Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

64
1. The problem
CLAUDIA REITINGER
Let us assume that the people living in the 19th century had been highly
risk-averse and had trusted the misjudgement of various experts that the
travel speed on the railway is dangerous to human health. As a consequence
neither the railway nor other means of transport going faster than 30km/h
would have been built. Other people would have met at diff erent times.
Some of our ancestors would never have got to know each other or would
have procreated at another time. Our family tree would have branched in a
diff erent way. Without the railway it is doubtful that any of us would exist
today.
Th is observation about the frailty of our origin refl ects a basic diffi culty
in our relationship towards future people and complicates the justifi cation
of our obligations towards them. Th e identity of future people is highly
dependent on our decisions and actions. Th e slightest diff erence in the conditions
of conception alters the identity of future people. Th is especially
becomes an issue when one of our decisions or actions leads to a diff erent
identity of future people and at the same time leads to supposedly negative
consequences. What can be the basis of our moral judgement that an action
is wrong if the action itself is a necessary condition for the existence of particular
future people?
Th is question forms the core of a puzzle discovered independently in
the late 1970’s by Robert M. Adams (1972), Derek Parfi t (1976) and Th omas
Schwarz (1978). Now it is most closely associated with Parfi t’s book Reasons
and Persons, who named it the ‘Non-Identity Problem’. With regard to
future people Parfi t distinguishes three kinds of choices (apud Parfi t, 1984:
356):
(A) Same people choices: an action has no infl uence on the identity of
future people.
(B) Diff erent people choices: an action alters the identity of future people.
Diff erent people choices can further be divided in:
(B1) Diff erent people, same number choices: an action alters the identity
of future people while their number remains constant.
(B2) Diff erent people, diff erent number choices: an action alters both
the identity of future people and the number of people, which will be
borne.
Th e Non-Identity Problem arises in both cases of diff erent number
choices.
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 64 05-01-2012 09:38:21