MIT OpenCourseWare http ocw mit edu 24 06J STS 006J Bioethics Spring 2009 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use visit http ocw mit edu terms Bioethics Session 13 Handout Non Identity II Sometimes by behaving in a certain way we cause bad things to happen to people who would not have existed if we had not behaved that way For example by ignoring her doctor s advice Mary causes Mariette to be born with hemophilia but Mariette would most probably not have existed had Mary heeded her doctors advice The non identity problem is the problem of what to say about cases like this The problem can be presented as a kind of paradox A paradox is a valid argument whose premises seem plausible but whose conclusion is absurd or self contradictory Here are some famous paradoxes The Paradox of the Heap P1 P2 P3 Two grains of sand piled together do not make a heap For any n if n grains of sand piled together do not make a heap then n 1 grains of sand piled together do not make a heap A billion grains of sand piled together make a heap C A billion grains of sand piled together do not make a heap and do make a heap The Liar Paradox Sentence S It is not the case that S is true P1 P2 P3 Either i S is true or ii it is not the case that S is true If i then S is true and it is not the case that S is true If ii then S is true and it is not the case that S is true C S is true and it is not the case that S is true The Non Identity Paradox P1 P2 P3 If you don t harm anybody then you don t do anything wrong Mary doesn t harm anybody Mary does something wrong C Mary does and doesn t do something wrong Which premise must go The problem with rejecting P3 is that it seems to commit us to the view that we almost never do wrong by causing bad things to happen to future generations The problem with rejecting P2 is just that Mariette doesn t seem to be harmed by Mary So says Parfit we must reject P1
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