Customer Reviews

Reasons and Persons (Oxford Paperbacks)

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When I first read this book on a trip across Europe, I was blown away: I remember thinking again and again "How can something this blow-the-roof-off important be published so late in the game?" Parfit shows how some of our most common-sensical beliefs about self-interest, ethics, personal identity, and (perhaps most interestingly) our obligations to future generations are beset with surprising and thorny problems, or even flatly self-contradictory or incoherent. He's also the master of the subtle-but-important distinction. Probably several longish books could be spun out from all the original material in Reasons and Persons-- certainly many journal articles already have been! However: while Parfit's style is very clear, and he doesn't refer as extensively as some philosophers to the work of previous authors, I probably wouldn't want to tackle this bad boy without at least some training in philosophy.

This isn't an easy book either to read or to review, and I don't expect I'll be able to provide an adequate summary of it here. But it's one of those massively important books that there's just no way to get around. It's easily the most weighty and thorough work of utilitarian ethics since Henry Sidgwick's _The Methods of Ethics_, and it has something of Sidgwick's spirit of judicious reasonableness.

Derek Parfit exploded onto the scene with this book in 1984. His work is a goldmine of helpful reflections on, and criticisms of, our ordinary notions of moral behavior, rationality, and personality.

The work is divided into four major parts. In the first, he argues that many of our common-sense moral theories are "self-defeating" in the manner of a Prisoner's Dilemma (which, by the way, is the part that first interested me in the book). In the second, he considers the relations between rationality and time and worries about how we should take the past and the future into ethical account. In the third, he offers a theory of personal identity and its relations to morality. In the fourth, he considers the role that future generations ought to play in our moral deliberations.

Well, sure enough, that's _not_ an adequate summary. I haven't even begun to convey the sheer virtuousity with which Parfit raises objections, makes distinctions, brings out difficulties that are so un-obvious that nobody ever noticed them before, and generally develops his arguments with clarity and vigor. Heck, I haven't even adequately conveyed his views themselves.

So I guess you'll just have to do what I did: read the book. If you have any interest in ethics, you're going to have to read it _sometime_. So get a copy, put it on your bookshelf, take it down and browse through it once in a while.

I'm no utilitarian myself, but if you want to study utilitarian ethical theory, you'll want to read not only this book but also Sidgwick's aforementioned _The Methods of Ethics_. You probably already know to look for Bentham and Mill, and you've probably heard of Samuel Scheffler; you may also want to scare up a copy of Hastings Rashdall's _Theory of Good and Evil_. More recent not-well-known works of a broadly utilitarian bent include Brand Blanshard's _Reason and Goodness_ and Timothy Sprigge's _The Rational Foundations of Ethics_.

And on the "con" side, don't overlook F.H. Bradley's _Ethical Studies_, W.D. Ross's _The Right and the Good_ and _The Foundations of Ethics_, and the critiques of Bernard O. Williams.

As a graduate student of philosophy doing a thesis on personal identity, I'd say that this is one of the best books available on the topic for several reasons: 1)the scope of the material that is covered; 2) the prose is very smooth - this should be an accessible read for most people; 3) Parfit's analogies are very instructive in challenging our commonsense views of personal identity.

Anyone who has read and enjoyed books by John Searle and Daniel Dennett will probably appreciate Parfit's work.

Having read enough books about personal identity to choke a horse, I can assure you that this is one of the titles that stands above most others. Parfit's book is excellent because it covers a lot of ground, but it isn't bogged down with a lot of jargon.

He gives many great analogies that challenge the standard ways we think about a person's identity over time...and his conclusion will probably shock those who aren't used to abstract philosophical ideas.

Parfit's work contains the clearest and most cogent analysis of the philsophical problem of personal identity--i.e., the problem of what makes one the same person over time--I have ever seen. The stuff on ethics and our duties toward future generations is also excellent. Parfit's arguments will challenge, distrub, and perhaps even frighten, any thinking person. This book is a must read. I have nothing bad to say about it.--Greg Klebanoff

This book does a very good job of pointing out inconsistencies in common moral intuitions, and does a very mixed job of analyzing how to resolve them.
The largest section of the book deals with personal identity, using a bit of neuroscience plus scenarios such as a Star Trek transporter to show that nonreductionsist approaches produce conclusions which are strange enough to disturb most people. I suspect this analysis was fairly original when it was written, but I've seen most of the ideas elsewhere. His analysis is more compelling than most other versions, but it's not concise enough for many to read it.
The most valuable part of the book is the last section, weighing conflicts of interest between actual people and people who could potentially exist in the future. His description of the mere addition paradox convinced me that it's harder than I thought to specify plausible beliefs which don't lead to the Repugnant Conclusion (i.e. that some very large number of people with lives barely worth living can be a morally better result than some smaller number of very happy people). He ends by concluding he hasn't found a way resolve the conflicts between the principles he thinks morality ought to satisfy.
It appears that if he had applied the critical analysis that makes up most of the book to the principle of impersonal ethics, he would see signs that his dilemma results from trying to satisfy incompatible intuitions. Human desire for ethical rules that are more impersonal is widespread when the changes are close to Pareto improvements, but human intuition seems to be generally incompatible with impersonal ethical rules that are as far from Pareto improvements as the Repugnant Conclusion appears to be. Thus it appears Parfit could only resolve the dilemma by finding a source of morality that transcends human intuition and logical consistency (he wisely avoids looking for non-human sources of morality, but intuition doesn't seem quite the right way to find a human source) or by resolving the conflicting intuitions people seem to have about impersonal ethics.
The most disappointing part of the book is the argument that consequentialism is self-defeating. The critical part of his argument involves a scenario where a mother must choose between saving her child and saving two strangers. His conclusion depends on an assumption about the special relationship between parent and child which consequentialists have no obvious obligation to agree with. He isn't clear enough about what that assumption is for me to figure out why we disagree.
I find it especially annoying that the book's index only covers names, since it's a long book whose subjects aren't simple enough for me to fully remember.

There are few authors who can develop such an excellent argument with no apparent solution. Much of the analysis of Parfit has revolved around the later sections of this work, in which he exposes the logical consequence of a utilitarian approach to population control. Many of the logical/moral/ethical positions we adopt result in undesirable consequences, and yet, we untuitively find a point at which we as a species will not go beyond. But why do we do this? In the search for an elusive Theory X that rationalizes a pseudo-utilitarian ethic with logical realities, Parfit presents his readers with his thoughts on the requirements of a just policy towards future generations, obligations we may have to them, whether we can cause them harm, and what degree of responsibility we must undertake in their generation. The writing style is not the best, but the arguments presented can be understood quite well. It is worthy of being read by anyone who has interest in potential obligations to future generations, whether from environmental, philosophical, or ethical reasons.

Parfit writes with the utmost clarity about almost intractable subjects. The book consists of four quite different parts: self-defeating theories, rationality and time, personal identity, future generations.

The four parts are quite independent, but connected by an attack on the Self-interest theory (as defined on the first page).

Parfit reaches many conclusions, but also leaves many questions open. In some cases he says he hasn't found a solution yet (as in the "Theory X" that would "solve" the paradoxes about future generations), in other cases he says that both competing theories can be convincingly defended.

Many examples and counter examples are presented throughout the book, and the thought experiments are always cleverly constructed. Even when a "solution" is not reached, Parfit brings his attacks on the various theories with such a brilliance that makes the book a work of art.

It's not always easy to tell where the author stands on many issues, and I found myself re-reading several times some key parts in order to see the bigger picture to understand where he ways going.

The only negative remark is that in quite a few cases Parfit makes forward references to subsequent chapters "to save words" as he says, and I didn't find that to be very reader friendly. But I'm sure he had his good reasons, and that it was difficult to do otherwise without duplicating the arguments.

The questions are complex, and we are often invited to test our deepest moral intuitions and to follow intricate thought experiments, but I found the book to be extremely rewarding.

Make sure you read the appendixes.

A book so profound in its argumentation and implications that philosophy graduate students are still blown away ... an attempt to truly understand if not answer the most important questions of our existence.

Highly highly recommended.

Little to add beyond what has already been written by others. The writing is dense, as is common in the analytic tradition of Anglophone philosophy of the past century (almost). But this is an important book.

Interesting note: I bought my copy in 1987 for $13.95. The edition being sold now is EXACTLY the same. No change, no updates, no additions. Same size, same everything. But now the list price is $50 and Amazon's price is $27 -- what a sad commentary on book publishing.