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Ethics and Existence: The Legacy of Derek Parfit (in English)
Jeff Mcmahan
(Illustrated by)
·
Tim Campbell
(Illustrated by)
·
James Goodrich
(Illustrated by)
·
Oxford University Press, USA
· Hardcover
Ethics and Existence: The Legacy of Derek Parfit (in English) - McMahan, Jeff ; Campbell, Tim ; Goodrich, James
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Synopsis "Ethics and Existence: The Legacy of Derek Parfit (in English)"
Derek Parfit, who died in 2017, is widely believed to have been the best moral philosopher in well over a century. The twenty new essays in this book were written in his honour and have all been inspired by his work--in particular, his work in an area of moral philosophy known as 'populationethics', which is concerned with moral issues raised by causing people to exist. Until Parfit began writing about these issues in the 1970s, there was almost no discussion of them in the entire history of philosophy. But his monumental book Reasons and Persons (OUP, 1984) revealed that populationethics abounds in deep and intractable problems and paradoxes that not only challenge all the major moral theories but also threaten to undermine many important common-sense moral beliefs. It is no exaggeration to say that there is a broad range of practical moral issues that cannot be adequatelyunderstood until fundamental problems in population ethics are resolved. These issues include abortion, prenatal injury, preconception and prenatal screening for disability, genetic enhancement and eugenics generally, meat eating, climate change, reparations for historical injustice, the threat ofhuman extinction, and even proportionality in war. Although the essays in this book address foundational problems in population ethics that were discovered and first discussed by Parfit, they are not, for the most part, commentaries on his work but instead build on that work in advancing ourunderstanding of the problems themselves. The contributors include many of the most important and influential writers in this burgeoning area of philosophy.
