Is parfit a reductionist?
In Reasons and Persons Derek Parfit argues for a Reductionist View of personal identity. According to the Reductionist persons are nothing over and above the existence of certain mental and/or physical states and their various relations. This is what Parfit terms the Psychological Criterion for personal identity.
What does Derek Parfit argue?
Parfit argued that reality can be fully described impersonally: there need not be a determinate answer to the question “Will I continue to exist?” We could know all the facts about a person’s continued existence and not be able to say whether the person has survived.
Is parfit a consequentialist?
We now turn to Parfit’s discussion of Act Consequentialism as a moral theory, that is, as an internal rival to all moral views that hold that, in some cases, it would be wrong to do what would make things go best.
What does parfit mean by psychological connectedness?
Psychological connectedness requires the holding of direct psychological relations. It is an intransitive relation. Psychological continuity requires overlapping chains of direct psychological relations. It is a transitive relation. Parfit’s weaker claim: what matters in survival can come in degrees.
Does parfit agree with Hume?
He gives two kinds of arguments against this sort of dualist view: We do not directly observe persons as things above and beyond the physical and psychological facts which we do observe (pp. 223-224); all we are aware of is a certain kind of psychological connectedness. (In this, Parfit agrees with Hume.)
What does parfit mean when he says that personal identity is not what matters in survival?
Parfit thinks that we should say that what does matter is psychological continuity. As the case of the Branch Line Teleporter shows, psychological continuity is not identity. But that just means that we should give up no caring about personal identity.
What matters parfit summary?
Summary. Parfit defends an objective ethical theory and suggests that we have reasons to act that cannot be accounted for by subjective ethical theories.
Is parfit a utilitarian?
Parfit was thus a utilitarian, in the sense that ethical preference should be given to greater numbers, even if that implies a reduction of our self interest. He hoped for impartial and impersonal ethics. But, Parfit was also critical of utilitarianism.
Does identity matter survival?
Identity is one-one and does not admit of degree. What matters for survival is psychological continuity. Psychological continuity need not be one-one and may admit of degree. Therefore, identity is not what matters for survival.
Was Derek Parfit an atheist?
Parfit is an atheist, but when it comes to moral truth he believes what Ivan Karamazov believed about God: if it does not exist, then everything is permitted. He doesn’t believe that his conscious mind is responsible for the important parts of his work.
Was Derek Parfit a utilitarian?
Parfit was thus a utilitarian, in the sense that ethical preference should be given to greater numbers, even if that implies a reduction of our self interest. He hoped for impartial and impersonal ethics.
What does Parfit think about the existence of persons?
Parfit thinks that this kind of view is wrong, and that we should be reductionists about persons: the existence of persons is not a further fact, beyond the psychological and physical facts. He gives two kinds of arguments against this sort of dualist view:
What does Parfit mean by the standard criterion?
2.1 The physical criterion. Parfit describes what he calls ‘the standard view’ of the existence of ordinary material objects, like billiard balls (p. 203). Applied to persons, this is the view that the existence of persons over time consists in “the physical continuity, over time, of my brain and body.
What is the difference between reductionism and non-reductionism?
1 Parfit on reductionism vs. non-reductionism. Parfit draws a distinction between two different kinds of views about a certain thing. According to a non-reductionist view of something, the existence of that kind of thing is a ‘further fact’, which goes beyond the existence of other facts, not about the existence of that kind of thing.
How does Parfit draw a distinction between two kinds of views?
Parfit draws a distinction between two different kinds of views about a certain thing. According to a non-reductionist view of something, the existence of that kind of thing is a ‘further fact’, which goes beyond the existence of other facts, not about the existence of that kind of thing.