Yeah interesting point. I do see the pull of the argument. In particular the example seems well chosen—where the general form seems to be something like: we can think of cases where our agent can be said to be better off (according to some reasonable standards/form some reasonable vantage point) if the agent can make themselves be committed to continue doing a thing/undergoing a change for at least a certain amount of time.
That said, I think there are also some problems with it. For example, I’m wary of reifying “I-as-in-CEV” more than what is warranted. For one, I don’t know whether there is a single coherent “I-as-in-CEV” or whether there could be several; for two, how should I apply this argument practically speaking given that I don’t know what “I-as-in-CEV” would consider acceptable.
I think there is some sense in which proposing to use legitimacy as criterion has a flavour of “limited ambition”—using it will in fact mean that you will sometimes miss out of making value changes that would have been “good/acceptable” from various vantage points (e.g. legitimacy would say NO to pressing the button that would magically make everyone in the world peaceful/against war (unless the button involves some sophisticated process that allows you to back out legitimacy for everyone involved)). At the same time, I am wary we cannot give up on legitimacy without risking much worse fates, and as such, I feel currently fairly compelled to opt for legitimacy form an intertemporal perspective.
Yeah interesting point. I do see the pull of the argument. In particular the example seems well chosen—where the general form seems to be something like: we can think of cases where our agent can be said to be better off (according to some reasonable standards/form some reasonable vantage point) if the agent can make themselves be committed to continue doing a thing/undergoing a change for at least a certain amount of time.
That said, I think there are also some problems with it. For example, I’m wary of reifying “I-as-in-CEV” more than what is warranted. For one, I don’t know whether there is a single coherent “I-as-in-CEV” or whether there could be several; for two, how should I apply this argument practically speaking given that I don’t know what “I-as-in-CEV” would consider acceptable.
I think there is some sense in which proposing to use legitimacy as criterion has a flavour of “limited ambition”—using it will in fact mean that you will sometimes miss out of making value changes that would have been “good/acceptable” from various vantage points (e.g. legitimacy would say NO to pressing the button that would magically make everyone in the world peaceful/against war (unless the button involves some sophisticated process that allows you to back out legitimacy for everyone involved)). At the same time, I am wary we cannot give up on legitimacy without risking much worse fates, and as such, I feel currently fairly compelled to opt for legitimacy form an intertemporal perspective.