Parfit the Perfectionist

I summarize and criticize Derek Parfit's impressive attempt to reconcile the Kantian and the Consequentialist approaches to moral thinking, and argue that his ‘cognitive non-naturalism’ fails to do justice to the roots of moral sentiment in personal relations. I outline the destructive effect of ‘trolley problems’ on ethical reasoning, and mount a case for seeing moral reasoning as a consequence of ‘reactive’ attitudes, arising from the attempt to reach a rational consensus in the things that we praise and blame.