![]() He starts out by outlining the logical and metaphysical dimensions of the nonidentity problem, asserting that the nonidentity problem may be divided into a two-tiered set of questions: firstly, is the identity of persons at all relevant to ethical judgement, and, if so, secondly, how do we define the kind of identity considered in these judgements (pp. His essay defends a person-affecting approach to the problem using the addition of “biographical identity” to the strictly defined concept of numerical identity that is usually considered in nonidentity cases. ![]() In Part I (which contains only one article, Can Bringing a Person into Existence Harm That Person? Can an Act That Harms No One Be Wrong?) David Heyd argues for the intractability, or “stubbornness”, of the nonidentity problem. This anthology, comprising an introduction by the editors followed by sixteen essays divided into seven parts addressing different aspects of the problem, seeks to explore the complexities surrounding the nonidentity problem from differing scholarly perspectives. Can that same child, however, accuse his parent of having wronged or harmed him if he owes his very existence to that shard of glass? The nonidentity problem demonstrated here affects considerations in several ethical, political and legal fields, including that of intergenerational justice. We intuitively feel that it is wrong to leave broken glass lying around where people might accidentally injure themselves on it. As the simple act of leaving the broken glass inextricably accelerated the conception by a few seconds, one could plausibly say that, had the glass not been left behind, that same child would have never been conceived, or another nonidentical child would have been born to the same person under different circumstances. Years later when that child is born and grown up, the child walks in those woods and is badly cut by the same broken glass. Later on during that same evening, one conceives one’s first child. 4 Suppose that one walks through the woods and, for no good reason, leaves some broken glass in the undergrowth. This faces us with the problem in question: if we cannot say that a future person has been wronged, or made worse off, by such a choice, but we still intuitively feel that the choice has a negative effect on the future person, how do we ground or justify these convictions through reasoning? This is the central conflict at play in the nonidentity problem.Ī useful illustration of the nonidentity problem brought up in this anthology is Parfit’s analogy of the broken glass (pp. Should a decision play such a crucial role in someone’s identity, or in their very being, it is, as long as their life is still worth living, virtually impossible to say that the same decision has made life worse for that person, because we could not have taken an alternative course of action to make things better for that very same person. In these cases, if we had chosen a different course of action, those future persons would not have the same identity - that is to say they would not be the same persons, but rather “nonidentical” others - as they would have had if the choice that appears to worsen their life had been taken. 3 This problem is rooted in the observation that future persons may sometimes owe their very existence and identity to choices made by present persons - choices that, however, appear to make things worse for those same future persons. The nonidentity problem or ‘future individual paradox’ was first mentioned by Schwartz (1978) 1 and Adams (1979) 2, then discussed in more detail by Kavka (1982), and most famously by Parfit (1984). ![]() Is it possible that we have no obligation at all towards posterity? Is it possible that a future individual cannot be harmed or wronged through our actions in the present day? A compelling complication when considering future generations, and the focus of this anthology, is the nonidentity problem. In many situations - from the way that we approach the moral complexities surrounding a pregnancy to the terms that we lay down in a climate change agreement that will affect the standard of life for generations to come - it can be difficult to decide upon exactly what our obligations to future persons are. Wasserman in their introduction to this anthology. In both everyday conduct and in specific ethical cases we generally feel an intuitive obligation to treat future, as-yet-nonexistent persons in roughly the same way that we would treat existing persons.
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