Boonin on the Non-Identity Problem

David Boonin starts by presenting two cases. The first is roughly this:

Betty Betty is six months pregnant. Her doctor tells her that, if she keeps taking the medication that she is currently on, be born with an illness that causes minor health problems throughout life, and a premature death at age 30. But, if she stops taking the meds (or switches to a different brand that is equally effective), her child will be perfectly healthy. (Though, either way, the child’s life will be, on the whole, a good life; i.e., a life worth living.) Betty considers the doctor’s advice. However, since it would be a minor inconvenience to switch medications, she keeps taking the medication. Her child experiences some health issues and later dies at 30.

My Unhealthy Child case from the previous lecture is based on Boonin’s second case:

Wilma Wilma is deciding whether or not to conceive a child. Her doctor tells her that, due to some medication she is currently on, if she conceives now, she will conceive a child that will be born with an illness that causes minor health problems throughout life, and a premature death at age 30. But, if she stops taking the medication and waits a month for it to clear her system before conceiving, her child will be perfectly healthy. (Though, either way, the child’s life will be, on the whole, a good life; i.e., a life worth living.) Wilma considers the doctor’s advice. However, since it would be a minor inconvenience to switch medications and wait a month to conceive, she decides to conceive right away. Her child experiences some health issues and later dies at 30.

Intuitively, both Betty and Wilma act wrongly. In fact, there do not seem to be any morally relevant differences between their behavior. However, as the non-identity problem reveals, their actions are importantly different. For, Betty’s child (call him Bam Bam) ALREADY EXISTS, and her decision to keep taking her medication clearly harms Bam Bam. However, Wilma has a choice between (a) bringing a child into existence who will die young (call her Pebbles), or (b) bringing a child into existence who will live a long healthy life (call him Rocks). Whether she does (a) or (b), it is not clear that she has harmed her child either way. So, what explains the wrongness of Wilma’s action? Answering this question constitutes the Non-Identity Problem.

[Re-Cap of Last Time: Recall that to harm a person P is to perform some action, A, which makes P worse off than P otherwise would have been. However, by conceiving immediately, Wilma does not make Pebbles worse off than Pebbles otherwise would have been. For, by conceiving immediately, Wilma gives Pebbles 30 good years. But, had she waited a month to conceive, Pebbles would have had zero good years. (For, in that case, Pebbles would never have been born at all! Rather, Rocks would have been born instead.) So, by giving Pebbles 30 good years rather than none at all, it seems that Wilma has actually BENEFITTED Pebbles rather than harmed her (i.e., she’s made Pebbles BETTER OFF than Pebbles otherwise would have been).]

Here is the problem, in argument form:

1. Wilma does not harm her child. Assumption: Harm =df Making someone worse off than they otherwise would have been. 2. Wilma does not wrong her child in some other (harmless) way. 3. Wilma does not harm or wrong anyone else either. 4. If Wilma neither harms nor wrongs anyone, then she does not act wrongly. 5. Therefore, Wilma does not act wrongly.

The problem is that, to most of us, the conclusion seems false. So, one of the premises must be false. But, which one? They all seem so plausible! Let’s look at each of them in turn.

Objection to P1: Wilma DOES harm her child

We can take issue with P1 either by (a) arguing that Wilma DOES harm her child according to this definition, or else that (b) Wilma harms her child not according to this definition of harm, but some other better definition.

Strategy (a). Wilma makes her child worse off than s/he otherwise would have been.

Consider this joke:

You: They grow up so fast, don’t they? How old is your son now? Me: He’s 5. You: Wait, I asked you ten years ago, and you said your son was 5. Do you have more than one son? Me: No, I’ve only ever had one son. You: Then I don’t understand. Me: Well, you see… My son never gets any older than 5. You: How in the heck is that!? Me: Easy. Every time my son is about to turn 6, I give him up for adoption and adopt a 5 year old boy.

Imagine that Timmy is presently my son. I’m not saying that TIMMY never ages past 5. That would be to use “my son” in what is called the de re sense. Instead, I’m using “my son” in what is called the de dicto sense. I’m saying that WHOEVER “my son” has referred to, THAT person (and it’s been at least ten children at this point) is always 5 years old while I’m their dad.

Another example: (i) Roughly 66% of eligible voters cast a vote for the president in 2020. (ii) Roughly 34% of eligible voters cast a vote for the president in 2020.

BOTH of these statements are true! In (i), “the president” is being used in the de dicto sense. That is, in 2020, 66% of eligible voters (~158 million people) cast a vote for someone or other to be president. In (ii), “the president” is being used in the de re sense. That is, in 2022, about 34% of eligible voters (~81 million people) voted specifically for Joe Biden to be president.

Solution: It is true that Wilma does not harm “her child” in the de re sense (i.e., she does not make Pebbles worse off than she otherwise would have been). But, Wilma DOES harm “her child” in the de dicto sense (i.e., if Wilma conceives now, then the filler of the ROLE of “Wilma’s child” is worse off than the filler of that role would have been, had Wilma waited a month to conceive). In short, P1 is false; for Wilma DOES harm her child—namely, in the de dicto sense.

Problem: This is a completely absurd usage of the term ‘harm’. You cannot harm someone in the de dicto sense; i.e., you cannot harm a ROLE, or an OFFICE. If you could, then it would be true that I harm “my child” in the following case:

Adoption I am trying to decide whether to adopt (a) Jimmy, a child with a debilitating disease which will cause him some life-long discomfort, and lead to an early death at the age of 30; or (b) Timmy, a healthy child who will live a long, happy life. I adopt Jimmy.

On the present suggestion, I HARM my child! For, I have caused “my child” (in the de dicto sense) to die much younger than he otherwise would have. And, what is more, it was WRONG to adopt Jimmy! (For, recall that the motivation for rejecting P1 here was to explain why it is WRONG for Wilma to conceive now rather than waiting a month.) That is absolutely absurd.

[Note: You might also reject P1 by defending Benatar’s claim that bringing a child into existence is ALWAYS harmful—if that is true, then Wilma does harm Pebbles by conceiving immediately. Of course, then she would ALSO have harmed Rocks, had she conceived a month later instead!]

Strategy (b). Wilma harms her child according to some other definition of ‘harm’.

We have said said that ‘harm’ should be understood as follows:

Harm = Making someone worse off than they otherwise would have been.

But, recall these two cases:

• Nose Punch

(Some find it plausible that, in this case, you do harm your victim. Yet, you do not make them worse off than they otherwise would have been. If that is correct, then our proposed analysis of ‘harm’ does not supply a necessary condition for harming.)

• New Restaurant

(Some find it plausible that, in this case, you do not harm your “victim”. Yet, you do make them worse off than they otherwise would have been. If that is correct, then our proposed analysis of ‘harm’ does not supply a sufficient condition for harming.)

So, the analysis of ‘harm’ above is unsatisfactory. Our next step would then be to propose some new analysis of ‘harm’ which better aligns with our intuitions—and one which entails that Wilma DOES harm Pebbles when she chooses to conceive immediately.

(But, what might a better definition of ‘harm’ look like? Answering this question will be the subject of the next two lectures. So, stay tuned.)

(Note: We’ve said that Wilma does not harm Pebbles by bringing her into existence, because this—i.e., existing—did not make her worse off than she otherwise would have been—i.e., non- existent. Now, you might be thinking that this claim is flawed because it compares existence with non-existence. But, this criticism would be a mistake. For, even if it were true that existence and non-existence cannot be compared, the claim that “Pebbles’ living a good life is not worse than never existing at all” would still be true! And this is all that Premise 1 requires.)

Objection to P2: Wilma DOES wrong her child in some harmless way

Recall that we also said that it might be possible to WRONG someone without HARMING them. As in the following cases. (Assume that the victims in each case never find out.)

• Peeping Tom • Cheating on a loved one • Breaking into someone’s house and squatting in their home • Saying bad things about someone behind their back

In each of these cases, the victims are neither made worse off, nor better off. But, it gets worse. For, plausibly, it is even possible to wrong others while BENEFITTING them! Consider:

Racist Airline Employee Jack, an African American, attempts to board a plane to New York, where he has an important meeting. Jill, a white supremacist, prevents Jack from boarding saying, “Your kind isn’t welcome around here.” As it turns out, the plane crashes, and everyone on board dies.

Throwing Gold Bars (by Seana Shiffrin) Mary, a billionaire, enjoys hurting poor people. In her free time, she flies over starving people in her helicopter and throws gold bars at them. One of the gold bars hits Peter and breaks his arm. Peter, who was on the brink of starvation, sells the gold and survives, even escaping poverty entirely with the proceeds.

It seems that Jack and Peter have been WRONGED, even if they have not been HARMED. (Rather, it seems that they have actually both been BENEFITTED.)

So, perhaps Wilma wrongs Pebbles even if she does not harm her. But how?

Possible ways of wronging people without harming them:

• Rights – Violating someone’s rights • Fairness – Treating someone unfairly • Respect – Failing to treat someone with respect

So, perhaps Wilma’s act of bringing Pebbles into existence wrongs Pebbles because it violates Pebble’s rights; or treats Pebbles unfairly; or fails to treat Pebbles with respect?

Reply: Boonin raises several worries for this proposal:

• First, Pebbles doesn’t even EXIST when Wilma makes her supposedly rights-violating choice. But, how can you violate the rights of someone who does not even exist?

[But, isn’t it plausible that I violate future people’s rights when I, say, bury radioactive waste under a site where a pre-school is planned for construction? Even if the toddlers who will be harmed do not exist yet, their rights are violated by my past action ONCE THEY EXIST.]

• So, it is wrong to CREATE someone who WILL have rights which WILL be violated, once they exist. But, then, ALL parents do this (i.e., they created you, and when you began to exist, so did your rights; and presumably many of your rights will be violated over the course of your life). So, on this suggestion, your parents acted wrongly, which is absurd.

[But, in the typical case, the parent creates a child who will later have their rights violated by someone ELSE—and it is THAT act that is the rights-violation, rather than the parents’ act of bringing the child into existence. With Pebbles, it is Wilma’s very act of bringing her into existence that is (supposedly) the rights violation.]

• All Wilma has done is to bring Pebbles into existence. So, the supposed “right” that Wilma violates would have to be something like Pebbles’ right to NOT be brought into existence. But, can someone plausibly have that sort of right? That seems absurd—especially in cases where the existence that is given is a GOOD life worth living (as Pebbles’ existence is)!

[Perhaps it is a right not to be brought into existence below some minimum level of well- being that Wilma violates? For someone like Pebbles, her existence is inseparable from her sub-optimal well-being. So, it is IMPOSSIBLE to bring someone like her into existence without violating their rights. Is this plausible? What do you think?]

Derek Parfit (in his final paper, “Future People, the Non-Identity Problem, and Person-Affecting Principles”, 2017) imagines a case where a woman like Wilma can either bring into existence a child who dies at 30 or NONE AT ALL. (For instance, imagine someone with a genetically inheritable disease, perhaps like Huntington’s disease, but with a near 100% chance of passing on the gene.) Parfit thinks it’s clear that conceiving is permissible in this case, and does not violate the child’s rights, isn’t unfair, disrespectful, etc. So, his argument is something like: 1. This woman does not violate her child’s rights, etc. 2. But, if she doesn’t, then neither does Wilma. 3. Therefore, Wilma doesn’t violate her child’s rights either. [Do you agree?]

Objection to P3: Wilma DOES harm/wrong someone other than her child

Some plausible candidates for who else is harmed:

• Society • Wilma • Rocks (her unborn son)

But, we can stipulate the first two away. Assume, for instance, that bringing Pebbles into existence places no additional burden on society, or upon Wilma, etc.

What about Rocks? Because his mother conceives immediately, Rocks is worse off than he otherwise would have been because he gets no life rather than a long and healthy life… Right?

No! Rocks is not harmed because YOU CANNOT HARM SOMEONE WHO NEVER EXISTS!

Objection to P4: Wilma DOES act wrongly without harming/wronging any particular individual(s)

Perhaps we can admit that Wilma neither harms nor wrongs anyone by bringing Pebbles into existence—but insist that she acts wrongly nevertheless. But, then, we would need to supply some normative principle that entailed that an act could be wrong EVEN WHEN it neither harms nor wrongs anyone. (And, to solve the non-identity problem, it would need to be one that Wilma clearly violates.) What could such a principle look like?

Well, clearly, Wilma’s decision results in there being less GOODNESS in the world than there otherwise would have been. For, by bringing Pebbles into existence, Wilma only puts 30 years of good life into the world. But, had she conceived Rocks instead, she would have put 80 years of good life into the world. Clearly, the latter choice is BETTER. (And this is still true even if we admit that Wilma’s choice neither harms nor wrongs anyone either way.)

In short, of her two choices, even though neither choice would harm or wrong anyone, one of the two choices is still worse than the other. And Wilma chose the worse of her two options. Perhaps THIS is what makes her choice wrong.

…But, what moral principle would we need to advance in order to generate this verdict? Presumably, something like this:

Consequentialism: When faced with more than one option, you ought always to choose the best one (i.e., the one that results in the greatest total amount of goodness).

Problem: But, most people find consequentialism implausible. For starters, it is incompatible with the existence of “supererogatory” actions—i.e., actions which are good to do, but not obligatory. (Such actions go “above and beyond the call of duty.”) In short, it seems like it is at least sometimes morally permissible to make the morally worse choice.

Consequentialism also delivers a lot of counter-intuitive verdicts in specific cases (e.g., it entails that we are morally obligated to murder innocent healthy people in order to distribute their organs to those who need transplants). But, for person-affecting choices in particular (i.e., choices which affect who does or doesn’t come into existence), it seems to entail:

(1) We are all obligated to procreate as much as possible. (2) It would be better to create a world full of a trillion people with lives barely worth living (with, say, 0.01 hedons—or units of goodness—each) than one with a billion perfectly happy people (with 100 hedons each). (This is known as The Repugnant Conclusion.) [Fiona Woollard (in her “Have We Solved the Non-Identity Problem?”, 2012), also points out that this proposal would have no way of distinguishing between Parfit’s Depletion case and the following case:

Natural Disaster We presently discover that a super-volcano is going to erupt in 300 years and release so much CO2 that it will usher in exactly the same terrible things that climate scientists are presently predicting will occur in 300 years. We can prevent it only if we start working on it now, and doing so will be exactly as costly to the present generation as preventing climate change would be in the actual world.

Woollard thinks it is clear that our obligation to prevent climate change is STRONGER than our obligation to prevent the eruption of the super-volcano would be, because we’re causing the former. (We’re DOING the GHG emissions rather than ALLOWING them.) Consequentialism must deny this, for it entails that HOW a result is brought about does not matter at all, morally.

She also asks: What if they could time travel and force us to conserve in Depletion? Or force us to prevent the Natural Disaster? She thinks it is clear that the time-travelers would have a legitimate demand/grounds for coercion in Depletion, but not Natural Disaster. Do you agree?]

(Perhaps virtue ethics to the rescue? Virtue ethicists believe that a morally wrong action is one which exhibits a flawed—i.e., non-virtuous—moral character. And it does seem that only someone with a flawed moral character would act as Wilma does, doesn’t it? This is another way in which P4 might be false. But, then, virtue ethicists owe us an account of WHY acting in the way that Wilma does exhibits a failure of virtue—which puts us back to square one.)

Final Solution: Simply Embrace the Conclusion

Each of the premises seems to stand on pretty solid ground. In response to this, Boonin’s “solution” is to simply accept the conclusion.

It is NOT wrong for Wilma to conceive Pebbles rather than Rocks!

If your ethical intuitions say otherwise, it’s only because non-identity cases are so bizarre; and this confuses our intuitions. Wilma has caused Pebbles to exist with a disease, yes. Put another way, it is Wilma’s fault that Pebbles dies at age 30. Typically, being responsible for this sort of outcome is morally wrong because it HARMS them. But, Wilma’s causing of Pebbles to have a disease is inextricably linked to causing her to exist at all! In short, we’re confusing these two:

(a) Wilma causes Pebbles to have a 30 year life expectancy, rather than 80 years. (b) Wilma causes 30-year-life-expectancy-Pebbles to exist, rather than not exist.

It is (a) that is clearly immoral. [ß (a) is like what Betty does.] What Wilma actually does is (b), which doesn’t seem so wrong if you think about it. If your intuitions are telling you that Wilma acts wrongly, it’s likely only because you’re confusing Wilma as doing (a) rather than (b).

To motivate his seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion, Boonin offers us the following test case:

Fred at the Pond Fred is at a pond where two children are starving: (a) Nearby is Billy, who has a condition which will lead to a premature death (at, say, 30), and (b) Further away is Timmy, who will live a long and healthy life. Fred has a life-preserver which he can throw to only one of the children. Since it is slightly more inconvenient to run to Timmy who is further away, he throws it to Billy. Billy is saved and Timmy drowns.

Now, clearly Fred made the morally WORSE choice (since his decision resulted in fewer good years of life being lived). Like Wilma, Fred has a choice between granting one of two distinct individuals future existence—and he chooses the one (Billy) who will live only 30 years. But was it morally WRONG for him to do so? Boonin thinks it is clear that it is NOT wrong.

Yet, there are some differences between what Fred does, and what Wilma does:

(1) Wilma is the biological mother of the two children (Pebbles and Rocks).

If this bothers you, just stipulate that both Billy and Jimmy turn out to be Fred’s biological sons (perhaps he donated some sperm a while back or something).

(2) When Wilma makes her choice, neither Pebbles nor Rocks EXISTS yet.

If this bothers you, Boonin simply alters the Fred case to the following:

Barney at the Pond Exactly like Fred at the Pond, except that there are two women drowning. Each of them has been recently inseminated and will very shortly conceive a child. (a) The nearer woman will conceive Billy, a child with an incurable disease who will die at age 30, and (b) The farther woman will conceive Jimmy, a healthy child who will die at a ripe old age. Barney saves the nearer woman.

Boonin’s claim: Surely it is permissible to save the nearer woman. [Do you agree?]