(I was taken as given that we weren't considering fundamental rights. Neither of us are sympathetic to them.)
There are fairly radical involuntary preference changes that wouldn't really affect identity much. We can *just* completely change their life goals, (moral or political) values, attachments/love and/or many other specific but impo…
(I was taken as given that we weren't considering fundamental rights. Neither of us are sympathetic to them.)
There are fairly radical involuntary preference changes that wouldn't really affect identity much. We can *just* completely change their life goals, (moral or political) values, attachments/love and/or many other specific but important preferences. We don't really need to touch the features that are more often treated as integral to personal identity as psychological connectedness, like their memories, how they experience the world or their personality traits. If a person's identity changes a lot just for falling in or out of love, gaining or losing other attachments, changing moral/political views or changing life goals, then this could be a big problem, because these happen to almost everyone, often multiple times over their life and sometimes in big abrupt changes. (We can also just pick one very important preference to change and it's still objectionable.)
And, arguably, a major depressive episode could even have larger effects on measures of psychological connectedness: it affects how someone experiences the world and several dispositions that are also considered personality traits when stable over time (e.g. within the neuroticism/emotional stability cluster or depressive personality disorder).
Also, in some cases, they already have some underlying dispositions to draw on, e.g. how they would respond to drugs, video games (or virtual reality or the experience machine), seduction or new projects.
You can't set aside the possibility of rights while simultaneously pumping intuitions about what's "objectionable" (independently of what's *good* for the affected parties).
Apply the standard "naturalization" test for whether the dispute is axiological or deontic: would it still seem as bad if it happened as a result of purely natural causes? Presumably not: as you say, people go through preference changes in ordinary life, such as via falling in love. Do we have strong reasons to try to prevent this from happening? Seems not. So it isn't bad (in those sorts of cases). Whatever residual intuition you have that *acting* to bring about this result would be "objectionable" is a purely deontic intuition, and no reason to revise our theory of value.
It could be objectionable even if it happens due to purely natural causes. It's objectionable (although possibly not all-things-considered objectionable) if and because the individual specifically prefers it to not happen. It's worse according to their prior preferences, similar to how personal reasons would count against natural death and replacement. In my view, similar reasons should apply.
People also sometimes do work to prevent otherwise "natural" preference change. People will generally avoid some highly addictive substances. People prone to addictions will avoid situations where they will even be tempted. People will work to maintain affectionate feelings for another and avoid situations that could cause their loss. Married people will keep some distance from others they would otherwise be attracted to, to avoid falling in love or cheating. People will make pledges, like the Giving What We Can Pledge, enter contracts like marriage (in part) or get tattoos to bind themselves to commitments and their current values. Some of these are just people satisfying what they take to be duties, but their own subjectively recognized duties are also preferences. Broadly speaking, people's moral views and intuitions are preferences.
Or maybe personal value is also just deontic and only impersonal reasons capture theory of value? If we're classifying things this way, then sure, but then I might deny that we need a theory of value of this kind at all (at least to explain my intuitions).
We have independent reasons to avoid preference changes that would make our lives worse. (Addictions, undermining valuable relationships, etc., will plausibly make one's life go worse on any plausible account of welfare.) And sometimes we can have commitments to some cherished project or relationship that we prioritize over our own well-being, and so resist replacement for other-regarding reasons (even when the replacement would be better for us).
But if someone just wants to count blades of grass (pathologically, without even much enjoying the process), and then a knock on their head causes them to instead pursue different things that are both more objectively worth caring about *and* more subjectively enjoyable to the agent, then that strikes me as a clear and big improvement.
Generally speaking, I don't find preferentism very plausible, in either its unrestricted or "preference-affecting" forms.
I'm stuck trying to make preferentism of some kind work, because I find hedonism and objective list theories, including hybrid accounts, too alienating, and separately, hedonism too Goodharted, and too hard to defend identifying and privileging any (non-subjective) objective values/goods/bads over other things. Preferentism seems to be the only account that aims exactly at what matters to the individual from their own perspective and to do so in the way and the degree to which they matter, like the "Platinum Rule". And then, of preferentist accounts, to avoid further Goodharting and unwanted preference change, I think I'm stuck going in a preference-affecting direction (which may very well be deontic in some way).
To be clear, I use 'preference' quite broadly as any kind of subjective evaluation, and consider pleasure and unpleasantness also kinds of preferences, specifically as "felt evaluations". So, if someone is less happy counting blades of grass, that might be worse in one way for them, even if they desire to do it and/or reflectively endorse it. I'm not confident about the particulars, though.
(I was taken as given that we weren't considering fundamental rights. Neither of us are sympathetic to them.)
There are fairly radical involuntary preference changes that wouldn't really affect identity much. We can *just* completely change their life goals, (moral or political) values, attachments/love and/or many other specific but important preferences. We don't really need to touch the features that are more often treated as integral to personal identity as psychological connectedness, like their memories, how they experience the world or their personality traits. If a person's identity changes a lot just for falling in or out of love, gaining or losing other attachments, changing moral/political views or changing life goals, then this could be a big problem, because these happen to almost everyone, often multiple times over their life and sometimes in big abrupt changes. (We can also just pick one very important preference to change and it's still objectionable.)
And, arguably, a major depressive episode could even have larger effects on measures of psychological connectedness: it affects how someone experiences the world and several dispositions that are also considered personality traits when stable over time (e.g. within the neuroticism/emotional stability cluster or depressive personality disorder).
Also, in some cases, they already have some underlying dispositions to draw on, e.g. how they would respond to drugs, video games (or virtual reality or the experience machine), seduction or new projects.
You can't set aside the possibility of rights while simultaneously pumping intuitions about what's "objectionable" (independently of what's *good* for the affected parties).
Apply the standard "naturalization" test for whether the dispute is axiological or deontic: would it still seem as bad if it happened as a result of purely natural causes? Presumably not: as you say, people go through preference changes in ordinary life, such as via falling in love. Do we have strong reasons to try to prevent this from happening? Seems not. So it isn't bad (in those sorts of cases). Whatever residual intuition you have that *acting* to bring about this result would be "objectionable" is a purely deontic intuition, and no reason to revise our theory of value.
It could be objectionable even if it happens due to purely natural causes. It's objectionable (although possibly not all-things-considered objectionable) if and because the individual specifically prefers it to not happen. It's worse according to their prior preferences, similar to how personal reasons would count against natural death and replacement. In my view, similar reasons should apply.
People also sometimes do work to prevent otherwise "natural" preference change. People will generally avoid some highly addictive substances. People prone to addictions will avoid situations where they will even be tempted. People will work to maintain affectionate feelings for another and avoid situations that could cause their loss. Married people will keep some distance from others they would otherwise be attracted to, to avoid falling in love or cheating. People will make pledges, like the Giving What We Can Pledge, enter contracts like marriage (in part) or get tattoos to bind themselves to commitments and their current values. Some of these are just people satisfying what they take to be duties, but their own subjectively recognized duties are also preferences. Broadly speaking, people's moral views and intuitions are preferences.
Or maybe personal value is also just deontic and only impersonal reasons capture theory of value? If we're classifying things this way, then sure, but then I might deny that we need a theory of value of this kind at all (at least to explain my intuitions).
We have independent reasons to avoid preference changes that would make our lives worse. (Addictions, undermining valuable relationships, etc., will plausibly make one's life go worse on any plausible account of welfare.) And sometimes we can have commitments to some cherished project or relationship that we prioritize over our own well-being, and so resist replacement for other-regarding reasons (even when the replacement would be better for us).
But if someone just wants to count blades of grass (pathologically, without even much enjoying the process), and then a knock on their head causes them to instead pursue different things that are both more objectively worth caring about *and* more subjectively enjoyable to the agent, then that strikes me as a clear and big improvement.
Generally speaking, I don't find preferentism very plausible, in either its unrestricted or "preference-affecting" forms.
I'm stuck trying to make preferentism of some kind work, because I find hedonism and objective list theories, including hybrid accounts, too alienating, and separately, hedonism too Goodharted, and too hard to defend identifying and privileging any (non-subjective) objective values/goods/bads over other things. Preferentism seems to be the only account that aims exactly at what matters to the individual from their own perspective and to do so in the way and the degree to which they matter, like the "Platinum Rule". And then, of preferentist accounts, to avoid further Goodharting and unwanted preference change, I think I'm stuck going in a preference-affecting direction (which may very well be deontic in some way).
To be clear, I use 'preference' quite broadly as any kind of subjective evaluation, and consider pleasure and unpleasantness also kinds of preferences, specifically as "felt evaluations". So, if someone is less happy counting blades of grass, that might be worse in one way for them, even if they desire to do it and/or reflectively endorse it. I'm not confident about the particulars, though.