Derek Parfit

This book challenges, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity. The author claims that we have a false view of our own nature; that it is often rational to act against our own best interests; that most of us have moral views that are directly self-defeating; and that, when we consider future generations the conclusions will often be disturbing. He concludes that moral non-religious moralphilosophy is a young subject, with a promising but unpredictable future.

Reasons and Persons

Samuel Scheffler

This is the first volume of a major work in moral philosophy, the long-awaited follow-up to Parfit's classic Reasons and Persons, a landmark of 20th-century philosophy. Parfit presents a powerful new treatment of reasons and a critical examination of the most prominent systematic moral theories, leading to his own ground-breaking conclusion.

Volume One

On What Matters

This is the follow-up to Derek Parfit's 1984 book 'Reasons and Persons'. Parfit presents a powerful new treatment of reasons, rationality, and normativity, and a critical examination of three systematic moral theories - Kant's ethics, contractualism, and consequentialism - leading to his own ground-breaking synthetic conclusion.

On what matters

Racje i osoby

This is the second volume of a major new work in moral philosophy. It starts with critiques of Derek Parfit's work by four eminent moral philosophers, and his responses. The largest part of the volume is a self-contained monograph on normativity. The final part comprises seven new essays on Kant, reasons, and why the universe exists.

Volume Two

Derek Parfits bahnbrechende Arbeiten zur personalen Identität, zur Metaethik und zur normativen Ethik prägen seit Jahrzehnten die Debatten der praktischen Philosophie weltweit. Seine zentrale Frage lautet: Worauf kommt es eigentlich an? Er beantwortet sie mit einer innovativen Theorie, die eine reduktionistische Auffassung von personaler Identität mit einer objektiven Theorie praktischer Gründe und einer verblüffenden Vereinigung von Kantianismus, Kontraktualismus und Konsequentialismus verbindet. Erstmals liegen mit diesem Band nun Texte in deutscher Übersetzung vor, die das philosophische Schaffen Parfits in seiner ganzen Breite abdecken.

Ausgewählte Aufsätze

Personen, Normativität, Moral

On What Matters is a major work in moral philosophy. It is the long-awaited follow-up to Derek Parfit's 1984 book Reasons and Persons, one of the landmarks of twentieth-century philosophy. In this first volume Parfit presents a powerful new treatment of reasons and rationality, and a critical examination of three systematic moral theories — Kant's ethics, contractualism, and consequentialism — leading to his own ground-breaking synthetic conclusion. Along the way he discusses a wide range of moral issues, such as the significance of consent, treating people as a means rather than an end, and free will and responsibility. On What Matters is already the most-discussed work in moral philosophy: its publication is likely to establish it as a modern classic which everyone working on moral philosophy will have to read, and which many others will turn to for stimulation and illumination.

Derek Parfit

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