Chrisoula Andreou

Dreadful and dreaded outcomes are sometimes brought about via the accumulation of individually trivial effects. Think about inching toward terrible health or toward an environmental disaster. In some such cases, the outcome is seen as unacceptable but is still gradually realized via an extended sequence of moves each of which is trivial in terms of its impact on the health or environment of those involved. Cases of this sort are not only practically challenging, they are theoretically challenging as well. For, they raise puzzling complications concerning the assessment of conduct. In particular, given cases of this sort, we seem forced to conclude that, sometimes, each current doing in an extended sequence of moves can be correctly assessed as permissible (relative to a certain set of concerns) even though the sequence foreseeably leads to an outcome that is unacceptable (relative to that same set of concerns) and even though acceptable outcomes are available. And this seems paradoxical. I argue that this (apparent) puzzle glosses over complications associated with action individuation and units of agency. Reflection on these complications makes it clear that in cases of the sort that have given rise to the puzzle, there is an accurate way of seeing what is being done at various particular moments that clearly brings out the tight connection between a current doing and non-trivial damage that is to be expected (and is indeed bound to occur if the doing is completed without a hitch)

Discussion of temptation has figured prominently in recent debates concerning instrumental rationality. In light of some particularly interesting cases in which giving in to temptation involves acting in accordance with one’s current evaluative rankings, two lines of thought have been developed: one appeals to the possibility of deviating from a well-grounded resolution, and the other appeals to the possibility of being insufficiently responsive to the prospect of future regret. But the current appeals to resolutions and regret and some of the verdicts provided face some serious challenges. Building on recent work concerning instrumental rationality, and delving into some important complications concerning human psychology, I revisit the relevant cases of temptation and analyze them in a way that puts resolutions, rational failure, and regret in their proper places. In the process, I highlight and explain the significance of the neglected fact that resolutions can introduce effective anchor points, which can serve agents faced with temptation well, even if the resolutions are abandoned.

Is there a mode of sincere advice in which the standards of the adviser are put aside in favor of the standards of the advisee? I consider two sorts of cases that appear to be such that the adviser is evaluating things from within the advisee’s system of standards even though this system conflicts with her own; and I argue that these cases are best interpreted in ways that dissolve this appearance. I then argue that the nature of sincere advice precludes an adviser’s putting aside her own system of standards in favor of a competing system of standards. It follows that, contrary to what some have suggested, it cannot be that practical reason judgments—which are concerned with what an agent has reason to do or not to do and which can figure as advice— evaluate actions from within the agent’s (as opposed to the judger’s) system of standards.

I argue that procrastination with respect to environmental preservation is in the class of procrastination problems that are particularly difficult to overcome because of the presence of factors that support second-order procrastination. If my reasoning is correct, then second-order procrastination can help explain the distressing fact — assuming it is a fact — that, despite widespread professions of serious concern, the issue of environmental preservation is not getting as much of our attention as it deserves. My reasoning also suggests that improving our situation may require that some of the efforts now focused on promoting concern for environmental preservation be rerouted into tracking procrastination and deploying insights on how to cope with it.

This chapter discusses the utility of cost-benefit analysis in decision making, specifically environmental decision making. For the purposes of the discussion here, it uses a type of CBA that incorporates two controversial characteristics, namely, the assumption of comparability and the willingness-to-pay measure. The chapter aims to show that the recognition of a well motivated holistic decision-making strategy can shed light on debates regarding CBA. This strategy is concerned with patterns of choices rather than individual ones, and corresponds with two familiar phenomena—the “pricing” of alternatives and the “embedding effect” in willingness-to-pay studies. This chapter also differentiates CBA from cost-preparedness analysis, and concludes that there need not be any inconsistency in pricing alternatives deemed incomparable and that willingness-to-pay studies can be more accurately interpreted as tracking the “preparedness to pay.”.

Implicit in common views about morality is the assumption that the grip of morality is inescapable in the sense that moral considerations give reasons for acting to everyone. On the basis of this assumption, it is claimed that there is a necessity associated with behaving morally, even when we are not compelled to do so, and that while one may reasonably dismiss certain non-moral requirements with a "So what?" one cannot reasonably offer this in response to a statement about the dictates of morality. This picture is at odds, however, with an influential thesis, advanced and defended by Bernard Williams, according to which an agent's only reasons for action are provided by the agent's current subjective motivational set. According to this thesis, which I refer to as the desire thesis, whether an agent has reason to, say, keep her promises or benefit others, depends on how these things fit with her desires. Building on views about reasons for action that I propose and defend, my dissertation undermines the desire thesis, and thereby contributes to a vindication of the assumption that morality has universal rational authority. ;I begin by explaining the nature of the conflict, which Williams misrepresents, between the desire thesis and the supposition that moral considerations give reasons for acting to everyone. Next, I show that there are two sorts of reason-statements that figure as conclusions of practical deliberation and correspond to two senses of the term reason, namely reasons in the instrumental intention-based sense and reasons in the potentially non-intention-serving sense. Using this distinction, I show that the desire thesis is accountable to our ordinary reason talk in a way that Williams does not recognize. I then introduce the notion of a basic reason-giving consideration. This allows me I pick out the two ways of interpreting the desire thesis, which have been alluded to but never clearly articulated. I argue that, given either interpretation, the desire thesis must be rejected, since, according to one interpretation, the thesis conflicts with a conceptual truth about reasons for action, and according to the other, the thesis is completely implausible.