This thesis in an invistigation into the concept of "harm" and its moral relevance. A common view is that an analysis of harm should include a counterfactual condition: an act harms a person iff it makes that person worse off. A common objection to the moral relevance of harm, thus understood, is the non-identity problem. This thesis criticises the counterfactual condition, argues for an alternative analysis and that harm plays two important normative roles. The main ground for rejecting the counterfactual condition is that it has unacceptable consequences in cases of overdetermination and pre-emption. Several modifications to the condition are considered but all fail to solve this problem. According to the alternative analysis to do harm is to perform an act which (1) is responsible for the obtaining of a state of affairs which (2) makes a person’s life go worse. It is argued that (1) should be understood in terms of counterfactual dependence. This claim is defended against counterexamples based on redundant causation. An analysis of (2) is also provided using the notion of a well-being function. It is argued that by introducing this notion it is possible to analyse contributive value without making use of counterfactual comparisons and to solve the non-identity problem. Regarding the normative importance of harm, a popular intuition is that there is an asymmetry in our obligations to future people: that a person would have a life worth living were she to exist is not a reason in favour of creating that person while that a person would have a life not worth living is a reason against creating that person. It is argued that the asymmetry can be classified as a moral option grounded in autonomy. Central to this defence is the suggestion that harm is relevant to understanding autonomy. Autonomy involves partly the freedom to pursue one’s own aims as long as one does no harm.

This paper is concerned with the examination of Caspar Hare's (2007) de dicto approach to the non-identity problem and specifically the non-identity case of The Inconsiderate Mother. On the de dicto approach an act can be wrong if it makes things de dicto worse for a role, even if that act does not make things worse for any actual person that fills that role. In this paper I provide a brief overview and reconstruction of Hare's argument. I argue that objections to Hare's arguments due to David Wasserman (2008) do not give us reason to dismiss the de dicto approach. Lastly I consider an objection to the effect that Hare's solution to the non-identity problem is ad hoc. I conclude that the de dicto approach faces some challenges but that we cannot readily dismiss it.

David Benatar’s axiological asymmetry argument for antinatalism states that it is always bad for a sentient being to come into existence. There has been a lot of discussion about this argument since its publication in 2006, but this discussion has often been lacking by not accepting some ground rules, or assumptions, that Benatar establishes. In this paper I accept these ground rules, which is the person-affecting view, and the idea that the axiological asymmetry argument provides a lot of explanatory power, by single handedly being able to explain four other, primafacie plausible asymmetries. In this paper I investigate these other asymmetries to see (i) if they are true and (ii) if some other, more plausible theory, can explain them. My investigation shows that two of these asymmetries are false when understood in a theoretical way. When these two asymmetries are understood in a practical way, they are true, but then they don’t lend support to the axiological asymmetry argument. The third asymmetry, while true, is better explained by the so-called existence requirement. The fourth asymmetry, while true, doesn’t lend support to the axiological asymmetry argument since it doesn’t provide anything new to this argument. The conclusion drawn from this is that the explanatory power of the axiological asymmetry argument, with regards to these other asymmetries, is not that strong, which in effect weakens the plausibility of the axiological asymmetry argument for antinatalism. / David Benatars axiologiska asymmetri-argument för antinatalism säger att det alltid är dåligt för en kännande varelse att börja existera. Det har varit mycket diskussion kring detta argument sedan dess publicering år 2006, men denna diskussion har ofta varit bristfällig genom att inte acceptera några grundregler, eller antaganden, som Benatar etablerar. I den här uppsatsen accepterar jag dessa grundregler, som dels är den så kallade person-affecting teorin, och dels tanken att det axiologiska asymmetri-argumentet ger mycket förklaringskraft, genom att på egen hand kunna förklara fyra andra, prima facie rimliga asymmetrier. I den här uppsatsen undersöker jag dessa andra asymmetrier för att se (i) om de är sanna och (ii) om någon annan, rimligare teori, kan förklara dem. Min undersökning visar att två av dessa asymmetrier är falska när de förstås på ett teoretiskt sätt. När dessa två asymmetrier förstås på ett praktiskt sätt är de sanna, men då ger de inte stöd för det axiologiska asymmetri-argumentet. Den tredje asymmetrin är sann, men förklaras bättre av det så kallade existens-kravet. Den fjärde asymmetrin är sann, men ger inte något stöd till det axiologiska asymmetri-argumentet eftersom den inte tillför något nytt till detta argument. Slutsatsen som dras av detta är att förklaringskraften hos det axiologiska asymmetri-argumentet, med avseende på dessa andra asymmetrier, inte är så stark, vilket som en följd försvagar rimligheten hos det axiologiska asymmetri-argumentet för antinatalism.