On What Matters (Berkeley Tanner Lectures) 2 volumes set [ハードカバー]

I can see why Peter Singer and Brad Hooker call this one of the best books on ethics ever. In it, I think Parfit successfully synthesizes the best versions of three major ethical theories: Kantianism, Consequentialism and Social Contract Theory. He says they are "climbing the same mountain" of morality.

Parfit also has many important ideas concerning the nature of reasons, the Consent Principle, the Golden Rule, and treating people as a mere means. I think Parfit's main idea is that facts can give us reasons to do things and want things, even if we don't care about such things upon reflection. Here are two examples: (1) Even if I know I am a greedy person, there is still sufficient reason for me to return someone's lost wallet. (2) The fact that calling an ambulance would save a bleeding stranger's life gives a bystander a reason to do it, even if he'd rather skip the hassle. Many people claim they don't understand such irreducibly normative reasons, but Parfit tries to help them do so.

One critique I have of Parfit's approach is his refusal to define crucial terms like "normative reason", "morally wrong" and "rationally ought." I am left wondering, what exactly do these words mean? Whenever other people's theories do define these terms, Parfit rejects them as being concealed tautologies. E.g. If 'wrong' just means 'decreases overall happiness', then it's trivially true that some actions are wrong. (p.72-73) So it seems like we're stuck with moral claims being either trivial or partially indefinable. He tries to get the reader to understand the concept of a normative reason not by analyzing it but by using examples, like the ones I mentioned above. Many of his examples are quite imaginative, which is to be expected from Parfit.

In the end, I am ambivalent about whether Parfit's Objectivism about reasons is successful. It seems mysterious how there could be such irreducibly normative entities and how we could come to know them. He tries to answer these objections in Volume 2, which I am now reading. In any case, his ethical system is worth exploring.

"What is good and what is not good? Do we need anyone to tell us these things?"

It's a pattern as old as Socrates: pick a nice, empty rhetorical container on which there is some vaguely general agreement--"Good" or "True" or, in Parfit's case, "Reason(s)"--then fill it with whatever you want. It cannot be denied that Parfit has constructed a meticulous rhetorical edifice, a recitation of definitions to rival Webster, but the sum total of his contribution appears to be the claim that deontology, consequentialism, and contractualism should all yield the same ethical results (even though, as presently understood by their various proponents, they don't). All of this is founded on a notion of "reasons" that sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails, at least to the extent that an ordinary-language descriptive-ethics is what Parfit intends. Kudos to Parfit for constructing a work as labyrinthine as anything Kant ever penned; simply attempting to decipher some of Parfit's claims should give philosophy professors something to argue about at great length and for years to come (indeed, some such arguments are already included in Volume 2!). So good news, I suppose, if you're in need of a thesis, but do not expect anything approaching conceptual clarity to arise from this mess.

Somewhat more particularly, I felt that Parfit's most egregious mistake was classifying virtue ethics, without comment, as a sub-category of consequentialism (it's not). He completely ignores some of the most interesting ordinary-language ethics to come out of academic philosophy in the last thirty years. But perhaps he can be forgiven; what else is he supposed to do with a school of ethics that would tell him (rejecting the finality, as it does, of both consequentialism and deontology) that his magnum opus makes a moot point? As someone who leans toward virtue theory, this was a huge disappointment to me and the reason I'm giving the book one star instead of two.

I understand that Parfit was a philosophical rock star before I started grade school. And I am somewhat sympathetic with his stated aims--in short, he wants an ethics with the certainty and finality and universality of a naturalistic framework while eschewing all that metaphysical baggage. But as near as I can tell, the praise flowing toward this book amounts to the warbling of sycophants and hangers-on looking for some coattails to ride to tenure, or professors who do not wish to have their wisdom questioned by daring to dismiss so voluminous a work from so influential a scholar. I found very little to like about this book and much to roll my eyes at (not least of all, the utterly pompous tone with which Parfit dismisses possible counterexamples). If you happen to be an academic philosopher doing work in ethics you may not have any choice but to familiarize yourself with this book, but regarding its intrinsic value I wouldn't even recommend it to philosophy undergrads, much less layfolk.