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Nonidentity Problem
Melinda A. Roberts

The Nonidentity Problem and the Person-Affecting Intuition

The nonidentity problem is widely considered to challenge the person-affecting
intuition. According to that intuition, an act can be wrong only if that act harms, or
will or can be expected to harm, some person. What is bad must be bad for someone
(Parfit 1987: 363).
The nonidentity problem arises when we realize that many apparently wrong,
future-directed acts that is, acts whose undesirable effects are to be exclusively
imposed on people who do not yet exist seem to harm, or make things worse for,
no one at all. The problem we are left with is that of explaining how acts that harm
no one can be wrong.
At the core of the problem is the point that the undesirable condition that the act
under scrutiny imposes seems not itself to be a harm or at least that it does not
seem to be a harm in any morally relevant sense (Parfit 1987: 374). The idea is this.
The person we may at first consider the most obvious victim of the wrong act on
closer inspection seems unable to exist at all in the absence of the undesirable condition. Yet, that persons life is we are to suppose clearly worth living. How then has
that person been harmed any more than the child has been harmed who suffers
the sting of the needle when being vaccinated against say tetanus (Parfit 1976;
Schwartz 1978; Adams 1979)?
In any particular instance of the nonidentity problem, the claim that the future life
critically depends on the prior wrong choice is itself, of course, in need of argument.
Inmost cases, the argument for that claim is best appreciated by thinking through the
case from an after-the-fact perspective. Thus, suppose that agents in fact choose to
deplete important resources when they might have chosen to conserve them instead
(Parfit 1987: 3614). And suppose that a child, Harry, is born a few generations later
into an undesirable condition the condition, say, of clean water being in short supply.
We then ask what the choice of conservation in place of depletion the choice, that is,
that would have avoided that undesirable condition would have meant for Harry.
A correct answer to this question must take into account the phenomenon Kavka
called the precariousness of the coming into existence of any particular person
(1981: 93). Parfit details that phenomenon as follows:
Suppose that we are choosing between two policies [and that under one] the
standard of living would be slightly higher over the next century. That effect implies
another. It is not true that, whichever policy we choose, the same particular people will
exist. Given the effects of two such policies on the details of our lives, it would

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 36343641.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee314

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increasingly over time be true that people married different people. And, even in
the same marriages, the children would increasingly over time be conceived at different
times. Since the choice between our two policies would affect the timing of later
conceptions, some of the people who are later born would owe their existence to
ourchoice. And the proportion of those later born who owe their existence to our
choice would, like ripples in a pool, steadily grow. (1987: 361)

In other words: the effect for Harry of conservation in place of depletion would not
have been a better existence but rather no existence at all. Or, at least, very probably,
the effect for Harry of conservation in place of depletion would have been no existence at all. Of course, any alternate person brought into existence in place of Harry
may well be better off than Harry in fact is. After all, that person will inhabit a world
where clean water is abundant. However, bringing any better-off but nonidentical
person into existence in place of Harry does Harry no good at all.
It then begins to look like the choice of depletion is, all things considered, not the
choice that makes things worse for Harry the choice that harms Harry in a morally
relevant sense but rather, if anything, the choice that benefits Harry. Depletion has
brought him into an existence worth having when he otherwise would at least very
probably never have existed at all.
Yet, we continue to think that the choice of depletion is wrong, depending on
details of the case (which details may include, e.g., that relatively few existing people
are benefited by depletion, while many future people are made to suffer). The upshot
is that, according to the nonidentity problem, we must reject the person-affecting
intuition. We must instead understand that some bad acts are bad for no one at
all. However, we do not thereby solve the problem since as Parfit argues we now
face a further challenge: the challenge of providing a plausible account of why the act
that will predictably make things worse for no one is nonetheless wrong.
Many other instances of the nonidentity problem seem to work in the same general
way as the depletion case does. These include Parfits risky policy case (1987: 3714),
Kavkas slave child and pleasure pill cases (1981: 93112), and the Acme chemical
company case (Woodward 1986: 81314; Smolkin 1999: 195; see climate change).
The person-affecting intuition is sometimes formulated in a way that focuses, not
on the evaluation of acts for their permissibility (Parfit 1987: 363), but rather the
evaluation of outcomes, or possible futures or worlds, in terms of their overall betterness (Parfit 1987: 370). On that alternate formulation, we would say that a world X is
morally worse than Y only if X makes things worse for some person who does or will
exist in X than Y (or we might instead want to say: than some Z) makes things for
that person. Whether we are interested in the deontic or the telic version of the
intuition, however, the choice of X is not to be judged wrong or, alternately, X is
not to be judged worse than Y in the case where the only (arguably) bad thing
about the choice of X or X itself is that it leaves a well-off person out of existence
altogether. For in that case X harms that is, makes things worse for at most a
person who is merely possible relative to X and not for any person who does or will
exist in X.

The details of formulation are critical. If, for example, the person-affecting
intuition is rewritten as a sufficient condition on when the choice of X is wrong or
when X is worse than Y then the resulting principle may well (depending on how
that work is done) seem implausible. For example, the principle that an act is wrong
if it is worse for a person who does or will exist under that act and better for no person who does or will exist under that act seems clearly unacceptable (Parfit 1987:
3956; Hare 2007: 50111; Roberts 2010: 6474; Roberts 2011; see population).
For different reasons, so is the principle which asserts that bringing an additional
well-off person into existence cannot make things either better or worse (Broome
2004: 1438; 2009). However, even the most cautious formulation of the personaffecting intuition leaves the intuition vulnerable to the nonidentity problem.

The Import of the Problem

The nonidentity problem is important because the person-affecting intuition is
important. Of course, that the person-affecting intuition is false will come as no
surprise to many nonconsequentialists. Rights-theorists, for example, may well be
convinced in advance of any discussion of the nonidentity problem that violating a
persons rights can make things better for that person but still be wrong.
Accordingly, to appreciate the import of the nonidentity problem, it is useful to
view the problem as part of the debate regarding whether the basic consequentialist
idea that we ought to create the most good that is, the most pleasure, happiness, or
well-being that we can is at root plausible (see consequentialism). Specifically,
the theorist who finds that idea compelling may be attracted to the person-affecting
intuition as a curb on what even many consequentialists consider the excesses of the
classic utilitarian principle, or totalism (Feldman 1995: 1903).
According to totalism, what we do is wrong when we could have created additional
well-being on a total, or aggregate, basis and fail to do so. The difficulty is that that
rule does not distinguish between two different ways in which we can fail to create
additional well-being (1) by failing to create additional well-being for an existing or
future person, and (2) by failing to bring an additional well-off person into existence.
That the failure described in (1) often constitutes wrong-doing is a standard that
seems stringent enough. That the failure described in (2) would also constitute
wrong-doing seems to go too far. The difficulty with (2) seems especially clear when
we realize the kinds of trade-offs (2) may allow, or require, us to make. Can it really
be permissible for agents to allow an existing childs well-being level plummet to, say,
the zero level, so long as agents have managed to offset that diminution in well-being
through the production of another child? Surely, as Narveson wrote, we are in favor
of making people happy, but neutral about making happy people (1976: 7).

Other Nonidentity Problems

Parfits depletion example is a difficult and challenging instance of the nonidentity
problem. Still another variety of the problem one where issues involving
probabilities do not seem to be implicated in any interesting way arises in cases in

which impairment is due entirely to genetic or chromosomal factors. Assuming that

the impaired childs life is worth living, and that the agents could have avoided the
impairment, we might quickly concur that the procreative choice does not harm the
child (see cloning; reproductive technology). In the law, such cases fall under
the heading of wrongful life (Roberts 2009b).
Parfits two medical programs example is a particularly important instance of the
non-probabilistic variety of nonidentity problem. Parfits case involves two rare conditions, J and K (1987: 367). A womans having condition J will cause any child already
conceived to be impaired in a certain way. Condition K, which causes any child that the
woman then conceives to be impaired in the same way, cannot be treated but always
disappears within two months (1987: 367). Both conditions will affect millions of
women, but we only have enough money to implement one program either a program
that will treat condition J, thereby making particular children better off, or a program
that will test for condition K and warn the women who are found to have it to delay
conception for two months, thereby producing nonidentical but better-off children.
Parfit asks whether there is any moral difference in the choice to fund one
program in place of the other (1987: 367). The person-affecting intuition suggests that there is. Choosing not to implement the program that tests for and
warns of condition K is permissible since that choice does not make things worse
for any existing or future person. In contrast, choosing not to implement the
program that treats condition J does make things worse for people who do or
will exist and a more complete person-affecting approach, though not the
person-affecting intuition itself, can be expected to imply that choosing not to
treat condition J would be wrong.
This distinction, however, may seem counterintuitive (Parfit 1987: 369). It is fair
to say that, if the no-difference view that Parfit endorses is correct, then we must
reject the person-affecting intuition.

Responses to the Nonidentity Problem

Some theorists have steadfastly clung to the person-affecting intuition even as they
accept the conclusion of the nonidentity argument: that is, that many apparently
wrong, future-directed acts in fact harm no one (Heyd 1992, 2009; Boonin 2008).
Such theorists take the position that, if the choice under scrutiny is wrong at all,
then it is wrong in virtue of the effects that it has on existing people or on those
future people if any who will come into existence however the choice under
scrutiny is made.
Many more theorists accept the conclusion of the nonidentity argument and
maintain that the problem compels us to say that a correct moral theory must be
impersonal at least in part (Parfit 1987: 378). Of course, unreconstructed totalists
will simply consider the nonidentity problem as evidence for their own view.
However, as Parfit argues, any purely aggregative approach appears to give rise to
further problems, including the Repugnant Conclusion (1987: 38190; see also
Tnnsj 2004: 21937; see repugnant conclusion).

Many theorists have thus developed more restrictive impersonal approaches

(Holtug 2009: 7192). Still others have described pluralistic approaches that would
balance the ideal of maximizing aggregate well-being against, for example, the ideals
of equality and human flourishing (Temkin 2012: 31362; 1993: 2217), or evaluate
our choices by reference to a combination of person-affecting and impersonal reasons (McMahan 2009: 4968; 2002: 294338).
Still other theorists argue that the comparative (or worse off) conception of when
an act harms, or is bad for, a person is unduly narrow. A more plausible conception
of harm, according to those theorists, accepts that the choice to bring a less well-off
person into existence may be considered to harm or at least to wrong, or to be bad
for that person because it brings a person into existence whose well-being level
falls below a decent minimum (Steinbock 2009), or because it causes that person
to suffer substantial pain or impairment (Harman 2004, 2009), or because restricted
lives can be intrinsically undesirable (Kavka 1981: 105).
A related proposal brings the concept of a right to bear in analyzing nonidentity
cases. On that view, future people have a right to have a certain kind of life, and when
we bring people into existence who cannot enjoy that kind of life, we violate that right
even in the case where their very existence depends on the right being violated (Persson
2009; Velleman 2008: 277; Reiman 2007: 7886, 92; Woodward 1986: 81126).
Still another proposal is premised on the idea that different types of nonidentity
problems are subject to different analyses. Hanser thus argues that in some cases, but
not others, the choice under scrutiny is related to the undesirable condition in a way
that makes it appropriate to say that the agent is responsible for that condition. Parfits
risky policy case would fall, according to Hanser, into the first category, while the
choice to bring a genetically impaired child into existence would fall into the second
(Hanser 2009: 18495).
The approach Roberts suggests also divides the cases. One horn of that approach
objects to the no harm done result that the nonidentity argument tries to establish
in cases such as depletion. The basis for the objection is that it is a fallacy to think
that what we intuitively consider the morally lesser choice somehow makes it any
more likely that a particular person will eventually exist than any seemingly better
choice does. In other words, Harrys existence is highly precarious under the choice
of conservation, but it is just as highly precarious under the choice of depletion. The
other horn of that approach accepts that still other types of nonidentity problems
e.g., genetic impairment cases do compel us to accept the no harm done result.
However, Roberts, like Heyd, argues that, for those cases, it remains unclear that the
choice under scrutiny is wrong (2009a: 20910; 2007).
Still another approach has been to contest the view that the lives at issue are truly
worth living. If never existing is the preferable state, then the view that causing a
person to exist generally harms that person can be pressed (Benatar 2006; Ryberg
2004).
Finally, many theorists consider the various challenges of population ethics to
show that a more agent-oriented, intention-based perspective is in order (Wasserman
2009: 26585; Kavka 1981). Consequences remain important but do not on their

own lead to a full understanding of how the choice to bring a person into a burdened
existence is to be evaluated.
See also: climate change; cloning; consequentialism; population; reproductive
technology; repugnant conclusion
REFERENCES
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Benatar, David 2006. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Oxford:
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Boonin, David 2008. How to Solve the Non-Identity Problem, Public Affairs Quarterly,
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Broome, John 2004. Weighing Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Hanser, Matthew 1990. Harming Future People, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 19, pp.4770.
Hanser, Matthew 2009. Harming and Procreating, in Melinda A. Roberts and David
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Hare, Caspar 2007. Voices from Another World: Must We Respect the Interests of People
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Heyd, David 2009. The Intractability of the Nonidentity Problem, in Melinda A. Roberts
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Nonidentity Problem. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 325.
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McMahan, Jeff 2002. The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. New York: Oxford
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McMahan, Jeff 2009. Asymmetries in the Morality of Causing People to Exist, in Melinda
A. Roberts and David T. Wasserman (eds.), Harming Future Persons: Ethics, Genetics
and the Nonidentity Problem. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 4968.
Narveson, Jan 1976. Moral Problems of Population, in Michael D. Bayles (ed.), Ethics and
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Parfit, Derek 1976. On Doing the Best for Our Children, in Michael D. Bayles (ed.), Ethics
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Parfit, Derek 1987 [1984]. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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T. Wasserman (eds.), Harming Future Persons: Ethics, Genetics and the Non-Identity
Problem. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 20128.
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Woodward, James 1986. The Non-Identity Problem, Ethics, vol. 96, pp. 80431.

FURTHER READINGS
Cohen, Cynthia 1996. Give Me Children or I Shall Die! New Reproductive Technologies
and Harm to Children, Hastings Center Report, vol. 26, pp. 1927.
Holtug, Nils 2010. Persons, Interests, and Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Kumar, Rahul 2003. Who Can Be Wronged? Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 31,
pp. 99118.
Rivera-Lopez, Eduardo 2009. Individual Procreative Responsibility and the Non-Identity
Problem, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 90, pp. 33663.
Robertson, John 1994. Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sher, George 2005. Transgenerational Compensation, Philosophy and Affairs, vol. 33,
pp. 185200.
Shiffrin, Seana 1999. Wrongful Life, Procreative Responsibility, and the Significance of
Harm, Legal Theory, vol. 5, pp. 11748.
Shiffrin, Seana 2009. Reparations for U.S. Slavery and Justice Over Time, in Melinda
A. Roberts and David T. Wasserman (eds.), Harming Future Persons: Ethics, Genetics
and the Nonidentity Problem. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 3329.
Weinberg, Rivka 2008. Identifying and Dissolving the Non-Identity Problem, Philosophical
Studies, vol. 137, pp. 318.