Well-being and psychological continuity

Abstract This paper tries to support the view that the permanent severing of one’s psychological connections across time is a distinctive harm; we are harmed when our mental lives, either in whole or in part, are prevented from being carried forward or developed continuously into the future. To support this view, I aim to show that it offers a better solution to an otherwise vexing explanatory problem than plausible alternatives, and at least as good a solution as the leading alternative. The problem is that of explaining why it would sometimes be rational to refuse life-saving treatment where such treatment would entail the loss of one’s memory and personality. Among the alternative explanations I consider is the view—advanced by Jeff McMahan and others—that the appropriateness of prudential concern for one’s future self is partly determined by the degree of psychological unity one experiences over time.