Here’s what I find confusing about the last two cases:
I die, but I had split into two a minute ago
Here I think we agree that a person has really died, which is bad if you believe that all people, once existing, are morally significant (or are they?).
I die and am replaced by a stored copy of me from a minute ago
In the previous case, the copy was created before the person died, whereas in this case, the copy is created after the person dies. But why would the time the copy was created be relevant at all with regards to the answer of the question “Did anyone really die?” If someone died in the first case, then someone also died in the second case, since creating a copy is in no way causally connected with the dying of the person. So killing someone and creating a copy afterwards would have the same moral weight as creating a copy and then killing one of the people.
Here’s what I find confusing about the last two cases:
Here I think we agree that a person has really died, which is bad if you believe that all people, once existing, are morally significant (or are they?).
In the previous case, the copy was created before the person died, whereas in this case, the copy is created after the person dies. But why would the time the copy was created be relevant at all with regards to the answer of the question “Did anyone really die?” If someone died in the first case, then someone also died in the second case, since creating a copy is in no way causally connected with the dying of the person. So killing someone and creating a copy afterwards would have the same moral weight as creating a copy and then killing one of the people.