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Series:   Elements in Ethics

Parfit's Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2021

Richard Yetter Chappell
Richard Yetter Chappell
Affiliation:
University of Miami

Summary

Derek Parfit (1942–2017) was one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This Element offers a critical introduction to his wide-ranging ethical thought, focusing especially on his two most significant works, Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters (2011), and their contribution to the consequentialist moral tradition. Topics covered include: rationality and objectivity, distributive justice, self-defeating moral theories, Parfit's Triple Theory (according to which consequentialism, contractualism, and Kantian ethics ultimately converge), personal identity, and population ethics.
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Keywords

Parfitconsequentialismethical theorypopulation ethicsdistributive justice
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Ethics
Online ISBN: 9781108582377
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 13 May 2021

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