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Harm to Future Persons: Non-Identity Problems and Counterpart Solutions

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Abstract

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.

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Notes

  1. I am here assuming that there are certain conditions that are harmed conditions. However, I leave it as an open question as to which conditions these may be (see, e.g. Savulescu 2002). The question as to whether someone has a life worth living recognises that there might be people born with conditions so terrible that it would be preferable not to have come into existence at all. See Feinberg 1987: 158–9.

  2. The central account is Parfit 1984. For a range of discussion see: Bayles 1976; Brock 1995; Hanser 1990; Velleman 2008; Woodward 1986.

  3. Kripke 1980: 113–115.

  4. This might range from futuristic selection of traits using gamete pairs to issues involving current technologies such as sperm sorting for sex selection.

  5. Kripke’s (1980: 111–116) argument for the necessity of origins view for persons requires that it is an essential property that we came from the very same sperm and egg that we in fact came from. This is a form of gametic essentialism, which requires not only the necessity of genetic origin but also the necessity of particular gametes carrying that genetic information.

  6. Parfit 1984: 378 and Brock 1995: 272–273, have a ‘non-person affecting’ principle, which accounts for the moral intuition that some wrongful action has taken place. The basis for this is the consequentialist concern that pre-conception choices may result in a reduction of the overall utility of society, but no harm has been done directly to the individual child born with the disorder.

  7. As discussed in e.g. Benetar 2006; Feinberg 1987; Woodward 1986.

  8. Given these options, one might wonder whether rejecting (OV) or rejecting (PP) is more counterintuitive. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to determine this, it is an interesting question in itself given that both seem to be intuitively appealing. My aim here, although engaging with the intuitive appeal of these positions, is the somewhat different task of arguing how one may reject (OV) and accept (PP) as a route to rejecting (NI) for certain scenarios. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for bringing this to my attention.

  9. Precisely why Kripke (1980: 114, fn. 56) settled on the essentiality of origin goes beyond the debate of human trans-world identity. See Cameron 2005 for a discussion of Kripke’s footnote.

  10. The central account is Lewis 1986. The term ‘Genuine Modal Realism’ is from Divers 2002 to distinguish Lewis’s account of modality from the ‘Actualist Realism’ of e.g. van Inwagen 1986; Armstrong 1989 and Kripke 1980. I will avoid detailed discussion of the nature of possible worlds except as much as is necessary for an understanding of the Non-Identity Problem.

  11. This list is far from exhaustive, given that e.g. in order to distinguish my own counterparts from those of my sibling (and even more problematically, my twin) a more comprehensive list of similarities will be needed (although, as we shall see, in some possible worlds the counterpart most similar to me might indeed be my sibling or my twin. See Lewis 1986: 231–2). I am grateful to an anonymous referee for highlighting this concern when initially faced with the counterpart-theoretic claims of (MC1).

  12. These claims only apply to genetic properties derived from one’s conceptual origins. There will still be possible worlds where John exhibits alternative genetic properties as a result of post-conception factors such as mutation, medical procedures, injury etc. However, John can still be identified across all possible worlds through having identical genetic origins to his actual one.

  13. Although Parfit 1984: 353–4 was dismissive of using similarity as suitable for determining identity, Lewis’s theory provides a response to such concerns.

  14. De re’ modality concerns claims about objects and individuals.

  15. The importance of this aspect of Lewis’s account is dealt with in detail in Divers 2007: 42–47.

  16. See Mackie 2006, especially chapters 5 and 6 for a discussion of this concern.

  17. See also Divers 2007: 46–7.

  18. This means of determining counterparts is much more specific than accounts of descriptive identity, such as Hare 1975, which was criticised by Bayles 1976: 299 as failing to ‘suffice to identify a nonexistent person.’

  19. There will be cases where in certain worlds the closest thing to a human being will be e.g. a poached egg. However, such contexts would be way beyond the scope of practical ethical applications of the theory. See Lewis 1986: chs. 4.4–4.5.

  20. This account of disorder has substantial support in the philosophy of medicine. See Boorse 1977 & 1997 and Reznek 1987. Other accounts may still be employed, such as a social account of disorders, by adjusting the reference to possible worlds and counterparts accordingly.

  21. This account of harming can be categorised as a ‘comparison account’ in the taxonomy of the metaphysics of harms given by Hanser 2008.

  22. Additional concerns about harm claims being made in terms of failing to select excellent biological traits can be dealt with in terms of ‘species-typical’ ranges of biological functioning, where selection below this range can be considered a harm but non-selection above the range can only be considered a failure to benefit. For a discussion of this issue see Wrigley 2006.

  23. These criteria are jointly sufficient for a prima facie harm claim to be made and, arguably, some at least are necessary, such as criterion (1). It is prima facie because there is substantial room for determining what may constitute appropriate elements or instances, e.g. what sort of condition is a harmed condition, or what instances constitute practicable alternatives. For a more detailed discussion of such criteria, see Wrigley 2006.

  24. It is an advantage of this account that it does not commit itself to determining which traits are suitable for harm claims, only that one may use different traits without being subject to the Non-Identity Problem.

  25. This is the same sense and use of ‘identity-affecting’ as found in Wilkinson 2010: 69.

  26. I am hereby assuming that embryos are only potential persons, where ‘persons’ are humans with the full moral status assigned to all members of that kind. There are positions that view that embryos are, from the moment of conception, developed persons in the moral sense. It is not my intention to argue this position. For discussion, see Finnis 1994.

  27. The ‘non-existence’ here is used in a different sense than in the pre-conceptual case. Clearly, all of the embryos created in vitro exist, whereas no individual exists at all prior to the gamete selection. Hence, ‘existing’ here refers to post-implantation existence as a viable foetus.

  28. This discussion of counterpart theory as applied to pre-implantation embryo selection does not address another major concern separate from the issues of identity and harms: one of unfairness or ‘bad luck’ at not being one of the embryos chosen for implantation and development into a human being. The concern is that embryos created for selection have been created on a conditional and instrumental basis for the purpose of testing them for their desirable genetic characteristics. This is an important aspect of the debate on embryo selection, raising questions about the moral status of the embryo and the permissibility of selecting and discarding viable embryos for implantation. See Steinbock 1992 or Scott 2007 for a discussion of the ethical and legal implications of this practice.

  29. These cases are discussed in Lewis 1986: 231–2.

  30. However, Kripke does elsewhere also assert the strong gametic essentialism associated with (OV).

  31. Such views about constraining our choice of counterparts would certainly fall under the heading of what Mackie 2006: 166 calls “minimalist essentialism”, where although we get a broad spectrum of possible ways each of us might have been, there will be some categories to which we must belong and some which we do not. Certainly anything close to maintaining the tenacity of origins thesis, such as same parentage, would fall well within this classification.

  32. I would like to thank Angus Dawson, John Divers, Martin Wilkinson, Stephen Wilkinson and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on many aspects of this paper.

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Wrigley, A. Harm to Future Persons: Non-Identity Problems and Counterpart Solutions. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 15, 175–190 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-011-9280-0

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