Pub Date : 2018-12-06DOI: 10.1017/9781108329170.011
Natalie Gold
. In decision-theory, problems of self-control can be modelled as problems of intra-personal cooperation, between a series of transient agents who each make choices at particular times. Early agents in the series can try to influence the actions of later agents, but there is no rational way to exert willpower. I show how willpower can be introduced into decision theory by applying the theory of team reasoning, which was originally developed to understand cooperation between individuals in groups and allows that there can be multiple levels of agency, the individual and the team. In the case of intertemporal choice, the levels are the transient agent and the person over time. Intra-personal team reasoning, understood as a psychological process of identifying with the person over time, can generate a plausible theory of rational control if the intertemporal problem is structured as a threshold public goods game. In this framework, willpower is the ability to align one’s present self with one’s extended interests by identifying with the person over time. I show how intra-personal team reasoning creates a space for resolutions in decision theory and how it resolves a puzzle that exists in accounts that understand willpower as making and then not reconsidering resolutions.
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Pub Date : 2018-12-06DOI: 10.1017/9781108329170.002
J. Thoma
In the dynamic choice literature, temptations are usually understood as temporary shifts in an agent’s preferences. What has been puzzling about these cases is that, on the one hand, an agent seems to do better by her own lights if she does not give into the temptation, and does so without engaging in costly commitment strategies. This seems to indicate that it is instrumentally irrational for her to give into temptation. On the other hand, resisting temptation also requires her to act contrary to the preferences she has at the time of temptation. But that seems to be instrumentally irrational as well. I here consider the two most prominent types of argument why resisting temptation could nevertheless be instrumentally rational, namely two-tier and intra-personal cooperation arguments. I establish that the arguments either fail or are redundant. In particular, the arguments fail under the pervasive assumption in both decision theory and the wider literature on practical rationality that the agent’s preferences over the objects of choice are themselves the standard of instrumental rationality. And they either still fail or they become redundant when we give up that assumption.
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Pub Date : 2018-12-06DOI: 10.1017/9781108329170.006
L. Green, J. Myerson
{"title":"Preference Reversals, Delay Discounting, Rational Choice, and the Brain","authors":"L. Green, J. Myerson","doi":"10.1017/9781108329170.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108329170.006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":436463,"journal":{"name":"Self-Control, Decision Theory, and Rationality","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125343874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-12-06DOI: 10.1017/9781108329170.003
M. Peterson, P. Vallentyne
{"title":"Self-Prediction and Self-Control","authors":"M. Peterson, P. Vallentyne","doi":"10.1017/9781108329170.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108329170.003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":436463,"journal":{"name":"Self-Control, Decision Theory, and Rationality","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124625451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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