Abstract

The fact that our actions can affect not only the well-being and interests of future people but also their identity and number generates a distinctive ethical puzzle concerning the nature of our obligations to future people. This puzzle is sometimes called the Non-Identity Problem. In my dissertation I attempt to provide an important part of the solution to this very complex problem. I argue that in order to resolve this problem fully, we need to move beyond purely consequentialist considerations, and to appeal to a theory of rights, or what I sometimes call a complaint-based view. I then develop what I take to be the correct theory of rights. I argue that future people's rights are infringed when actions necessary for them to come into being cause them to be unable to lead flourishing lives in some life-stage. The relevant notion of flourishing is discussed in some detail. I also examine the conditions under which an act that infringes a future person's rights and so is prima facie wrong is wrong all things considered. I argue that the complaint-based view which I develop best captures our intuitive judgments in a wide variety of test-cases, and that it is also supported by an independently plausible rationale: earlier people should do what they can to ensure that future people are able to lead lives that the earlier people would consider to be flourishing