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Title: Threshold Conceptions of Harm and Non-Identity
Subtitle: Sketching a Sufficientarian Proposal
Author(s): DUMITRU, Adelin-Costin
Journal: Ethical Perspectives
Volume: 30    Issue: 2   Date: 2023   
Pages: 101-130
DOI: 10.2143/EP.30.2.3292663

Abstract :
This article defends the distinct yet related ideas that future individuals can be harmed, that they have rights, and that we have correlative obligations towards those individuals. I argue that two of the main ideas usually considered to disallow the possibility of harm to future generations – the non-identity problem and the absence of reciprocity between non-overlapping generations – share a similar structure and should be replaced by subject-centered approaches. I then present one of the dominant ways of circumventing the non-identity problem introduced recently in the literature, the threshold conception of harm proposed by Meyer. Finally, I sketch a sufficientarian proposal that incorporates this threshold conception of harm.

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