Future Suffering and the Non-Identity Problem
Theron Pummer (University of St Andrews)
GPI Working Paper No. 17-2024
I present and explore a new version of the Person-Affecting View, according to which reasons to do an act depend wholly on what would be said for or against this act from the points of view of particular individuals. According to my view, (i) there is a morally requiring reason not to bring about lives insofar as they contain suffering (negative welfare), (ii) there is no morally requiring reason to bring about lives insofar as they contain happiness (positive welfare), but (iii) there is a permitting reason to bring about lives insofar as they contain happiness. I show how my view solves the non-identity problem, while retaining the procreation asymmetry and avoiding implausible forms of antinatalism. We can be morally required to ensure that the quality of life of future people is higher rather than lower when this involves bringing about (worth living) lives that would contain less suffering rather than bringing about different (worth living) lives that would contain more suffering.
Theron Pummer gave the Parfit Memorial Lecture 2024, Future Suffering and the Non-Identity Problem, on 12 June 2024.
Other working papers
The paralysis argument – William MacAskill, Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
Given plausible assumptions about the long-run impact of our everyday actions, we show that standard non-consequentialist constraints on doing harm entail that we should try to do as little as possible in our lives. We call this the Paralysis Argument. After laying out the argument, we consider and respond to…
How to neglect the long term – Hayden Wilkinson (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
Consider longtermism: the view that, at least in some of the most important decisions facing agents today, which options are morally best is determined by which are best for the long-term future. Various critics have argued that longtermism is false—indeed, that it is obviously false, and that we can reject it on normative grounds without close consideration of certain descriptive facts. In effect, it is argued, longtermism would be false even if real-world agents had promising means…
Maximal cluelessness – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
I argue that many of the priority rankings that have been proposed by effective altruists seem to be in tension with apparently reasonable assumptions about the rational pursuit of our aims in the face of uncertainty. The particular issue on which I focus arises from recognition of the overwhelming importance…