In the end, he wrote only two: 1984’s Reasons and Persons, and 2011’s On What Matters, a two-volume, 1,440 page tome whose third volume is still yet to be published. Parfit was not a prolific author he tended to write his books over the course of decades, refining them repeatedly after discussions with colleagues and students. He wrote about big topics that trouble everyone, philosopher and layperson alike: Who am I? What makes me “me”? What separates me from other people? How should I weigh my desires against those of others? What do I owe to my children, and to the future in general? What does it mean for an action to be right or wrong, and how could we know? His work did not dwell on topics of merely academic interest. But he was among the most brilliant, and his papers and books have had a profound, incalculably vast impact on the study of moral philosophy over the past half century. Derek Parfit, who died at age 74 on Sunday evening, was not the most famous philosopher in the world.
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