ANNAlS OF IDEAS
HOW TO BE GOOD
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An Oxfordphilosopher thinks he ron dutill all mart/lity into aformula. 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
c faa.? I bel.,..," mosf of u. h., .., f"l", beliefs
,II;"
aboo, our own '"'tIJ~, and OUr idor1!iry 0,,,,fim<. and when ".., set tho truth, "'" ought to c\I.1I~ !(1m( of 01" brlid. aoom wha, ""
,ha" ho"""""""" do.
' TOll are in a terrible accident. Your ~ body is fatally injured, as are the brains ofyour [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 halfyourbrnin 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 relation ship 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:
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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 n f classical utilitarianism, waS published. Pamt's firs! book, ~Reasons and Persons,~ waS published in 1984, when he ,vas forty-endently to a similar l.'OIlclusion--wd~ that was extTemely n:-
Pmfit btuftw mmlOrin ojhis past and almost nn.>« thinks arollt it, afl.t that he attriblltn to an inability toform mmtal imagn. Photograph by Stew Fyke. Dtrd~
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?
,,,,th
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", ex-
ptIit,~ ... b.,n
i, will
n
brtak
r
,,,riou, 01"""
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
I,.he depressing? SOil'" may find i, so. Bo.u I find i, lib,,,uil\:.nnd consoling.
on<: li,;n!; ....OO will be tnt. Nowtha, I h"" 0
(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.)
After Paml finisho:! ~R<.
Whrn I ""I~'«l II", my <,;st«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 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 tht rtSI of my ""0 lift.and mok~ about the I,,"
1;,.
"bo,,,
It seems to a friend ofParfi~s that his theory of pcrwnal identity is motivated by an extreme fcar of d~ath. But Pamt
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
"""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"lOOn'" 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
,ho"
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. 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
I
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 himselfo"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 ufthem 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 pr0posed that it is more common in peuple who think in abstracri
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 ", 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
child,..", hom< ,,"a~,,~ Ihr)· li,-ed. and not n'IOT
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 in ferior. 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 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$S. I \\"a~ not, l!:cli","c, badlr afft.:tt.d by 1llJ· falhrr'$ 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
Ii,,.,
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
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
I
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,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
"~'" a pointt'\ hook throogh W""eo";ng flesh., ..
You hold the Ii';!', 1hcn lashed it savagoly ,gainst tho dcd: And threw the bantu
...", ...
With , ick"e,s ill yOUT th,.... '
)"QU
",tn,
~,~
And tay h.,lf-sick tin port.
HCSpClll monthslaboringon hispo-
cuy, 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 Ec0nomics. 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 humiliatcts 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.
S
ometime 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 $Ome O... reI>i!l'<1\~. M"", of the buildi"g. rlw I k,,"~ ha,.. pillars,eirl>Ihtr huil,li,"f\S' "alll'la,-1 .1.0 10">.. ,11<."... , ..".,. in the F.....dl coun!rysi
rn.....
elust!Ilt!,...,; ate lik~ to,,-S of pilbts. IOottc eight mill;"', t"-""l in Fm:>ch "1."1"1<"$ in 1900, .qnd now a~ onl)· .hoot th ..... hundml !hoosand.) n ..... a~ 501". as!)"!.;, bulk!ing' tha, I :h '" sonlt sk)'lCl"a(><1'S. 1ht bn, builcl;nf\> in Vmice and S,. P<)fruc GI'hc-
m....
"""t, ....
..,,,.,,,ber
dr:d ... and """It AIII.ri"an >kj'$Cr;lPC,,"-
Although he admired some sk)'icrapcrs, he bc~C\ul that architecture hMgcncrally dcdinul since 1840, and the world had grown uglier. On the other hand, ancstoctics wen: discmutXI around the same time, so the world's suffering had been grcady nxlooxl. Was the trade-off worth it? He waS not SUtt:. He oc1i",u:l that he h~ little natiw taIcot for photography, but that by working hard at it he would be able to product:, in his lifetime, a fn" gwd pictures. Bct"'....:n 1975 and 1998, he spent about fu'C wccks l'llch)"-":lf in Venice and SI. Pet=burg.
r mal· be 501".,..1'1., unusual in the fuo 'h'"
I ,""...,. w:t !imJ<>r sa!,d II;th wh,,' I \o"'m<.>
I Ie di$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.
"Bry, they really let theiryardgo.•
• 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
•
the I1O(t day wanting to do it :
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
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.
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"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~uc cessfllUy, 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 haruhofthe W ooun<:il, and Jessie so antag
ometime 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 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 cooldJ.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
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 philosopher 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
11=
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 it~ no good h" 'ing tnoml inftll;g.,m roIxxs if tt..y'ft not conscious, so hr is ",..att that)'OciQUS. J.RK: l .. q>p
=
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.
,he old $o.'ieI bloc, ill ,,1Ucb '"OIing ""as com' pulsory .nd ,here wos onl)" OII. ",,,ndid.:ttt:. And when I
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 cxjstte«pI:lblc), his gr.mdiloquencc, his infu- suffer at all. (He reali7.ed that there \vcre riating incons.i~tencics and glaring mis- practical reasons to lock such people up, takcs. He felt that thc crucial Kamian but that was a different issue.) idea of autonomy, for instancr, was just a Parlir's fu,;I!ove in moral philoso:ophy blatant cheat: Kant wanted there to be a was someone completdy unlike Kantuniversally valid moral law, and he I Ienl)' Sidgwick, the: British consequenwanted every person to have the moral dillst, best kn",vn fQl" "Tbe Methods of auwoomy to determine the law for him- Ethics," Sidgwick was ''Cl)'boring, I-Ie was self, and he just coo.tldn't accepl that you so boriug that he even considered himself couldn't have both those things at oncr:, boring. He was boring becau~ he was vel)'. ''e'J' thorough. He \1'QU1d hedge each I a>kM • Kan,ian, -Oo.s this mean ,hat, ill don) si'-' tny.elf Kam's Imr<'''I11;\'~ as a law. I claim with so many potential rebunals, aon n'lf subjta '0 ~?" "No,~ I w.s told. ")'O of 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 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
1m
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 ofplausibly self-interested pe0ple, noI rational ghosts. There were bril1iant philosophers of
""" "'" r.iliI ~
'Come 01/1 withYOllr 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 sac rifice 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. at las!, he was in a position to prOJXl6C his top-of-thc-mountain fonnuIa, which he
n.c.1,
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'
not tin· ~i>h bc.1Wttll Hml... '. .r~r"hi~w.nd his ",,/
,'""",'.
ThollSh Nitl>.Kh~ mak.. SOmt normali,·. _Ioim< 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 see med 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
we h:we. But, in ftI()I;t cases, this wasn't much---most peopIe\vcn: stupid andcrucl Williams enjoyed his life, but he 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:
w""
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 question s 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."a t 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
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!. amt 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
P
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 $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 01lege, 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
w,
whereby 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
)'QU""
'herdore you draw tht .. mt infcrenc... D.P.: So "",lid )"0111" "i
Last August, afu.T nc;u\y thirty years to-
getkT, 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
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? foortct.l1-year-old girl wants a baby. If she has one, she win be unable to gi'''! him a good start in Jifi:. Ifshe 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 thi nk 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'Slife 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
A
"We're looking for people tofire. •
•
•
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!.:
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 ofsulkring?
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"~ ""
ram "'oakl)" i",linod to belie>.., lhal lhe p... 1w bttt, in ilSdf worth it.l\u, tm. may he ";,,Itful
f"'" . . ,
being mi'lro.
Padit is ,cry struck by how linle time humans ha\'C cxist~-d on thc ~'arth 00111pa..oo with how long th~'Y maycxiS! in the
'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~' "-,,,I,.., the misunderstanding< and di.ag .... 'nenll; that r hn'" pnnly' ,hat, with ." and industfJ', oome other pwpl" w;ll be .hk to do Ih ...
'hings, ,he",by ""mplcti"ll this voyage .•
