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ANNAlS OF IDEAS

HOW TO BE GOOD An Oxford philosopher thinks he ron dutill all mart/lity into a formula. Is he right?

BY LARISSA MAcfAJ\QUHAfl.

WhO! make< me me "",>0 persoo ,nroo.,gh· "" m)" life, and a diffcrtnt pcrK><1 frum ,.""? And what is m. impo<to''''' of the>c faa.?

I bel.,..," ,II;" mosf of u. h., .. , f"l", beliefs aboo, our own '"'tIJ~, and OUr idor1!iry 0,,,,­fim<. and ,ha" when ".., set tho truth, "'" ought to c\I.1I~ !(1m( of 01" brlid. aoom wha, "" ho"""""""" do.

' TOll are in a terrible accident. Your ~ body is fatally injured, as are the

brains of your [WQ identicl-triplet broth­ers. Your brnin is divided into two hah'l:S, and into each brother's body one h:.Jris s~l1y transplanted. After the sur­gery, each of the IWO resu1tingpeople be­lie''es himself to be YOI.1, seems to re­member living your life, and has your chameter, (Ibis is not as llnlikdy as it

sounds: already, living brains ha''e been surgically divided, resulting in two sepa­rate streams of consciousness,) \.\/hat has happened? J-la\'e you died, or ha\<: you survnul? And if you have survived who are you? Are you one of these people? Both? Or neither? What if one of the trnnsplants fails, and only one person with half yourbrnin SUrvil'CS? That seems quite differcnt--but the death of one person could hardly make a diffcrence to the identity of another. ~ philosopher Derek Pattit bd;.,..ts

that neither of the pwple is you, but that this doesn"t matter. It doesn't matter that you have ceased Tn exist, br:cause what has happened to you is quite lIJI!ik., ordi­nary death: in your relationship to the two new lJ<:Q{Ile there is everything that matters in ordinary surviml--a continu­ityof memories and dispositions that wiU decay and change as they usually do. Most of us care about oor furun: Jxc.usc it is our.r-but this most fundamental human instinct is based on a mistake, Pamt belie''CS. Personal identity is not what matters.

Pamt is thought by many to be the most original moral philosopher in the:

English-speaking world. I-Ie has written two books, both of which ha,'e been called the most important works to be wril!en in the ficld in more than a cen­ru..,---sincc 1874, when Henry Sidg­wick's -fbe Method ofEthics,~ the apo­gce nf classical utilitarianism, waS published. Pamt's firs! book, ~Reasons and Persons,~ waS published in 1984, when he ,vas forty-<me, and caused a sen­sation. The book ,vas dense with science­fictionallhought experiments, all wging a shift toward a more i~naI, non­physical, and selfless view of human life.

Suppose that a scientist were to begin replacing your cells, one by one, with those ofG rera Garbo at the :Jgl: o f thirty. Attbe beginning of the experiment, the red pient of the cells, \"OI.1Id clearly be you, and at the end it would clearly be Garbo, but what aboot in the middle? It seems impbmible to suggest thM you could draw a line between the two-that any single cdl could make all the difference between you and not-}ml.11len:: is, then, no answer to the question of whether or not the person is you, and}t1 there is no mystCl)' invoh~-wt: know what hap­peno:!. A sclf, it seems, is not all or noth­ing but the sort of thing that tho::re can ~ more of or less o( When, in the process of a Z}gote"s cellular self-multiplication, d~s a person start 10 exist? Or when does a person, descending into dementia or coma, cease to be? ~re is no simple anS\ver---i1 is a matter of degrees.

Parlit's view 1C","lIbles ill some ways tho:: Buddhist view of the sclf, a fact that w:as pmltecl OUI to him}'l:\lfS ago by a pro­fessor of Oriental religions. Parlit 'V:U; de­lighted by this discovery. lie is ill the business of searching for unil'CfWl truths, so to find out that a figure like the Bud­dha, vastly removed from him by time and space, came indq:>endently to a similar l.'OIlclusion--wd~ that was extTemely n:-

Dtrd~ Pmfit btu ftw mmlOrin ojhis past and almost nn.>« thinks arollt it, a fl.t that he attriblltn to an inability to form mmtal imagn. Photograph by Stew Fyke.

aswring. (Sometime later, he kamed that "Reasons and P~"fS(lf'tl;· was being mo.mo­ri7-OO and chanted, along with Mras, by tl(l\icc monks at a monasK'I)' in Tibet.} It is difficult to bcli/.."\'C that there is no such thing as an all-or-nothing self~ "Q.'Cf> funher fact~ beyond the multitude of small psychological facts that make }'OIJ

who you arc. Parfit finds that his own be­I,,:f is unstabk~he n.:oos to re-ronvina:: himself. Buddha. too. thought that achieving this bclx:fw:1S ''Cry hard, though possible with much mo.'lii.tation. But. as­suming that '''' could be convioccd. how should '''' think about it?

I,.he ,,,,th depressing? SOil'" may find i, so. Bo.u I find i, lib,,,uil\:.nnd consoling.

(Paml's WQfds. in his books, in c-maiis, and ~"\"Cn in sp<.."Ceh . all haw a similar timbrl~it is difficult to distinguish them. In all, a strong emOlion is audible under "--straint.)

Whrn I ""I~'«l II", my <,;st<nCe ,..0, such • fun ..... 100. 1....,,>«1 impri..,.,..! in myodl. .\ly life..........-d lik a gL\ .. tun...,l. ,h"",gIl which I wa' """ing fa""" '''try y"a~ and "' ,I\c tnd of which ''''' ... wa, d:"knw;. When I chonged my '''''''. tht ...... II.of myglO"l\ln~ disaPl't"n:d. I now 1;,. in ,ht opt".ir."T"htre is " ill " Jiffert"", brtw",," In)' lift and ,he li,~ uf 01"'" pooplr:. Bu, 'ht differ""", i. less. Other people .rt closer. I am loss cot>a"t"J>«l "bo,,, tht rtSI of my ""0 lift.and mok~ about the I,,"<sof OIhen;.

It seems to a friend ofParfi~s that his theory of pcrwnal identity is motivated by an extreme fcar of d~ath. But Pamt

/'

doesn't bdk"\'C that he once buw death more than other people, and now he thinks he fcars it less.

:\1)" dtath "ill break the mort Jir<'O ... lations bet",",," my present upcri<' .... nnd huu", ex­ptIit,~ ... b.,n i, will n<lI brtak ,,,riou, 01""" r<latK:ons.

Some people will rem<."I"tlbt.,. him. Oth:rs rna}' be infiucoccd by his writing. or act upon his advice. Memories that oom .... 'Ct

with his mo'morics, thoughts thaI connect with his tho.tghts, actions tm."n that con­nect with his inll.'11.tions, will persist after he is gone. just inside difli:n.:nt bodies.

nu. isall the ... is to ,n. fact lhat t ........... in "" no on<: li,;n!; .... OO will be tnt. Nowtha, I h"" 0<Yfl

,his, m)" ","",h,.,...". to tnt loss rod.

After Paml finisho:! ~R<.<ISOOS and J\T­w;:ons, ~ he I::<.=mc inm."asinglydisturb..'Ii by hoIv many poople lxlio..",-'Ii that then.- was no weh thing as objecti,..., rnorallruth. This led him to wrile his second book, "On What l\'lattcrs," which was published this summer. aftl"T )'Cars of anticipation among philosophers. (A conference. a book of critical ess:\)'S, and endless discus­sions abottt it preceded its appearance, based on circulated drafts.) P:ufit beoc"\\.'S that tbr."TC arc troe ansI"-"TS to moral ques­tions. just as there arc to mathematical ooes. Humans can perceive these truths, through a combination of intuition and critical reasoning. but they remain true whether humans perceive them or not. He bc\il."\'I:S that then: is nothing !TlOO." Wb'\.T!t

·Don'tj!utterYOllr liftlewings on company time."

for him to do in his bricftimc on eanh than discv."'"T what tbcsc tlUths are and persltadc others of their reality. '-Ie be­oo.'CS that widlOOt moral tlUth the world wO\tld be a bkak place in which nothing mattt:n:d. -111is thought horrifies him.

w. """kl ha,'. no rt':ISQt1, rotr)" 10 ~ ho ..... 10 Ii '"t" Such <kci.ioI\s .... "" kl be arbi,mry .... W. """Id '""' ""ly on our ir",i,...,. and dtsirrs, li,~ ing as OIher a~im.11s li,"t.

' -Ie fecls himself surrwndcd bydangcr­OIlS skeptics. Many ofllis oollcagucs not

only do not bcliC\'C in objecti\'C moral trutb---tlry don't CI",'11. find its :abscnre dis­turbing. Thl)' arc pragmatic types who argue that the notioo of moral truth is un­oecessary. a fifth whec~ with it orwithout it, people will g<> 00 wilh their mt."S as they have always done. feding strongly that some thirtg'! arc 1;00 and oth."fS b"lO<i, not

mi~ng the COIimic imprimatur. To Parfit, this is an appalling nihilism.

Subj""i,"i,ti wmttirTlC$ say that. Htn though nothing m""I~" in an obj""i,". ",n"" i, i. <"IlOugh ,ho" >On'" things mo"" '0 P'''lf'Ic-. Bu' tMt shows how dttpl)' thtst ,itw. diff.r. S~bjccti,i"i 31, lik. thO$C who sa)". "God doesn't oxi>l in )"001 "'""". but God is "" .• • and SOtnt people 10 .... o",h OIht~ so in fir}' srnsc God <x;'ti."

Pamt is an atheist. but when it comes to

moral tMh he bclic>'CS wbat 1I'aO. Kara­mazov belie\w about God: i[;t docs nO! exist, d)(:n C\'Cl)thing is permitted.

I n the wa}' Ihat he tnO\'CS and carries himself. Parfit gi\'-"S the impression of

on~ who is unaware ofbcing looked at. p.:maps because he spto'neIs so moch time alone. He clutches his oompull."I" bag. He fidgL-rs. His hair is whitt: and fiullY and has St"!tlcd into a rab'\.-boyof the kind that was f3shionable for Illl"fl in the fifteenlh Ct.T!­

NI)'. I k w,."arS the same outfit every da)'." whitt: shin. black tmus<."fS.

'Ibcre is something not-there about him. an unphysical, slighdy androgynQUs quality. He lacks the normal anti-social ~·motions-ell\y. rn:ilice, dominano:, de­sire for "-""'-""ngC. He doesn't belic'" that his conseiOllS mind is 1"CSJlO'"'Iibk for the imponant parts nfhis work. I-Ie pictures his thinking selI as a gov<-'1TilllCnt minis­tcr sitting behind a Iargc desk, who wriles a question on a piece of paper and P'tts it in his OIJI-I."ra},. The minister then $its idly at the desk, twiddling his thumbs, while in some back room civil servants labor fu­rioml},. come up With the answer, and place it in his in-tnly. Pamt is less aware

than most of the boundaries of his self­less conscioul; of them and less pfOtl:<:tive. I-Ie is helplessly, sometimes unwillingly, empathetic he will find himself o"ercome by the mood of the person he is with, es­pecially if that person is unhappy.

He has few memories of his past, and he almost never thinks <1hout it, although his memory lOr other things is very good. I-Ie attributes this to his inability to form Inental ilnages.. Although he recognizes f.unifutr things when he sees them, he can­not call up images uf them afterward in his head: he C31mut visu.alir.e even so simple an image: as a fug; he cannot, ,men he is away, rtta1I his wife's 00. (This condition is rare but not llIllKard of, it has bem pr0-posed that it is more common in peuple who think in abstracri<ms.) I Ie has aJ.,""fl beliC\ro that this is why he flC\,.,r thinks about his childhuod. I Ie imagines other pwple, in quiet moments, playing their memories in their Ix:ads like wonderful old IllO\'ies, whereas his fC\v memories an: stored as propositions, as sentences, with none of the vi'Jidn= o( a picture. But, 'men it is suggested to him that an ab­sence ofimages does not really explain an absence of emotional connection to hi$ past, he concedes that this is so.

Parfit's mother,J=ie, was born in India to 1\\'0 medical missionaries. She grewup tostudy rned;cine--she was a bril­liant student and won many prizes. She joined the Oxford Group, a Christian lI1O\-emtTlt, fOunded in the ninetccll-t\\"eIl­ties, whose members stro\,., to adhere to the Four Absolutes: absolute honesty, ab­solute purity, absolute unselfishness, and ahsoIutt kne. 'Through theOxford Group. she met Noonan P.ufit, the sun of an An­glicanclergpnan, woo waS also stud)-ing to

be a doctor. Norman was a bad srudem, but he was funnyand gregariuul; and prin­cipkd--------he was a I,oo&t and a =tornlk:r. Mer he n.x:ci"ed the group's ptnnissiUfl to proP06C, he and Jessie married.

In 1935, l;UI)n after they became doc­tors, Norman andJessie mo,,.,d 10 west­ern China to leach pre\'l!nti'"e medicine in missionary hospitals. Before theyw.:re able to begin work, they'vere required to spend a couple of }eat"S in the mountains studying Chinese.J=ie picked it up eas­ily, but Nonnan simply cuuld not learn the language, however hard he tried, and he despaired mer his failure. lbeir first child, Theodora, was born in 1939, and their second, Derek, in 1942. Noonan

was drawn to Mao's idealist ardor. I Ie didn't become a CommlUlist, exactly, but he abandoned Ihe conservative political view!; with which he was brought up. More significantly, both Norman and Jessie lost their faith. They disliked some of their feI1ow-mi~~ionarics, some of whom were quite racist, and they were struck by the irrelev:lnce of Christianity to a sophisticated culture like China's. J= ie shed her faith easilr-she associ­ated Christianity ,vith the oppressive pu­ritanism of her upbringing, and found purpose enough in publiC health. But Norman's loss of failh was a catastrophe. Withuut God, his life had no meaning. He sank into a chronic dC]>KSsion that lasted until his death.

Aboul a ytar after Derek was born, the family lcflChina. They scttkd in Oxford, and had a third child, Joanna. \Vhen Derek was SC\en, he became religious and <kcid~d to be a monk. I Ie praytd aU lhe time and tried ,ainly to persuade his par­ents to go lochurch. But at eight he lust hi$ faith: he decided that a good God would not send JltOple to Hell, and 00 if his teachers were wTong about God's goodness they must also be wrong about God's existence. His argument was flawed but con"incing-he never be­liC\ro in God again.

Jessie and Norman had little in com­mon and grew unhappy together, but they sta)ro married. Jessie took a second de­gree, became a psrchiatrist, and ended up running London's services for emotiona1!y distuIDed children. Norman worked at a knv-Ievd public-health job near OxfOrd. He was concern~d about cancer and fluoridation, but he was too indfectual tu do much about either.

M)" f"dlt( w., a perftctionisl, who ochle.-ed linie. I Ie labvrtd fu.- "",·"",1 \\ttk$ <ath 1"""0 wnlt hi. Annual R<r<>", woo..: I"". hl:conlinu· allr m·i...!. My 1"",hM- WOIIld ha,·. w,in ... , such. rt"f'Ol1 in an hooT Of 'wo. ll>:Jugh hi: \\'as, in 10m< ways, an intel"",,,,,I, to wrom moral and m ig10us idras. manr=i g ..... "ly, I bel"" ... !M. hr =d,asan "JIII.,OI~yrwo book.<: Thad· <,a)"'s -I knry E'rn""d,~ "hich hi: w,,~ gn~~ and -Aw'l· willi A1I1'es!s, - which dc.<:ribrd a ~d a.i ....... calll!"'ign rodesiroy di>ea"" cal\)ingftics.

All three children were sent to boarding school when they were young, so they didn't know each other IeI)' 'veil. I fem<mbrr bcrornillg a,,"Afe Iha!. fo, III",,! child, .. ", hom< ,,"a~,,~ Ihr)· li,-ed. and not n'IOT<ly,'" il waS for me,' place IMII ,i,itt<! for h<irf i",,,rrupriorts .0 m)" m.in life III,,, was li,-ed a. school.

Theodora and Derek 'vere brilliant snldenlS, like their mother. Derek '''liS

sent to Eton, where he came first in every subject except mathematiu. Jo­anna, like her father, was bad at elery­thing. Her teeth s{\lck out. She was also much too tall----six feet at the age of dC\"en. \Vhen the family I"lIS together, it was awfuJ--Nonnan was angry almost all the time. He often didn't understand what his wife and dder children ,vere talking about, and this made him feel in­ferior. He had a narrow life. H e took ref­uge in two hobbies-ttnnis, which he didn't pial' wd~ and sramp collecting, on which he spent several hours each e..e­ning. Parfit emerged from his childhood with the understanding that he and his mother and Thco were lucky and would Ii,,., full m..,,;, while Norman and Joanna 'vere unlucky and would ru.:'"er be happy. For Ihe rest of his life, his father and his )'QI.Ingr:r sistcr repre..emed for him C\-ety­thing that horrified him about suffi:ring and unfainlC$S.

I \\"a~ not, l!:cli","c, badlr afft.:tt.d by 1llJ· falhrr'$ <kprcssion. I ""as mctl:ly '.CT)-. sorry for him. Tha! is boca",,, I "'as 1\("\ ..... cIosdy rd,,!ro to him. I I" "'!oI,·1 !I;OOd '" inl ..... <ting \\;th <hil· drcn. lIcIorc I Icfi for my 1"C'" a. a llari<J'lc>5 fellow in !hr U.S .• IIIOIia-d !.a" ill my fa!hM-'5 '1'" wher, h.,,:.id goodb)c !o me. n.". mo ... d me grcatl)·at li>c lime,and I ~ncl tea" in my"Y"" .. llyp< mi""""",,o_ ThaI wa.lhr only !ime in ... hicb I had ,om< ... ,..- ohhr !o,c .11 .. m)" 10· I""", in hi' d<prc<s<J and i".rri<ul,,,,, \\"a)·, ~I fOfmc.

I n the early summer of 1%1, Pamt, aged eighteen, !ravelled to New York.

He was nearly tumed dOlm fOr a visa­the immigration officer saw that he was born in China and told him the Chinese quota was already full. He protested that he was British; the oflicerconsultcd ,vith a colleague and informed him that he would gr:t a visa since he was the son of Chin!$!: person ther liked. Hc went to WQrk at The Nl'W YQI"m, as a researcher for The Talk of the Town. He slayed in a splendid high·ceiling<:d apartment on the Upper 'Nest Side with his $is rer 'lnco and SCleral of her friends from Ox­ford-mostly returning Rhodes scholars. I Ie brimmed with enthusiasms and self­confidence and issued pronOlUlCemellts 011 all sorts of subjects, which amused some of the Rhodes scholars and ini(ated others.

He IO'"ed jazz, and went often to hear Miles Davis and TheloniOl.ls Monk. He had always loved music, but he

couldn't play an instrument, because he couldn't rcad the notes-he could slowJywork them out, bill not with any fluency. He hypothcsi7m Ih:1I there was some relationship between his inability to read musk and his deficiencies at mmhcmatics: he was not good at pro­cessing symbols.

He had wanted to be a poet since he was nine or ren. He pub~shedonc poem, "PIlotoj,<raph of a Comtt:ssc; ill TJx New Y<>rkn-thc}.:af after he worked there, and sc"eral in the Eton College Clmmi&

, ". A fie"", tug on ,b<-linc Jcrkctl you back. You pulkd at one.:­I"r~g bootw<'",

D,ligh. and horror ,ha, Iht linc you

"~'" W""eo";ng a pointt'\ hook throogh flesh., ..

You hold the Ii';!', 1hcn lashed it savagoly ,gainst tho dcd: And threw the bantu<! pulp fur OI.t to ... ", ... With , ick"e,s ill yOUT th, .... ' )"QU ",tn, ~,~

And tay h.,lf-sick tin port.

HCSpClll monthslaboringon hispo­cuy, but he dC\'C1oped an obsession with the idea dml not only shoold the Jj,,<.'S of a poem rhyme but the words within each line should hal'c internal asso­nances, with repeated pIl!!el1lS of con­sonants or vowels, as is the case in some Anglo-Saxon and German poetry. But it wassodifficuh to find words that had both the right sound and the right sense that he found he could no longer finish a poem. His obsession became crnicr and mon: crippling. Now when he n:ad his favoritc poets-Shah-spcarc, KealS, T Cnn)"SOn-their poems seemed to him badly flawed, because they had too fn" internal assonances. He understood that this w.iS insane, but he couldn't help it. Eventually, he realized that he stood nO chante ofbccoming a b'O<>d poet and gave up.

In the autumnofl%l, hev.cm upto Oxford to read history. (H e studied Modern History at Eton, which for England 1xgan when the Romans left, in 410.) He was a li ttle bon:d by the subj<:ct, and briefly considered switching to P.P.E.-Philosophy, Politics and Ec0-nomics. He was appn:hensi,'\: about the mathematics that l"Conotoics would in­voh'\:, howevCJ", so he n:ad a fl"W pages of a rextbook and came across a S)1nbo! he didn't recogni7.c---"J line with a dot aOO..'\: and a dot helow. I-Ie asked somcone to

explain it, and when he was told that it was a divisiOl1 sign he fclt so humiliatc<l that he decided to stick with histol)'. After Oxford, he went back to Ameriea for two years on a Harkness Fellov.-ship.

He decided to study philosophy. He attended a lecture by a Continental phi­losopher that addressed some important subj<:ct such as suicide or the meaning of life, but he oouIdn't W"Odcrstand anyofi!. He went to h= an analytic philosopher who spoke 011 a trivial topic but wasquire lucid. He wondcro:l whether it was more likely that Contincntal philosophers would become more lucid Or anal}t ic philosophers less trivial. H e dccilk-d that the second waS more likely, and n:turned to Oxford. Almost at Ontt, he achicved a dazzling suc<;css: he took an CXam and won a Prize Fellowship at All Souls, whkh entitled him to room and board at theco&w: forso.'\'Cn years, with no teach­ing duties. J Ie studied wilh A. J. Aycr, Peter Smwson, and David Pears. lie was clcctrifil-d by lhe Ix:Jligcn:nce of phi­losophers-historians wer~ much milder-although he worried that his delight was inconsistent wilh his disap­pl"Q\-al of other pugilislic sports, such as boxing.

He mOl'ed into rooms at AU Souls and set1led into a monk-~kc existence. There W"dS usually a woman in his life somcwhcrc, but he spellt ''CI)' littk: time wilh her. Almost all his waking hours were spent at his desk. AU Souls resem­bles a monastel)'. Its fifteenth-centul)' stone arcades surround a vivid lawn that is immaculate because it is seldom usc.-d: All Sou!s has no undergraduates and is not often open to the public--its gateS arc shut. All his needs weIC taken care of by the col1cgc: Iu: was housed, fixJ, and paid, and nothing in the way of emO­tional output was n-quircd of him. This waS how his life had oc-cn sirn:c he went to boarding school, a! ten, and it suited him. He had become, he realized, what psychiatri>ts call institutionalizcd-a IlC1Wl1 for whom living in an institution feels mon; normal than living in a family. n..: only Ihing thaI interfered \vith his work was a lack of sleep. He suffered from terrible inSOlllnia-wbcn he went to oc-d his brain kcpl racing, and there were many days when he was too cx­hausted towork But ,.nen he was in his mid-thirties his docrorprcscribcd a tricy­clic antidepressant, Amitriptyline, wilh

which, along \vilh a ''CI)' large quantity of \wka, he could force himself into UIlCOl1SClOUSllCSS.

Sometime after he gal,\: up Ihe ioc-a of heing a poet, Pamt dcwlopcd a new

aesthetic obsession: photob'Taphy. !-Ie drifted into it-a rich uncle b .... l\": him an c:qx:nsi'I'C earncra---b.Jt L'ltcr it occurred to him that his interest in committing to paper im3f:,'tS of thlnbos he hM seen might stem &om his inability to hold those illl3f:,'CS in his mind. I-ic also bcliL~ul that most of the world looked OCttcr in reproduction than it did in lift. "There WLTI': only about ten things in tk ,rurld he wantul to pho­tograph, howLvcr, and they"",,,e aU build­ings: the best buildings in Vmioe---Palla­dio's t\'ro churcl-.cs, the fk>gc's Paha:, the build~ alo~ the Grand Omal----and the best buiklings in SL Pl'tCrWwg, the Win­ter Paha: and the G..:llcral ScllfBuilding.

I find it pw:>1;1lj; how mud> I, and $Ome O<h<"r people. 10"> ... reI>i!l'<1\~. M"", of the buildi"g. rlw I k,,"~ ha, .. pillars,eirl><rd ....... 1 orGo!hic. .11Int iu nice dL<1,.;,.i, .. ,,'OI"d tha, "wl;" to all <.>Ihtr huil,li,"f\S' "alll'la,-1 .1.0 10"> .. ,11<."... , .. ".,. in the F.....dl coun!rysi<!., porh'!" ho­elust!Ilt!,...,; ate lik~ to,,-S of pilbts. rn ..... IOottc eight mill;"', t"-""l in Fm:>ch "1."1"1<"$ in 1900, .qnd now m.... a~ onl)· .hoot th ..... hun-dml !hoosand.) n ..... a~ 501". as!)"!.;, bulk!-ing' tha, I """t, .... :h '" sonlt sk)'lCl"a(><1'S. 1ht bn, builcl;nf\> in Vmice and S,. P<tc",burg. ~ '· ... 1' bcoU!ihd, are no! SI,bli,,,.. Whot is ... bIi'''',l ..,,,.,,,ber t.....r;ng Kmllt,h C1m "')., are onl)" the ;mcrio.s of some larc ('><)fruc GI'hc­dr:d ... and """It AIII.ri"an >kj'$Cr;lPC,,"-

Although he admired some sk)'icrap­crs, he bc~C\ul that architecture hMgcn­crally dcdinul since 1840, and the world had grown uglier. On the other hand, an­cstoctics wen: discmutXI around the same time, so the world's suffering had been grcady nxlooxl. Was the trade-off worth it? He waS not SUtt:.

He oc1i",u:l that he h~ little natiw taI­cot for photography, but that by working hard at it he would be able to product:, in his lifetime, a fn" gwd pictures. Bct"' .... :n 1975 and 1998, he spent about fu'C wccks l'llch)"-":lf in Venice and SI. Pet=burg.

r mal· be 501".,..1'1., unusual in the fuo 'h'" I ,""...,. w:t !imJ<>r sa!,d II;th wh,,' I \o"'m<.><l, SO rh.1! [do,,~ n=1 or w.IlI '"riety.

I Ie di$likcd Q\erlJCad ligillS, in which cat­l"gOf)' he incMlcd the midday Sl.Ul, bUI he kr.'ed the horiwntal rars at the I\V() axk of the cL"lY. He waited ror hours, reading a book, for the rigil! son ofEght and Ihe right SOft of weather.

INhen he came home, hede\'doped his photographs and sorted them. Of a thou­sand picturt:s, he might keep three. When he dtridal that a picturewas worth saving, he took it to a professional prt:>Cessor in London and had the: processor hand-paint out all aspects of the ~ that he: found distasteful, "hich meant all ~ of the twentieth rentul)-<:ars, relegraph wires, SignptOlts----ruid usually all people. Then he: had the rolors repeatedly adjusted, al­though this was enormously expensive, until they were exactly what he wanted­which was a maner of fidelity not to the scene as itwas 001 to an ideainhi~ head.

Otherthan his trips to Venice and SI. Petersburg, the only reason he left All Souls for any length of rime \\lI!; to navel to America, to teach. He had appoint­ments at Hal\-:mI, Rutgers, and N.Y.U.: he wanted students, because he found that it was discouragingly di!liCIIlt to persuade older piUlosophers to change their minds. He: also needed students, because only they would f:jlk philosophy with him for twelve hours at a stretch and then wake up

"Bry, they really let theiryardgo .•

• •

the I1O(t day wanting to do it :<gailr. Older philosophers (and his students from past )= were now in this category) had chil­dren and spouses; they sat On academic committees and barbecued in their back )-ards. Only he stayed the same-as fer­'''ntly single-minded as they were, too, when they were young. 'Nhen he found a bright new student to mentor, he devoted hours to reading his work and writing comments. (He did this for many col­leagues as well: he read with astonishing speed, and would often return a manu­script with densely argued comments that ""re 10nS'!r than the manuscript itself, even if the manuscript was a book.)

\Vhen he Wll£ in America, he was com­pelled toprOClI!e hisown food. Because he didn't want to "lI!;te t ime on choice or preparation, he developed rigid routines that he coold follow without thinking. For )"C:U"S, according to a colleague, he made the same meal eo."ry morning for break­tast, which he conceil'ed of as a recipe fOr maximum health: sausage links, green peppers. yogw-t, and a banana, all in one

bo\...-\. One: day, the colleague's nutritionist wife explained to him that this was not a particularly healthy mrnl, and suggested a better meal; the next day he ""itched to the neo.v meal and nc:ver variod it.

He "lI!; always conscious of how little: time he had When he had to go !Tom on!: building to another on a big American campus, he ran. Bill his routines wctt not JUSt about time-saving: he fOlllld himself OOIl!;tantly retumingto the same thoughts, philosophical and othenvise-that was just the way his mind worked. "At one point, I Spent a rear at Harvard when he was visiting there and WI! WOIIld go out to

dinner,' Larry Temkin, a philosopher and former student of his, says. '"We ""nt to

the same place, a Thai restaurant, every time, and C\'CI)' time he would order rome rony and 1 would order something that had pineapples and rice and cashews. And every time he'd say, 'Larry, isn't that b0r­ing, don't you want some of my CIIny?' rd say, 'No, Derek, I don't 1Ikc cuny, it's too spicy for me.' And then the next wttk we'd go to the same restaurant , and he

"Anyontfo!lowing mton Twittera/ready !mows what J did this pmt summrr. ·

•

would order the same mea~ and I would order the ~ame m<:ol, and he'd say, 'laTTY, isn't that boring, don't}'Ol.l want some of this?' And I'd say, 'No, Der~k, I really don't, you ~ke the curries, bllt thl-ire too spicy forme.' And the next week thesame thing would happen ag:lin. It "'as [ike 'Groundhog Day."

'T'lOO l'arlit married an American, set­~ tied outside Washington, D.C., and

had three children. She studied social work and became an expert on families. She wrote about bow to bold £unilics togo.:thcr in a crisis, and about ways to imoo1: fami­lies in the education of their chiklrcn. Al­though she liwd far away, she kept in touCh with hcr parents and Siblings and cousins. She tried to Sl"C 1lI."f brodx."f when he came to tbe East Coast, as he fn."qucmly dkI, to teach, but usually he didr,t call. He didn't do this 10 avoid hcr--i!Simplydidn't QC<;ur to bim, because hc was thinking about philosophy. She Jm...wthis, and tried not to fed hurt. When they did :;0; each OIhcr, he was ''Cf}' fii<;ndly.

Parllt lived near his parent\; in Ox­ford, and saw them once a week, for Sunday lunch. His mother read up on philosophy to try to understand his work, but since Parllt saw h('"f only with his father they couldn't talk much about it. His father was baffled by him; he couldn't understand why he became a

•

philosopher-he thought he ought to have bc<:n a !;Cientist. I Ie trk-d, un~uc­cessfllUy, to interest his son in tennis.

Joanna struggled to lind work. ruJalJy, she managed ro qualiry as a nanny. She be­came pregnant and had a son, Tom, whom she raised on her own. A few years Iatt."f, she adopted a dauglm."f. She b'Cd oc"fchil­dren, but they didn't make her happy. Every f<:w months, she relcphoncd Partit ro talk to him about bow dcpr=cd she "as and how badly things were going. He dreaded those calls. Then, in her thirties, she died in a car crash..

She had not made 3 will, and alter sbe died there was a harrowing fight O\U" her son. Her daughtcrwas n:-adoptcd qWck/y, but Jessie was determined that Tom should be placl-d in a family she knew. Th, trouble was, his placcmcnt was in the haruhof the W ooun<:il, and Jessie so an­tag<mu.ed the council with her uoo;ompm­mising opinions and her uppcr-midd.\e­class accent that it sought actively to thwart OC"f. Jessie was in ~ny, and Parfil became vcry emotionally involved. The case ended lip in court, alld hc wrote a long and passionate brief supporting his motbcr. At last, the case was n.""S01ved in their favor. Jessie died soon afterward, al­though she was not sick or particularlyokl. Once Tom was safdyplact.-d with his new falnily, nearby, ['arlit n<:ver saw him.

As the}eafS \\"l.Tlt by, TI-oeo orne to ac-

ccpt that although her brother \cM.-d her, it was simply not important to him to spend time with his family. J Ie was extremely softhearted, alx! she knew that in a crisis he would always help her, bill dcc.']X11ing tics to his past through conlinuity, valuing blood as a souro: of kinship-thcse Ivcre

just not pan of who he was. Years later, l'arfi.t wrote to her in a letter that they had reacted ro their unhappy &mily in opposite Wll)'S. 1bcy were like the Rhine and tbe Danube: th<.)" llI.-gin ,·try close, but then thq divt:'f,"" one Amvs to the Atlantic, the other to the Black Sea.

Sometime around 1982 or'83, the phi­losopher Janet Radcliffe Richards

mQ\ .... -d from London to Oxford, having mdcd her first marriage. She had become wcll knO"Tl a fiw y""'1$ carlil"f for writing Jne SkqJTical Feminist; a fil"fC<: attack on anti-rational tendencies in the women's movement, and was reaching philc.sophy of science at the Open Univ<: .. ity. She was vcry beautiful and very feminine. She at­tended a :;eminar that Parfil "as teaching. She had nCVI:r enoollntel' ... d anyone like him: he WaS oI:Moosly a snangc person, but not in any of the usual ""ll}'S. Aiknvard, Amarl}'a Sen, a fricrod, who was co-tc:ach­ing the seminar, grccred her, and, \vhcn she left, partit asked Sen who she was.

D.P.: [",ad"""", of s"m Sch;fflcr~ =t ,,'00"1< all<! he~ arguing tha, people co,.. aboot the Mu,.. of hwnani!), nmm rn<l<C ,han thry ,..ali",. And J 'hink ,hat, ri!(h', art""II)·.

J.R.R.: The hll""" of Hum,ni!)' [nSliMe poopIe hq> tolking about rngi~ hwnans to m.kc,h/:m _moral. I "".""\ got a clcar cnou¢' ,·iow of what il WOIlki bo, b«;all.'iC il "'ould h. ... " !O be .om"liung SO diffr .... m from humans thall"m no! 'u .... why botti<-<,an)· more than lum ",,,,ybody inlO \CfT1l itcs o<;omctIJ ing.

D.P.: Oh no! Yoo coold-J.R.R.: The """""" of "" is thOl ,t-.. ,hi,>&<

we \".1"" .... dose conntCtions.nd familios and groups, and th.lI """"""rilr means trot we co ... ~oo.n O!her proplr kss.

At the time, Par/i[ was ['n;paring the manllS(;npt of "Reasons and Persons" for the print('"f.lhis invoh-.:d a CI..-rtain amount of anxiety, but the enormous intcllcetual labor that had consumed him for fifteen }'-"'''l was Q\"I."f. I Ie was emcringa rare tran­sitional momCllt, betwecn decades-long periods of total philosophical immersion, inlVhich his mind was, for asbort tilne, n.~ CI.."JXivc 10 <xher things.

Pamt read Ricmrds's book and wrote her a k1t('"f about it, suggesting that they meet and discuss it further. He wem out and bought three identical black sliits.

They met. I Ie off"en:d 10 rent her a com­puter. (lIe had just diSCOVl!rW comput­us he had bought one secondhand and "'liS \'eI)' excited about it.) With unprac­ticed but single-minded diligence, he pur-

""" "". She was bewildered. An eminent phi-losopher had sent her a letter that in tone andconttnt resembled an academic article, and nOw hewas otfaing to !1!111 her arom­purer. How much did it COSIIO rem acom­purer? He had not named an amoont. He ct:rtainly seemed very interestt:d in talking with her, and he was charming and bril­liant and unopecte<lly good-looking. but what was he up to? He 11= flitttd he talkOO to her <"::<aCt!y as he would talk to a man. After a time, she deduca:l &om the shttr frequency of his ancnnons that his imerest must be romantic, but this was not apparent in his behavior. She began to w()nder ifhe would propo:se to her Won: I~ had kissrd.

D.l'.: I think thcK's ~t S«>pC foe change, ... = with no g ..... rio::o::han~,

l.R.!<.: Oh, I w.sn) .. Iking aboot ""i,h no !;'ntlicd'lO.ngrs, I was .. Iking.oo.." ,lit gt"nl~ic on<> th"y wen; talking .bout. Of <:<.>w>c tho:«'s >rope forchaogc. hilt ,he q""srion is how much ,hey'", going to ""'"' wi,h [he n~"cri"1 wt\"t got, .nd h<.>w much tilt)"'", going f() chan", it-a~d they "":lnt to chango: it 0 lot. Yoo coold "'" there could "" a >Oci<'ty of some ~ind of bring that li""d in p<'1fta harmony, bon I can) quit< "" thq>oint.

D_P.: \\'011. Nick llo;\TOm said that i t~ no good h" 'ing tnoml inftll;g.,m roIxxs if tt..y'ft not conscious, so hr is ",..att that)'O<l haH' to "",kc iU'" th<y' '" con>ciQUS.

J.RK: l .. q>p<M I ju" ha,-. troubk thinking that there is. roint in ~a\ing thinl';s."o" iftho-y .rcn) things that.rc waIllM bj' things that al­r<:a<ly ha.",.,., to ClCist_ I ca~) "'" the roillt of bringing an) ,thing imo eriK""", oot ofnoo, in8-I don) = wh)" til. world is bener with crea· tu,,,, in it than not.CSp<.'<iall)' a~ too.'.so IlI""h .. ,fkring.

Richards didn't n:aIU.c how unusual this transitional momem was in Parlit's life. Soon, having won her, Parlit burrQwed back into hiswOflo. At IDst, this was fine­she didn't want a man arQund all the timo:--but then they decided tQ buy a hoosc together. They had intended tQ look in OxfQrd, but Partit lost his heart to a lxautifitl eighteenth-.:entul)' hOll'll: ncar Avebul)', a Noolilhic ~ monument in Wiltshire. I [e had to have it-he bid the price up and was terribly amiOltS umil the deed ""as sigoed.Thn, happy to ha'e won ltishoosc. he sat in hi<; study"'ith the b~nds oo..vn. Ten minutes away. then:was agio­rious blucbell 1\'OOd. and he loved bluebell woods---one of his fears about global

warming was that il would get too hot for bluebells-but Rkhatds cwldn't get him to go Ihen:. It CJOsted: Ihat was enoogh. Evcntually, she n:aliv:d that her ,Ittd for human company. moclcst as it was, was greater than he was capable of meeting. Theysokl the hoose, she bough! a house in Loodoo. and he went back to his rooms in All Souls. From then ul1til he retired, more than ten years later, they spent vel)' little time together, although theyspoke on the phone sc.'l:ra1timcs a day.

A round the mid-nineties, Pamt Stlrted n reading Kant. He hadn't read him ~riously before bc:cause he had always found him irritating-his appalling sen­tences (it was Kant, he fdt, who had made ~ally bad writing philosophically >te«pI:lblc), his gr.mdiloquencc, his infu­riating incons.i~tencics and glaring mis­takcs. He felt that thc crucial Kamian idea of autonomy, for instancr, was just a blatant cheat: Kant wanted there to be a universally valid moral law, and he wanted every person to have the moral auwoomy to determine the law for him­self, and he just coo.tldn't accepl that you couldn't have both those things at oncr:,

I a>kM • Kan,ian, -Oo.s this mean ,hat, ill don) si'-' tny.elf Kam's Imr<'''I11;\ '~ as a law. I aon n'lf subjta '0 ~?" "No,~ I w.s told. ")'O<l ha\-~ to gi,-~ )-ounclf a law,and 'hrn:', urn)' on< bw."Thi. ,,-ply was m.uklcning. like the propa_ gand. of rh~ so-<:olltd PfO('k·. Dnnocraci<> of

,he old $o.'ieI bloc, ill ,,1Ucb '"OIing ""as com' pulsory .nd ,here wos onl)" OII. ",,,ndid.:ttt:. And when I <aid "I\ut I ha,..n\ gi'= my""l! K.",·, Imperati"e as a I.w: I was told 'Yes )'00 ha,' • ."

Things that mattered enormously to Kant-moral autonomy. motive--didn't ;:cern that important 10 Panitl-]e thooght that individual sek'CS Ivcre less significant than other peopk thought they wen:. so he wasn't that interested in motive; he !hwj,o/lt that moral truths cxjst<x! indepen­dentlyofhuman will, so he: wasn't goingto place much v:alue on autonomy in Kant's ~nse. The driving force behind Parlit's mornl oonttm was suffering. He coukln't bear to;:ce someone suffer-c.ro thinking about suffering in the: abstract cwld make him cry. He bdielro that nO onc, !lOt even a monSter like Hitler, could deserve to suffer at all. (He reali7.ed that there \vcre practical reasons to lock such people up, but that was a different issue.)

Parlir's fu,;I!ove in moral philoso:ophy was someone completdy unlike Kant­I Ienl)' Sidgwick, the: British consequen­dillst, best kn",vn fQl" "Tbe Methods of Ethics," Sidgwick was ''Cl)'boring, I-Ie was so boriug that he even considered himself boring. He was boring becau~ he was vel)'. ''e'J' thorough. He \1'QU1d hedge each claim with so many potential rebunals, and oounte,-rebuttals, and cwnter-coun­ter-rebuttak, that a n:adc:r was apt either to throw the book doIvn in exasperation or

CONTRA (TOR ANTS

to become so muddled in the jootling of h)lJX'tbetical inreriocutors that he had 00

ide.l what he was Sllpposed ro think. Sidg­wick realized this, but he felt that it was more impol'1ant to be careful than ro be exciting. and that whate\'eI" l'alUI: his 1m possessed depended ()Jl that care. I-Ie was a modest man. Kant wwte of his ·Cri­tique" that it "rests 00 a fuI!y sc:rured foun­dation, established fOrever; it will pl"Q\'e to be: indispensable too for the noblest ends of mankind in all future ages"; SKlgwick wrote of his "Methods" that it · solves nothing, but may clear up the ideas of one or two peopk, a linle: Hut thcx.Jgh there I "",re other ph~rs !Tl()!"(: original and 1IlQrt: brilliant, Padit fdt that Sidglvick's "lI.lcthods, - in its precise, dull way, cap­rural mort: important truths about moral­ity than anyothcr OOok."...,rwrinen. It W:lS

not surprising to him that a plodder like Sidglvick should write a better 000k than a genius Ii].;." Plaro or Kant, sin<:e he be­li<:l<ed that philosophy was like;;cience­()\'er tinlC, it made progress.

Ashen:a;ldccpel andd:qu into Kant, he began to feel that the grancliloqu<!fl<:e and inconsistency that had irritated him in the past were the prodoct of an emotional nature so passionately extreme that it was simply incapable ofSidgl..;ck's careful self­criticism. For Kant, something was nel"er just good, it was n«mary; there was little "most" or "some- in Kant, only "all" or

l """ "'"

"!)()!lC." Pamt n:<:ognizcd that he, too, was an emotional extremist who found it difficult to oca:pt answers that fun between <:I'el}'thing and noIhing. Hut as he began to appreciate Kant---he canlC to bdie-.'C that Kant was the greatest moral philosopher sino: the ancient G=ks-1J<: began to be more and more troubled by the ways in ,..tlich Kant di\'erged fium Sidglvick, aoo by the way that modem Kantiansdis:lg=d with modem consequentialislS and roth disagreed with contractualists. Kantians thought that }OU should act acrording to

categorical moral principles that}OU believe OIJght ro be followed by everyone; you shook:! nollie, fOr instano:, elm if a mur­den:rasks you to tdl him where your Iiirnd is, so Ix: tan kill him. 1bc important thing is ro do}QUl" duty, whate\'Cf happens as a result. Hut ~ucmiafu;ts beliclw that res\11ts----wnsequcn<:es---I'Ien: <:I'Crything: what was important was no( motil'C or ad­hen:nce to rules but bringing aroUt as much good as possible. Contractualists be­Ii<:lw that the crucial thing was consent; the way to figure out what to do was to ilnagine the principles ro which nobody could reasonably object. TIc trick was to arra~ tk thooght experiment so theron­sem wasn't the kind of pseudo consent that had so irritated Pamt in Kant-it had to be tlx:consent of plausibly self-interested pe0-

ple, noI rational ghosts. There were bril1iant philosophers of

r.iliI ~

'Come 01/1 with YOllr hands IIf-YOlI're fIIrrollnded by 111m wilh megapholles. ·

good faith in all three camps, he kllt:w, so why \'Ien: their disagreements so imracta­ble? If philosophers just as dC\'eI" and well \'eI"SCd as he was disagreed with him, how couk:! he be sure he was right? What if he could prc>'-= that their diffi."reno:s were ooly ~n iIJus;oo of perspet:til"e--1hat at a <:ertain point all three approaches eonlerged, likc: climbers scaling diffi:n:nt sides of a moun­lain and meeting at the swnmi!? 1ben he would be able to feel much !TIOR." ronfident in his romiction that mornl truths existed and it was possible to disroltt tlx:m.

[n 2002, he gal·e the Tanner Lec­tures on I-hunan Valucs at V.C. Berke­ley, proposing an earlydrnft ofhis solu­tion. He began circulating a book manuscript titled "Climbing the Moun­tain.~ One of his movcs was to poim out the problem~ with so--calkd "act consc­quentialism~ as opposed to "OJIe conse­quenriali~m.~ Act consequemialisr.s were puri~tS: the)" beli"eVl!."d that each action should be considered on itS own meritS, with the one simple idea of increasing well-being. But not only did this pose the considerable practical problem that most people would Iikel)" be pretty bad at amicipating the consequences of their actions; it would also make social life Virtually in' possible. It might make sense to lie ro a murderer, but if there were no rules about lying it would be difficult ro trust an},om:--even the lie to

the murderer would be ineffective. Sim­ilarly, it might in one case seem right for a mother to sacrifice: her child so that ten stnlngers could li,.e, but a society in which mothers were always eager to sacrifice their children for strangers would be dreadfUl, so better to hal't a rule fa\'Qring maternal love and let the QCCasional smnl,,,,r perish.

Parlit'S main task, howel"Cr, was tQ prQI"C that Kantianism and rule conse­quentialism I""", not octually in conAicr. To do this, Ix: n=Ied ro perform SUJgel)'

Ofl Kant's FomlUla ofUnil-ersal Law, the fOrmula that Kant had claimed ro be the supreme principle of ,oorality: "I ought nC\"Cr to act exo:pt in such a way that I could also will that my maxim shotl!d be­oome a unh'ersaIllIw." /I.·bny Kantians had gh'en UpOfl this formula (Kant had many others), concluding that it simply didn't help to distinguish right fium wrong. Hut Padit "'ent to work on it, hacking off a piece here, suturing 00 a piea: there, until he had arrived at a version that seemed ro

him rocombinc the best clemellts ofKanl­ianism and contTactualism: ~J::\'CryQnc ooght 10 follow the p-incipk::s ,~ \m;­,'\.-.:sal accq){:lnox t\'CI)'Otle could mtionally will." ]-Ie argued that these principlCi would be the s~mc ones that wcre es­poused by rule conscqucntialism. n.c.1, at las!, he was in a position to prOJXl6C his top-of-thc-mountain fonnuIa, which he ClIJcd the Triple Theory:

Art acr is "TI)''!; iUS! whcnlDCh am.'" dis­allowed by oomr principle thaI i , oplimific, ,uliqucly uniwl'",Uy "iUahlt,arod IlOl "",,,,",,1>1)'

"-i<=bIe.

The thco!)'s principles were conscqucn­tialist because tIlLy wruld lead to the best results (optimific); Kantian because thLy were universally willable; and oontractual­is! because Il(Il'tnon could reasonably rc­jt--cr them.

Partit wanted his I:ook \Q be as close to pcrft'ct as it could ]>O>$iliIy be. lie wanted to ha, 'C aIIS\'<'I.'I'Cd every u",o;civab/c objox­rion. To this end, he sent his manuscript to ,xactically C\'CI)' phiJcoophcr he knew, asking for criticisms, and more than two hundred and fifty sent him comment!;. He 1a00red fOT years to fix every error. N; he com:<:tcd his mistakes and clarified his argu!l)(.11ts, the book grew longer. I-Ie had originally conceived ofil as a short book; it became a long book, and then a ''Cry long book supplemented by an C\'Cn lon­gcr book-fourn:en hundred pages in all. People began TO wonder ifhc would C\'Cr finish.

With his T nple Thc.:.y, Parfitlx:k\'oo thatoc had achiC\oo oom-crgcoo: Ix:twccn tluttoftoc main schools of moral thought, but t ... 'CIl thisdidrll sa~ him.1bcrcwere still major pruk:.lOJ~n!l outstanding "nom he admired but whose '~L"\'" disturbed him. Hc mar'!lh.alloo L"\'CI}' possible argu­ment, 1Jo,'"e\'t,r quixotic, TOf"O''C that what appeared to Ix: irreconcilablc differL"flccs w •. ,rc merelycrrors oflink signifi<:an",:.

When Hun.., eloi""" . ,Iu, such prrl<1'<l'lC<Sarr not <one",,}' to ""'oon, he .. forgcni"14 or mis· ,,~'i"14 his norma,i, ... IxIirf.. We shoIll,l di>tin· ~i>h bc.1Wttll Hml ... ' .. r~r"hi~w.nd his ",,/ ,'""",'.

ThollSh Nitl>.Kh~ mak .. SOmt normali,·. _Ioim< <I"" mo<I of us wwkl ><r<Jr\&I) . ...;.a, &Om< uf ,hest _Ioim' arr not ",boll)' .. nc, and othmi deptnd on ignorance or fal ... !>tl;of • • boo, ,he rek',.", non'norma,i,', I"", .. And Nicr,.sd>t uft"" di<:tgrttS "ith himsclf.

There "'Cre so many facts "'C did not )'Ct know, Pmllt felt, so many distorting influences of which we were not yet

aware, and it was always so ellS)' to make mistakes. HO\vevcr hopeless the situa­tion might appear, it seemed to him that, in the end, humans oon''Ctgt.xlto­ward mornl progress.

, X Then I'amt was )'OUng, one of the V V most dazzling figures on the

philosophical scene was Bernard Wil­liams. \Vi!!iams was thirteen }'Cars older than Pamt and already had a formida­ble rcpu~ ... tion. He was urbane, seduc­tive, and wi1l)-he was fumous for his eviscerating put-downs and scathing repartce. He acknowledged the origi­nality of Paml's work, but, SOCially, hc was dismi.si,·c . Williams W:IS :I club man, a t<:>llegc man, full of High Table bonhomie; Parlit would gobble his din­ner and, while other fellows met for brandics, dc=rt, and cigars, he WQuld hurry back to his room.

Williams lived a rich, worldly life. He had flown Spitfires in the Air Force. He had li,'Cd for }'Cars in a large house in London with his first wife, the poli­tician ShirlC)' Williams, thcir daughter, and another couple. He had an aff'llir with anot""""!' man's wife and left his wife for hcr; they married and had two sons. He sat on royal commissions and gO\~ enullent committees, issuing opinions on pornography, drug abuse, private schools, and gambling. {He had done, he liked to say, all the vices.} He wrote about opera.

Williams had startcdout in classics, and his thinkingwas fonned as much byGrcck tragedy as by philosophy-hc saw the wodd in tcrmsoffatc, shame, and luck. He thought l1lO6t moral philOSOJ*tywascmpl)' and boring. He disdainoo both Kantian­ism and t<:>nscqumtialism, and dL"\'Oroo much of his =cr to dL'Slroying them. Both R.'qUired}"" to think impersonally, impartially, QUt of 001)', considering othL'fS to Ix: as important "" }""!S<..'lf, but "'C can­not and should m>t bo:<:orne impartial, he argued, b<xal.lw doing so would mcan abandoning what gives human life mean­ing. VVithol,1t selfish pQl'ti.ti1)'-1o people you are deeply attached to, }OOr wife and your children, }OOr friends, to work that YOll [0\<: and that is particularly yours, to OCalll)', to place--",c are nothing. We are crcatutl.'S ofintimagt and kinship and loy­all)', not blind servants of the world

J fhe had a highest ,-aluc, it was authcn­licit)'. To him, the self was, in the end, aU

we h:we. But, in ftI()I;t cases, this wasn't much---most peopIe\vcn: stupid andcrucl Williams enjoyed his life, but he w"" a pes­sinUst of the blcakest sort. lie told a stu­dellt that the I""t stanza of Matthew N­noJd's poem "Dowr lkach" summed lip his viL"''' of things:

Ah, Io>'~, let "0 br In .. ToOl\<' .oochcr! for ,he ,,'Orid, ",hich -To lie bofo« ".Iike. land of dn'ams, So ,·.M,., SO bo,,,,i lui. SO ",w, I loth "",II)' IK';'hcr joy, nor 10>'0, 1\0<'

light, Nor","iludc, ...,.. PI''"''''','''''' help fo<

polO " .

Williams thought that mda-L"I'hics-­qucstioos about the cxiStL'OCC and nature of moral truths-was especially pointless. 1bt: idea of mora1 truth was adelusion, he thought-----IDc fanl3S)'of an "atgumc<1I that will stop them in their tracks when thL')' COfll(.' to mkt:)'011 a\\'ay." ~ywas an an, not a science, an LTiMprisc not of dis­CO\'C')' but of conflict. Williams did not propose a mora1 thooryofhis 0\Vt\.! Ie was skeptical that any ~uch theory could Ix: plausible, and anyway his brilliance was fundamentally dcstrucrr.'C.

Parfit admired \Villiat1lS more than al­most anyone he knew. "Once, Derek showed me a photograph of Bernard Wil­liams ",hen he was provost of King's Col­lege, C~mbridgc: Larry Temkin says. "Bemard w"" standing on the roof of King's College with 3 kind of haughty, British, mstOC'l'aOC look-)'OI1 know, mas­ter of all hc s",vcys, and all of Cambridge was shown below in the distance. And Dcn:k said, 15n't he ,vondcrfUI?' f'1! seen that onIyoncc Ix:fore\vith him, with a pic­ture of Rudolph Nurcycv. Nlll'C)t.'V was in the air, way abc..." the gro.md, and he had that look on his facc-in a ccnain \Yay it was similar to ~ one &'TT1afd had---hc knew, as he was fiwting, that he was sort of godlike. And Derek .aid, 'Look at that--isn't that just ama7.ing?'·

Because he admired \oVilJiams so much, iT greatly distressed him that their views were so far apart. \Nhat he found most di~turbing was \OVilliams's view of meta-ethies. VViUiams bcliC\w that thcre were no objc<:til'Cly tnlc an­S"'CfS to questions of right and wrong, or C\'cn to questions of prudence. To him, moralityw"" a human system that arose from human wants and remained dependent on them. This didn't mean that people felt any less fiercely about

moral qucstions-if someone felt that ewelty was vile, he could believe it wholeheart~x11y even ifhe didn't think that that vileness was an objccrive fact, lila: two plus two ~XJuals four. But, to Pamt, jflt wasn't tniC that cruelty was wrong, then the fccling that it was vile was just a psychological fact-flimsy, contingent, apt to be forgotten.

Formorality to matter, there had to be real reasons to care aboot it--objective facts abom what was good and worth achieving. But if, lila: Williams,)OU be­liC\'C(] that our only reasons /Dr acting" t.Te

our desires, then if a perron !hired bad or crazy things-to cause somcone great pain; to cause himself gfl."at pain-th= roukI be nodu:isive aq,'UJT1Cnt against pur­suing them.

Wini."", SOP' 'Mt, .... 'hor tMn .sking Sncn",,' qucstion"How <:JU&ht we to li,,,~" " " should .sk, -Wh .. do I basically " ·am?"Tha., I bel ...... , ,,~Id be. di<;t<Ctr. n..re .re bern-r and worst " .. )"Stol;\ ....

After y<:ars of agonizing ovcr his in" ability to convince \ViUiams of his posi" tion, Pamt decided that it only atparrd that \Vil1ianlS rejccred the idea of moral truths-that in fact he simply didn't have the concept. \ilJi11iams had often said that he didn't und<:rstand what it would mean to have the sort of reasons Pamt talked about. Parfit had always taken tllis to be a rh.::totical gambit, but now he thought that maybe Williams meant it litdally. After all, he was a very brilliant philosopher, and ifhc said he didn't undcJ'st:uld something, then one oughl to bcJi~"Ve him. This thought came as a relief: if aU those years he and Williams had not actually been dis­agn:cing but JUSt !alking past t-ach other, then there waS hope for convergence after all.

But there <:wid ,x:,'Ct" be any real ron­vctgl.'rK." ..... Williams died in 2003. Even }"C:lr$ bTL" Pamt would tell people OVI.."r and O\'CT again ho;M. he had Jo..'C(] him. He would break down in tears when he thoughtofhow he had flC\'Ct" been able to

get Williams 10 sec what he saw about {he tntth, and '\()\" he never wouk!.

Pamt moved out of All Souls last year. Since then, hc and Richards havc

been living together in a brick {errace house in Oxford that he bought some years ago in pn:paratlon for this moment. They are more or less camping-the

house is in need of considerable repair, and they are sharing it with two Latvian constRICtion wotkrs, who skcp in what will c\'I.~ltuaUy be the dining room. "The house was built for a smaller, daintier species (han I\vcnty-first-ccntury hu­mans-Pamt, who is quite tall, strides through its pocket rooms and up it<; tiny, I\vistingstaituSCS like Alice in Wonder­land. But the house dates from tlte right era-before 184O--and stands amo!1g others of it<; kind on a qui<."t, empty WIC

ncar the Ashmolean Museum.

D.P.: Oh goo.h, you',.., hk~ .hose gloomy Sand;na,·;a"".

J.R.R.: I am? D.P.: W<II, )~ saKI iT~ not wonh having

new cooscious beings, gi\<."f\ all !he suff<1-ing. n..glooorr)' Sandin,,,"ian! .hink lift,w."n a. ilS bcs\, .. ..,Iy just wonh Ij'·ing.

J.R.R.: No, no, i, i", ~ ma., it's JUS! tha •. if naming rl<i<u:d, I doo~..., whj' i. woold coon. as bern-r if thing> $Iarled ""i>ring. I can >IX ,he ,·al ..... ci min;:< once yo.""" got prop/c""i"ing.

0.1':: w.1l .• har~ the ~·afkcring \·iew. \ '00 ha\<."f\\ read Part four of -Reason< and "'="

N"ow that Pamt roo IOI~ lio.'CS in 01-lege, he and Richards cat dinn<,., together moo nights. Byo:plicit mutual ~t, !lx:y tleI'Ct" diSCl.lS."l his 11<.:1'1 book. She has not read it yet. TIll"}' do, however, talk about phiJoo:,phy.

D.P., SIlppo;c II" di"O'I-ercd '"""" t<chniq ..... whereby w, could Ie.1gthoo all of our IiI"(" so ma.w< Ii", happ;l)' fora fey,. hundred ) ...... rs, b.,. the <:<:>!{ .. wt' d all be .. cri Io:-so " ... ' d be the last g<."f'c""ioo. Now. your ,·;"w mij:h. be, Well, .he,..,~ no moral objc:crioo ro,ha •. It's not going ro be wO<$(." for the penpk who don't nist­d':r're flC\"C1"going to""",,,>o .... re. noone for whom it's going to bt "orst.

J.R.R.: l"m ius. no< ron.;n«d ,hat i. i, w<me. J Can ~ 'hat W1." hOl·c fcdings that it is, but J can~ .... any ooie<I;'''' waf in which ~onex;s,cnce is worse Ihan e"i""n«. Ma~k ;. is.

D.P., Yoo doo~ It"",n lhat if a child dico )"«lI18 who ""«tid",,, had a ''''1' good lii't,no!h­;ng bad has h.pf!<"I'I<.<l beat,.., .he,hild docs<1~ ""i",and not existing isn) a had State .... be in!

j.R.R., I think once )'QU"" start<'d, the ... · sons a,., the,., for the cxi"ing poopIe.

D.P.: \'('(,11, I agrtt ,hey'", ,lOt """",I)' ,he same, but the point in ",mmo,,_

J.R.R.: Yes, "'cll, tnc~ can have a point in common wi.hout it bei~g .he morally reb'ant point ;n Common. You can'. iust say 'hings resemble ca(:h orhcr in somc reSil«1s,

'herdore you draw tht .. mt infcrenc ... D.P.: So "",lid )"0111" "i<w be-J.R.R.: I h.,,·cn~ reallySO' n\lleh of a yi<w.

Last August, afu.T nc;u\y thirty years to­getkT, Itx:y married. llx:y ""n1 to the registJ)"offit:e, then brought a piol1c 10 tlte rivcr and WCIt! punting. Although they manied partly for tax reasons, Parlit found himself uncxpcctcdJy delighted by the dlange. Richard<;'s sister took photographs ofhim that day, squinting into the sun, wearing a rOO tic, beaming.

Meanwhile, Richards was helping him through the last throcsofhis book's production. He had invo],'C(] himsclfin <overy detail-the fom, (he size of the type, thedarkncssof the type, the color of the papo.', the printing of the jacket. He had finished the book he had toiled over with his whole mind for fifteen y.:ars,just as he was lnoving out of the college he

had lived in for ITIOTC than fortyy(."ars, and in the same wf!ek he had married, aft<-, nearly "eventyycars of living tllOTC or less a1otte. "The shock of these thn:c tramior­tnative events in such a short time was ""ore than he understood. One C\"CIling, Richards was helping him pack up his rooms, and C\'C!)thing was chaos around him; he was supposed to fly to America the next day, and he was trying to print oot proofs of his book so he could take dtem ,vith him on the plane. He had a wireless connection from his room to tlte oollcgc office where lite prinTL,. was, so he sct the thinggoing, and ran downstairs 10 check on it, but then something went wrong, so he ran up again, and down agdin, bcroming more and more frantic. And then suddenly he collapsed. He seemed to gi...c up.

I can) =1f"111ber what's MI'I"";ng.

Richards took him 10 the doctor. He had transiml global amnesia, a syndrome sometimeS pn.,cipitated by o.,.,.:rwhclrning mmt:a! = J Ie didn't ,,:memhcr gcrting married. He didn't rcmcrnoc, having writ­K"tl his book. 'The doctor asl=l him ifhe knew who Richards was,

Yos. She' •• he 10,.. of my lift.

He rcmvct"Cd his menlO!)' after a few hours, but srnaIkr afu:rshocks ha''Cooll1in­ucd. Many ti mes he has broken down in tears-whiJc giving a public lecture, in COlwcrsatiOll, in class. Once again he is in a transitiollal 'llOInClll, having finished a 000k, and submerged parts o(his life arc

surfucing. He is more conscious than ~'vcr of a shortrt<:ss: how IT\llCh moo: time does he have?

A foortct.l1-year-old girl wants a baby. If she has one, she win be unable to

gi'''! him a good start in Jifi:. If she has h<.T first babyat twcnty-mc instead, she will be ablc to b';\C him a IX:tt<.T start in life--but that would Ix: a diffi:n:nt baby. So whom is she harming by gi,ing birth at fOUrtCt.l1? No one. Not the bab)', as long as his lifi: is worth li'ing.

Suppose we who are living now dt.'Cidc to ignore gIoOOl wanning, with the n:sult that the lives of fUture p<:{)plc are much harder. It would seem that ''''' haw made thin!,", worse for those fUture p<:oplc. But, in faCI, as long as their lives an: worth liv­ingthis is not the case--bccausc if,,,,, had acted differently, the work! would ha,"C been different, and those particular p'.'{)­pic would fIC\"Cr ha,,, exist<.-d (in Ihe same way that if can; had not been im"Cllted most people ali,"C today wookl rM..'\"Cr have OC'Cl1 born). So, although we ha'"C made Ihe world worse in the fUn"e, we ha''C made life worse for no one, Paml aills this conundrum the Non-Id~."til)' Problem. !-Ie bcli~'\'CS that it mak<.'S no difference: '1'1." still haw just as much reason to avoid making lifi: '>'OTSC for propk in the future. But he worries-rightly, as it turns oot­that other people rna)' draw the oppooite conclusion: since global warmingwiU oot make particular future pt.'<:l\lle worse off, it may seem less bad.

Pamt has always been prL"OCcupioo ,vith how to think about our moral re­sponsibilities toward future people. It seems to him the most important prob­lem we ru...'C. Besides the issue of global warming, there is the issue of population. It would se.:m that if the l"aIth W' ."fC m.-m­ing ,vith many billions of people, making Cl"C!)'QIlC'S life worse, mat would be bad. But what iflhe total sum of human hap­piness would be higher with many bil­lions of people whose liws wcrc barcl)' worth ming-higher, that is, than with a sma!ler population of wc!l-off people? \Vouldn't the fU"t situation be, in some mom! sense, berter? Pamt calls this the Repugnant Condusion. l t seems absurd, hut, at kast (or a collS<.'qucntialist, its logic is difficult to countL'1",

Thc future makcs c\'cl)'thing more complic:ltcd, which is, apart fium itst."I1(l1"­!/lOllS importar=, why he likes to think

"We're looking for people to fire . •

•

about it. The firstllal)('T Padit wrote afkr he began to study philooophy was on the 'nt.1aphysics of time. Now this is the sub­jo.><:t to which he plans to rctum. There are so mallY things aoout time that he finds po.r,o;Ving.

When poop!.: <b<ri be timo's P' ""g<', the)" often sa)" that ".., art lnO\'i"8 into tn. f"'" .... , or that furu rt "',"', .. a ... go:.-tting dO<l<r, or ,ha, nowness, or ,he qual it)· of bei ng Now, is 1nO\1ng duwn tn. series of 0,'<111l; like a .potlight """'inS .Ioog • line of .hot"" !!i't.. 11m 'OO;e .bims, ,hough they ",n -.n dctpl)" ,rut, T1'I3kr no sen.«.

Why, Pattit wonders, an: ''''' SO biased toward the fUture? Was this tcndt:ncy pro­duced by narural sckc1ion? We an: Upst.1 when we an: tokl that in the fUture ''''' shall ha,'C to endure a day of gr~":lt pain, but man)' people do not can: at all if th<.,), arc told that th<.')' endured pain in tlx: past that has been fuq,>ottcn; and )l.1 the past pain is JUSt as rmL \Ve don't ha,.., the same bias with other f".'Oplc: if,,,,, learn that a 1000ro person suffi:rcd grcad), before he dirxl, ''''' areup;<.'! by this, evcn though it's 0'Il.'1". The past is just as real as the present. If som<.~ one w.: lo\l.'d is dead, that person isn't real """"" But that's jtl~t like the fact that poo­pic who are far away arcn't rcal hm.

I am now inclined 1(1 beli",'. ,hat ,im"~ ""<Sa/;<' i •• " illusion. Since 1 ,,1"O<1gI)" \\"a"t ti"",\ pas­sag<' 10 he an illusioo, 1 must be "",eful to amid being mi'lro.

Padit is ,cry struck by how linle time humans ha\'C cxist~-d on thc ~'arth 00111-

pa..oo with how long th~'Y maycxiS! in the

•

future. He rememhcrs as a ooy hearing Bertrand Russell on the radio, talking about memories of his grandfather, who was born in 1792, When Paml thinks about the future, he wonOCrs whether life for fUmrc people wilt be bettL1" or worse than it is now. He wants to be optimistic, but he cannot ignore the t<.Ttibk stt!ii.Ting that peoplc haw ~'!1dun:d in the past. Has it all been worth it? Has the sum oflluman happnc:ss outwcighrxl tho: swn of sulkring?

ram "'oakl)" i",linod to belie>.., lhal lhe p ... 1w bttt, in ilSdf worth it.l\u, tm. may he ";,,Itful 'hinkiz>g.

He sees that we ha,.., the abilitrto make the fUture much ben~1" than the past, or much worse, and he komw that he ,villnot Ii,.., to diSCOll.T which rums OUt to be the case. He komw that the way'''' act IulYard future go:ncralions will be panl)' deter­mined byour beliefS about what matters in life, and wh<.>!hcr ''''' bc!icw (hat all)1hing matt<.TS at aII. This is why he continues to II)' so dcsp<:ratciy to JlIO'''' that tben: is such a thing as moral tn.tth.

[ am now sO"'y·s"",!\. To b,;,'1; n\)' W1J'agr '0' hap~' "-,,,<Iusioo~ I w",,1d ha,'. '" rc«>I,.., the misunderstanding< and di.ag .... 'nenll; that r hn'" pnnly<lc:scriOOl. 1 """,Id nc.-cd lO~oo """)S of gtnil1g man)' prop/< to u,ldorstaoo wha, i, ""QIl1d he lor things to ",.u.~.nd ci g<tIing lOO;e people 10 belie-.., th.t =tain things really do rna" .... I rnflllOl hope to do ,ksc ,rung< my"" self. But ... I hOi>' ,hat, with ." and industfJ', oome other pwpl" w;ll be .hk to do Ih ... 'hings, ,he",by ""mplcti"ll this voyage .•