Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:47:20.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Personal Identity and Practical Reason: The Failure of Kantian Replies to Parfit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Jonny Anomaly
Jonny Anomaly
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines and criticizes a set of Kantian objections to Parfit's attempt in Reasons and Persons to connect his theory of personal identity to practical rationality and moral philosophy. Several of Parfit's critics have tried to sever the link he forges between his metaphysical and practical conclusions by invoking the Kantian thought that even if we accept his metaphysical theory of personal identity, we still have good practical grounds for rejecting that theory when deliberating about what to do. The argument between Parfit and his opponents illuminates broader questions about the relationship between our metaphysical beliefs and our practical reasons.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , Spring 2008 , pp. 331 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blackburn, Simon 1997 “Has Kant Refuted Parfit?” In Reading Parfit. Edited by Dancy, Jonathan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 180–201.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon 1998 Ruling Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David 2000 A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel 1997 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Gregor, Mary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine 1989 “Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Response to Parfit.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 18: 101–32.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine 1996 The Sources of Normativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas 1979 “Subjective and Objective.” In Mortal Questions. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, pp. 196–214.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert 1993 The Nature of Rationality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, Derek 1973 “Later Selves and Moral Principles.” In Philosophy and Personal Relations: An Anglo-French Study. Edited by Montefiore, A.. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, pp. 137–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine 1984 Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine 2003 “The Unimportance of Identity.” In Personal Identity. Edited by Martin, Raymond and Barnes, John. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 292–317.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1999 A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel 1982 “Ethics, Personal Identity, and Ideals of the Person.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 12: 229–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry 1981 The Methods of Ethics. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard 1976a “Persons, Character, and Morality.” In The Identities of Persons. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 197–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard 1976b “Deciding to Believe.” In Problems of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 136–51.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan 1986 “Self-Interest and Interest in Selves.” Ethics, 96: 704–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar