Petronella Randell

This thesis investigates the question of whether we can make transformative decisions rationally. The first chapter introduces and explores the nature of transformative experiences: what are they, and how do they bring about such drastic change? I argue that there is an tension between Paul’s (2014) characterisation of transformative experience and arguments that transformative experiences are imaginable. I propose a broader characterisation of transformative experiences on which transformation isn’t driven by experiential acquaintance. From Chapter 2 onwards, the thesis focuses on whether we can rationally choose to have transformative experiences. Transformative experiences pose a problem to Expected Utility Theory, our standard theory of rationality. I introduce Expected Utility Theory and the problem posed by transformative experience before surveying prominent responses to the problem of transformative experience. Some responses are more promising given my characterisation of transformative experiences, such as Kind’s (2020a) Imaginative Scaffolding proposal, though I ultimately offer reasons to reject the available responses. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to developing and discussing Pettigrew’s (2015; 2019) solution to the problem of transformative experience: the Fine-Graining Response and the Aggregate Utility Solution. I argue that many transformative experiences involve constitutive risk and that this poses a problem for Pettigrew’s solution. The final substantive chapter of the thesis attempts to provide an alternative diagnosis of the problem of transformative experience for rational decision-making. I argue that if we are realists about decision-theoretic attitudes, the problem can be construed as a problem about self-knowledge of desire. On this proposal, the limitations of third-personal evidence are evident: whilst it can help us recognise what is desirable, it cannot settle the question of what we, ourselves, desire.

Risk is inherent to many, if not all, transformative decisions. The risk of regret, of turning into a person you presently consider to be morally objectionable, or of value change are all risks of choosing to transform. This aspect of transformative decision-making has thus far been ignored, but carries important consequences to those wishing to defend decision theory from the challenge posed by transformative decision-making. I contend that a problem lies in a common method used to cardinalise utilities – the von Neumann and Morgenstern (vNM) method – which measures an agent's utility function over sure outcomes. I argue that the risks involved in transformative experiences are constitutively valuable, and hence their value cannot be accurately measured by the vNM method. In Section 1, I outline what transformative experiences are and the problem they pose to decision theory. In Section 2, I outline Pettigrew's (2019, Choosing for Changing Selves) decision-theoretic response, and in Section 3, I present the case for thinking that risks can carry value. In Section 4, I argue for the claim that at least some transformative experiences involve constitutive risk. I argue that this causes a problem for decision-theoretic responses within the vNM framework in Section 5.

On the standard Paulian definition of epistemically transformative experiences (ETE), we can’t know what an ETE is like before we have it. ETEs are new kinds of experiences and, importantly, can’t be imagined—this is why they have a unique ability to teach us what a particular experience is like. Contra Paul, some philosophers (Sharadin, 2015; Wilkenfeld, 2016; Ismael, 2019; Kind, 2020; Daoust, 2021; Cath, 2022) have argued that transformative experiences can be imagined. A neglected consequence of this argument is that if transformative experiences can in fact be imagined, then it is unclear how they could be epistemically transformative. What do they teach us if we can imagine what they’re like in advance? I will argue not only that imaginable experiences can be transformative, but that experiences of a kind which an agent is experientially acquainted with can also be transformative. This latter kind of transformative experiences, which I will call familiar transformative experiences, are transformative not because the agent learns what a new kind of experience is like—by definition, they are not new kinds of experiences—but because the transformativeness of the experience is brought out by features of the agent experiencing them. Epistemic transformation in these cases may be explained by facts about the agent’s perspective and social environment, which allow them to appreciate elements of the experience they did not previously.