The Unborn and Unharmed: Parfit on Procreative Ethics
Derek Parfit's non-identity problem challenges the belief that creating a person can be morally wrong, posing a significant hurdle for antinatalist arguments by questioning whether a life with suffering can constitute harm if non-existence is the only alternative.
Introduction
Can it be morally wrong to create a person whose life, despite its inevitable suffering, is still worth living? This question lies at the heart of procreative ethics and presents a formidable challenge to antinatalist philosophies. At the center of this debate is the non-identity problem, a philosophical puzzle articulated by Derek Parfit. The problem suggests that if a person's existence is contingent on a particular act of conception, and that person's life is, on balance, worth living, then it is difficult to argue that the act of creating them has caused them harm. This is because the only alternative for that specific individual is non-existence. This essay will delve into the core of Parfit's non-identity problem, examining its historical context, the arguments it supports, the counterarguments it faces, and its enduring implications for the ethics of procreation.
Core Argument
The non-identity problem is most famously illustrated by Parfit in his 1984 book, *Reasons and Persons*. The core of the argument can be understood through a thought experiment. Imagine a 14-year-old girl who decides to have a child. Her child will inevitably have a difficult start in life due to her youth and lack of resources. However, let's assume that despite these challenges, the child will have a life that is, on the whole, worth living. If the girl had waited until she was older and more mature, she would have had a different child, a different person altogether, who would have had a better start in life. The question is: has the 14-year-old girl done something morally wrong by having a child now?
Our intuition might tell us yes. She has brought a child into the world with significant disadvantages. However, the non-identity problem forces us to look closer. We cannot say that the child she had has been harmed by her decision, because if she had waited, that specific child would never have existed. The child with the difficult start in life cannot claim that they would have been better off if their mother had waited, as that would have meant they were never born. Since their life is still worth living, it is hard to argue that they have been harmed by being brought into existence. This is the crux of the non-identity problem: it seems that an action cannot be wrong if it harms no one.
This same logic can be extended to all acts of procreation. Every person who is born is a unique individual whose existence is contingent on the specific moment of their conception. Had their parents conceived at a different time, a different person would have been born. Therefore, it seems impossible to argue that any person with a life worth living has been harmed by being brought into existence. This poses a significant challenge to any ethical framework that seeks to limit procreation based on the potential for suffering, including antinatalism.
Historical Background
While Derek Parfit is credited with formalizing the non-identity problem, the philosophical unease it represents has deeper roots. The question of whether it is better not to have been born at all is an ancient one, famously articulated by Sophocles in *Oedipus at Colonus*: "Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best." This sentiment was echoed and expanded upon by 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who argued in *The World as Will and Representation* that life is filled with suffering and that the non-existent are better off than the living.
In the 20th century, existentialist thinkers like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre grappled with the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence, though they did not focus on the ethics of procreation in the same way as later philosophers. Emil Cioran, a Romanian philosopher, took a more pessimistic view, writing extensively on the "inconvenience of being born." These earlier thinkers created a fertile ground for the more analytic and rigorous approach that Parfit would later apply.
Parfit's work in the 1980s brought the non-identity problem to the forefront of contemporary analytic philosophy. It became a central issue in population ethics, a field that deals with the ethical problems of creating new people. The non-identity problem is not just a brain teaser; it has real-world implications for issues like climate change, genetic screening, and resource depletion. Our decisions today will affect who is born in the future, and the non-identity problem complicates our ability to say that we have a moral obligation to future generations to ensure they have better lives, as the very people who will exist in the future are contingent on our choices now.
Supporting Evidence
The non-identity problem finds support in the work of numerous philosophers who have struggled to find a way around its logic. Jeff McMahan, a prominent ethicist, has written extensively on the problem, acknowledging its power and proposing various solutions, none of which have been universally accepted. The difficulty lies in the fact that our common-sense moral frameworks are often person-affecting, meaning they are based on the idea of harming or benefiting specific individuals. The non-identity problem reveals the limitations of these frameworks when it comes to the ethics of creation.
Horror writer and philosopher Thomas Ligotti, while not an academic philosopher in the traditional sense, has explored themes related to the non-identity problem in his work. His collection of essays, *The Conspiracy Against the Human Race*, argues that consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution and that the best we can do is to stop reproducing. Ligotti's work, like that of Schopenhauer and Cioran, taps into a deep-seated pessimism about the human condition that resonates with the non-identity problem's challenge to the value of existence.
The non-identity problem also provides a powerful critique of certain forms of antinatalism. If antinatalism is based on the idea that it is wrong to create new people because of the suffering they will experience, the non-identity problem forces a difficult question: who is being wronged? If the person who is born has a life worth living, despite the suffering, it is hard to say that they have been harmed. This means that antinatalists must either find a way to solve the non-identity problem or base their arguments on a different foundation.
Counterarguments
Despite its apparent force, the non-identity problem has not been without its critics. The most famous and influential counterargument comes from David Benatar, a South African philosopher and author of *Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence*. Benatar proposes an "asymmetry" argument, which claims that:
1. The presence of pain is bad. 2. The presence of pleasure is good. 3. The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone. 4. The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.
According to Benatar, this asymmetry means that coming into existence is always a harm. To exist is to experience both pain and pleasure, but to not exist is to experience the good of no pain without the bad of no pleasure. Therefore, it is always better never to have been.
Other philosophers have proposed different solutions to the non-identity problem. Some have argued for an "impersonal harm" view, which suggests that an action can be wrong even if it doesn't harm a specific person. For example, we might say that it is wrong to bring a child into a world with a lower quality of life, not because that child is harmed, but because it is a worse state of affairs than if a different, happier child had been born. Others have tried to solve the problem using rights-based accounts, arguing that a person's right to a certain quality of life can be violated even if they are not "harmed" in the traditional sense. Finally, some have turned to virtue ethics, suggesting that the morality of procreation is not about the consequences for the child, but about the character of the parents. A virtuous person, they might argue, would not choose to bring a child into a world of suffering.
Rebuttals
Each of these counterarguments has faced its own set of rebuttals. Benatar's asymmetry argument, while elegant, has been criticized for its counterintuitive fourth premise. Why should the absence of pleasure not be bad unless someone is there to be deprived of it? Critics argue that this premise is not well-supported and that the asymmetry is not as clear as Benatar claims.
Impersonal harm views also have their problems. They can lead to what Parfit called the "Repugnant Conclusion," the idea that it would be better to have a massive population of people with lives barely worth living than a smaller, happier population. This is because the sheer quantity of "worth-living" lives would outweigh the lower quality of those lives. Most people find this conclusion, as the name suggests, repugnant. Rights-based accounts face the challenge of explaining how a non-existent person can have rights. It seems that rights can only be held by beings that exist. Finally, virtue ethics approaches, while offering a different perspective, may not be able to provide clear guidance in specific cases. What one person considers a "virtuous" decision regarding procreation, another may see as selfish or irresponsible.
Conclusion
The non-identity problem remains one of the most significant and unresolved puzzles in contemporary philosophy. It forces us to confront the limitations of our everyday moral thinking and to question our most basic assumptions about harm, benefit, and the value of existence. While it does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that procreation is always permissible, it makes it incredibly difficult to argue that it is morally wrong to bring a person into the world who will have a life worth living.
For antinatalists, the non-identity problem presents a serious challenge. It suggests that arguments based on the harm of coming into existence may be untenable. This does not mean that antinatalism is a lost cause, but it does mean that its proponents must find new and more sophisticated arguments to support their position. The non-identity problem is not just a philosophical curiosity; it is a profound and unsettling reminder of the complexity of the human condition and the weight of the decision to create a new life.