Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Derek Antony Parfit FBA (/ ˈ p ɑːr f ɪ t /; 11 December 1942 – 2 January 2017 [3] [4]) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Reasons and Persons is a 1984 book by the philosopher Derek Parfit, in which the author discusses ethics, rationality and personal identity.. It is divided into four parts, dedicated to self-defeating theories, rationality and time, personal identity and responsibility toward future generations.
Parfit's conclusion is similar to David Hume's view and also to the view of the self in some forms of Buddhism, though it does not restrict itself to a mere reformulation of them. For besides being reductive, Parfit's view is also deflationary: in the end, "what matters" is not personal identity, but rather mental continuity and connectedness.
This article concerns the fames English moral philosopher Derek Parfit and his magnum opus, Reasons and Persons. Parfit is read widely by economists, political scientists, and philosophers alike and is work has proved incredibly influential. A biography of his life and proofreading is needed. 18 Jul 2004
According to Parfit, it is rational for people who perceive very little connectedness with their future self to act in ways that neglect the future self (e.g., by smoking). The psychological work that followed did not similarly argue for Parfit's normative view but has instead attempted to test the descriptive validity of Parfit's theory. [6]
In the life of your child, you easily exchange thousands of words every day, or at the very least every week. And while many of these conversations may seem normal and even fairly inconsequential ...
The one exception to this rule, he said, comes to shelf life and expiration dates. These things, he said, "often measure quality, not safety." Sell-by dates are often about food quality, not ...
The economist Tyler Cowen has expressed admiration for Parfit's style ("Reading him is an unforgettable and illuminating experience") in On What Matters, but argues: . I see the biggest and most central part of the book as a failure, possibly wrong but more worryingly "not even wrong" and simply missing the questions defined by where the frontier – choice theory and not just philosophic ...