DOCSLIB.ORG

We Are Not Human

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
We Are Not Human We are not human The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Citation Setiya, Kieran. "We are not human." Times Literary Supplement, May 24, 2017, News UK, 2017. As Published https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/parfit-we-are-not- human/ Publisher News UK Version Author's final manuscript Citable link http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115346 Terms of Use Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Detailed Terms http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ KIERAN SETIYA resting on thought-experiments about mal- striking new material on the morality of caus- into another. This is especially true in Parfit’s functioning Star Trek-style teleporters, actual ing and preventing harm. exchanges with Peter Railton, who is more experiments involving brain bisection, and The first thing to say about Parfit’s “meta- sympathetic than Parfit is to reductionism in Peter Singer, editor mash-ups that speculate about the transplant of ethics” – his theory of the meaning, metaphys- ethics, and with Allan Gibbard, who is more DOES ANYTHING REALLY MATTER? cerebral hemispheres. The basic idea is that, in ics and epistemology of ethical claims – is that, puzzled by the idea of ethical truth. Parfit is Essays on Parfit on objectivity the absence of an immaterial soul, what unifies unlike his dramatic conclusions about the eth- encouraged by the fact that, after meticulous 320pp. Oxford University Press. £30 (US $45). me over time – what makes me, now, the same ics of identity, it is not exactly new. The idea retranslation, there is less disagreement than 978 0 19965 383 6 person who started writing this review last that ethical truths are objective and irreducible he feared between his own position and those week – is a web of relations between events in was commonplace among the British moral of his interlocutors. Derek Parfit the intervening days. The most important of philosophers of the early twentieth century: G. Anxiety about disagreement is a central ON WHAT MATTERS these relations are psychological, matters of E. Moore, W. D. Ross, and Parfit’s favourite, theme of On What Matters. Parfit is disturbed Volume Three 488pp. Oxford University Press. £25 (US $45). continuity and connection in memory, belief Henry Sidgwick. In his Principia Ethica, a by the idea that his view conflicts with those of 978 0 19877 860 8 and will, which I can bear to other people, too, bible of the Bloomsbury Group, Moore argued other philosophers, since they are no less likely though I typically do so to vastly lesser that the ethical sense of “good” is utterly unan- to get things right. He concentrates on disa- degrees. If this is all there is to being me, Parfit alysable. It stands for a property whose nature greements with contemporaries like Gibbard, A questionable perk of life as a professional argues, the “separateness of persons” is dimin- cannot be explained in other terms. That is Railton and Bernard Williams. With the partial philosopher is being the occasional recipient ished, and the rational response is a corre- what Parfit believes about his central concept, exceptions of Hume, Kant and Nietzsche, Par- of unsolicited monographs by self-published sponding diminution in self-interest, a greater the concept of a “normative reason”, a consid- fit does not address his relationship with amateurs. Affectionately known as “crazy willingness to sacrifice myself for the greater eration that counts in favour of something, as earlier philosophers. Most of these philoso- books”, these volumes crash the mailroom of good. There is a path from the insubstantial when there is reason to act in a certain way, to phers reject his non-reductive cognitivism. a Philosophy Department, bearing titles like nature of personal identity to a more altruistic want a given outcome, or to hold a particular There are different reasons for this, but one Ethics of the Astral Plane or The Key To All ethics. belief. common puzzlement is expressed in the rhe- Ontologies. They promise answers to the There are notable gaps in Parfit’s reasoning. Parfit’s argument for irreducibility begins torical question: “If facts about reasons are deepest, oldest questions: the meaning of life, His argument neglects the view that we are by dismissing “Analytical Naturalism”, which utterly irreducible and independent of us, why the universe and everything, unearthed with- fundamentally human: our identity and per- aims to specify what “reason” means in natu- should we care about what they are?” Parfit is out the help of experts or academic training. sistence are a function of biology, not mental ralistic, non-normative terms. Like many phi- puzzled by this puzzlement, hearing in it only Once, when I made light of a recent arrival, a life. That is a glaring omission. Writing about losophers, Parfit is sceptical of this approach. the asinine query: “Why should I care about colleague stopped me short. He always felt personal identity without addressing the idea If we can say in other terms what it is to be a the things I have reason to care about?” But the bad, he said, that we did not have time to read that we are animals of a certain species is like reason, it is by doing metaphysics, not linguis- question is more plausibly understood as a these books. What if somewhere within them attempting to escape from a locked room with- tic analysis. That is how we learn that heat is demand that reasons bear some intelligible were the insights of an untutored genius, lost out ever trying the key. But what is now called molecular kinetic energy, for example – not by relation to our nature as agents or as human forever through the impatient cynicism of “animalism” was not well-articulated when analysing words but by investigating its beings. On Parfit’s approach, there is no such people like us? Parfit was writing and its subsequent develop- nature. For Parfit, what blocks this approach to relation. I hope Derek Parfit’s friends will not be ment owes much to him. Nor does he ignore it reasons is the principle that, when it is inform- Despite beginning as a historian, Parfit does offended when I say that my colleague’s in later work. Parfit objects to animalism in a ative to learn that what is A is also B, (even not engage in any serious way with the history admonition made me think of him. The author recent essay, alarmingly titled “We Are Not though being A is the same as being B), the of ethics. At the end of Reasons and Persons, of two wildly ambitious books in moral philos- Human Beings”. In Reasons and Persons, his meaning of either “A” or “B” can be further he writes about the future of moral philosophy: ophy, Reasons and Persons (1984) and On clipped prose, with its repetitive sentences, analysed. For instance, in the case of heat, it is “Disbelief in God, openly admitted by a major- What Matters (2011), Parfit had no formal poetic cadence and sly humour becomes the informative to learn that what is hot has high ity, is a recent event, not yet completed. education in the subject. He read history at vehicle for a depth and range of insight rarely molecular kinetic energy because, even Because this event is so recent, Non-Religious Oxford, then switched to philosophy while matched in recent philosophy. The upshot is an though these terms pick out a single property, Ethics is at a very early stage. We cannot yet visiting Columbia and Harvard, before return- Anglicized version of the Buddhist “no-self” they do so in different ways. The meaning of predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all ing to Oxford as a Prize Fellow at All Souls view, a philosophy that could change your life. “hot” can be analysed, Parfit thinks, in terms of reach agreement. Since we cannot know how College, where he read, thought, and wrote Fast forward almost thirty years, and as pas- the causes and effects of heat. This sets the Ethics will develop, it is not irrational to have about philosophy – amid numerous visiting sages from Reasons and Persons were being stage for his central argument. Since the mean- high hopes”. But non-religious ethics is not appointments in the US – until his unexpected chanted by Tibetan monks, Parfit published ing of “reason” cannot be further analysed and especially young. It is about as old as Western death in January 2017. the first two volumes of his long-awaited it is informative to learn, in other terms, when philosophy. What is relatively young is the The announcement of Parfit’s death sequel, On What Matters. It too is metaphysi- something is a reason, it follows by Parfit’s attempt to make sense of ethics in the after- inspired deep and widespread grief among cal, but what interests Parfit now is not the principle that the property of being a reason math of the Enlightenment. For some philoso- philosophers. In part, this is because so many metaphysics of persons but of reasons for act- cannot be identified with any property phers, this means going back to Aristotle; for owe personal debts to his extraordinary intel- ing. According to Parfit, there are objective expressed in those terms. Unlike heat, which others, it means turning to Hume or Kant. Per- lectual generosity. Parfit was legendary for the truths about how we should live, what there is reduces to molecular kinetic energy, being a haps these are all wrong turns, as Parfit must speed, acuity and sheer volume of his com- reason to do, and what is right and wrong, that reason does not reduce to anything else.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • THE NUMATA YEHAN LECTURE in BUDDHISM 1995 What Would It Be Like to Be Selfless?
    THE NUMATA YEHAN LECTURE IN BUDDHISM 1995 Tom J. F. Tillemans What Would it Be Like to Be Selfless? Hãnayànist Versions, Mahàyànist Versions and Derek Parfit The University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY THE NUMATA YEHAN LECTURE IN BUDDHISM 1995 Tom J. F. Tillemans 1995 Chairholder The Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies What Would it Be Like to Be Selfless? Hãnayànist Versions, Mahàyànist Versions and Derek Parfit Calgary, Alberta The Lectureship The Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies was established in 1987 in the Department of Religious Studies at The University of Calgary to support and advance the study of Buddhism within an academic context. The Chair was funded by the Numata Foundation (Tokyo) and the Honpa Buddhist Church of Alberta with a matching grant from the Province of Alberta. Scholars with exemplary research and teaching records are invited to The University of Calgary for a term and in some cases for a longer period. The Chairholder is asked to give the "Numata Yehan Lecture in Buddhism" during his/her appointment. The Lecturer The 1995 Chairholder for the Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies was Tom Tillemans, Professor in the Faculty of Letters and Chair of Buddhist Studies at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Professor Tillemans holds a B.A. Honours in Philosophy from the University of British Columbia where he became interested in Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy. He travelled and studied in India before receiving a Licence of Letters and Doctor of Letters in Sanskrit, Chinese and Philosophy at the University of Lausanne. Professor Tillemans has held positions as research fellow at the University of Hiroshima, Professor at the University of Hamburg before being appointed as full professor and Chair of Buddhist Studies at the University of Lausanne in the section of Oriental Languages.
    [Show full text]
  • The Profoundest Problem of Ethics: About the Possibility of a Profound Solution
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School April 2019 The rP ofoundest Problem of Ethics: About the Possibility of a Profound Solution Pol Pardini Gispert [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Pardini Gispert, Pol, "The rP ofoundest Problem of Ethics: About the Possibility of a Profound Solution" (2019). LSU Master's Theses. 4915. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/4915 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PROFOUNDEST PROBLEM OF ETHICS: ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF A PROFOUND SOLUTION A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies by Pol Pardini Gispert B.A., Universitat de Girona, 2001 May 2019 For my mother and father, For as many books as I read, your actions are still my moral compass. ii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... iv Preface ............................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • A Set of Solutions to Parfit's Problems
    NOÛS 35:2 ~2001! 214–238 A Set of Solutions to Parfit’s Problems Stuart Rachels University of Alabama In Part Four of Reasons and Persons Derek Parfit searches for “Theory X,” a satisfactory account of well-being.1 Theories of well-being cover the utilitarian part of ethics but don’t claim to cover everything. They say nothing, for exam- ple, about rights or justice. Most of the theories Parfit considers remain neutral on what well-being consists in; his ingenious problems concern form rather than content. In the end, Parfit cannot find a theory that solves each of his problems. In this essay I propose a theory of well-being that may provide viable solu- tions. This theory is hedonic—couched in terms of pleasure—but solutions of the same form are available even if hedonic welfare is but one aspect of well-being. In Section 1, I lay out the “Quasi-Maximizing Theory” of hedonic well-being. I motivate the least intuitive part of the theory in Section 2. Then I consider Jes- per Ryberg’s objection to a similar theory. In Sections 4–6 I show how the theory purports to solve Parfit’s problems. If my arguments succeed, then the Quasi- Maximizing Theory is one of the few viable candidates for Theory X. 1. The Quasi-Maximizing Theory The Quasi-Maximizing Theory incorporates four principles. 1. The Conflation Principle: One state of affairs is hedonically better than an- other if and only if one person’s having all the experiences in the first would be hedonically better than one person’s having all the experiences in the second.2 The Conflation Principle sanctions translating multiperson comparisons into single person comparisons.
    [Show full text]
  • Lecture 4: How Can There Be Personal Identity Through One Or More Lifetimes?
    How can there be personal continuity through one or more lifetimes? Fourth in a series of lectures presented at Leiden University by Richard Hayes in the autumn of 2009 1. Introductory remarks .................................................................................................. -PAGE- 2. John Locke ............................................................................................................................ 2 3. Derek Parfit (1942- ) .......................................................................................................... 5 3.1. Statement of the problem ............................................................................................... 5 3.2. Discussion of the first belief .......................................................................................... 6 3.3. Discussion of the second belief ..................................................................................... 7 3.4. Parfit's conclusions ........................................................................................................ 8 4. Application to Buddhist views .............................................................................................. 8 5. So what survives the death of the physical body? .............................................................. 11 1. Introductory remarks Today’s question is: How can there be personal identity through one or more lifetimes? In framing the question just this way, I am opening up a can of worms. Much of this lecture will be examining some
    [Show full text]
  • Wlodek Rabinowicz Derek Parfit's Contributions to Philosophy
    Wlodek Rabinowicz Derek Parfit's contributions to Philosophy Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Rabinowicz, Wlodek (2016) Derek Parfit's contributions to Philosophy. Theoria, 82 (2). pp. 104-109. ISSN 0040-5825 DOI: 10.1111/theo.12088 © 2016 Stiftelsen Theoria This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/66819/ Available in LSE Research Online: June 2016 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Derek Parfit’s Contributions to Philosophy Wlodek Rabinowicz In 2014, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Derek Parfit the Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. In its motivation, the Academy stressed Parfit’s ground-breaking contributions to theory of personal identity, population ethics and analysis of the structure of moral theories. The list of philosophers and logicians who have received the Rolf Schock Prize is as yet relatively short.
    [Show full text]
  • The Normative Implications of Personal Identity Theory
    The Normative Implications of Personal Identity Theory by Annette Sonja Dufner A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy Department University of Toronto © Copyright by Annette Dufner 2010 The Normative Implications of Personal Identity Theory Annette Sonja Dufner Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy Department University of Toronto 2010 Abstract This dissertation investigates the relationship between personal identity theory and normative ethics. There are a surprising number of contradictory arguments about the relevance of personal identity criteria for ethics and political philosophy. For example, writers like David Gauthier, Thomas Nagel and John Rawls argue that utilitarianism disregards the separateness, or non-identity, of persons. Derek Parfit claims the opposite. According to him, utilitarians respect the separateness of persons while also respecting the disintegration within lives. Also, Henry Sidgwick was under the impression that the separateness of persons supports egoism and disregard for the other-regarding demands of morality. David Brink claims the opposite. According to him, the resulting form of egoism would be nearly indistinguishable from altruism and therefore not at odds with the other-regarding demands of morality. Finally, both Rawls and Nozick argue that the separateness of persons speaks in favour of their own deontological view—despite the fact that their views are fundamentally opposed. Rawls hopes to gain support for his contractually derived principles of justice, while Nozick believes he can generate support for his deontological side constraints. This situation is rather surprising and in need of an explanation. Finally, there have also been skeptical arguments about the force of such appeals, such as Rawls’s claims that personal identity theory and ethics are independent, and his claim that personal identity criteria are inherently normative.
    [Show full text]
  • An Interview with Derek Parfit
    16 DEREK PARFIT Derek Parfit is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and author of the controversial and widely acclaimed book Reasons and Persons. Derek Parfit (interview 1995) is the subject of a volume of papers edited by Jonathan Dancy, Reading Parfit (1997), in the series, Philosophers and their Critics. Cogito: We usually start these interviews by asking our interviewees something about what turned their interests towards philosophy. Was there some particular person, or problem, or work, that made you a philosopher? Parfit: Yes, there was. As an undergraduate, I did only modern history. Then I read David Wiggins’s book, Identity and Spatiotemporal Continuity, and in particular his discussion of the actual cases in which the hemispheres of people’s brains have been disconnected, in attempts to treat epilepsy. As a result, these people seem to have two quite separate streams of thoughts and experience, in having each of which they are unaware of the other. Wiggins then imagined a case in which the two halves of our brain would be successfully transplanted into a pair of empty skulls, and there would later be two people each of whom has half our brain and is fully psychologically continuous with us. Since these would be two different people, it can’t be true that each of them is us. So how should we regard our relation to these people? I found that a fascinating question. It was this imagined case that drew me into philosophy. Cogito: It is, of course, for your views on personal identity that you are best known in the philosophical world.
    [Show full text]
  • Persons and Their Parts
    Persons and Their Parts 1 Persons and Their Parts CHARLES MARINUS JANSEN A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy UCL, Department of Philosophy Declaration I, Charles Marinus Jansen, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Charles Jansen 5 Abstract This thesis investigates the metaphysics of human persons. In it, I consider two questions. The first question concerns what types of change we can survive. Here, I ar- gue against the popular ‘wide psychological view’. According to this view, our survival requires the presence of particular kinds of psychological connection between our present and future selves, but does not set constraints on the way in which these connections are realised; it is all the same whether our bodies and brains continue to exist, or whether we are beamed from one place to another by teleportation. I argue that we do not have firm intuitions in favour of the wide psychological view, that the view must be carefully formulated in order to give a coherent account of our identity, and that – when so formulated – it is less attractive than an alternative ‘narrow view’, on which our survival requires the continued existence of the realisers of our mental states. The second question concerns the parts that we have. Here, I defend the thesis that we have humanoid form against the view that we are only the size of our brains. I do so by arguing that many of our mental states are primarily attributable to humanoid entities, and (at best) only derivatively attributable to anything that is presently brain-sized.
    [Show full text]
  • Utilitarianism and Replaceability Or Are Animals Expendable?
    81 BETWEEN THE SPECIES Utilitarianism and Replaceability Revisited or Are Animals Expendable? ABSTRACT In her very interesting paper, “Peter Singer on Expendability,” L. A. Kemmerer re-examines Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument implying that some being are replaceable and the implications of this argument for the issue of treating animals. I attempt to defend Singer, and more generally utilitarianism (including the principle of replaceability), against these objections. I argue that, given a utilitarian outlook, some animals are indeed replaceable. But I also argue that few animals are replaceable in practice. Stefan Sencerz Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi [email protected] Volume 14, Issue 1 Aug 2011 © Between the Species, 2011 http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/bts/ 82 Stefan Sencerz Introduction In her very interesting paper, “Peter Singer on Expendabil- ity,” L. A. Kemmerer re-examines Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument implying that some beings are replaceable and the implications of this argument for the issue of treating animals (Kemmerer 2007). She argues that: Singer’s replaceability argument is flawed because he categorizes lives which are both happy and sad as singularly happy. His acceptance of painless death is problematic because Singer, a preference utilitarian, ignores the preference of almost every living being to maintain existence. Finally, Singer’s replaceability ar- gument does not take into account the effect of killing on the one killed, or on their larger community (2007, 9). I will attempt here to defend Singer, and more generally util- itarianism (including the principle of replaceability), against these objections. I will argue that, given a utilitarian outlook, some animals are indeed replaceable or, as Kemmerer claims, expendable, at least in principle.
    [Show full text]
  • Comparing Consequentialist Solutions to the Nonidentity Problem Emily K
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2013 Comparing Consequentialist Solutions to the Nonidentity Problem Emily K. Ott Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Ott, Emily K., "Comparing Consequentialist Solutions to the Nonidentity Problem" (2013). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 635. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/635 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLAREMONT McKENNA COLLEGE COMPARING CONSEQUENTIALIST SOLUTIONS TO THE NONIDENTITY PROBLEM SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR S. ANDREW SCHROEDER, Ph. D. AND DEAN GREGORY HESS, Ph. D. BY EMILY K. OTT FOR SENIOR THESIS SPRING SEMESTER APRIL 29, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..2 Chapter I: The Nonidentity Problem………………………………………………………5 Chapter II: Nonidentity Case Studies………………………………..…………………..12 Same–Number Cases……...……………………………………………………..12 Different–Number Cases…………………………………………………………14 Overview of the Nonidentity Problem……………………………………………16 Chapter III: Proposed Consequentialist Solutions……………………………………….19 What Consequentialism Entails………………………………………………….19 The Totalist Solution……………………………………………………………..21 The Repugnant Conclusion………………………………………………23 The Averagist Solution…………………………………………………………...28 The Mere Addition Paradox……………………………………………..29 Chapter IV: Comparing Consequentialist
    [Show full text]
  • The Identity Problem in Buddhist Ethics
    1 THE IDENTITY PROBLEM IN BUDDHIST ETHICS An Examination of Buddhist and Parfitian Conceptions of the Subject by Roger William Farrington MA Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Birkbeck College 2007 University of London 2 ABSTRACT The Buddhist tradition offers a reductionist view of the subject – the ‘weak’ view -which appears to undercut concern for the consequences of action. The doctrine of morally conditioned rebirth – that is, the perpetuation of a persistent individual through death - entails a ‘strong’ view. Each view has a bearing on morality, and each is problematic: the two seem incompatible. The notion of rebirth and the associated doctrine of karman are deeply connected with this. It is in this complex that I find what I call ‘the identity problem’. I give a general account of Buddhist ethics, placing it within the tradition of ‘virtue ethics’. I show the impact of the identity problem to be large but not total. I deal also with some related topics in Buddhist doctrine: anātman, the heterodox ‘Person school’ and the ‘two-truths’ notion. I consider the bearing of Parfit’s arguments for his version of reductionism on the problem’s solution. Their support for the ‘weak’ view is real but limited. When Parfit deals with the consequences of reductionism for morality, his conclusion is uncertain. When I consider these arguments on their merits, I find them largely unpersuasive. Parfit’s account of reasons for action, with some qualifications, is acceptable, and welcome in its vindication of disinterestedness. I consider how it stands with Buddhist ethics in this light and offer restatements of the doctrines of karman and rebirth.
    [Show full text]
  • Perspectives on Peter Singer
    GOD, THE GOOD, AND UTILITARIANISM Is ethics about happiness? Aristotle thought so and for centuries Christians agreed, until utilitarianism raised worries about where this would lead. In this volume, Peter Singer, leading utilitarian philosopher and controversial defender of infanticide and euthanasia, addresses this question in conversation with Christian ethicists and secular utilitarians. Their engagement reveals surprising points of agree- ment and difference on questions of moral theory, the history of ethics, and current issues such as climate change, abortion, poverty and animal rights. The volume explores the advantages and pitfalls of basing morality on happiness; if ethics is teleological, is its proper aim the subjective satisfaction of preferences? Or is human flourishing found in objective goods: friendship, intellectual curiosity, meaningful labour? This volume provides a timely review of how utilitarians and Christians conceive of the good, and will be of great interest to those studying religious ethics, philosophy of religion, and applied ethics. john perry is Lecturer in Theological Ethics at the University of St Andrews, and formerly McDonald Fellow for Christian Ethics & Public Life at the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Pretenses of Loyalty (2011). GOD, THE GOOD, AND UTILITARIANISM Perspectives on Peter Singer edited by JOHN PERRY University Printing House, Cambridge cb28bs, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107050754 © Cambridge University Press, 2014 Chapter 2 ‘Engaging with Christianity’ © Peter Singer, 2014 This publication is in copyright.
    [Show full text]