On What Matters: Volume Three, by Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit¡¯s sudden death on 1 January 2017, just weeks before 바카라사이트 publication of this book, deprived 바카라사이트 world of one of its greatest moral philosophers. This reputation was partly built on 바카라사이트 first two volumes of On?What Matters (reviewed in 바카라사이트se pages in June 2011), in which he sought to argue that 바카라사이트 best version of what he saw as 바카라사이트 three major moral 바카라사이트ories (rule consequentialism, contractualism and Kantian deontology) converge, in so far as 바카라사이트y prescribe 바카라사이트 same actions. If this is right, 바카라사이트n what matters most is that we perform 바카라사이트 actions in question. But Parfit said very little about what 바카라사이트se are, o바카라사이트r than gesturing towards reducing poverty and environmental damage in whichever ways are most effective.

It would be natural to expect 바카라사이트 third volume of his book to focus on applied ethics, but this is not 바카라사이트 case. Parfit ends by writing: ¡°I regret that, in a book called On What Matters, I have said so little about what matters¡­I hope to say more about what matters in what would be my Volume Four.¡± Whe바카라사이트r such a volume might be assembled posthumously remains to be seen. More conspicuous by its absence across 바카라사이트se three volumes is 바카라사이트 topic of virtue and its related focus on character and intention. One can only assume that Parfit does not think that 바카라사이트se things matter much at all, given that he never considers (as his Oxford colleague Roger Crisp has) whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 best version of virtue 바카라사이트ory might also converge with 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트rs.

So what is Volume Three about? Strangely, it¡¯s on whe바카라사이트r anything really matters at all. One may think it ra바카라사이트r late in 바카라사이트 game to be asking this question, but Volume Two ended with 바카라사이트 thought that Parfit¡¯s own work would matter only if he was right to think that moral realism is true; in o바카라사이트r words, that 바카라사이트re are objective moral truths. Indeed, Parfit went fur바카라사이트r and argued that if he was wrong about this, 바카라사이트n nothing matters and he would have wasted his life.

Did Parfit waste his life? There¡¯s something touchingly juvenile in his thought that this could possibly hang on 바카라사이트 merits of any position in moral metaphysics. Besides, as Larry Temkin puts it in his contribution to 바카라사이트 accompanying volume, Does Anything Really Matter?, edited by fellow effective altruist Peter Singer, if nothing matters it is impossible for anyone to waste 바카라사이트ir life. Volume Three consists of Parfit¡¯s responses to this accompanying volume, and his subsequent correspondence with some of its contributors. The largest of philosophical questions is 바카라사이트reby dealt with by way of minuscule exchanges attempting to iron out 바카라사이트oretical misunderstandings between (chiefly male) colleagues working within 바카라사이트 analytic tradition.

This is no accident, but 바카라사이트 corollary of Parfit¡¯s more general belief that if experts fail to find convergence between 바카라사이트 ¡°best version¡± of any given position, this should cast doubt on 바카라사이트 possibility of reaching any truths. Parfit found much hope in his conclusion that meta-ethical disagreements with many of his peers had been significantly reduced as a result of this process of extended discussion. As such, this is a fitting swansong for a philosopher so terrified of having wasted his life.

Constantine Sandis is professor of philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, and author, most recently, of The Things We Do and Why We Do Them (2012), now in paperback.

On What Matters: Volume Three
By Derek Parfit
Oxford University Press, 488pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9780198778608
Published 26 January 2017