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)

I focus on the idea that if, as a result of lacking any conscious goal related to X-ing and any conscious anticipation or awareness of X-ing, one could sincerely reply to the question ‘Why are you X-ing?’ with ‘I didn't realize I was doing that,’ then one's X-ing is not intentional. My interest is in the idea interpreted as philosophically substantial (rather than merely stipulative) and as linked to the familiar view that there is a major difference, relative to the exercise of agential control, between acting on a conscious goal (even one the agent is not actively thinking about) and acting on a non-conscious goal (about which the sincerely ‘clueless’ response ‘I didn't realize I was doing that’ could be provided). After raising some doubts about the target idea, I consider the two most promising lines of defence. I argue that neither is convincing, and that we should reject the suggestion that the idea is properly accepted as a matter of common sense. Even absent any conscious goal related to X-ing and any conscious anticipation or awareness of X-ing, there is room for counting X-ing as intentional if X-ing is, or is appropriately related to, a non-conscious goal

Sometimes a series of choices do not serve one's concerns well even though each choice in the series seems perfectly well suited to serving one's concerns. In such cases, one has a dynamic choice problem. Otherwise put, one has a problem related to the fact that one's choices are spread out over time. This survey reviews some of the challenging choice situations and problematic preference structures that can prompt dynamic choice problems. It also reviews some proposed solutions, and explains how some familiar but potentially puzzling phenomena — including, for example, self-destructive addictive behavior and dangerous environmental destruction — have been illuminated by dynamic choice theory.

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.

My aim in this paper is to initiate and contribute to debate concerning the possibility of behavior that is both self-defeating and self-governed. In the first section of the paper, I review a couple of points that figure in the literature as platitudes about (the relevant notion of) self-governance. In the second section, I explain how these points give rise to what seems to be a dilemma that suggests that informed self-defeating behavior, wherein one is aware of the consequences of each choice one makes, is impossible. In the third and fourth sections, I consider two types of cases that appear to be cases of informed self-defeating behavior and argue that one of the cases is a genuine case of self-defeating self-governance. I end with some remarks concerning self-governance, self-defeat, and dynamic choice. I suggest that the notion of self-defeat here employed provides a simple and compelling answer to the question “Are there any diachronic rationality constraints on agents?” The answer (or at least part of the answer) is “Yes, agents must avoid self-defeating behavior.” In section 5, I give reasons for thinking that all cases of diachronic irrationality are cases of self-defeating behavior in the relevant sense. As will become apparent, to the extent that the requirement to avoid self-defeating behavior calls for any cross-temporal coherence, it does so without endorsing a sort of conservatism that can interfere with personal growth and change.

I focus on the broadly instrumentalist view that all genuine practical imperatives are hypothetical imperatives and all genuine practical deliberation is deliberation from existing motivations. After indicating why I see instrumentalism as highly plausible, I argue that the most popular version of instrumentalism, according to which genuine practical imperatives can take desires as their starting point, is problematic. I then provide a limited defense of what I see as a more radical but also more compelling version of instrumentalism. According to the position I defend, genuine practical deliberation and genuine practical imperatives take as their starting point the agent's intentions and only the agent's intentions