Rationality and Time Bias [Paperback]

This Element examines the philosophical arguments for and against the rationality of time biases, including future bias and near bias.This Element is an opinionated, non-technical guided tour through the main philosophical issues about the relevance of the temporal location of our experiences to our desires and our choices, and the major arguments for and against different kinds of so-called time bias, highlighting the difficulty in justifying these tendencies.This Element is an opinionated, non-technical guided tour through the main philosophical issues about the relevance of the temporal location of our experiences to our desires and our choices, and the major arguments for and against different kinds of so-called time bias, highlighting the difficulty in justifying these tendencies.We often care not only about what happens to us, but when it happens to us. We prefer that good experiences happen sooner, rather than later, and that our suffering lies in our past, rather than our future. Common sense suggests that some ways of caring about time are rational, and others are not, but it is surprisingly challenging to provide justifying explanations for these tendencies. This Element is an opinionated, nontechnical guided tour through the major arguments for and against different kinds of so-called time bias.Introduction; Part I. Uncentered Time Bias: Part II. Near Bias; Part III. Future Bias; References.