Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T22:58:20.453Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Morality of Creating Lives Not Worth Living: On Boonin's Solution to the Non-Identity Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2022

Olle Risberg Open the ORCID record for Olle Risberg [Opens in a new window]
Olle Risberg*
Affiliation:
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
*
olle.risberg@filosofi.uu.se
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

David Boonin argues that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating a different person whose life would be significantly worse, but still worth living, each option is morally permissible. I show that Boonin's argument for this view problematically implies that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating another person whose life would not be worth living, each option is also morally permissible.

Keywords

The non-identity problemHarmPopulation ethicsPerson-affecting views
Type
Replies
Information
Utilitas , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 88 - 97
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boonin, David. 2014. The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, John. 1993. ‘Goodness Is Reducible to Betterness: The Evil of Death Is the Value of Life.’ In The Good and the Economical: Ethical Choices in Economics and Management, Koslowski, P. and Shionoya, Y. (eds.), Springer-Verlag, pp. 70–84.Google Scholar
Carlson, Erik, and Johansson, Jens. 2018. Well-Being without Being? A Reply to Feit. Utilitas 30: 198–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feit, Neil. 2015. Plural Harm. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90: 361–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feit, Neil. 2016. Comparative Harm, Creation and Death. Utilitas 28: 136–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Molly. 2015. A Harm-Based Solution to the Non-Identity Problem. Ergo 2: 427–44.Google Scholar
Gardner, Molly. 2019. When Good Things Happen to Harmed People. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 22: 893–908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Elizabeth. 2004. Can We Harm and Benefit in Creating? Philosophical Perspectives 18: 89–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyd, David. 1992. Genethics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holtug, Nils. 2001. On the Value of Coming into Existence. The Journal of Ethics 5: 361–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Jens. 2010. Being and Betterness. Utilitas 22: 285–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Jens, and Risberg, Olle. Forthcoming. A Simple Analysis of Harm. Ergo.Google Scholar
Johansson, Jens, and Risberg, Olle. 2019. The Preemption Problem. Philosophical Studies 176: 351–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norcross, Alastair. 2005. Harming in Context. Philosophical Studies 123: 149–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar