The Non-Identity Problem and the Wrongness of Birth

Introduction

In the landscape of procreative ethics and antinatalism, a formidable challenge arises from the work of the late British philosopher Derek Parfit. This challenge, known as the "non-identity problem," probes the very foundation of our moral intuitions about reproduction. It questions a seemingly straightforward belief: that it can be morally wrong to bring a child into a world of suffering. The problem doesn't dispute that suffering is bad, but it complicates the question of for whom an action is bad. At its core, the non-identity problem asserts that if a person's existence is contingent on a particular act of procreation, and if that person's life, despite its hardships, is worth living, then the act of procreation cannot be said to have harmed that person. This is because the only alternative for that individual is non-existence. This essay will explore the intricacies of Parfit's non-identity problem, its historical context, and its profound implications for antinatalist arguments put forth by thinkers like David Benatar. We will also examine counterarguments and rebuttals, ultimately grappling with the question of whether the non-identity problem fatally undermines the philosophical foundations of antinatalism and certain procreative ethics.

Core Argument

Parfit first introduced the non-identity problem in his seminal 1984 book, *Reasons and Persons*. The problem arises in what Parfit calls "same number choices" and "different number choices." The former involves choices that affect the same number of people, while the latter, which is our focus, involves choices that affect both the number and the identities of future people. Procreation is a "different number choice."

To illustrate the problem, Parfit presents a thought experiment. Imagine a 14-year-old girl who decides to have a child. We might intuitively believe that her decision is morally wrong. We could argue that, due to her youth and lack of resources, her child will inevitably have a difficult start in life and be worse off than a child she might have later. However, the non-identity problem challenges this intuition. If the 14-year-old girl waits to have a child, the child she has later will be a different individual, conceived from a different sperm and egg. The child she would have had at 14 would never have existed at all. Therefore, we cannot claim that her decision to have a child at 14 is worse *for that child*. The child, once born, may have a difficult life, but a difficult life is not necessarily worse than no life at all. As long as the child's life is worth living—meaning it contains more happiness than suffering—the child has not been harmed by being brought into existence. After all, the alternative for this specific child was not a better life, but non-existence.

Parfit extends this logic to broader social policies. Consider the choice between two environmental policies. One policy, "Conservation," would lead to a slightly lower quality of life for the present generation but a much higher quality of life for future generations. The other policy, "Depletion," would lead to a higher quality of life for the present generation but a much lower quality of life for future generations. Intuitively, we would say that choosing "Depletion" is morally wrong. However, the non-identity problem rears its head again. The choice of environmental policy will affect who meets whom, who has children with whom, and the timing of these conceptions. As a result, the people who exist in the future under the "Depletion" policy will be different people from the people who would have existed under the "Conservation" policy. So, we cannot say that the "Depletion" policy is worse for the people who will exist in the future, as long as their lives are still worth living. The "Depletion" people, with their lower quality of life, would not have existed at all if the "Conservation" policy had been chosen.

This is the crux of the non-identity problem: when an action determines the identity of a future person, and that person's life is worth living, the action cannot be considered to have harmed that person, because the only alternative for that person is non-existence. This has profound implications for procreative ethics. It suggests that as long as a child's life can be reasonably expected to be worth living, the act of procreation cannot be morally condemned on the grounds that it harms the child. This poses a direct challenge to antinatalist arguments, which often rely on the idea that coming into existence is always a harm.

Historical Background

The non-identity problem did not emerge in a philosophical vacuum. It is deeply rooted in the tradition of utilitarian ethics, which seeks to maximize overall happiness or well-being. Parfit's work can be seen as an attempt to grapple with the limits of classical utilitarianism, particularly its impersonal nature. Classical utilitarianism, in its simplest form, is concerned with the total amount of happiness in the world, regardless of who experiences it. From this perspective, creating a new person with a life worth living would seem to be a good thing, as it adds to the sum total of happiness.

However, Parfit was also sensitive to the person-affecting intuition, the idea that morality is about what we do *to* people. The non-identity problem arises from the tension between these two perspectives. It shows that in "different number choices," the person-affecting intuition struggles to account for our moral judgments. We feel that it is wrong to bring a person into a significantly worse-off existence, even if that existence is still worth living, but the non-identity problem shows that we cannot easily justify this feeling by appealing to the concept of harm.

Before Parfit, philosophers had touched upon similar ideas. Jan Narveson, for instance, had argued for a form of person-affecting utilitarianism, suggesting that we have no obligation to create happy people, but we do have an obligation not to create miserable ones. However, Parfit's contribution was to crystallize the problem with such precision and to demonstrate its far-reaching implications. His work forced philosophers to confront the uncomfortable fact that our ordinary moral concepts may not be adequate for dealing with the ethics of future generations.

Supporting Evidence

The non-identity problem finds its most potent application in the critique of antinatalism, particularly the arguments of David Benatar. In his book *Better Never to Have Been*, Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a harm. He bases this on an asymmetry between pleasure and pain: the absence of pain is good, even if no one is there to enjoy it, while the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is someone who is deprived of it. From this, Benatar concludes that it is always better not to be born.

The non-identity problem directly challenges Benatar's conclusion. If we accept Parfit's reasoning, then even if life contains a great deal of suffering, as long as it is on the whole "worth living," we cannot say that the person who is brought into existence has been harmed. The person cannot compare their existence with a better alternative, because the only alternative was non-existence. Therefore, the very foundation of Benatar's argument—that coming into existence is a harm—is called into question.

Of course, the debate hinges on what it means for a life to be "worth living." This is a notoriously difficult question to answer. However, even if we grant Benatar's pessimistic assessment of the human condition, the non-identity problem still holds. As long as a person, once they exist, judges their own life to be worth continuing, the logic of the non-identity problem suggests that they have not been wronged by being created. This is a powerful "pro-natalist" or at least "not-antinatalist" conclusion to draw from Parfit's work.

Counterarguments

Despite its logical force, the non-identity problem has not been universally accepted. Many philosophers find its conclusions deeply counterintuitive. They are unwilling to accept that we have no moral reason to avoid bringing a child into a life of significant, yet not overwhelming, suffering. As a result, a number of counterarguments and alternative ethical frameworks have been proposed.

One approach is to reject the person-affecting intuition altogether and to embrace a more impersonal form of ethics. This is the path that Parfit himself was inclined to take. In the later parts of *Reasons and Persons*, he explores what he calls "Theory X," a new theory of beneficence that would be able to account for our moral intuitions in non-identity cases. While Parfit never fully developed Theory X, his work suggests that we should be concerned not with making people happy, but with making happy people. In other words, our goal should be to bring about the best possible outcomes, regardless of who is affected. From this impersonal perspective, it would be wrong to choose "Depletion" over "Conservation" simply because "Conservation" leads to a better world, with a higher quality of life, even if the people who enjoy that higher quality of life are different from the people who would have existed otherwise.

Another approach is to try to find a way to make sense of the idea that a person can be wronged by being brought into existence, even if their life is worth living. Seana Shiffrin, for example, has argued that the non-identity problem relies on an overly narrow conception of harm. She suggests that we can be harmed not only by being made worse off than we would otherwise have been, but also by being put into a bad state, even if that state is not worse for us than non-existence. From this perspective, bringing a child into a life of significant suffering could be seen as a harm, even if the child's life is still worth living. However, this approach faces the challenge of explaining how something can be a harm without being worse for the person who experiences it.

Melinda Roberts has also proposed a solution to the non-identity problem, which she calls the "de dicto" objection. She argues that we can have obligations to future people even if we do not know who those people will be. For example, we can have an obligation to "the person who will be our child" to ensure that they have a good life. This obligation is not to a specific, "de re" individual, but to a person "de dicto," a person described in a certain way. From this perspective, the 14-year-old girl in Parfit's example would be violating an obligation to her future child, even if the child she has at 14 is a different person from the child she would have had later. However, this approach has also been criticized for its reliance on a somewhat obscure metaphysical distinction.

Rebuttals

The counterarguments to the non-identity problem, while philosophically sophisticated, are not without their own difficulties. The impersonal approach, for example, has implications that many people find unpalatable. If our only goal is to maximize the total amount of happiness in the world, then we might have an obligation to create as many happy people as possible, even if this means that the average level of happiness is quite low. This is what Parfit called the "Repugnant Conclusion." Most people would agree that a world with a vast population of people whose lives are barely worth living is not a desirable outcome, even if the total amount of happiness in that world is very high. The fact that impersonal ethics leads to such a conclusion suggests that there may be something wrong with this approach.

The attempts to redefine harm or to appeal to "de dicto" obligations also face significant challenges. The idea that something can be a harm without being worse for the person who experiences it is a difficult concept to grasp. It seems to violate a fundamental principle of our moral thinking, the "harm principle," which states that an action is wrong only if it harms someone. Similarly, the "de dicto" approach, while ingenious, may be too abstract to provide a firm foundation for our moral obligations. It is not clear that we can have obligations to "the person who will be our child" in the same way that we can have obligations to a specific individual.

Ultimately, the non-identity problem remains a powerful and unresolved challenge. The fact that so many brilliant philosophers have struggled to find a satisfactory solution to it is a testament to its difficulty. It may be that there is no easy way to reconcile our person-affecting intuitions with the logic of "different number choices."

Conclusion

Derek Parfit's non-identity problem represents a profound and enduring challenge to our everyday moral thinking, with particularly sharp implications for procreative ethics and antinatalism. It forces us to confront the uncomfortable possibility that our intuitive judgments about the wrongness of bringing a child into a difficult life may not be as philosophically sound as we believe. The problem does not endorse procreation in all circumstances, nor does it deny the reality of suffering. What it does is to complicate the question of to whom the wrong is done. The non-identity problem suggests that as long as a person's life is worth living, the act of procreation cannot be said to have harmed that person, as the only alternative for them was non-existence. This poses a significant hurdle for antinatalist arguments that claim coming into existence is always a harm. While various counterarguments and alternative ethical frameworks have been proposed, none have been universally accepted, and each comes with its own set of philosophical problems. The non-identity problem, therefore, remains a central and unresolved issue in contemporary applied ethics, a testament to the complexity of our moral obligations to future generations.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the non-identity problem in simple terms?

The non-identity problem is a philosophical puzzle that arises when we consider actions that affect who will be born in the future. It states that if an action is a condition for a person's existence, and that person's life is worth living (even if it's difficult), then the action cannot be said to have harmed that person. This is because the only alternative for that person was to never have existed at all.

How does the non-identity problem relate to antinatalism?

Antinatalism is the philosophical view that it is morally wrong to have children. Many antinatalist arguments, such as those of David Benatar, are based on the idea that coming into existence is always a harm. The non-identity problem challenges this by suggesting that if a person's life is worth living, then they have not been harmed by being brought into existence. This undermines a key premise of many antinatalist arguments.

Did Parfit believe that it's okay to have children no matter what?

No, Parfit did not believe that it is always morally permissible to have children. He was deeply concerned with the quality of life of future generations. He simply argued that our traditional ways of thinking about harm are not adequate for dealing with the ethics of procreation. He was trying to find a new ethical theory that could explain why it is wrong to bring a child into a life of great suffering, even if that life is still technically "worth living."

Has the non-identity problem been solved?

No, the non-identity problem is still a major topic of debate among philosophers. Many solutions have been proposed, but none have been universally accepted. It remains one of the most significant and unresolved problems in contemporary ethics.

What is the "Repugnant Conclusion"?

The "Repugnant Conclusion" is a problem for certain ethical theories that focus on maximizing the total amount of happiness in the world. It states that for any world with a very happy population, there is a better world with a much larger population of people whose lives are barely worth living. This is because the sheer number of people in the second world would mean that the total amount of happiness is greater. Most people find this conclusion "repugnant," which suggests that there is something wrong with the ethical theories that lead to it.

If we accept the non-identity problem, does that mean we have no obligations to future generations?

Not necessarily. Even if we accept the non-identity problem, we can still argue that we have obligations to future generations based on other ethical principles. For example, we might have an impersonal obligation to make the world a better place, regardless of who lives in it. Or, we might argue that we have a collective responsibility to ensure the flourishing of humanity. The non-identity problem complicates our understanding of our obligations to future people, but it does not necessarily eliminate them.