Comparing Consequentialist Solutions to the Nonidentity Problem

• Main Author: Ott, Emily K.
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2013
• Subjects: Ethics; Nonidentity Problem; Consequentialism; Ethics and Political Philosophy
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/635; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=cmc_theses

This paper explores the nonidentity problem, an influential puzzle in modern ethics which addresses the nature of our moral responsibilities towards future generations. I begin by laying out the two conflicting intuitions comprising the problem and providing several examples to illustrate how we conceive of the moral status of future people. I then examine two versions of consequentialism, averagism and totalism, which circumvent the nonidentity problem. However, these two solutions each pose their own respective problems; thus, I argue that a modification of totalism – the critical level view – is the most viable consequentialist answer to the nonidentity problem.