Derek Parfit's book, ON WHAT MATTERS, published in two volumes in 2011, acquired a third volume from his posthumous writings, in 2017 (he died on the very first day of that year). The book was much anticipated, generating both discussion groups and an academic conference in advance of its 2011 publication. Parfit's thesis, in short, is that there are three distinct moral theories and that, if each is pursued rigorously, it ends up in concord with the other two. Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, and contractualism are all different paths on different slopes of the same mountain. They lead to the same behavior: that is, the paths come together at the summit. That's a bold claim. Decoded (in accord with pragmatism) it means that the differences turn out to be merely conceptual not practical. A right-thinking Kantian and a right-thinking proponent of either of the other views will do the same thing at the notorious trolley switch. Today I will merely say a few wor...
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Somewhere in his writing, I have forgotten where, William James makes a slighting reference to John Stuart Mill. It has stuck in my mind for years. James is discussing how books, plays, paintings etc. that we saw as a young person and see/experience again as an older person can offer a surprisingly novel experience, leaving us asking "how did I MISS this?". He is making broader points about the continuity (or not) of personal identity IIRC. This brings us to the shot at JSM. James says that one can come back as a mature man to Mill's writings and wonder what ever did I think was so "weighty" about them in the first place. There are several ideas of J.S. Mill's that James might at some point in his philosophic development have found enlightening. For example, Mill famously said that matter is the "permanent possibility of sensation." That comment incorporates what is valuable about George Berkeley's criticism of ideas of matter, whil...