The Nonidentity Problem and Bioethics: A Natural Law Perspective

Abstract

Technology has significantly improved our ability to predict the traits of our offspring. This technology and the knowledge it affords us have enormous implications for bioethics. When we make a decision to bring (or not to bring) a person into existence, and we are concerned with the welfare of the child herself, we are left in the awkward position of comparing existence with nonexistence. This is the basis of the nonidentity problem, a topic that has generated a large amount of philosophical literature. To my knowledge, however, no one has attempted a comprehensive analysis of this literature from a natural law perspective. This paper attempts to begin such an analysis. If what I say is right, we can see how natural law theory helps explain some of our most basic moral thinking in this very perplexing area of normative ethics. This, I hope, will demonstrate just one of the values of natural law theory for bioethics.