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Tables of Contents for Reasons and Persons
Chapter/Section Title
Page #
Page Count
PART ONE SELF-DEFEATING THEORIES
3
114
CHAPTER 1 THEORIES THAT ARE INDIRECTLY SELF-DEFEATING
3
50
1 The Self-interest Theory
3
2
2 How S Can Be Indirectly Self-defeating
5
2
3 Does S Tell Us to Be Never Self-denying?
7
4
4 Why S Does Not Fail in Its Own Terms
11
1
5 Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally?
12
1
6 How S Implies that We Cannot Avoid Acting Irrationally
13
4
7 An Argument for Rejecting S When It Conflicts with Morality
17
2
8 Why This Argument Fails
19
4
9 How S Might Be Self-Effacing
23
1
10 How Consequentialism Is Indirectly Self-defeating
24
4
11 Why C Does Not Fail in Its Own Terms
28
1
12 The Ethics of Fantasy
29
1
13 Collective Consequentialism
30
1
14 Blameless Wrongdoing
31
4
15 Could It Be Impossible to Avoid Acting Wrongly?
35
2
16 Could It Be Right to Cause Oneself to Act Wrongly?
37
3
17 How C Might Be Self-Effacing
40
3
18 The Objection that Assumes Inflexibility
43
2
19 Can Being Rational or Moral Be a Mere Means?
45
4
20 Conclusions
49
4
CHAPTER 2 PRACTICAL DILEMMAS
53
14
21 Why C Cannot Be Directly Self-defeating
53
2
22 How Theories Can Be Directly Self-defeating
55
1
23 Prisoner's Dilemmas and Public Goods
56
6
24 The Practical Problem and its Solutions
62
5
CHAPTER 3 FIVE MISTAKES IN MORAL MATHEMATICS
67
20
25 The Share-of-the-Total View
67
3
26 Ignoring the Effects of Sets of Acts
70
3
27 Ignoring Small Chances
73
2
28 Ignoring Small or Imperceptible Effects
75
3
29 Can There Be Imperceptible Harms and Benefits?
78
4
30 Overdetermination
82
1
31 Rational Altruism
83
4
CHAPTER 4 THEORIES THAT ARE DIRECTLY SELF-DEFEATING
87
24
32 In Prisoner's Dilemmas, Does S Fail in Its Own Terms?
88
3
33 Another Weak Defence of Morality
91
1
34 Intertemporal Dilemmas
92
1
35 A Weak Defence of S
93
2
36 How Common-Sense Morality Is Directly Self-Defeating
95
3
37 The Five Parts of a Moral Theory
98
2
38 How We Can Revise Common-Sense Morality so that It Would Not Be Self-Defeating
100
3
39 Why We Ought to Revise Common-Sense Morality
103
5
40 A Simpler Revision
108
3
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS
111
6
41 Reducing the Distance between M and C
111
1
42 Towards a Unified Theory
112
1
43 Work to be Done
113
1
44 Another Possibility
114
3
PART TWO RATIONALITY AND TIME
117
82
CHAPTER 6 THE BEST OBJECTION TO THE SELF-INTEREST THEORY
117
20
45 The Present-aim Theory
117
3
46 Can Desires Be Intrinsically Irrational, or Rationally Required?
120
6
47 Three Competing Theories
126
1
48 Psychological Egoism
127
2
49 The Self-interest Theory and Morality
129
1
50 My First Argument
130
2
51 The S-Theorist's First Reply
132
1
52 Why Temporal Neutrality Is Not the Issue Between S and P
133
4
CHAPTER 7 THE APPEAL TO FULL RELATIVITY
137
12
53 The S-Theorist's Second Reply
137
1
54 Sidgwick's Suggestions
137
3
55 How S Is Incompletely Relative
140
1
56 How Sidgwick Went Astray
141
1
57 The Appeal Applied at a Formal Level
142
2
58 The Appeal Applied to Other Claims
144
5
CHAPTER 8 DIFFERENT ATTITUDES TO TIME
149
38
59 Is It Irrational to Give No Weight to One's Past Desires?
149
4
60 Desires that Depend on Value Judgements or Ideals
153
3
61 Mere Past Desires
156
2
62 Is It Irrational To Care Less About One's Further Future?
158
5
63 A Suicidal Argument
163
2
64 Past or Future Suffering
165
3
65 The Direction of Causation
168
2
66 Temporal Neutrality
170
4
67 Why We Should Not Be Biased towards the Future
174
3
68 Time's Passage
177
4
69 An Asymmetry
181
3
70 Conclusions
184
3
CHAPTER 9 WHY WE SHOULD REJECT S
187
12
71 The Appeal to Later Regrets
187
1
72 Why a Defeat for Proximus is Not a Victory for S
188
1
73 The Appeal to Inconsistency
189
2
74 Conclusions
191
8
PART THREE PERSONAL IDENTITY
199
152
CHAPTER 10 WHAT WE BELIEVE OURSELVES TO BE
199
20
75 Simple Teletransportation and the Branch-Line Case
200
1
76 Qualitative and Numerical Identity
201
1
77 The Physical Criterion of Personal Identity
202
2
78 The Psychological Criterion
204
5
79 The Other Views
209
10
CHAPTER 11 HOW WE ARE NOT WHAT WE BELIEVE
219
26
80 Does Psychological Continuity Presuppose Personal Identity?
219
4
81 The Subject of Experiences
223
4
82 How a Non-Reductionist View Might Have Been True
227
2
83 Williams's Argument against the Psychological Criterion
229
2
84 The Psychological Spectrum
231
3
85 The Physical Spectrum
234
2
86 The Combined Spectrum
236
9
CHAPTER 12 WHY OUR IDENTITY IS NOT WHAT MATTERS
245
21
87 Divided Minds
245
3
88 What Explains the Unity of Consciousness?
248
5
89 What Happens When I Divide?
253
8
90 What Matters When I Divide?
261
5
91 Why There Is No Criterion of Identity that Can Meet Two Plausible Requirements
266
7
92 Wittgenstein and Buddha
273
1
93 Am I Essentially My Brain?
273
1
94 Is the True View Believable?
274
7
CHAPTER 13 WHAT DOES MATTER
281
26
95 Liberation From the Self
281
1
96 The Continuity of the Body
282
5
97 The Branch-Line Case
287
2
98 Series-Persons
289
4
99 Am I a Token or a Type?
293
5
100 Partial Survival
298
4
101 Successive Selves
302
5
CHAPTER 14 PERSONAL IDENTITY AND RATIONALITY
307
14
102 The Extreme Claim
307
5
103 A Better Argument against the Self-interest Theory
312
3
104 The S-Theorist's Counter-Argument
315
2
105 The Defeat of the Classical Self-Interest Theory
317
1
106 The Immorality of Imprudence
318
3
CHAPTER 15 PERSONAL IDENTITY AND MORALITY
321
30
107 Autonomy and Paternalism
321
1
108 The Two Ends of Lives
321
2
109 Desert
323
3
110 Commitments
326
3
111 The Separateness of Persons and Distributive Justice
329
1
112 Three Explanations of the Utilitarian View
330
2
113 Changing a Principle's Scope
332
2
114 Changing a Principle's Weight
334
2
115 Can It Be Right to Burden Someone Merely to Benefit Someone Else?
336
3
116 An Argument for Giving Less Weight to Equality
339
3
117 A More Extreme Argument
342
3
118 Conclusions
345
6
PART FOUR FUTURE GENERATIONS
351
106
CHAPTER 16 THE NON-IDENTITY PROBLEM
351
30
119 How Our Identity in Fact Depends on When We Were Conceived
351
4
120 The Three Kinds of Choice
355
1
121 What Weight Should We Give to the Interests of Future People?
356
1
122 A Young Girl's Child
357
4
123 How Lowering the Quality of Life Might Be Worse for No One
361
3
124 Why an Appeal to Rights Cannot Solve the Problem
364
2
125 Does the Fact of Non-Identity Make a Moral Difference?
366
5
126 Causing Predictable Catastrophes in the Further Future
371
6
127 Conclusions
377
4
CHAPTER 17 THE REPUGNANT CONCLUSION
381
10
128 Is It Better If More People Live?
381
1
129 The Effects of Population Growth on Existing People
382
2
130 Overpopulation
384
3
131 The Repugnant Conclusion
387
4
CHAPTER 18 THE ABSURD CONCLUSION
391
28
132 An Alleged Asymmetry
391
1
133 Why the Ideal Contractual Method Provides No Solution
391
2
134 The Narrow Person-Affecting Principle
393
2
135 Why We Cannot Appeal to this Principle
395
1
136 The Two Wide Person-Affecting Principles
396
5
137 Possible Theories
401
5
138 The Sum of Suffering
406
6
139 The Appeal to the Valueless Level
412
1
140 The Lexical View
413
1
141 Conclusions
414
5
CHAPTER 19 THE MERE ADDITION PARADOX
419
24
142 Mere Addition
419
1
143 Why We Should Reject the Average Principle
420
2
144 Why We Should Reject the Appeal to Inequality
422
3
145 The First Version of the Paradox
425
5
146 Why We Are Not Yet Forced to Accept the Repugnant Conclusion
430
2
147 The Appeal to the Bad Level
432
1
148 The Second Version of the Paradox
433
5
149 The Third Version
438
5
CONCLUDING CHAPTER
443
14
150 Impersonality
443
4
151 Different Kinds of Argument
447
2
152 Should We Welcome or Regret My Conclusions?
449
3
153 Moral Scepticism
452
1
154 How both Human History, and the History of Ethics, May Be Just Beginning
453
4
APPENDICES
457
48
A A World Without Deception
457
4
B How My Weaker Conclusion Would in Practice Defeat S
461
3
C Rationality and the Different Theories about Self-Interest
464
4
D Nagel's Brain
468
9
E The Closest Continuer Schema
477
3
F The Social Discount Rate
480
7
G Whether Causing Someone to Exist can Benefit this Person
487
3
H Rawlsian Principles
490
3
I What Makes Someone's Life Go Best
493
9
J Buddha's View
502
3
Notes
505
28
Bibliography
533
8
Index of Names
541