Sujoy Bhattacharyya 2300 WordsPhilosophy 225T01173814

Possible Resolutions to the Non-Identity Problem

The Non-Identity Problem, first outlined by Derek Parfit, is an issue that arises in moral decisions that not only influence the quality of life of people in the future, but also determines the individuals that exist in that future. In this paper, I will discuss the exact nature of the Non-Identity Problem, it application to environmental ethics and potential ways to resolve the issues it raises.

The Non-Identity Problem arises from Parfit’s Time-Dependence claim, which, in its less controversial form, states that if “any particular person had not been conceived within a month of when he was actually conceived, he would in fact never have existed.” The reasoning is clear – every individual is a unique combination of a particular sperm with a particular egg and that combination is clearly contingent on when conception occurred. Applying this to questions of morality, however, leads to interesting and perhaps troubling conclusions. Consider Parfit’s example of a 14-year-old girl’s (Anne) decision to have a child. Let’s suppose that her youth would lead to her giving the child a life that was worth living, but filled with considerable hardships. If she waits 10 years before giving birth, she will be able to give her child a much better life. Intuitively, it seems that it is morally wrong for Anne to have a child when 14. But considering the Time-Dependence Claim, these two children are two distinct individuals. Thus any attempt to claim that Anne has done harm would find it difficult to locate an individual she has harmed. It is true that if 14-year-old Anne gives birth to Baby A, he would suffer a considerable amount. But if she had waited, then baby A would never have been born. This contains the crux of the Non-Identity Problem – when a decision affects whether or not an individual exists, that individual cannot be directly harmed by not taking the path of higher quality of life.

The application to environment ethics is straightforward. Any serious environmental policy will affect many decisions that current individuals make, and correspond to a different set of future people. Consider two policies, one of Depletion (D) and the other of Conservation (C). Depletion corresponds to consuming resources heavily now, leaving little for our distant descendants. The quality of life for the next three generations is higher than currently, but after that resources are so depleted that the quality of life is significantly lower than present. On the other hand, Conservation corresponds to consuming resources at a rate that ensures our distant ancestors enjoy a quality of life higher than those in Depletion’s future. Let us immediately set aside concerns about the exact results of this dichotomy, such as whether the higher initial consumption during Depletion would mean we would more readily find substitutes for the spent resources, and focus on the problem as Parfit presents it. Just as in the case of Anne and her two potential children, we (or at least, many of us) are instinctively against depriving our future descendants of the quality of life they could have enjoyed. But again, since the people in each future are distinct, nobody has been directly harmed.

It is immediate that most of, if not all, of the “problem” in the Non-Identity Problem arises from adopting a person affecting view of consequentialism. In this, an

Sujoy Bhattacharyya 2300 WordsPhilosophy 225T01173814outcome is worse if and only if actual people are harmed. The converse of this is that an action is only better if and only if those same people benefit. This is a reasonable view – moral deliberations must surely focus on moral agents – so first let’s consider ways to resolve the Non-Identity Problem in this paradigm, before turning to the more controversial possibility of perhaps discarding it.

The first of these would be to set some sort of Minimum quality of life and make it morally wrong to take actions that put people below it. This Minimum would be above the level of a life worth living, yet considerably below that which, say, most Oberlin College students enjoy. The existence of such a level doesn’t seem so controversial. A life “worth living” is, after all, a very low bar. Raising the bar does present some possibility at resolving the Non-Identity Problem. In the case of Anne, baby A might well be below this Minimum level and thus we can say that it is immoral to bear it. Similarly, if the D policy led to many people in the distant future living below the Minimum, we could advocate for C. It is key to note here the moral “algorithm” is to isolate actions or policies that are morally wrong, and then find those that are morally good through cancellation.

The problem is that the Minimum theory, as it stands, doesn’t clearly point us to courses of action that we should take. If we modified the D policy so that future generations had a lower quality of life, but one that was still above the Minimum then there seems to be no reason to pick it over a C policy (except perhaps, our intuition). One way to resolve this is to raise the Minimum so that it corresponded to a level of life that was consistent, or close to, what the C future would enjoy. But this seems to be arbitrarily setting conditions to favor a particular outcome. If we consider applying the same technique to the conception example, then suddenly every woman giving birth to a child in rural India is guilty of a moral fault. This seems patently ridiculous. While the exact level of the Minimum is worth investigating, it seems unlikely that raising it will lead to a case where C is favored over D.

A more successful approach might be to acknowledge implicitly the probabilistic nature of this example. Since we are talking exclusively about future consequences, everything should be expressed as an expected variable. Every possible outcome comes with an associated probability of occurrence and our goal is to maximize the expected good (as Bentham originally intended). This immediately presents one compelling reason to pick C over D. Assuming that our analysis is correct, D now has a much higher chance of putting more people under the Minimum than C. To understand this, note that the quality of life we have been considering in this example must necessarily be the average of all people who inhabit a particular future. Making the reasonable assumption that the each population is distributed normally, with similar spreads1, around their respective average leads to the inevitable conclusion that D is expected to put more people under the Minimum. What’s interesting is that this is true for D of any scale, as long as that distant level is below that of C. So despite also utilizing a cancellation “algorithm”, this theory does pick C over D.

1 Formally, both are Gaussian distributions with the same standard deviation but different means

Sujoy Bhattacharyya 2300 WordsPhilosophy 225T01173814

There are a few problems with the expectations theory. The first is that we have to take into account the greater good expected during the early parts of D. Since it is higher than that in the early parts of C, our above analysis implies that this portion of D is morally desirable. However, if we take the long run into view the relative length of this high consumption period becomes essential. If it is relatively short, then the positive effects are but a small blip on a generally negative background. If it is longer, then perhaps D is not morally wrong. Considering that there are finite resources, a restriction that would require extraordinary amounts of human ingenuity to overcome, it does seem that the former is more likely. If alternative resources weren’t generated during high consumption, it’s hard to imagine they would be during the depleted period. Another criticism is the assumption that the spreads are equal2, which was key in leading us to pick C. This is in fact unrealistic – C’s population would probably have a tighter spread than D’s. A stricter control, chosen of free will or mild coercion, on our use of resources would lead to less variation between different individuals3. The opposite is true of D so if anything, this should make us favor C even more.

The larger issue is whether this game of probability and standard deviations should be the basis for our moral deliberations. It seems both dangerously heuristic and to mix in a little too much empiricism into our philosophy. But it seems as if we have little choice. We are evaluating very long term policies – what choice do we have but to rely on expected value? We have to examine the goodness of entire populations – what other tool can we use but statistical composition?4 Our final conclusion is still based on the relatively non-objectionable concept that it is morally wrong to place an individual below the Minimum, even with the Non-Identity Problem at play.

We can ease this worry by changing the time scale on which we’re making the choice between these two policies. Imagine that once a generation the Earth comes together to make a choice between C and D, but only for the next generation. In this case, they will make decisions based on the future good of themselves and their direct offspring. The reason for this process stems from an uneasiness with the basic setup of the example. To pick such a long lasting policy with such drastic effects seems to infringe on the basic agency of our future descendants. Parfit mentions this, but quickly dismisses it as irrelevant. I find it a little harder to dismiss. Strictly speaking, any of our actions is an “infringement” of future generations agency. And if we were to give this moral weight, we’d find ourselves paralyzed. But for an action of such longevity and magnitude, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to at least exercise caution and, not too venture too far into political philosophy, have the decision makers be those actually affected.5 The good news is that this eliminates the Non-Identity Problem since we are restricting ourselves to considering, and being responsible for only a few generations, all extant, at a time. The problem is that it is unclear whether to pick C or D. D seems morally right for at least a while, but then comes a time when the potential loss to our offspring will 2 That the distribution would be roughly Gaussian is hard to dispute3 Alas, questions of whether government or some similar coercion would be required and justified must be left aside in this paper4 Answers to both these questions are welcome5 This might be also a result of my recent macroeconomics exam

Sujoy Bhattacharyya 2300 WordsPhilosophy 225T01173814outweigh the benefits to us, prompting a switch. Thus while this doesn’t present a clear answer (which would require more investigation into the calculus of the good) it does present a way to make such decisions while limiting the Non-Identity Problem.

A more radical way to resolve the Non-Identity Problem is to discard, or at least loosen, our adherence to the person-affecting view. There are two compelling reasons for this. The first is the fundamental moral asymmetry of birth. Before birth, a person is a moral non-entity. Then after birth (discarding debates about conception) it has moral significance that must be accounted for. This is unlike almost any other situation we encounter on any regular basis, specifically in regards to how it affects the person affecting view. There was no person before birth, so it any attempt to apply it directly (without consideration of the Minimum-expectation theory outlined earlier) results in an empty moral theory, suggesting we need one that is more substantial. The second is that the Non-Identity Problem is just an inevitable result of the complexity of our interactions. Yes, the individuals that comprise the future will be different. But it seems a stretch to use that to rid the situation of moral relevance. Just as the impossibility of perfect information and accounting isn’t a deathblow to utilitarianism, the presence of a variable we cannot control in our moral deliberations shouldn’t be used to not face hard moral choices.

Derek Parfit proposes a potential non-person-affecting view, which he calls Q. Simply put, if the same number of people would ever live it would be bad if those who live are worse off than those who would have lived. This view, of course, immediately points to C over D. But how coherent is it? If we take the inevitability of not having any control over which individuals comprise the future, since too far too many random variables effect the combination of sperms and eggs that are born, then this effectively simply modifies the person affecting view. The Non-Identity Problem becomes another exogenous constraint on our moral theory, just like imperfect information and random chance. We know there will be a group of future people whose composition is uncontrollable. Thus we attempt to benefit rather than harm them.

In conclusion, the Non-Identity Problem presents many wrinkles to our moral deliberations on environmental issues. However, it is no way a crippling blow. We can appeal to an expectation theory of the Minimum, which presents a clear way to resolve it. We could restructure our actual decision making process to be more in line with concerns of future agency, dissolving the problem but leaving the final decision a little unclear. Or we could even loosen the person-affecting view, and treat all future individuals equally.

Bibliography:The Non-Identity Problem, Derek ParfitHandout 8 – Future Generations and the Non Identity Problem, Tim Hall