A Simple Counterfactual Account Of Plural Harm

An important question in the literature on harm concerns what it takes for some events to harm a person together—what is known as plural harm. This question has been discussed especially in the context of the counterfactual comparative account of harm (CCA), according to which an event harms a person just in case it leaves her worse off than she otherwise would have been. While CCA proponents have proposed various complex and sophisticated theories about plural harm, we argue that they should instead endorse a very simple theory—one that roughly states that some events harm a person just in case they leave her worse off than she otherwise would have been. This theory has often been taken to be fatally flawed, as it entails that a plurality of events can harm a person even though some of its members are intuitively irrelevant to the harm that is done. We argue, however, that this objection can be met, and that there are various further considerations that suggest that if CCA is true, then the simple theory of plural harm is true.