Reasons & Persons (1-11)

This summary post's content is, as you might be able to guess, of the book Reasons and Persons (Wikipedia, Amazon) by Derek Parfit. Oxford Scholarship Online tells us that the main subjects are consequentialism, ethics, future generations, morality, Parfit, personal identity, persons, philosophy of mind, rationality, reasons, self-interest, and time. Wikipedia says the main subjects are philosophy, ethics, rationality, and personal identity.

As this is a rather long book (560 pages - the author says in the introduction, "the book is long, and sometimes complicated. I have therefore divided my arguments into 154 parts."), I'll be posting the summaries separated into several parts. A few per chapter, perhaps. Here is the first half of the first chapter.

Chapter one
1. THE SELF-INTEREST THEORY

Parfit begins the book with a discussion of a theory of rationality he calls the Self-interest Theory, or S for short. S gives to each person this aim: the outcomes that would be best for himself, and that would make his life go, for him, as well as possible. Under this overarching theory, there are three alternative categories of subtheories:

The Hedonistic Theory: What is best for a person is what would give him the most happiness.
The Desire-Fulfillment Theory: what is best for a person is what would best fulfill his desires throughout his life.
The Objective List Theory: there are things which are objectively good or bad for us, regardless of how much they affect happiness or fulfillment of desires.

Each of these main theories has different versions to choose from: for instance, for the Hedonistic Theory, different claims of what happiness involves and how it should be measured; for the Objective List theory, different things which are claimed to be objectively good or bad. These three categories overlap, and Parfit says that in order to save space, he will sometimes only discuss the Hedonistic Theory.

Returning to the core of the Self-Interest Theory, it has a central claim:

(S1) For each person, there is one supremly rational ultimate aim: that his life go, for him, as well as possible.

2. HOW S CAN BE INDIRECTLY SELF-DEFEATING

Parfit defines a theory indirectly individually self-defeating if it is true that, if someones tries to achieve the aims given by the theory, these aims will be, on the whole, worse achieved.

For instance, S gives the aim that my life go, for me, as well as possible. Maybe, in trying to achieve this aim, I act selfishly and therefore people will end up shunning me, making me life worse. Parfit notes that cases such as these are not worth discussing:

"If this is the way in which S is self-defeating, this is no objection to S. S is self-defeating here only because of my incompetence in attempting to follow S. This is a fault, not in S, but in me. We might object to some theory that it is too difficult to follow. But this is not true of S." However, S may be indirectly individually self-defeating if the things I do are worse for me because I'm purely self-interested. If I actively attempt to be happy, it's harder for me to be happy than it otherwise would be.

Assuming that I always act in a way that's the best for me, what if I have to choose between two options, which are both bad? If I want my life to go as well as possible, then I should choose the option that's less bad. If I never do what I believe will be worse for me, then it would be clearer to call me not self-interested, but never self-denying.

Now S can be indirectly self-defeating if somebody is never self-denying, and this is worse for him than if he had some other disposition. Consider an imaginary writer, Kate. Her strongest desire is that her books be as good as possible. Because her desire is so strong, she finds her work rewarding - if the desire was weaker, she'd find her work boring. Also, because her desire is so strong, she often works so hard that she collapses with exhaustion and is very depressed for a period. Say Kate believes that, if she worked less hard, her books would be slightly worse, but she'd be less depressed. On the other hand, if she had a weaker desire for her books to be as good as possible, she'd find her work boring, which would be worse for her. On the Hedonistic Theory, it would be worse for Kate if she was never self-denying. (It may seem, like it seemed to me, that this doesn't really follow - while being a hard worker might make Kate depressed, it also makes her job less boring, so the net benefit of working hard is positive. So even if Kate's never self-denying, that doesn't necessarily mean that being never self-denying would tell her not to work hard. This is discussed a bit later, at (6).)

Parfit provides us with another case where it's bad to be never self-denying: your car breaks down and you're stranded on a desert. A stranger sees you and stops, and you promise him a reward if he takes you home. Suppose you are transparent, unable to lie convincingly. If he drove you home, you would, once at home, have no reason to give him the reward - he has already helped you. You are never self-denying, so you will never reward him. You are also transparent, so he sees this, and drives away. It would have been better if you weren't never self-denying.

There are also other ways in which it might be bad for certain individuals to be never self-denying. If S tells these people to never be self-denying, it is indirectly individually self-defeating. Does this make S fail on its own terms? That depends on whether S tells these people to be never self-denying.

3. DOES S TELL US TO BE NEVER SELF-DENYING?

While it may have seemed obvious that S would tell people to be never self-denying, S only claims that the ultimate aim for all people is for their lives to go as well as possible. When applied to acts, S claims

(S2) What each of us has most reason to do is whatever would be best for himself
(S3) It is irrational for anyone to do what he believes will be worse for himself

and in risky situations

(S4) What it would be rational for anyone to do is what will bring him the greatest expected benefit

Since people act according to their motives, S claims that people should cause themselves to have the best possible sets of motives, in self-interested terms. While, according to S, it might be supremly rational for somebody to never be self-denying, that doesn't mean that S would tell anyone to be that. Being rational is a mere means, not an end in itself. Therefore S does not tell anyone to be never self-denying, since that might be worse for them.

4. WHY S DOES NOT FAIL IN ITS OWN TERMS

Because it does not tell people to be never self-denying. However, people may both believe in S, and believe that they should act rationally, in which case they can't help being never self-denying due to S, and this is a bad effect caused by S. This objection will be discussed in section (18).

5. COULD IT BE RATIONAL TO CAUSE ONESELF TO ACT IRRATIONALLY?

S sometimes tells people to act in a way that is worse for themselves. At the same time, S claims that acting in this way is irrational. Is this a damaging implication?

The following example is given:

Schelling's Answer to Armed Robbery. A man breaks into my house. He hears me calling the police. But, since the nearest town is far away, the police cannot arrive in less than fifteen minutes. The man orders me to open the safe in which I hoard my gold. He threatens that, unless he gets the gold in the next five minutes, he starts shooting my children, one by one.

If the robber is given the gold, he may shoot everyone anyway, to eliminate any witnesses. But refusing is not an option, either.

Fortunately, I remember reading Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict. I also have a special drug, conveniently at hand. This drug causes one to be, for a brief period, very irrational. I reach for the bottle and drink a mouthful before the man can stop me. Within a few seconds, it becomes apparent that I am crazy. Reeling about the room, I say to the man: 'Go ahead. I love my children. So please kill them.' The man tries to get the gold by torturing me. I cry out: 'This is agony. So please go on.'

Given the state I am in, the man is now powerless. He can do nothing that will induce me to open the safe. Threats and torture cannot force concessions from someone who is so irrational. The man can only flee, hoping to escape the police. And, since I am in this state, the man is less likely to believe that I would record the number on his car. He therefore has less reason to kill me.

This shows that it is sometimes rational to cause oneself to act irrationally.

6. HOW S IMPLIES THAT WE CANNOT AVOID ACTING IRRATIONALLY

S implies it because of the previous section. The example of Kate is brought up again, and it is said that Kate is acting irrationally. As I mentioned before, one could naturally object that Kate's activity is not irrational, since she is acting on motives that will, on the whole, maker her better off. But in (5), we saw somebody acting on motives that, on the whole, made him better off, and we saw that those motives led him to act in a way that was obviously irrational. Therefore it cannot be that acts are made rational simply by virtue of them being good on the whole. While Kate may not be irrational herself, individual acts of hers may be irrational. This is rational irrationality (and it is not an objection to S).

7. AN ARGUMENT FOR REJECTING S WHEN IT CONFLICTS WITH MORALITY

There are mutual agreements made which, if kept by everyone, benefit everyone, though they require everyone to also give up something. It would be rational to sometimes keep these agreements, and sometimes break them in secret, so that one would gain the benefits from defecting. If somebody is known to be never self-denying, it will be harmful for him, because nobody will trust him to keep his promises. He will therefore never be let into agreements.

It is possible for one to deceive others about his trustworthiness. However, most people are at least to a degree transparent. Since it may be useful to see the consequences of a theory which assumes that we are completely transparent, it is assumed that we are. In this case, it might be good if we could change our dispositions, to accept S except when it comes to keeping promises, and always keep what we promise. Then people would cooperate with us and we would reap the rewards. This argument could then be extended into other things that are considered morally good.

8. WHY THIS ARGUMENT FAILS

According to this argument, S tells us to have a belief, always keep your promises. Call this B. If B is true, then it contradicts S, and S is false. If S is false, then it cannot lend support to B being true in the first place. S proving B would require S to be false, and if it is false, it can't prove B.

It can be objected that, "If S is true, it cannot directly support B. But we may be right to assume that, if S tells us to believe B, this fact supports B." Parfit discusses a case which is claimed to disprove this objection.

We'll define a threat as a promise to, if certain circumstances are met, to do something which hurts both the person being threatened and the one threatening. A threat-fulfiller is someone who always fulfills his threats. If somebody is both a threat-fulfiller and never self-denying, he will make threats if he believes that will make the other person to act in the way he wants. He will not, however, make a threat if he doesn't believe the other person will comply, since then he would have to fulfill the threat, and that would worse for him. Once he has made a threat, however, he will always fulfill it if the other person does not comply. In this case, it is better for other people to comply to the threats, since doing otherwise would be worse for them.

The natural way to avoid is to become a threat-ignorer. A threat-ignorer always ignores any threats. A transparent threat-ignorer will never be threatened, since the threat-fulfiller knows that making the threat would force him to fulfill it, which would worse for him. It can then be claimed that S tells us to believe it is always irrational to do what is worse for us, except when keeping promises or ignoring threats.

However, assume that a threat-fulfiller regularly threatens the mutual destruction of the both of you. You react by becoming a threat-ignorer. But one day, both of you are unlucky, and the threat-fulfiller forgets that you've become a threat-ignorer. He tells you to do something trivial, threatening your mutual destruction. Since you've become a threat-ignorer, you ignore this threat. Since he is a threat-fulfiller, this leads to you both being destroyed. While it may have been rational for you to make yourself believe that you would never react to any threats, it wasn't rational for you to actually act according to your beliefs, since that led to your destruction. Therefore, we must reject

(G2) If it is rational for someone to make himself believe that it is rational to act in a certain way, it is rational for him to act in that way.

Directly quoting the book: "Return now to B, the belief that it is rational for someone to keep his promises even when he knows that this will be worse for him. On the assumptions made above, S implies that it is rational for us to make ourselves believe B. Some people claim that this supports B, showing that it is rational to make such promises. This claim seems to assume (G2). But we have seen that we should reject (G2)."

9. HOW S MIGHT BE SELF-EFFACING

Regardless of whether or not S telling us to believe in some contradictory theory supports the other theory - is it an objection to S if S tells us to believe in some other theory? It is not, for the aim of S is not to make us have correct beliefs. In a fully transparent world, S might tell us to believe in some other theory, and therefore remove itself from the scene. This would make S self-effacing, but it would still not make S self-defeating, if believing in the other theory would really make us better off.

10. HOW CONSEQUENTIALISM IS INDIRECTLY SELF-DEFEATING

We now introduce a new family of theories, Consequentialism, or C. Its central claim is

(C1) There is one ultimate moral aim: that outcomes be as good as possible.

Applied to acts, C claims that

(C2) What each of us ought to do is what would make the best outcome
(C3) If someone does what he believes will make the outcome worse, he is acting wrongly
(C4) In situations of risk, what we ought subjectively to do is what would produce the greatest expected goodness.

There are many different versions of C: for instance, different versions may disagree over what makes the best outcome. However, C is always agent-neutral: one may believe that he should never coerce other people, even if this reduced the total amount of coercion. Since this is not an agent-neutral theory, it is not a Consequentialist theory.

A theory is indirectly collectively self-defeating, when it's true that, if several people try to achieve the aims given by the theory, the aims are, on the whole, worse achieved. There are many ways in which C may be indirectly collectively self-defeating. For instance, assume that everybody become do-gooders. Most theories of C consider happiness an imporant value. Pursuing strong desires often causes great happiness. If everybody were do-gooders, they would concentrate on helping other people, not necessarily to pursuing their own strong desires. Therefore there would be considerably less happiness in the world.

11. WHY C DOES NOT FAIL ON ITS OWN TERMS

Since all of us being pure do-gooders would make the world worse off, C does not tell us all to be pure do-gooders, so it does not fail on its own terms. However, people may believe in C, and therefore gain a disposition to act as pure do-gooders which they cannot help but having, therefore defeating C. This objection will be discussed in section (18).

This work is copyright Kaj Sotala and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.