The Asymmetry: A Solution

Roberts, Melinda A.

doi:10.1111/j.1755-2567.2011.01117.x

Cited by 89 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…[…](2) That a distinct possible person's life would be well worth living does not count in favour of bringing that person into existence. (Roberts , p. 333).…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And if we think that avoiding misery is a matter of some moral import, then how can we also think that creating happiness is not? (Roberts , p. 334).…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Roberts defines “loss” in the following way:

to say that a person p incurs a loss at a given world w as a result of a given act a is to say that there was still another world w ′ accessible to agents at the critical time such that their performance of an alternative act a ′ at w ′ is better for p than their performance of a at w is. (Roberts , p. 337).…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Roberts' aim is to save the asymmetry from this worry. She proposes a view, Variabilism, which she claims gives a unified account of the two halves of the asymmetry, thereby showing that “Variabilism nicely grounds both halves of the asymmetry and avoids the consistency and other conceptual problems that plague its competitors” (Roberts , p. 336).…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It seems possible to simplify this formulation. First, to incur a loss, according to Roberts, is merely shorthand for the better‐for relation (see Roberts , p. 337). That is, a person suffers a loss at a world w if and only if there is an accessible world which is better for the person.…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variabilism Is Not the Solution to the Asymmetry

Algander

2015

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

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According to “the asymmetry”, the fact that a future person would have a life not worth living counts against bringing that person into existence but the fact that a future person would have a life worth living does not count in favour of bringing that person into existence. While this asymmetry seems intuitive, it is also puzzling: if we think that it is of moral importance to prevent people from living lives not worth living, shouldn't we also that it is of moral importance to create people with lives worth living? Melinda Roberts has suggested a view, “Variabilism”, which she argues solves this problem. I argue that Variabilism fails as a solution to the asymmetry. First, Variabilism relies on a particular distinction between gains and losses which is at least as puzzling as the asymmetry itself. Second, in some cases Variabilism is incompatible with the asymmetry. In these cases, the fact that a person would have a life worth living does count in favour of creating her.

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“…[…](2) That a distinct possible person's life would be well worth living does not count in favour of bringing that person into existence. (Roberts , p. 333).…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And if we think that avoiding misery is a matter of some moral import, then how can we also think that creating happiness is not? (Roberts , p. 334).…”

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Roberts defines “loss” in the following way:

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Variabilismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variabilism Is Not the Solution to the Asymmetry

Algander

2015

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

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Intergenerational Ethics

Mulgan¹

2020

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

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Unless something goes drastically wrong in the next few centuries, most of the people who will ever live are yet to be born. Our actions have little impact on those who are dead, considerable impact on those currently alive, and potentially enormous impact on those who will live in the future. Our decisions affect who those future people will be, and even if there will be any future people at all. The threat of environmental crisis gives us some inkling of the magnitude of our impact on future generations. Only in the last few decades have moral philosophers really begun to grapple with the complexities of intergenerational ethics. Underlying their often technical debates are some of the deepest moral questions. What makes life worth living? What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against our own? This entry focuses on three central questions in contemporary intergenerational ethics: (1) Do we have any obligations to future people? (2) If so, what grounds those obligations? (3) Finally, what obligations do we have? While the third question is clearly the most urgent from a practical point of view, most philosophical attention has focused on the first two questions. This entry examines the two dominant traditions: utilitarianism and social contract.

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Population

Roberts¹

2013

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

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The choices we make today have consequences for what life will be like for future people, how many future people there will be, and who those future people are. Such quality, quantity , and identity issues – and more besides – fall within the domain of population ethics . A widely accepted goal within moral philosophy is the design of a moral theory that plausibly instructs whether an agent's choice to distribute well‐being across a given population in a given way is morally permissible in light of alternative distributions of well‐being across that same population available to that agent at the critical time. Closely related is the design of a theory that plausibly ranks one such distribution against another in terms of the respective moral value, or degree of goodness, of each. The recognition that drives population ethics is that any adequate moral theory must also take into account that the very choices under evaluation for their permissibility may themselves produce distinct populations – some larger, some smaller, some that overlap in terms of identities of their membership, and some that do not. An adequate moral theory must give a plausible account, in other words, of both “Same People” (and hence “Same Number”) cases and “Different People” (whether “Same Number” or not) cases (Parfit 1987: 356, 351–454; Blackorby et al. 1997, 2005).

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The Asymmetry: A Solution

Cited by 89 publications

References 30 publications

Variabilism Is Not the Solution to the Asymmetry

Variabilism Is Not the Solution to the Asymmetry

Intergenerational Ethics

Population

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