  On one view, if a person turns into a new individual in the later stages of dementia, this by itself undercuts the authority of the earlier person over her successor, regardless of whether the successor is a person or not. After all, why should an altogether different individual dictate how the current self is to be treated? However, more nuanced positions can also be found in the literature. Buchanan and Brock (1990) see the authority of the earlier self in cases of loss of numerical identity as crucially dependent on whether the current self is still a person. They accept that if the current self is a person, it would be a violation of her rights as a person to allow another individual to commandeer her affairs. However, if the current self is no longer a person, he lacks the same rights. And, as Buchanan and Brock see it, the earlier self has “something like a property right… to determine what happens to [his] nonperson successor” (166). That is, if one ceases to exist by turning into a nonperson, one retains a quasi-property right to control the resulting nonperson, presumably in much the same way that, when one ceases to exist by turning into a corpse, one has a quasi-property right to control the resulting corpse. Hence, on this approach, even if the earlier and current self are distinct individuals, the earlier self has the authority to determine what happens to the current self, so long as the current self has been stripped of personhood. In this way, the idea of a threshold of capacity beyond which the earlier self gains authority to dictate the current self's affairs is resurrected, despite the assumption that the earlier and current self are not the same individual. But, this time, the basis of the authority is different: it is not grounded in the continuity of overall interests between the two selves, but rather in the earlier self's quasi-property right. Note, though, that the claim that quasi-property rights could extend to rights over successors who are nonetheless conscious beings is controversial and requires further defense.