Is the non-identity problem relevant to public health and policy? An online survey.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The non-identity problem arises when our actions in the present could change which people will exist in the future, for better or worse. Is it morally better to improve the lives of specific future people, as compared to changing which people exist for the better? Affecting the timing of fetuses being conceived is one case where present actions change the identity of future people. This is relevant to questions of public health policy, as exemplified in some responses to the Zika epidemic. There is philosophical disagreement about the relevance of non-identity: some hold that non-identity is not relevant, while others think that the only morally relevant actions are those that affect specific people. Given this disagreement, we investigated the intuitions about the moral

SUBMITTER: Doolabh K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6612186 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature