Question Hi, First let me say that I truly appreciate the time you all put in to answering questions from the public. Hopefully I can add one more decent inquiry. I've been reading Parfit's fascinating "Reasons and Persons" and there's something that's been nagging at me. Since I'm reading it for pleasure and I'm not a formal student of Philosophy, I don't have access to professors for assistance. I was hoping one (or some) of you might be willing to help me out. In general I find the book brilliant and, needless to say, illuminating. I think my life will be changed by it. However, I'm struck by several sentences in which Parfit seems to let his personal judgements guide the direction of his work after he says many times in the book that we might need to shelve certain personal judgements in light of the strength of the arguments. For example, at the end of section 105 (page 318 in my copy), where he is discussing a particular "discount rate" applied to our actions' effects on our future selves, he writes: "But the important point is that, even if this rate is not too steep, all such acts need to be criticized." He is referring in particular to smoking and other "imprudent" acts. While I agree that smoking is harmful, he clearly acknowledges that the discount rate in question might not be too steep and then lets his dislike for smoking tell him that it NEEDS to be criticized (instead of simply saying that he'd like to find a way to reasonably criticize it if possible). There are several other examples of this in the book and I'm struck each time by how out of place they sound compared to the tone of the rest of the text in which he relentlessly attacks (succesfully) many of our intuitions. (This isn't to say that I'm not glad he can find ways to criticize behaviors or other social situations that most of us would consider unfortunate.) I guess I'm just wondering what you think about this... Thank you so much in advance for any comments. This is such a great site!

Accepted:

March 31, 2012