Derek Parfit - Ethics and Rationality

Ethics and Rationality

Reasons and Persons is a four-part work, with each successive section building on the last. Parfit believes that nonreligious ethics is a young and fertile field of inquiry. He asks questions about which actions are right or wrong and shies away from meta-ethics, which focuses more on logic and language.

In Part I of Reasons and Persons Parfit discusses "self-defeating theories", namely the self-interest theory of rationality (S) and two ethical frameworks: common sense morality (CSM) and consequentialism (C). He posits that S has been dominant in Western culture for over two millennia, often making bedfellows with religious doctrine, which united self-interest and morality. Because S demands that we always make self-interest our supreme rational concern and instructs us to ensure that our whole life goes as well as possible, S makes temporally neutral requirements. Thus it would be irrational to act in ways that we know we would prefer later to undo.

As an example, it is irrational for a 14-year-old to listen to loud music or get arrested for vandalism if he knows such actions will detract significantly from his future well-being and goals (such as an academic career in philosophy or having good hearing).

Most notably, the self-interest theory holds that it is irrational to commit any acts of self-denial or to act on desires that negatively affect our well-being. One may consider an aspiring author whose strongest desire is to write an award-winning novel but who, in doing so, suffers from lack of sleep and depression. Parfit holds that it is plausible that we have such desires outside our own well-being, and that it is not irrational to act to fulfill these desires.

Aside from the initial appeal to plausibility of desires that do not directly contribute to one's life going well, Parfit contrives situations where S is indirectly self-defeating. That is, it makes demands that it initially posits as irrational. It does not fail on its own terms, but it does recommend adoption of an alternative framework of rationality. For instance, it might be in my self-interest to become trustworthy in order to participate in mutually beneficial agreements, even though in maintaining the agreement I will be doing what will, ceteris paribus, be worse for me. In many cases S instructs us precisely not to follow S {Section 63, Chapter 8, Reasons and Persons}, thus fitting the definition of an indirectly self-defeating theory.

Parfit contends that to be indirectly individually self-defeating and directly collectively self-defeating is not fatally damaging for S. To further bury S, Parfit exploits its partial relativity, juxtaposing temporally neutral demands against agent-centered demands. The appeal to full relativity raises the question whether a theory can be consistently neutral in one sphere of actualization but entirely partial in another. Stripped of its commonly accepted shrouds of plausibility that can be shown to be inconsistent, S can be judged on its own (lacking) merits. While Parfit cannot offer an argument to dismiss S outright, his exposition lays S bare and allows its own failings to show through. It is defensible but the defender must bite so many bullets that he might lose his credibility in the process. Thus we need to search for a new theory of rationality. Parfit offers the Critical Present Aim Theory (CP), a broad catch-all that can be formulated to accommodate any competing theory. Parfit constructs CP to exclude self-interest as our overriding rational concern and to allow the time of action to become critically important. He leaves the question open, however, whether it should include "to avoid acting wrongly" as our highest concern. Such an inclusion would pave the way for ethics. Henry Sidgwick longed for the fusion of ethics and rationality and, while Parfit admits that many would more ardently avoid acting irrationally as opposed to immorally, he cannot construct an argument that adequately unites the two.

But S is not the only self-defeating theory. Where S puts too much emphasis on the separateness of persons, C fails to recognize the importance of bonds and emotional responses that come from allowing some people privileged positions in one's life. If we were all pure do-gooders, perhaps following Sidgwick, that would not constitute the outcome that would maximize happiness. It would be better if a small percentage of the population were pure do-gooders, but others acted out of love, etc. Thus C too makes demands of agents that it initially deemed immoral; it fails not on its own terms, for it still demands the outcome that maximizes total happiness, but does demand that each agent not always act as an impartial happiness promoter. C thus needs to be revised as well.

S and C fail indirectly, while CSM is directly collectively self-defeating. (So is S but S is an individual theory.) Parfit shows, using interesting examples and borrowing from Nashian games, that it would often be better for us all if we did not put the welfare of our loved ones before all else. For example, we should care not only about our kids, but everyone's kids.

Parfit often poses more questions than he answers. In ethics, he points to a need for a dynamic framework that combines CSM and C but he offers no specific solution. Such an attitude tracks his stance that nonreligious ethics is a young, fertile field.