“Suppose that I steal whenever I believe that I will not be caught. I may be often caught, and pushed. Even in self-interested terms, honesty may therefore be the best policy for me. [Cases like these on whether the self-interest theory of rationality is self-defeating] are not worthy discussing. If this is the way in which [the self-interest theory] is self-defeating, this is no objection to [it]. [It] is self-defeating here only because of my incompetence in attempting to follow [it]. This is a fault, not in [the self-interest theory], but in me. We might object to some theory that it is too difficult to follow. But this is not true of [the self-interest theory].”

— Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 5