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 12 Handout The Non Identity Problem Harming by Creating i When is it the case that if had happened I would never have existed Flesh out in your mind some alternative history of the world some way in which things might have gone differently Genetic Essentialism I can say of a person in that alternative history if things had gone differently that would have been me only if he she is genetically the same as me or very similar to me Essentialism about Origins I can say of a person in that alternative history if things had gone differently that would have been me only if he she comes into being the same way I did conceived by the same parents at the same time in the same way Psychological Essentialism I can say of a person in that alternative history if things had gone differently that would have been me only if he she is psychologically the same as me or very similar to me at some point in his or her life ii What does it mean to say it would have been better for me never to have existed One answer if I had never existed I would have been better off than I actually am Better I should prefer states of affairs in which I never exist to the actual state of affairs The Non Identity Problem This looks like a plausible principle The Person Affecting Principle If you don t harm anyone then you don t do anything wrong But we very rarely harm by creating so this principle would appear to imply implausibly that we very rarely do wrong by creating
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