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The Nonidentity Problem, Disability, and the Role Morality of Prospective Parents*

In the generation since the nonidentity problem was introduced by Derek Parfit and Robert Adams, the discussion has focused on two kinds of cases. In one, current policy decisions have far-reaching implications for who will exist in future generations and how well they will live; the issue is whether policies that cause widespread harms like pollution can be condemned even if the members of the future generations who suffer those harms owe their worthwhile lives to those policies. In a second class of cases, a parent makes a reproductive decision resulting in her having a child with an impairment rather than a child without one; the issue is whether her decision can be condemned even if the child with the impaired existence owes his worthwhile life to that decision. Although some analyses of the nonidentity problem treat these as versions of the same problem, or offer the same solution to both, Matthew Hanser has argued that they are really distinct problems, because the conditions for attributing responsibility for benefits and harms are very different for policy makers and prospective parents. I will follow Hanser in treating the second problem as raising distinct issues from the first and argue that those issues concern the special