Thank Goodness That Argument Is Over: Explaining the Temporal Value Asymmetry

Philosophers' Imprint 12:1-16 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

An important feature of life is the temporal value asymmetry. Not to be confused with temporal discounting, the value asymmetry is the fact that we prefer future rather than past preferences be satisfied. Misfortunes are better in the past--where they are "over and done"--than in the future. Using recent work in empirical psychology and evolutionary theory, we develop a theory of the nature and causes of the temporal value asymmetry. The account we develop undercuts philosophy of time arguments such as that of Prior (1959), but more importantly, also begins a serious study of an interesting but understudied feature of our valuations and emotional attitudes. While in the spirit of certain past sketches about the possible origins of the temporal value asymmetry, our theory improves on them in many significant respects and suggests many clear avenues of future study. More generally, our hope is that work on the temporal value asymmetry will eventually attain the degree of rigor and explanatory power that the discounting asymmetry presently enjoys, for like this latter asymmetry, we believe the temporal value asymmetry has relevance to many practical issues in decision-making. Our paper can thus be seen as a call for a more unified methodological treatment of the two temporal asymmetries.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Presentism and ontological symmetry.Joseph Diekemper - 2005 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2):223 – 240.
Epistemological Time Asymmetry.Steven F. Savitt - 1990 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1990:317 - 324.
Time in Thermodynamics.Jill North - 2011 - In Criag Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press. pp. 312--350.
The time-asymmetry of causation.Huw Price & Brad Weslake - 2008 - In Helen Beebee, Peter Menzies & Christopher Hitchcock (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 414-443.
Process causality and asymmetry.Phil Dowe - 1992 - Erkenntnis 37 (2):179-196.
Thermodynamic asymmetry in time.Craig Callender - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The Direction of Causation: Ramsey's Ultimate Contingency.Huw Price - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:253 - 267.
Is supervenience asymmetric?John F. Post - 1999 - Manuscrito 22 (2):305-344.
The entropy theory of counterfactuals.Douglas N. Kutach - 2002 - Philosophy of Science 69 (1):82-104.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-10-26

Downloads
95 (#165,937)

6 months
13 (#117,898)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?