Derek Parfit’s Misguided Perspective

Philip Kitcher reviews Derek Parfit’s On What Matters in the New Republic :

It stands as a grand and dedicated attempt to elaborate a fundamentally misguided perspective. Its diligence and its honesty command respect. Perhaps these real virtues will set standards for very different ventures in academic ethics, Naturalist or otherwise—for a return to the tradition of attempts to understand and improve everyday judgment, and to provide resources for people and policymakers everywhere. In the end, that is what matters.

The rest is here .

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