In Choosing for Changing Selves, which I wrote towards the end of the 2010s, I tried to formulate a response to a worry that Edna Ullmann-Margalit, Krister Bykvist, and Laurie Paul, among others, had raised for the standard theory of rational choice.
I feel that the discussion of "rights against oneself" does more to illuminate the difficulty with the notion of rights that is relied on (roughly, some notion of natural rights).
If you view rights as being created by a state or similar body, the problem goes away. I have a right to stop you pinching my arm in that, if you do it, I can call the police and have you charged with assault. In this sense, I can't have rights against myself. At most, I can conclude that I can't trust myself and hand over my rights to a trusted third party.
Obviously, rights of this kind are not necessarily the rights we should have, and there can be conflict between different systems of rights (for example, those spelt out in international agreements, and those actually recognised by the states in question). But this still seems more coherent than thinking about natural rights in a way that gives us rights against ourselves
Yes, I tend to agree with this, and actually my next post, which will try out an analogy with Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous violinist case sort of brings this out as well. Her whole discussion is framed in terms of rights and I think the analogy with it doesn't end up helping in my case for that reason (though that's compatible with it being helpful for JJT's original argument).
One thing I’m not so sure I agree on is that we should care about our future preferences. Our current preferences care about our future life, but I’m not so sure that should be true of those future lives’ preferences as well… Sometimes we should because this “change in preference” is actually just a deeper reflection on what we actually would want under more idealized circumstances, but I’m not sure we should actually give weight to REAL different preferences.
Shouldn’t it be in our interest for our preferences not to change? Shouldn’t we not want to do something in the future that we now hate?
This is a different article that I liked that seems related and is (imo) worth checking out:
Yeah, that's a nice piece! I certainly think there are limits to how you should care about your future preferences, and I think the sorts of problems that SA draws attention to might make you care about those future preferences, but not act on that caring because you see the cascade effect that threatens. A lot of what he talks about here is covered in the literature on temptation and preference change. But I don't think that prevents us from caring about future preferences and acting on that caring in ordinary situations. If I can do something now for which I currently have a very strong preference, but it will risk severe bodily harm to myself in twenty years' time, and I can also predict that, in twenty years' time, I won't have a strong preference in favour of having done this thing, it does seem to give me at least a little pause about doing the thing in the first place?
I feel that the discussion of "rights against oneself" does more to illuminate the difficulty with the notion of rights that is relied on (roughly, some notion of natural rights).
If you view rights as being created by a state or similar body, the problem goes away. I have a right to stop you pinching my arm in that, if you do it, I can call the police and have you charged with assault. In this sense, I can't have rights against myself. At most, I can conclude that I can't trust myself and hand over my rights to a trusted third party.
Obviously, rights of this kind are not necessarily the rights we should have, and there can be conflict between different systems of rights (for example, those spelt out in international agreements, and those actually recognised by the states in question). But this still seems more coherent than thinking about natural rights in a way that gives us rights against ourselves
Yes, I tend to agree with this, and actually my next post, which will try out an analogy with Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous violinist case sort of brings this out as well. Her whole discussion is framed in terms of rights and I think the analogy with it doesn't end up helping in my case for that reason (though that's compatible with it being helpful for JJT's original argument).
This is a great article!
One thing I’m not so sure I agree on is that we should care about our future preferences. Our current preferences care about our future life, but I’m not so sure that should be true of those future lives’ preferences as well… Sometimes we should because this “change in preference” is actually just a deeper reflection on what we actually would want under more idealized circumstances, but I’m not sure we should actually give weight to REAL different preferences.
Shouldn’t it be in our interest for our preferences not to change? Shouldn’t we not want to do something in the future that we now hate?
This is a different article that I liked that seems related and is (imo) worth checking out:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes
Thanks, Noah! I'll have a look at the SA piece.
Yeah, that's a nice piece! I certainly think there are limits to how you should care about your future preferences, and I think the sorts of problems that SA draws attention to might make you care about those future preferences, but not act on that caring because you see the cascade effect that threatens. A lot of what he talks about here is covered in the literature on temptation and preference change. But I don't think that prevents us from caring about future preferences and acting on that caring in ordinary situations. If I can do something now for which I currently have a very strong preference, but it will risk severe bodily harm to myself in twenty years' time, and I can also predict that, in twenty years' time, I won't have a strong preference in favour of having done this thing, it does seem to give me at least a little pause about doing the thing in the first place?