Books / Reasons and Persons
Derek Parfit

Reasons and Persons pi

Introduction

PART ONE · SELF-DEFEATING THEORIES 3

CHAPTER 1 · THEORIES THAT ARE INDIRECTLY SELF‐DEFEATING 3 1 The Self-interest Theory 3 2 How S Can Be Indirectly Self-defeating 5 3 Does S Tell Us to Be Never Self-denying? 7 4 Why S Does Not Fail in Its Own Terms 11 5 Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally? 12 6 How S Implies that We Cannot Avoid Acting Irrationally 13 7 An Argument for Rejecting S When It Conflicts with Morality 17 8 Why This Argument Fails 19 9 How S Might Be Self-Effacing 23 10 How Consequentialism Is Indirectly Self-defeating 24 11 Why C Does Not Fail in Its Own Terms 28 12 The Ethics of Fantasy 29 13 Collective Consequentialism 30 14 Blameless Wrongdoing 31 15 Could It Be Impossible to Avoid Acting Wrongly? 35 16 Could It Be Right to Cause Oneself to Act Wrongly? 37 17 How C Might Be Self-Effacing 40 18 The Objection that Assumes Inflexibility 43 19 Can Being Rational or Moral Be a Mere Means? 45 20 Conclusions 49 CHAPTER 2 · PRACTICAL DILEMMAS 53 21 Why C Cannot Be Directly Self-defeating 53 22 How Theories Can Be Directly Self-defeating 55 23 Prisoner's Dilemmas and Public Goods 56 24 The Practical Problem and its Solutions 62 CHAPTER 3 · FIVE MISTAKES IN MORAL MATHEMATICS 67 25 The Share-of-the-Total View 67 26 Ignoring the Effects of Sets of Acts 70 27 Ignoring Small Chances 73 28 Ignoring Small or Imperceptible Effects 75 29 Can There Be Imperceptible Harms and Benefits? 78 30 Overdetermination 82 31 Rational Altruism 83 CHAPTER 4 · THEORIES THAT ARE DIRECTLY SELF‐DEFEATING 87 32 In Prisoner's Dilemma, Does S Fail in Its Own Terms? 88 33 Another Weak Defense of Morality 91 34 Intertemporal Dilemmas 92 35 A Weak Defense of S 93 36 How Common-Sense Morality is Directly Self-Defeating 95 37 The Five Parts of a Moral Theory 98 38 How We Can Revise Common-Sense Morality so that It Would Not Be Self-Defeating 100 39 Why We Ought to Revise Common-Sense Morality 103 40 A Simpler Revision 108 CHAPTER 5 · CONCLUSIONS 111 41 Reducing the Distance between M and C 111 42 Towards a Unified Theory 112 43 Work to be Done 113 44 Another Possibility 114

PART TWO · RATIONALITY AND TIME 117

CHAPTER 6 · THE BEST OBJECTION TO THE SELF-INTEREST THEORY 117 45 The Present-aim Theory 117 46 Can Desires Be Intrinsically Irrational, or Rationality Required? 120 47 Three Competing Theories 126 48 Psychological Egoism 127 49 The Self-interest Theory and Morality 129 50 My First Argument 130 51 The S-Theorist's First Reply 132 52 Why Temporal Neutrality is Not the Issue Between S and P 133 CHAPTER 7 · THE APPEAL TO FULL RELATIVITY 137 53 The S-Theorist's Second Reply 137 54 Sidgwick's Suggestions 137 55 How S is Incompletely Relative 140 56 How Sidgwick Went Astray 141 57 The Appeal Applied at a Formal Level 142 58 The Appeal Applied to Other Claims 144 CHAPTER 8 · DIFFERENT ATTITUDES TO TIME 149 59 1s It Irrational to Give No Weight to One's Past Desires? 149 60 Desires that Depend on Value Judgements or Ideals 153 61 Mere Past Desires 156 62 Is It Irrational To Care Less About One's Further Future? 158 63 A Suicidal Argument 163 64 Past or Future Suffering 165 65 The Direction of Causation 168 66 Temporal Neutrality 170 67 Why We Should Not Be Biased towards the Future 174 68 Time's Passage 177 69 An Asymmetry 191 70 Conclusions 184 CHAPTER 9 · WHY WE SHOULD REJECT S 187 71 The Appeal to Later Regrets 187 72 Why a Defeat for Proximus is Not a Victory for S 188 73 The Appeal to Inconsistency 189 74 Conclusions 191

PART THREE · PERSONAL IDENTITY 199

CHAPTER 10 · WHAT WE BELIEVE OURSELVES TO BE 199 75 Simple Teletransportation and the Branch-Line Case 200 76 Qualitative and Numerical Identity 201 77 The Physical Criterion of Persona1 Identity 202 78 The Psychological Criterion 204 79 The Other Views 209 CHAPTER 11 · HOW WE ARE NOT WHAT WE BELIEVE 219 80 Does Psychological Continuity Presuppose Personal Identity? 219 81 The Subject of Experiences 223 82 How a Non-Reductionist View Might Have Been True 227 83 Williams's Argument against the Psychological Criterion 229 84 The Psychological Spectrum 23 1 85 The Physical Spectrum 234 86 The Combined Spectrum 236 CHAPTER 12 · WHY OUR IDENTITY IS NOT WHAT MATTERS 245 87 Divided Minds 245 88 What Explains the Unity of Consciousness? 248 89 What Happens When I Divide? 253 90 What Matters When I Divide? 261 91 Why There is No Criterion of Identity that Can Meet Two Plausible Requirements 266 92 Wittgenstein and Buddha 273 93 Am I Essentially My Brain? 273 94 Is the True View Believable? 274 CHAPTER 13 · WHAT DOES MATTER 281 95 Liberation From the Self 281 96 The Continuity of the Body 282 97 The Branch-Line Case 287 98 Series-Persons 289 99 Am I a Token or a Type? 293 100 Partial Survival 298 101 Successive Selves 302 CHAPTER 14 · PERSONAL IDENTITY AND RATIONALITY 307 102 The Extreme Claim 3Cn 103 A Better Argument against the Self-interest Theory 312 104 The S-Theorist’s Counter-Argument 315 105 The Defeat of the Classical Self-Interest Theory 317 106 The Immorality of Imprudence 318 CHAPTER 15 PERSONAL IDENTITY AND MORALITY 321 107 Autonomy and Paternalism 321 108 The Two Ends of Lives 321 109 Desert 323 110 Commitments 326 111 The Separateness of Persons and Distributive Justice 329 112 Three Explanations of the Utilitarian View 330 113 Changing a Principle’s Scope 332 114 Changing a Principle’s Weight 334 115 Can It Be Right to Burden Someone Merely to Benefit Someone Else? 336 116 An Argument to Giving Less Weight to Equality 339 117 A More Extreme Argument 342 118 Conclusions 345

PART FOUR · FUTURE GENERATIONS

CHAPTER 16 · THE NON-IDENTITY PROBLEM 351 119 How Our Identity In Fact Depends on When We Were Conceived 351 120 The Three Kinds of Choice 355 121 What Weight Should We Give to the Interests of Future People? 356 122 A Young Girl’s Child 357 123 How Lowering the Quality of Life Might Be Worse For No One 361 124 Why an Appeal to Rights Cannot Solve the Problem 364 125 Does the Fact of Non-Identity Make a Moral Difference? 366 126 Causing Predictable Catastrophes in the Further Future 371 127 Conclusions 377 CHAPTER 17 · THE REPUGNANT CONCLUSION 381 128 Is It Better If More People Live? 381 129 The Effect Of Population Growth on Existing People 382 130 Overpopulation 384 131 The Repugnant Conclusion 387 CHAPTER 18 · THE ABSURD CONCLUSION 391 132 An Alleged Asymmetry 391 133 Why the Ideal Contractual Method Provides No Solution 391 134 The Narrow Person-Affecting Principle 393 135 Why We Cannot Appeal to this Principle 395 136 The Two Wide Person-Affecting Principles 396 137 Possible Theories 401 138 The Sum of Suffering 406 139 The Appeal to the Valueless Level 412 140 The Lexical View 413 141 Conclusions 414 CHAPTER 19 · THE MERE ADDITION PARADOX 419 142 Mere Addition 419 143 Why We Should Reject the Average Principle 420 144 Why We Should Reject the Appeal to Inequality 422 145 The First Version of Paradox 425 146 Why We Are Not Yet Forced to Accept the Repugnant Conclusion 430 147 The Appeal to the Bad Level 432 148 The Second Version of the Paradox 433 149 The Third Version 438 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 443 150 Impersonality 443 151 Different Kinds of Arguments 447 152 Should We Welcome or Regret My Conclusions? 449 153 Moral Skepticism 452 154 How both Human History, and the History of Ethics, May Be Just Beginning 453 APPENDICES A A World Without Deception 457 B How My Weaker Conclusion Would in Practice Defeat S 461 C Rationality and the Different Theories About Self-Interest 464 D Nagel’s Brain 468 E The Closest Continuer Schema 477 F The Social Discount Rate 480 G Whether Causing Someone to Exist can Benefit this Person 487 H Rawlsian Principles 490 I What Makes Someone’s Life Go Best 493 J Buddha’s View 502

Notes 505 Bibliography 533 Index of Names 541