Lessons from my Dissertation

Nobody ever reads dissertations, and while I hope to publish each of my chapters as stand-alone articles (the first has already been accepted by Phil Quarterly, and the second received an R&R from Nous before being rejected for idiosyncratic reasons), I figure that a convenient blog-post summary might help some of the key ideas to gain greater circulation. So, here goes...

Review of Parfit, On What Matters

[My first attempt at a book review: 1300 pages distilled into 1600 words. Comments/suggestions welcome!]

Derek Parfit’s On What Matters is arguably the most important work in moral philosophy since Reasons and Persons.  Its two massive volumes offer a comprehensive and densely-argued presentation of Parfit’s views in metaethics and normative theory, with occasional forays into other areas of philosophy -- including a probing analysis of the classic metaphysical question: ‘Why anything? Why this?’

Professional Update

It's been a crazy year. Helen turned down two tenure-track offers, and me one (from St Andrews), for "two body" reasons. Fortunately, things have worked out very well for us even so. Helen has accepted a Bersoff fellowship from NYU for next year, while I have a bioethics postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania. And in Fall 2013, I'll be joining the wonderful philosophy department at Bowling Green as an assistant professor, where we look forward to finding a permanent solution to our two-body problem!

We've also had some recent good news regarding publications: Our co-authored 'Mind-Body Meets Metaethics: A Moral Concept Strategy', and Helen's 'Circularity in the Conditional Analysis of Phenomenal Concepts', have both been accepted by Phil Studies. My two other acceptances this year were for 'Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive' (forthcoming in Phil Quarterly) and 'Knowing What Matters' (forthcoming in Peter Singer's edited collection, Does Anything Really Matter? Parfit on Objectivity, to be published by Oxford University Press).

Now I just need to finish my dissertation...

Confucian Moral Psychology

Inspired by recent lectures from Kwong-loi Shun, I want to explore a number of interesting structural concepts and distinctions in ethics and moral psychology. (Note: As a total neophyte, I may have misremembered or misunderstood parts of Shun's interpretation of Confucian moral psychology. So I make no claims to historical accuracy here. I just think that there are some interesting concepts in this vicinity worth exploring.)

Individual vs. Political Feasibility

Matt Zwolinksi thinks there's something odd about philanthropists like Warren Buffett calling for higher taxes when their own philanthropic efforts are instead directed towards funding non-governmental organizations. But there's nothing remotely odd about this. It is exactly what we should expect if what's politically feasible is more constrained than what's individually feasible, such that:

(i) It is individually, but not politically, feasible to direct funds to one's favoured NGO. That is, you can do it with your own money, but you don't expect to be able to redistribute (much) taxpayers' money to this end.

The Value of Life

Robin Hanson (sensibly) finds it bizarre that asymmetry-based anti-natalism is taken at all seriously: "I mean, really, the whole human race should go extinct to avoid the risk that some future kid might suffer at some point?!" If people have lives worth living -- such that they do not regret being born -- then (all else equal) their life is a good thing, even it happens to contain some sad or unfortunate elements. But rather than just relying on this substantive (and obviously correct) normative judgment, Hanson made a couple of unconvincing attempts to justify this substantive conclusion on purely formalistic grounds.

Singer's Pond and Quality of Will

Singer argues that, just as we're obliged to save a drowning child at modest cost to ourselves (e.g. ruining an expensive suit), so we're obliged to help the distant needy when we're in a position to do so (e.g. by donating to GiveWell-recommended aid organizations). People often balk at this comparison, but I don't see any plausible grounds for escaping the conclusion that we have similarly strong reasons to act in either case.

What's more, I don't think this particular result is really all that counter-intuitive, either. Of course we have incredibly strong reasons to save innocent lives whenever we can! What could be more important, or more worth choosing, than that? This claim about the strengths of various reasons for action -- call it the Act Evaluation -- is eminently plausible.

What is counter-intuitive, I think, is the putative implication that when we fail to donate to effective charities we are thereby just as bad, or as blameworthy, as a person who lets a child drown before their eyes.

When is Significant Self-Sacrifice Obligatory?

A popular way to deny Singer's conclusion that we ought to donate all that we can afford to the most effective international aid charities is to posit an agential prerogative, or 'moral liberty', to pursue our own projects. Requirements to aid in one-off rescue situations (e.g. drowning children) are compatible with this, but ongoing requirements to reshape the world are not.

This sounds like an appealing result. But I wonder if it can be sustained on further examination: Could it really be true that we are never morally required to sacrifice our control over the general shape of our lives?

Procreative Ethics

There's an interesting article in the New Yorker exploring whether it's wrong to have kids.

The author's main concern seems to be overpopulation, but would-be parents can easily offset their impact on global population size by making an appropriate donation to Population Services International or the like. If the result of their choices is that more children are born into prosperity, and correspondingly fewer born into poverty, then that can only be a good thing. And even without such an 'offset', I'd expect the marginal child born to upper-middle class Americans to produce more positive than negative externalities over their lifetime. (As Caplan says, "More people mean more ideas, the fuel of progress.")

A better argument against procreating may be the lost opportunity for adopting/"saving" children from orphanages, etc., where they would otherwise lack the sort of care and opportunities that you could offer them. Adopting children in need is certainly exemplary, though presumably supererogatory if anything is. Setting this ideal option aside, then, I think we can at least say that for many people it is better for the world that they have and raise biological children rather than doing no parenting at all.

Guest Post: Nebel on Parfit's Rule Consequentialism

[The following is a guest post by Jake Nebel...]

I’m very grateful to Richard for letting me write a guest post, which I am shamelessly using to solicit feedback on a paper. I’ve summarized the central argument below. I’d greatly appreciate any comments on this blog or via email.

Parfit argues that the most plausible versions of Kantianism and contractualism coincide with the following consequentialist principle:

(UARC) Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance would make things go best.