I talked about this in a post when I was at Stirling in 2016 and I have thought it about regularly since. I have mentioned Derek Parfit's work on the blog on several occasions (here here here here). He is one of the most influential philosophers of the last century. I first read his work while taking philosophy classes with the Open University in the evening during my only year to date outside of academia working with the ESRI in Dublin. His book Reasons and Persons is a key work in moral philosophy and has had impacts on many other literatures, including starting a number of discussions in behavioural and welfare economics about the nature of intertemporal choice and altruism. This New Yorker profile of him and his work is well worth reading. Shane Frederick's work applied Parfit's ideas to the behavioural economics of intertemporal choice, and these papers are very interesting.The Daily Nous blogpost on Parfit's death contains several links to obituaries and other relevant links. From my part, I cannot recommend Reasons and Persons more highly to people working in behavioural literatures who want to connect areas such as the study of decision-making and intertemporal preference to issues of justice and moral philosophy.
The book is divided into 4 sections: the first "Self-defeating theories" deals with rational choice in the context of interconnected decisions; the second "Rationality and Time" develops an account of inter-temporal choice that questions our received notions of time; the third "Personal Identity" develops an account of identity based not on continuity but rather on mental connectedness; the fourth section discusses the nature of obligation to future generations. The book consists of 20 chapters as well as appendices, totalling 154 subsections each containing important ideas. The four parts of the book also interconnect and build to a startling set of ideas on how we should ethically behave towards others, our future selves, and future generations. The book's concepts have substantial relevance for economists. One example is his well-known "repugnant conclusion" and "non-identity problem", one potential consequence being that future generations should not be factored into policy considerations as different courses of action will simply create different future generations who, providing their existence is preferable to them than non-existence, will be grateful to have been born (Parfit obviously spent a lot of time arguing that we do indeed have an ethical duty to future generations). Most relevant to the type of work we discuss on this blog, Shane Frederick has developed Parfit's ideas on psychological connectedness to future selves in order to examine inter-temporal choice.
The current idea is inspired by Chapter 8 of Reasons and Persons "Different Attitudes to Time" which examines whether we are neutral with regard to time. If we are valuing a reward or punishment should it matter to us whether we receive it now, in the future, or in the past? A large part of behavioural economics is based on the idea that people will value present rewards more highly than future rewards, and that this will be accentuated when the time horizon is nearer. However, the idea of valuing past rewards is not something that is often discussed.
At first glance, it seems like a very odd idea. For example, take the choice below (which is my clumsy construction):
A: You will receive 100 pounds in a week, which you must spend on something you really enjoy.
B: You will learn that you received 100 pounds last week, which you spent on something you really enjoyed and subsequently forgot about.
Assuming that both experiences are equally enjoyable, it seems unlikely that anyone would prefer to have had that experience in the past rather than to have it available as a future option. Arguably, this is because we experience time as moving forward from our present state. An experience that happens to us in the past can only be valuable if it provides us with some element of present or future enjoyment. For example, if B led to us meeting someone that we became friends with, it may be rational to prefer B over the prospect of A. But the key point is that we do not place a value on the experience of B in itself because it is a past event that we no longer remember.
Can we imagine conditions where we value past experiences without regard for any present or future benefits deriving from them? Parfit gives the example of someone learning that their mother had died. Should it matter to the person how she died? Given any information about this refers to something that is in the past, should the person then be indifferent? Consider the case where the person learns that their mother had endured many months of intense pain prior to death and compare this to the case where the person learns that their mother had died painlessly, surrounded by loved ones, after a brief illness. There are many objections one could raise about the precise set-up and I would certainly encourage people to read the very detailed passage by Parfit to fully appreciate the thought experiment. But it seems clear that the valuation of past experience is not just due to future utility considerations, such as the effect on family members and so on. We feel bad that our mother would have suffered and we want to avoid this, even if the event is in the past. Puzzlingly, this probably does not apply to our own past experiences. For example, Parfit discusses the case where you are conscious during a medical operation but then given a drug to make you sleep and forget the experience. On waking up, would it matter to you whether the operation had been painful or not? Compare this to your preferences immediately before the operation.
At first glance, it seems like a very odd idea. For example, take the choice below (which is my clumsy construction):
A: You will receive 100 pounds in a week, which you must spend on something you really enjoy.
B: You will learn that you received 100 pounds last week, which you spent on something you really enjoyed and subsequently forgot about.
Assuming that both experiences are equally enjoyable, it seems unlikely that anyone would prefer to have had that experience in the past rather than to have it available as a future option. Arguably, this is because we experience time as moving forward from our present state. An experience that happens to us in the past can only be valuable if it provides us with some element of present or future enjoyment. For example, if B led to us meeting someone that we became friends with, it may be rational to prefer B over the prospect of A. But the key point is that we do not place a value on the experience of B in itself because it is a past event that we no longer remember.
Can we imagine conditions where we value past experiences without regard for any present or future benefits deriving from them? Parfit gives the example of someone learning that their mother had died. Should it matter to the person how she died? Given any information about this refers to something that is in the past, should the person then be indifferent? Consider the case where the person learns that their mother had endured many months of intense pain prior to death and compare this to the case where the person learns that their mother had died painlessly, surrounded by loved ones, after a brief illness. There are many objections one could raise about the precise set-up and I would certainly encourage people to read the very detailed passage by Parfit to fully appreciate the thought experiment. But it seems clear that the valuation of past experience is not just due to future utility considerations, such as the effect on family members and so on. We feel bad that our mother would have suffered and we want to avoid this, even if the event is in the past. Puzzlingly, this probably does not apply to our own past experiences. For example, Parfit discusses the case where you are conscious during a medical operation but then given a drug to make you sleep and forget the experience. On waking up, would it matter to you whether the operation had been painful or not? Compare this to your preferences immediately before the operation.
Below are some examples that came from a brainstorm with research assistants at the time:
Learning that your husband was a spy.Learning that you were adopted as a baby but nobody had told you. Now your birth parents are dead but you still have the people you always considered to be your parents.You consider that you had a very happy childhood. But one day you learn that you were accidentally swapped with another baby in the hospital.Learning that your partner had cheated on you for years.Realising that a favourite teacher taught you something fundamentally wrong.Learning that someone you care about read your diary or personal letters.Finding out in ten years' time that flossing your teeth has no real health benefit (although it's not harmful).Finding out years after the fact that you were not the first choice when you were hired.Finding out that you got your current job despite a previous employer writing a very bad reference for you.People in Germany finding out years later that their relatives were Nazis or denounced their neighbours during the second world war.You are now a successful lawyer with a happy family and lots of friends. You meet up with an old friend from school, who tells you that when you were in secondary school, the person you considered your best friend spread horrible rumours about you.A juror learning that a defendant they found guilty of murder years ago was actually innocent based on DNA evidence (not available at the time of the trial).Finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real!
The above illustrates the difficulties in separating out pure valuations of the past. Firstly, it is clear that certain past experiences will condition who we are today at some fundamental level. We are not particularly interested in cases, for example, whereby changes in the past would lead to us either not existing or existing in some form for which we have no empathy. One strategy we are looking at is just to take the hypothetical cash tradeoffs outlined above seriously and to estimate discounting rates for the past. The other is to develop a taxonomy of past valuations and to examine mechanisms why people might value the past a) Utilitarian reasons: Our past efforts condition our current wealth etc., b) Learning: even though a past event might have been a bad experience and still affect us negatively, it may have taught us a lesson c) Lived memory: memories we have experienced and that continue to create sensations when we think about them. A lot of complications here including false memories. d) Collective memory: memories embedded in language and culture that we have not directly experienced eg English people that value the 1966 World Cup. Scope here for "existence values" heritage WTP studies. e) Intrinsic value of past: values that relate purely to features of the past event, regardless of its utility for current events eg mother example, privacy invasions, infant abuse, bodily defilement under anaesthetic, etc., There is obviously quite a bit of work on identity and memory in relation to the value of the past including some referenced below but utility for the past is arguably too far-fetched to have been developed systematically. The seminars will go in more depth in how we are trying to do this.
ReferencesCaruso (2010). When the future feels worse than the past: A temporal inconsistency in moral judgment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol 139(4), Nov 2010, 610-624.
Kane (2012). Prototypical prospection: future events are more prototypically represented and simulated than past events. European Journal of Social Psychology, Special Issue: Mental Time Travel: Social Psychological Perspectives on a Fundamental Human Capacity Volume 42, Issue 3, pages 354–362, April 2012.
Moller (2002). Parfit on Pains, Pleasures, and the Time of their Occurrence. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 32, Issue 1, 2002.
Parfit (1971). On "The Importance of Self-Identity". The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 20, Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 21, 1971), pp. 683-690.
Parfit (1984). Rationality and Time. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 84 (1983 - 1984), pp. 47-82.
Schechtman (2005). Personal Identity and the Past. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Volume 12, Number 1, March 2005.
Van Boven et al (2007). Looking forward, looking back: Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol 136(2), May 2007, 289-300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.136.2.289
Yehezkel (2014). Theories of Time and the Asymmetry in Human Attitudes. Ratio, Volume 27, Issue 1, pages 68–83, March 2014.
Kane (2012). Prototypical prospection: future events are more prototypically represented and simulated than past events. European Journal of Social Psychology, Special Issue: Mental Time Travel: Social Psychological Perspectives on a Fundamental Human Capacity Volume 42, Issue 3, pages 354–362, April 2012.
Moller (2002). Parfit on Pains, Pleasures, and the Time of their Occurrence. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 32, Issue 1, 2002.
Parfit (1971). On "The Importance of Self-Identity". The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 20, Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 21, 1971), pp. 683-690.
Parfit (1984). Rationality and Time. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 84 (1983 - 1984), pp. 47-82.
Schechtman (2005). Personal Identity and the Past. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Volume 12, Number 1, March 2005.
Van Boven et al (2007). Looking forward, looking back: Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol 136(2), May 2007, 289-300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.136.2.289
Yehezkel (2014). Theories of Time and the Asymmetry in Human Attitudes. Ratio, Volume 27, Issue 1, pages 68–83, March 2014.
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