Temporal Parts

At the recent Syracuse Metaphysics conference I commented on Roy Sorensen’s paper on prepunishment (not online). This part of the commentary wasn’t really on topic, but it was kind of amusing. (Well, it got more laughs than my usual attempts at weaving jokes into philosophy do. Perhaps that was because I started with the jokes and tried to weave in the philosophy.) There’s nothing particularly deep here, but I do think it challenges the view that folk ontology does not include temporal parts.

Grand-Patricide

Forty year old Marty travels back in time to meet his twenty year old self. He knew he was going to do this, since he remembered meeting himself way back when, but he didn’t let a little foreknowledge stop anything. After meeting himself, and saying the dumb things he (again) regretted saying, Marty decided to play a little prank. He would show those silly philosophers who said it was impossible to travel back in time and kill your grandfather. He marched to the hospital where poor grandfather was dying, and killed him.
Marty was then apprehended twice over. Everyone agreed that forty-year old Marty should be punished for his heinous crime, but the guards forgot to confiscate his time machine and he managed to escape before trial. (In Syracuse I had forty-year old Marty being punished, but Jeremy Pierce correctly pointed out this raised confusing issues about double jeopardy.) There was, however, some dispute over what should be the fate of twenty-year old Marty. The courtroom dialogue went like this.

Starr: Marty is a killer, and he must be punished.
Cochran: He can’t be punished because he hasn’t (yet) killed anyone.
Starr: The rule against pre-punishment only exists to prevent punishments not caused by their constituent crimes. This punishment is caused by grandfather’s murder, and Marty is the agent of that murder.
Cochran: No, Marty’s older temporal part is the agent, not this sweet young murderer-to-be.
Starr: That can’t be a persuasive response – folk ontology doesn’t include temporal parts. Even prominent perdurantists think they are a philosophers’ discovery. (And good endurantists think they are a philosophers’ invention.)
Jury: Sounds persuasive to us.
Brian: See – the folk do believe in temporal parts after all! I’ve got no idea how anyone who doesn’t believe in temporal parts can block Starr’s argument, yet it seems Cochran is intuitively correct.