ABSTRACT
The book begins in media res. Three alternatives are sketched. Two—Rational Egoism and Rational Impartialism—portray the views that lead to Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason (indissolubly linked to what Sidgwick has called “the profoundest problem” in ethics) and the third that is Sidgwick’s own view out of that dualism. Then Sidgwick’s solution and Parfit’s concerns with it are delineated. Parfit’s own solution is presented, and it is shown that it may be infected by a touch of subjectivism. While Parfit’s solution is indispensable toward understanding Sidgwick’s Dualism, it only highlights how impossibly hard to solve that problem (or the profoundest problem) really is. The importance of the relationship between reason and morality are highlighted; two important Parfitian questions are distinguished; and two conceptions of normativity and their role in Sidgwick’s Dualism are outlined. This makes it possible to show how the cardinal thesis of Parfit’s book—that a consequentialist conclusion can be derived from purely deontological and contractualist premises—is incipient even at the outset of On What Matters. Henceforth, I refer to this thesis as The Ultimate Derivation. This book is about that thesis.
