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Home , Derek Parfit

Professors of philosophy Janet Radcliffe- Richards and Derek Parfit © MARK ALLAN The seekers Derek Parfit and Janet Radcliffe-Richards believe that philosophy should guide behaviour. Their marriage shows that it can DAVID EDMONDS

n the 1980s there was a seminar held ical philosophy would take turns to lead the regularly in the wood-panelled Old discussion and spend the best part of two Library at All College in Oxford. hours sparring with each other at one end of It was known informally as “Star the room, which would be packed mostly with IWars.” Four giants of moral and polit- eager, awestruck postgraduate students. I was 1 THE TRUTH SEEKERS

one of them and attended for a term. are Parfit and Radcliffe-Richards arguably The four philosophers were Derek Parfit, the world’s most cerebral romantic partner- , and GA ship, they are a fascinating study in the extent “Jerry” Cohen, all of them in their scholarly to which a philosopher’s professional con- prime. In 1982, Janet Radcliffe-Richards, victions, particularly in the sphere of moral who had just moved to Oxford, decided to go philosophy or , shape his or her per- along to see for herself what everyone agreed sonal conduct—as Parfit thinks they should. was the best show in town—dazzling, preen- I recently visited them in their north ing intellectual pyrotechnics. She was then in home. her late thirties, and a lecturer in philosophy Janet says she was initially “utterly baffled” at the Open University. She had recently pub- by Derek. He lacks certain common traits and lished a book entitled The Sceptical Feminist. doesn’t pick up on many normal social mes- sages. He has no envy or malice (though he en, who would go on to win a Nobel is no stranger to pride). During the “court- Prize in economics, already knew ing” process there were none of the usual woo- Radcliffe-Richards and after the sem- ing signals—no flowers or chocolates—but he inar went over to greet her. “Who was did once thrust into her arms the complete Sthat?” Parfit asked him. After extracting her keyboard scores of Bach. He also lent her an name and told that she had recently old desktop computer sold to him by Ronald separated from a partner, Parfit wrote her a Dworkin. It kept crashing. “It was an indica- letter, which she says she will publish one day. tion of the strangeness of what was going on, “The most remarkable chat up letter in his- that when Derek suggested he come round at tory,” Radcliffe-Richards calls it. He’d bought midnight to deal with the computer, I The Sceptical Feminist as, according to her, “a he meant it.” He didn’t. sort of audition” and proceeded to pursue her In 2011, the night before they were due to get assiduously, oblivious to the fact that he was in married in a register office, Derek and Janet competition with four other men. were walking down Little Clarendon Street Today, Parfit is considered by many of his in Oxford on the way to a low-key celebra- peers to be the world’s most important liv- tion at an Indian restaurant. They had been ing moral philosopher. His first book, Reasons together for 29 years, and had taken the deci- and Persons, published in 1984, is routinely sion to marry largely on pragmatic grounds. described as a work of genius. He is now mar- They felt they were getting old, and formal- ried to Radcliffe-Richards, herself the author ising their relationship made it easier to set- of three widely admired books characterised tle issues such as inheritance and next-of-kin. by unflinching and a willingness to tol- There were to be only four witnesses at the erate uncomfortable conclusions. Not only ceremony: Janet’s sister and brother-in-law,

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her niece and her niece’s partner. yet unborn and whether we make the world a As they approached the restaurant they better place by bringing in more happy lives. passed a wedding shop. In the window was Parfit didn’t so much shape this sub-discipline one of those meringue bridal dresses, all pet- as create it. Most of the writing on the ticoats, hoops and trains. “That,” said Janet, takes issues he has raised as its starting point. jokingly, “is what I shall be wearing tomor- One conundrum that has exercised him row.” “Do you mean that exact one,” replied is the so-called “non- problem.” Derek, in all seriousness, “or one just like it?” Imagine that a woman knows that if she con-

“‘That is what I shall be wearing tomorrow.’ ‘Do you mean that exact one,’ replied Derek ‘or one just like it?’”

It was the kind of literal-mindedness that ceives a child now it will be born with a disa- Janet has become accustomed to, though it bility, but if she waits a couple of months she still tickles her. It had taken her some , will have a “normal” child. Now, most people after first meeting Derek, to figure him out. would probably say that she should wait, and “You shouldn’t take up with Derek if you want not just because of the effect that a disabled a normal domestic relationship,” she says. child might have on the family and wider soci- “But I knew by then that I didn’t.” ety. The stronger is that it is better Janet and Derek are both now Distinguished for the child. Research Fellows at Oxford’s Uehiro Centre But a moment’s thought allows us to see that for , where I am a research this is misguided. If the woman delays con- associate. I was supervised by both of them as ception she will not make the life of the disa- a postgraduate. Derek supervised my BPhil bled child better; she will have a different child. dissertation and Janet was the supervisor for Provided that the disability is not too severe, my doctorate. My PhD was on the philosophy the woman who does not delay getting preg- of discrimination, a subject on which Janet nant is not making things worse for the hand- has written a great deal, though Oxford Uni- icapped child—if she puts off her pregnancy versity Press is still waiting for the book she this handicapped child would not exist at all. promised them. It took Parfit’s brilliance to recognise that My BPhil dissertation was on “future gen- this moral dilemma had far-reaching implica- erations” (or ), a topic that tions. Decisions over or other falls within the broad category of moral phi- forms of environmental degradation, for losophy. It deals with questions such as what example, have a similar structure. Suppose obligations and duties we have to people as we have to choose between two policies. Pol-

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icy A will conserve our resources, while policy B will deplete them. If we choose A, then the of life will be lower for a period than if we choose B. But after 300 years, say, it will be much higher, and will remain so indefinitely thereafter. Different people will be born depending on which policy we opt for. After three centuries there might be nobody alive who would have been born whichever policy we choose. In Rea- sons and Persons, Parfit suggests we will grasp this complex point more clearly if we ask our- selves, “If railways and motor cars had not been invented, would I still exist?” Normally, when we think that some- thing is bad, we think that it is bad because it is bad for one or more individuals. But in these non-identity cases there is nobody for whom the decision is bad. Parfit claims that this makes no difference. If in either of two outcomes the same number of people would

live, he argues, it would be bad if those who © DEREK PARFIT live have a lower quality of life than those who One of Parfit’s photographs of the view from would have lived. his office in Oxford: he tends to photograph the The reasoning seems watertight. But more same subjects repeatedly perplexing difficulties arise when we are faced with decisions that will create different num- if other things are equal, would be better even bers of people. Parfit draws us down a path though its members have lives that are barely that leads inexorably to what he calls the worth living.” Parfit’s label for this conclusion “Repugnant Conclusion.” This has to do with makes it clear that he regards it as unpalata- the very real practical issue of what would ble, but he and other philosophers have found be the population size. The Repugnant the logic that got him there hard to refute. Conclusion holds that “For any possible pop- As well as future generations, Reasons and ulation of at least 10bn people, all with a very Persons makes seminal contributions in other high quality of life, there must be some much areas of philosophy, including time (and our larger imaginable population whose , puzzling bias in favour of the future over the

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past) and (what kind of noticed that the plughole in the kitchen sink changes can we survive and which changes was blocked. She hadn’t known, because she involve our ceasing to exist). The book over- had never used the sink. “Kamm is the person flows with rich and intricate arguments, who is most like me,” says Derek. which are often advanced through the use He does not know how to operate his oven, of wonderfully strange and creative thought though his dietary regimen is scrupulously experiments. maintained. once stayed for an extended period with friends in Ithaca wo years ago, having hit the man- and told them that he didn’t what they datory retirement age, Parfit had cooked for him so long as it was always the to vacate his rooms in All Souls for same. Derek does mind. He eats the same sta- a small house he had bought in the ples every day. For breakfast there’s muesli, Tcentre of Oxford. The change in circumstance yoghurt, juice and an enormous cup of instant would have been a shock for him if Janet had coffee, industrial strength and often made not returned to Oxford at that point. Derek with hot water from the tap because boiling had lived almost his entire life in institutions— it would require putting on the kettle. In the he was a scholarship boy at Eton, then went evening he has raw carrots, cheese, romaine to Oxford as an undergraduate, to study his- lettuce and celery dipped in peanut butter. tory, and after winning a Prize Fellowship at Food has to fulfil two basic criteria: it must be All Souls aged 25 he never left. All Souls is a healthy and involve the minimum of prepara- unique Oxford institution in having no under- tion. Like Janet, he is vegetarian. graduates, only academic researchers. “Isn’t this rather a boring topic of conver- “Derek has no idea what it is for a building sation?” asks Derek. This is not auspicious. to exist without a manciple and domestic bur- Derek once wrote that he can’t remember sar,” says Janet. ever being bored. Janet and I retire to the liv- “Are you implying that I require looking ing room upstairs, leaving Derek to his muesli after?” and instant coffee. “Not at all. That’s what’s so interesting. You Published in 1980, The Sceptical Feminist don’t demand looking after at all”. was a book that seemed calculated to annoy Nonetheless, had Janet not been around, everybody, though Janet denies any mischie- his habitat would have rapidly turned feral. vous . The “sceptical” bit, which One of Derek’s friends is the Harvard profes- infuriated some feminists, was the assertion sor Frances Kamm. Derek regards himself as that many standard feminist arguments were semi-American, and has spent many semes- shoddy or incoherent. The “feminist” bit was a ters at Harvard, and Rut- brilliant deconstruction of the illogical justifi- gers. When he stayed in Kamm’s apartment he cations used by men to validate their position

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of privilege over women. make any logical sense. If the foetus really is Consider a rule like “Women should be a human being, why should we draw a distinc- barred from driving buses” (examples such tion between a woman carrying a deformed as this felt much more urgent in the unrecon- child, a woman who has been raped and a structed 1970s). What’s wrong with it? It can’t woman who simply got pregnant by mistake? be merely the different treatment for men and women that it implies. After all, someone who “As Mill pointed out, fails to get a job is treated differently from the person who gets it. In a labour market distinc- ‘what women by tions are inevitable. Alcoholics are not allowed cannot do, it is quite to become pilots, but we don’t conclude that alcoholics are thereby discriminated against. superfluous to forbid What is wrong, Janet argues, is that the rule them from doing’” cannot be justified even in terms of the gen- eral standards set by those who propose the “The nearest we can get to a coherent policy. Most of these people profess to believe account of [current] law,” she says, “is that it in a meritocracy, but this moral standard is is to punish women who have sex when they not consistent with the arbitrary disadvantag- didn’t intend to have children. The idea is ing of one group. that if you were raped it’s not your fault, you Janet likes to quote . Often haven’t gone in for sex as an end in itself. If those proposing a rule such as the one pro- you have a deformed foetus you were prop- hibiting female bus drivers will insist that erly intending to have children, but were just women aren’t enough drivers to be per- unlucky and that wasn’t your fault. But you mitted behind the wheel. But as Mill pointed couldn’t just have an abortion because you out, “what women by nature cannot do, it is didn’t want a child after having sex.” quite superfluous to forbid them from doing.” When Janet takes up a subject she does so In a genuine meritocracy, in other words, from scratch, working from first if all women were really hopeless at driving and eschewing established templates and buses, they wouldn’t be employed—it would be frameworks. This is the source of her original- unnecessary to have an additional rule exclud- ity. In her second book, Human Nature After ing them. Darwin (published in 2001), she examined This argument reflects a trademark Rad- aspects of philosophical reasoning through cliffe-Richards manoeuvre—she grants an the study of Darwinism. She was particularly opponent their premise or premises and shows interested in claims about innate differences that their conclusions nonetheless don’t fol- between men and women, which had been left low. The abortion laws, she argues, don’t open in The Sceptical Feminist.

6 THE TRUTH SEEKERS © MARK ALLAN “She grants an opponent their premise... and shows that their conclusions nonetheless don’t follow”

Assume, for the sake of argument, that men have nothing to fear from natural or genetic are more disposed to take up random sexual sexual variations. opportunities than women. Would this imply In conversation, Janet is more nimble than that society should try to thwart or otherwise Derek. She is also an in-demand interviewee re-direct male urges? Or should we just accept and public performer (she lectures fluently that men and women are likely to behave dif- without notes). For a couple of series, she was ferently and will make different ? a regular panellist on the BBC Radio 4 radio Janet is convinced that there are sexual dif- discussion programme, Moral Maze, although ferences—that men are more competitive and she wasn’t rude enough really to excel in that status-driven, for example—but this is not format and she had what must have been the what really concerns her. She cares about the exasperating habit of telling the presenter and “so what?” She wants to show that feminists her fellow panellists that they were posing the

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wrong question. His current preoccupation, and the main Unlike Derek, who is proudly a philosopher’s focus of his second book, is the question of philosopher, Janet’s writings have shaped whether there are objective ethical or moral debate on practical matters—on feminism, . That book, , appeared naturally, but also on . More recently, in 2011 in two gigantic volumes, totalling she’s gained attention for her work on the eth- nearly 1,500 pages. It received the ulti- ics of organ transplants. mate imprimatur of cultural significance—a Most people have an instinctive aversion to lengthy article in the New Yorker—and was the idea of a market in kidneys or hearts, espe- also the subject of a substantial review in the cially as those most likely to be willing to sell New York Review of Books. their organs would tend to be the poorest in society. But, Janet argues, it is far worse to hile Janet won’t duck contro- prohibit such a market. “Of course it’s dread- versy when she believes an ful if people have to sell their organs. But argument is either bad or dan- how does a ban on them selling their organs gerous, or both, Derek says he improve things?” Wfinds conflict over and values uncomfort- She cites the case of a poor Turkish peas- able. “I’m unusual among philosophers in the ant desperate to raise the funds to pay for his extent to which I’m worried by disagreement.” daughter’s leukaemia treatment. “And we rap- It unsettles him that many leading philoso- idly passed legislation, and sent him back, phers, dead and alive, believe that there are no presumably to watch his daughter die. Then objective reasons for action. Take the exam- we patted ourselves on the back. Well, really!” ple, discussed by the late , of As for the campaigners against the trade: a man who treats his wife terribly and doesn’t “There are these sanctimonious rich Ameri- care. Williams claims that although there are can surgeons with second homes on Cape Cod several things we can say about the husband— travelling the world, presenting themselves as that he is nasty, sexist and brutish—he has no heroes for saving poor people from exploita- reason to improve his behaviour. We cannot tion. And of course what they do is force the insist that he has a reason to be nicer if he can- desperate—for money or kidneys—into a not be motivated to change. But Derek’s book black market where there’s no protection.” is a prolonged defence of the claim that what- Her voice drips with contempt as she says this. ever the man’s actual desires or motivations, Later, as I’m exchanging domestic trivia with he does have a reason to behave well. Janet, Derek walks back into the room. The Questions such as whether is objec- conversation undergoes a handbrake turn. We tive and what constitutes subjectivity and stop gossiping. The talk is all philosophy. And objectivity are fundamental questions in the it is Derek who does most of the talking. area of moral philosophy known as “meta-eth-

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ics.” But do they outside the seminar I suspect that the source of this anxiety is room? Parfit thinks they do and argues that his extrapolation from the case of one indi- people who have doubts about the objec- vidual—himself. I am quite willing to believe tivity of ethics are less likely to behave well. that if he were persuaded that He struggles to remember a passage from a is true it would change his behaviour. When poem by Yeats, and turns to Janet for help I ask what his and Janet’s philosophy have in identifying the lines: “The best lack all con- common, he answers that they both accept viction, while the worst/Are full of passionate that there are “” or ethical truths intensity.” out there waiting to be discovered. The thrust “Derek was indifferent to the prospect of kids. Janet has never regretted not becoming a mother”

I suggest to Derek that it is unlikely that a of his moral thinking has tended in an imper- person’s meta-ethical views will sway their sonal direction. It’s consistent with this that actual conduct one way or the other. Over the both he and Janet have signed up to the Giv- past few years there has been some fascinat- ing What We Can campaign, which requires ing empirical research into the links between people to make a public pledge to donate at the opinions and the behaviour of profes- least 10 per cent of their income to charities sors of ethics, much of it conducted by Eric that work to relieve . Schwitzgebel, a philosophy professor at UC There are no offspring to whom they could Riverside in the United States. It suggests, for bequeath assets. Given that one half of the example, that although believe that couple is a specialist on Darwin and evolu- people should give more of their income to tionary psychology, and the other on future charity than do non-ethicists, in practice they people, their decision to remain childless is are no more generous. Parfit retreats a little. striking. Janet long ago came to the conclu- He concedes that it is an empirical matter sion that there were already too many peo- whether subjectivism—the view that there are ple in need in the world, and felt no urge to no objective moral truths—corrodes our eth- create any more. Derek was indifferent to the ical responses, but “it would be surprising if prospect of kids. Janet has never regretted not it didn’t weaken at least some people’s moral becoming a mother: “In fact, the more I see convictions.” And he frets that his arguments about ageing parents the more I’m glad that about future generations might undermine I have no one to feel resentful about if they the belief that something must be done about don’t look after me”. climate change. Derek is now 71, but he remains the Alexei

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Stakhanov of the philosophy world. He rises late, but then works with only a few short breaks until 11 o’clock at night, seven days a week. This has been his habit for half a century. It is not an entirely reclusive existence, how- ever, since he’s in constant e-mail contact with philosophers around the world. The acknowl- edgements page in ’s book The Limits of Morality is typical. After thanking a number of people, Kagan writes: “[The book] got still longer thanks to the extraordinary and painstaking attention showered on it by Derek Parfit. Derek commented on the whole, not once, but three , and I have incorpo- rated his suggestions in well over a hundred passages.” Aformer student of Parfit’s, Jeff McMahan, who will soon become the White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, recalls arriv-

ing for a supervision with him and leaving 14 © MARK ALLAN hours later. On another occasion, McMahan “He rises late, then works with only a few short showed up not long after getting off a trans- breaks until 11 at night, seven days a week” atlantic flight. The philosophy began imme- diately. It didn’t occur to Derek that his guest of the reasons he dresses in the same outfit might need a glass of water or to go for a pee. every day—black trousers, white shirt—is so he The deluge of draft papers and manuscripts doesn’t waste time selecting clothes. His friend into Parfit’s inbox continues, and his extensive Ingmar Persson, the Swedish philosopher, notes are returned quickly. “The only thing I calls him the “most erudite of living philoso- pride myself on is the speed with which I can phers” and says his hard graft has “contributed send people comments,” he says. He reads to make his work tower high above everyone when he’s eating, when he’s on his exercise bike, else’s.” His modus operandi is to write mul- when he’s putting on his socks and when he’s tiple drafts and then to re-draft (he quickly brushing his teeth. Each year he goes through wears down letters on his keyboards). He is dozens of toothbrushes, which he purchases not secretive about how his work is progress- in bulk. He has been known to read 80 page ing. Numerous pre-publication versions of On articles during a single brushing session. One What Matters had long been circulating in the

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academic world, each of them varying slightly their forties, fifties and early sixties revere from one another. The acknowledgements sec- him. Roger Crisp, a professor of philosophy tion in the book runs to over 250 names. at Oxford, says Parfit is the most impressive When his world is not filtered through philosophical interlocutor he’s ever met. “In books, it is mediated by the lens. Or rather, his work on personal identity, Parfit has taken it used to be. For decades his main “hobby” the Humean tradition much further than was photographing St Petersburg and , any previous thinker,” Crisp says. “He has returning numerous times and taking count- done the same with the rationalist tradition less shots of the buildings in different light: which stretches back to via Immanuel in St Petersburg each photograph captures Kant. And he has transformed the utilitarian the snow under grey skies. “I may be some- tradition.” what unusual,” he told the New Yorker, “in the fact that I never get tired or sated with “His writings have ‘forced what I love most, so that I don’t need or want variety.” His admiration of certain architec- a rethink on almost tural styles has led him into trouble. Many everything in ethics, years ago he insisted that he and Janet buy a house together in rural Wiltshire after fall- including the ing for its charming Georgian façade. It was of life itself’” miles from Oxford and outlandishly over- priced. In the eight years they owned it, McMahan, with whom Parfit used to stay Derek took precisely two walks in the coun- when visiting Rutgers, and who called his tryside, both reluctantly. The top floor study basement, the “Parfit Suite,” says that his had breathtaking views, but the curtains were writings, especially on population ethics, kept closed. have “forced a rethink on almost everything The photographic holidays are no more. After in ethics, including the value of life itself.” three years of snowless Februaries in St Peters- What makes Parfit so special, he says, “is that, burg, Derek regards that project as complete. like a good chess player, he sees many moves A reformed duomaniac, he’s now a mere mon- ahead—he can see the implications of claims omaniac: from now on, it’s all and only philoso- that no one else can see.” phy. He’s busy on another book, Does Anything is an archetype of a par- Really Matter?, in which he’ll respond to critical ticular approach to philosophy in general and responses to On What Matters. moral philosophy in particular. It proceeds His reputation, though, is already secure. He carefully, and methodically, constructing has just been awarded the prestigious Schock arguments and testing with thought Prize and two generations of philosophers in experiments, from which it generates princi-

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ples that can be transposed, or so it is claimed, ple older than 40 have been diagnosed with it. onto world. Several of Derek’s friends mention “Asperg- Many moral philosophers practice their dis- er’s” when I ask them about him. What does cipline in this way, though none with Parfit’s he himself think? Might it explain the quality depth or sheer inventiveness. It would be of some of his social interactions and his unu- wrong, however, to give the impression that sual lifestyle? “There may be something in this he is universally venerated. For many phi- suggestion,” he says, though he also attrib- losophers, Parfit’s approach is wholly mis- utes it to a boarding school education. The guided. Among the objections made to it, same friends also comment that his remark- perhaps the most powerful is that ethics does able nature has required a huge amount of not lend itself to a sort of algorithmic analy- adjustment on Janet’s part. She agrees. “But sis. As puts it in a caustic forth- the adjustment was relatively straightforward coming review of On What Matters, “One way once I had figured him out and stopped look- of being a bad person is to think that [moral ing for what was not there. His way of life gives dilemmas] can be resolved by moral arithme- me enormous independence.” tic.” Another notable critic is Simon Black- Although Janet returned to Oxford to teach burn who, in his review of the book, asked in 2008, there is still a great deal of shuttling whether it was really, as sug- back and forth between there and London, gested in the Times Literary Supplement, the sometimes together, but often separately. Not “most important publication in moral philos- surprisingly, she says, “many people don’t real- ophy” since ’s The Methods of ise that [Derek and I] are connected.” But the Ethics in 1874. Or was it, Blackburn wondered, couple have always communicated constantly. instead “a long voyage down a stagnant back- Whenever I went to Janet’s house in Lon- water?” He left the reader in no doubt as to his don to discuss my doctoral thesis, the sessions own verdict. would invariably be punctuated by calls from Derek. Janet was then teaching at University n the 1940s a Viennese paediatrician College London and spent most of her life in Hans Asperger carried out pioneering the capital. Derek was in Oxford. They spoke work on a group of troubled children. many times every day. Here was obviously an But it was only in the 1980s that Asperg- extremely close and affectionate relationship Ier’s Syndrome became recognised as a medi- between two people who were intellectually, cal disorder. There are a number of symptoms. morally and aesthetically compatible. Yet, at They include literal-mindedness, the failure to some level, Derek seemed strangely unaware read social signs and narrow, obsessional pre- that Janet was 60 miles away. “It matters to occupations. Because Asperger’s is relatively him that I exist,” she says, “but it matters new to the psychological literature, few peo- much less that I’m around.”

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