Please join us to discuss Preston Greene & Meghan Sullivan‘s “Against Time Bias,” published in the most recent issue of Ethics and available open access here. Caspar Hare has kindly contributed a critical précis, below the fold. It should be an exciting discussion!
Meghan and Preston’s paper is very interesting.
Say that you are hedonically near-biased when you rather, other things being equal, for pain to be in your far future than your near future, and for pleasure to be in your near future than your far future. Say that you are hedonically future-biased when you would rather, other things being equal, for pain to be in your past than in your future, and for pleasure to be in your future than your past.
Meghan and Preston make three claims. First, if you are hedonically near-biased then you are irrational. Second, if you are hedonically future-biased, but not hedonically near-biased, then you are irrational. Third, there is a plausible evolutionary explanation of why we are inclined to think otherwise.
I take the crux of the paper to be their argument for the second claim, so I will focus on that here.
In a 2011 paper in Ethics (symposium discussion here) Tom Dougherty argues that hedonic future bias is irrational. He says that if you are hedonically future biased and risk averse with respect to pleasure and pain then you are predictably exploitable (to put this carefully: there are situations in which, by acting on your preferences at every moment, you perform a sequence of actions that you at all times disprefer to another sequence of actions that you were in a position to take.) Predictable exploitability is a mark of irrationality, says Tom.
Preston and Meghan agree that predictable exploitability is a mark of irrationality, but they worry that Tom has not shown that the problem lies with future-bias. Maybe the problem lies with risk aversion with respect to pleasure and pain, they say. They offer us a much simpler argument.
They start with some examples of behavior that they take to be at least prima facie ‘absurd’. I take these to be the basic kinds of example (I am recasting them a bit, so, Meghan and Preston, please correct me if this was not what you had in mind):
Putting off the Cookie
You like cookies. On Monday I say ‘I can give you just one cookie just one day this week. You choose the day’. You choose Sunday, the last day of the week. Why? You are not hedonically near-biased, so you do not now care about whether you get the cookie tomorrow or in six days time. But you know you are hedonically future-biased, so if you now choose any day other than Sunday then you will later regret your choice. You choose to avoid later regret.
Putting off the Cookie Infinitely Many Times
You and I are immortal, and we know it. You like cookies. Each day I come to you and say: ‘I can give you just one (eternally fresh) cookie just one day this afterlife. Do you want it now, or shall I come back tomorrow?’ Each day you put it off… and you never consume that cookie. Why? You are not hedonically near-biased, so, each day, you don’t care about whether you get it that day or much later. But each day you know that you are hedonically future-biased, so if you take the cookie that day you will later regret it. Each day you choose to avoid later regret.
Meager Returns
On Monday I say to you ‘Do you want two cookies on Tuesday or one on Thursday?’ You ask for the one cookie on Thursday. Why? You know you are hedonically future biased, so you know that, if you ask for the two cookies on Tuesday then you will regret it on Wednesday, while if you ask for the one cookie on Thursday then you will never regret it (on Friday you won’t care about the past). You choose to avoid later regret.
Their argument then goes like this (again, I am recasting it, so Meghan and Preston, please correct me if this is not what you had in mind):
P1 It is not consistent with your being rational that you behave in the ways above.
P2 If it is consistent with your being rational that you be future-biased, but not near-biased with respect to pleasure, then it is consistent with your being rational that you behave in the ways above.
C It is not consistent with your being rational that you be future-biased, but not near-biased with respect to pleasure.
To get the discussion going, let me give my initial reaction to this argument.
I do not see any absurdity or irrationality in your behavior in the first case, Putting Off the Cookie. We have stipulated that you aren’t near-biased, so why not put it off until Sunday – saving the best until last?
The second case, Putting Off the Cookie Infinitely Many Times is tricky. Note that (as Meghan and Preston acknowledge) we don’t need future-bias to generate prima facie ‘absurd’ behavior like this. Consider:
Putting off Ever More Cookies Infinitely Many Times
You are immortal, but not, this time, future-biased. You just want more cookies over the course of your life. Each day I come to you and say ‘I can give you just one batch of cookies just one day this afterlife. Do you want today’s batch, or do you want me to come back tomorrow with a batch twice as large?’ Each day you put it off… and you never get any cookies. Why? Because each day you know that, if you take the batch that day then you will later regret it. Each day you choose to avoid later regret.
In this case it is clear that the problem is not with your cookie-preferences (wanting more of them is harmless enough). The problem is with your efforts to avoid regret. Likewise, the problem in Putting off the Cookie Infinitely Many Times is with your efforts to avoid regret.
So Meghan and Preston’s argument really rests on the third type of case.
Why is P2 true of this case? Meghan and Preston appeal to a general principle:
Weak No Regrets: If an agent has full and accurate information about the effects of the options available to her, then it is rationally permissible for her to avoid options she knows she will regret in favor of actions she knows she will never regret.
But this principle, as stated, does not seem quite right. Consider:
The Bomb
I am on a small island with a large, ticking bomb. If I stick around then I will be vaporized. If I swim to the mainland then I will live on and prosper. I very much want to live on and prosper, and, though the water is cold, I don’t presently care about my soon being cold. But I do know that I tend to have a visceral reaction to being cold. I know that, very briefly, while swimming to the mainland, I will regret not staying on the island.
If I swim to shore then I will briefly regret not sticking around. If I stick around then I will never regret not swimming to shore. But it is not rational for me to stick around.
What principle can Meghan and Preston appeal to instead? The The Bomb case suggests something weaker:
Weaker No Regrets: If an agent has full and accurate information about the effects of the options available to her, then it is rationally permissible for her to avoid options she knows she will regret in favor of actions she knows she will never regret, so long as there is nothing else she presently cares about at stake.
In The Bomb there is something else you presently care about at stake – whether you will live on and prosper.
But that doesn’t give Meghan and Preston what they want. In Meager Returns there is something else you presently care about at stake – how many cookies you will get.
So maybe they could go with:
Weaker No Regrets II If an agent has full and accurate information about the effects of the options available to her, then it is rationally permissible for her to avoid options she knows she will regret in favor of actions she knows she will never regret, so long as she presently regards her later regret as rational.
In The Bomb you don’t presently regard your later, cold-induced regret as rational. But in Meager Returns (so long as you are not akratically future-biased – future biased against your better judgment) you do.
Is this principle right? It is certainly controversial. Evidential decision theorists deny it (in Newcomb cases they know they will rationally regret one-boxing once they see what is inside the boxes). Rationalists about creation ethics deny it (in some non-identity cases we are rationally compelled to create one baby rather than another, even though we know that, once confronted with the baby, we will rationally regret it.)
One way to think about the question is to suppose a connection between rationality and reasons, and frame the question in terms of reasons. Does acknowledging that I will have strong reasons to want something always give me strong reasons to want it now (strong enough to make it rationally permissible for me to ignore strong reasons not to want it now – e.g. that I will get fewer cookies)?
Liz Harman (in “‘I’ll Be Glad I Did It’ Reasoning and the Significance of Future Desires.” Philosophical Perspectives 23 (2009): 177-199.) and others have answered no to this question. To push things ahead Meghan and Preston will need to make a case for answering yes. And to do this they will need to lean heavily on the rational significance of personal identity. Acknowledging that somebody else has strong reasons to want something does not always give me strong reasons to want it. Acknowledging that I will have strong reasons to want something does always give me strong reasons to want it. They will need to explain why this is.
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