Weighing and Reasoning: Themes from the Philosophy of John Broome

270 Pages·2015·1.839 MB·English

by  Iwao Hirose and Andrew Reisner (Eds.)

Weighing and Reasoning

Weighing and
Reasoning
Themes from the Philosophy
of John Broome
EDITED BY
Iwao Hirose
and Andrew Reisner
1
3
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Preface
This volume is a collection of essays written by philosophers who have been
influencedbytheworkandthoughtofJohnBroome.Itispresentedontheoccasion
of Broome’s retirement from the White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the
UniversityofOxford.
Broome,borninMalaysiain1947,wasoriginallytrainedasaneconomist,reading
forhisfirstdegreeatTrinityHall,Cambridge,andthenforaPh.D.atMIT.Hehelda
lectureship in economics at Birkbeck College, London. At the invitation of David
Wiggins,andunderWiggins’sandAnthonySavile’ssupervision,Broomereadforan
M.A.inphilosophyatBedfordCollegeinLondonUniversity,whileinhisfirstyearas
a lecturer at Birkbeck. Subsequently, he became a reader in economics at the
UniversityofBristol,laterbeingpromotedtoProfessorofPhilosophyandEconom-
ics.Hemovedfrom Bristol totakeupthepostofProfessor ofMoralPhilosophy at
theUniversityofStAndrews.In2000,hemovedtotheUniversityofOxford,where
he was the White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy and a fellow of Corpus Christi
CollegeuntilSeptember2014.
Early in his career, Broome worked in mathematical economics, focusing on the
analysis of general equilibrium. He also published an economics textbook, The
Microeconomics of Capitalism, in 1983. Broome saw economics, especially welfare
economics,as afieldthatwasin many respectspart ofthe study of ethics. Accord-
ingly,hisresearchgraduallyshiftedfocustowardstheclearareasofoverlapbetween
economics and moral philosophy. In doing so, he both trod a well worn path and
blazed a trail. We sometimes forget that economics originally grew out of moral
philosophy.Weforgetthisinpartbecausetheinteractionbetweenthetwodisciplines
hasgraduallydiminishedovertime.Broomehelpedtorevivethetraditionalassoci-
ationofthetwofieldsbybringingtogethertheformalmethodofeconomicsandthe
methods and approaches of philosophical analysis. His diverse and extensive work
immediately made a significant impact on contemporary moral philosophy. This
impactiseloquentlyillustratedbyDerekParfitintheprefacetoReasonsandPersons
(ClarendonPress,1984:viii):
JohnBroomewasaVisitingFellowatmyCollegethroughouttheacademicyearattheendof
whichIwritethesewords.Bothinwrittencomments,andinverymanydiscussions,hesolved
very many of my problems, and suggested many great improvements....As the different
academic disciplines drift away from their neighbours, it is heartening to find that an
economistshouldbe,inhissparetime,sogoodaphilosopher.
Broome’searlyworksoncombiningeconomicsandmoralphilosophyarecollected
in the volume Ethics out of Economics (1999). However, his most important
vi PREFACE
contributiontophilosophicalethicscameearlierinthedecadewiththepublication
ofWeighingGoods(1991).Inthisseminalwork,Broomeconsidershowtheutilitar-
ian principle of distribution can be defended by arguments based on the formal
notionofseparability,familiarfromthegroundbreakingworkofJohnHarsanyi.This
bookhasbecomeamodernclassic,anditconstitutesoneoftheimportantachieve-
ments in philosophical ethics of the last 30 years. His second instalment in the
developmentoftheformalaxiologicalapproachtomoralphilosophywasWeighing
Lives (2004), in which he extends and reformulates the analytical framework of
WeighingGoodstoaddressthedifficultproblemsposedbyvariablepopulation-size
cases.
Thetimebetween the publication of Weighing Lives andEthics out of Economics
marked a second transition in the central focus of Broome’s work, this time away
from the theory of value and normative ethics and towards the subjects of norma-
tivity and rationality. His contributions to the study of normativity and rationality
havebeenmany.Inhisfirstpapersonthesesubjects,twocentralthemesemerge.The
firstistheimportanceofthinkingaboutoughtratherthanreasons,goingagainstthe
fashion of the time. The second was in paying attention to the scope of normative
operators.Althoughthedistinctionbetweendetachingandnon-detachingoperators
didnotoriginatewithBroome,itwashewhohelpedshowtheimportanceofscope
distinctionsforcontemporarynormativetheorising.
Intheperiodfrom2005to2014,Broomepublishedaseriesofinfluentialpaperson
the nature of rationality. He argued that rationality was not closely connected to
reasons,makinganimportantcaseagainstwhathadbeentheprevailingview.During
thistimehealsomadesignificantadvancesinourunderstandingofwhetherration-
ality is itself normative and in understanding the different bases for practical and
theoretical rationality. This period of his work culminated in Rationality through
Reasoning (2013), in which Broome brings together his thinking concerning the
nature of reasoning, correct reasoning, and the connection between rationality,
reasoning,andnormativity.
Overandabovehispurelytheoreticalwork,Broomehasbeenphilosophy’smost
importantcontributortotheworld’sresponsetotheproblemofglobalwarming.His
first contribution was Counting the Cost of Global Warming (1992). More recently,
BroomehaspublishedClimateMatters:EthicsinaWarmingWorld(2012).Init,he
arguesthat,whileresponsibilityforglobalwarmingmostlyfallstogovernmentsand
institutions, individuals also have an obligation to present and future people to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has also dedicated much of his time and
expertise in recent years to his role as a lead author on Working Group III of the
UnitedNation’sInternationalPanelonClimateChange.
Withsuchabroadlegacy,itisdifficulttodofulljusticetoBroome’scontributions
tophilosophyinasinglevolume.Nonetheless,wefeelthattheessayscollectedhere
providesomesenseofthebreadthanddepthofhisinfluenceonthedisciplineover
thelast30years.AsformerstudentsofBroome’s,wewouldberemissifwedidnot
PREFACE vii
takeamomenttonotespeciallythatinadditiontothegeneralinfluencehehashad
ontheprofession, hewas,andremains,animportant influenceonus,his students.
Atremendousteacherandsupervisor,weowemoretohimthanwecanrepay.Itis
ourverygreatpleasure,alongwithourcontributors,topresentthisvolumetoJohn
BroomeincelebrationofhistenureasWhite’sProfessorofMoralPhilosophyatthe
UniversityofOxford.
IH&AR
June2014
Montre´al

Notes on the Cover Drawings
YoungJohn(front):IsupposeyoucouldsaythatJohnandImetbecauseoftheViet
Namwar.WebothhappenedtobeinCambridge,Massachusetts,inOctober1969,
andjoinedthousands of others on a marchto Boston Common in order to protest
againstthewar.AgroupofstudentsfromtheUKhadorganizedapartytoroundoff
adayofpeaceandlove,andJohnandIwentalong.Evidentlyitworkedforus.The
drawingcameaboutasaresultofaninterminablylongdiscussionbetweenJohnand
a fellow MIT economics graduate student, Ron Smith, which sent me in search of
paperandapencil.Theonlypaperavailablewasatypeoflightweightpaperknownas
“onion skin”, which was used for carbon copies. It’s no small miracle that the
drawinghassurvivedtothisday.
OlderJohn(back):ThestorybehindOlderJohnisnothalfsoromantic.Itjustseemed
fittingthathavingmadeasketchofhimattheoutsetofhisacademiccareer,Ishould
mark his retirement from full-time academic pursuits with another drawing. What
Idiscoveredwasthatitismucheasiertodrawayoungpersonthananolderone.
AnnBroome
June2014
Oxford