The Subject of Harm in Non-Identity Cases
In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to e...
| Auteur principal: | |
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| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Publié: |
[2019]
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| Dans: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Année: 2019, Volume: 22, Numéro: 4, Pages: 825-839 |
| RelBib Classification: | NBE Anthropologie NCB Éthique individuelle NCC Éthique sociale VA Philosophie |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Well-being
B Merely possible individuals B Harm B non-identity problem B Counterfactual account of harm B Causal account of harm |
| Accès en ligne: |
Accès probablement gratuit Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Résumé: | In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to explain how this can be so. In particular, it seems that on a simple counterfactual account of harm, the action does not harm anyone, as it does not make anyone worse off than he or she would have been had the action not been performed. In this paper, I criticize the response that the action nevertheless harms the actual child, as well as the response that it makes the counterfactual child worse off. I argue that the following alternative view deserves attention: a compound of the actual and the counterfactual child is made worse off by the action. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-018-9933-3 |