A popular view of harming is the causal account (CA), on which harming is causing harm. CA has several attractive features. In particular, it appears well equipped to deal with the most important problems for its main competitor, the counterfactual comparative account (CCA). However, we argue that, despite its advantages, CA is ultimately an unacceptable theory of harming. Indeed, while CA avoids several counterexamples to CCA, it is vulnerable to close variants of some of the problems that beset CCA.

Many people hold the constraint against doing harm, the view that the reason against doing harm is stronger than the reason against merely allowing harm, everything else being equal. Mogensen and MacAskill (2021) have recently argued that when considering indirect long-term consequences of our everyday behavior, the constraint against doing harm faces a problem: it has the absurd implication that we should do as little as possible in our lives. In this paper, I explore the view that, for behavior that (...) does not increase anyone’s ex ante risk of suffering harm, the reason against doing harm is not stronger than the reason against merely allowing harm, everything else being equal. I argue that this view is plausible, show how it solves the paralysis problem, and defend it against objections. (shrink)

ABSTRACT When does a state of affairs constitute a harm to someone? Comparative accounts say that being worse off constitutes harm. The temporal version of the comparative account is seldom taken seriously, due to apparently fatal counterexamples. I defend the temporal version against these counterexamples, and show that it is in fact more plausible than the prominent counterfactual version of the account. Non-comparative accounts say that being badly off constitutes harm. However, neither the temporal comparative account nor the non-comparative account (...) can correctly classify all harms. I argue that we should combine them into a hybrid account of harm. The hybrid account is extensionally adequate and presents a unified view on the nature of harm. (shrink)

Most philosophers in the death literature believe that death can be bad for the person who dies. The most popular view of death’s badness—namely, deprivationism—holds that death is bad for the person who dies because, and to the extent that, it deprives them of the net good that they would have accrued, had their actual death not occurred. Deprivationists thus face the challenge of locating the time that death is bad for a person. This is known as the Timing Problem, (...) which is thought to be one of the biggest challenges facing views holding that death can be bad for the person who dies. Every possible answer to this question has been defended in the literature, yet each answer can seemingly be shown to be subject to compelling objections. In this paper, I argue that the force of the Timing Problem is illusory. Specifically, I argue that the problem, as formulated in the literature, is underspecified. Any adequately precise form of the question ‘When is death bad for the person who dies?’ is one to which there is a clear, decisive, and unproblematic answer. (shrink)

Este artículo realiza una defensa de las axiologías centradas en el sufrimiento, que sostienen la prioridad de evitar el sufrimiento frente a la promoción de otros valores. Para ello, explica en primer lugar cómo ciertas cuestiones relativas a la creación de individuos sugieren la existencia de una asimetría entre el sufrimiento y la felicidad. Continúa describiendo un conjunto de argumentos a favor de la prioridad del sufrimiento relativos a individuos ya existentes. Asimismo, señala y responde a distintas objeciones que podrían (...) ser dirigidas contra estas axiologías. Finalmente, concluye que las posiciones centradas en el sufrimiento no están todavía lo bastante exploradas y pueden tener un gran potencial. (shrink)

What is wrong with imposing pure risks, that is, risks that don’t materialize into harm? According to a popular response, imposing pure risks is pro tanto wrong, when and because risk itself is harmful. Call this the Harm View. Defenders of this view make one of the following two claims. On the Constitutive Claim, pure risk imposition is pro tanto wrong when and because risk constitutes diminishing one’s well-being viz. preference-frustration or setting-back their legitimate interest in autonomy. On the Contingent (...) Claim, pure risk imposition is pro tanto wrong when and because risk has harmful consequences for the risk-bearers, such as psychological distress. This paper argues that the Harm View is plausible only on the Contingent Claim, but fails on the Constitutive Claim. In discussing the latter, I argue that both the preference and autonomy account fail to show that risk itself is constitutively harmful and thereby wrong. In discussing the former, I argue that risk itself is contingently harmful and thereby wrong but only in a narrow range of cases. I conclude that while the Harm View can sometimes explain the wrong of imposing risk when risk itself is contingently harmful, it is unsuccessful as a general, exhaustive account of what makes pure imposition wrong. (shrink)

In the literature about harm, the counterfactual comparative account has emerged as a main contender. According to it, an event constitutes a harm for someone iff the person is worse off than they would otherwise have been as a result. But the counterfactual comparative account faces significant challenges, one of the most serious of which stems from examples involving non-harmful omitted actions or non-occurring events, which it tends to misclassify as harms: for example, Robin is worse off when Batman does (...) not give him a new set of golf clubs, but Batman has not harmed him. In this article, I will clearly state the counterfactual comparative account; state and explain this objection to the account; canvass several unsatisfactory responses; and attempt to show how the account can overcome the objection. This solution involves distinguishing between principles concerning the existence of harm and principles concerning attributions of responsibility for harm. (shrink)

In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to explain how this can be so. In particular, it seems that on a simple counterfactual account of harm, the action does not harm anyone, as it does not make anyone (...) worse off than he or she would have been had the action not been performed. In this paper, I criticize the response that the action nevertheless harms the actual child, as well as the response that it makes the counterfactual child worse off. I argue that the following alternative view deserves attention: a compound of the actual and the counterfactual child is made worse off by the action. (shrink)

In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to explain how this can be so. In particular, it seems that on a simple counterfactual account of harm, the action does not harm anyone, as it does not make anyone (...) worse off than he or she would have been had the action not been performed. In this paper, I criticize the response that the action nevertheless harms the actual child, as well as the response that it makes the counterfactual child worse off. I argue that the following alternative view deserves attention: a compound of the actual and the counterfactual child is made worse off by the action. (shrink)

The problem of justified harm is the problem of explaining why it is permissible to inflict harm for the sake of future benefits in some cases but not in others. In this paper I first motivate the problem by comparing a case in which a lifeguard breaks a swimmer’s arm in order to save her life to a case in which Nazis imprison a man who later grows wiser as a result of the experience. I consider other philosophers’ attempts to (...) explain why the lifeguard’s action was permissible but the Nazis’ action was not. After arguing that principles having to do with consent, expected utility, and the types of harms and benefits at issue do not fully solve the problem, I argue for a causal solution to the problem. The causal solution includes both a causal account of harming and a distinction between causes and mere conditions. It then distinguishes between the lifeguard and Nazi cases with following principle: A harmful action that causes greater benefits can sometimes be justified by those benefits, but a harmful action that does not cause greater benefits cannot be justified by any subsequent benefits that the action, itself, does not cause. (shrink)

Many of us agree that we ought not to wrong future people, but there remains disagreement about which of our actions can wrong them. Can we wrong individuals whose lives are worth living by taking actions that result in their very existence? The problem of justifying an answer to this question has come to be known as the non-identity problem.[1] While the literature contains an array of strategies for solving the problem,[2] in this paper I will take what I call (...) the harm-based approach, and I will defend an account of harming—which I call the existence account of harming—that can vindicate this approach. -/- Roughly put, the harm-based approach holds that, by acting in ways that result in the existence of individuals whose lives are worth living, we can harm and thereby wrong those individuals. An initially plausible way to try to justify this approach is to endorse the non-comparative account of harming, which holds that an event harms an individual just in case it causes her to be in a bad state, such that the state’s badness does not derive from a comparison between that state and some alternative state that the individual would or could have been in. However, many philosophers argue that the non-comparative account of harming is inadequate,[3] and one might be tempted to infer from this that any harm-based approach to the non-identity problem will fail. My proposal, which I call the existence account of harming, will show that this inference is faulty: we can vindicate the harm-based approach without relying on the non-comparative account of harming. (shrink)

An important objection to the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA) of harm is that the account fails to cohere with standard views about the normative significance of harm. In response, some proponents of CCA suggest that the concept of harm should play a more limited role in normative theorising than philosophers might usually think. This paper addresses the most elaborate defence of CCA of this sort, namely that by Neil Feit (2019) Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 22, 809–823, and argues that (...) it is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is a very rare condition describing those with an intense desire or need to move from a state of ability to relative impairment, typically through the amputation of one or more limbs. In this paper, I draw upon research in critical disability studies and philosophy of disability to critique arguments based upon the principle of nonmaleficence against such surgery. I demonstrate how the action-relative concept of harm in such arguments relies upon suspect notions of biological (...) and statistical normality, and I contend that each fail to provide normative guidance. I then propose a critical theory of harm, one marked by substantive engagement with both empirical and reflective inquiry across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. I conclude by discussing the implications of this theory and how it might enrich ongoing debates in bioethics, philosophy of disability, and the health humanities. (shrink)

In this work, I will support a combined notion of harm according to which there are qualitatively different harms. I will support a way in which the severity of harms could be measured. Then, I will provide three principles about the strength of the reasons against harming. The supported thesis will provide some tools to solve some problems of the general part of criminal law. In relation to the analytical stratum of statutory description of an offence, I will show that (...) the defended notion of harm could help to solve cases of hypothetical and alternative causal courses. In relation to the analytical stratum of unlawfulness (or wrongfulness), I will show that the proposed ranking of the severity of harms help us to distinguish between cases of necessity as justification and necessity as excuse. In relation to the analytical stratum of culpability, I will show that the principles regarding the strength of the reasons against harming help us to supply straightforward criteria to measure the punishment to impose for having committed some crime. -/- En este trabajo intentaré defender una noción combinada de daño de acuerdo a la cual existen dos tipos de daños cualitativamente diferentes. Asimismo, defenderé un modo en que la gravedad de los diferentes daños puede ser graduada. Derivado de lo anterior, extraeré tres principios sobre la fuerza de las razones en contra de dañar. La tesis defendida proporcionará herramientas para resolver algunos problemas de la parte general de derecho penal. En relación al tipo penal, mostraré que la noción de daño defendida puede ayudar a resolver casos de cursos causales alternativos e hipotéticos. En referencia a la antijuridicidad, mostraré que la clasificación de la gravedad de los daños propuesta ayuda a distinguir qué casos de estado de necesidad deben considerarse como justificación y cuales como excusa. En referencia a la culpabilidad, mostraré que los principios sobre la diferente fuerza de las razones en contra de dañar ayudan a aportar criterios claros para la individualización de la pena a imponer por la comisión de un delito. (shrink)