Reasons and Persons
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Reasons and Persons
| Author | Derek Parfit |
|---|---|
| Published | 1984 |
| Pages | 560 |
| Recommended | 2 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Parfit’s book is the source of most of the modern philosophical machinery around personal identity, future generations and the Non-Identity Problem — including the Repugnant Conclusion that population ethics has been arguing about ever since. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, shared in March 2026, under Pursuing the Good Life: Ethics and Personal Growth.
- A saved Amazon link — I’d also saved it on its own, with no recommender recorded.
Connections
- Utilitarianism — the tradition Parfit is working inside and stress-testing.
- Effective Altruism — the movement that took the population-ethics arguments here as foundational.
- Existential Risk — Parfit’s argument about the moral weight of future generations is upstream of it.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.