From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein's Poker an entertaining and illuminating
biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilismDerek Parfit
(1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Regarded by some as
the greatest moral thinker since John Stuart Mill Parfit was anything but a public
intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us
all: equality altruism what we owe to future generations and even what it means to be a
person. In Parfit David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing obsessive and
eccentric genius. Believing that we should be less concerned with ourselves and more with the
common good Parfit dedicated himself to the pursuit of philosophical progress to an
extraordinary degree. He always wore gray trousers and a white shirt so as not to lose precious
time picking out clothes he varied his diet as little as possible and he had only one serious
non-philosophical interest taking photos of Oxford Venice and St. Petersburg. In the latter
half of his life he single-mindedly devoted himself to a desperate attempt to rescue secular
morality-morality without God-by arguing that it has an objective rational basis. For Parfit
the stakes could scarcely have been higher. If he couldn't demonstrate that there are objective
facts about right and wrong he believed his life was futile and all our lives were
meaningless. Connecting Parfit's work and life and offering a clear introduction to his
profound and challenging ideas Parfit is a powerful portrait of an extraordinary thinker who
continues to have a remarkable influence on the world of ideas--
