ABSTRACT
In his seminal work of consequentialist philosophy, Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit offered up the now famous hypothetical example of the 14-year-old girl. The imagined facts are these:
This girl chooses to have a child. Because she is so young, she gives her child a bad start in life. Though this will have bad effects throughout the child’s life, his life will, predictably, be worth living. If this girl had waited for several years, she would have had a different child, to whom she would have given a better start in life.1
