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Parfit was extremely dedicated to moral philosophy and meta-ethics. Not only was he intensely focused on his work, he was also aiming for perfection in writing his books, in a way that I think is very unique. I was particularly struck by one reply he gave to one of his collaborators complaining about failing to meet deadlines, by saying something along the lines of: Don’t you want the book to be as good as possible? I find it very interesting that Parfit was prioritizing writing books that would stand the test of time with a lot of rigor: approaching perfection as much as possible at the cost of publishing less than his academic peers.

The book is not only about Derek Parfit as a person � as that would be too shallow � but also explains at a high level some of the most important ideas that he gave to analytic philosophy. Parfit’s most important contributions were in discussing why personal identity is not what matters, population ethics � in particular discovering the repugnant conclusion, attempting to show that there are moral truths and unifying deontology, utilitarianism and contractualism.

It would have been better if the book gave more room to Parfit's ideas. In particular, I would have liked a book taking the time to explain in greater detail Parfit’s arguments in favor of moral realism. Moral anti-realism seems much more popular among non-philosophers than it is among philosophers and I think the world needs much more systematic and rigorous thinking about (secular) morality to move beyond the very subjectivist/relativist/nihilistic view that a lot of scientists or generally educated people have cornered themselves in.