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SUMMARY:Guard against temptation: team reasoning and the role of intention
 s in exercising willpower - Natalie Gold (King's College London)
DTSTART:20180502T120000Z
DTEND:20180502T133000Z
UID:TALK99232@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:31287
DESCRIPTION:Sometimes our judgments of what it is best to do may undergo a
  temporary \nshift at the time of action\, for example in cases where we f
 ace \ntemptation. Instrumental rationality requires that we are guided by 
 our \npreferences at the time of action\, similar to a condition that Mich
 al \nBratman calls ‘rational priority of present evaluation’. This rai
 ses the \nquestion of how it can be rational to resist temptation and ques
 tions \nabout the rational standing of intentions. According to one type o
 f \naccount\, which we can call Rational Non-Reconsideration (RNR)\, there
  is \na norm of rationality that one should not reconsider one’s intenti
 ons\, \nso one can rationally resist temptation by forming an intention no
 t to \nsuccumb. However\, these accounts have no resources if the agent do
 es \nre-open the question and\, I argue\, involve a puzzling account of th
 e \nrelationship between the agent and her resolution to resist temptation
 . \nI present an account of intertemporal choice that is located within \n
 decision theory\, where individuals use ‘intra-personal team reasoning
 ’\, \nwhich shows how it can be rational to resist in the face of tempta
 tion. \nIntra-personal team reasoning allows that there can be two levels 
 of \nagency\, the transient agent and the person over time. In this framew
 ork\, \nwillpower is the ability to align one’s present self with one’
 s extended \ninterests by identifying with the person over time. I contras
 t the role \nof intentions in this account with their role in RNR accounts
 . According \nto intrapersonal team reasoning\, both resisting and succumb
 ing to \ntemptation can be rational\, depending on which level of agency t
 he \ndecision-maker identifies with at the time. I argue that instrumental
  \nrationality cannot tell someone which level of agency to identify with 
 \nand explore some other types of arguments for identifying with the \nper
 son over time.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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