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. believe. But their proponents are neglected, mentary on others’ work. But the grief reflects, are irreducible, causally inert, and wholly As you might guess, the details of this argu- not refuted, by his work. too, Parfit’s stature as perhaps the pre-eminent independent of us. Not only are these truths ment need careful scrutiny. This is difficult ter- In principle, Parfit’s disengagement from moral philosopher of the past fifty years. Par- independent of what we think and of our nature rain, even for experts. The force of Parfit’s the history of analytic and earlier philosophy fit’s work has had a profound impact on anglo- as human beings, the reasons that govern us are reasoning turns on whether his principle about could be generative. It could make room for phone philosophy and it is safe to predict that independent of what we want. None of this information, identity and meaning is true. But bold new ideas. But it is also a liability. While its influence will persist. prevents us from knowing what they are. the truth of this principle is far from obvious there are moments of genius in On What Mat- Parfit was prodigiously inventive, over- Through this austere lens, Parfit frames a and Parfit does not argue for it. It is hard not to ters, there are moments that frustrate as well. flowing with ideas. But some are especially theory of right action as obedience to princi- be dismayed by this omission. One of the Professional philosophers will make time to central. The first, and still the most significant, ples it would make sense for everyone to legis- defining achievements of so-called “analytic read it; they will study it and learn from it. is that our identity over time and distinctness late for all. philosophy” was a great advance in clarity Those less patient and more cynical may turn from one another are less substantial, both Volume One of On What Matters is devoted about the dimensions of meaning, through the instead to Reasons and Persons, to the passa- metaphysically and ethically, than many of us to the interpretation of this gnomic principle, work of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, ges chanted by Tibetan monks, and to a picture suppose. This idea is what lies behind a pas- which adapts and renovates a formula from followed by, among others, Saul Kripke and of themselves at once perplexing and persua- sage from Parfit’s first book, Reasons and Per- Kant: “Act only on that maxim through which Gareth Evans. None of this work is cited by sive, beautiful and bizarre. sons, quoted in almost every obituary: “When you can at the same time will that it become a Parfit. His approach to the philosophy of lan- I believed [in a deep fact of personal identity], universal law”. But this is not the subject of the guage has an autodidactic quality, as he rein- I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life books under review. They focus instead on vents its basic tools from scratch. It is difficult seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I Parfit’s “non-reductive cognitivism”, his to make progress without standing on the was moving faster every year, and at the end of belief in ethical truths that are utterly unlike shoulders of giants, and it is inefficient, too. which there was darkness. When I changed my truths about anything else in the world. Peter A consequence of Parfit’s homemade appa- view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. Singer’s authoritative collection, Does Any- ratus is that an awful lot of space in these vol- I now live in the open air”. thing Really Matter?, includes a range of umes is devoted to misunderstandings Parfit’s view about the unimportance of per- responses to Parfit, in turns admiring, critical between Parfit and his critics. Numerous chap- sonal identity is hard to formulate briefly and and conciliatory. Volume Three of On What ters attempt to translate from one proprietary the arguments in support of it are intricate, Matters gives Parfit’s replies, along with some idiom of meanings, concepts and properties