Part four: Future generations

Abstract

The fourth and final part of Reasons and Persons, in which Parfit addresses our moral obligations to future generations. He presents the non-identity problem: since our choices affect which particular people will exist, those who are born as a result of our policies cannot claim to have been harmed by them, because they would not have existed otherwise. Parfit argues that this undermines person-affecting moral principles and motivates the search for an impersonal ethics. He also introduces the Repugnant Conclusion—that standard utilitarian principles imply a vast population with lives barely worth living could be better than a smaller population of flourishing people—and concludes that population ethics remains deeply problematic.