Description: Contents: Preface 1. General Remarks on the Vedanta 2. Fundamental Distinction Between The Self and the Ego 3. The Vital Centre of the Human Being, Seat of Brahma 4. Purusha and Prakriti 5. Purusha Unaffected by Individual Modifications 6. The Degrees of Individual Manifestation 7. Buddhi or the Higher Intellect 8. Manas or the Inward Sense : The Ten External Faculties of Sensation and Action 9. The Envelopes of the Self ; The Five Vayus or Vital Functions 10. The (...) Essential Unity and Identity of the Self in all the States of the Being 11. The Different Conditions of Atma in the Human Being 12. The Waking State or the Condition of Vaishwanara 13. The Dream State or the Condition of Taijasa 14. The State of Deep Sleep or the Condition of Prajna 15. The Unconditioned State of Atma 16. The Symbolical Representation of Atma and its Conditions by the Sacred Monosyllable Om 17. The Posthumous Evolution of the Human Being 18. The Reabsorption of the Individual Faculties 19. Differences in the Posthumous Conditions According to the Degrees of Knowledge 20. The Coronal Artery and the Solar Ray 21. The Divine Journey of the Being on the Path of Liberation 22. Final Deliverance 23. Videha-mukti and Jivana-mukti 24. The Spiritual State of the Yogi : The Supreme Identity. (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)

David Boonin presents a new account of the non-identity problem: a puzzle about our obligations to people who do not yet exist. He provides a critical survey of solutions to the problem that have been proposed, and concludes by developing an unorthodox alternative solution, one that differs fundamentally from virtually every other approach.

This article introduces a non-human version of the non-identity problem and suggests that such a variation exposes weaknesses in several proposed person-focused solutions to the classic version of the problem. It suggests first that person-affecting solutions fail when applied to non-human animals and, second, that many common moral arguments against climate change should be called into question. We argue that a more inclusive version of the person-affecting principle, which we call the ‘patient-affecting principle’, captures more accurately the moral challenge (...) posed by the non-identity problem. We argue further that the failure of person-affecting solutions to solve non-human versions of the problem lend support to impersonal solutions to the problem which avoid issues of personhood or species identity. Finally, we conclude that some environmental arguments against climate change that rely on the notion of personal harm should be recast in impersonal terms. (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)

The non-identity problem is really a collection of problems having distinct logical features. For that reason, non-identity problems can be typed. This article focuses on just one type of non-identity problem, the problem, which includes Derek Parfit's depletion example and many others. The can't-expect-better problem uses an assessment about the low probability of any particular person's coming into existence to reason that an earlier wrong act does not harm that person. This article argues that that line of (...) reasoning is unusually treacherous in that it makes not just one hard-to-detect error in what is done with the relevant probability assessments but rather alternates between two. We sort out one fallacy only to fall, against all odds (as it were), into a second. By avoiding both errors, we become able to discern harm in cases in which the can't-expect-better problem argues there is none. We will then be in a position to set aside the can't-expect-better problem as an objection against the person-based intuition that acts that are must be at least some existing or future person. (shrink)

The Non-Identity Problem (NIP) has been recognized as a hindrance in justifying compensation for historical injustice. Since NIP applies to individuals, an attractive way of trying to remove the obstacle is by shifting the focus from the allegedly harmed individuals to the harmed group. However, critical examination of this move shows that (a) there are groups—most conspicuously African Americans—who were _created_ by the unjust wrongs for which compensation is now claimed and hence fall under the same category as any (...) wrongful life case on the individual level, and (b) even when the group already existed when the wrongs were perpetrated, with the long passage of time it changed its identity in the narrative sense, which means that its contemporary members are attached to it as it is defined today but not as it was when the wrong was done. The paper suggests, therefore, that the Group Non-Identity Problem (GNIP) is the parallel impediment to that of NIP in doing historical justice to social groups which were maltreated in the past. (shrink)

Although most people believe that it is morally wrong to intentionally create children who have an impairment, it is widely held that we cannot criticize such procreative choices unless we find a solution to Parfit’s non-identity problem. I argue that we can. Jonathan Glover has recently argued that, in certain circumstances, such choices would be self-defeating even if morally permissible. I argue that although the scope of Glover’s argument is too limited, it nevertheless directs attention to a moral defect (...) in the attitudes that could motivate such procreative choices, attitudes that, properly characterized, turn out to be person-affecting in character. I conclude by arguing that prospective parents who want to create a child with an impairment face a dilemma. If they want to avoid the charge that their aim is morally defective, they must deny that the desired impairment is harmful. But this would commit them to endorsing the controversial claim that it is morally permissible or even required to turn normal children into impaired ones. (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.

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)

There is a well-known argument from Leibniz's Law for the view that coincident material things may be distinct. For given that they differ in their properties, then how can they be the same? However, many philosophers have suggested that this apparent difference in properties is the product of a linguistic illusion; there is just one thing out there, but different sorts or guises under which it may be described. I attempt to show that this ‘opacity’ defence has intolerable consequences for (...) the functioning of our language and that the original argument should therefore be allowed to stand. (shrink)

This book develops Non-Identity Theodicy as an original response to the problem of evil. It constructs an ethical framework for theodicy by sketching four cases of human action where horrendous evils are either caused, permitted, or risked, either for pure benefit or for harm avoidance.

In this article I analyse those that I consider the most powerful counterarguments that have been advanced against the non-identity objection to the idea of intergenerational harm, according to which an action cannot cause harm to a given agent if her biological identity does actually depend—in a partial but still determinant way—on the performance of this action. In doing this, I firstly go through the deontological criticisms to the person-affecting view of harm, before moving on to sufficientarian and (...) communitarian accounts of intergenerational harm. My argument is that neither of these theories manage to defuse the non-identity objection. Yet, I conclude by observing that a possible way out of the non-identity paradox might consist in developing an ethical account of intergenerational negative justice that focuses on the functional value of the natural and social structures in which humans develop their lives, rather than on their instrumental or intrinsic value. (shrink)

This article justifies and restates the non-identity problem in relation to climate change. First and briefly, I argue that while there is often good reason to set the NIP aside in practical politics, there can be areas where a climate NIP will have practical implications. An instructive example concerns climate change litigation. Second, I argue that there are three particular circumstances of a climate NIP that may set it apart from the more established NIP in bioethics. These differences regard (...) interaction, numbers, and agency respectively. Third, I discuss the premises and conclusion of a climate NIP, modifying an account in bioethics by David Boonin. (shrink)

According to the ‘One Object’ reading of Kant's transcendental idealism, the distinction between the appearance and the thing in itself is not a distinction between two objects, but between two ways of considering one and the same object. On the ‘Metaphysical’ version of the One Object reading, it is a distinction between two kinds of properties possessed by one and the same object. Consequently, the Metaphysical One Object view holds that a given appearance, an empirical object, is numerically identical to (...) the thing in itself that appears as that object. I raise various indiscernibility arguments against that view; because an appearance has different spatiotemporal and modal properties than a thing in itself, no appearance can be identical to a thing in itself. I point out that these arguments are similar to arguments against Monism, the view that material objects are numerically identical to the matter of which they are made. I outline some strategies Monists have developed to respond to these indiscernibility arguments and then develop parallel responses on behalf of the Metaphysical One Object view. However, I then raise another indiscernibility argument, to which, I argue, the Metaphysical One Object view cannot respond, even using the resources I have developed thus far. I develop a modified version of the Metaphysical One Object view that can respond to this new indiscernibility argument, but, I argue, this modified version of the One Object view is only a terminological variant of the Two Object view. When the Metaphysical One Object view is fully thought through it becomes the Two Object view. I conclude that Kantian appearances are not numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear to us. (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)

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large (...) scale we change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project will produce information permitting increasing opportunities to prevent genetically transmitted harms, most of which will be compatible with a life worth living, through avoiding conception or terminating a pregnancy. Failure to prevent these harms when it is possible for parents to do so without substantial burdens or costs to themselves or others are what J call “wrongful handicaps”. Derek Parfit has developed a systematic difficulty for any such cases being wrongs — when the harm could be (...) prevented only by preventing the existence of the individual who would have a worthwhile life even with the handicap, then bringing him into existence with the handicap does not make him worse off and so does not wrong him. I argue that a non “person‐affecting” principle requiring the avoidance of suffering and limited opportunity correctly accounts for cases of wrongful handicaps without requiring that the individuals with the handicap have been made worse off and therefore wronged. It is an advantage, not a difficulty, of this account that it does not imply that the person with the handicap has been wronged or is a victim with a special moral complaint. (shrink)

In a familiar interpretation, the Non-Identity Problem claims that persons whose existence depends on a seemingly harmful action cannot in fact be harmed through such an action. It is often objected that the persons in question can nevertheless be wronged through a violation of their rights. However, this objection seems to fail because these persons would readily waive any violated right in order to come into existence. The present article will analyze this Waiver Counter Argument in detail and show (...) why it does not succeed. First, it is necessary to distinguish between a prospective and a retrospective waiver scenario. In the prospective scenario an imagined person must consider whether she wants to waive a right in order to come into existence. In the retrospective scenario a person is asked whether she would prefer a wronged existence to never having been born. In both scenarios the conditions of a legitimate waiver of rights are not met, but for different reasons. On this basis, an argument against NIP can be developed. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project will produce information permitting increasing opportunities to prevent genetically transmitted harms, most of which will be compatible with a life worth living, through avoiding conception or terminating a pregnancy. Failure to prevent these harms when it is possible for parents to do so without substantial burdens or costs to themselves or others are what J call “wrongful handicaps”. Derek Parfit has developed a systematic difficulty for any such cases being wrongs — when the harm could be (...) prevented only by preventing the existence of the individual who would have a worthwhile life even with the handicap, then bringing him into existence with the handicap does not make him worse off and so does not wrong him. I argue that a non “person‐affecting” principle requiring the avoidance of suffering and limited opportunity correctly accounts for cases of wrongful handicaps without requiring that the individuals with the handicap have been made worse off and therefore wronged. It is an advantage, not a difficulty, of this account that it does not imply that the person with the handicap has been wronged or is a victim with a special moral complaint. (shrink)

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)

According to the ‘One Object’ reading of Kant's transcendental idealism, the distinction between the appearance and the thing in itself is not a distinction between two objects, but between two ways of considering one and the same object. On the ‘Metaphysical’ version of the One Object reading, it is a distinction between two kinds of properties possessed by one and the same object. Consequently, the Metaphysical One Object view holds that a given appearance, an empirical object, is numerically identical to (...) the thing in itself that appears as that object. I raise various indiscernibility arguments against that view; because an appearance has different spatiotemporal and modal properties than a thing in itself, no appearance can be identical to a thing in itself. I point out that these arguments are similar to arguments against Monism, the view that material objects are numerically identical to the matter of which they are made. I outline some strategies Monists have developed to respond to these indiscernibility arguments and then develop parallel responses on behalf of the Metaphysical One Object view. However, I then raise another indiscernibility argument, to which, I argue, the Metaphysical One Object view cannot respond, even using the resources I have developed thus far. I develop a modified version of the Metaphysical One Object view that can respond to this new indiscernibility argument, but, I argue, this modified version of the One Object view is only a terminological variant of the Two Object view. When the Metaphysical One Object view is fully thought through it becomes the Two Object view. I conclude that Kantian appearances are not numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear to us. (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)

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)

Non-Identity arguments have a pervasive but sometimes counter-intuitive grip on certain key areas in ethics. As a result, there has been limited success in supporting the alternative view that our choices concerning future generations can be considered harmful on any sort of person-affecting principle. However, as the Non-Identity Problem relies overtly on certain metaphysical assumptions, plausible alternatives to these foundations can substantially undermine the Non-Identity argument itself. In this paper, I show how the pervasive force and nature (...) of Non-Identity arguments rely upon a specific adoption of a theory of modality and identity and how adopting an alternative account of modality can be used to reject many conclusions formed through Non-Identity type arguments. By using Lewis’s counterpart-theoretic account to understand ways we might have been, I outline the basis of a modal account of harm that incorporates a person-affecting aspect. This, in turn, has significant implications for ethical decision-making in areas such as reproductive choice and the welfare of future generations. (shrink)

Suppose the only difference between the effects of two actions is to whom they apply: either to parties who would -- or would not -- exist if the actions were not performed. Is this a morally significant difference? This is one of the central questions raised by the Non-Identity Problem. Derek Parfit answers no, defending what he calls the ‘No-Difference View’. I argue that Parfit is mistaken and that sometimes this difference is morally significant. I do this by formulating (...) a familiar kind of example in a new way. I make use of some findings in social psychology to help deflect counterexamples to my view. I then show how my view withstands Parfit's latest argument in favour of the No-Difference View. I conclude with a brief discussion of some questions my argument raises for consequentialist moral theory. (shrink)

This paper argues that T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism can provide a solution to the non-identity problem. It first argues that there is no reason not to include future people in the realm of those to whom we owe justification, but that merely possible people are not included. It then goes on to argue that a person could reasonably reject a principle that left them with a barely worth living life even though that principle caused them to exist, and that current (...) people could not justify creating people with barely worth living lives on the grounds that it caused those people to exist. (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)

I develop a 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 affirms the morality of voluntary human procreation, one should affirm (...) the morality of divine creation; conversely, denying the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

Publication date: 26 January 2017 Source: Author: Abolfazl Mohammadi, Javad Momeni Angela Carter in her famous short story, The Bloody Chamber, depicts a protagonist whose identity seems to be a predetermined sign in a signifying loop from which she can make no escape. In the first part of our paper, we attempt to show how The protagonist’s ensuing psychological tension is aggravated by the conflict which she feels between her ideal ego and her ego-ideal and which leads her to (...) unrelenting introspection and interior dialogue with her existential states. Such interior dialogue provides the protagonist with an existential ground on which she empties all her life events of their presence by signifying them through Derridean Differance. Therefore, her interior dialogue results in non-identity in her subjectivization both in the realm of signs and of events. Then, we focus on the protaganist’s paradoxical urges spontaneously outflowed from within which, by resisting symbolization, provide her with the possibility of becoming what she thinks she has never been and allow for her moments of self-determination. Finally, we illustrate how such psychological odyssey takes shape in the Gothic setting which arouses, in Lacanian terminology, pre-symbolic tendencies and which involves the coincidence of Gothic horror with the horrors of social reality. (shrink)

Can an act harm someone—a future someone, someone who does not exist yet but will—if that person would never exist but for that very action? This is one question raised by the non-identity problem. Many would argue that the answer is No: an action harms someone only insofar as it is worse for her, and an action cannot be worse for someone if she would not exist without it. The first part of this paper contends that the plausibility of (...) the ‘no harm’ argument stems from an equivocation. The second half argues for an account of harm that is both causal and contrastive. Finally, the paper contends that the contrastive account disarms the no harm argument and furthermore neutralizes a related argument that has been problematic for some previously proposed solutions to the non-identity problem. (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)

The non-identity problem, which is much discussed in bioethics, metaphysics and environmental ethics, is usually examined by philosophers because of the difficulties it raises for our understanding of possible harms done to present human agents. In this article, instead of attempting to solve the non-identical problem, I explore an entirely different feature of the problem, namely the implications it has for the admissibility of outlandish or bizarre thought experiments. I argue that in order to sustain the claim that later (...) born selves cannot be harmed (since they are in fact different persons), one must rule inadmissible certain kinds of modally bizarre imaginary cases. In this paper I explore how one might justify such a constraint on outlandish cases and, in so doing, develop the outline of a model for distinguishing between admissible and inadmissible imaginary cases in philosophical debate. (shrink)

Philosophers concerned with procreative ethics have long been puzzled by Parfit’s Non-Identity Problem (NIP). Various solutions have been proposed, but I argue that we have not solved the problem on its own narrow person-affecting terms, i.e., in terms of the identified individuals affected by procreative decisions and acts, especially future children. Thus, the core problem remains unsolved. This is a nagging concern for all who hold the common intuition that actions that harm no one are permissible. I argue against (...) Harmon’s and Woodward’s direct, narrow person-affecting solutions, and in favor of a new solution to the NIP. My solution, or, rather, dissolution, is based on the argument that merely possible people, i.e., hypothetical people who could possibly, but will not actually, exist, are morally irrelevant. I show that the NIP only arises when we concern ourselves with merely possible people. Once we are careful to restrict our concerns to only those that do or will exist, the NIP is dissolved. (shrink)

In this paper we distinguish two versions of the non-identity problem: one involving positive well-being and one involving negative well-being. Intuitively, there seems to be a difference between the two versions of the problem. In the negative case it is clear that one ought to cause the better off person to exist. However, it has recently been suggested that this is not so in the positive case. We argue that such an asymmetrical treatment of the two versions should be (...) rejected and that this is evidence against views according to which it is permissible to cause the less well off person to exist in the positive non-identity case. (shrink)

1. Consider a circle. It has both a radius and a circumference. There is obviously a real distinction between the properties having a radius and having a circumference. This is not because, when confining ourselves to circles,1 having a radius can ever exist apart from having a circumference. A real distinction does not depend on that. Descartes thought that a real distinction between x and y meant that x could exist without y or vice versa, if only by the power (...) of God. But Descartes was wrong. Separable existence is a sufficient but not necessary condition of there being a real distinction. The difference between a real and a conceptual distinction derives from medieval philosophy. Aquinas, for one, held that things can be really distinct even though not separable (the form and matter of a material substance or its essence and existence, for example).2 For a merely conceptual distinction between x and y to exist, it is necessary for the distinction to exist in thought only. There is only a conceptual distinction between an upward slope and a downward slope, or between a glass’s being half empty and half full. Not only are the members of such pairs inseparable (whether by God or in any other way), but there is no real distinction between them. There is no numerical distinctness between the entities or qualities between which there is only a conceptual distinction. To this extent alone is Galen Strawson (2008) correct.3 But when it comes to.. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the thought of Theodor W. Adorno and Jiddu Krishnamurti. It focuses upon how both thinkers employ a determinately negative epistemology and revise Hegelian dialectics as a manner of ratiocination to resolve socio-political problems. It is argued that Krishnamurti’s negative epistemology is rendered more robust when read along with Adorno’s critical theory, aesthetic theory, and notions of negative dialectics and non-identity thinking. It is hoped that this synthesis of thought raises the possibility for ongoing (...) creative responses to contemporary socio-political challenges over and above either political demonstration or intellectual retreat. (shrink)

In his paper The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken problem (Nanoethics 2:305–316, 2008) Paul Thompson argues that the possibility of disenhancing animals in order to improve animal welfare poses a philosophical conundrum. Although many people intuitively think such disenhancement would be morally impermissible, it’s difficult to find good arguments to support such intuitions. In this brief response to Thompson, I accept that there’s a conundrum here. But I argue that if we seriously consider whether creating beings (...) can harm or benefit them, and introduce the non-identity problem to discussions of animal disehancement, the conundrum is even deeper than Thompson suggests. (shrink)

This commentary on Marilyn Strathern's article, “Binary License,” discusses certain implications of her assertion that intertribal relationships among urban migrants in Papua New Guinea are not “ethnic.” For if such social encounters do not involve a conventional politics of identity, what then might its politics be? By comparing Strathern's Melanesian case with ethnographic examples in Corsica and Mongolia, a novel relational modality of “intensive ethnicity” may be identified, one that differs qualitatively from the “extensive ethnicity” with which anthropologists have (...) usually been concerned. The two forms of ethnicity are equally relative, in that a given group's self-understanding and self-designation are in both cases the result of its relations with other groups. However, ethnically extensive relations of the standard anthropological variety involve symbolic processes of boundary making and boundary maintenance whereby contrasting cultural traits or contents are arbitrarily assigned to and distributed among preexisting social forms and social scales (whether individuals, communities, or nations). Conversely, the more intensive intertribal engagements described by Strathern and certain other anthropologists are relational all the way down, given that everything about the terms of these relations (including their form, scale, and dimensioning) is defined by the particular quality in question. Thus a contrast may be established between the politics of identity and what might be called non-identity politics. If the former amounts to an ethnic economy in which subjectivities are exchanged in a commodity-like, alienable way, then, in the latter, stereotypical naming and other seeming “ethnic” practices amount to gift-like, non-alienable insertions of selves into others. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen a considerable and progressive increase in historical claims. Within the context of colonialism criticism, but also outside this sphere, numerous politicians, collectives and intellectuals have emerged to denounce certain acts of the past, demanding recognition and repentance that would compensate for these past affronts. In this article we will analyze one of these cases: the demand for an apology from Spain and the Vatican by the President of Mexico, López Obrador. Taking as a guide the debate (...) around the ethical problem of non-identity, we will see what ethical and metaphysical assumptions serve as the basis for these claims. We will also assess whether the claims of the so-called «historical victims» are consistent and ethically acceptable. (shrink)

One of the primary views on our supposed obligation towards our descendants in the context of environmental problems invokes the idea of the rights of future generations. A growing number of authors also hold that the descendants of those victimized by historical injustices, including colonialism and slavery, have the right to demand financial reparations for the sufferings of their distant ancestors. However, these claims of intergenerational rights face theoretical difficulties, notably the non-identity problem. To circumvent this problem in a (...) relationship between present and future generations, some rights theorists replace future individual rights with such collective rights. Others advance the threshold conception of harm in discussing intergenerational relationships in general. Despite the significant implications these revisionist views might have, few efforts have been made to scrutinize their solidity. To plug such a gap in the literature, this paper examines to what extent the collective understanding of intergenerational rights is pertinent. I also explore the virtues and drawbacks of the threshold interpretation of harm. The paper concludes by suggesting that the motivation behind these and other versions of the rights theory suffers from the ambiguity of a traditional dichotomy between perfect and imperfect duties. (shrink)

The Non-Identity Problem is the problem of explaining the apparent wrongness of a decision that does not harm people, especially since some of the people affected by the decision would not exist at all were it not for the decision. One approach to this problem, in the context of reproductive decisions, is to focus on wronging, rather than harming, one's offspring. But a Non-Person Problem emerges for any view that claims (1) that only persons can be wronged and (2) (...) that the person-making properties allow for there to be human non-persons. Consider an individual human organism that is prevented from ever possessing the person-making properties. On person-only accounts of the victims of wronging, this organism cannot be wronged by anyone. Hence even individuals whose decisions prevent it from ever possessing the person-making properties cannot wrong it. But this is counter-intuitive. We can think of examples where a human organism is wronged by precisely those decisions that prevent it from possessing the person-making properties. The best solution to this problem, in the case where the person-making property is rational self-governance in pursuit of a meaningful life, is to adjust the concept of a person so that it refers, not merely to those with the immediate capacity for rational self-governance in pursuit of a meaningful life, but also to those with a higher-order capacity for such self-governance. Any solution to the Non-Identity Problem that focuses on wronging rather than harming should incorporate this sort of solution to the Non-Person Problem. (shrink)

The non-identity problem arises when our actions in the present could change which people will exist in the future, for better or worse. Is it morally better to improve the lives of specific future people, as compared to changing which people exist for the better? Affecting the timing of fetuses being conceived is one case where present actions change the identity of future people. This is relevant to questions of public health policy, as exemplified in some responses to (...) the Zika epidemic. There is philosophical disagreement about the relevance of non-identity: some hold that non-identity is not relevant, while others think that the only morally relevant actions are those that affect specific people. Given this disagreement, we investigated the intuitions about the moral relevance of non-identity within an educated sample of the public, because there was previously little empirical data on the public’s views on the non-identity problem. We performed an online survey with a sample of the educated general public. The survey assessed participants’ preferences between person-affecting and impersonal interventions for Zika, and their views on other non-identity thought experiments, once the non-identity problem had been explained. It aimed to directly measure the importance of non-identity in participants’ moral decision-making. We collected 763 valid responses from the survey. Half of the participants (50%) had a graduate degree, 47% had studied philosophy at a university level, and 20% had read about the non-identity problem before. Most participants favoured person-affecting interventions for Zika over impersonal ones, but the majority claimed that non-identity did not influence their decision (66% of those preferring person-affecting interventions, 95% of those preferring impersonal ones). In one non-identity thought experiment participants were divided, but in another they primarily answered that impersonally reducing the quality of life of future people would be wrong, harmful and blameworthy, even though no specific individuals would be worse off. Non-identity appeared to play a minor role in participants’ moral decision-making. Moreover, participants seem to either misunderstand the non-identity problem, or hold non-counterfactual views of harm that do not define harm as making someone worse off than they would have been otherwise. (shrink)

The non-identity problem arises when an intervention or behavior changes the identity of those affected. Delaying pregnancy is an example of such a behavior. The problem is whether and in what ways such changes in identity affect moral considerations. While a great deal has been written about the non-identity problem, relatively little has been written about the implications for physicians and how they should understand their duties. We argue that the non-identity problem can make a (...) crucial moral difference in some circumstances, and that it has some interesting implications for when it is or is not right for a physician to refuse to accede to a patient's request. If a physician is asked to provide an intervention (identity preserving) that makes a person worse off, then such harm provides a good reason for the physician to refuse to provide the intervention. However, in cases where different (identity-altering) interventions result in different people having a better or worse life, physicians should normally respect patient choice. (shrink)

Suppose we discover how we could live for a thousand years, but in a way that made us unable to have children. Everyone chooses to live these long lives. After we all die, human history ends, since there would be no future people. Would that be bad? Would we have acted wrongly? Some pessimists would answer No. These people are saddened by the suffering in most people’s lives, and they believe it would be wrong to inflict such suffering on others (...) by having children. In earlier centuries, this bleak view was fairly plausible. But our successors would be able to prevent most human suffering. Some optimists would also answer No . . . These [views] are, I believe, deeply mistaken. Given what our successors could achieve in the next million or billion years, here and elsewhere in our galaxy, it would be likely to be very much worse if there were no future people. (shrink)

Many of our actions will affect the welfare of future people. For instance, continued emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) may lead to future environmental degradation, which will negatively affect people's lives. If we continue GHG-emissions, are we harming future people? In light of the non-identity problem, apparently, we are not. This article assesses three recent attempts (by Carter, Page and Kumar) at grounding concern for future generations in person-affecting moral theory. Although these attempts are promising, the conclusion is that (...) none is completely successful. It seems, then, that we have reason to incorporate a limited measure of consequentialism into person-affecting morality. More precisely, I suggest that we should adopt a version of telic sufficientarianism. (shrink)