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Series:   Elements in Decision Theory and Philosophy

Rationality and Time Bias

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

Abelard Podgorski
Abelard Podgorski
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore

Summary

We often care not only about what happens to us, but when it happens to us. We prefer that good experiences happen sooner, rather than later, and that our suffering lies in our past, rather than our future. Common sense suggests that some ways of caring about time are rational, and others are not, but it is surprisingly challenging to provide justifying explanations for these tendencies. This Element is an opinionated, non-technical guided tour through the main philosophical issues about the relevance of the temporal location of our experiences to our desires and our choices, and the major arguments for and against different kinds of so-called time bias.
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Keywords

time biasrationalityfuture biasnear biasdiachronic rationality
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Decision Theory and Philosophy
Online ISBN: 9781009216920
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 16 January 2025

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