Reading Parfit

READING PARFIT Derek Parfi t is one of the world’s leading philosophers. HisOn What Matters was the most eagerly awaited book in philosophy for many years. Reading Parfi t: On What Matters is an essential overview and assessment of Parfi t’s monumental work by a team of international contributors, and includes responses by Parfi t himself. It discusses central features of Parfi t’s book, including the structure and nature of reasons; the ideas underlying moral principles; Parfi t’s discussions of consequentialism, contractualism and Kantian deontology; and his metaethical ideas and arguments. Reading Parfi t will be central reading for students of ethics and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of one of the most important works of philosophy published in the last fi fty years. Contributors: David Copp, J.L. Dowell and David Sobel, Julia Driver, Simon Kirchin, David McNaughton and Piers Rawling, Julia Markovits, Derek Parfi t, Douglas W. Portmore, Kieran Setiya and Philip Stratton-Lake. Simon Kirchin is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Kent. He is the author of Metaethics (2012) and is the editor of Arguing about Metaethics (with Andrew Fisher) (Routledge, 2006). Derek Parfi t is Emeritus Fellow at All Souls College Oxford. He was previously Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College (1984–2010) and has also held visiting professorships at New York University, Harvard and Rutgers. READING PARFIT On What Matters Simon Kirchin First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Simon Kirchin for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors for their contributions. The right of Simon Kirchin to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-415-52949-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-52950-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-22553-1 (ebk) Typeset in Goudy Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK CONTENTS Notes on contributors vii Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 SIMON KIRCHIN 1 Refl ections from Wolf and Wood: incommensurability, guidance and the ‘smoothing over’ of ethical life 10 SIMON KIRCHIN 2 Normative naturalism and normative nihilism: Parfi t’s dilemma for naturalism 28 DAVID COPP 3 On what it is to matter 54 JULIA MARKOVITS 4 The buck-passing account of value: assessing the negative thesis 82 PHILIP STRATTON-LAKE 5 Normativity, reasons, and wrongness: how to be a two-tier theorist 96 DAVID MCNAUGHTON AND PIERS RAWLING 6 Wrong-Making Reasons 123 KIERAN SETIYA 7 Parfi t on reasons and rule consequentialism 135 DOUGLAS W. PORTMORE CONTENTS 8 Advice for Non-Analytical Naturalists 153 J.L. DOWELL AND DAVID SOBEL 9 Contingency and constructivism 172 JULIA DRIVER 10 Responses 189 DEREK PARFIT Index 237 vi CONTRIBUTORS David Copp is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis. He has taught previously at Simon Fraser University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Bowling Green State University, and the University of Florida. He served as department chair at Davis, BGSU and Florida. He is author of Morality, Normativity, and Society (Oxford University Press, 1995) and Morality in a Natural World (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and he has edited several anthologies, including The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory (Oxford University Press, 2006). He is editor of a monograph series with Oxford University Press called Oxford Moral Theory . He has published and lectured widely on topics in moral and political philosophy. J.L. Dowell , an Associate Professor at Syracuse, has published in metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophical methodology and metaethics. She is the 2014 winner of the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics and is currently working on a book on deontic modals, under contract with Oxford University Press. Julia Driver is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. She works primarily in normative ethics and moral psychology. She has published three books: Consequentialism (Routledge, 2012), Ethics: the Fun- damentals (Blackwell, 2006), and Uneasy Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2001). Simon Kirchin is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Kent and is currently Dean of its Faculty of Humanities. He works mainly in ethics and metaethics and is a past President of the British Society for Ethical Theory. He is the author of Metaethics (Palgrave, 2012) and has edited the following volumes: Thick Concepts (Oxford University Press, 2013), A World without Values (with Richard Joyce; Springer, 2010), and Arguing about Metaethics (with Andrew Fisher; Routledge, 2006). He is currently fi nishing a monograph with the working title Thick Evaluation . David McNaughton is Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University and Professor Emeritus at Keele University. He is the author of Moral Vision CONTRIBUTORS (Blackwell, 1988), Forgiveness (with Eve Garrard; Routledge, 2010) and of a number of papers on ethics, philosophy of religion and the relations between the two. He has recently fi nished editing Joseph Butler’s moral writings for Oxford University Press and is currently writing a book with Piers Rawling on their approach to practical reasons. Julia Markovits is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. She joined the Cornell faculty in 2014, after spending fi ve years on the philosophy faculty at MIT. Before that, she was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Markovits researches and teaches in meta- and normative ethics, bioethics and the philosophy of law. More specifi cally, she has written about questions concerning the nature of moral reasons and about moral praise- worthiness and blameworthiness. She is the author of Moral Reason (Oxford University Press, 2014). Derek Parfit is Emeritus Fellow at All Souls College Oxford. He was previously Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College (1984–2010) and has also held visiting professorships at New York University, Harvard and Rutgers. Douglas W. Portmore is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He works mainly in moral philosophy. He is the author of Commonsense Consequential- ism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is currently working on another book with the working title Opting for the Best: Oughts and Options . The book concerns what is, perhaps, the least controversial normative principle concerning action: you ought to perform your best option – that is, the option that is most highly favoured by your reasons. Piers Rawling is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Florida State University. He has wide-ranging interests and has published papers on decision theory, ethics (with David McNaughton), philosophy of language, various other areas of philosophy, and quantum computing (with Stephen Selesnick). He is co-editor (with Alfred Mele) of The Oxford Handbook of Rationality (Oxford University Press, 2004) and is currently writing a book with David McNaughton on their approach to practical reasons. Kieran Setiya is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He works in action theory, ethics and epistemology and is the author of Reasons without Rationalism (Princeton, 2007) and Knowing Right from Wrong (Oxford University Press, 2012). His essays range from the nature of rational agency to the place of love in moral philosophy and the resolution of the midlife crisis. David Sobel is Guttag Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Syracuse University. His From Valuing to Value , a collection of his old and new work on subjective accounts of well-being and reasons for action, is forthcoming from viii CONTRIBUTORS Oxford University Press. He co-edits, with Peter Vallentyne and Steve Wall, Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy . Philip Stratton-Lake is Professor of Philosophy at Reading University. He is the author of Kant, Duty, and Moral Worth (Routledge, 2000) and editor of Ethical Intuitionism: Re-evaluations (Clarendon, 2002), W. D. Ross’s The Right and the Good (Clarendon, 2002) and On What We Owe to Each Other (Blackwell, 2004). ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all of the contributors for their papers and for their unfailing patience as I was putting this collection together. I would especially like to thank Derek Parfi t, not only for his paper but for his support for this project. Tony Bruce who fi rst helped when I had the thought for this book has been unwavering in his commitment. I am also grateful to many of his colleagues at Routledge for their work and kindness. Rebecca Shillabeer and Sarah Gore were very helpful when the book was in its fi nal stages. I am also grateful to three anonymous referees for their comments on the whole volume when it was in draft form. The University of Kent, as always, provided me with a wonderful environment in which to work and think whilst I was working on this volume, and I am very grateful to it and my many colleagues. Penny, Freddie and Molly contributed in many more ways than one, and I am forever in their debt.

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