Introduction

I've decided to read you some unpublished work of mine about two problems. I shall mainly discuss how our acts may harm people, but most of my remarks would apply to acts that may benefit people. Some of this talk will be hard for non philosophers to follow, though i believe true of my main claims and examples. Ishall first, try to unlu some of the damage that i didwhen many years ago i wrote about what i call the non identity problem. I shall then discusswhat i call the triviality problem. Both problems are, i believe, indirectly relevant to effective alrati.