Product Description

This book challenges, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity. The author claims that we have a false view of our own nature; that it is often rational to act against our own best interests; that most of us have moral views that are directly self-defeating; and that, when we consider future generations the conclusions will often be disturbing. He concludes that non-religious moral philosophy is a young subject, with a promising but unpredictable future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70774 in Books
• Published on: 1986-01-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Customer Reviews

A life-changing work of moral philosophy
... I concentrated mainly on the 'persons' side of the book.
I first read it in 1992, while studying philosophy at university and finding the entire subject frustrating. So much philosophy in the anglo-german tradition is a game of semantics. Reasons and Persons is different - it is a well reasoned argument that can have life-changing consequences.
His discussion of personal identity - what makes a person the same person across a spatio-termporal path - was revelatory. By explaining that, frankly, we do not have a consistent identity over time the implications for ethics become explosive.
I don't want to make it sound like some drippy self-help book, it certainly isn't, but it had a profound and life-changing effect on me and my notions of justice, punishment and my own identity.

Brilliant seminal work of 20th century ethics
This is a brilliant seminal work of 20th century ethics. Parfit argues in a very clear style, attempting to decide between attitudes to decision-making, mainly consequentialism, 'common-sense morality', and self-interest theory (rational egoism). He is also concerned with questions of personal identity, i.e. what (if anything) makes a person the same person over time? This in turn feeds into questions of morality and rationality, developing an intriguing and provocative position. Parfit also reflects on the question of what we owe to future generations. This is an extremly important issue and Parfit handles it well, though it is perhaps not that closely related to questions from the earlier parts. But any complaints we might have can only be mere quibbles; it is impossible to deny that Parfit discusses issues of earth-shattering importance in a tremendously insightful and stimulating way. Parfit admits that there are many questions left open at the end, but this is unsurprising: it would be too much of a miracle to expect all the problems of ethics to be solved in one go, even by an intellectual giant of Parfit's calibre. However, it does leave open the issues for all those inspired by the book (and who wouldn't be?) to put forward their own theories.
In short, if you are interested in the question of how to make decisions and what morality says you should do - which is a pretty universal issue - this book is essential reading.

A crucial work in contemporary ethics
It surprises me that no-one has yet reviewed this. Reasons and Persons is not only tremendously influential in contemporary moral philosophy, it also deserves to be. It is astonishingly thorough, sensitive and original in its treatment of a range of issues: the constitution of moral reasons, their practical status, the structure of several key normative ethical theories, and so forth. I have not read the Persons half as closely as the Reasons half, but I well imagine that it would be as instructive to personal identity theorists as the other half is to those interested in normative ethics.