What You Can't Expect When You're Expecting'

Res Philosophica 92 (2):1-23 (2015)
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Abstract

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices.

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10.11612/resphil.2015.92.2.1

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L. A. Paul
Yale University

Citations of this work

The Ethics of Expectations.Rima Basu - 2023 - In Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol 13. Oxford University Press. pp. 149-169.
Imagination.Shen-yi Liao & Tamar Gendler - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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References found in this work

Transformative Experience.Laurie Ann Paul - 2014 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
What Mary Didn't Know.Frank Jackson - 1986 - Journal of Philosophy 83 (5):291-295.
What experience teaches.David K. Lewis - 1990 - In William G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Blackwell. pp. 29--57.
Hard Choices: Decision Making Under Unresolved Conflict.Isaac Levi - 1986 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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