Program
Monday June 1:
10:00-11:00 Katie Steele (ANU)
Clarifying the problem(s) of adaptive preferences
Much ink has been spilled addressing the problem of adaptive preferences for an account of well-being. The idea is that these preferences—developed in response to limited circumstances in such a way that the circumstances are embraced—seem both conducive and yet not conducive to well-being. Which is it? Here I argue that the trouble with this question is that there are in fact two very different problems of adaptive preferences for an account of well-being. I call one problem that of accommodation: Should our account of well-being accommodate or rather exclude adaptive preferences (as well as other kinds of suspect preferences) that a person happens to have, on the grounds that their satisfaction is not really good for the person? The second problem, which I call the problem of incentives, is a deeper one. Whatever one's position about which of a person's actual preferences are relevant for their well-being (and here I err on the side of being very liberal), there is a further question. Should our account of well-being be such that a prudent person would do well to change from one set of preferences to another that is easier to satisfy? I argue that an account of well-being should not incentivise such preference change.
11:05-12:05 Saira Kahn (Lingnan)
Adaptive preferences as transformative experiences
In this talk, I draw an important connection between Paul’s (2014) work on “transformative experiences” and the literature on adaptive preferences in feminist discussions of autonomy (Khader 2011). Adaptive preferences are those that an agent adopts in response to a decreased feasible option set, and typically do not contribute optimally to agent's well-being. "Transformative experiences" involve life-changing choices where we may not be able to epistemically access the subjective value of the outcomes. In such cases, Paul holds that decision theory would have us supplant our first-personal preference with third-personal preferences. I argue such preferences can be considered adaptive. Paul claims the only way to make choices that respect both authenticity and rationality is to imaginatively access one’s outcomes. Yet she believes this is only possible with the relevant kinds of prior experiences. I argue that a different kind of imaginative access can be provided by educational programs. These invoke agents to consider their position in relation to others who are relevantly similar to them but who do not possess an adaptive preference. I discuss how such educational programs have proven effective in changing women’s attitudes toward the necessity of unsafe female genital cutting in Kenya and Djibouti (Meyers 2000).
12:05 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Krister Bykvist (IFFS)
Temporal wellbeing and changing attitudes
How can we find a stable and plausible standard of temporal wellbeing when attitudes can change across time (e.g., because of transformative experiences)? This question is especially challenging since your attitude might be diachronic, i.e., the time of your attitude and the time of its object need not coincide. This prompts what has been called the timing question: if your diachronic attitude is satisfied, when are you benefited?
In this talk, I will introduce a simple model that provides perspicuous representations of change across time and the main contenders for answering the timing question. I shall argue that the view that we are benefited at the time of the attitude and the view that we are benefited at the time of the object both have serious problems.
14.35-14:50 Fika
14:50-15:50 Tim Campbell (IFFS)
Intuitive Horribleness and Transformative Experience
In previous work, Julia Mosquera and I argued that there is a tension between two claims in L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience: (1) some experiential outcomes cannot be evaluated and rationally chosen unless the agent knows what they are like; and (2) some experiential outcomes are intuitively horrible, such that the agent can identify them as bad no matter what they are like, and rationally refuse them on that basis. We argued that accepting both claims commits one to implausible boundaries between outcomes that cannot be rationally evaluated without prior experience and those that that can be. In response, we leaned toward rejecting (1). However, two recent articles put pressure instead on (2). Reynolds challenges the notion of “intuitive horribleness”, finding it suspect. Daoust argues that experientially novel outcomes can be partially cognitively modelled, and that this may suffice to rationally refuse outcomes that can only frustrate the agent’s core preferences. In this talk, I evaluate these replies and consider some of their implications for transformative experience.
15:50 – 16:30 reflections on the talks and ideas for collaborations
18:30 Dinner
Tuesday June 2:
10:00-11:00 Anna Mahtani (LSE)
Dementia, Binds, and Nudges
In cases of preference change – including cases of dementia – we sometimes want things for our future selves that we no longer want when that future time arrives. In such cases, we seem motivated to bind our future selves – even when that binding is costly. This picture is complicated by the role of carers, who may help the person in their decision-making and execution at every stage. In this paper I explore the ethics and practical consequences of nudging rather than binding one’s future self.
11:05-12:05 Henrik Andersson (Lund)
Consenting to the Unknown: Transformative Experience and Informed Consent in Medical Treatment
In this talk I explore whether medical treatments that involve transformative experiences render informed consent impossible. I focus especially on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy as a case where critics argue that patients cannot meaningfully consent because they cannot understand what it is like to undergo the treatment. I argue that this sets the bar for informed consent too high, and that on a more reasonable conception, consent to transformative procedures is possible. I conclude by considering whether patients can make rational choices concerning medical treatments that involve transformative experience, and argue that the medical setting has features that make such choices less problematic than they might appear elsewhere.
12:05 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Orri Stefansson (IFFS) [paper with Richard Bradley]
Statewise dominance and changing risk attitudes
We show that Statewise Dominance has problematic implications given two seemingly innocuous assumptions. The first of these assumptions is that rational people can change their preferences due to changed attitudes to risk (e.g., due to a transformative experience). The second assumption is that there are possible lives that would be just as good (or preferable), for the those leading them, even though non-equivalent levels of wellbeing at two points in time were permuted. In the presence of these two assumptions, Statewise Dominance implies that there are risky situations where a person’s attitude to risk can have no impact on her preferences between risky prospects. So, we face an inconsistency between a set of prima facie plausible assumptions about attitudes to risk and how preferences over life-stages relate to preferences over lives.
14.35-14:50 Fika
14:50-15:50 Richard Bradley (LSE)
Preference change through deliberation
The judgements of others, both factual and evaluative, are a resource that can be exploited to improve one's own; in particular one's judgements of preference. In this talk I will explore how what others say gives one reasons for preferences and present a model to explain how such deliberation-based preference formation and revision works.
15:50 – 16:30 reflections on the talks and ideas for collaborations
18:30 Dinner
Participants
Katie Steele (ANU)
Saira Kahn (Hong Kong)
Richard Bradley (LSE)
Anna Mahtani (LSE)
Henrik Andersson (Lund)
Anders Herlitz (Lund)
Orri Stefánsson (SU/IFFS)
Krister Bykvist (SU/IFFS)
Julia Mosquera (IFFS)
Tim Campbell (IFFS)