# nonidentity problem

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. the philosophical problem involving our ethical obligations to future persons which derives from the observation that different courses of action will result in entirely different, or nonidentical, persons coming to be.

## Etymology
The articulation of the problem is credited to Derek Parfit in his work Reasons and Persons.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/nonidentity-problem