Descendants and advance directives

Some of the concerns that have been raised in connection to the use of advance directives are of the epistemic variety. Such concerns highlight the possibility that adhering to an advance directive may conflict with what the author of the directive actually wants (or would want) at the time of treatment. However, at least one objection to the employment of advance directives is metaphysical in nature. The objection to be discussed here, first formulated by Rebecca Dresser and labeled by Allen Buchanan as the slavery argument and David DeGrazia the someone else problem, aims to undermine the legitimacy of certain uses of advance directives by concluding that such uses rest upon an incorrect assumption about the identity over time of those ostensibly governed by the directives. There have been numerous attempts to respond to this objection. This paper aims to assess two strategies that have been pursued to cope with the problem.