Promises should be kept. It’s not only a virtue, but useful for pre-commitment if you can keep your promises.
But, if you make a promise to someone, and later both of you decide it’s a bad idea to keep the promise, you should be able to break it. If that someone is your past self, this negotiation is easy: If you think it’s a good idea to break the promise, they would be convinced the same way you were. You’ve run that experiment.
So, you don’t really have much obligation to your past self. If you want your future self to have obligation to you, you are asking them to disregard any new evidence they may encounter. Maybe you want that sometimes. But that feels like it should be a rare thing.
On a society level, this argument might not work, though. Societal values might change because people who held the old value died. We can’t necessarily say “they would be convinced the same way we were.” I don’t know what causes societal values to change, or what the implications therefore are.
I’m not sure it’s as simple as that—I don’t know that just because it’s your past self, you get to make decisions on their behalf.
Toy example: last week I promised myself I would go hit the gym. Today I woke up and am feeling lazy about it. My lazy current self thinks breaking the promise is a good idea, but does that mean he’s justified in thinking that the past version of Austin would agree?
If you only kept promises when you want to, they wouldn’t be promises. Does your current self really think that feeling lazy is a good reason to break the promise? I kinda expect toy-you would feel bad about breaking this promise, which, even if they do it, suggests they didn’t think it was a good idea.
If the gym was currently on fire, you’d probably feel more justified breaking the promise. But the promise is still broken. What’s the difference in those two breaks, except that current you thinks “the gym is on fire” is a good reason, and “I’m feeling lazy” is a bad reason? You could think about this as “what would your past self say if you gave this excuse?” Which could be useful, but can only be judged based on what your current self thinks.
Promises should be kept. It’s not only a virtue, but useful for pre-commitment if you can keep your promises.
But, if you make a promise to someone, and later both of you decide it’s a bad idea to keep the promise, you should be able to break it. If that someone is your past self, this negotiation is easy: If you think it’s a good idea to break the promise, they would be convinced the same way you were. You’ve run that experiment.
So, you don’t really have much obligation to your past self. If you want your future self to have obligation to you, you are asking them to disregard any new evidence they may encounter. Maybe you want that sometimes. But that feels like it should be a rare thing.
On a society level, this argument might not work, though. Societal values might change because people who held the old value died. We can’t necessarily say “they would be convinced the same way we were.” I don’t know what causes societal values to change, or what the implications therefore are.
I’m not sure it’s as simple as that—I don’t know that just because it’s your past self, you get to make decisions on their behalf.
Toy example: last week I promised myself I would go hit the gym. Today I woke up and am feeling lazy about it. My lazy current self thinks breaking the promise is a good idea, but does that mean he’s justified in thinking that the past version of Austin would agree?
If you only kept promises when you want to, they wouldn’t be promises. Does your current self really think that feeling lazy is a good reason to break the promise? I kinda expect toy-you would feel bad about breaking this promise, which, even if they do it, suggests they didn’t think it was a good idea.
If the gym was currently on fire, you’d probably feel more justified breaking the promise. But the promise is still broken. What’s the difference in those two breaks, except that current you thinks “the gym is on fire” is a good reason, and “I’m feeling lazy” is a bad reason? You could think about this as “what would your past self say if you gave this excuse?” Which could be useful, but can only be judged based on what your current self thinks.