Arbitrariness Arguments against Temporal Discounting

Australasian Philosophical Review 5 (3):302-308 (2021)
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Abstract

Craig Callender [2022] provides a novel challenge to the non-arbitrariness principle. His challenge plays an important role in his argument for the rational permissibility of a non-exponential temporal discounting rate. But the challenge is also of wider interest: it raises significant questions about whether we ought to accept the non-arbitrariness principle as a constraint on rational preferences. In this paper, I present two reasons to resist Callender’s challenge. First, I present a reason to reject his claim that the non-arbitrariness principle only targets pure time preferences. Second, I criticize the inference Callender draws from a modest claim to a much stronger claim. The modest claim is that it can be hard to reveal the contents of an agent’s preferences. The stronger claim is that this provides us with a reason to reject a certain kind of normative constraint on rational preferences. I argue that the modest claim doesn’t motivate the stronger claim. The upshot of my two arguments is good news for those sympathetic to the non-arbitrariness principle: Callender’s challenge can be overcome, at least as it currently stands.

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Tim Smartt
University of Sydney

Citations of this work

Response to Critics.Craig Callender - 2021 - Australasian Philosophical Review 5 (3):309-321.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition.John Rawls - 1999 - Harvard University Press.
The Methods of Ethics.Henry Sidgwick - 1903 - International Journal of Ethics 13 (2):251-254.

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