From Unfelt Harm to Frustrated Desire

This chapter provides an extensive defense of the second premise of the book’s central argument: the claim that if it is possible for an act to wrongfully harm a person while they are alive even if the act has no effect on the person’s conscious experiences, then frustrating a person’s desires is one way to harm a person. The chapter begins by offering a defense of this claim. It argues that we should accept the Desire Satisfaction Principle if unfelt harm is possible because accepting the principle is necessary in order to provide the best explanation of the fact that unfelt harm is possible. It then considers a series of objections that can be raised against the claim and responds to them.