The Retreat of Reason Part 5 potx

196 Rationality and Temporal Neutrality It might be wondered how I can censure such temporal biases as cognitively irrational when I have disowned the possibility of a critique of the irrationality of para-cognitive attitudes that extends beyond a critique of the irrationality of their cognitive bases. For there is in fact, and so it is not irrational to think that there is, some difference between two events which happen at numerically distinct times, and it is at least conceivable that for some subjects this difference suffices to make a difference in respect of their attitudes to the events. This must be conceded, but it could still be true that, given how we actually seem to be, it is very improbable that we would respond differently to purely temporal dif- ferences. The reason for this may well have to do with these differences being purely rela- tional and not ones of ‘quality’. Although such recognitions of mere differences in timing by themselves conceivably could be the bases of temporal partiality, I shall maintain that this is in fact not so with respect to our partiality. If such differences in timing by themselves were the root of our temporal partiality, we should expect this partiality to rear its head not only when one considers one’s own life, but to an equal extent when one considers the lives of others, for these are no less subject to time. But, as will transpire, this is not so. (Compare: in the foregoing chapter, we noted that the P-bias is a bias not towards the present, but towards what each of us perceives of it.) The ground for this partiality lies in a mechanism that is at work primarily when each of us views our own existence unravel through time. I hope to make it credible that this mechanism is inimical to rational deliberation. This is why I shall condemn our temporal biases as being cognitively irrational. It follows that if we are rationalists, we shall be rationally required to be temporally neutral, but that will not be so if we are prudentialists (or satisfactionalists of any other sort). Two Temporal Biases To be a bit more specific about our temporal partiality, there are two forms of it, or two temporal biases, the cognitive rationality of which I shall examine in particular. The first bias can be explained by the following example. Suppose that you face the option of hav- ing a smaller sensory pleasure in a minute or a somewhat greater one in an hour—for example of being served a smaller portion of ice-cream in a minute or a somewhat larger one in an hour (note that the option concerns experiences that you will have yourself). Suppose further that you have reason to believe neither that your desire for the pleasure will be stronger at one time than at the other nor that it is less probable that you will have the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure if you postpone it. In situations like this it often happens that subjects show a definite preference for having the smaller pleasure sooner. Apparently, they prefer to receive sooner something that will give them smaller pleasure than to receive later something that will give them a somewhat greater pleasure simply for the reason that they will enjoy the former sooner. Parfit calls such a preference a bias towards the near (future) (1984: 124). As a shorthand term, I shall use ‘the N-bias’. An objector might point out that in actual fact if one delays the enjoyment of the pleas- ure, it will normally be somewhat less probable that it will come to be: the risk that The Notion of a Temporal Bias 197 something will prevent the pleasure from materializing will be slightly greater. This is true, and it is admittedly very hard to devise a realistic example in which one can be quite sure that there is no distorting factor, such as a difference in probability. Nonetheless, it is implausible to put down the whole effect to the operation of such factors. The preference in favour of having one pleasure in a minute rather than another in an hour may be quite marked, while the risk that one will lose the pleasure by postponing it may be only mar- ginally greater. Moreover, it has been found that if the source of the pleasure is actually perceived by the subject, the desire to have it sooner grows in strength,¹ though the (sub- jective) probability of its coming into the subject’s possession could scarcely be held to be affected by this fact. I take it then to be clear that the preference to have a pleasure sooner cannot be fully accounted for in terms of some rational estimate of probability. At least partially, it is somehow occasioned by the mere thought of this pleasure occurring at a time that is closer to one’s present. We do spontaneously exhibit a bias towards the near. The question I intend to discuss in the next chapter is whether it is cognitively irrational to be subject to the N-bias. I shall contend that this bias indeed is irrational. My strategy will be to reach this conclusion by trying to construe the N-bias as the upshot of repres- entional mechanisms of the sort studied in the context of weakness of will in Part II. In Chapter 16 I shall let another temporal bias, the bias towards the future, the F-bias—that is, our tendency to be more concerned about what happens in the future than in the past— undergo a similar treatment. What the N-bias and F-bias have in common is that they are both tendencies to adopt different attitudes to things simply for the reason that they stand in different temporal relations to one’s present. The N-bias and F-bias thereby represent forms of a temporal partiality that (though, as we shall soon see, somewhat misleadingly) could be called per- spectival because they crucially depend on the subject’s viewing things from a certain point in time, the present. In the case of the N-bias, one state of affairs is preferred to another because it will materialize at a time that is closer to one’s present—a time index- ically identified—than is the time at which another will be realized. And in the case of the F-bias, something affects one more because, in relation to one’s present, it is in the future rather than in the past. Some Strange Temporal Biases It is possible to imagine a temporal partiality that is non-perspectival or absolute. Consider somebody who cares equally about all the parts of her life, with one exception: she is indifferent to what happens to her on Tuesdays. For instance, she would prefer having pain on a Tuesday to having pain on any other day, even though it would be much more severe if it were felt on a Tuesday. Such a preference is not perspectival, for the fact that certain days are Tuesdays does not depend on their having a particular relation to what is currently one’s present. ¹ See e.g. the experiments reported by Brandt (1979: 62). This is a modification of an example Parfit provides (1984: 123–4). He describes some- body who is indifferent to what happens to him on future Tuesdays. This man “cares equally about all the parts of his future”, with one exception: “he never cares about pos- sible pains and pleasures on a future Tuesday”. “Throughout every Tuesday he cares in the normal way about what is happening to him.” For this reason his attitude is not purely absolute. It has a perspectival element in that he cares about what happens to him on Tuesdays when they are present, but not when they are still future in relation to the pre- sent. Parfit presents this case to persuade us that an attitude can be intrinsically irrational, that is, can possess an irrationality which is not derivative from any irrationality in respect of the beliefs on which it rests. Thus, he assumes that his individual’s attitude is not due to any false or superstitious beliefs about Tuesdays, or about anything else. I think it is instructive to compare this “Future-Tuesday-Indifference” to a “Future- Tuesday-Incredulity”. Consider someone who has normally inductive beliefs about what will happen to him in the future will be like, except when it happens on future Tuesdays. For instance, he believes that were he in the future to put his finger in a naked flame, he will feel intense pain, except if he were to do it on Tuesdays. He is not spontaneously inclined to believe anything about what he will feel on Tuesdays. So, he does not suspend his belief about what he will feel on future Tuesdays because he has any peculiar beliefs about the significance of a day being a Tuesday, or anything else. Is this absence of belief irrational? Not if the mechanism of spontaneous induction is just a natural fact about us, and Humeans are right that we are not rationally justified in forming beliefs in accordance with it. If we do not have reason to form inductive beliefs that we shall feel pain if we put our finger in a naked flame on other days, we are not irrational if we fail to have this belief about future Tuesdays, even if we see no relevant difference between this day and other days. Similarly, I claim, if we have no reason to feel the spontaneous concern we normally feel for ourselves in the future (it would beg the question to assume that there is such a reason), but this is just a natural fact about us. We would then not be irrational, or defy reason, if we failed to exhibit this tendency as regards future Tuesdays, though we see no relevant difference between Tuesdays and other days. Parfit himself points out that “there is a large class of desires which cannot be irra- tional”, a class which includes, for instance, desires concerned with sensations that are pleasant or painful/unpleasant. As regards the “strong desire not to hear the sound of squeaking chalk” that many people have, he writes: “This desire is odd, since these people do not mind hearing other squeaks that are very similar in timbre and pitch. But this desire is not irrational” (1984: 123). It is not irrational, although there is nothing to justify our dislike of the sound of squeaking chalk, but not of similar sounds. It is just the way nature has designed us. It is in this class of attitudes that I would like to put the Future-Tuesday-Indifference: a very odd, but not irrational attitude. I do not see why this class could not in theory include attitudes whose objects are not felt sensations. There is an indisputable difference in the content of one’s thought when one thinks that one will experience a certain pain on a future Tuesday rather than on a present Tuesday or on any other future weekday. Conceivably, somebody could be so wired up by 198 Rationality and Temporal Neutrality The Notion of a Temporal Bias 199 nature that this combination of the features of being in the future and being a Tuesday so to speak eclipses his concern about a pain he would otherwise be concerned about, though each feature on its own would not do so. So described, the Future-Tuesday-Indifference would be, as Parfit puts it, “a bare fact” about its subject. In this respect, it seems just like the dislike of squeaking chalk, but not of similar squeaks, for this too seems a bare fact. There is nothing to justify either atti- tude. Just as we have no reason to dislike the squeaking of chalk when we do not dislike similar squeaks, the imagined man has no reason—not even a bad one—to be indifferent towards pains he will feel on future Tuesdays, for, ex hypothesi, he has no eccentric beliefs about the significance of a day being a future Tuesday. Both attitudes are just quirks of nature. But if there is this resemblance between them, and since Parfit agrees to exempt the dislike of squeaking chalk from the charge of being irrational, I do not see why we should not also exempt the Future-Tuesday-Indifference from this charge. To be sure, if we were to come across an instance of this Future-Tuesday-Indifference, we would be strongly inclined to brand it as irrational. I think the reason for this is that we would be strongly inclined to surmise that it is not ultimately intrinsic, like the dislike of squeaking chalk, but based on some strange and irrational belief about future Tuesdays. For it is so unlike other ultimately intrinsic attitudes to which we are acquainted (these having simple objects like present sensations). But suppose we were to become con- vinced that no apparent reasons were in the offing; then I think we would be more inclined to regard his indifference as psychologically incomprehensible or unintelligible than as irrational. Although it seems incomprehensible that anyone should be indifferent to what happens to him on future Tuesdays when he is concerned about what happens to him on all days, even Tuesdays, when they are present and on all other weekdays when they are future, we would have to accept that nature has so designed this man that this peculiar combination of features turns off his concern. Hence, were this strange intrinsic indifference to occur, there seems as little reason to brand it as (intrinsically) irrational as there is in the case of the dislike of squeaking chalk. Like the Future-Tuesday-Incredulity, the Future-Tuesday-Indifference is likely to be bad in general for the subject. These tendencies may lead subjects to prefer what is in fact greater pains on future Tuesdays to smaller pains on other days, and this is some- thing that they will regret when it is Tuesday and the pains are felt. Thus, the subjects may have reasons to try to rid themselves of these tendencies, but this is not to say that they are tendencies to form attitudes that are intrinsically (cognitively) irrational. There may be special circumstances in which they are advantageous for the subjects. Suppose, for example, that the subject who is indifferent to pains on future Tuesdays faces the choice of undergoing a painful operation on a Tuesday rather than on some other day. Then the choice to be operated upon on a Tuesday will leave him in a trouble-free instead of an anxious mood until the day of the operation arrives, and so may be the better choice (even if the operation will be a bit more painful). The point is essentially the same as one that Parfit makes earlier on, namely that the existence of an ineradic- able desire, even if it is not rational, may “indirectly” provide one with a reason for choice and action (1984: 120–1). I think the Future-Tuesday-Indifference is properly classified as ‘ineradicable’. For, as we have seen, this indifference cannot be based on any irrational beliefs, because its irra- tionality would then not be intrinsic, but would instead be derived from the irrationality of the beliefs. If it is not belief-based, however, one is as little able to rid oneself of this indifference by ridding oneself of any irrational beliefs, as one is able to rid oneself of the dislike of squeaking chalk by eliminating any beliefs. These attitudes seem equally ‘ineradicable’. In conclusion, we have found no attitude that is intrinsically irrational. If the Future- Tuesday-Indifference is conceived as ultimately intrinsic, it seems indistinguishable from attitudes which are admittedly not irrational, but rather psychologically odd. I see no need, then, to go back on my resolution to do without intrinsically irrational desires. Moreover, I shall leave aside temporal biases that are, partially or wholly, absolute, since it is unrealistic to think that anyone is the victim of anything like them. My concern here will be with purely perspectival temporal biases that undoubtedly occur. By being tem- porally neutral I mean, as already stated, being free of all sorts of temporal partiality. Some writers, for example Parfit, have taken temporal neutrality to cover something wider than merely the absence of such biases. They have characterized subjects as having a temporally neutral attitude when they have the prudentialist goal of wanting to fulfil the desires of their entire lives in proportion to their strength and co-satisfiability, irre- spective of whether they are past, present, or future. This goes beyond temporal neutral- ity as I conceive it, for it forbids something that temporal neutrality in my conception allows, namely that one gratifies a present desire rather than a stronger future one, because one judges the orientation or content of the latter to be base, depraved, etc. The more far-reaching doctrine—that entails temporal neutrality, but is not entailed by it—is about the inter-temporal maximization of one’s own fulfilment. It will be discussed in Part IV in connection with personal neutrality and the importance of a desire belong- ing to oneself. (I shall conclude that it is not rationally required.) The reason for this order of exposition is that, when one tries to vindicate the claim that it is (cognitively) irrational to refuse to fulfil one of one’s stronger future desire because one now evaluates its con- tent negatively, one may do this by arguing that it shares the most important property with one’s present desires, to wit, the property of belonging to oneself. Perspectival Biases and the Nature of Time Turning now to the perspectival temporal biases, the N-bias and the F-bias, my claim that they are cognitively irrational will appeal to representational distortions caused by beliefs about the timing of events occurring to oneself. There is nothing irrational in these tem- poral beliefs themselves, I maintain, as they correspond to something in our temporal experience (to the effect, e.g. that one event is further in the future). It is not impossible that these temporal biases turn out to be irrational, though the beliefs underlying them make no irrational claims about time. For if these temporal claims were sufficient to explain the biases, it would be mysterious why the biases pop up only as regards events 200 Rationality and Temporal Neutrality The Notion of a Temporal Bias 201 occurring to oneself, while the temporal claims could be made about events happening to anyone. There must then be something that explains why these biases crop up only as regards one’s own life, and this could be wholly responsible for their irrationality. When we perceive events, we perceive them as occurring, and when we perceive things, we perceive them as existing. Let us say, generally, that when we perceive some- thing, we perceive it as being present. I claim that our temporal experience is essentially an experience of something being present and then having been present as something else is being present, and so on. This presupposes the notion of what will be present as the tense which that which is now being present had when that which now past was present. Being present is a primary notion which enters into the characterization of the past and the future: thus, the past is that which has been present, and the future that which will be present.² In this sense, the temporal order we experience has a certain (irreversible) direction consisting in events and states successively becoming present. The succession of non- simultaneous events does not just consist in them being lined up ‘next to’ each other along an axis with dates, as it were. There is nothing that is present on such an axis, and consequently nothing that has just been present and nothing that will be present next. What we experience we experience as being present and, so, as being simultaneous with our experiencing of it. But this does not imply that what we experience really is pre- sent, for the experience may be illusory rather than veridical. Consider seeing events far off in outer space through a telescope. About these events D. H. Mellor asserts: I observe the temporal order in which they occur: which is earlier, which is later. I do not observe their tense. What I see through the telescope does not tell me how long ago those events occurred. (1981: 26; cf. 1998: 16) Certainly, what I see “does not tell me how long ago those events occurred”. Therefore, I do not observe their tense in Mellor’s sense, since by “tensed” sentences or statements he means “those that say, by verbal tense or otherwise, how near or far from the present, past or future, something is” (1981: 4). But to describe the temporal ordering I observe between events as “which is earlier, which is later” is to underdescribe it. For I observe one event, e, as occurring, and then another event, f, as occurring, that is, I observe one event after another as becoming present or as becoming such that a verb in the present tense applies to it. Granted, this entails observing e as being earlier than f, but it entails more, since the later statement will be true forever, but ‘e is occurring and then f is occurring’ is false when both events are in the past. What is left out by the former is precisely what is expressed by the present tense. ² Cf. Spinoza’s claim: “As long as a man is affected by the image of anything, he will contemplate the thing as present although it does not exist nor does he imagine it as past or future unless in so far as its image is connected with that of past or future time” (1675/1949: iii. xviii. demonstration). Spinoza’s claim seems to imply that when we imagine something, we imagine it as being present. I think this is true as well. David Cockburn attacks this thesis of the priority of the present by arguing that what is present, if it is of any duration, however short, is divisible into a part which has been present and a part which will be present, until we reach something of no duration (1997: 174). But this is not true of the experienced (or specious) present which is at issue here: it is of some—indeterminate—duration. (Tye suggests that it is “at least 30 msecs long”, 2003: 87.) (I think it is arguable that a ‘tenseless’ understanding of relations like being earlier than presupposes an understanding of the direction of time or of experiences of particular events successively becoming present, that is, that one could not understand sentences like ‘e is earlier than f’, unless one has already acquired an understanding of sentences like ‘e is occurring and then f is occurring’. The former seems to be a generalization or an abstraction from sentences of the latter sort which report particular experiences of tem- poral ordering. But if so, the relations to which tenseless theorists appeal involve the very feature they want to avoid: time’s direction or the successiveness of becoming present.) So, I claim that we observe events as (successively) occurring or becoming (or remain- ing) present, which is what we express by verbs in the present tense. Normally, we can rightly assume that when we perceive events as occurring, they are really occurring now, that is, at the time at which we are doing the perceiving. But Mellor’s telescope example shows that sometimes this assumption is mistaken: sometimes when we (now) perceive events as occurring, they occurred thousands and thousands of years ago. We are then victims of a sort of perceptual illusion that may lead the untutored to false beliefs, to the effect, for example, that the stages of a process of a star they perceive as successively occurring now are really occurring now. This temporal illusion is importantly disanalogous to the spatial illusion of some- thing’s looking to be closer than it is. Things generally look to be a certain distance from ‘here’, which is where the observer is. In some cases, the distance is so small that they may be said to look to be in the same place as the observer is. In contrast, things are never per- ceived as being located any temporal distance from the present, that is, as having occurred sometime in the past or as about to occur sometime in the future; they are always perceived as occurring in the present, that is, at the same time as the perceiving of them occurs. (This is one reason why it may be misleading to talk about a temporal ‘perspective’ from the present.) So Mellor is right that his example shows that we do not observe tense in his sense, where this entails observing “how near or far from the present something is”. But it does not follow from this that we do not observe tense in the ordinary grammatical sense in which it is something expressed by the tenses of verbs, for we do experience things as being present (now). My thesis is, then, that our temporal experience essentially involves experiencing events as successively being present. This is what I call the direction of (things in) time. Parfit portrays (1984: 178) those who deny “time’s passage” or “the objectivity of tem- poral becoming” as asserting that “ ‘here’ and ‘now’ are strictly analogous” in the manner they refer to a place and a time, respectively: ‘here’ refers to the place at which this instance or token of ‘here’ is occurring, just as ‘now’ refers to the time at which this instance or token of ‘now’ is occurring. But there are here important disanalogies. To begin with, ‘here’ refers to the particular place at which the producer of the token is situated. There are indefinitely many other places at which she could have been instead and at some of which other subjects are simultaneously situated. So, if we know only that a spatial world is experienced by some subjects in it, we cannot deduce what is ‘here’ for any of them. It would be absurd to argue that what is here in this spatial world is what is here for these subjects in it. For what is here for these subjects is not likely to be the 202 Rationality and Temporal Neutrality The Notion of a Temporal Bias 203 same for all, as it is determined by their individual locations in space. Consequently, it is plausible to argue that, if there were no subjects in space, there would be no here in it (nor anything to the left or right, or near or distant, since these are relative to a here). In contrast, if we know that a temporal world is experienced by subjects in it, we can deduce what is now or present for these subjects. For in this case it is quite plausible to argue that what is now in this world is now for these subjects in it. No further information about their individual temporal location is needed for this inference. It follows that the argu- ment that, if there were no subjects in time, there would be no now is correspondingly weakened. So, the assumption should be questioned that the parallel between the index- icals ‘here’ and ‘now’ shows that what is designated by the latter is subjective in the same way as what is designated by the former.³ Furthermore, even if ‘now’ could be replaced by ‘the time at which this token of “now” is occurring’, we have not got rid of the present tense. For this—the so-called token-reflexive—reference of a token to itself is possible only when the token is now being produced. In other words, ‘this token of “now” ’ means ‘this token of “now” now being pro- duced’, and this employs the present tense. Token-reflexive reference is only possible to a token one currently is in the process of producing. Mellor has now given up this kind of account because it fails to cater for the truth of ‘There are no tokens now’ (1998: ch. 3.3). Instead he proposes that “what makes ‘e is pre- sent’ true at any t is e’s being located at t” (1998: 2). Here ‘e is present’ is meant to be the proposition that e is present, that is, a certain type of thought-content, of which individual beliefs, statements, etc. can be tokens. I have some misgivings, however, about saying that the proposition that e is present, as opposed to tokens of it occurring at t, is made true at t by e’s being located at t. But my view of temporal experience gives me no reason to object to this way of stat- ing the truth-conditions of tensed beliefs for, as Mellor concedes, it does not imply that they are “reducible to, or replaceable by” tenseless beliefs (1998: 58). As he points out (1998: 64), tensed beliefs are necessary for us to act intentionally. For example, my inten- tion to start when the traffic light switches to green will only lead me to act if I acquire the belief that it is now switching to green. Suppose this belief is acquired on the basis of perceptual experience. On my view, the story might then be: I see the light switching to green and, having no reason to think otherwise, I take it for granted that what I now see as occurring is occurring simultaneously with my seeing, and form the belief that the light is now switching to green. If my assumption about the veridicality of my perceptual experience is correct, my belief is true. Mellor would reject this explanation because he does not believe that the content of my temporal experience can be (present) tensed. To explain why our perceptual experience ³ Equally questionable is the view that tensed statements are subjective in the sense of being perspectival and describ- ing reality from a particular subject’s point of view. Moreover, notice that this claim about the temporal categories of the present, past, and future being subjective is different from the Kantian sort of claim that time itself, even if tenselessly con- strued, is subjective, or mind-dependent, and is no feature of reality as it is in itself. The latter issue is irrelevant in the pre- sent context, for even if our temporal experience were mind-dependent that would not undercut the cognitive rationality of our temporal biases. Compare: it is not irrational to care about, e.g. pleasures and pains because they are mind-dependent; the aspect of them we care about—namely, how they feel—need not be mind-independent for us to care about it. gives us now-beliefs he instead appeals to the survival-value of this mechanism: “It is only the habit of letting our eyes give us now-beliefs that lets us survive” (1998: 68). But this is not so: our survival chances would be as good if our experience instead had induced us to believe that what we perceive occurred a moment earlier than we perceive it (as is indeed the case). Mellor’s explanation fails to account for why we acquire now-beliefs instead of such immediate past-beliefs. I can easily explain this, however: we acquire now-beliefs and not immediate past-beliefs because we perceive things as occurring, not as having occurred. All the same, Mellor and I agree that now-beliefs—and other tensed beliefs—can be true and well-grounded, though we would spell this out in different ways. If so, then, to the extent these beliefs are responsible for our perspectival temporal biases,⁴ these biases cannot be cognitively irrational. But the rationality of the underlying beliefs does not suf- fice to rescue the biases from the charge of being cognitively irrational. For, as already indicated, the basis of these biases involves more than tensed beliefs about temporal posi- tions. If they had rested solely on such beliefs, the biases should be just as pronounced when we regard the lives of others as our own lives, for the lives of others are equally in time. But they are much more pronounced in our own case. So, something else is required to account for our biases, and this is a place where irrationality could creep in. I shall argue that this ‘something else’ is representational distortions which are a feature of viewing one’s own experiences spread out in the past, present, and future. One might say that the N-bias and the F-bias implicate the bias towards oneself, to be exam- ined in Part IV. As these distortions are incompatible with the conditions of rational deliberation, these biases are indeed cognitively irrational. In the last chapter of this part, I shall go on to ask whether we should therefore attempt to rid ourselves of them. As will transpire, the answer will not be the same for rationalists and prudentialists. Thereby, we countenance a first dilemma over whether to keep a fundamental para-cognitive attitude, provided we are attracted to both rationalism and prudentialism. For the time being, however, I only wish to question Parfit’s assumption (1984: § 68) that the cognitive rationality of perspectival biases hinges on the metaphysics of time. It needs to be questioned, first, because tensed beliefs are indispensable, true, and well- grounded, irrespective of the outcome of the metaphysical debate about whether the tensed or the tenseless view of time is right. (On the other hand, if these beliefs were false and irrational had the tenseless view been correct, the rationality of the biases would depend upon the outcome not being that this view is correct.) Secondly, because the rationality of these tensed beliefs is not sufficient to ensure that these biases are not cognitively irrational, since something else is needed to account for them, and this extra element may inject irrationality into the biases. 204 Rationality and Temporal Neutrality ⁴ For want of a better term, I shall keep calling the N- and F-biases perspectival, though we have seen that it is mislead- ing to talk as though things are experienced from the perspective of the present. 15 THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE BIAS TOWARDS THE NEAR TO find out whether the N-bias is cognitively rational, and so whether rationalists could allow themselves to be subject to it, let us compare three situations of choice. Suppose that (not irrationally) I strongly prefer strawberry to vanilla ice-cream, so that if I were facing the option of at the same time having either strawberry-flavoured or vanilla- flavoured ice-cream, I would without hesitation choose the former. (1) The choice I actu- ally face is, however, between having vanilla ice-cream within a few minutes or having to wait another hour for the strawberry-flavoured delight. The slight discomfort caused by delaying the gratification of my desire for ice-cream is counter-balanced by the pleasure of anticipating the coming enjoyment of the strawberry ice-cream, for I have reasons to be as certain that I shall experience this enjoyment, if I choose it, as I have that I shall be served the vanilla ice-cream if that is what I prefer. Nevertheless, I now opt for the vanilla alternative. This pattern is (regrettably) familiar; it recurs often when we face analogous choices. (2) Suppose instead that I do not face this choice now, but that I predict well in advance that I shall find myself in a situation of this kind. In order to form a well-grounded opin- ion about what I should choose when the situation arises, I try to imagine, as vividly as possible, myself being in this future situation and facing the choice. Given the way the situation of choice is described, I believe it highly likely that what I would now want with respect to this future situation is that I choose to be served, and am served, the strawberry ice-cream, for this is what would provide me with the greater pleasure. Note that I am here not trying to predict what I would want most were I in that future situation; I am try- ing to decide what I should now (decisively) desire that I do were I in it. I may well know, given what was said in connection with (1), that when I shall actually be in the situation I shall choose the vanilla ice-cream, and yet want now that I make the strawberry choice. Could I regard both of these choices or preferences as cognitively rational? It may be held that I could if cognitive rationality is relativized to time: when I look at matters in advance, it is correct to judge that the strawberry choice is the rational one, whereas [...]... along a bonus in the shape of ridding oneself of feelings of dissatisfaction and obtaining feelings of satisfaction in their stead The explanation of the N-bias in the negative case cannot then appeal to the P-bias alone I would insist, however, on the P-bias having a part to play here too, but it needs the assistance of the MSI In the negative case, we are under the influence of sensations of a frustrated... because they are their own, and another attitude to the past sufferings of other loved ones, simply because these sufferings are not theirs, but the sufferings of others Since I shall in Part IV endorse this dictum, I am relieved to be able to deny the rationality of one of the sets of attitudes that make up Parfit’s asymmetry In rejecting the rationality of the F-bias, I have in effect rejected the rationality... enduring the pain for the sake of enjoying the pleasure This reversal of preference cannot, Parfit claims, be the result of any changes in the vividness of the representations of the pleasure and the pain, since the subject had already imagined them as vividly as he could prior to being told about their timing I believe, however, that if the timing of the hedonic sensations is really disclosed just before the. .. unclear how the feat of imagining ourselves to have other desires (and so values) could produce reasons for rejecting our actual desires, as they are not designed to fit the world Therefore I believe that Nagel’s diagnosis of the absurdity of life, though suggestive, fails in the end So much for the diagnosis of the feeling of the futility and meaninglessness of life Supposing now that the removal of the P-bias... along what one might call the sense of the precariousness of life, the SPL The SPL should not be confused with the SFT, although they may both contribute to a feeling commonly described as one of the meaninglessness or absurdity of life The former has rather to do with the uncertainty of attaining the goals that one sets oneself, whereas the latter concerns the insignificance of these goals in a cosmic... reduce the intensity of the fear and of the feelings of the unfulfilled desire to avoid the pain, by making the pain appear less likely, one shifts tactic to wanting to reduce their duration This tendency is thus complementary to the operation of the N-bias: when the N-bias cannot do its work because one’s reflective judgement is incorruptible and withstands the pressure of the MSI, the tendency to get the. .. gratuitous These two inescapable view-points collide in us, and that is what makes life absurd (1979: 14) In other words, the sense of the absurdity of life is due to a clash between the unavoidability of seriousness” and the inescapability of doubt”: on the one hand, we cannot ³ There is also the mistake of thinking that, as the felt intensity of one’s occurrent desires decreases, so does the value of the. .. that they are no longer tempted to fulfil weaker desires the fulfilment of which can be obtained sooner at The Dilemma as regards Temporal Neutrality 223 the expense of leaving unfulfilled stronger desires the fulfilment of which lies further in the future To this extent, being rid of the N-bias will promote the goal of maximizing the satisfaction of one’s life However, to lack the N-bias means lacking the. .. respect to the P-bias, that, in terms of the prudentialist goal, there is no reason to think the state of lacking the MSI better than our present state of being subject to it, but rather some reason to think that it will be tantamount to a deterioration In other words, to maintain a state of being without the P-bias and the MSI—and, thus, the N-bias—is not rationally required relative to the goal of prudentialism... viewing with these emotions pains that, in spite of their efforts to evade them, they have suffered in the past—at least as long as there is adequate representation, usually in the form of memories Is the distress here of the same strength as in the case of loved ones? The following variation of Parfit’s patient example suggests a positive answer Imagine that when I wake up I am told that either my very . as the upshot of repres- entional mechanisms of the sort studied in the context of weakness of will in Part II. In Chapter 16 I shall let another temporal bias, the bias towards the future, the. irrespective of the outcome of the metaphysical debate about whether the tensed or the tenseless view of time is right. (On the other hand, if these beliefs were false and irrational had the tenseless. experienced from the perspective of the present. 15 THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE BIAS TOWARDS THE NEAR TO find out whether the N-bias is cognitively rational, and so whether rationalists could allow themselves