The connection to personal identity is interesting, thanks for flagging that! I’d emphasize two main points in reply:
(i) While preference continuity is a component of person identity, it isn’t clear that it’s essential. Memory continuity is classically a major component, and I think it makes sense to include other personality characteristics too. We might even be able to include values in the sense of moral beliefs that could persist even while the agent goes through a period of being unable to care in the usual way about their values; they might still acknowledge, at least in an intellectual sense, that this is what they think they ought to care about. If someone maintained all of those other connections, and just temporary stopped caring about anything, I think they would still qualify as the same person. Their past self has not thereby “already died”.
(ii) re: “paternalism”, it’s worth distinguishing between acting against another’s considered preferences vs merely believing that their considered preferences don’t in fact coincide with their best interests. I don’t think the latter is “paternalistic” in any objectionable sense. I think it’s just obviously true that someone who is depressed or otherwise mentally ill may have considered preferences that fail to correspond to their best interests. (People aren’t infallible in normative matters, even concerning themselves. To claim otherwise would be an extremely strong and implausible view!)
fwiw, I also think that paternalistic actions are sometimes justifiable, most obviously in the case of literal children, or others (like the temporarily depressed!) for whom we have a strong basis to judge that the standard Millian reasons for deference do not apply.
But that isn’t really the issue here. We’re just assessing the axiological question of whether it would, as a matter of principle, be bad for the temporary depressive to die—whether we should, as mere bystanders, hope that they endure through this rough period, or that they instead find and take the means to end it all, despite the bright future that would otherwise be ahead of them.
The connection to personal identity is interesting, thanks for flagging that! I’d emphasize two main points in reply:
(i) While preference continuity is a component of person identity, it isn’t clear that it’s essential. Memory continuity is classically a major component, and I think it makes sense to include other personality characteristics too. We might even be able to include values in the sense of moral beliefs that could persist even while the agent goes through a period of being unable to care in the usual way about their values; they might still acknowledge, at least in an intellectual sense, that this is what they think they ought to care about. If someone maintained all of those other connections, and just temporary stopped caring about anything, I think they would still qualify as the same person. Their past self has not thereby “already died”.
(ii) re: “paternalism”, it’s worth distinguishing between acting against another’s considered preferences vs merely believing that their considered preferences don’t in fact coincide with their best interests. I don’t think the latter is “paternalistic” in any objectionable sense. I think it’s just obviously true that someone who is depressed or otherwise mentally ill may have considered preferences that fail to correspond to their best interests. (People aren’t infallible in normative matters, even concerning themselves. To claim otherwise would be an extremely strong and implausible view!)
fwiw, I also think that paternalistic actions are sometimes justifiable, most obviously in the case of literal children, or others (like the temporarily depressed!) for whom we have a strong basis to judge that the standard Millian reasons for deference do not apply.
But that isn’t really the issue here. We’re just assessing the axiological question of whether it would, as a matter of principle, be bad for the temporary depressive to die—whether we should, as mere bystanders, hope that they endure through this rough period, or that they instead find and take the means to end it all, despite the bright future that would otherwise be ahead of them.