Strange mutations: A defense of temporal neutrality.
Item
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Title
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Strange mutations: A defense of temporal neutrality.
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Identifier
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AAI3103108
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identifier
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3103108
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Creator
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Fisk, William Riley.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Douglas Lackey
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Date
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2003
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Philosophy
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Abstract
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The choosing of a lesser good because of when that good is found, has been thought paradigmatic of irrationality. Temporal neutrality has been thought the correct stance to take towards goods. How, after all, could the bare fact that one's ecstasy occurs on Monday the 4th of April augment or diminish its worth? A primary aim of this dissertation is to defend this ancient bit of practical wisdom, which we'll call the temporal neutrality thesis (TNT). Its secondary aim is to explore several aspects of value's entanglements in time.;Several challenges to the TNT can be found in the literature. Michael Slote quarrels with the TNT because he thinks it falsely describes the goods of childhood and old age. Such goods, on his account, are inferior to those of life's prime. Bernard Williams holds that the present possesses special authority for practical reason. Derek Parfit notes how very odd the TNT appears when we apply it to the purposes of the past. J. N. Findlay and C. I. Lewis, attending to the holistic manner in which later and earlier parts of experience modify one another, implicitly raise questions about the TNT's presuppositions. The separability or discreteness of values occurring at different times can appear to wither in the face of experience's holistic character.;Slote is mistaken to think that, if he were right about the inferiority of the values of life's earliest and latest stages, this would damage the TNT. He is also largely mistaken in holding the goods of those times inferior. Williams's brief for now is evidently flawed---I can now be deeply mistaken as to what is choiceworthy. A problem his discussion exposes, the problem of determining how to choose in the face of the prospect that our values will change, is real enough. Against Parfit, a case is made for the claims of the past upon us. Axiological holism complicates the neutralist's task, but holisms that annihilate part value in its subordination to the value of a whole are absurd, whereas more temperate such subordinations are quite consonant with the TNT.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
