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Derek Parfit Quotes

Derek Antony Parfit 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.Parfit rose to prominence in 1971 with the publication of his first paper, "Personal Identity". His first book, Reasons and Persons , has been described as the most significant work of moral philosophy since the 1800s. His second book, On What Matters , was widely circulated and discussed for many years before its publication.

For his entire academic career, Parfit worked at Oxford University, where he was an Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College at the time of his death. He was also a visiting professor of philosophy at Harvard University, New York University, and Rutgers University. He 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." Wikipedia  

✵ 11. December 1942 – 1. January 2017
Derek Parfit photo

Works

Reasons and Persons
Reasons and Persons
Derek Parfit
Derek Parfit: 24   quotes 1   like

Famous Derek Parfit Quotes

“What now matters most is that we rich people give up some of our luxuries, ceasing to overheat the Earth's atmosphere, and taking care of this planet in other ways, so that it continues to support intelligent life.”

Derek Parfit

Source: On What Matters: Volume One (2011), p. 419

“My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 281
Context: Is the truth depressing? Some may find it so. But I find it liberating, and consoling. When I believed that my existence was a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.

“We are paternalists when we make someone act in his own interests.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 321

“It has been widely believed that there are such deep disagreements between Kantians, Contractualists, and Consequentialists. That, I have argued, is not true. These people are climbing the same mountain on different sides.”

Derek Parfit

Source: On What Matters: Volume One (2011), p. 419

“To be a person, a being must be self-conscious, aware of its identity and its continued existence over time.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 202

“Why shouldn’t I eat toothpaste? It’s a free world. Why shouldn’t I chew my toenails? i happen to have trodden in some honey. Why shouldn’t I prance across central park with delicate sideways leaps? I know what your answer will be: “it isn’t done.””

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

But it’s no earthly use just saying it isn’t done. If there’s a reason why it isn’t done, give the reason—if there’s no reason, don’t attempt to stop me doing it. All other things being equal, the mere fact that something “isn’t done” is in itself an excellent reason for doing it.

p.101
Reasons and Persons (1984)

Derek Parfit Quotes about people

“I sometimes want to kick my car[.] Since I have this anger at material objects, which is manifestly irrational, it’s easier to me to think, when I get angry with people, that this is also irrational.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Derek Parfit, ‘An Interview with Derek Parfit’, Cogito, Vol. 9, No. 2 (August, 1995), p. 118

“Until this century, most of mankind lived in small communities. What each did could affect only a few others. But conditions have now changed. Each of us can now, in countless ways, affect countless other people. We can have real though small effects on thousands or millions of people. When these effects are widely dispersed, they may be either trivial, or imperceptible. It now makes a great difference whether we continue to believe that we cannot have greatly harmed r benefited others unless there are people with obvious grounds for resentment or gratitude.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 86

“Even if moral truths cannot affect people, they can still be truths.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Reasons and Motivation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 71 (1997), p. 111

“When some principle requires us to act in some way, this principle’s acceptability cannot depend on whether such acts are often possible. We cannot defend some principle by claiming that, in the world as it is, there is no danger that too many people will act in the way that this principle requires.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 387

Derek Parfit Quotes about the truth

“To think about reality we must use concepts, and certain truths about concepts may reveal, or reflect, truths about reality.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), pp. 223-224

“Nagel once claimed that it is psychologically impossible to believe the Reductionist View. Buddha claimed that, though it is very hard, it is possible. I find Buddha’s claim to be true. After reviewing my arguments, I find that, at the reflective or intellectual level, though it is very hard to believe the Reductionist View, this is possible. My remaining doubts or fears seem to me irrational. Since I can believe this view, I assume that others can do so too. We can believe the truth about ourselves.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 280

“Normative concepts form a fundamental category-like, say, temporal or logical concepts. We should not expect to explain time, or logic, in non-temporal or non-logical terms. Similarly, normative truths are of a distinctive kind, which we should not expect to be like ordinary, empirical truths. Nor should we expect our knowledge of such truths, if we have ay, to be like our knowledge of the world around us.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Reasons and Motivation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 71 (1997), p. 121

“If we believe that there are some irreducibly normative truths, we might be believing what we ought to believe. If there are such truths, one of these truths would be that we ought to believe that there are such truths. If instead we believe that there are no such truths, we could not be believing what we ought to believe. If there were no such truths, there would be nothing that we ought to believe.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 619

Derek Parfit Quotes

“Certain actual sleeping pills cause retrograde amnesia. It can be true that, if I take such a pill, I shall remain awake for an hour, but after my night’s sleep I shall have no memories of the second half of this hour. I have in fact taken such pills, and found out what the results are like. Suppose that I took such a pill nearly an hour ago. The person who wakes up in my bed tomorrow will not be psychologically continuous with me as I was half an hour ago. I am now on psychological branch-line, which will end soon when I fall asleep. During this half-hour, I am psychologically continuous with myself in the past. But I am not now psychologically continuous with myself in the future. I shall never later remember what I do or think or feel during this half-hour. This means that, in some respects, my relation to myself tomorrow is like a relation to another person. Suppose, for instance, that I have been worrying about some practical question. I now see the solution. Since it is clear what I should do, I form a firm intention. In the rest of my life, it would be enough to form this intention. But, when I am no this psychological branch-line, this is not enough. I shall not later remember what I have now decided, and I shall not wake up with the intention that I have now formed. I must therefore communicate with myself tomorrow as if I was communicating with someone else. I must write myself a letter, describing my decision, and my new intention. I must then place this letter where I am bound to notice it tomorrow. I do not in fact have any memories of making such a decision, and writing such a letter. But I did once find such a letter underneath my razor.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), pp. 287-288

Sleep , Night , Question , Past

“It’s a good reason for postponing pleasures that you will then have more time in which you can enjoy looking forward to them. I remember exactly when, at the age of eight, I changed over from eating the best bits first to eating them last.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 255

Pleasure , Time , Age , Change

“Venetian Memories. Jane has agreed to have copied in her brain some of Paul’s memory-traces. After she recovers consciousness in the post-surgery room, she has a new set of vivid apparent memories. She seems to remember walking on the marble paving of a square, hearing the flapping of flying pigeons and the cries of gulls, and seeing light sparkling on green water. One apparent memory is very clear. She seems to remember looking across the water to an island, where a white Palladian church stood out brilliantly against a dark thundercloud.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 220

Light , Water , Memory , Flying

“Consider the fact that, in a few years, I shall be dead. This fact can seem depressing. But the reality is only this. After a certain time, none of the thoughts and experiences that occur will be directly causally related to this brain, or be connected in certain ways to these present experiences. That is all this fact involves. And, in that description, my death seems to disappear.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 45

Time , Dead , Reality , Relation ships

“Though everything is identical with itself, only I am me.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 25

“On all plausible theories, everyone’s well-being consists at least in part in being happy, and avoiding suffering.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 101

Suffering , Parting , Happiness

“We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 616

World , Change , History , Decision

“When I consider the parts of the past of which I have some knowledge, I am inclined to believe that, in Utilitarian hedonistic terms, the past has been worth it, since the sum of happiness has been greater than the sum of suffering.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 612

Knowledge , Past , Suffering , Parting

“Why do we save the larger number? Because we do give equal weight to saving each. Each counts for one. That is why more count for more.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Innumerate Ethics’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 7, no. 4 (Summer, 1978), p. 301

“Naturalism and Non-Cognitivism are both […] close to Nihilism. Normativity is either an illusion, or involves irreducibly normative facts.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

chap. 24, sect. 82
Reasons and Persons (1984)

Nature

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