Seize the Moment Podcast David Edmonds - The Moral Maze: Exploring Derek Parfit's Vision of Ethics | STM Podcast #177
Jul 2, 2023
David Edmonds, a writer and philosopher known for his engaging works on ethics, discusses Derek Parfit’s quest for objective morality. He explores Parfit’s unique analogies between moral truth and mathematics, alongside insights into the evolutionary roots of moral arguments. The conversation delves into personal identity, examining how psychological continuity, rather than strict identity, shapes us. Edmonds also reflects on his personal relationship with Parfit and the importance of public philosophy in making complex ideas accessible.
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Parfit's Personal Consequentialism
- Parfit was an instinctive consequentialist who prioritized distant suffering over close social obligations.
- He often skipped friends' events to finish his work, once declining a dying girlfriend's supper to keep writing.
Three Criteria For What Matters
- Parfit proposed three ways to judge a life: happiness/pain, preference-satisfaction, and an objective-list of goods.
- He favored an objective-list view where flourishing includes but is not reduced to subjective experience.
Objective Reasons Versus Desires
- Bernard Williams argued reasons must connect to desires, challenging Parfit's claim that objective reasons can hold even if someone doesn't want them.
- Parfit maintained people can have reasons independent of their subjective desires.
