'I'll Be Glad I Did It' Reasoning and the Significance of Future Desires

Philosophical Perspectives 23 (1):177-199 (2009)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

We use “I’ll be glad I did it” reasoning all the time. For example, last night I was trying to decide whether to work on this paper or go out to a movie. I realized that if I worked on the paper, then today I would be glad I did it. Whereas, if I went out to the movie, today I would regret it. This enabled me to see that I should work on the paper rather than going out to a movie. This looks like excellent reasoning: Paper argument: 1. If I work on my paper, I’ll be glad I did it. 2. Therefore, I should work on my paper. When we’re having trouble making a big life decision, we often try to picture what will happen each way we might choose, and imagine how we’ll feel in that outcome. When choosing between two jobs, we might use this reasoning. Suppose you are choosing between two jobs and you know quite a lot about what the two jobs will be like. In one, you will make a lot of money but have to work eighty-hour weeks and see little of your family. In the other, you will make considerably less money—though enough to support yourself and your family. You’ll have much more time for your family. The money is attractive. But overall, you realize you’ll be glad to have the time with your family if you take the second job—you’ll be glad you made that choice. It seems this is a good way of realizing that you should take the second job

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

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

Reasons From The Humean Perspective.Elizabeth S. Radcliffe - 2012 - Philosophical Quarterly 62 (249):777-796.
Realizing Onself by Realizing What One Really Wants to Do.Yudai Suzuki - 2018 - In Andrea Altobrando, Takuya Niikawa & Richard Stone (eds.), The Realizations of the Self. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan. pp. 185-197.
Pleasure and Illusion in Plato.Jessica Moss - 2006 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (3):503 - 535.
Inferentialism and Practical Reason.William H. White - 2002 - Dissertation, Georgetown University
Instrumental desires, instrumental rationality.Michael Smith - 2004 - Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 78 (1):93-109.
Desires as additional reasons? The case of tie-breaking.Attila Tanyi - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 152 (2):209-227.
Desire and value in practical reasoning.Peter Fossey - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Warwick
The structure of instrumental practical reasoning.Christian Miller - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (1):1–40.
Do Animals Have an Interest in Continued Life?Aaron Simmons - 2009 - Environmental Ethics 31 (4):375-392.
Desire.Richard Swinburne - 1985 - Philosophy 60 (234):429 - 445.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
317 (#58,200)

6 months
14 (#114,812)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Elizabeth Harman
Princeton University

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1986 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
Reflection and disagreement.Adam Elga - 2007 - Noûs 41 (3):478–502.
Belief and the Will.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1984 - Journal of Philosophy 81 (5):235-256.

View all 14 references / Add more references