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Making Sense with Sam Harris

#321 — Reckoning with Parfit

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.629.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Harris speaks with David Edmonds about the life and philosophy of Derek Parfit. They discuss Parfit’s work on identity, time bias, the “non-identity problem,” population ethics and “the Repugnant Conclusion,” the ethical importance of future people, Effective Altruism, moral truth, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

0:12.1

hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing

0:16.2

the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense

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0:26.1

to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads

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on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.

0:35.8

So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.

0:46.6

Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Today I'm speaking with David Edmunds.

0:53.6

David is a writer and philosopher and the author of several books. The most recent is Parfit,

1:00.0

a philosopher in his mission to save morality. And that is the topic of our conversation.

1:06.0

As many of you know, Derek Parfit was a philosopher I greatly admired. As you'll hear,

1:11.5

I almost interviewed him near the end of his life, but my timing was terrible.

1:17.2

We talk about Parfit's place in philosophy, his work on identity, time bias,

1:24.8

the non-identity problem, which he actually discovered, quite interesting.

1:30.3

Population ethics and the so-called repugnant conclusion,

1:34.2

the ethical importance of future people, effective altruism, moral truth, and other topics.

1:42.8

Anyway, it was fascinating to talk about Parfit and his work with someone who knew him.

1:47.2

So now I bring you David Edmunds.

1:55.4

I am here with David Edmunds. David, thanks for joining me.

1:58.3

Thanks for inviting me.

2:00.1

So you have written a wonderful book. You've actually written two wonderful books,

2:04.4

although we'll focus on the most recent. You may have written more books than that,

...

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