Preface

Abstract

Self-defeating behavior and the frustration it can cause constitute a deep and rich area of philosophical inquiry. This book synthesizes and incorporates, in part or with some modifications, a variety of my contributions, published over many years, on the demands of effective decision-making in the face of challenging choice situations that generate disorderly preferences and threaten to prompt self-defeating patterns of choice. The result is a unified, extended study of the role of rationality in accommodating certain well-grounded but disorderly preference structures while protecting us from associated self-defeating patterns of choice. The book’s introduction, first chapter, and conclusion include selections (sometimes paraphrased or modified as needed to fit my current purposes) from “Environmental Damage and the Puzzle of the Self-Torturer” (Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2006a), “Empowering Rationality” (American Philosophical Quarterly, 2020a), “There Are Preferences and Then There Are Preferences” (Economics and the Mind, 2007a), “Rationality, Regret, and Choice over Time” (Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, 2020b), “Dynamic Choice” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017), “Sweating the Small Stuff” (Psychology Today [online], 2010), and from several of the papers mentioned below in connection with later chapters in the book. Chapter 2 is a modified version of “Self-Defeating Self-Governance” (Philosophical Issues, 2012). (As in other chapters, the modifications allowed the chapter to figure as part of a larger integrated whole and to be refined in light of relatively recent feedback.) Chapter 3 combines modified versions of “The Real Puzzle of the Self-Torturer” (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2015a) and “Cashing Out the Money-Pump Argument” (Philosophical Studies, 2016). Chapter 4 combines a modified version of “Parity, Comparability, and Choice” (Journal of Philosophy, 2015b) with modified selections from “Parity without Imprecise Equality” (Value Incommensurability, 2022). Chapter 5 is a modified version of “Incomparability and the Huge-Improvement Arguments” (American Philosophical Quarterly, 2021). Chapter 6 combines a modified version of “Better Than” (Philosophical Studies, 2019a) with modified selections from “In a Different League” (Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, 2020c). Chapter 7 is a modified version of “Temptation, Resolutions, and Regret” (Inquiry, 2014a). And Chapter 8 is a modified version of “Regret, Sub-Optimality, and Vagueness” (Vagueness and Rationality in Language Use and Cognition, 2019b). The book’s title is drawn from titles I’ve used for other pieces, including the title of my Psychology Today blog “Choosing Well: The Good, the Bad, and the Negligible” (2010), and the titles of my articles “Choosing Well: Value Pluralism and Patterns of Choice” (New Waves in Ethics, 2011) and “The Good, the Bad, and the Trivial” (Philosophical Studies, 2014).

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