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Contingent Future Persons

On the Ethics of Deciding Who Will Live, or Not, in the Future

  • Book
  • © 1997

Overview

Editors:
  1. Nick Fotion

    1. Department of Philosophy, Emory University, Atlanta, USA

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  2. Jan C. Heller

    1. Center for Ethics in Health Care, Saint Joseph’s Health System, Atlanta, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Theology and Medicine (THAM, volume 9)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
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  2. Introduction

    • Nick Fotion
    Pages 1-8

  3. When Does Potentiality Count? A Comment on Lockwood

    • R. M. Hare
    Pages 9-18

  4. Hare on Potentiality: A Rejoinder

    • Michael Lockwood
    Pages 19-26

  5. The Morality of Knowingly Conceiving Children with Serious Conditions: An Expanded “Wrongful Life” Standard

    • Cynthia B. Cohen
    Pages 27-40

  6. Person-Affecting Principles and Beyond

    • Ingmar Persson
    Pages 41-56

  7. Divine Creation and Human Procreation: Reflections on Genesis in the Light of Genesis

    • David Heyd
    Pages 57-70

  8. Deciding the Timing of Children: An Ethical Challenge Only Indirectly Addressed by the Christian Tradition

    • Jan C. Heller
    Pages 71-84

  9. Repugnant Thoughts about the Repugnant Conclusion Argument

    • Nick Fotion
    Pages 85-97

  10. Person-Affecting Utilitarianism and Population Policy; or, Sissy Jupe’s Theory of Social Choice

    • Clark Wolf
    Pages 99-122

  11. Down to Earth Environmentalism: Sustainability and Future Persons

    • Avner de-Shalit
    Pages 123-135

  12. More Than They Have a Right to: Future People and Our Future-Oriented Projects

    • Lukas H. Meyer
    Pages 137-156

  13. Contingency, Community and Intergenerational Justice

    • Robert Elliot
    Pages 157-170

  14. Bringing Embryos into Existence for Research Purposes

    • Carol A. Tauer
    Pages 171-189

  15. Anticipating Posterity: A Lonerganian Approach to the Problem of Contingent Future Persons

    • William P. George
    Pages 191-208

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 209-216
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Keywords

About this book

How ought we evaluate the individual and collective actions on which the existence, numbers and identities of future people depend? In the briefest of terms, this question poses what is addressed here as the problem of contingent future persons, and as such it poses relatively novel challenges for philosophical and theological ethicists. For though it may be counter-intuitive, it seems that those contingent future persons who are actually brought into existence by such actions cannot benefit from or be harmed by these actions in any conventional sense of the terms. This intriguing problem was defined almost three decades ago by Jan Narveson [2], and to date its implications have been explored most exhaustively by Derek Parfit [3] and David Heyd [1]. Nevertheless, as yet there is simply no consensus on how we ought to evaluate such actions or, indeed, on whether we can. Still, the pursuit of a solution to the problem has been interestingly employed by moral philosophers to press the limits of ethics and to urge a reconsideration of the nature and source of value at its most fundamental level. It is thus proving to be a very fruitful investigation, with far-reaching theoretical and practical implications.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Philosophy, Emory University, Atlanta, USA

    Nick Fotion

  • Center for Ethics in Health Care, Saint Joseph’s Health System, Atlanta, USA

    Jan C. Heller

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Contingent Future Persons

  • Book Subtitle: On the Ethics of Deciding Who Will Live, or Not, in the Future

  • Editors: Nick Fotion, Jan C. Heller

  • Series Title: Theology and Medicine

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5566-3

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1997

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-4707-1Published: 31 August 1997

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-94-010-6345-6Published: 12 October 2012

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-011-5566-3Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0928-8783

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VII, 216

  • Topics: Ethics, Philosophy, general, Religious Studies, general

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