Reasons and Persons
E1035433
Reasons and Persons is a highly influential work of moral philosophy that challenges conventional views on personal identity, rationality, and ethics through rigorous argument and thought experiments.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Reasons and Persons canonical | 1 |
| Reasons and Persons, 1984 | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T13333291 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Reasons and Persons Context triple: [Derek Parfit, notableWork, Reasons and Persons]
-
A.
The Philosophy of the Act
The Philosophy of the Act is a posthumously published collection of George Herbert Mead’s writings that develops his pragmatist and social behaviorist account of action, experience, and the emergence of mind.
-
B.
The Object of Morality
The Object of Morality is a philosophical work by Geoffrey Warnock that examines the nature, purpose, and central concerns of moral thinking and practice.
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C.
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting is a philosophical book by Daniel Dennett that defends a compatibilist account of free will by examining which kinds of freedom are meaningful and desirable in human life.
-
D.
Institutes of Moral Philosophy
Institutes of Moral Philosophy is an 18th-century treatise by Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson that systematically explores ethics, human nature, and the principles of moral judgment.
-
E.
Philosophical Papers, Volume II
Philosophical Papers, Volume II is a collection of influential essays by David Lewis that develops his views on metaphysics, philosophy of language, and mind.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Reasons and Persons Target entity description: Reasons and Persons is a highly influential work of moral philosophy that challenges conventional views on personal identity, rationality, and ethics through rigorous argument and thought experiments.
-
A.
The Philosophy of the Act
The Philosophy of the Act is a posthumously published collection of George Herbert Mead’s writings that develops his pragmatist and social behaviorist account of action, experience, and the emergence of mind.
-
B.
The Object of Morality
The Object of Morality is a philosophical work by Geoffrey Warnock that examines the nature, purpose, and central concerns of moral thinking and practice.
-
C.
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting is a philosophical book by Daniel Dennett that defends a compatibilist account of free will by examining which kinds of freedom are meaningful and desirable in human life.
-
D.
Institutes of Moral Philosophy
Institutes of Moral Philosophy is an 18th-century treatise by Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson that systematically explores ethics, human nature, and the principles of moral judgment.
-
E.
Philosophical Papers, Volume II
Philosophical Papers, Volume II is a collection of influential essays by David Lewis that develops his views on metaphysics, philosophy of language, and mind.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
work of moral philosophy ⓘ |
| academicDiscipline | philosophy ⓘ |
| advancesView | personal identity is not what matters ⓘ |
| arguesAgainst | simple view of personal identity ⓘ |
| author | Derek Parfit NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| criticizes |
certain forms of consequentialism
ⓘ
common-sense morality ⓘ ethical egoism ⓘ self-interest theory ⓘ |
| discusses |
future Tuesday indifference
ⓘ
non-identity problem ⓘ population ethics ⓘ self-defeating moral theories ⓘ split-brain cases ⓘ teletransportation thought experiments ⓘ |
| genre |
ethics
ⓘ
moral philosophy ⓘ philosophy of personal identity ⓘ |
| hasPart |
Part Four: Future Generations
ⓘ
Part One: Self-defeating Theories NERFINISHED ⓘ Part Three: Personal Identity ⓘ Part Two: Rationality and Time NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasReputation | highly influential in moral philosophy ⓘ |
| influenced |
contemporary ethics
ⓘ
personal identity literature ⓘ population ethics debates ⓘ rational choice theory in philosophy ⓘ |
| introducesConcept |
Relation R (psychological continuity and connectedness)
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Repugnant Conclusion NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| isbn | 978-0-19-824908-5 ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
ethics
ⓘ
personal identity ⓘ population ethics ⓘ rationality ⓘ theory of reasons ⓘ |
| pageCount | 560 ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| proposes | reductionist view of personal identity ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1984 ⓘ |
| publisher | Oxford University Press ⓘ |
| usesMethod |
analytic argumentation
ⓘ
thought experiments ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Reasons and Persons Description of subject: Reasons and Persons is a highly influential work of moral philosophy that challenges conventional views on personal identity, rationality, and ethics through rigorous argument and thought experiments.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Reasons and Persons, 1984