Does anything matter?

Do you sometimes wonder if anything matters? I do. That I guess is what makes me read, write, and like philosophy. I wouldn’t do philosophy if I did not believe that certain things really do matter and try to find them.  I believe it is important to get others to believe they matter too.

Thanks to the New Yorker, I came across a new philosopher--new to me, that is—Derek Parfit. He has, according to the article by Larissa MacFarquer, dealt with two major issues which have also been of concern to me throughout my life: the self in Reasons and Persons and moral truth in On What Matters. I began my dialogue with him through the many quotes and the analyses of the article. Therefore, what I write here is not a fair treatment of Parfit whose books I have not yet read.

The self that I experience and which is denoted by the name my parents gave me is not a separate, distinct, unchanging entity. It is a node of changing relationships that wavers and fluctuates between self-consciousness and objective experience. There is no conscious monad or substance enduring in the flow of subjective and objective experiences. “A self, it seems, is not all or nothing but the sort of thing that there can be more or less of.”

I am not who I was or will be. The self has memories of the past and projections of the future. But we have learned through neuro-science that none of those memories and projections are totally or even moderately accurate. Our bodily cells are being replaced daily. Our genes and memes are continually changing. There is a constant, though not perpetual, structure in our DNA. And we can discern a constant structure of the human way of being in the world. But that too evolves. In consciousness, we can detect a continuity between our past and future, but it is detected only in the present. It is ridiculous to try to extend the self before birth or after death as though it were a permanent entity.  It is also ridiculous to try to extend the self forever whether through religious belief or scientific technology—because at every moment the self is dying and becoming.

For some this perception of the self is depressing. For others, like Parfit (and me), it is liberating. It is consistent with a postmodern view that all things are constituted and defined by relationships. But in accepting the total relationality of process in the universe and in our selves within it, the big question is whether anything matters. Another way to put that question is whether there a moral truth?

As Parfit, reflecting on Ivan Karamazov’s insight, says “if there is no moral truth, then all things are permitted.” And we refuse to live in such a world or universe. Our search for understanding of our universe and of ourselves seems to cry for an unchanging truth, a fixed standard to live by.

Was it Oscar Wilde who said that character is an intersection of addictions? Better, I submit, the “true self,” character, or soul is an intersection of habits—good ones called virtues and bad ones called vices. And yet, what makes empathy and solidarity good? What makes narcissism and cruelty bad?

Parfit, like almost all philosophers, wants to develop a moral philosophy to guide our behaviors and actions. But more so to make human existence itself matter. The three moral philosophies he considers are deontology (also meta-ethics) represented by Kant, consequentialism (or utilitarianism) as put forward by Sedgewick, and consensualism (also social contractualism) whose main proponent I, not Parfit, considers Rawls. Parfit’s main effort is to put all of these together into one formula which expresses objective moral truth realizable by all humans. I think he succeeds as long as we distinguish the expression of that truth from the truth expressed.

Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason finds the universal law or principle of human behavior and action in the universal capacity of humans to think. Sedgewick asserts that the basis of morality is assessment of the consequences of behavior and action. And Rawls suggests an implicit social contract among all persons. While students in each school have criticized and opposed each other, Parfit shows how each of these three doctrines imply and even require the others. Indeed, the position as to the good or evil of consequences (Sedgewick) is based on some judgment or intuition of the proper way to behave and act which can be expressed in a law or principle (Kant) to which humans together can agree upon (Rawls).

A progression in these three doctrines might be identified with the contractual or consensual being the final check on a truth based in nature (deontological) and judged by its fruits (consequentialism)—somewhat like peer review in science. It is expressed in the adage attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.” While that cannot be easily proven, it represents a faith in democratic republicanism.

There is a fourth doctrine represented by Parfit’s friend Bernard Williams who disdained any system of ethics and considered useless the attempt to discover some objective moral truth. This was Parfit’s encounter with postmodernism which he tried to include in moral reasoning, but could not. Or, maybe, would not. “Williams says that, rather than asking Socrates’ question ‘How ought we to live?’ we should ask, ‘What do I basically want?’ That, I believe, would be a disaster. There are better and worse ways to live.”

But there are two (at least) postmodernisms, one bleak and another hopeful. Yes, if there are no absolutes and everything is relative, meaning is ephemeral and there are no truths. There are even “alternate facts.” Lies are actualities. Every desire is permitted. For something to be right and true, I just have to want it that way.

But suppose that I, like Parfit, want what I do and think to be meaningful. Suppose I want objective, universal, moral, truths to govern human life and action. Without slipping back into a discredited modernism or a nostalgic premodern world, I can discover and even construct truth in relationships. Unlike bleak postmodernism, all things are not relative.  But all things, including me and my neighbors are relational.  And I can take responsibility for understanding, saying, and even building the relationships that constitute reality, truth, and meaning.

The second postmodern ethic values critical thinking, scientific method, and the relationships among all beings that make up our world and our universe. I submit that this hopeful postmodernism (which I prefer to label “transmodern” to distinguish it from a settled, finished position) is a fourth ethical theory that not only takes in the insights of deontology, utilitarianism, and consensualism, but also the critiques of modernity.

My main interests are politics: concerted action in public for social justice. Many philosophers, like Parfit, consider ethics as moral theory including the study of morality and the pursuit of moral truth. And they consider politics as the extension of ethics from the personal or individual to the social or communal. Aristotle wrote the Politics after he wrote the Nicomedian Ethics. Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason before he wrote the Critique of Practical Reason.

But I prefer to see the primacy of politics over ethics in time as well as in significance. That is something I will argue elsewhere to demonstrate its importance to humanity. I note it here mainly to identify what I see as a deficit in Parfit and many of the moral thinkers he engaged.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for the introduction to such a great teacher in dialogue with others. I hope that many will follow his lead with the faith that we can do better and will construct a better future.