Discounting The Future

Abstract

This chapter asks whether it is rationally permissible to assign less weight to the values of my other selves in line with the degree of psychological connectedness between us. This draws on Derek Parfit’s (1984, ‘Personal Identity’, in Philosophical Review, 80) rational reconstruction of temporal discounting. The chapter considers an argument by Arif Ahmed (2018, ‘Rationality and Future Discounting’, in Topoi, February) that such weights result in temporal discounting of a variety that makes the individual vulnerable to exploitation. It agrees with Ahmed, but argues that such exploitation does not render the individual irrational.