Derek Parfit (11 December 1942 - 01 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in problems of personal identity, rationality, ethics, and the relations among them.

On the 2nd of January 2017 news of his death was first reported among the philosophical community.[2]

His 1984 book Reasons and Persons (described by Alan Ryan in The Sunday Times as "something close to a work of genius") has been very influential. His most recent book, On What Matters (2011), was widely circulated and discussed for many years before its publication.

Parfit had worked at Oxford University for all of his academic career, and is an Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is also a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New York University, Harvard University, and Rutgers University, and was awarded the 2014 Rolf Schock Prize "for his groundbreaking contributions concerning personal identity, regard for future generations, and analysis of the structure of moral theories."

Parfit also was an experienced photographer and a retired poet. He was married to the philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards.

Early life

Derek Parfit was born in Chengdu, China, to Norman and Jessie Parfit (née Browne), both medical doctors who had moved to Western China to teach preventive medicine in missionary hospitals. The family returned to the United Kingdom about a year after Parfit was born, settling in Oxford. Parfit was sent to Eton College. From an early age Parfit endeavoured to become a poet, but he gave up poetry towards the end of his adolescence. He later studied Modern History at the University of Oxford, graduating in 1964. In 1965–66 he was a Harkness Fellow at Columbia University and Harvard University. He abandoned historical studies for philosophy during the fellowship, returning to Oxford to become a fellow of All Souls College.