The apology paradox and the non-identity problem

Philosophical Quarterly 52 (208):358-368 (2002)
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Abstract

Janna Thompson has outlined ‘the apology paradox’, which arises whenever people apologize for an action or event upon which their existence is causally dependent. She argues that a sincere apology seems to entail a wish that the action or event had not occurred, but that we cannot sincerely wish that events upon which our existence depends had not occurred. I argue that Thompson’s paradox is a backward-looking version of Parfit’s (forward-looking) ‘non-identity problem’, where backward- and forward-looking refer to the perspective of an agent apologizing for or contemplating an action. The temporal perspective of the agent gives us the tools with which to dissolve the air of paradox which surrounds these problems. Each is best grasped from one temporal perspective, but the para- doxes arise when we attempt to examine it simultaneously from another. The evaluations appropriate to the apology paradox and the non-identity problem are therefore time-indexed.

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Neil Levy
University of Oxford

Citations of this work

The nonidentity problem.Melinda Roberts - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Identifying and Dissolving the Non-Identity Problem.Rivka Weinberg - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 137 (1):3-18.
Morally, should we prefer never to have existed?Saul Smilansky - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (4):655-666.
Uncertain justice: History and reparations.Stephen Winter - 2006 - Journal of Social Philosophy 37 (3):342–359.

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References found in this work

The non-identity problem.James Woodward - 1986 - Ethics 96 (4):804-831.
Comments.Derek Parfit - 1986 - Ethics 96 (4):832-872.
The apology paradox.Janna Thompson - 2000 - Philosophical Quarterly 50 (201):470-475.

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