''On What Matters'' is a three-volume book of

moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 1 or 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of ...

. The first two volumes were published in 2011 and the third in 2017. It is a follow-up to Parfit's 1984 book ''

Reasons and Persons ''Reasons and Persons'' is a 1984 book by the philosopher Derek Parfit, in which the author discusses ethics, rationality and personal identity. It is divided into four parts, dedicated to self-defeating theories, rationality and time, personal ...

''. It has an introduction by

Samuel Scheffler Samuel Ira Scheffler (born 1951) is a moral and political philosopher, who is University Professor of Philosophy and Law in the New York University Department of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and the New York University School of Law, Sch ...

Summary

Parfit defends an objective ethical theory and suggests that we have reasons to act that cannot be accounted for by subjective ethical theories. Furthermore, it attempts to present a moral theory that combines three traditional approaches in moral and political philosophy:

Kantian Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, ...

deontology In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, ra ...

consequentialism In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a ...

, and

contractarianism In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social ...

(of the sort advocated by

T. M. Scanlon Thomas Michael "Tim" Scanlon (; born 1940), usually cited as T. M. Scanlon, is an American philosopher. At the time of his retirement in 2016, he was the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity"The Alford Professo ...

, and from the tradition of

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

and

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1 ...

). According to Parfit, these theories converge rather than disagree, "climbing the same mountain on different sides", in Parfit's metaphor. Parfit labels his synthesis of these three ethical theories the "Triple Theory":

An act is wrong if and only if, or just when, such acts are disallowed by some principle that is #one of the principles whose being universal laws would make things go best, #one of the only principles whose being universal laws everyone could rationally will.... #a principle that no one could reasonably reject.

On Parfit's view, these three criteria (a) represent the best versions of consequentialism, Kantian ethics, and contractarianism respectively, and (b) should generally agree in their recommendations. Both claims have proven controversial.

Writing

The manuscript, originally titled ''Climbing the Mountain,'' circulated for many years prior to publication, and occasioned a great deal of excitement, including reading groups and a conference prior to publication. Some of ''On What Matters'' is derived from lectures given at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

as part of the

Tanner Lectures on Human Values The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is a multi-university lecture series in the humanities, founded in 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, by the American scholar Obert Clark Tanner. In founding the lecture, he defined their purpose as fol ...

in 2002. As part of that series at Berkeley, Parfit's lectures were responded to by Allen W. Wood,

and

Susan Wolf Susan Rose Wolf (born 1952) is an American moral philosopher and philosopher of action who is currently the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught previously at Johns Hopkins Universi ...

Reception

The economist

Tyler Cowen Tyler Cowen (; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. He hosts the economics blog ''Marginal R ...

has expressed admiration for Parfit's style ("Reading him is an unforgettable and illuminating experience") in ''On What Matters'', but argues: :I see the biggest and most central part of the book as a failure, possibly wrong but more worryingly "not even wrong" and simply missing the questions defined by where the frontier – choice theory and not just philosophic ethics – has been for some time.

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...

was far more positive, saying that Parfit's arguments "put those who reject objectivism in ethics on the defensive". Constantine Sandis raises an objection to Parfit's project: the various "theories may well converge on their recommendations, but to think that the actions that follow from them are ''all'' that matters is to already presuppose the truth of consequentialism". Sandis jokes that the significance of Parfit's work, despite his scant publication record, should cause us to question the "

publish or perish "Publish or perish" is an aphorism describing the pressure to publish academic work in order to succeed in an academic career. Such institutional pressure is generally strongest at research universities. Some researchers have identified the pub ...

" demands of the

Research Excellence Framework The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a research impact evaluation of British higher education institutions. It is the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise and it was first used in 2014 to assess the period 2008–2013. REF is underta ...

, but "whether it will change the way we think about morality remains to be seen". The sheer length of time Parfit took to write the text, and the increasing incompatibility of such extended work with the demands of academic life was raised by

Nigel Thrift Sir Nigel John Thrift (born 12 October 1949 in Bath) is a British academic and geographer. In 2018 he was appointed as Chair of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, a committee that gives independent scientific and technical advice ...

, vice-chancellor of the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

, in a blog post on the

Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...

website: : Parfit's life has been able to be intellectually uncompromising because he found the infrastructure – especially All Souls College in Oxford, which does no undergraduate teaching – that allowed it to be. But I wonder how much longer that kind of infrastructure will be available in all but a few universities. The philosopher

Roger Scruton Sir Roger Vernon Scruton (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views. Editor from 1982 t ...

questioned the appropriateness of the title of the book, writing in 2015 "Nothing that really matters to human beings – their loves, responsibilities, attachments, their delights, aesthetic values, and spiritual needs – occurs in Parfit’s interminable narrative. All is swept into a corner by the great broom of utilitarian reasoning, to be left there in a heap of dust".

References

{{reflist 2011 non-fiction books Books by Derek Parfit Ethics books Contemporary philosophical literature Oxford University Press books 2017 non-fiction books