Reasons and Persons.

PARFIT, Derek.

$12,500.00

Item Number: 123431

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

First edition of one of the most important philosophical texts of the second half the twentieth century. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “To Tony, with love from Derek 7 May ’84.” The recipient, Tony Honoré was a close friend of Parfit’s and the longest serving Professor of Law at Oxford where Pafit was a professor. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Books signed by Parfit are rare.

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. Derek Parfit is widely considered one of the most important and influential philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.