Alex Pond
Phil 4010
Dec. 2, 2014
On the Shallowness of the No Regret Condition I would disbelieve the person who claimed to have never experienced regret. There are so many triggers for this emotion that to have completely avoided it, one may question the authenticity of the social existence of the agent that has managed this avoidance. Bratman initially proposes the no regret condition in an attempt to explain how rational agents may stick to prior plans in the face of a temporary preference reversal. I will argue in this paper that in doing so he makes a positive contribution to practical reasoning theory, but his defense of the condition is contradictory, and highlights underlying commitments he has made regarding what we are ontologically that I believe to be misguided. The working example is that Chrisoula desires to work on a paper, which is to be published, tonight after dinner. During dinner she enjoys a glass of wine, and after she has finished that glass, she genuinely desires another. Knowing fully well that having consumed two glasses of wine, her cognitive and articulative abilities will be noticeably impaired; these two evaluative rankings are mutually exclusive (insofar as Chrisoula values the quality of her work). What should she do? There is a sense that, in their immediacy, evaluative rankings hold equal sway in the decision making process of the decider. The desire Chrisoula had, before dinner, to work on her paper, was equally as strong as her desire, during dinner, for another glass of wine.
Bratman claims that we are temporally extended beings. For if we were not, our ability to make plans would be virtually nonexistent. “We frequently settle in advance on prior, partial plans for future action, fill them in as time goes by, and execute them when the time comes… These forms of organization are central to the lives we want to live”