Derek Parfit (1942-)
Derek Parfit (1942-) is a person.
- See: Philosopher, Analytic Philosophy, Personal Identity, Rationalism, Consequentialism, Philosophy of Mind, Mere Addition Paradox, Teletransportation Thought Experiment.
References
2015
- (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Parfit Retrieved:2015-11-22.
- Derek Parfit (born 11 December 1942) is a British philosopher who specialises in problems of personal identity, rationality, ethics, and the relations among them.
His 1984 book Reasons and Persons (described by Alan Ryan in The Sunday Times as "something close to a work of genius") has been very influential. His most recent book, On What Matters (2011), was widely circulated and discussed for many years before its publication.
Parfit has worked at Oxford University for all of his academic career, and is an Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is also a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New York University, Harvard University, and Rutgers University, and was awarded the 2014 Rolf Schock Prize "for his groundbreaking contributions concerning personal identity, regard for future generations, and analysis of the structure of moral theories."
Parfit is also an experienced photographer and a retired poet. He is married to the philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards.
- Derek Parfit (born 11 December 1942) is a British philosopher who specialises in problems of personal identity, rationality, ethics, and the relations among them.
2011
- Larissa MacFarquhar. (2011). “[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/how-to-be-good How To Be Good: An Oxford philosopher thinks he can distill all morality into a formula. Is he right?.” In: The New Yorker
- QUOTE: … Parfit’s main task, however, was to prove that Kantianism and rule consequentialism were not actually in conflict. To do this, he needed to perform surgery on Kant’s Formula of Universal Law, the formula that Kant had claimed to be the supreme principle of morality: “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” Many Kantians had given up on this formula (Kant had many others), concluding that it simply didn’t help to distinguish right from wrong. But Parfit went to work on it, hacking off a piece here, suturing on a piece there, until he had arrived at a version that seemed to him to combine the best elements of Kantianism and contractualism: “Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will.” He argued that these principles would be the same ones that were espoused by rule consequentialism. Then, at last, he was in a position to propose his top-of-the-mountain formula, which he called the Triple Theory:
An act is wrong just when such acts are disallowed by some principle that is optimific, uniquely universally willable, and not reasonably rejectable.
The theory’s principles were consequentialist because they would lead to the best results (optimific); Kantian because they were universally willable; and contractualist because no person could reasonably reject them. …
- QUOTE: … Parfit’s main task, however, was to prove that Kantianism and rule consequentialism were not actually in conflict. To do this, he needed to perform surgery on Kant’s Formula of Universal Law, the formula that Kant had claimed to be the supreme principle of morality: “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” Many Kantians had given up on this formula (Kant had many others), concluding that it simply didn’t help to distinguish right from wrong. But Parfit went to work on it, hacking off a piece here, suturing on a piece there, until he had arrived at a version that seemed to him to combine the best elements of Kantianism and contractualism: “Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will.” He argued that these principles would be the same ones that were espoused by rule consequentialism. Then, at last, he was in a position to propose his top-of-the-mountain formula, which he called the Triple Theory:
1984
- (Parfit, 1984) ⇒ Derek Parfit. (1984). “Reasons and Persons." Oxford University Press,