Ebook: On What Matters: Two-volume set

On What Matters is a major work in moral philosophy. It is the long-awaited follow-up to Derek Parfit's 1984 book Reasons and Persons, one of the landmarks of twentieth-century philosophy. Parfit now presents a powerful new treatment of reasons, rationality, and normativity, and a critical examination of three systematic moral theories - Kant's ethics, contractualism, and consequentialism - leading to his own ground-breaking synthetic conclusion. Along the way he discusses a wide range of moral issues, such as the significance of consent, treating people as a means rather than an end, and free will and responsibility. On What Matters is already the most-discussed work in moral philosophy: its publication is likely to establish it as a modern classic which everyone working on moral philosophy will have to read, and which many others will turn to for stimulation and illumination.;V. 1. Part 1: Reasons. Normative concepts ; Objective theories ; Subjective theories ; Further arguments ; Rationality ; Morality ; Moral concepts -- Part 2: Principles. Possible consent ; Merely as a means ; Respect and value ; Free will and desert -- Part 3: Theories. Universal laws ; What if everyone did that? ; Impartiality ; Contractualism ; Consequentialism -- Conclusions -- Appendices. A. Stage-given reasons ; B. Rational irrationality and Gauthier's theory ; C. Deontic reasons -- v. 2. Part 4: Commentaries. Hiking the range / Susan Wolf ; Humanity as an end in itself / Allen Wood ; A mismatch of methods / Barbara Herman ; How I an not a Kantian / T. M. Scanlon -- Part 5: Responses. On hiking the range ; On humanity as an end in itself ; On a mismatch of methods ; How the numbers count ; Scanlonian contractualism ; The triple theory -- Part 6: Normativity. Analytical naturalism and subjectivism ; Non-analytical naturalism ; The triviality objection ; Naturalism and nihilism ; Non-cognitivism and quasi-realism ; Normativity and truth ; Normative truths ; Metaphysics ; Epistemology ; Rationalism ; Agreement ; Nietzsche ; What matters most -- Appendices. D. Why anything? Why this? ; E. The fair warning view ; F. Some of Kant's arguments for his formula of universal law ; G. Kant's claim about the good ; H. Autonomy and categorical imperatives ; I. Kant's motivational argument ; J. On what there is.