- Title Pages
- Dedication
- On What Matters
- Preface
- Summary
- 37 How Things Might Matter
- 38 Non-Realist Cognitivism
- 39 Normative and Natural Truths
- 40 Gibbard’s Offer to Non-Naturalists
- 41 Railton’s Defence of Soft Naturalism
- 42 Railton’s Resolution of Our Disagreements
- 43 Jackson’s Non-Empirical Normative Truths
- 44 Schroeder’s Conservative Reductive Thesis
- 45 Quasi-Realist Expressivism
- 46 Gibbard’s Resolution of Our Disagreements
- 47 Another Triple Theory
- 48 Expressivist Reasons
- 49 Subjectivist Reasons
- 50 Street’s Meta-Ethical Constructivism
- 51 Morality, Blame, and Internal Reasons
- 52 Nietzsche’s Mountain
- 53 What Matters and Universal Reasons
- 54 Conflicting Reasons
- 55 The Right and the Good
- 56 Deontological Principles
- 57 Act Consequentialism and Common Sense Morality
- 58 Towards a Unified Theory
- Notes
- References
- Bibliography
- Index
Conflicting Reasons
Conflicting Reasons
- Chapter:
- (p.335) 54 Conflicting Reasons
- Source:
- On What Matters
- Author(s):
Derek Parfit
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This chapter confronts ‘the profoundest problem in ethics’ — in which we always have most reason to do our duty, by doing whatever would be impartially best, and that we always have most reason to do whatever would be best for ourselves. These beliefs imply that, when one act would be impartially best but another act would be best for ourselves, we would have most reason to act in each of these different ways. That is a contradiction, which could not be true. These arguments can be revised so that they avoid this contradiction. But these beliefs would still imply that, whenever any impartial moral reason conflicts with any self-interested reason, neither reason would be stronger. Reason would give us no guidance, since there would be nothing that we had more reason to do.
Keywords: reason, conflicting reasons, ethics, self-interested reasons, moral reasons, impartial reasons
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
- Title Pages
- Dedication
- On What Matters
- Preface
- Summary
- 37 How Things Might Matter
- 38 Non-Realist Cognitivism
- 39 Normative and Natural Truths
- 40 Gibbard’s Offer to Non-Naturalists
- 41 Railton’s Defence of Soft Naturalism
- 42 Railton’s Resolution of Our Disagreements
- 43 Jackson’s Non-Empirical Normative Truths
- 44 Schroeder’s Conservative Reductive Thesis
- 45 Quasi-Realist Expressivism
- 46 Gibbard’s Resolution of Our Disagreements
- 47 Another Triple Theory
- 48 Expressivist Reasons
- 49 Subjectivist Reasons
- 50 Street’s Meta-Ethical Constructivism
- 51 Morality, Blame, and Internal Reasons
- 52 Nietzsche’s Mountain
- 53 What Matters and Universal Reasons
- 54 Conflicting Reasons
- 55 The Right and the Good
- 56 Deontological Principles
- 57 Act Consequentialism and Common Sense Morality
- 58 Towards a Unified Theory
- Notes
- References
- Bibliography
- Index
