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

JUSTICE, RIGHTS AND THE NON-IDENTITY PROBLEM
Consider the following examples:
(A) Same people choices
Suppose I leave some broken glass in the undergrowth of a wood. A
hundred years later this glass wounds a child. My act harms this child. If I
had safely buried the glass, this child would have walked through the wood
unharmed (Parfi t, 1984: 356).
Although the child was not alive at the time I buried the glass, it is
beyond question, that my action harms the child. My action makes the
child worse off . Had I acted in a responsible manner and safely buried the
glass, I could have avoided this harm. Th e temporal diff erence between my
action and the harm done to the child is irrelevant for the judgement of my
action. Th e child can claim without contradiction: ‘If nobody had left the
glass in the wood, I would be better off now.’
(B1) Diff erent people, same number choices:
Th e 14-Year Old Girl: Th is girl chooses to have a child. Because she is so
young, she gives her child a bad start in life. Th ough this will have bad eff ects
throughout this child’s life, its life will, predictably, be worth living. If this girl
had waited for several years, she would have had a diff erent child, to whom she
would have given a better start in life (Parfi t, 1984: 358).
Intuitively we object to the girl’s choice. Why? Maybe we think, that the
girl should have waited because it would have been better for her child to
grow up under better conditions. Actually this cannot be the reason for our
objection. If the girl had waited for several years she would have given birth
to a genetically diff erent child. Th is constitutes a diff erence between the
judgement of this case and the previous. Although the child of the 14-year
old girl can complain to its mother about growing up under bad conditions
it cannot reasonably state: ‘Why did you have to give birth to me that early?
Had you waited my life would be better now!’ If the mother had chosen
otherwise the child could not make such a statement because it would not
exist.
(B2) Diff erent people, diff erent number choices:
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