Interesting question! Do you have the longer quotation which explains âsuchâ? I.e., how does he define these normative truths in the preceding paragraph/â page?
Thanks for the question! So, the quote comes from Parfitâs summary of the final part of On What Matters (part 6 - Normativity) - page 619 of volume II. Iâm just looking at it now, and it seems he is simply referring to âirreducibly normative truths.â His exact account of those irreducibly normative truths would be beyond my ability to summarise (and is, I suppose, the work of the entire section). But, more broadly, I think itâs accurate to say something like âParfit believed that if there were no irreducibly normative truths nothing would matter.â Iâm particularly interested in this question because Parfit appears to have played a key role in converting Singer to moral realism. Iâm curious if Singer now also holds this view about things mattering and, therefore, has different beliefs about whether anti-realism is compatible with things like EA.
If you want a more concrete example of what Parfit took to be an irreducibly normative truth, it might be that the fact that if I do X, someone will be in agony is a reason against doing X (not necessarily a conclusive reason, of course).
When Parfit said that if there are no such truths, nothing would matter, he meant that nothing would matter in an objective sense. It might matter to me, of course. But it wouldnât really matter. I agree with that, although I can also see that the fact that something matters to me, or to those I love and care about, does give me a reason not to do it. For more discussion, see the collection of essays I edited, Does Anything Really Matter (Oxford, 2017). The intention, when I conceived this volume, was for Parfit to reply to his critics in the same volume, but his reply grew so long that it had to be published separately, and it forms the bulk of On What Matters, Volume Three.
Interesting question! Do you have the longer quotation which explains âsuchâ? I.e., how does he define these normative truths in the preceding paragraph/â page?
Thanks for the question! So, the quote comes from Parfitâs summary of the final part of On What Matters (part 6 - Normativity) - page 619 of volume II. Iâm just looking at it now, and it seems he is simply referring to âirreducibly normative truths.â His exact account of those irreducibly normative truths would be beyond my ability to summarise (and is, I suppose, the work of the entire section). But, more broadly, I think itâs accurate to say something like âParfit believed that if there were no irreducibly normative truths nothing would matter.â Iâm particularly interested in this question because Parfit appears to have played a key role in converting Singer to moral realism. Iâm curious if Singer now also holds this view about things mattering and, therefore, has different beliefs about whether anti-realism is compatible with things like EA.
If you want a more concrete example of what Parfit took to be an irreducibly normative truth, it might be that the fact that if I do X, someone will be in agony is a reason against doing X (not necessarily a conclusive reason, of course).
When Parfit said that if there are no such truths, nothing would matter, he meant that nothing would matter in an objective sense. It might matter to me, of course. But it wouldnât really matter. I agree with that, although I can also see that the fact that something matters to me, or to those I love and care about, does give me a reason not to do it. For more discussion, see the collection of essays I edited, Does Anything Really Matter (Oxford, 2017). The intention, when I conceived this volume, was for Parfit to reply to his critics in the same volume, but his reply grew so long that it had to be published separately, and it forms the bulk of On What Matters, Volume Three.
Thanks Paul! Really helpful