Melinda A. Roberts & David T. Wasserman 
Harming Future Persons 
Ethics, Genetics and the Nonidentity Problem

Melinda A. Roberts and David T. Wasserman 1 Purpose of this Collection What are our obligations with respect to persons who have not yet, and may not ever, come into existence? Few of us believe that we can wrong those whom we leave out of existence altogether—that is, merely possible persons. We may think as well that the directive to be “fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” 1 does not hold up to close scrutiny. How can it be wrong to decline to bring ever more people into existence? At the same time, we think we are clearly ob- gated to treat future persons—persons who don’t yet but will exist—in accordance with certain stringent standards. Bringing a person into an existence that is truly awful—not worth having—can be wrong, and so can bringing a person into an existence that is worth having when we had the alternative of bringing that same person into an existence that is substantially better. We may think as well that our obligations with respect to future persons are triggered well before the point at which those persons commence their existence. We think it would be wrong, for example, to choose today to turn the Earth of the future into a miserable place even if the victims of that choice do not yet exist.

विषयसूची

Can Bringing a Person into Existence Harm That Person? Can an Act That Harms No One Be Wrong?.- The Intractability of the Nonidentity Problem.- If Bringing a Badly Off Person into Existence is Wrong, is Not Bringing a Well Off Person into Existence Also Wrong?.- Rights and the Asymmetry Between Creating Good and Bad Lives.- Asymmetries in the Morality of Causing People to Exist.- Must an Act Worse for People be Worse for a Particular Person?.- Who Cares About Identity?.- Do Future Persons Presently Have Alternate Possible Identities?.- Rule Consequentialism and Non-identity.- Is the Argument to “No Harm Done” Correct? Must an Act that Harms a Person Make that Person Worse Off?.- Harming as Causing Harm.- Wrongful Life and Procreative Decisions.- Harming and Procreating.- The Nonidentity Problem and the Two Envelope Problem: When is One Act Better for a Person than Another?.- Is the Morality of Parental Reproductive Choice Special? Can Intentions and Attitudes Make an Act that Harms No One Wrong?.- Reproduction, Partiality, and the Non-identity Problem.- Two Varieties of “Better-For” Judgements.- Harms to Future People and Procreative Intentions.- Is the Person Affecting Approach Objectionable Independent of the Nonidentity Problem?.- Can the Person Affecting Restriction Solve the Problems in Population Ethics?.- What are the Implications of the Nonidentity Problem for Law and Public Policy?.- Implications of the Nonidentity Problem for State Regulation of Reproductive Liberty.- Reparations for U.S. Slavery and Justice Over Time.