Reasons and Persons (Oxford Paperbacks) by Parfit, Derek -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

PART ONE • SELF-DEFEATING THEORIES CHAPTER 1 • THEORIES THAT ARE INDIRECTLY SELF-DEFEATING

1 The Self-interest Theory 2 How S Can Be Indirectly Self-defeating 3 Does S Tell Us to Be Never Self-denying? 4 Why S Does Not Fail in Its Own Terms 5 Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally? 6 How S Implies that We Cannot Avoid Acting Irrationally 7 An Argument for Rejecting S When It Conflicts with Morality 8 Why This Argument Fails 9 How S Might Be Self-Effacing 10 How Consequentialism Is Indirectly Self-defeating 11 Why C Does Not Fail in Its Own Terms 12 The Ethics of Fantasy 13 Collective Consequentialism 14 Blameless Wrongdoing 15 Could It Be Impossible to Avoid Acting Wrongly? 16 Could It Be Right to Cause Oneself to Act Wrongly? 17 How C Might Be Self-Effacing 18 The Objection that Assumes Inflexibility 19 Can Being Rational or Moral Be a Mere Means? 20 Conclusions

CHAPTER 2 • PRACTICAL DILEMMAS

21 Why C Cannot Be Directly Self-defeating 22 How Theories Can Be Directly Self-defeating 23 Prisoner’s Dilemmas and Public Goods 24 The Practical Problem and its Solutions

CHAPTER 3 • FIVE MISTAKES IN MORAL MATHEMATICS

25 The Share-of-the-Total View 26 Ignoring the Effects of Sets of Acts 27 Ignoring Small Chances 28 Ignoring Small or Imperceptible Effects 29 Can There Be Imperceptible Harms and Benefits? 30 Overdetermination 31 Rational Altruism

CHAPTER 4 • THEORIES THAT ARE DIRECTLY SELF-DEFEATING

32 In Prisoner’s Dilemmas, Does S Fail in Its Own Terms? 33 Another Weak Defence of Morality 34 Intertemporal Dilemmas 35 A Weak Defence of S 36 How Common-Sense Morality Is Directly Self-Defeating 37 The Five Parts of a Moral Theory 38 How We Can Revise Common-Sense Morality so that It Would Not Be Self-Defeating 39 Why We Ought to Revise Common-Sense Morality 40 A Simpler Revision

CHAPTER 5 • CONCLUSIONS

41 Reducing the Distance between M and C 42 Towards a Unified Theory 43 Work to be Done 44 Another Possibility

PART TWO • RATIONALITY AND TIME CHAPTER 6 • THE BEST OBJECTION TO THE SELF-INTEREST THEORY

45 The Present-aim Theory 46 Can Desires Be Intrinsically Irrational, or Rationally Required? 47 Three Competing Theories 48 Psychological Egoism 49 The Self-interest Theory and Morality 50 My First Argument 51 The S-Theorist’s First Reply 52 Why Temporal Neutrality Is Not the Issue Between S and P

CHAPTER 7 • THE APPEAL TO FULL RELATIVITY

53 The S-Theorist’s Second Reply 54 Sidgwick’s Suggestions 55 How S Is Incompletely Relative 56 How Sidgwick Went Astray 57 The Appeal Applied at a Formal Level 58 The Appeal Applied to Other Claims

CHAPTER 8 • DIFFERENT ATTITUDES TO TIME

59 Is It Irrational to Give No Weight to One’s Past Desires? 60 Desires that Depend on Value Judgements or Ideals 61 Mere Past Desires 62 Is It Irrational To Care Less About One’s Further Future? 63 A Suicidal Argument 64 Past or Future Suffering 65 The Direction of Causation 66 Temporal Neutrality 67 Why We Should Not Be Biased towards the Future 68 Time’s Passage 69 An Asymmetry 70 Conclusions

CHAPTER 9 • WHY WE SHOULD REJECT S

71 The Appeal to Later Regrets 72 Why a Defeat for Proximus is Not a Victory for S 73 The Appeal to Inconsistency 74 Conclusions

PART THREE • PERSONAL IDENTITY CHAPTER 10 • WHAT WE BELIEVE OURSELVES TO BE

75 Simple Teletransportation and the Branch-Line Case 76 Qualitative and Numerical Identity 77 The Physical Criterion of Personal Identity 78 The Psychological Criterion 79 The Other Views

CHAPTER 11 • HOW WE ARE NOT WHAT WE BELIEVE

80 Does Psychological Continuity Presuppose Personal Identity? 81 The Subject of Experiences 82 How a Non-Reductionist View Might Have Been True 83 Williams’s Argument against the Psychological Criterion 84 The Psychological Spectrum 85 The Physical Spectrum 86 The Combined Spectrum

CHAPTER 12 • WHY OUR IDENTITY IS NOT WHAT MATTERS

87 Divided Minds 88 What Explains the Unity of Consciousness? 89 What Happens When I Divide? 90 What Matters When I Divide? 91 Why There Is No Criterion of Identity that Can Meet Two Plausible Requirements 92 Wittgenstein and Buddha 93 Am I Essentially My Brain? 94 Is the True View Believable?

CHAPTER 13 • WHAT DOES MATTER

95 Liberation From the Self 96 The Continuity of the Body 97 The Branch-Line Case 98 Series-Persons 99 Am I a Token or a Type? 100 Partial Survival 101 Successive Selves

CHAPTER 14 • PERSONAL IDENTITY AND RATIONALITY

102 The Extreme Claim 103 A Better Argument against the Self-interest Theory 104 The S-Theorist’s Counter-Argument 105 The Defeat of the Classical Self-interest Theory 106 The Immorality of Imprudence

CHAPTER 15 • PERSONAL IDENTITY AND MORALITY

107 Autonomy and Paternalism 108 The Two Ends of Lives 109 Desert 110 Commitments 111 The Separateness of Persons and Distributive Justice 112 Three Explanations of the Utilitarian View 113 Changing a Principle’s Scope 114 Changing a Principle’s Weight 115 Can It Be Right to Burden Someone Merely to Benefit Someone Else? 116 An Argument for Giving Less Weight to Equality 117 A More Extreme Argument 118 Conclusions

PART FOUR • FUTURE GENERATIONS CHAPTER 16 • THE NON-IDENTITY PROBLEM

CHAPTER 17 • THE REPUGNANT CONCLUSION

128 Is It Better If More People Live? 129 The Effects of Population Growth on Existing People 130 Overpopulation 131 The Repugnant Conclusion

CHAPTER 18 • THE ABSURD CONCLUSION

132 An Alleged Asymmetry 133 Why the Ideal Contractual Method Provides No Solution 134 The Narrow Person-Affecting Principle 135 Why We Cannot Appeal to this Principle 136 The Two Wide Person-Affecting Principles 137 Possible Theories 138 The Sum of Suffering 139 The Appeal to the Valueless Level 140 The Lexical View 141 Conclusions

CHAPTER 19 • THE MERE ADDITION PARADOX

142 Mere Addition 143 Why We Should Reject the Average Principle 144 Why We Should Reject the Appeal to Inequality 145 The First Version of the Paradox 146 Why We Are Not Yet Forced to Accept the Repugnant Conclusion 147 The Appeal to the Bad Level 148 The Second Version of the Paradox 149 The Third Version

CONCLUDING CHAPTER

150 Impersonality 151 Different Kinds of Argument 152 Should We Welcome or Regret My Conclusions? 153 Moral Scepticism 154 How both Human History, and the History of Ethics, May Be Just Beginning

APPENDICES

A A World Without Deception B How My Weaker Conclusion Would in Practice Defeat S C Rationality and the Different Theories about Self-interest D Nagel’s Brain E The Closest Continuer Schema F The Social Discount Rate G Whether Causing Someone to Exist can Benefit this Person H Rawlsian Principles I What Makes Someone’s Life Go Best J Buddha’s View Notes Bibliography Index of Names