I’m skeptical of all attempts to solve the non-identity problem by non-standard conceptual analyses of HARM. Conceptual analysis won’t solve the core problem. In a slogan: the non-identity problem cannot be solved by definition.
Suppose we accept the following constraint on solutions to the non-identity problem: a solution to the non-identity problem should be rejected if it implies anti-natalism. (This constraint shouldn’t be respected dogmatically, or anything, but it should factor heavily in our deliberations.)
Given that constraint, it seems to me that all harm-based solutions to the non-identity problem should be rejected (at least provisionally) because they must either imply anti-natalism or be saddled with ad-hoc restrictions to avoid that implication.
Why think all harm-based solutions imply anti-natalism? Consider the following case:
BLIND CHILD, NO SIBLING: Wilma wants one child at most, but knows she’d get just as much life satisfaction from pursuing a certain career—and she can’t do both. If she has a child, the child will be blind.
I’m this case, it doesn’t seem like Wilma would wrong her child by conceiving her. Even if a non-standard account of HARM turned out to satisfy the concept HARM best, and thereby entailed that Wilma had harmed her child by conceiving him, that wouldn’t be a *wrongful* harm.
But in the standard (direct/same number) non-identity case, the only difference is that Wilma’s hobby is substituted for the conception of a sighted child. But whether some sighted child—who is not to blind child—would have been conceived if the blind child hadn’t been seems like it couldn’t transform Wilma’s (non-comparative) harming of her blind child into a wrongful harming.
One reason for thinking this is that the formal intuition just seems right. But for people who prefer case-specific intuitions, I think it can also be supported by cases. Consider, e.g.,
FERTILITY COACH: The case is the same as before, with one specification. One of the (short-term) careers Wilma would go into if she didn’t have a blind child is fertility coaching. She knows that if she goes into this profession, she’ll make possible the conception of a sighted child by a different couple of a different race six years later. (I add the “of a different race six years later” part to ward off the intuitional confusion Boonin warns about, where we allegedly have trouble holding the non-identity facts clear in our mind’s eye.)
In FERTILITY COACH, the counterfactual is (for all intents and purposes) the same as the in the standard non-identity case: *if* Wilma doesn’t conceive a blind child, *then* she will bring about the conception of a sighted child by another couple. But the truth of this counterfactual doesn’t seem like it could (or does) make it the case that Wilma wrongfully harms her blind child, rather than merely harming her in a non-comparative sense.
One might object that the counterfactual is different in the two cases—“will conceive” vs “will bring about the conception of”. But that seems like an irrelevant difference, and there are compelling arguments against solutions to the non-identity problem that try to make parental duties the issue.
Most of the energy directed at refuting harm based solutions to the non-identity problem comes in the form of giving counter-examples to this or that non-standard analysis of HARM (see Boonin’s book, Duncan Purves’ dissertation, etc.) But if this kind of blanket strategy works then that literature was probably unnecessary.
Very interesting stuff. I'm curious if you've ever read Clark Wolf's paper "Do Future Persons Presently Have Alternate Possible Identities?" It seems like his approach would be another way of diffusing some of these difficulties. I'm not convinced we need to think about Harry and Moe as two distinct persons in situations like these, as opposed to two possible alternate identities that one future person might share. In that case, there would be a very straightforward explanation for why choosing to create Moe - which would really just be choosing to make sure some future person becomes Moe and not Harry - is suboptimal. But of course the plausibility of this analysis depends on what process is involved in creating the two; there might be some situations where there is no candidate for a single future person who has both identities as an "option."
In regard to the brain computer interface and policy decision; does the patient's opinion matter? You could argue that a patient would be happy to contribute to r&d that might help others.
Or is it about policy choices "forcing" a decision by limiting the option space?
Being against consentual pro tanto harms seem absurd, then we could go on a witch hunt targeted at personal trainers for inducing post workout soreness. I hope this is a strawman.
Good article!
I’m skeptical of all attempts to solve the non-identity problem by non-standard conceptual analyses of HARM. Conceptual analysis won’t solve the core problem. In a slogan: the non-identity problem cannot be solved by definition.
Suppose we accept the following constraint on solutions to the non-identity problem: a solution to the non-identity problem should be rejected if it implies anti-natalism. (This constraint shouldn’t be respected dogmatically, or anything, but it should factor heavily in our deliberations.)
Given that constraint, it seems to me that all harm-based solutions to the non-identity problem should be rejected (at least provisionally) because they must either imply anti-natalism or be saddled with ad-hoc restrictions to avoid that implication.
Why think all harm-based solutions imply anti-natalism? Consider the following case:
BLIND CHILD, NO SIBLING: Wilma wants one child at most, but knows she’d get just as much life satisfaction from pursuing a certain career—and she can’t do both. If she has a child, the child will be blind.
I’m this case, it doesn’t seem like Wilma would wrong her child by conceiving her. Even if a non-standard account of HARM turned out to satisfy the concept HARM best, and thereby entailed that Wilma had harmed her child by conceiving him, that wouldn’t be a *wrongful* harm.
But in the standard (direct/same number) non-identity case, the only difference is that Wilma’s hobby is substituted for the conception of a sighted child. But whether some sighted child—who is not to blind child—would have been conceived if the blind child hadn’t been seems like it couldn’t transform Wilma’s (non-comparative) harming of her blind child into a wrongful harming.
One reason for thinking this is that the formal intuition just seems right. But for people who prefer case-specific intuitions, I think it can also be supported by cases. Consider, e.g.,
FERTILITY COACH: The case is the same as before, with one specification. One of the (short-term) careers Wilma would go into if she didn’t have a blind child is fertility coaching. She knows that if she goes into this profession, she’ll make possible the conception of a sighted child by a different couple of a different race six years later. (I add the “of a different race six years later” part to ward off the intuitional confusion Boonin warns about, where we allegedly have trouble holding the non-identity facts clear in our mind’s eye.)
In FERTILITY COACH, the counterfactual is (for all intents and purposes) the same as the in the standard non-identity case: *if* Wilma doesn’t conceive a blind child, *then* she will bring about the conception of a sighted child by another couple. But the truth of this counterfactual doesn’t seem like it could (or does) make it the case that Wilma wrongfully harms her blind child, rather than merely harming her in a non-comparative sense.
One might object that the counterfactual is different in the two cases—“will conceive” vs “will bring about the conception of”. But that seems like an irrelevant difference, and there are compelling arguments against solutions to the non-identity problem that try to make parental duties the issue.
Most of the energy directed at refuting harm based solutions to the non-identity problem comes in the form of giving counter-examples to this or that non-standard analysis of HARM (see Boonin’s book, Duncan Purves’ dissertation, etc.) But if this kind of blanket strategy works then that literature was probably unnecessary.
Good article! I think it’s all right!
Very interesting stuff. I'm curious if you've ever read Clark Wolf's paper "Do Future Persons Presently Have Alternate Possible Identities?" It seems like his approach would be another way of diffusing some of these difficulties. I'm not convinced we need to think about Harry and Moe as two distinct persons in situations like these, as opposed to two possible alternate identities that one future person might share. In that case, there would be a very straightforward explanation for why choosing to create Moe - which would really just be choosing to make sure some future person becomes Moe and not Harry - is suboptimal. But of course the plausibility of this analysis depends on what process is involved in creating the two; there might be some situations where there is no candidate for a single future person who has both identities as an "option."
Do you believe that harm and wronging are independent moral facts, ie, they can't be grounded in other kinds of facts about net welfare etc?
I guess I'm asking why I shouldn't take these paradoxes as a modus tollens to reject those concepts entirely?
In regard to the brain computer interface and policy decision; does the patient's opinion matter? You could argue that a patient would be happy to contribute to r&d that might help others.
Or is it about policy choices "forcing" a decision by limiting the option space?
Being against consentual pro tanto harms seem absurd, then we could go on a witch hunt targeted at personal trainers for inducing post workout soreness. I hope this is a strawman.