Summary on Chapter from Modules 05-08 philosophy

M08Lec02: The Identity Problem

This lecture will help you understand: • The problem of personal identity • Parfit’s “identity problem” • Its impact on energy policy • The claim that a risky energy policy

is wrong “even if it is worse for no one”

Derek Parfit (1942-)

Robert Heilbroner (1919-2005)

Parfit’s Question

• What is our moral obligation to future generations when the same number of people but different persons are affected by the choices we make now?

• “Energy Policy and the Further Future: The Identity Problem” (1983)

Personal Identity

• What does it mean to be you? What makes you who you are?

• Would you be the same person if you had been conceived on a Tuesday instead of Saturday?

• Given who you are now, would you be the same person if you had been conceived a month later?

• What would happen to your personal identity if the cells from which you were formed were different from those that you did in fact develop from?

Two Views of Personal Identity

1. Necessity of Origins Theory 2. Ego Theory

Necessity of Origins Theory

• You could not have grown from a different pair of cells. If you have been conceived a minute earlier or later, you (who you are now) would not have existed.

Yours!

Ego Theory

• You could have grown from different cells, or even had different parents. (If Plato’s actual parents never had children, and some other ancient Greek couple had a child who wrote The Republic, The Symposium, etc., that child would have been Plato.) – “those who take this other view, while believing that

you could have grown from a different pair of cells, would admit that this would not in fact have happened.”

– Logically possible, but empirically unlikely

• Parfit says, in either case, if you had been conceived a month later than you were in fact conceived, you would not have existed.

The Contingency of Origins!

• “A father quaffs perhaps a bottle of wine more than ordinary—he is in a certain mood—the result is a human being, the last thing that was thought of in the affair” (Friedrich Schiller, The Robbers, 1781)

Friedrich Schiller, 1759-1805

Nuclear Technician

• Nuclear Technician: a negligent technician’s actions result in the death and injury of thousands two centuries later

Risky Energy Policy

• Risky Energy Policy: there’s a choice between two energy policies. The risky energy policy is riskier than its competitor, but has a higher standard of living for the next two centuries

• The Risky Policy results in a catastrophe that results in the death and injury of thousands two centuries later

Who Is Affected? • In the Nuclear Technician example, the same particular

people would have been born over the next two centuries and might have been affected by the technician’s actions

• In the Risky Energy Policy, those who are alive in two centuries are determined by the energy policy chosen. Since the decision between energy policies affects the standard of living, among other things, of the further future, then this would have influenced the (reproductive) decisions of future generations.

• The energy policy decision affects the further future in ways that the Technician’s decision does not.

More Sex, Less TV!

• “The British Miners’ Strike of 1974, which caused television to close down an hour early, thereby affected the timing of thousands of conceptions.”

Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Analogy (Case 1)

• A 14-year-old girl decides to have a baby and we try to dissuade her: – Tactic 1: If she has child now, that would be worse for her – Tactic 2: If she has child now, that would be worse for the

child, for if she waits until she grows up she’ll be a better mother and give the child a better start in life

• She decides to have the child now and gives it a poor start in life. Were we correct? Would it have been better for the child if she had waited? The answer is “No.”

• Therefore, our claim (that it would have been better for the child if she had waited) is false.

Risky Policy and Girl Analogy

• The girl’s decision to have the child affects the further future. The decision she makes affects the identity of the person she eventually begets. – Is the girl’s choice worse for the child? No

• The Risky Policy decision affects the further future. The decision one makes (Safe or Risky Energy Policy) affects the identity of persons who exist two centuries later – Is the choice of the Risky Policy worse for anyone? No

• How many of us can truly claim, “Even if railways had never been invented, I would still have been born”?

Benefiting Persons

• Parfit’s question: “If we cause someone to exist, who will have a life worth living, do we thereby benefit this person? This is a difficult question.”

• There are two possible responses: – Assume causing to exist does not benefit

• Given people have a life worth living, is it worse when catastrophe hits as a result of Risky Policy than if they had never existed? No.

– Assume causing to exist can benefit • Given people have a life worth living, is it worse when catastrophe

hits as a result of Risky Policy than if they had never existed? No • Risky Policy actually benefits them because they exist (and would

not have under Safe Policy)

Risky Policy Is Not Worse

• The result of these assumptions about personal identity is that the Risky Policy is not worse for those who exist.

Does this make a moral difference?

• Some philosophers claim: – “Wrongs Require Victims: Our choice cannot be

wrong if we know that it will be worse for no one.”

• If they are correct, then there is nothing wrong with the choice of the Risky Policy

• However, Parfit does not believe this.

Parfit Denies that Wrongs Require Victims

• Parfit: “I deny that wrongs require victims.” • Indeed, Parfit believes that the catastrophe

caused by the Risky Policy is just as morally wrong as the Nuclear Technician’s actions.

• If this is so, then is morally irrelevant that our choice of Risky Policy will be worse for no one.

Depletion and Conservation

• A society must choose between two alternatives for using certain resources

• Depletion: decision will result in a slightly higher quality of life over the next two centuries, but lower quality after that time

• Conservation: decision will result in a lower quality of life over the next two centuries than in Depletion, but still a life worth living. After two hundred years, the quality of life will be higher than Depletion

Effects of Choice on Future Standard of Living

Conservation

Depletion

200 years

Q ua

lit y

of L

ife

Deplete or Conserve? • Is our choice of Depletion worse for any of those who live

after two centuries? No • Will our choice of Depletion make the lives of those who

live after two centuries worse than those who might live following a decision of Conservation? Yes

• The conflicting answers are troublesome and point to a moral objection (a utilitarian one) even though we make things worse for no one – It seems that choosing Depletion will result in a lower quality of

life and this seems bad despite the fact that our choice does not make the lives of those who live worse

– Since they are different persons, in either case, then they cannot be worse off given the decision because they would not have existed under the alternative decision.

Review of Risky Policy and Depletion

• We assume that actions which result in the death of innocent individuals or reduce the quality of life of individuals are wrong actions.

• Suppose we choose the Risky Policy or Depletion and this decision results in the people’s deaths or a lower quality of life. – We think these decisions are bad because these

decisions make life worse for those future people – But, life is not worse for those future people!

Can We Be Morally Criticized for Depletion Even If It Is Worse for No One?

1. Our choice of Depletion will cause people to be worse off than the different people who, if we had chosen Conservation, would have later lived.

2. This appears to be a bad effect, even though we know that our choice will be worse for no one.

3. Therefore, we can be morally criticized for our choice of Depletion.

Assigning Blame

• “Can we not deserve blame for causing others to be harmed, even when our act is not worse for them?”

• Parfit’s answer is yes. – “Suppose that I choose to drive when drunk, and in

the resulting crash cause you to lose a leg. If you had not lost your leg, you would have been conscripted in the army, and been killed. So my drunken driving saved your life. But I am still morally to blame.”

• In assigning blame, we must consider not actual but predictable effects.

Is There Benefit in Life that Compensates for Past Decisions?

• Because of the choice of Risky Energy Policy, the people who will in fact later live suffer certain harms.

• This seems to provide an objection. • But they owe their existence to this same

choice. • Does this remove the objection? No.

Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Analogy (Case 2)

• A 14-year-old girl decides to have a baby and we try to dissuade her: – Tactic 1: If she has child now, that would be worse for her – Tactic 2: If she has child now, that would be worse for the

child, for if she waits until she grows up she’ll be a better mother and give the child a better start in life

• But suppose she knows that, because she has some illness, she will become sterile within the next year. Unless she has a child now, she can never have a child.

• Therefore, it would seem that there is no objection to this girl’s choice (unlike in the first case).

Risky Energy Policy Is Like the First Girl

• “The objection to our choice [Risky Energy Policy] cannot appeal only to effects on those people who will later live. It must mention possible effects on the people who, if we had chosen otherwise, would have later lived.”

Principle “A”

• “(A) It is bad if those who live are worse off than those who might have lived.” – This suggests that the Risky Energy Policy is wrong

even though it will be worse for no one. – But can we justify (A)? Indeed, is (A) true?

Social Policies and Personal Identity

• Parfit wonders whether ethical decisions about social policies should ignore the ramifications of personal identity.

• Parfit seems to think this is justifiable: – “We can then use such claims as a convenient

form of shorthand. Though the claims are false, we believe that this makes no moral difference. So the claims are not seriously misleading.”

Justifying (A)

• Still, not everyone will agree that we should adopt a false claim just because it leads to the right kind of outcome. – “it would then be dishonest to conceal the point

about identity.”

• So, we are still stuck with the question: How might we go about justifying (A)?

Same or Different Number of People? • It seems our ethical decision making about the

further future concerns three groups: 1) Same people 2) Same number of different people 3) Different number of different people

• Most moral decision-making is concerned with choices about (1) same people

• (A) appears to apply only to choices about (2) same number of different people

• Can (A) be extended to choices concerning (3) different number of different people?

Where does this leave us? • Parfit contends that it leaves us looking for an as-yet-

unformulated principle X that will be able to guide us in thinking about difficult cases in which different numbers of people would exist depending on what energy policy we adopt.

• Whatever that principle is—and Parfit says he doesn’t know what it is—it should be able to help decide whether conservation or depletion, for example, is the best policy. – Note that conservation won’t necessarily be the best policy

from a consequentialist perspective if depletion results many, many more people being born whose lives are still worth living, even if they suffer environmental harms.

• Parfit has left quite a problem for you future environmental philosophers to work out!

Average View

• One attempt to extend (A) is the Average View – “it would be worse for there to be more people if

the average person would be worse off” – Parfit argues elsewhere that the Average View,

though popular, is implausible – But, this does not invalidate (A), it just shows that

(A) is incapable of covering choices about Different Number of Different People

Restating (A) to Make It Explicit that It Covers Same Number Choices and

Same People Choices • (A) can be restated as follows:

– “(B) If the same number of lives would be lived either way, it would be bad if people are worse off than people might have been.”

• (B) can cover both Same Number Choices and Same People Choices because “people” can refer to different people

Person-Affecting Principle (PAP) and (B)

• (B) sounds similar to the more familiar Person- Affecting Principle (PAP): – “It is bad if people are affected for the worse”

• In Same People Choices, (B) and PAP coincide and give similar answers

• In Same Number Choices, (B) and PAP diverge and give different answers

Adopt (B)

• Consider the Depletion account: – If we choose Depletion this will lower the quality of

life of people in the future • But, if we apply PAP with the understanding of personal

identity, then we see that the lower quality of life will be worse for no one

• But, if our intuitions are that personal identity makes no moral difference, then we should reject PAP

• (B) does not have the same ramifications as PAP – Depletion will be a morally unacceptable choice even

for the same number of different people

Conclusion

• “We may thus conclude that this part of morality, the part concerned with human welfare, cannot be explained in person- affecting terms. Its fundamental principle will not be concerned with whether acts will be good or bad for those people whom they affect. If this is so, many moral theories need to be revised.”