Moral Choices for Our Future Selves

ebook An Empirical Theory of Prudential Perception and a Moral Theory of Prudence · Routledge Focus on Philosophy

By Eleonora Viganò

cover image of Moral Choices for Our Future Selves

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

Download Libby on the App Store Download Libby on Google Play

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Library Name Distance
Loading...

This book investigates the relationship between our present and future selves. It focuses specifically on diachronic self-regarding decisions: choices involving our earlier and later selves, in which the earlier self makes a decision for the later self.

The author connects the scientific understanding of the neurobehavioral processes at the core of individuals' perceptions of their future selves with the philosophical reflection on individuals' moral relationship with their future selves. She delineates a descriptive theory of the perception of the future self that is based on empirical evidence and that systematizes and integrates the current theoretical literature. She then argues for the morality of prudence and interprets diachronic self-regarding decisions as decisions between two agents— the earlier and later selves—that belong to the realm of intergenerational ethics, which regulates the relationship between contemporary people and future generations. Finally, the author provides a moral theory of prudence based on respect for one's agency. This theory identifies what the present and the future selves owe to one another in diachronic self-regarding decisions.

Moral Choices for Our Future Selves will be of interest to scholars and students working in ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.

Moral Choices for Our Future Selves