Is there a better word for what he’s talking about?
Inter-temporal conflict?
(Part of the problem with misusing language is that it makes it unclear exactly what one has in mind. I assume Ainslie has a broader target than mere imprudence: foreseeable moral failures may provide similar reasons for precommitment, regret, etc. So perhaps he really does mean general akrasia, despite the misleading definition. But does he also take his topic to include ‘murder pills’ and ordinary cases of [foreseeable] changes to our ultimate values? Or does he restrict himself solely to cases of intertemporal “conflict” involving akrasia—i.e. whereby both ‘selves’ share the same ultimate values, and it’s simply a matter of helping them “follow through” on these?)
Inter-temporal conflict?
(Part of the problem with misusing language is that it makes it unclear exactly what one has in mind. I assume Ainslie has a broader target than mere imprudence: foreseeable moral failures may provide similar reasons for precommitment, regret, etc. So perhaps he really does mean general akrasia, despite the misleading definition. But does he also take his topic to include ‘murder pills’ and ordinary cases of [foreseeable] changes to our ultimate values? Or does he restrict himself solely to cases of intertemporal “conflict” involving akrasia—i.e. whereby both ‘selves’ share the same ultimate values, and it’s simply a matter of helping them “follow through” on these?)
His topic is specifically those changes of mind that we can anticipate because of hyperbolic discounting.
Okay, that sounds like ‘imprudence’, then.