Thanks for this reply Michael! I’ll do a few replies and understand that you don’t want to get in a long back and forth so will understand if you don’t reply further.
Firstly, the following is all very useful background so I appreciate these clarifications:
First, the piece you’re referring to is a book review in an academic philosophy journal. I’m writing primarily for other philosophers who I can expect to have lots of background knowledge (which means I don’t need to provide it myself).
Second, book reviews are, by design, very short. You’re even discouraged from referencing things outside the text you’re reviewing. The word limit was 1,500 words—I think my review may even be shorter than your review of my review! - so the aim is just to give a brief overview and make a few comments.
Third, the thrust of my article is that MacAskill makes a disquietingly polemical, one-sided case for longtermism. My objective was to point this out and deliberately give the other side so that, once readers have read both they are, hopefully, left with a balanced view.
In light of this I think the wording “Plant presents a very one-sided analysis of the non-identity problem” is an unfair criticism. I’m still happy I wrote that section because I wanted to defend longtermism from your attack, but I should have framed it differently.
Thanks for this reply Michael! I’ll do a few replies and understand that you don’t want to get in a long back and forth so will understand if you don’t reply further.
Firstly, the following is all very useful background so I appreciate these clarifications:
In light of this I think the wording “Plant presents a very one-sided analysis of the non-identity problem” is an unfair criticism. I’m still happy I wrote that section because I wanted to defend longtermism from your attack, but I should have framed it differently.