He’s been thinking about marriage lately, especially about the inherent assumption of a ‘till death do us part’ type long-term commitment, not only to your partner but also to yourself.
The key moral question that begs understanding is – does one have the moral right to bind its future-self to certain actions? What gives one the moral significance over its future-self, which (it can be argued) would be more intelligent, evolved, and sorted? The answer has to be deeper than that the future-self is an arbitrary construction as of now.
People change. Their circumstances change. Their perspectives change. All the time. Without fail. In such a scenario, would it not be the case that although one is making promises about ‘itself,’ it is actually a binding contract for a completely different person! What if the future-self wants to rescind on a duty? Would it have lost all moral authority due to a commitment that its former-self made?
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