Reasons and Persons

Challenging, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity, Derek Parfit claims that we have a false view about our own nature. It is often rational to act against our own best interests, he argues, and most of us have moral views that are self-defeating. We often act wrongly, although we know there will be no one with serious grounds for complaint, and when we consider future generations it is very hard to avoid conclusions that most of us will find very disturbing.

Very few works in the subject can compare with Parfit's in scope, fertility, imaginative resource, and cogency of reasoning.

Auteur

Derek Parfit is a research fellow at All Souls College.

Texte du rabat

Reasons and persons challenges, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity.