The NonIdentity Problem, lecture 2, Mich2012
Claire Benn
cmab3@cam.ac.uk
The Non-Identity Problem – Justice for Future Generations
We begin with a recap of last week.
Intergenerational Justice
1. Justice between age-cohorts that exist at the same time
2. Justice between groups of people that exist at different times
It is that latter that we are interested in with respect to the Non-Identity Problem
Distant People and Future People
Toxic Waste Future Case. In order to improve our quality of life, we develop an energy
programme that produces energy slightly cheaper than we currently can. However, this
energy production creates a large amount of toxic waste products. It is possible to bury it for
the time being. Nevertheless, it is known that in 100 years the lining of the toxic waste burial
will degrade and leak the still toxic waste into the soil poisoning people alive in 100 years
and cause them suffering.
The Trafigura Case. In 2006, Trafigura transported waste alleged to have been involved in
the injury of thousands of people in Ivory Coast.1 Thousands of people fell ill with breathing
difficulties, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea after slops were allegedly unloaded from a tanker
chartered by international oil trader Trafigura and dumped at mainly open-air sites in the
densely-populated city. 15 people have allegedly died as a result.2
Epistemic Uncertainty
Henry Sidgwick for example claimed that “each person is for the most part, from limitation
either of power or knowledge, not in a position to do much good to more than a very small
number of persons.”3
However, Liam Murphy points out that “given that very badly off strangers lived in
Sidgwick’s vicinity, and that organised efforts to assist the poor were not unknown in
Victorian England, this claim seems wrong even for Sidgwick’s time. A hundred years later,
when efficient international humanitarian aid organisations and public and private agencies
within our own countries can very effectively transform the surplus money of the well-off
into greatly improved prospects for the very badly off, the claim is fairly clearly wrong.”4
Nevertheless, we might still believe that a variation on Sidgwick’s point is true for future
generations. We might think that “we have less and less knowledge about the future the more
remote the time ahead we are thinking about.”5
As Barry puts it: “we don’t know what the precise tastes of our remote descendants will be,
but they are unlikely to include a desire for skin cancer, soil erosion, or the inundation of all
low-lying areas a result of the melting of the ice-caps. And, other things being equal, the
1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10735255
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40390/story.htm
3
Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1907; repr., Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), p434
4
Murphy, Moral Demands in NonIdeal Theory, (OUP, 2000), p4
5
Barry, ‘Justice between Generations’, p273
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The NonIdentity Problem, lecture 2, Mich2012
Claire Benn
cmab3@cam.ac.uk
interests of future generations cannot be harmed by our leaving them more choices rather
than fewer.”6
Obligations and Power Asymmetry
The Unequal Circumstances Thesis. “The quality of life of future generations depends to a
very large extent on the decisions of the present generation. By contrast, our quality of life is
not affected at all by their decisions. We can do a great deal to (or for) posterity but posterity
cannot do anything to (or for) us.”7
The ‘holy trinity’ (T.H. Green’s words) of political theory: mutual self-protection,
community and entitlement. We don’t seem to have these with future generations. So what
can the basis of our political obligations consist in?
Rawls and the Just Savings Rate
The Difference Principle. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged to maximally
benefit the least well off.
Just Savings Rate. “Each generation must not only preserve the gains of culture and
civilisation, and maintain intact those just institutions that have been established, but it must
also put aside in each period of time a suitable amount of real capital accumulation.”8
The Present-Time Entry Assumption. All parties in the original position are
contemporaries and know that they are contemporaries.
Motivational Assumption. Rawls says that we may think that the parties involved represent
a “continuing line of claims” such that they are like heads of families and have “a desire to
further the well-being of at least their more immediate descendants”9
Problems with the Just Savings Rate and Barry’s alternative
1) Why should we make the motivational assumption? Justice as Fairness is about taking
self-interested people and looking at what they would decide behind the veil of
ignorance.
2) Even if we make the motivational assumption it doesn’t help us with more remote
descendants.
Barry’s Alternative: Original position with all generations present. But there is a ‘special
problem’ with this
Barry, ‘Justice between Generations’, p274-5
Mulgan, Future People, p21. The phrase is borrowed from Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971), p26-30
8
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p252
9
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p111
6
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2.
The NonIdentity Problem, lecture 2, Mich2012
Claire Benn
cmab3@cam.ac.uk
The Non-Identity, Again
Not only do our decisions affect what the lives of those who live will be like, like in the toxic
waste future case, it also affects who will exist.
Amplification
Recap of the Time-Dependence Claim
Jonathan Bennett’s Amplify View. “Two […] worlds that are somewhat like ours and are
slightly different at some time, become greatly unalike at later times.”10
Parfit’s Example: “how many of us could truly claim, ‘Even if railways and motor cars had
never been invented, I would still have been born’?”11
Depletion
Depletion. “As a community, we must choose whether to deplete or conserve certain kinds of
resources. If we choose Depletion, the quality of life over the next two centuries would be
slightly higher than it would have been if we had chosen Conservation. But it would later, for
many centuries, be much lower than it would have been if we had chosen Conservation.”12
Mulgan’s The Basic Collective Intuition. “The present generation cannot gratuitously cause
great suffering to future generations.”13
Time Slices and Time Preferences
We have to choose between three options:
(a) Compare people before 200 years have passed: Depletion seems better than
Conservation
(b) Compare people after 200 years have passed: seems ad hoc
(c) Compare all people at any time after decision was made: but we might want to weigh
our interests more heavily than the interests of potentially infinite future people
Nuclear Waste Case: “Suppose we are considering how to dispose safely of the radio‐active
matter called nuclear waste. If we believe in the Social Discount Rate, we shall be concerned
with safety only in the nearer future. We shall not be troubled by the fact that some nuclear
waste will be radio‐active for thousands of years. At a discount rate of five per cent, one
death next year counts for more than a billion deaths in 500 years. On this view [the Social
Discount Rate view], catastrophes in the further future can now be regarded as morally
trivial.”14 Parfit claims that this case is decisive against the Social Discount Rate. He claims
that I am responsible if I fire an arrow in the wood and hit someone if I knew that people
were likely to be in the wood. Just because the person is far away and so I am not able to
10
Bennett, A philosophical guide to conditionals, p295
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p361
12
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p361-2
13
Mulgan, Future People, p6
14
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p 357
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The NonIdentity Problem, lecture 2, Mich2012
Claire Benn
cmab3@cam.ac.uk
identify the person does not make me less guilty of gross negligence. He claims that “We
should make the same claims about effects on people who are temporally remote.”15
Fishkin’s Replaceability Argument
Replacement. “Suppose that I could painlessly and instantaneously replace all the readers of
this book with others who will appreciate it more. Furthermore, as a general matter, the new
readers – let us call them replacements – will get more out of life. On whatever identityindependent dimension of value we are talking about, they will achieve higher scores. To
simplify matters, if we assume that the dimension of value is utilitarianism, then the point is
that they will add more utiles to life each day than their predecessors.”16
The Different Number Problem
In comparing any two acts, we can ask:
Would all and only the same people ever live in both outcomes?
Yes: Same People Choice
No: Different People Choice; then:
Would the same number of people ever live in both outcomes?
Yes: Same Number Choices
No: Different Number Choices
The Impersonal Total Principle
Impersonal Total Principle. “If other things are equal, the best outcome is one in which
there would be the greatest quantity of whatever makes life worth living.”17
The Repugnant Conclusion. “For any possible population of at least 10 billion people, all
with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose
existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives that
are barely worth living.”18
The Impersonal Average Principle
Impersonal Average Principle. “If other things are equal, the best outcome is the one in
which people’s lives go, on average, best.”19
The Two Hells. “In Hell One, the last generation consists of ten innocent people, who each
suffer great agony for fifty years. The lives of these people are much worse than nothing. The
would all kill themselves if they could. In Hell Two, the last generation consists not of ten but
of ten million innocent people, who each suffer agony just as great for fifty years minus one
day.”20
15
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p 357, though the name for the case is mine.
Fishkin, The Dialogue of Justice, p13
17
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p387
18
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p388
19
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p386
20
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p406
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