The Morality of Creating Lives Not Worth Living: On Boonin's Solution to the Non-Identity Problem

Utilitas 35 (1):88-97 (2023)
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Abstract

David Boonin argues that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating a different person whose life would be significantly worse, but still worth living, each option is morally permissible. I show that Boonin's argument for this view problematically implies that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating another person whose life would not be worth living, each option is also morally permissible.

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Olle Risberg
Uppsala University

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References found in this work

Genethics: Moral Issues in the Creation of People.David Heyd - 1992 - Berkeley: University of California Press.
Can we harm and benefit in creating?Elizabeth Harman - 2004 - Philosophical Perspectives 18 (1):89–113.
Plural Harm.Neil Feit - 2013 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2):361-388.
The preemption problem.Jens Johansson & Olle Risberg - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (2):351-365.
Comparative Harm, Creation and Death.Neil Feit - 2016 - Utilitas 28 (2):136-163.

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