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Preferences and Prudential Reasons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2018

DALE DORSEY
DALE DORSEY*
Affiliation:
University of [email protected]
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Abstract

Preference-based theories of prudential value seem to generate an absurd result when combined with commonplace platitudes about prudential rationality: it would seem that if the satisfaction of our preferences is the source (or even a source) of prudential value, then prudential rationality must be neutral (in, at least, a troubling range of cases) between taking steps to achieve the objects of one's preferences and merely engineering one's preferences to take as their object(s) that which obtains. Either way, one seems to conform to the prudential demand to promote one's well-being. But this is widely held to be counterintuitive. In this article, I argue that this verdict arises only given eminently controvertible interpretations of a preference-based axiology and of the constitution of prudential reasons.

Type
Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 157 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Most importantly, these issues include whether prudential reasons are temporally sensitive. See, for instance, Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (Oxford, 1984), pp. 165–6Google Scholar; Brink, David O., ‘Prospects for Temporal Neutrality’, Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Time, ed. Callendar, Craig (Oxford, 2011), pp. 353–81Google Scholar; Heathwood, Chris, ‘Fitting Attitudes and Welfare’, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 3, ed. Shafer-Landau, Russ (Oxford, 2008), pp. 47–73Google Scholar; Dougherty, Tom, ‘Future-Bias and Practical Reason’, Philosopher's Imprint 15 (2015), pp. 1–16Google Scholar; Greene, Preston and Sullivan, Meghan, ‘Against Time Bias’, Ethics 125 (2015), pp. 947–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dorsey, Dale, ‘Prudence and Past Selves’, Philosophical Studies 175 (2018), pp. 1901–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Like the previous bit of terminology, this one is also a touch misleading because it may imply a cardinal welfare value, when it could be that the underlying axiology in question is merely ordinal. I don't mean to make such an assumption; welfare ‘scores’ could simply refer to ‘higher’ scores – that is, for ordinal axiologies, welfare scores could be measured in purely ordinal terms.

3 Note that I use the term ‘preferences’ as – with one important exception, see note 23 – a placeholder here. It could be interpreted to mean valuing states, desires, whether these preferences are comparative (‘prefer ϕ to ψ’) or merely impute value to single objects (‘prefer ϕ’). Furthermore, it is commonplace to assume that preferences come in both prudentially relevant varieties and prudentially irrelevant varieties. Prudentially irrelevant preferences might include those that are ill-informed, the consequence of irrational mental states, or perhaps are not at all self-involving (a preference for my daughter's sake rather than for my sake). Obviously the focus here is on prudentially relevant preferences, whatever the correct account happens to be.

4 Arneson, Richard, ‘Desire Formation and Human Good’, Preferences and Well-Being, ed. Olsaretti, Serena (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 9–32, at 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Of course, there may be pragmatic problems in simply changing one's preferences. Generally, changing one's preferences is hard, and so we may have a general bias against the prudential efficacy of changing one's preferences rather than, for instance, simply achieving the content of whatever one's preferences currently are. And while this may be good reason to believe that our subjective prudential obligations typically shy away from programmes of preference change (given the uncertainty of success), it's unclear that this tells us anything about objective prudential obligations. As the case is stated, changing one's preferences couldn't be easier: it simply involves taking a pill, and is guaranteed to work.

6 Arneson, ‘Desire Formation and Human Good’, p. 12.

7 Furthermore, the retreat to an idealized preference-based account – according to which the authoritative preferences must be idealized given some set of potentially counterfactual circumstances (such as full information, rationality, awareness, and so forth) – appears to have no effect here, either; one would simply need to imagine that the pill in question alters not just one's occurrent preferences, but one's idealized ones, too. (Alternatively, we could simply imagine that the person is or would maintain all relevant idealized conditions both prior to and after administration of the preference-altering drug; in such a case I continue to judge that prudence is not neutral between achieving what one prefers and preferring what one achieves.)

8 Bricker, Phillip, ‘Prudence’, The Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980), pp. 381–401, at 400Google Scholar.

9 Why might this be? One possibility is that the satisfaction of past preferences yields past benefits. See, e.g., Dorsey, , ‘Desire-Satisfaction and Welfare as Temporal’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (2013), pp. 151–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bruckner, Donald, ‘Present Desire-Satisfaction and Past Well-Being’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (2013), pp. 15–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baber, H. E., ‘Ex Ante Desire and Post Hoc Satisfaction’, Time and Identity, ed. Campbell, Joe, O'Rourke, Michael and Silverstein, J. M. (Cambridge, MA, 2010), pp. 249–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See, for instance, Greene and Sullivan, ‘Against Time Bias’; Brink, ‘Prospects for Temporal Neutrality’; Dale Dorsey, ‘A Near-Term Bias Reconsidered’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming).

11 Arneson, ‘Desire Formation and Human Good’, p. 13.

12 For a sustained study of this distinction, see Rabinowicz, Wlodek and Osterberg, Jan, ‘Value Based on Preferences’, Economics and Philosophy 12 (1996), pp. 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 One might say that this construal of a preferentist view cannot be correct because it violates a conceptual presumption regarding intrinsic value, viz. that intrinsic value supervenes on the intrinsic properties of the valuable object, event or state. I think this can and should be disputed, but even if we accept it, we can simply introduce a conceptual distinction between intrinsic value, on the one hand (object-and-preference), and final value on the other, holding that the normatively significant notion is final value, rather than intrinsic value. (See, for instance, Korsgaard, Christine, ‘Two Distinctions in Goodness’, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 249–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) I'll continue to use the ‘intrinsic’ language, though it could be substituted for the suggested alternative with no loss to the argument here.

14 See Hobbes, Leviathan I.6; Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis, IN, 1981 [1907]), pp. 111–12Google Scholar; Perry, R. B., The General Theory of Value (Cambridge, MA, 1952)Google Scholar; Railton, Peter, ‘Facts and Values’, Philosophical Topics 14 (1986), pp. 5–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lewis, David, ‘Dispositional Theories of Value’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 63 (1989), pp. 113–37Google Scholar.

15 Bradley, Ben, Well-Being and Death (Oxford, 2009), pp. 14–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Heathwood, Chris, ‘The Problem of Defective Desires’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2005), pp. 487–504, at 490CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See Lin, Eden, ‘Enumeration and Explanation in Theories of Welfare’, Analysis 77 (2017), pp. 65–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 How could it be aprudent rather than imprudent? After all, in choosing to take the pill, Faith does not respond to the balance of prudential reasons and become an astronaut. However, we should distinguish between two actions, one aprudent and one imprudent. The action of taking the pill, I claim, was aprudent. The action of refraining from becoming an astronaut was imprudent.

18 Thanks to Ben Bradley for raising this concern.

19 One might claim that my reasoning here elides the distinction between objective and subjective prudential reasons. It does not. On the view I advocate, it is an objective prudential reason that one's future prudential ordering will be pro-Olympics, whether or not one believes this, because one hasn't (yet) altered one's future prudential ordering.

20 Nagel, Thomas, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton, NJ, 1970), p. 48. My emphasisGoogle Scholar.

21 I don't wish to gainsay the possibility that there could be cases in which a person has the option to choose a prudential ordering, but that no fact of the matter can be established as to what her future prudential ordering will be. Perhaps the baseline is simply indeterminate; looking forward there is no particular set of goods that would make a future time better-off. But this is OK. It would simply be that prudential obligations (in this case) are indeterminate, which seems a sensible account of the phenomenon here.

22 Note that, because the view is object-based, these conjunctive states of preference-and-object have value simply because they are preferred.

23 One twist on this objection should be considered. Imagine that I have a preference for an unachievable ϕ, but my preference is not one to which I'm particularly attached – it's more of a whim or flight of fancy. But it's clear that were I to take a pill to prefer ψ, I could achieve it. If I don't care much about the preference, why not take the pill and live a better life? (Thanks to David Sobel for this suggestion.) Three responses. First, I lack the considered judgement elicited here if we assume, as suggested above, that I prefer – or am even indifferent to – the state in which I frustratedly prefer ϕ, and non-frustratedly prefer ψ, even if there is no ‘higher order’ endorsement of the preference. Second, this result is very easy to avoid if we accept that welfare scores can generate reasons – even very weak reasons. Given that such preferences aren't likely to generate very substantial welfare goods, it may be prudentially rational to take the pill under such stipulations. Of course, there will remain a range of cases that involve preferences I seem to care quite a lot about, and hence we require the significance of goods-based prudential reasons as outlined here. Third, and less ecumenically, I resist characterizing such preferences as welfare-authoritative. If one doesn't care whether one satisfies the preference or simply takes a pill, it strikes me that such a preference does not genuinely represent your values in a way that is plausibly required by the most defensible versions of preferentism. (See, for instance, Dorsey, Dale, ‘Subjectivism without Desire’, The Philosophical Review 121 (2012), pp. 407–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar)

24 I'd like to thank Ben Bradley, David Sobel, Janice Dowell, Hille Paakkunainen, Mauro Rossi, Iwao Hirose, and audiences at Syracuse University and the University of Montreal for extremely helpful comments on the manuscript of this article.