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 a…
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.
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.