The polls from the previous WATA have been counted and calculated. Approximately, 50% of voters chose to never place value on human life, where 25% voted to find a specific formula, and 25% voted for a flat fee. These voters are all decently evenly split, which is to be expected from such a paradox. Today’s article, however, might have some more unique results and is centered around a complex ethical problem called the nonidentity problem.

The nonidentity problem was made popular by Derek Parfit, James Woodward, and Gregory Kavka in the early 1980s. There are three noticeable conditions that define the nonidentity problem: “The first is the person-affecting… an act can be wrong only if that act makes things worse for, or (we can say) harms, some existing or future person.” In other words, for an act to be wrong, a person must make things worse for a future person in some way. For example, if someone makes a mean comment to a friend, that friend is in a worse mental state than they would have been had that comment never been said; therefore, the commenting friend has “harmed” their friend.

After defining what makes an act harmful, the second condition focuses on when life is “worth having.” The second condition illustrates that “an act that confers on a person an existence that is, though flawed, worth having in a case in which that same person could never have existed at all in the absence of that act does not make things worse for, or harm, and is not “bad for,” that person.” Essentially, even if a mom drank an immense amount of alcohol during childbirth causing birth defects, although the child lives a flawed existence, their life is worth living. There may seem to be some extremely negative implications of this argument to this point in the essay. However, that is why the nonidentity problem is a problem: it requires a concrete ethical solution.

The third condition highlights how the acts in a variety of nonidentity cases are, in fact, wrong under scrutiny. Still, their ethics are difficult to prove: “the existence-inducing acts under scrutiny in the various nonidentity cases are in fact wrong.” While humans can morally understand something is wrong, proving it by employing ethical laws is where the situation gets complicated.

For instance, one implication of the nonidentity problem is in the environment. Let’s say that there are two choices: for humans to either pollute the environment or not do so. In the instance where humans pollute the environment, many future generations will live in flawed existences, as they might be more inclined to have cancer. But it is better to be alive rather than never exist—for instance, in the case where humans don’t pollute the environment there is a high likelihood that those living would represent an entirely different population. In other words, by polluting the environment, extremely different people will be born, as compared to not polluting the environment: “The differences in people’s daily lives would mean that different people would meet one another, different romantic partnerships would be formed, and, as a result, different children would be conceived from different genetic materials. Even within those partnerships that would be the same, conceptions would occur at different times so that, again, different children would be conceived from different genetic materials” (McMahan, “Climate Change, War, and the Non-Identity Problem”). With this situation in mind, conditions 1 and 2 have both been fulfilled. There is also a common consensus that polluting the environment and simply not caring about it at all is morally wrong. Yet, in the realm of ethics, this moral obligation cannot be proven due to conditions 1 and 2, which fulfill condition 3. Now with all of these 3 conditions fulfilled, a conclusion can be drawn, that according to the nonidentity problem, someone who pollutes the environment intentionally has not done anything wrong.

The nonidentity problem is clearly an ethical issue, as it is a common consensus that intentionally polluting the environment is morally incorrect. While the Nonidentity problem has no definite solution, one proposed answer is to use the “de dicto” third-person perspective. By doing this, we are analyzing the environmental solution through a more general lens. Essentially, instead of looking at a specific generation’s well-being, a reader must analyze the differing generations produced as comparable. In this case, it is evident, that the generation produced under pollution is in a worse condition than the generation born into a clean environment; therefore meaning that those who intentionally pollute, are doing something morally wrong, and harming future generations.

The nonidentity problem begs the question: To what do we owe other generations? Some believe that we do not owe anything, and so environmental issues are not of importance to them. Others believe that environmental issues should be our top priority as they deeply care about future generations? Where do you stand on this issue?