Transformative Choices and The Specter of Regret
HOWARD, D. (2022). Transformative Choices and the Specter of Regret. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 8(1), 72-91. doi:10.1017/apa.2020.51
Abstract: When people are making certain medical decisions, the specter of regret may color their choices. In this paper, I ask: Can predicting that we will regret a decision in the future serve any justificatory role in our present decision-making? And if so, what role? I am particularly interested in how predicting regret can play a role in decisions concerning transformative experiences, i.e., having a child, undergoing major surgery, losing a loved one. When we make such decisions, we are in part choosing whether to undergo certain experiences that shape us as people and may profoundly affect our values but for which we cannot know in advance what it will be like to undergo. The paper examines whether employing the incorporating our anticipated regret into our decision-making is rational – that is, whether it is guided by our reason and counteracts our biases. In the final section of the paper, I also consider whether such a strategy is authentic – that is, whether it enables us to shape our lives from our distinctive first-personal perspective. Ultimately, I argue that such a strategy can be both rationally and authentically employed, but it is also a strategy that can easily be distorted and abused.
Here is a penultimate version of the paper.