Rationality of Prudence

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Philosophical Review

The Rationality of PrudenceAuthor(s): Richard KrautSource: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), pp. 351-359Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2184331

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DISCUSSION

THE RATIONALITY OF PRUDENCEN ThePossibility f Altruism,lThomas Nagel presentsan explanationof why we regard prudence and altruism as rational. His thesis

is that the two phenomena are to be explained in strikingly similarways. We strive to be prudent because we regard the present as simplyone time among others (the future and the past) that are equallyreal. Similarly, a person is altruistic because he considers himself tobe one person among many others who are as real as he is. Althoughthe focus of the book is on altruism, I am interested primarily in show-ing that its account of prudence is wrong. I will, however, brieflystate in what way I think the error in the treatment of prudence isparalleled by a defect in the explanation of altruism.Prudence is the habit of responding appropriately to the "pos-sibility of avertable future harm or accessible future benefits" (p. 37).The problem is: what theory of motivation can best account for thefact that we consider it a virtue? One approach, which Nagel rejects,starts from the hypothesis that a person has a reason to do somethingonly in virtue of his now having a desire to do that thing. Since afuture desire is not a desire one has, this theory will have to accountfor prudence by pointing to two facts. First, we now have desires thatcertain events take place in the future. Second, when we believe thatwe will have a desire in the future, a present second-order desireforms for the satisfaction of that future desire. Our concern for thefuture is thus explained as being based entirely on desires, and there-fore reasons, we have now.

Nagel's theory differs from this one in that he holds that one neednot nowhave a reason to do something in order to be moved to makepreparations. Rather, my recognition that a future circumstance(my being in Italy, for example) will provide me with a reason todo something (speak Italian) can by itself move me to prepare to doit. The reason may not be provided by present circumstances (I amnot now in Italy) but it is nonetheless expected, and "the influenceof reasons can extend over time, because there is reason to promotethat for which there is or will be a reason" (p. 45). Why do reasonswhich will come into being in the future have an effect on us now?Nagel's answer is that we regard reasons as being timeless. That is,

I Thomas Nagel, The Possibilityof Altruism(Oxford, 1970).35'


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RICHARD KRAUTour belief that certain circumstances are past, present, or future isirrelevant to whether or not we believe that those circumstancesprovide a reason for action. We are affected by prudential con-siderations not in virtue of some special attitude we have toward thefuture, but simply because our temporal relation to a certain cir-cumstance in no way affects the question of whether that circum-stance provides us with a reason to act. It does not matter whetherwe say the circumstance which provides the reason did occur, isoccurring, or will occur. "We have a reason to promote any event,actual or possible, if it is tenselesslytrue that at the time of that event,a reason-predicate applies to it" (p. 48).2Since we regardour reasons as timeless,we can state them fromwhatNagel calls the standpoint of temporal neutrality. To adopt this stand-point is simply to view and describe the world without the use oftemporal token reflexives. Not only will "now" be absent from one'svocabulary, but so will "future" and "past," since these are definedin terms of "now," the future being any time later than now, the pastbeing the time earlier than now. Nagel argues that even when weadopt this standpoint, our judgment of what reasons we (tenselessly)have carries with it a "potential commitment to act" (p. 64) whichhe calls its "motivational content":Givena tenselesspecificationf the circumstances hichprovidea reason oraction, one can conclude that a certain act should be undertaken.Thisjudgmentpossessesmotivationalcontent, for one then regardsthe under-takingas justified,and thisis sufficient o explainone's wanting t to happen,be happening,or havehappened.Sucha desirewill formevenif one doesnotknowwhat time it is. Information boutone'stemporalocationmerelytellsone whetherthe opportunity f actingon this conclusions available.If thetime in questionis presentone can act directly; if it is still to come, themotivationmay lead one to take preparatorymeasures whichcan also bejustifiedtenselessly) pp. 70-7I].If the subjectof thejudgmentlies in the past, then unlessI have strangeviews about causation t can motivateme only to wantsomethingto havehappened,or to hope that I have done something,or to regretthat I havenot [p. 69].

What I find objectionable in this theory can be brought out if wenotice a crucial difference between it and a somewhat weaker view.A person might hold that for all personsp, acts a, and times t, if a isthe avoidance of pain at t, then p has a reason at t orbefore to promotea. The differencelies in the emphasizedwords, for this weaker position,2 "Every reason is a predicate R such that for all persons p and events A,if R is true of A, then p has prima facie reason to promote A" (p. 47).

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THE RATIONVALITYOF PRUDENCEunlike Nagel's, holds that after t we have no reason to promote orwant the avoidance of pain at t. If it is now past t, we are not evencommitted to regretting the past pain. On Nagel's theory, however,if one regards one's reasons as timeless and if one considers pain abad thing, one is committed to wishing one had never undergone painin the past. If one does not have this attitude toward past pain, thenone's judgment that one had a reason in the past to avoid past paindoes not have motivational content; it does not commit one to theappropriate desire.Thus Nagel says:Timeless reasons explain the phenomenon of wanting something to havehappenedimply because there was reason for it in the past. Someone who wastoo drunk at last night's party to remember what happened will hope that hebehaved with restraint-not only because of the subsequent disagreeableeffects of idiotic behavior, but because there was reason to avoid it then. (Itwould be only a partial consolation if everyone else at the party forgot hisbehavior completely.) Such desires about the past are appropriate even if oneknows what has happened. Regret is to the past as prudence is to the future;both are justified by timeless reasons [p. 72].

I will argue that Nagel is wrong in holding that a rational personregards all his reasons as being timeless. There are somecircumstanceswhich provide a reason for action and desire if the circumstance isin the present or future, but which provide no reason for action ordesire if it is in the past. In particular, we do not generally regardpast pain as a cause for regret (unless, of course, the pain has left itsmark on the present or future, whether by creating unhappy memories,fears, disabilities, or whatever). We do not wish we were never inpain in the past, but we do want to avoid present and future pain.And there is nothing irrational about this.

Nagel's theory concentrates on prima-facie reasons for action anddesire, and there is little mention of the problem of weighing thosereasons. But it is obvious that if a person must be able to state hisprima-facie reasons from the standpoint of temporal neutrality, hemust also be able to weigh this evidence from that standpoint. Forexample, suppose that a person has to decide which of two pains heis to endure. To make a rational decision, he might have to considersuch factors as their intensity and their likelihood of occurring. Butwould he need to know whether one pain is occurring now and theother in the future? I believe that Nagel's view must be that this pieceof information is irrelevant and that a rational man can ignore it.The idea is that the weight of future considerations should not be

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RICHARD KRAUTdiscounted simply because they are future; similarly for past andpresent considerations.But it is easy to think of casesin which a personasks himself, "WouldI prefer this pain's being in my past to its being in my future?" andanswersaffirmatively. Suppose someone suffers a slight loss of memory,forgetting whether he saw the dentist recently but remembering thathe has recently made an appointment. He ascertains today's date andsearches through his appointment book to determine whether or notthe appointment is for the past or the future. If it is in the past, heassumes he has met it. Such a person might ask himself, as he looksthrough his appointment book, whether he prefers discovering thatthe appointment is in the past to finding that it is in the future. Surely,if he is like most of us, he would rather that the pain be in his past.I am not saying that rationality requiressuch a preference; only thatthis would be a common attitude, and not an irrational one.This preferencecannot be expressedfrom the standpoint of temporalneutrality, since "past" and "future" figure essentially in it. Whenwe adopt that standpoint we deprive ourselves of a vocabulary weneed to express our preferences.In fact, we need not construct unusual circumstances to show thatwe prefer a given pain's being in our past to its being in our future.We often say of a past pain that we regarded as inevitable, "ThankGod it's over." And when unavoidable pains are ahead of us, weoften say, "I wish it were over." Nagel discussesthisvery phenomenonin a footnote:I owe to Bernard Williams the observation that when someone says "Thankgod that's over," about a disaster that is past, his reaction cannot be entirelyexpressed from a temporally neutral standpoint. But I believe that insofar asthis feeling provides reasons for action, those reasons will be timeless: viz.,reasons to accept inevitable suffering without too much delay, therebyshortening the pains of anticipation [p. 7I].I do not not see how this makes a convincing reply to the objection Iam presenting. Perhaps the claim is that whenever someone says, "Iwish that were over," he is expressing his anxiety; and whenever wehear "Thank God that's over" the speaker is expressing relief at nolonger having to suffer the "pains of anticipation." So, when weuse these phrases, we are only expressing a desire for as little anxietyas possible in our lives. A pain in the past is one we do not have tofeel anxious about, and the less anxiety the better.It is true that these expressions often, perhaps always, reveal that

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THE RATIONALITY OF PRUDENCEsome emotional strain is or was present. But it is simply wrong thatthe only advantage of past over futurepains is that the formercause no"pains of anticipation." A person who is so busy that he forgets aboutall future pain will nonetheless prefer to be past it all. It would bedogmatic to insist otherwise.There is a differentreply open to Nagel, and we will be consideringit later. It is that the preference for past pain is irrational. After all,the claim he wants to defend is that a rationalperson regardshis reasons(and his weighing of reasons) as timeless. That we deviate from thenorm of rationality in our attitude toward pain is no objection to histhesis.Beforeconsidering this reply, I would like to make a few additionalpoints. First, in the cases described above, the individual expressinga preference is not deluded into believing that he can affect the past.But a person who has "strange views about causation" (p. 69) wouldbe led to take some action to bring it about that a certain pain is inhis past rather than in his future. For example, the man sufferingfroma partial loss of memory might pray, as he leafs through his appoint-ment book, that his dental appointment has already been met.Second, although the argument I have given concerns preferences,it certainly makes it plausible that we are often indifferent to whetheror not we were in pain on a particular day in our past. Suppose some-one were trying to discover whether or not you suffered some intensepain ten days ago. (You have forgotten.) I suggest that you probablywould not care about his results, although you could of course try tocultivate an interest in this subject. (Compare your attitude to aninvestigation of whether you will suffer intense pain in ten days.)Third, I would like to emphasize that I am restricting my thesisto our attitude toward pain. It is clear that we often care intenselyabout past circumstances, even when we realize that they have noeffect on the present or future. For example, a man engaged in anathletic contest wants all through the game to win. When the gameis over and he loses, he naturally wishes that he had succeeded. Thisis a case of pure interest in the past, unaffected by present concerns.And it would be strange if the individual did not have this pureinterest in the past. How could his involvement in the game cease soabruptly that immediately afterward he is indifferent to his loss?It is not clear to me that Nagel's example, in which I hope I actedwith restraint at last night's party (p. 72), is a case of pure interestin the past. People entertain a conception of their present character,and certain facts about themselvescan disturb this image. If I discover

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RICHARD KRAUTthat I made a fool of myself last night, this suggests that I do not havethe control and character I would like to think I have. And when Iam faced with the possibility that there may be facts that conflictwith a theory I hold about myself, I hope that there are no such factsbecause I want my theory to be correct. This is how I would explainthe case in which a person was too drunk last night to rememberwhether he acted with restraint.

We can now take up the claim that our preference for past painis irrational. This is a difficult charge to assess, for how are we todetermine whether a principle, in this case the principle of timelessreasons, formulates a rational requirement? Principles of reasoning,according to Nagel, are "patterns by which we correct ourselveswhenwe stray, and in terms of which we acknowledge criticism fromothers" (p. 20). When we wish some future pain were over, are weconscious of violating a principle of reason? It seems not, and on thisbasis the charge of irrationality might be dismissed.But I think this way of handling the criticism is too short. It is truethat on an intuitive level we are not conscious of any anomaly whenwe express our indifference to past pain. Our intuitions, however,do not have the last word. Perhaps there are certain principles whichwe regard as reasonable and which entail that we must regard ourreasons as timeless. It is this possibility that must be investigated.One of the principles to which Nagel says we all adhere is this:

A. The sense of an utterance, the judgment it makes, is notaffected by its tense.For example, "he was in pain at t" and "he will be in pain at t,"assuming t is the same time and "he" refers to the same person, makethe same judgment, though admittedly from different vantage points.Furthermore, Nagel asserts that:

B. Present-tensepractical judgments (for example, I have a reasonto do a now) have motivational content for everyone.The test for whether or not an utterance has motivational contentfor a person is whether his believing the uttered sentence frequentlyleads to, and can by itself explain, his having a desire to undertake acertain action. If I judge that "I am a skier," my utterance is purelyclassificatoryand cannot by itself explain my coming to want anything.But if I judge that "It is to my advantage to become a skier," thenthis present-tense practical judgment will probably lead to, and canby itself explain, my forming a desire to ski.

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THE RATIONALITY OF PRUDENCETo complete his case, Nagel need only show that:

C. If anyone believes that two utterances express the same judg-ment and if one of those utterances has motivational content forhim, then so does the other.If C were true, then "I was in pain at t and had reason to avoid it"would have motivational content. For "I am in pain at t and havereason to avoid it" has motivational content (by B), and (by A) makesthe same judgment as "I was in pain at t and had reason to avoid it,"given that t is the same. We know of course that C is not a correctdescription of our attitudes, since "I was in pain," unlike "I am inpain," does not have motivational content for most of us: it does notfrequently lead to the wish that I were not in pain in the past.What is at issue, however, is whether or not C expressesa norm towhich we think we should conform. If so, our indifference to pastpain is irrational. Now, construed as a norm, C has a certain appeal.If anyone came across it before thinking about our attitude towardpast pain, he would probably take it as obvious. But what wouldhappen when his indifference to past pain is pointed out to him?Would he say, "I never realized how irrational my bias against pastpain is!"? Would he try to reform and, in case of failure, regard hisindifference to past pain as a sad fact about himself? I doubt it. Ithink we will all conclude that the discrepancy between C and ouractual attitudes toward past pain is so much the worse for C. We willcling to the belief that there is nothing wrong with our attitude towardpast pain. Though C would appeal to someone who had not thoughtabout this attitude, we would not affirm it as a canon of rationality.Nagel asserts that our adherence to prudence depends on a con-ception we have of ourselves: "a belief in the reality of the future, . . . aconception of oneself as temporally extended" (p. 7I), a belief that"other times are equally real" (p. 88). The idea is that any inabilityto state our reasons and preferencesfrom the standpoint of temporalneutrality involves a weird metaphysical bias against a certainsegmentof our lives. For example, if we must know whether a certain reasonis in the future, then we doubt the reality of the future; if we mustknow whether it is past, we doubt the reality of the past. But surelythis is not true. The rejection of C and an acceptance of our attitudetoward past pain is perfectly compatible with a belief in the realityof the past. My past pain existed, but I no longer care about it.How do these criticisms of his explanation of prudence affect hisexplanation of altruism? Our attitude toward reasons stemming

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RICHARD KRAUTfrom future and past circumstances is claimed to be analogous toour attitude toward reasons stemming from the circumstances ofothers.Just as we must be able to expressour preferencesand reasonsfrom the standpoint of temporal neutrality, forgoing the use of temporaltoken reflexives, so we must be able to express them from the imper-sonal standpoint, forgoing the use of personal token reflexives. Now,my argument that C is not a canon of rationality and that we do notfeel bound by the requirement of temporal neutrality does not initself show that Nagel's explanation of altruism is wrong. For he neednot rely on anything as broad as C. The following principle ofrationality, concerned only with personal token reflexives, is all heneeds:

D. If two utterances differ only in personal vantage point and onehas motivational content, so should the other.3(For example, "I am in pain," "he is in pain," and "the oldest baker

in Paris is in pain," if said of the same person, express the same judg-ment.) But suppose someone challenges D, as we have C, saying thathe cares only about himself and those to whom he bears a specialrelation, and that he does not see why this is wrong. In other words,he cannot make his decisions from the impersonal standpoint (inwhich all personal token reflexives are absent), just as we cannotexpressour preferencesbetween pains from the standpoint of temporalneutrality. Nagel's response is that such a person is a metaphysicaloddity, since he does not have a "full recognition of the reality ofother persons" (p. 88). This parallels his claim that a man who isunable to adopt the standpoint of temporal neutrality doubts thereality of the future or the past. But we have seen that there need beno such metaphysical bias behind a person's inability to adopt thestandpoint of temporal neutrality. Why then should there be anythingmetaphysically odd about rejecting the impersonal standpoint? Justas we can be indifferent to past pain while we recognize its reality,so an individual might be indifferent to others and recognize theirreality nonetheless.Still, it is true that my criticism of C leaves D untouched. And itwould be more difficult to reject D as a canon of rationality than itwas to reject C. This is because no one has ever been criticized for

3 The analogueof A would be, "Thesenseof an utterance s not affectedby its person,"and the analogueof B would be, "Firstperson practicaljudgmentshave motivationalcontent for everyone."358


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THE RATIONALITY OF PRUDENCEindifference to his past pain, while indifference to the troublesof othersoften occasions rebuke. But Nagel wants to appeal to a basis foraltruism that is deeper than a principle's intuitive plausibility and itscoherence with our practices. He wants to provide altruism with ametaphysical backing, so that unless a person is a metaphysicalmonstrosity and doubts the reality of others, he cannot escape thedemands of an other-regarding morality. What my argument con-cerning past pain suggests, however, is that this metaphysical backingis not available.4

RICHARD KRAUTUniversity f Illinois at ChicagoCircle

4 I am grateful o the refereeof this paper and to Marc Temin for theirvaluablecommentson an earlier draft.359

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Rationality of Prudence