The golden rule and the potentiality principle: Future persons and contingent interests

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 33-42

  Chan, Kai M A ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BENEFICENCE; BIOETHICS; BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; CONTRACEPTION; ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION; ETHICS; GENETICS AND REPRODUCTION; HUMAN; INDUCED ABORTION; LIFE; MORALITY; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH; PHILOSOPHY; POPULATION DYNAMICS; REPRODUCTION; RISK ASSESSMENT;

BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; GENETICS AND REPRODUCTION; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH;

ABORTION, INDUCED; BENEFICENCE; BIOETHICAL ISSUES; CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES; CONTRACEPTION; HUMANS; LIFE; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHY; POPULATION CONTROL; REPRODUCTION; RISK ASSESSMENT;

EID: 2442496310     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.0264-3758.2004.00261.x     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. D. Parfit (1984) Reasons and Persons (Oxford, Clarendon Press).
2. M. Tooley (1972) Abortion and infanticide, Philosophy & Public Affairs 2, 37-65.
3. R. M. Hare (1975) Abortion and the Golden Rule, Philosophy & Public Affairs 4, 201-222.
4. Hare, Abortion and the Golden Rule, Philosophy & Public Affairs 4, 201-222.
5. Parfit, Abortion and the Golden Rule, Philosophy & Public Affairs 4 p. 142.
6. Hare, Abortion and the Golden Rule, Philosophy & Public Affairs 4 p. 207, his italics.
7. Chan, K. M. A., Purpose utilitarianism: incorporating deontological concerns into utilitarianism by maximizing autonomy, manuscript in preparation.
8. Parfit, Purpose utilitarianism: incorporating deontological concerns into utilitarianism by maximizing autonomy, manuscript in preparation, pp. 391-3.
9. Chan, Purpose utilitarianism: incorporating deontological concerns into utilitarianism by maximizing autonomy, manuscript in preparation. (see Note 8.)
10. P. Singer (1993) Practical Ethics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), p. 103.
11. The total view attempts to maximize desire satisfaction summed across all stakeholders, and the average view attempts to maximize desire satisfaction averaged across all stakeholders.
12. Parfit, ‘Future generations: Further problems’, p. 142.
13. Parfit, Reasons and Persons’, R. Scott Jr. (1978) Environmental ethics and obligations to future generation in R. I. Sikora and B. Barry (eds.) Obligations to Future Generations (Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press);
14. L. W. Sumner (1978) Classical utilitarianism and the population optimum, in Sikora and Barry (eds.), op. cit.
15. Parfit, ‘Future generations: Further problems’, 148.
16. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Part Four.
17. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 375.
18. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, chapter 16; see above and Chan, op. cit., Duties to future persons: solving Parfit’s non-identity problem requires a Plaintiff-Regarding Principle, submitted to Utilitas. The CIP implies a Plaintiff-Regarding Principle, which assesses harms through comparisons between parallel people who occupy the same position — with the same non-contingent interest — in the different alternatives. The plaintiff is the identity-contingent person with the non-contingent interest, the person who will become the parallel person of the alternative that is realized (e.g. ‘Ruth’s child’ — either the handicapped or the healthy child, depending on the decision Ruth makes — who has a non-contingent interest in life).
19. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 406.