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The non-identity problem | Derek Parfit | EAGxOxford 2016

EA Talks

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People Affecting Principles

Many people reject such impersonal principles because they believe that this part of morality ought to be explained in person affecting terms. I suggested how we might give such an explanation but i then rejected that wide principle for a bad reason, and it was ignored. To introduce the wide principle, we can first ask, did our parents benefit us by causing us to exist? Many people would answer no. These people claim benefits are comparative. We receive such benefits only when the alternative would have been worse for us. But our existence can be good for us even though the alternative could not have been better for us. Such is our suffering for the sake of what's good. When we ask whether our life is

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