How should we accommodate our future misbehavior? The answer turns on how bad it will be
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How should we accommodate our future misbehavior? The answer turns on how bad it will be Daniel Immerman1
Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Professor Procrastinate receives an invitation to review a book. Best would be to accept it and then write the review. But if he accepts it, he will never get around to writing. And this would be worse than declining. Should he accept? Possibilists say yes, Actualists say no, and I say we need more information. In particular, we lack some information about the level of goodness of the various options. For example, we lack information regarding how much better it would be to accept and write than it would be to decline. In the course of defending my view, I discuss its implications for ethical theory and our everyday actions. Keywords Actualism Possibilism Moral obligations Non-ideal theory
Here is a widely discussed case:1 PROFESSOR PROCRASTINATE. Professor Procrastinate receives an invitation to review a book. The best thing that can happen is that he says yes, and then writes the review when the book arrives. However …were Procrastinate to say yes, he would not in fact get around to writing the review. Not because of incapacity or outside interference or anything like that, but because he would keep on putting the task off. Thus, although the best that can happen is 1
This case, or ones similar to it, are discussed in e.g. Baker (2012, 641), Cariani (2016), Goldman (1978, 185–186), Jackson and Pargetter (1986, 235), Littlejohn (2009), Portmore (2011, 151), Portmore (2013), Timmerman (2015, 1512), van Someren Greve (2013, 482–483), [Vessel, 28, 166], Woodard (2008, 18).
& Daniel Immerman [email protected] 1
Austin, TX, USA
123
D. Immerman
for Procrastinate to say yes and then write …what would in fact happen were he to say yes is that he would not write the review. Moreover …this …is the worst that can happen (Jackson and Pargetter 1986, 235) [Emphasis theirs]. Discussion of this case focuses on the question: ought Procrastinate accept the invitation, in the objective all-things-considered moral sense of ‘‘ought’’?2 This question is of practical interest; such cases are widespread. We regularly make plans or commitments and then don’t live up to them. We buy gym memberships only to fail to use them and make plans to socialize during busy periods only to lack the mental energy to fully engage. In addition, solving the puzzle promises to yield theoretical insights. Arguments regarding these cases turn on important principles in ethical theory—principles related to obligations and advice, intentions and ideals. Thus identifying which of these arguments are successful, which are unsuccessful, and why promises to yield insight into ethical theory, at both the normative and meta-ethical level. This paper defends a new response to the question: ought Professor Procrastinate accept the invitation? I argue that we cannot answer it because we are missing key information. This information concerns the level of goodness of the various options. For example, while we kn
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