The Problem of Self-Transformation
Rebecca Chan | [email protected]
Themes in Transformative Experience, 4/11/2017
0. Background
Preliminaries:
o Assume epistemic transparency
o Assume value transparency
 Global value: value of a state of affairs that is accessible from an impersonal thirdparty perspective
 Agent-relative value: value for an agent from the agent’s perspective
o Target self-interest
Self-transformation =def the change undergone by agent, S, between times t and t’ when and only when
S at t’ lacks some feature, F, that S at t regards as practically essential.
Thesis (‘T’): In cases of self-transformation, the rational preferences of self-interested agents are not
fully grounded in value considerations.
My project:
1. Argue for T
2. Diagnose T and uncover interesting connections between metaphysics and ethics
3. Offer a tentative account of how to have rational preferences in self-transformation cases
1. Argument for T
Two Stories:
1. Non-identity. Child considers whether it would be better for her had her mother waited.
 Lesson: Global values don’t matter for self-interest; agent-relative value does.
2. Past trauma. Jon now considers whether he prefers that his early life had gone better even
though it would result in his being radically different from who he is.
 Lesson: We’re not rationally required to prefer that our earlier lives had gone better
than they did if that would result in someone who is alien to us.
Argument:
(P1) In cases of self-transformation, the rational preferences of self-interested agents with respect
to their pasts are not fully grounded in value considerations.
(P2) The grounds for rational preference are insensitive to whether the preference is about the
agent’s past, present, or future.
(C) In cases of self-transformation, the rational preferences of self-interested agents are not fully
grounded in value considerations. (T)
Motivation for (P2):
o Epicurean arbitrariness arguments
o Dutchbook arguments
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Objecting to (P2): Past and future are not relevantly similar.
o (O1) Past is fixed but future is open; perhaps either possibility or control difference prevents
us from having preferences.
o (O2) Causal asymmetry: We prefer our current situation to alternatives and thus prefer the
thing that caused them; but the future doesn’t causally affect the present so we don’t have to
have preferences about that.
2. Diagnosing T
Decision Procedure: Survey possible future outcomes, find the ones that contain you, and then see
which of those has the most agent-relative value for you.
o Metaphysical profiles: tell us what a thing/agent is
 What is it for a person at t2 to be the same person at t1?
o Practical profiles: tell us who an agent is
 What characteristics make and express who a person truly is?
Connecting metaphysics and ethics:
o Metaphysics-first ethics
o Ethics-first metaphysics
 Practical
 Epistemic
 Determining
3. A tentative solution
Problem of self-transformation: Besides value, what—if anything—grounds rational preference in
self-transformation cases?
Three cases of non-evaluative, more fundamental grounds for rational preferences:
1. Performative acts. Sometimes, the fact that you did something (e.g., make a promise) is the
most fundamental ground for why a preference (e.g., keeping the promise) is rational.
2. Revelation. Paul suggests that agents facing transformative experience choose to discover
what the experience will be like, and that doing so makes the decision to undergo the
transformative experience rational.
3. Voluntarism. Chang/Korsgaard hold that agents can create practical reasons through acts of
the will.
What these cases have in common:
o Involve choices in which value considerations underdetermine which outcome the agent ought
to prefer.
o The action, rather than value, is the most fundamental ground for the rationality of the
preference the agent forms.
Solution: Rational preferences in self-transformation cases have first-personal grounds.
o Non-evaluative
o Arise from exercise of agentive power
o Bridge gap between agent’s current and future self
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