 As is also well-known, Rawls rejects this reasoning on the grounds that it does not take seriously the separateness and distinctness of persons. Persons are markedly more separate and distinct from one another than are the different phases or time-slices of a given person’s life. Because of this, one cannot proceed from its being worthwhile for a given person to incur costs for herself in order to spare herself greater costs to its being worthwhile for a given person as a member of society to incur costs for herself in order to spare any member of society greater costs. According to Rawls, only if we conflate individuals—only if we mistakenly conceive of them as parts of a single person-like being, will the utilitarian principle of social choice be on a par with the principle of individual choice (Rawls 1971: 26–7).