I made a 6-part podcast series about the philosophy of Derek Parfit. It's intended to be an introductory, big picture take that sets out how his key ideas fit together.
It's not explicitly about EA, but I hope it illustrates how he helped to lay the philosophical foundations.
There are summaries of and links to each episode below. It's part of the "Philosophy Exchange", a group of former philosophy students who occasionally produce podcasts and blogs.
I would welcome any feedback, caveating that I am not a professional philosopher (or podcaster!).
Are you the same person that you were ten years ago? Derek Parfit says maybe not. In this episode, we explore his radical view that personal identity isn’t about having the same body or soul, but rather about psychological continuity over time. This idea reshapes how we think about responsibility, distributive justice, and the self.
Why should we help the badly-off? Often, we appeal to the idea of reducing inequality. In this episode, we discuss prioritarianism, Derek Parfit’s alternative theory which holds that we should give priority to the badly-off because helping them matters more morally. We also consider how Parfit’s views on personal identity help to defend prioritarianism from a major philosophical objection.
Is morality real or just a matter of opinion? And if real, what kind of reality? Derek Parfit argued that there are objective moral facts, akin to mathematical truths, and that we can discover them through reason. In this episode, we explain why he thought this – and why he worried that, if he were wrong, life might be meaningless.
Can it be rational to prefer scratching your finger to preventing the destruction of the world? The tension between self-interest and morality has been described as the “profoundest problem in ethics”. But, as we discuss in this episode, Derek Parfit thought this was wrong. He argued for an objective rather than a subjective view of rationality, meaning it can be rational to act morally.
Followers of three moral theories, Kantianism, consequentialism and contractualism, have long argued against each other. Parfit believed they were actually converging – climbing the same mountain from different sides. In this episode, we outline his “Triple Theory”, a bold synthesis that suggests moral theories may agree more than we think. If true, this strengthens the case for objective morality and philosophical hope.
Do we have moral duties to people who don’t yet exist? By grappling with puzzles like this, Parfit helped found population ethics, a branch of moral philosophy which considers how many people should exist and what we owe to people who are not yet born. We explore Parfit’s unsettling ideas about future generations – and why, decades later, we’re still grappling with the questions he raised. We also reflect on Parfit’s legacy and the key ingredients of his philosophy.
