According to the psychological account of personal identity, our identity is based on the continuity of psychological connections, and so we do not begin to exist until these are possible, some months after conception. This entails the psychological account faces a challenge from the non-identity problem—our intuition that someone cannot be harmed by actions that are responsible for their existence, even if these actions seem clearly to cause them harm. It is usually discussed with regard to preconception harms, but (...) in the context of the psychological account, it is also applicable to prenatal harms. Inflicting prenatal injury is widely thought to be morally impermissible, but if the injury is identity-determining on the psychological account, then no-one seems to be harmed—rather, the injury is responsible for bringing them into existence. Here, I argue that identity-determining injuries can routinely occur on the psychological account, and that this undermines the account. I assess Nicola Williams’ proposal to salvage the account based on a trans-world account of personal identity, and show that it is unsuccessful. I then show that Jeff McMahan’s embodied mind account of personal identity is also susceptible. I conclude that identity-determining prenatal injuries pose a significant challenge for the psychological account and its variants, and provide a reason for supporting alternative accounts that fix personal identity at conception. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Boonin’s The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People and Rivka Weinberg’s The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When and Why Procreation May Be Permissible are both important books for those interested in procreative ethics. Each argues for surprising and controversial conclusions: Boonin argues that we should solve the non-identity problem by accepting its apparently (...) unacceptable conclusion that actions cannot be wrong due to their effects on future people whose lives are worth living and who would not exist were the actions not performed; Weinberg argues that there is no non-identity problem, that future children have no interest in existing, but significant interest in avoiding harm and that procreation is, therefore, a much more morally risky business than we tend to think. Even if... (shrink)

Our pollution of the environment seems set to lead to widespread problems in the future, including disease, scarcity of resources, and bloody conflicts. It is natural to think that we are required to stop polluting because polluting harms the future individuals who will be faced with these problems. This natural thought faces Derek Parfit’s famous Non-Identity Problem ( 1984 , pp. 361–364). The people who live on the polluted earth would not have existed if we had not polluted. Our (...) polluting behaviour does not make these individuals worse off. It may therefore seem that we do not harm them by polluting. Parfit argues that we should replace person-affecting principles with an impersonal principle of beneficence, Principle Q ( 1984 , p. 360.). I argue that Principle Q cannot give an adequate account of our duties to refrain from polluting. I consider attempts to solve the Non-Identity Problem by denying that to harm someone an agent must make them worse off. I argue that such responses provide a partial solution to the Non-Identity Problem. They do show that we harm future individuals in a morally relevant sense by polluting. Nonetheless, this is only a partial solution. The Non-Identity Problem still suggests that our harm-based reasons not to pollute are less strong than we intuitively believe. Thus on its own an appeal to the claim that we harm future individuals is not able to give a fully satisfactory account of why we are required not to pollute. (shrink)

One of the longstanding issues that haunted the minds of many philosophers is our responsibility toward future generations. D. Parfit put forward one of the philosophical arguments that real people cannot be held accountable for the harm caused by their actions. Future people, as long as they have a decent life, cannot complain about a possible catastrophic situation created by the society that lives now, because subject-subject debt relationship can only exist between certain and existing people. D. Parfit’s counterintuitive idea (...) has been challenged by philosophers. In recent literature A. Wrigley sets out to provide a solution to the problem of nonidentity drawing on the D. Lewis’s metaphysics of modality. It is reasoned why the proposal of A. Wrigley cannot solve the problems about non-existent people advanced by D. Parfit. (shrink)

One of the longstanding issues that haunted the minds of many philosophers is our responsibility toward future generations. However, our crude intuition tells us that we owe many tasks toward next generations and our offspring, this seemingly obvious common-sense view has been disputed seriously and now is a matter of controversy one of the philosophical arguments that most forcefully challenged the intuitively accepted responsibility toward nonexistent people has been developed by Dereck Parfit [8]. According to this argument, the presently existent (...) people cannot be held responsible for harms that are caused by their actions. The reason that future people, so long as they have a life worth living, aren’t morally allowed to complain about their disastrous situation to harmdoer is that right-duty relation can hold merely between determinate and existent people. Parfitt's counterintuitive idea has been challenged by philosophers. In recent literature, Anthony Wrigley [10 & 11) sets out to provide a solution to the problem of nonidentity drawing on the David Lewis’s metaphysics of modality. In this paper, raising three objections, I argue why Wrigley's solution cannot address Parfit's concern about nonexistent people. (shrink)

In my essay I consider the imaginary case of a future mother who refuses to undergo genetic alteration on her germline although she knows that her, as yet unconceived, child will have a serious genetic disorder. I analyze the good and bad points of two branches of arguments directed against her decision, consequentialist and rights-based. Then I discuss whether accepting one line of these arguments or the other makes a difference in moral assessment. I conclude that, although from the preanalytical (...) perspective we strongly oppose the refusal of genetic treatment in my imaginary case, it is probably impossible to construct one coherent theory which embraces all possible moral dilemmas triggered by our actions which affect the number and the identity of future people. (shrink)

The non-identity problem is that some actions seem morally wrong even though, by affecting future people’s identities, they are worse for nobody. In this paper, I further develop and defend a lesser-known solution to the problem, one according to which when such actions are wrong, it is not because of what they do or produce, but rather just because of why they were performed. In particular, I argue that the actions in non-identity cases are wrong just when and (...) because they result from, or reflect in those who have performed them, a morally dubious character trait. (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)

Since its proposal in 1984, Derek Parfit’s ‘Non-Identity Problem’ has significantly influenced how social choice theorists understand existential harms and benefits. The ‘problem’ raises the question of whether parents act wrongly when they choose to create a child with a life barely worth living. It suggests that if the alternatives would have either resulted in a life not worth living or non-existence, then the parents are not liable for moral criticism. This article challenges Parfit’s premise by advocating for (...) a Minimal Concern Clause that is generated through the parental relation. The Clause operates under the assumption that non-existence is not a valanced experiential state and is thus not comparable to any positive state of existence. The argument unfolds in two main steps: firstly, it disputes the premise in Same-Number Cases by proposing an alternative semantic distinction between objects of reference, particularly, the status of a merely possible person. Secondly, it contends that in Different-Number Cases, parents are obligated to exercise minimal prudence under conditions of uncertainty, and that the moral weight of the Minimal Concern Clause must be compounded to reflect the replicable nature of procreation. (shrink)

A number of theorists have argued that Scanlon's contractualist theory both "gets around" and "solves" the non-identity problem. They argue that it gets around the problem because hypothetical deliberation on general moral principles excludes the considerations that lead to the problem. They argue that it solves the problem because violating a contractualist moral principle in one's treatment of another wrongs that particular other, grounding a person-affecting moral claim. In this paper, I agree with the first claim (...) but note that all it shows is that the act is impersonally wrong. I then dispute the second claim. On Scanlon's contractualist view, one wrongs a particular other if one treats the other in a way that is unjustifiable to that other on reasons she could not reasonably reject. We should think of person-affecting wronging in terms of the reasons had by the actual agent and the actual person affected by the agent's action. In non-identity cases, interpersonal justifiability is therefore shaped both by the reason to reject the treatment provided by the bad suffered and the reason to affirm the treatment provided by the goods had as a result of existing. I argue it would be reasonable for the actual person to find the treatment justifiable, and so I conclude that Scanlon's contractualist metaethics does not provide a narrow person-affecting solution to the non-identity problem on its own terms. I conclude that the two claims represent a tension within Scanlon's contractualist theory itself. (shrink)

Much work in contemporary bioethics defends a broadly liberal view of human reproduction. I shall take this view to comprise (but not to be exhausted by) the following four claims.1 First, it is permissible both to reproduce and not to reproduce, either by traditional means or by means of assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF and genetic screening. Second, it is permissible either to reproduce or to adopt or otherwise foster an existing child to which one is not biologically related. (...) Third, it is permissible either to bring into existence a child with the greatest chance of a life of maximum human flourishing or to bring into existence a child with a life worth living but with less than the greatest chance of a life of maximum human flourishing. Fourth, it is impermissible to bring into existence a child whose life is either certain or likely to fall below some baseline of a human life minimally worth living. (shrink)

More than some other fields of ethics, climate ethics is related to pressing real-world problems. Climate ethicists have a responsibility to be precise about the status of the problems they discuss. The non-identity problem (NIP) plays are a prominent role in the climate ethics literature. In a widely discussed statement, Derek Parfit claimed that a risky climate policy is not harmful for (distant) future people. But this ignores the “insignificant-causal-factors rejoinder”. The Parfitian assertion is still treated as serious (...) class='Hi'>problem to theories of climate justice in key philosophical texts, and this may mislead climate policy decision-makers. Philosophers should acknowledge that the NIP, when applied to climate change, is “just” a thought experiment and should communicate it in this way to people outside the philosophical community. (shrink)

Is it wrong to create a blind child, for example by in vitro fertilization, if you could create a sighted child instead? Intuitively many people believe it is wrong, but this belief is difficult to justify. When there is a possibility to create and select either ‘blind’ or ‘sighted’ embryos choosing a set of ‘blind’ embryos seems to harm no-one since choosing ‘sighted’ embryos would create a different child altogether. So when the parents choose ‘blind’ embryos, they give some specific (...) individual a life that is the only option for her. Because her life is worth living (as blind peoples’ lives are), the parents have not wronged the child by creating her. This is the reasoning behind the famous non-identity problem. I suggest that the non-identity problem is based on a misunderstanding. I claim that when choosing a ‘blind’ embryo, prospective parents harm ‘their child’, whoever she or he will be. Put another way: parents harm their child in the de dicto sense and that is morally wrong. (shrink)

Abstract More than some other fields of ethics, climate ethics is related to pressing real-world problems. Climate ethicists have a responsibility to be precise about the status of the problems they discuss. The non-identity problem (NIP) plays are a prominent role in the climate ethics literature. In a widely discussed statement, Derek Parfit claimed that a risky climate policy is not harmful for (distant) future people. But this ignores the “insignificant-causal-factors rejoinder”. The Parfitian assertion is still treated as serious (...) problem to theories of climate justice in key philosophical texts, and this may mislead climate policy decision-makers. Philosophers should acknowledge that the NIP, when applied to climate change, is “just” a thought experiment and should communicate it in this way to people outside the philosophical community. (shrink)

Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to realize states of affairs that are in some respect best, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Many philosophers, however, reject such theories in favor of alternatives that recognize fundamentally non-teleological reasons, second-personal reasons that reflect a moral significance each person has that is not grounded in the teleologist’s appeal to outcomes. Such deontological accounts appear to be better positioned to (...) identify the wrong committed against non-identity victims because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims -- overall benefit to victims presents no obstacle to the identification of second-personal wrongdoing. Derek Parfit argues that non-identity is a problem for these deontological theories as well because the alleged victims are properly understood as consenting to the action in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claim. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent on such theories by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that their advocates dismiss as inadequate. Properly understood, Parfit’s appeal to consent understood as retroactive endorsement only provides the answer on such deontological accounts to the question of whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. Indeed, it becomes clear that it is teleological theories for which non-identity poses a particular problem: they cannot -- while their deontological counterparts can – account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged. (shrink)

This paper examines a recent argument in favour of strong precautionary action—possibly including working to hasten human extinction—on the basis of a decision-theoretic view that accommodates the risk-attitudes of all affected while giving more weight to the more risk-averse attitudes. First, we dispute the need to take into account other people’s attitudes towards risk at all. Second we argue that a version of the non-identity problem undermines the case for doing so in the context of future people. Lastly, we (...) suggest that we should not work to hasten human extinction, even if significant risk aversion is warranted. (shrink)

According to various “harm-based” approaches to the non-identity problem, an action that brings a particular child into existence can also harm that child, even if his or her life is worth living. In the third chapter of The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People, David Boonin surveys a variety of harm-based approaches and argues that none of them are successful. In this paper I argue that his objections to these various approaches do not impugn a harm-based (...) approach that Boonin does not consider, an approach I call the “existence solution to the non-identity problem.” I also argue that the existence solution is more plausible than Boonin’s own proposed solution. (shrink)

Person-affecting views in population ethics state that (in cases where all else is equal) we’re permitted but not required to create people who would enjoy good lives. In this paper, I present an argument against every possible variety of person-affecting view. The argument takes the form of a dilemma. Narrow person-affecting views must embrace at least one of three implausible verdicts in a case that I call ‘Expanded Non-Identity.’ Wide person-affecting views run into trouble in a case that I call (...) ‘Two-Shot Non-Identity.’ One plausible practical upshot of my argument is as follows: we individuals and our governments should be doing more to reduce the risk of human extinction this century. (shrink)

This paper argues that we hold two key duties to future people: to leave them enough in an absolute sense, and to leave them their fair share. Even if we benefit people by bringing them into existence, we can wrongly exploit our position to take more than our share of benefits. As in paradigm cases of exploitation, just because future people might agree to the ‘bargain’, this does not mean that they receive enough.

I develop a theodicy (Non-Identity Theodicy) that begins with the recognition that we owe our existence to great and varied evils. I develop two versions of this theodicy, with the result that some version is available to the theist regardless of her assumptions about the existence and nature of free will. My defense of Non-Identity Theodicy is aided by an analogy between divine creation and human procreation. I argue that if one af rms the morality of vol- untary human procreation, (...) one should af rm the morality of divine creation; conversely, deny- ing the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

This thesis in an invistigation into the concept of "harm" and its moral relevance. A common view is that an analysis of harm should include a counterfactual condition: an act harms a person iff it makes that person worse off. A common objection to the moral relevance of harm, thus understood, is the non-identity problem. -/- This thesis criticises the counterfactual condition, argues for an alternative analysis and that harm plays two important normative roles. -/- The main ground for (...) rejecting the counterfactual condition is that it has unacceptable consequences in cases of overdetermination and pre-emption. Several modifications to the condition are considered but all fail to solve this problem. -/- According to the alternative analysis to do harm is to perform an act which is responsible for the obtaining of a state of affairs which makes a person’s life go worse. It is argued that should be understood in terms of counterfactual dependence. This claim is defended against counterexamples based on redundant causation. An analysis of is also provided using the notion of a well-being function. It is argued that by introducing this notion it is possible to analyse contributive value without making use of counterfactual comparisons and to solve the non-identity problem. -/- Regarding the normative importance of harm, a popular intuition is that there is an asymmetry in our obligations to future people: that a person would have a life worth living were she to exist is not a reason in favour of creating that person while that a person would have a life not worth living is a reason against creating that person. It is argued that the asymmetry can be classified as a moral option grounded in autonomy. Central to this defence is the suggestion that harm is relevant to understanding autonomy. Autonomy involves partly the freedom to pursue one’s own aims as long as one does no harm. (shrink)

We offer an account of the metaphysics of persons rooted in Latter-day saint scripture that vindicates the essentiality of origins. We then give theological support for the claim that prospects for the success of God’s soul making project are bound up in God creating particular persons. We observe that these persons would not have existed were it not for the occurrence of a variety of evils (of even the worst kinds), and we conclude that Latter-day saint theology has the resources (...) to endorse a strong soul-making non-identity theodicy. We then introduce two complications for this account rooted in the problem of horrendous evils. First, horrendous evils threaten to undermine our confidence that God is good to each created person within the context of their life. And second, horrendous evils raise concerns about the value of persons whose existence depends on the occurrence of those evils. We may wonder whether those whose existence depends on the occurrence of horrendous evils are valuable enough to motivate God’s allowance of those evils. We show that by attending to important structural features of a post-mortem, pre-eschatological state called the spirit world, Latter-day Saints can ameliorate these concerns about horrendous evils . (shrink)

Discussions of the non-identity problem presuppose a widely shared intuition that actions or policies that change who comes into existence don't, thereby, become morally unproblematic. We hypothesize that this intuition isn’t generally shared by the public, which could have widespread implications concerning how to generate support for large-scale, identity-affecting policies relating to matters like climate change. To test this, we ran a version of the well-known dictator game designed to mimic the public's behavior over identity-affecting choices. We found the (...) public does seem to behave more selfishly when making identity-affecting choices, which should be concerning. We further hypothesized that one possible mechanism is the notion of harm the public uses in their decision-making and find that substantial portions of the population seem to each employ distinct notions of harm in their normative thinking. These findings raise puzzling features about the public’s normative thinking that call out for further empirical examination. (shrink)

The non-identity problem is usually considered in the forward-looking direction but a version of it also applies to the past, due to the fact that even minor historical changes would have affected the whole subsequent sequence of births, dramatically changing who comes to exist next. This simple point is routinely overlooked by familiar attitudes and evaluative judgments about the past, even those of sophisticated historians. I shall argue, however, that it means that when we feel sadness about some historical (...) tragedy, or think of one possible course of history as better than another, these judgments and attitudes can be understood in terms of two opposing perspectives on the past: an impersonal standpoint concerned only with how much value each course of history contains, and a person-centred standpoint concerned with harms and benefits to the people who had actually existed. In this paper, I will set out these radically different visions of what matters in history and point out some of their surprising implications. (shrink)

Essentialism about natural kinds involves talking about kinds across possible worlds. I argue that there is a non-trivial transworld identity problem here, which cannot be (dis)solved in the same way that Kripke treats the corresponding transworld identity problem for individuals. -/- I will briefly discuss some ideas for a solution. The upshot is scepticism concerning natural-kind essentialism.

Keränen (2001) raises an argument against realistic (ante rem) structuralism: where a mathematical structure has a non-trivial automorphism, distinct indiscernible positions within the structure cannot be shown to be non-identical using only the properties and relations of that structure. Ladyman (2005) responds by allowing our identity criterion to include 'irreflexive two-place relations'. I note that this does not solve the problem for structures with indistinguishable positions, i.e. positions that have all the same properties as each other and exactly the (...) same relations to all objects (including themselves). I conclude that realistic structuralists must compromise and treat some structures eliminativistically. (shrink)

The problem of personal identity is a longstanding philosophical topic albeit without final consensus. In this article the somewhat similar problem of AI identity is discussed, which has not gained much traction yet, although this investigation is increasingly relevant for different fields, such as ownership issues, personhood of AI, AI welfare, brain–machine interfaces, the distinction between singletons and multi-agent systems as well as to potentially support finding a solution to the problem of personal identity. The AI identity (...) problem analyses the criteria for two AIs to be considered the same at different points in time. Two approaches to tackle the problem are proposed: One is based on the personal identity problem and the concept of computational irreducibility, while the other one applies multi-factor authentication to the AI identity problem. Also, a range of scenarios is examined regarding AI identity, such as replication, fission, fusion, switch off, resurrection, change of hardware, transition from non-sentient to sentient, journey to the past, offspring and identity change. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I explicate some of the moral duties we have to future humans. I defend the view that (DV1) we have pro tanto duties of nonmaleficence and beneficence to and regarding at least some future humans; (DV2) in the present circumstances, this duty of nonmaleficence grounds reasons for us to refrain from damaging certain features of the natural environment; and (DV3) in the present circumstances, this duty of beneficence grounds reasons for at least some of us to bring (...) future humans into existence. I refer to the view consisting of (DV1) - (DV3) as the Duties to Future Humans View (DV). In defense of DV1, I argue that future humans have moral standing, and that their having moral standing is sufficient for our having pro tanto duties of nonmaleficence and beneficence to and regarding them. I take a duty of nonmaleficence to be a duty to refrain from harming and a duty of beneficence to be a duty to benefit. In defense of DV2, I argue that increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and numerous species extinctions are harms for future humans. In defense of DV3, I argue that having a life worth living is a benefit to the person who lives that life. One objection to DV is the non-identity problem. In response, I defend substantive accounts of harming and benefiting. The account of harming holds that for any individual having moral standing, S, and any state of affairs, A, (1) A is a harm for S just in case if it were true that both S existed and A did not obtain, then S would have a higher level of lifetime well-being; (2) an action or event harms S just in case it causes a harm for S to obtain; (3) other things being equal, the reason against harming S is stronger, the more similar the world would be if A did not obtain. I argue for a similar account of benefiting. I also argue for a metaphysical distinction between causes and mere conditions. (shrink)

In Reasons and Persons, Parfit (1984) posed a challenge: provide a satisfying normative account that solves the Non-Identity Problem, avoids the Repugnant and Absurd Conclusions, and solves the Mere-Addition Paradox. In response, some have suggested that we look toward person-affecting views of morality for a solution. But the person-affecting views that have been offered so far have been unable to satisfy Parfit's four requirements, and these views have been subject to a number of independent complaints. This paper describes a (...) person-affecting account which meets Parfit's challenge. The account satisfies Parfit's four requirements, and avoids many of the criticisms that have been raised against person-affecting views. (shrink)

The question of Modern Greek identity is certainly timely. The political events of the previous years have once more brought up such questions as: What does it actually mean to be a Greek today? What is Modern Greece, apart from and beyond the bulk of information that one would find in an encyclopaedia and the established stereotypes? This volume delves into the timely nature of these questions and provides answers not by referring to often-cited classical Antiquity, nor by treating Greece (...) as merely and exclusively a modern nation-state. Rather, it approaches the subject in a kaleidoscopic way, by tracing the line from the Byzantine Empire to Modern Greek culture, society, philosophy, literature and politics. In presenting the diverse and certainly non-dominant approaches of a multitude of Greek scholars, it provides new insights into a diachronic problem, and will encourage new arguments and counterarguments. Despite commonly held views among Greek intelligentsia or the worldwide community, Modern Greek identity remains an open question – and wound. (shrink)

This chapter defends a deontological approach to both the non-identity problem and what is referred to as the “inconsequentiality problem.” Both problems arise in cases where, although the actions of presently living people appear to have harmful consequences for future people, it is difficult to explain why there are moral reasons against such actions. The deontological response to both problems appeals to a distinction between causal and non-causal consequences. By acknowledging the moral importance of such a distinction, deontologists (...) can vindicate the judgment that, collectively and individually, we have harm-based reasons against bringing about bad consequences for future people. (shrink)

The necessity of origin suggests that a person’s identity is determined by the particular pair of gametes from which the person originated. An implication is that speculative scenarios concerning how we might otherwise have been had our gametic origins been different are dismissed as being metaphysically impossible. Given, however, that many of these speculations are intelligible and commonplace in the discourses of competent speakers, it is overhasty to dismiss them as mistakes. This paper offers a way of understanding these speculations (...) that does not commit them to incoherence but aims to make the best sense of what they are expressing. Using the philosophical framework of two‐dimensional semantics, it proposes that the speculative scenarios are best analysed as epistemic possibilities, rather than as metaphysical possibilities. It then explores some implications of this analysis for the ethical challenges associated with the non‐identity problem. (shrink)

Those who do not exist cannot be harmed. If someone is not worse off than she otherwise would have been, she is not harmed. Together, these claims entail that the individuals in non-identity cases are not harmed, because no one who exists is made worse off. While these claims might be true at the individual level, their truth does not preclude our having harm-based concerns about future persons in general. These concerns are justified when we recognize the responsibility we have (...) over certain offices that persons come to fill. By positing an account of de dicto harm and arguing for its moral relevance, I provide a solution to the non- identity problem that coheres nicely with our intuitions regarding harm, responsibility, and obligations to future persons. (shrink)

One of Derek Parfit’s greatest legacies was the search for Theory X, a theory of population ethics that avoided all the implausible conclusions and paradoxes that have dogged the field since its inception: the Absurd Conclusion, the Repugnant Conclusion, the Non-Identity Problem, and the Mere Addition Paradox. In recent years, it has been argued that this search is doomed to failure and no satisfactory population axiology is possible. This chapter reviews Parfit’s life’s work in the field and argues that (...) he provided all the necessary components necessary for a Theory X. It then shows how these components can be combined together and applied to the global challenges Parfit argued matter most: preventing human extinction, managing catastrophic risks, and eradicating global poverty and suffering. Finally, it identifies a number of challenges facing his theory and suggests how these may be overcome. (shrink)

The dominant framework for addressing procreative ethics has revolved around the notion of harm, largely due to Derek Parfit’s famous non-identity problem. Focusing exclusively on the question of harm treats what procreators owe their offspring as akin to what they would owe strangers (if they owe them anything at all). Procreators, however, usually expect (and are expected) to parent the persons they create, so we cannot understand what procreators owe their offspring without also appealing to their role as prospective (...) parents. I argue that prospective parents can wrong their future children just by failing to act well in their role as parents, whether or not their offspring are ultimately harmed or benefitted by their creation. Their obligations as prospective parents bear on the motivations behind their reproductive choices, including the choice to select for some genetic trait in their offspring. Even when procreators’ motivations aren’t malicious, or purely selfish, they can still fail to recognize and act for the end of the parental role. Procreators can wrong their offspring by selecting for some genetic trait, then, when doing so would violate their obligations as prospective parents, or when their motivation for doing so is antithetical to the end of the parental role. (shrink)

El artículo defiende una solución al problema de la no identidad, que surge porque la existencia de muchas personas futuras es contingente en relación con nuestras decisiones. Esto hace que, aunque tengan una calidad de vida muy baja, tal situación no sea peor para ellas. Se defiende una solución basada en una noción de umbral de daño: tal noción ayuda a explicar la incorrección que existe en los casos atravesados por el problema de la no identidad. Finalmente, se analizan otras (...) tres soluciones. Sin embargo, se afirma que no son completamente satisfactorias sin un desarrollo ulterior.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -/- The article defends a solution to non-identity problem, which arises because the existence of many future persons is contingent with respect to our decisions. Consequently, despite their possible low quality of life, that situation is not worse for them. The article argues for a solution based on the threshold notion of harm, which helps in explaining the wrongness involved in those cases crossed by the non-identity problem. Finally, it analyzes three other solutions. However, it is argued that they are not entirely satisfactory without further developments. (shrink)

A religion with Buddhism's particular moral philosophies of non-violence and asceticism and with its *functional* polytheism in practice should not generate genocidal nationalist violence. Yet, there are resources within the Buddhist canon that people can draw from to justify violence in defense of the religion and of a Buddhist-based polity. When those resources are exploited, for example in the context of particular Theravāda Buddhist practices and the history of Buddhism and Buddhist identity in Burma from ancient times through its colonial (...) and contemporary periods, it perpetuates an ongoing tragedy that is less about religion than about ethno-nationalism. (shrink)

In this paper I tried to find a harm based solution to the non-identity problem. I explore the view upon which future persons are harmed if we prevent them from having what it is required by the Principle of Utility.

It is frequently claimed that breeding animals that we know will have unavoidable health problems is at least prima facie wrong, because it harms the animals concerned. However, if we take ‘harm’ to mean ‘makes worse off’, this claim appears false. Breeding an animal that will have unavoidable health problems does not make any particular individual animal worse off, since an animal bred without such problems would be a different individual animal. Yet, the intuition that there is something ethically wrong (...) about breeding animals—such as purebred pedigree dogs—in ways that seem negatively to affect welfare remains powerful. In this paper, an animal version of what is sometimes called the non-identity problem is explored, along with a number of possible ways of understanding what might be wrong with such breeding practices, if it is not that they harm the animal itself. These possibilities include harms to others, placeholder arguments, non-comparative ideas of harm, an ‘impersonal’ approach, and concerns about human attitudes and dispositions. (shrink)

Proponents of human reproductive cloning do not dispute that cloning may lead to violations of clones' right to self-determination, or that these violations could cause psychological harms. But they proceed with their endorsement of human reproductive cloning by dismissing these psychological harms, mainly in two ways. The first tactic is to point out that to commit the genetic fallacy is indeed a mistake; the second is to invoke Parfit's non-identity problem. The argument of this paper is that neither approach (...) succeeds in removing our moral responsibility to consider and to prevent psychological harms to cloned individuals. In fact, the same commitment to personal liberty that generates the right to reproduce by means of cloning also creates the need to limit that right appropriately. Discussion of human reproductive cloning ought to involve a careful and balanced consideration of both the relevant aspects of personal liberty – the parents' right to reproductive freedom and the cloned child's right to self-determination. (shrink)

I defend a new version of the non-identity theodicy. After presenting the theodicy, I reply to a series of objections. I then argue that my approach improves upon similar approaches in the literature.

ABSTRACT I motivate ‘Origin Conventionalism’—the view that which facts about one’s origins are essential to one’s existence depends partly on our person-directed attitudes. One important upshot is that the view offers a novel and attractive solution to the Nonidentity Problem. That problem typically assumes that the sperm-egg pair from which a person originates is essential to that person’s existence; in which case, for many future persons that come into existence under adverse conditions, had those conditions not been realized, (...) the individuals wouldn’t have existed. This is problematic because it delivers the counter-intuitive conclusion that it’s not wrong to bring about such adverse conditions since they don’t harm anyone. Origin Conventionalism, in contrast, holds that whether a person’s sperm-egg origin is essential to their existence depends on their person-directed attitudes. I argue that this provides a unique and attractive way of preserving the intuition that the actions in the ‘nonidentity cases’ are morally wrong because of the potential harm done to the individuals in question. (shrink)

Several philosophers argue that individuals have an interest-protecting right to parent; specifically, the interest is in rearing children whom one can parent adequately. If such a right exists it can provide a solution to scepticism about duties of justice concerning distant future generations and bypass the challenge provided by the non-identity problem. Current children - whose identity is independent from environment-affecting decisions of current adults - will have, in due course, a right to parent. Adequate parenting requires resources. We (...) owe duties of justice to current children, including the satisfaction of their interest-protecting rights; therefore we owe them the conditions for rearing children adequately in the future. But to engage in permissible parenting they, too, will need sufficient resources to ensure their own children's future ability to bring up children under adequate conditions. Because this reasoning goes on ad infinitum it entails that each generation of adults owes its contemporary generation of children at least those resources that are necessary for sustaining human life indefinitely at an adequate level of wellbeing. (shrink)

This introduction aims to describe some fundamental problems of intergenerational justice and climate change. It also intends to provide comments on improved versions of some of the best papers presented in the International Meeting “Intergenerational Justice and Climate Change: juridical, moral and political issues” that took place at Cordoba National University (Argentina), in September 2017. In that meeting, the discussion focused on these topics by considering the ideas of the two keynote speakers invited to the event: Lukas H. Meyer and (...) Alessandro Pinzani. I devote the last part of this essay to discuss two pressing issues concerning climate change whose practical solutions challenge our standard understanding of the notion of harm. I discuss, on the one hand, certain issues related with the non-identity problem. On the other hand, I try to identify what kind of obligation do we have when we talk about minimizing the number of people who will suffer harm as a result of the adverse effects of climate change. (shrink)

Desde los trabajos de Catriona McKinnon se ha empezado a hablar del crimen de postericidio. Este crimen es entendido como aquella conducta intencional o imprudente capaz de provocar la casi extinción de la humanidad. En este trabajo mostraré por qué el principio de daño (intergeneracional e internacional) puede aportar buenas razones en favor de la justificación moral de la criminalización del postericidio. Argumentaré que ni el problema de la no-identidad ni el de los daños por acumulación hablan en contra de (...) considerar que la criminalización del postericidio está moralmente justificada. -/- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- -/- The discussion on the crime of postericide has acquired a considerable boost since Catriona McKinnon’s writings. The crime of postericide is understood as an intentional or reckless conduct fit to bring about the near extinction of humanity. In this paper, I will show why the harm principle (intergenerational and international) is able to provide good reasons in favour of the moral justification of the criminalization of the postericide. I will argue that neither the non-identity problem nor the problem of the accumulative harms speak against considering the criminalization of the postericide morally justifiable. (shrink)

Personal identity is one of the important and complex issues in the field of the philosophy of the soul. It is also related to the philosophy of ethics and metaphysics in different respects and has given rise to some problems in these two areas. The justification of ethical responsibility and man's eternity in the posthumous state have attracted psychologist-philosophers' attention to the significance and necessity of explaining personal identity. This paper examines the issue from the view point of Mulla Sadra. (...) Here, the writer initially refers to some of the most important contemporary theories about personal identity which can generally be divided into two reductionist and non-reductionist branches. Reductionists intend to reduce the human identity to elements such as memory, biological specifications, or continuous psychological states, while non-reductionists are against this. Mulla Sadra's theory in this regard is not in conformity with any of the above theories; however, it is more consistent with the non-reductionist approach from certain aspects. Though relying on the fundamental ontological and psychological principles of his own philosophy, Mulla Sadra tries to present a picture of human identity that, while depending on human nature, reveals personal identity, too. This is an identity in whose process of formation the three elements of habits, intentions, and acts play major roles. The extent of the consistency of these three elements with rationality is the reason behind having people with different identities. It should also be added that no human being enjoys a single and fixed identity; rather, identity is a continuous reality that, while being one, is a plural truth. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim (1998a, 2005) claims that his exclusion problem follows a priori for the non-reductive physicalist given her commitment to five apparently inconsistent theses: mental causation, non-identity, supervenience, causal closure and non-overdetermination. For Kim, the combination of these theses entails that mental properties are a priori excluded as causes, forcing the non-reductive physicalist to accept either epiphenomenalism, or some form of reduction. In this thesis, I argue that Kim’s exclusion problem depends on a particular conception of causation, namely (...) sufficient production, and that when causation is understood in interventionist terms, the non-reductive physicalist can avoid the exclusion problem. I argue that Woodward’s (2003, 2008a, 2011a) version of interventionism not only provides an account of mental causation that avoids the exclusion problem, but argue that it also upholds all of the minimal commitments of non-reductive physicalism, thereby providing a successful non-reductive physicalist solution to the exclusion problem. In Chapter 2, I argue that all five theses are minimal commitments of non-reductive physicalism that cannot be rejected in order to avoid the exclusion problem. Chapter 3 identifies the assumptions that I take to underlie the exclusion problem. Chapter 4 introduces and outlines the central features of Woodward’s (2003) interventionism and Chapter 5 argues that Woodward’s interventionist account of mental causation provides a solution to the exclusion problem. I examine two alternative interventionist accounts of mental causation[1] that fail to provide satisfactory solutions to the exclusion problem and conclude that Woodward’s account therefore provides the only satisfactory account of mental causation and solution to the exclusion problem. Chapter 6 addresses some challenges proposed by Michael Baumgartner (2009, 2010) and argues that the interventionist is able to defend her position against these objections and uphold the interventionist solution to the exclusion problem outlined in this thesis. [1. Proposed by List and Menzies (2009) and Campbell (2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2010).]. (shrink)

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer, or as another gender. Our gender is the property we have of being a woman, being a man, being non-binary, or being another gender. What is the relationship between our gender identity and our gender? Recently, much work has been done on ameliorative accounts of the gender concepts that we should accept and on the metaphysics of gender properties. From this work 4 views of the (...) relationship between having gender identity G (e.g. having a female gender identity) and being a gender G (e.g. being a woman) have emerged. A first, the no connection view, says that gender identity and gender are entirely distinct; Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative account of gender, as well as Theodore Bach’s account of gender properties, are instances of this view. A second, the gender-identity-first view, says that all there is to our gender is our gender identity; this view is at least similar to views that Talia Bettcher and R.A. Briggs and B.R. George have argued for. A third, contextualist view, says that in some contexts and relative to certain standards, our gender identity determines our gender, and that in others it does not; Ásta and Robin Dembroff have proposed and defended views along these lines. A fourth view, the two gender properties view, says that there are two properties that can make it the case that one is gender G (in any context), one’s having gender identity G and one’s being socially classed as a G; Katharine Jenkins and Elizabeth Barnes have proposed views along these lines. This article explains these 4 different views and spells out their prospects, and the problems they face, as both ameliorative and as metaphysical views. (shrink)