Your utils come from doing what you want, not being happy or successful, or finding the most efficient way to satisfy as many of your desires as possible, or anything else.
I agree with your main point. I disagree about this small bit, however as it appears to presuppose that giving in to an impulsive or compulsive desire is “what you want”, and perhaps also that you cannot change “what you want”. Ainslie notes that even many addictive desires are not actually “wanted”, and most of the field of NLP as well as my own work shows that it’s actually not that hard to change “what you want”.
That having been said, I agree that condemning what you want is useless. Unless you incorporate information about your actual utilon sources into your decision-making, you will not be able to change with any consistency.
(Or, to put it another way: if you refuse to specifically acknowledge what you’re giving up by changing your behavior, it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed in extinguishing the old behavior, or preventing substitute behaviors from arising.)
I certainly agree that it’s possible to change what you want, if you want to, but analyzing such meta-desires seems tricky. (I’m reminded of the passage in Carmen where the title character says something to the effect of “I love you now less than I did, and soon I won’t love you at all.”)
I agree with your main point. I disagree about this small bit, however as it appears to presuppose that giving in to an impulsive or compulsive desire is “what you want”, and perhaps also that you cannot change “what you want”. Ainslie notes that even many addictive desires are not actually “wanted”, and most of the field of NLP as well as my own work shows that it’s actually not that hard to change “what you want”.
That having been said, I agree that condemning what you want is useless. Unless you incorporate information about your actual utilon sources into your decision-making, you will not be able to change with any consistency.
(Or, to put it another way: if you refuse to specifically acknowledge what you’re giving up by changing your behavior, it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed in extinguishing the old behavior, or preventing substitute behaviors from arising.)
I certainly agree that it’s possible to change what you want, if you want to, but analyzing such meta-desires seems tricky. (I’m reminded of the passage in Carmen where the title character says something to the effect of “I love you now less than I did, and soon I won’t love you at all.”)