Key Arguments

• He defines the key notion: 'Call T indirectly collectively self-defeating when it is true that, if several people try to achieve their T-given aims, these aims will be worse achieved.'
• He immediately applies it: 'On all or most of its different versions, this may be true of C. C implies that we should always try do whatever would make the outcome as good as possible. If we are disposed to act in this way, we are pure do-gooders.'
• He raises the problematic hypothesis: 'If we were all pure do-gooders, this might make the outcome worse. This might be true even if we always did what, of the acts that were possible for us, would make the outcome best.'
• He notes that the bad effects 'might come, not from our acts, but from our disposition', i.e. from being disposed as pure do‑gooders rather than having other motives.
• He emphasizes that the relevant comparison is not with actual human behavior but with other causally possible dispositions: 'It might not make the outcome worse than it actually is, given what people are actually like. But it would make the outcome worse than it would be if we were not pure do-gooders, but had certain other causally possible desires and dispositions.'

Source Quotes

I shall now describe a different way in which some theory T might be self-defeating. Call T indirectly collectively self-defeating when it is true that, if several people try to achieve their T-given aims, these aims will be worse achieved. On all or most of its different versions, this may be true of C.

Call T indirectly collectively self-defeating when it is true that, if several people try to achieve their T-given aims, these aims will be worse achieved. On all or most of its different versions, this may be true of C. C implies that we should always try do whatever would make the outcome as good as possible.

On all or most of its different versions, this may be true of C. C implies that we should always try do whatever would make the outcome as good as possible. If we are disposed to act in this way, we are pure do-gooders. If we were all pure do-gooders, this might make the outcome worse.

If we are disposed to act in this way, we are pure do-gooders. If we were all pure do-gooders, this might make the outcome worse. This might be true even if we always did what, of the acts that were possible for us, would make the outcome best.

This might be true even if we always did what, of the acts that were possible for us, would make the outcome best. The bad effects might come, not from our acts, but from our disposition. There are many ways in which, if we were all pure do-gooders, this might have bad effects.

Key Concepts

• Call T indirectly collectively self-defeating when it is true that, if several people try to achieve their T-given aims, these aims will be worse achieved.
• On all or most of its different versions, this may be true of C.
• C implies that we should always try do whatever would make the outcome as good as possible. If we are disposed to act in this way, we are pure do-gooders.
• If we were all pure do-gooders, this might make the outcome worse.
• The bad effects might come, not from our acts, but from our disposition.

Context

Transition point in section 10 where Parfit moves from defining Consequentialism to explaining in what sense it can be self-defeating at the collective level, paralleling his earlier discussion of indirectly self-defeating self‑interest theory.