If Jane knows she will have a strong preference not to have a hangover tomorrow, but a more vivid and accessible desire to keep drinking with her friends in the here-and-now, she may yield to the weaker preference. By the same token, if Jane knows a cow has a strong preference not to have her throat slit, but Jane has a more vivid and accessible desire for a burger in-the-here-and-now, then she may again yield to the weaker preference. An ideal, perfectly rational agent would act to satisfy the stronger preference in both cases.
Perfect empathy or an impartial capacity for systematic rule-following (“ceteris paribus, satisfy the stronger preference”) are different routes to maximal instrumental rationality; but the outcomes converge.
The two cases presented are not entirely comparable. If Jane’s utility function is “Maximize Jane’s pleasure” then she will choose to not drink in the first problem; the pleasure of non-hangover-having [FOR JANE] exceeding that of [JANE’S] intoxication. Whereas in the second problem Jane is choosing between the absence of a painful death [FOR A COW] and [JANE’S] delicious, juicy hamburger. Since she is not selecting for the strongest preference of every being in the Universe, but rather for herself, she will choose the burger. In terms of which utility function is more instrumentally rational, I’d say that “Maximize Jane’s Pleasure” is easier to fulfill than “Maximize Pleasure”, and is thus better at fulfilling itself. However, instrumentally rational beings, by my definition, are merely better at fulfilling whatever utility function is given, not at choosing a useful one.
GloriaSidorum, indeed, for evolutionary reasons we are predisposed to identify strongly with some here-and-nows, weakly with others, and not at all with the majority. Thus Jane believes she is rationally constrained to give strong weight to the preferences of her namesake and successor tomorrow; less weight to the preferences of her more distant namesake and successor thirty years hence; and negligible weight to the preferences of the unfortunate cow. But Jane is not an ideal rational agent. If instead she were a sophisticated ultraParifitan about personal (non)identity (cf. http://www.cultiv.net/cultranet/1151534363ulla-parfit.pdf ), or had internalised Nagel’s “view from nowhere”, then she would be less prey to such biases. Ideal epistemic rationality and ideal instrumental rationality are intimately linked. Our account of the nature of the world will profoundly shape our conception of idealised rational agency.
I guess a critic might respond that all that should be relevant to idealised instrumental rationality is an agent’s preferences now—in the so-called specious present. But the contents of a single here-and-bow would be an extraordinarily impoverished basis for any theory of idealised rational agency.
If Jane knows she will have a strong preference not to have a hangover tomorrow, but a more vivid and accessible desire to keep drinking with her friends in the here-and-now, she may yield to the weaker preference. By the same token, if Jane knows a cow has a strong preference not to have her throat slit, but Jane has a more vivid and accessible desire for a burger in-the-here-and-now, then she may again yield to the weaker preference. An ideal, perfectly rational agent would act to satisfy the stronger preference in both cases. Perfect empathy or an impartial capacity for systematic rule-following (“ceteris paribus, satisfy the stronger preference”) are different routes to maximal instrumental rationality; but the outcomes converge.
The two cases presented are not entirely comparable. If Jane’s utility function is “Maximize Jane’s pleasure” then she will choose to not drink in the first problem; the pleasure of non-hangover-having [FOR JANE] exceeding that of [JANE’S] intoxication. Whereas in the second problem Jane is choosing between the absence of a painful death [FOR A COW] and [JANE’S] delicious, juicy hamburger. Since she is not selecting for the strongest preference of every being in the Universe, but rather for herself, she will choose the burger. In terms of which utility function is more instrumentally rational, I’d say that “Maximize Jane’s Pleasure” is easier to fulfill than “Maximize Pleasure”, and is thus better at fulfilling itself. However, instrumentally rational beings, by my definition, are merely better at fulfilling whatever utility function is given, not at choosing a useful one.
GloriaSidorum, indeed, for evolutionary reasons we are predisposed to identify strongly with some here-and-nows, weakly with others, and not at all with the majority. Thus Jane believes she is rationally constrained to give strong weight to the preferences of her namesake and successor tomorrow; less weight to the preferences of her more distant namesake and successor thirty years hence; and negligible weight to the preferences of the unfortunate cow. But Jane is not an ideal rational agent. If instead she were a sophisticated ultraParifitan about personal (non)identity (cf. http://www.cultiv.net/cultranet/1151534363ulla-parfit.pdf ), or had internalised Nagel’s “view from nowhere”, then she would be less prey to such biases. Ideal epistemic rationality and ideal instrumental rationality are intimately linked. Our account of the nature of the world will profoundly shape our conception of idealised rational agency.
I guess a critic might respond that all that should be relevant to idealised instrumental rationality is an agent’s preferences now—in the so-called specious present. But the contents of a single here-and-bow would be an extraordinarily impoverished basis for any theory of idealised rational agency.