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Top 10 Derek Parfit Quotes (2025 Update)

Derek Parfit Quote: “We might neglect our future selves because of some failure of belief or imagination.”

1. “We might neglect our future selves because of some failure of belief or imagination.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “No question is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is anything rather than nothing.”

2. “No question is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is anything rather than nothing.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “I believe that most of us have false beliefs about our own nature, and our identity over time, and that, when we see the truth, we ought to change some of our beliefs about what we have reason to do.”

3. “I believe that most of us have false beliefs about our own nature, and our identity over time, and that, when we see the truth, we ought to change some of our beliefs about what we have reason to do.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “We ought not to do to our future selves what it would be wrong to do to other people.”

4. “We ought not to do to our future selves what it would be wrong to do to other people.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “Normativity, I believe, is very different from motivating force. Neither includes, or implies, the other. Other animals can be motivated by their desires and beliefs. Only we can understand and respond to reasons.”

5. “Normativity, I believe, is very different from motivating force. Neither includes, or implies, the other. Other animals can be motivated by their desires and beliefs. Only we can understand and respond to reasons.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “If there were no such normative truths, nothing would matter, and we would have no reasons to try to decide how to live. Such decisions would be arbitrary. We would not be the animals that can understand and respond to reasons. In a world without reasons, we would act only on our instincts and desires, living as other animals live. The Universe would not contain rational beings.”

6. “If there were no such normative truths, nothing would matter, and we would have no reasons to try to decide how to live. Such decisions would be arbitrary. We would not be the animals that can understand and respond to reasons. In a world without reasons, we would act only on our instincts and desires, living as other animals live. The Universe would not contain rational beings.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “Philosophers should not only interpret our beliefs; when they are false, they should change them.”

7. “Philosophers should not only interpret our beliefs; when they are false, they should change them.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “This part of Kant’s view is, I believe, a profound truth. We can be morally responsible in several other ways, or senses, but no one could ever be responsible, I believe, in any way that could make them deserve to suffer. Nor, I believe, does anyone deserve to be less happy.”

8. “This part of Kant’s view is, I believe, a profound truth. We can be morally responsible in several other ways, or senses, but no one could ever be responsible, I believe, in any way that could make them deserve to suffer. Nor, I believe, does anyone deserve to be less happy.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “Criticizing himself again, Sidgwick writes: I am not an original man: and I think less of my own thoughts every day.”

9. “Criticizing himself again, Sidgwick writes: I am not an original man: and I think less of my own thoughts every day.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “What am I more than elaborate sentience?”

10. “What am I more than elaborate sentience?”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “Disbelief in God, openly admitted by a majority, is a recent event, not yet completed. Because this event is so recent, Non-Religious Ethics is at a very early stage. We cannot yet predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all reach agreement. Since we cannot know how Ethics will develop, it is not irrational to have high hopes.”

11. “Disbelief in God, openly admitted by a majority, is a recent event, not yet completed. Because this event is so recent, Non-Religious Ethics is at a very early stage. We cannot yet predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all reach agreement. Since we cannot know how Ethics will develop, it is not irrational to have high hopes.”

— Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit Quote: “What now matters most is that we avoid ending human history. If there are no rational beings elsewhere, it may depend on us and our successors whether it will all be worth it, because the existence of the Universe will have been on the whole good.”

12. “What now matters most is that we avoid ending human history. If there are no rational beings elsewhere, it may depend on us and our successors whether it will all be worth it, because the existence of the Universe will have been on the whole good.”

— Derek Parfit

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