what I meant. Thanks! My point was that, while legal commitments transcend connectedness, moral need not.