Time Biases - A Theory of Rational Planning and Personal Persistence

Should you care less about your distant future? What about events in your life that have already happened? How should the passage of time affect your planning and assessment of your life? Most of us think it is irrational to ignore the future but harmless to dismiss the past. But this book argues that rationality requires temporal neutrality.

List of contents

• Introduction


• 1: The Received Wisdom


• 2: The Life Saving Argument


• 3: The Arbitrariness Argument


• 4: Personal Volatility


• 5: Preferences about the Past


• 6: The No Regrets Argument


• 7: The Arbitrariness Argument (Again)


• 8: Understanding Temporal Neutrality


• 9: Neutrality, Sunk Costs, and Commitment


• 10: Neutrality and Life Extension


• 11: Neutrality and Meaning

About the author

Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the Director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. Her work focuses on time, modality, value theory, rational planning and religious belief. She's published work with many leading philosophy journals and current serves as a co-editor for Nous.

Summary

Should you care less about your distant future? What about events in your life that have already happened? How should the passage of time affect your planning and assessment of your life? Most of us think it is irrational to ignore the future but harmless to dismiss the past. But this book argues that rationality requires temporal neutrality.

Additional text

Time Biases is an exemplary instance of ethically engaged analytic philosophy at its best.

Product details

• Authors: Meghan Sullivan, Meghan (Professor of Philosophy Sullivan
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 27.10.2022
• EAN: 9780192884282
• ISBN: 978-0-19-288428-2
• No. of pages: 208
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Mind & Body, PHILOSOPHY / Religious, PSYCHOLOGY / Personality, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, RELIGION / Philosophy, RELIGION / Psychology of Religion, The self, ego, identity, personality, Ethics & moral philosophy, Psychology: the self, ego, identity, personality, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Ethics and moral philosophy, Philosophy of religion