248 NONMONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSFor Amy to perform some action at time T is for the bundle – the person(1) –
that is Amy at time T to act. The karmic effects of Amy’s action at T do not all
occur at T; it is false that the effects that Buddhist doctrine regards as karmic all
occur then and if they did all occur at T then, contrary to Buddhist doctrine,
karmic effects would not lead to reincarnation. Karmic credit or debit would be
instantaneously paid in or out. After T, there is no such person(1) that is
identical to Amy-at-T. Hence no effects shall accrue to that person(1). The
Buddhist idea is that the justice requirement be met as follows: a person(1)
other than Amy-at-T will receive the relevant karmic effects, and this
person(1) must be a part of the person(2) to which Amy-at-T belongs. On a
Jain account, the justice requirement is fulfilled only if the same self-conscious
substance as performed the deed receives the consequences.
An external critique of the view that persons are bundles^13
There are external criticisms of Buddhist-type views – criticisms that appeal to
claims that are not part of a Buddhist-type account of persons or otherwise
elements in a Buddhist perspective. There is nothing intrinsically
philosophically problematic in the notion of such a critique or in various of its
instances. If I forward the hypothesis that Mahavira was a Buddhist, I am not
thereby licensed to dismiss appeals to the contrary historical evidence by
noting that such evidence is not part of my perspective; in fact, the evidence
should be. There is no more reason to despise external philosophical criticism
than to despise external historical criticism. If I maintain that A rule of
inference is valid if and only if everyone who is asked about it accepts it,
thereby proposing to turn logic into a sort of sociology, I cannot reply to the
objection that I assume a mutual implication not analyzable in my own terms
without evacuating my claim of its intended content by saying something like
Since I don’t agree, that doesn’t refute me. It does, whether I accept it or not.
Consider, then, this argument:
1 I exist now.
2 If I exist now, it is logically possible that I exist now. (If a proposition P is
true, then of course it is possible that it is true.)
3 It is logically possible that I exist now. (from 1 and 2)
4 If it is logically possible that I exist now, it is logically possible that I exist
a moment from now.
5 It is logically possible that I exist a moment from now. (from 3 and 4)
6 If it is logically possible that I exist a moment from now, it is not
logically possible that the existence a moment from now of something
just like me would prevent me from existing a moment from now.