Is it misanthropic to prevent individuals from existing?

post by Paul Kelleher

The following claims seem true: I could have gone to a different college. I could have been a doctor instead of a professor. I could have died early.

The following claims seem patently false: I could have been a lego block. I could have been my grandfather's son instead of my grandfather's grandchild.

So what makes a counterfactual about me true, while others are obviously ridiculous?*

Philosophers tend to agree that in order for such a claim to be true, it must presuppose that I am identical to the individual who grew out of the particular sperm and egg that combined to make me. That is, if it makes sense to imagine that that individual--the individual created by that unique sperm/egg pair--went to a different college or, heaven forbid, died in an early car accident, then these counterfactuals about me can be true. But if it doesn't make sense to speak of these things happening to me, then they are probably false. That's why I could never have been a lego block.

One implication of this view is that if my parents had decided not to have a baby in 1979, and instead had waited two years, then it is quite probable that I would never have existed. After all, my parents did have a child two years after they had me--they had my brother--and he is a wholly different individual from me. He is a wholly different individual because he resulted from a different sperm/egg pairing.  On the other hand, if my parents had--miraculously--saved the specific sperm and egg that in fact created me and then joined them in 1981 instead of 1979, then, yes, that would have been me. 

This is the currently dominant view of the metaphysics of existence in contemporary analytic philosophy. Keep it in mind as you read the following by Bryan Caplan: 

If we take Winship literally, his "solution" to the problem of persistent poverty is for people likely to be persistently poor to never be born in the first place.  This is an awfully misanthropic position.  A lifetime of relative poverty is a lot better than no lifetime at all.

A charitable reading is that Winship, like me, thinks that would-be single moms should delay child-bearing until they - and hopefully the fathers of their children - are ready to support a family...It's easy to forget that what really counts isn't "outcomes," but individuals.

I am not concerned here to evaluate Winship's view. I instead want to point out that if Caplan is correct that it is "misanthropic" to prevent an individual from existing, then Caplan faces the very same charge of misanthropy. For in delaying procreation, prospective parents virtually guarantee that the child who's born later is a metaphysically different individual than the child who would have been born if the delay had not occurred. Indeed, if a woman ends up procreating with a different man down the road, then it is metaphysically certain that the resulting child is not the same individual who would have been born if there had been no delay. This raises a serious problem for Caplan. He thinks it's wrong (or at least bad)** to deny individuals existence. But that is what I'm doing right now by typing this blog post instead of procreating. And it is what prospective parents would be doing by taking Caplan's own advice to delay procreating by a few years. If neither I nor those prospective parents are doing anything wrong in failing to procreate here and now, then Caplan is wrong that it is necessarily misanthropic to prevent someone's existence. If Winship's position is flawed, it'll have to be for some other reason.

I will return to these metaphysical issues, for they have interesting implications for what it can mean to harm another person. 

*Actually, philosophers of language will tell you that counterfactuals with impossible antecedents are "vacuously true". No need to go into that here, however.

**Added several hours later, for accuracy.

Comments

[John Howard]

What about the "queue of souls" theory, that we inhabit the next body that is ready for ensoulment, in whatever womb that happens to be in? That's the basis of human dignity and equality. The idea that I am equal to every other person, and could have been that person, in that person's shoes, with that person's mother and father and genes, but by chance I wound up in the body I wound up in.

I think the materialistic "we are our genes" idea is very detrimental and dangerous, and we should realize that we are our souls, and no different from anyone else's soul. Sure our bodies are different and our lives are different, but equality is based on the idea that our souls are identical and interchangeable.

So if your parents didn't conceive when they did, your soul would have just as happily entered some other body and you would be living in China or maybe Iceland or Mexico.

[Paul Kelleher]

Yes, that theory would be a rival to the leading theory in contemporary metaphysics. I don't find it plausible, but I certainly haven't argued that it's false either.

[John Howard]

...and that is why it is good to limit procreation to the most ethical circumstances and prohibit and discourage it in unethical circumstances. It sucks to be born into bad circumstances, it'd be much better for that body to not have been conceived, so that the soul can enter a body that will be born into pleasant circumstances. It's not like souls are pushing and shoving to make the queue move faster (so maybe the metaphor of a queue is a bad one, and maybe a "pool of souls" is better, or maybe they are created on demand, and don't exist prior to ensoulment at all)

[KK]

Hmm, two issues I have:

"saved the specific sperm and egg that in fact created me and then joined them in 1981 instead of 1979, then, yes, that would have been me. " How does this take into account the trillion different accidents that go on to make you what you are (starting from the same gene makeup), so called 'nurture' part of the equation?

" He thinks it's wrong (or at least bad)** to deny individuals existence." Given that a family is constrained to have a certain limited number of offsprings, the point is that a delayed child may be better off than an early one. Why would this be misanthropic?

[John Howard]

Paul, it's a better theory, because it is necessary for human rights and dignity and liberty and freedom. The other theory is pure materialism, and leads to bondage and eugenics.

[Paul Kelleher]

Hi, KK:

1. The "nurture" elements you refer to do indeed make us who we are, but not in the same sense at issue here. What I'm referring to in the post is often called "numerical identity" by philosophers. Numerical identity is what makes it the case that I am me and not someone else. Since *I* could have been raised much differently, there is some sense in which I--the very same person--could have developed a much different personality than I have. Likewise, we can imagine two identical twins who are nurtured in identical ways so that they are "virtually the same person" in the sense of having the same personality with the same aspirations, etc. In this case we still need a way to explain why they are, in fact, *two* different individuals, despite all the similarities. The concept of numerical identity is the concept that helps us distinguish between them. (The twin case is not the best example for me to use here, however, since two different individuals might come from the same sperm/egg combination. This means that the account of numerical identity I give in the post needs further amending to address this issue.)

2. I agree with you that delaying would not be misanthropic. My post was trying to explain why it would not be. Bryan responds here (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/identity_and_mi.html), but I do not understand his further clarification of what is and what is not "misanthropic."

[Paul Kelleher]

John,

As you know, lots of people (including myself) believe that secular ethics is perfectly capable of justifying human rights.

[Scott Winship]

Spot on. Here's what I put in the comments to Bryan's post:
I'm misanthropic because I want to help people who didn't want to become parents avoid becoming so? That seems pro-natalist in the extreme. Do you really want to put the potential happiness of not-yet-created babies ahead of the happiness of actual might-become parents? If so, I hope you're doing all you can to respond to the silent screams of all those gametes contained within you and your wife!

[Paul Kelleher]

Hi Scott,

Based on Bryan's response here (http://t.co/hR7CjY5u) it's possible that he's misunderstood you and that I've misunderstood him. As I write in the comments of that second post, I don't quite understand his clarification. But it might be that the disagreements here are more apparent than real. I'm just not sure.

[Paul Kelleher]

Sorry, here's that link again: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/identity_and_mi.html

[John Howard]

I think the important thing missing in terms of justifying human rights that I am trying to add is not a religious or spiritual element, with angels and heaven and stuff, but the idea that we could have been someone else. That's the source of human rights I think, the belief that we are all equal underneath it all and just in different circumstances. I don't think that requires religion, I mean "souls" in a conceptual and ontological sense, as the source of consciousness and the life in a body.

I think human rights are put in jeopardy by a materialist view that the source of consciousness and life is the body itself, and grows out of the sperm and egg and is as different from another person's consciousness as their bodies are different bodies. It means that we couldn't be anyone but the body we are, and that leads to less empathy and more selfishness and self-righteousness, and people saying things like "you wouldn't exist if that sperm hadn't met that egg" which I think leads to justifying all sorts of horrible things like rape and sperm donation and genetic engineering and eugenics.

Although I can see that my view also is a kind of eugenics, in the sense that it says we should try to limit procreation to good circumstances so that souls enter bodies that will have good lives. But because it also offers a real reason to say that everyone is equal and has equal rights, it provides a counter force and clear limits to stop us going too far in how we improve the circumstances of future people.