This chapter examines one intuitively appealing legal practice for which retributivist accounts struggle to find justification: multiple-offense sentencing discounts. It also considers several proposed strategies for justifying bulk discounts on the basis of retributivism. Three strategies are discussed: those that appeal to an absolute punishment maximum, those that appeal to interpersonal practices of blame and making amends, and those that suggest that perpetrators of multiple offenses sometimes have reduced culpability. The chapter argues that each of these strategies either (...) is implausible as a ground for bulk-sentencing discounts or is plausible only insofar as it incorporates nonretributivist considerations into its account — thus is in fact a hybrid view. It concludes by looking at hybrid theories as an alternative, suggesting that such approaches not only can provide justification for bulk-sentencing discounts, but are also more plausible in general than is generally assumed. (shrink)

This article assesses how good character is used to discount sentences in tax and benefit fraud cases in Aotearoa New Zealand. Four factors are highlighted. The first is a focus on neoliberal priorities that privilege “good citizens” who are primarily tax fraudsters, with the provision of sentence discounts to ensure the offender can remain in employment. The second is sentence reduction, which is primarily visible in tax cases when repayment of the outstanding funds is made. While the (...) average value of benefit fraud is less than a quarter of the average tax fraud, typically, money obtained from benefit fraud is used for living expenses and not available for repayment. Third, only tax fraudsters benefited from anticipated reparation, on the expectation from the court that this would occur after sentencing. Finally, the ways in which prior tax offending is classified leave tax offenders in a stronger position to claim no prior offending and receive a sentence reduction for good character. These factors combine to result in unfair outcomes that benefit tax offenders. (shrink)

Judges are typically tasked to consider sentencing benefits but not costs. Previous research finds that both laypeople and prosecutors discount the costs of incarceration when forming sentencing attitudes, raising important questions about whether professional judges show the same bias during sentencing. To test this, we used a vignette-based experiment in which Minnesota state judges reviewed a case summary about an aggravated robbery and imposed a hypothetical sentence. Using random assignment, half the participants received additional information about plausible negative consequences (...) of incarceration. As predicted, our results revealed a mitigating effect of cost exposure on prison sentence term lengths. Critically, these findings support the conclusion that policies that increase transparency in sentencing costs could reduce sentence lengths, which has important economic and social ramifications. (shrink)

The Oxford Monographs On Criminal Law And Justice series aims to cover all aspects of criminal law and procedure including criminal evidence. the scope of the series is wide, encompassing both practical and theoretical works. Series Editor: Professor Andrew Ashworth, Vinerian Professor of English Law, All Souls College, Oxford. This volume is a thematic collection of essays on sentencing theory by leading writers. The essays fall into three groups. Part I considers the underlying justifications for the imposition of punishment by (...) the State, and examines the relationship between victims, offenders and the State. Part II addresses a number of areas of sentencing policy that have given rise to particular difficulty, such as the sentencing of drug offenders, the rationale for discounting sentences for multiple offenders, the existence of special sentencing for young offenders, and cases where the injury done to the victim is of a different magnitude from what might have been expected. Part III raises various questions about the unequal impact on offenders of different sentencing measures, and examines the extent to which sentences should be adjusted to take account of these different impacts and of broader social inequalities. This volume is dedicated to Professor Andrew von Hirsch, whose continuing work on sentencing theory provided the stimulus for the collection. (shrink)

I assess the force of a justification for post-conflict amnesties that is aimed at overcoming the most common objection to their conferral: that they entail retributive injustice. According to this justification, retributivists ought to consider amnesties to be justified because they are analogous to plea bargains, and because retributivists need not consider plea bargains to be unacceptable. I argue with reference to the 2001 Timor-Leste immunity scheme that amnesties conditional upon perpetrators’ not only admitting guilt and confessing but also making (...) reparations may count as plea bargains. I show that plea bargains providing sentence discounts in return for guilty pleas, allowing offenders who accept these bargains to be punished in the absence of trials, and plea bargains offering leniency in punishment in exchange for offenders pleading guilty and providing testimony or other incriminating evidence against superiors or accomplices, may be consonant with versions of retributivism that allow less than the full measure of an offender’s deserved punishment to be exacted where necessary to maximise or expand deserved punishment overall. I argue that amnesties that are also plea bargains may be considered justified by plea bargain-defending retributivists. So too may amnesties conferred in exchange for perpetrators’ admitting guilt and providing incriminating testimony or other evidence against their superiors and accomplices, some of which count as plea bargains, since they too could in some cases maximise or expand deserved punishment. (shrink)

Scholars have proposed that incarceration rates might be reduced by a requirement that judges justify incarceration decisions with respect to their operational costs (e.g., prison capacity). In an Internet-based vignette experiment (N = 214), we tested this prediction by examining whether criminal punishment judgments (prison vs. probation) among university undergraduates would be influenced by a prompt to provide a justification for one's judgment, and by a brief message describing prison capacity costs. We found that (1) the justification prompt alone was (...) sufficient to reduce incarceration rates, (2) the prison capacity message also independently reduced incarceration rates, and (3) incarceration rates were most strongly reduced (by about 25%) when decision makers were asked to justify their sentences with respect to the expected capacity costs. These effects survived a test of robustness and occurred regardless of whether participants reported that prison costs should influence judgments of incarceration. At the individual crime level, the least serious crimes were most amenable to reconsideration for probation. These findings are important for policymakers attempting to manage high incarceration rates. (shrink)

In this journal, Hamid Vahid argues against three families of explanation of Mooreparadoxicality. The first is the Wittgensteinian approach; I assert that p just in case I assert that I believe that p. So making a Moore-paradoxical assertion involves contradictory assertions. The second is the epistemic approach, one committed to: if I am justified in believing that p then I am justified in believing that I believe that p. So it is impossible to have a justified omissive Mooreparadoxical belief. The (...) third is the conscious belief approach, being committed to: if I consciously believe that p then I believe that I believe that p. So if I have a conscious omissive Moore-paradoxical belief, then I have contradictory second-order beliefs. In their place, Vahid argues for the defective- interpretation approach, broadly that charity requires us to discount the utterer of a Mooreparadoxical sentence as a speaker. I agree that the Wittgensteinian approach is unsatisfactory. But so is the defective-interpretation approach. However, there is a satisfactory version of each of the epistemic and conscious-belief approaches. (shrink)

Numerous studies indicate that racial minorities are both more likely to be executed for murder and that those who murder them are less likely to be executed than if they murder whites. Death penalty opponents have long attempted to use these studies to argue for a moratorium on capital punishment. Whatever the merits of such arguments, they overlook the fact that such discrimination alters the costs of murder; racial discrimination imposes higher costs on minorities for murdering through tougher sentences, and (...) it imposes lower costs on whites for murdering minorities by dispensing weaker sentences. These cost differentials constitute an injustice not simply to actual minority defendants in capital cases, nor simply to the actual minority victims of murder, but to all members of minority communities. I here offer two arguments for a moratorium on capital punishment: The first draws upon evidence of racial discrimination against minority defendants in capital cases, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy equal status under the law. The second draws upon the evidence regarding racial discrimination in relation to the race of victims, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy the equal protection of the law. Thus, by not assigning equal costs to murder, the American criminal justice system fails to provide racial minorities the equality under the law and discounts the value of their lives and liberties. A moratorium is the least unjust response to such a social injustice. I also reply to the criticism that a moratorium prevents us from executing deserving murderers. (shrink)

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We (...) draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs. (shrink)

Many supporters of ‘moral bioenhancement’ (MBE), the use of biomedical interventions for moral improvement, have been criticised for having unrealistic proposals. The interventions they suggest have often been called infeasible and their implementation plans vague or unethical. I dispute these criticisms by showing that various interventions to implement MBE are practically and ethically feasible enough to warrant serious consideration. Such interventions include transcranial direct current stimulation over the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as well as supplementation with lithium and omega-3. (...) Considering their efficacy and feasibility, it is strange that these interventions have rarely been proposed or discussed as MBE. I review evidence that each of those interventions can reduce antisocial behaviour, reduce racial bias, increase executive function or increase prosocial traits like fairness and altruism. I then specify and defend realistic, ethically permissible ways to implement these interventions, especially for violent offenders and public servants—the former as rehabilitation and the latter to meet the high standards of their occupations. These interventions could be given to violent offenders in exchange for a reduced sentence or compulsorily in some cases. Potential intervention methods for non-prisoners include increasing the USDA-recommended dose of omega-3, encouraging food companies to supplement their products with omega-3 or trace lithium, requiring MBE for employment as a police officer or political leader, and insurance companies providing discounts for undergoing MBE. In some reasonably limited form, using these interventions may be a good first step to implement the project of MBE. (shrink)

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We (...) draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs. (shrink)

I argue that (a) the phenomenon characteristic of pragmatic presupposition, is distinct from (b) the phenomenon characteristic of semantic presupposition, and that there are sentences exhibiting (a) alone. I apply this to Stalnaker's defense of van Fraassen's theory of semantic presupposition against Karttunen. I show that, since Stalmaker fails to distinguish (a) from (b), this defense amounts to an unsuccessful attempt to explain pragmatically the supposed instances of (b) in Karttunen's counter-examples. I observe that, given the distinction between (a) and (...) (b), we can salvage from Stalnaker the strategy of discounting certain of Karttunen's counter-examples which exhibit not (b) but merely (a). (shrink)

In this journal, Hamid Vahid argues against three families of explanation of Moore-paradoxicality. The first is the Wittgensteinian approach; I assert that p just in case I assert that I believe that p. So making a Moore-paradoxical assertion involves contradictory assertions. The second is the epistemic approach, one committed to: if I am justified in believing that p then I am justified in believing that I believe that p. So it is impossible to have a justified omissive Moore-paradoxical belief. The (...) third is the conscious belief approach, being committed to: if I consciously believe that p then I believe that I believe that p. So if I have a conscious omissive Moore-paradoxical belief, then I have contradictory second-order beliefs. In their place, Vahid argues for the defective-interpretation approach, broadly that charity requires us to discount the utterer of a Moore-paradoxical sentence as a speaker. I agree that the Wittgensteinian approach is unsatisfactory. But so is the defective-interpretation approach. However, there is a satisfactory version of each of the epistemic and conscious-belief approaches. (shrink)

A man, carrying a gun in his waistband, robs a food vendor. In making his escape, the gun discharges, critically injuring the robber. About such instances, it is common to think, “he got what he deserved.” This Article seeks to explore cases like that—cases of “natural punishment.” Natural punishment occurs when a wrongdoer faces serious harm that results from her wrongdoing and not from anyone seeking retribution against her. The Article proposes that U.S. courts follow their peers and recognize natural (...) punishment as genuine punishment for legal, specifically constitutional, purposes. Were U.S. courts to do so, they would need to reduce the amount of punishment they would otherwise bestow on wrongdoers upon conviction if a natural punishment has occurred or foreseeably will occur. A handful of foreign jurisdictions already accept something like this Article’s proposal, but natural punishment has no formal legal recognition in the United States. The goal of this Article is twofold: first, it offers a rigorous and defensible definition of natural punishment by distinguishing it from nearby notions and dispelling any association with supernatural ideas; second, it demonstrates that recognizing natural punishment as genuine punishment will not much disturb existing American legal institutions and understandings. -/- As an added bonus, the concept of natural punishment can be employed to solve a longstanding problem in criminal law theory, the Mystery of Credit for Time Served. The Mystery surrounds the common practice of giving prisoners credit toward their prison sentences for their time served in jail awaiting trial. The Mystery poses a dilemma about whether the detention time was punishment: If it was punishment, then the detainee was punished before trial in violation of Due Process; however, if the time was not punishment, there is no reason to discount the prison sentence. Seeing the time in detention as an instance of natural punishment resolves the Mystery. (shrink)

The coherence of omniscience is sometimes challenged using self-referential sentences like, “No omniscient entity knows that which this very sentence expresses,” which suggest that there are truths which no omniscient entity knows. In this paper, I consider two strategies for addressing these challenges: The Common Strategy, which dismisses such self-referential sentences as meaningless, and The Conciliatory Strategy, which discounts them as quirky outliers with no impact on one’s status as being omniscient. I argue that neither strategy succeeds. The (...) Common Strategy fails because it is both unmotivated and impotent. The Conciliatory Strategy fails because it leads to embarrassing situations in which omniscient entities are epistemically inferior to non-omniscient entities: we can, for example, devise trivia-based drinking games that force omniscient entities into an intoxicated state; and, given plausible closure principles for belief, such entities are unable to have the sorts of beliefs that give them reason to refuse to play. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Roman Literature, Gender, and Reception: Domina Illustris ed. by Donald Lateiner, Barbara K. Gold, and Judith PerkinsTeresa RamsbyDonald Lateiner, Barbara K. Gold, and Judith Perkins eds. Roman Literature, Gender, and Reception: Domina Illustris. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2013. x + 337 pp. 5 black-and-white photos. Cloth, $125.Although the Festschrift appears less frequently in publication than it once did, the incentive to publish one is heightened when the honoree (...) is someone with such an extensive record of influence upon and participation within the discipline. This is certainly the case with Judith P. Hallett. She has done stalwart service for the profession, having held many titles and leadership positions in the major Classics organizations, and has mentored many young academic professionals, as is attested in several of the chapters of Roman Literature, Gender, and Reception. This collection appropriately reflects the many strands of scholarship with which Prof. Hallett has fruitfully engaged in her career, and a complete list of her works appears in an eight-page list at the end of the volume.The introduction of the book is a short biography entitled “Judith Peller Hallett: An Introduction to a Force of Nature,” by Donald Lateiner and Amy Richlin. The essay describes the significant obstacles for a woman in academics in the 1960s and 1970s. The insensitive remarks of students and professors are hurtful enough to encounter in these pages, but it is revealed here that she lost her funding in her second year of graduate school—not because she had fallen behind in her studies—but because she got married. Despite this, she did complete her Ph.D. and held her first position at Boston University for seven years before landing happily at the University of Maryland. The essay also makes note of her wide-ranging participation in the promotion of women in academia and in literary enterprise: she was a founding member of the Women’s Classical Caucus in 1972. Professor Hallett is a key pioneer in the study of female voices and writings by women in the Roman world, bringing the attention of Classical scholarship in particular to Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and the poet Sulpicia. The introduction offers a warm and quite personal tribute to her as scholar, teacher, mentor, and friend.There are nineteen essays in this collection. The table of contents offers [End Page 682] a glimpse of the breadth of Professor Hallett’s interests and the wide circumference of scholarship relevant to her own work. The editors, Donald Lateiner, Barbara K. Gold, and Judith Perkins, have brought together an impressive array of scholars whose works cover a wide variety of perspectives from a variety of periods, genres, and disciplines. Almost all the essays in the book contain a note or a few sentences to honor and thank the dedicatee, and some (such as Richlin’s and Wiseman’s essays) contain a structure of argument built around some facet of Professor Hallett’s lines of inquiry. That said, other than the loose, tripartite structure outlined in the title, there is no essay by the editors to tie the pieces of this collection together, and there seems little momentum within the collection itself besides the personal connections of writers to the dedicatee.The first section on Roman literature contains six essays. Erich Gruen, in “Cicero and the Alien,” challenges the attributions of bigotry or racism to Cicero’s writings on the other. Gruen systematically parses and contextualizes the comments Cicero makes about foreigners and sees a consistent analysis that condemns even the Romans when their actions fall short of what Cicero sees as the key principle of good government, namely, that participation of all members of a polity should be viewed as essential to the health and wellbeing of the state. In “Frigidus Sanguis: Lucretius, Virgil and Death,” Michael Putnam shows that, although Lucretius was ready to discount the power and fear of death through his examination of philosophical principles and scientific phenomena, Vergil was not so convinced. In the Georgics and the Aeneid alike, Vergil poetically expresses the notion that “death ever impends and the fear that it engenders cannot be argued... (shrink)

Criminal justice is primarily designed to serve the public interest in relation to criminal acts. Restorative justice is designed to address the harm-related needs of individuals in the aftermath of wrongdoing. These distinct aims require such different processes and priorities that any attempt to integrate restorative justice within the criminal justice system will almost invariably undermine the quality and effectiveness of both. In this book, the author argues that the optimal relationship between the two should therefore be one of maximum (...) independence: the instruments of the state should not be used to impose or enforce the decision to participate in restorative justice, any component of the restorative justice process or its outcome. It is also suggested that, in the absence of legislative innovation, this kind of separation is likely to require that restorative justice is situated after a case has actually exited the justice system, or after it has, in legal terms, effectively done so, as in a post-sentence context. [Note: The publisher offers a 40% discount on this book (conditions apply). Please see the author's website: "Relational Approaches" for details.]. (shrink)

Recently in Porter v. McCollum, the United States Supreme Court, citing “a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in recognition of their service,” held that a defense lawyer’s failure to present his client’s military service record as mitigating evidence during his sentencing for two murders amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. The purpose of this Article is to assess, from the just deserts perspective, the grounds to believe that veterans who commit crimes are to be blamed less by the (...) State than offenders without such backgrounds. Two rationales for a differential treatment of military veterans who commit crimes are typically set forth. The Porter Court raised each, stating that we should treat veterans differently “in recognition of” both “their service” and “the intense stress and mental and emotional toll” of combat. The former factor suggests there being a “social contributions” or gratitude-based discount, whereas the latter factor points towards a “mental disturbance” discount. This Article analyzes the two accounts and raises some doubts about both. This Article then argues that a military veteran who commits a crime should not be blamed to the full extent of his blameworthiness, not necessarily because of his mental capacity nor because of his social contribution, but because the State’s hand in producing his criminality undermines its standing to blame him. (shrink)

Discounting future costs and benefits is often defended on the ground that our descendants will be richer. Simply to treat the future as better off, however, is to commit an ecological fallacy. Even if our descendants are better off when we average across climate change scenarios, this cannot justify discounting costs and benefits in possible states of the world in which they are not. Giving due weight to catastrophe scenarios requires energetic action against climate change.

In response to cases that involve tiny probabilities of huge payoffs, some argue that we ought to discount small probabilities down to zero. However, this paper shows that doing so violates Independence and Continuity, and as a result of these violations, those who discount small probabilities can be exploited by money pumps. Various possible ways of avoiding exploitation will be discussed. This paper concludes that the money pump for Independence undermines the plausibility of discounting small probabilities. Much of the discussion (...) on Independence generalizes to other views that also violate Independence. (shrink)

discounting the future' is one on which philosophers and economists have divergent professional views. There is a lot of talking at cross-purposes across the disciplinary divide here; but there is a fair bit of confusion (I think) within disciplines as well. My aim here is essentially clarificatory. I draw several distinctions that I see as significant: • between inter-temporal and intergenerational questions • between price (discount rate) and quantity (inter-temporal and intergenerational allocations) as the ethically relevant magnitude, and • between (...) price change and preference change as the primary instrument of change. I show that discounting does not violate the principle of inter-temporal and intergenerational neutrality, but I also cast some doubt on whether making adequate allowance for future generations has really been the problem that economists and philosophers seem to have taken it to be. Key Words: discount rates • intergenerational justice • future generations • `feasibility' analysis. (shrink)

When assessing the cost effectiveness of health care programmes, health economists typically presume that distant events should be given less weight than present events. This article examines the moral reasonableness of arguments advanced for positive discounting in cost-effectiveness analysis both from an intergenerational and an intrapersonal perspective and assesses if arguments are equally applicable to health and monetary outcomes. The article concludes that behavioral effects related to time preferences give little or no reason for why society at large should favour (...) the present over the future when making intergenerational choices regarding health. The strongest argument for discounting stems from the combined argument of diminishing marginal utility in the presence of growth. However, this hinges on the assumption of actual growth in the relevant good. Moreover, current modern democracy may be insufficiently sensitive to the concerns of future generations. The second part of the article categorises preference failures (which justify paternalistic responses) into two distinct groups, myopic and acratic. The existence of these types of preference failures makes elicited time preferences of little normative relevance when making decisions regarding the social discount rate, even in an intrapersonal context. As with intergenerational discounting, the combined arguments of growth and diminishing marginal utility offer the strongest arguments for discounting in the intrapersonal context. However, there is no prima facie reason to assume that this argument should apply equally to health and monetary values. To be sure, selecting an approach towards discounting health is a complex matter. However, the life-or-death implications of any approach require that the discussion not be downplayed to merely a technical matter for economists to settle. (shrink)

This article is a critical survey of the debate over the value of the social discount rate, with a particular focus on climate change. The ma- jority of the material surveyed is from the economics rather than from the philosophy literature, but the emphasis of the survey itself is on founda- tions in ethical and other normative theory rather than highly technical details. I begin by locating the standard approach to discounting within the overall landscape of ethical theory, and explaining (...) the assumptions and simplifications that are needed in order to arrive at the model that is standard in the discounting literature. The article then covers the general theory of the Ramsey equation and its relationship to observed interest rates, arguments for and against a positive rate of pure time preference, the consumption elasticity of utility, and the effect of various sorts of uncertainty on the discount rate. Finally, it turns specifically to the ap- plication of this debate to the case of climate change, focussing on the recent controversy over the low discount rate used in the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change. (shrink)

Utility discounting in intertemporal economic modelling has been viewed as problematic, both for descriptive and normative reasons. However, positive utility discount rates can be defended normatively; in particular, it is rational for future utility to be discounted to take into account model-independent outcomes when decision-making under risk. The resultant values will tend to be smaller than descriptive rates under most probability assignments. This also allows us to address some objections that intertemporal considerations will be overdemanding. A principle for utility discount (...) rates is suggested which is rooted in probability discounting. Utility discounting is defended against objections from Parfit (1984) and Broome (2005); Broome (2012). A sample utility discount rate is estimated. [Open access]. (shrink)

Temporal discounting is a technical operation in climate change economics. When discount rates are positive, economic evaluation treats future benefits as less important than equivalent present benefits. This chapter explains and critically evaluates four different reasons economists have given for tying discount rates to the interest rates we observe in real-world markets. I suggest that while philosophers have correctly criticized three of these reasons, their criticisms of the fourth miss the mark. This is because philosophers have not taken heed of (...) the distinct analytical framework in which the fourth reason arises. (shrink)

Nebel argues for the Repugnant Conclusion via the “Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion,” on which certainty of a mediocre life is better for individuals than a sufficiently small chance of an excellent life. In this article, I deny that acceptance of the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion leads us to the Repugnant Conclusion. I point out that on many views which avoid the Repugnant Conclusion we should discount very small probabilities down to zero. If we do, then Nebel’s crucial premise of Ex Ante Pareto (...) fails, because discounting at the individual level can fail to match up with discounting at the population level. (shrink)

This paper defends the claim that mere temporal proximity always and without exception strengthens certain moral duties, including the duty to save – call this view Robust Temporalism. Although almost all other moral philosophers dismiss Robust Temporalism out of hand, I argue that it is prima facie intuitively plausible, and that it is analogous to a view about special obligations that many philosophers already accept. I also defend Robust Temporalism against several common objections, and I highlight its relevance to a (...) number of practical policy debates, including longtermism. My conclusion is that Robust Temporalism is a moral live option, that deserves to be taken much more seriously in the future. (shrink)

Large-scale, self-sufficient space colonization is a plausible means of efficiently reducing existential risks and ensuring our long-term survival. But humanity is by and large myopic, and as an intergenerational global public good, existential risk reduction is systematically undervalued, hampered by intergenerational discounting. This paper explores how these issues apply to space colonization, arguing that the motivational and psychological barriers to space colonization are a special—and especially strong—case of a more general problem. The upshot is not that large-scale, self-sufficient space colonization (...) will never occur, but that, absent institutional change, the conditions under which it is most likely to occur are precisely those conditions where the threat of suffering risks might be most high. (shrink)

The desirable gambles framework offers the most comprehensive foundations for the theory of lower pre- visions, which in turn affords the most general ac- count of imprecise probabilities. Nevertheless, for all its generality, the theory of lower previsions rests on the notion of linear utility. This commitment to linearity is clearest in the coherence axioms for sets of desirable gambles. This paper considers two routes to relaxing this commitment. The first preserves the additive structure of the desirable gambles framework and (...) the machinery for coherent inference but detaches the interpretation of desirability from the multiplicative scale invariance axiom. The second strays from the additive combination axiom to accommodate repeated gambles that return rewards by a non-stationary processes that is not necessarily additive. Unlike the first approach, which is a conservative amendment to the desirable gambles framework, the second is a rad- ical departure. Yet, common to both is a method for describing rewards called discounted utility. (shrink)

Recent experiments suggest that search direction causally affects the discounted valuation of delayed payoffs. Comparisons between options can increase individuals’ patience toward future payoff options, while searching within options instead promotes impatient choices. We further test the robustness and specificity of this relationship using a novel choice task. Here individuals choose between pairs of delayed payoffs instead of single delayed outcomes. We observe a relationship between search styles and temporal discounting that are the opposite of those previously reported. Integrators – (...) those who tend to compare attributes within alternatives – discount and choose more slowly than comparators – those who are more likely to compare between alternatives. This finding supports and augments the view that individuals’ search strategy is predictive of subsequent discount rates. In particular, the direction of this relationship is further modifiable based on the spatial layout and varying information within an individual’s decision-making environment. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between five different approaches to social discount rates in climate change economics, criticizes two of these, and explains how the other three are to some degree mutually compatible. It aims to shed some new light on a longstanding debate in climate change economics between so-called “descriptivists” and “prescriptivists” about social discounting. The ultimate goal is to offer a sketch of the conceptual landscape that makes visible some important facets of the debate that very often go unacknowledged.

The models of internal self-control that have recently been proposed by behavioral economists do not depict motivational interaction that occurs while temptation is present. Those models that include willpower at all either envision a faculty with a motivation (“strength”) different from the motives that are weighed in the marketplace of choice, or rely on incompatible goals among diverse brain centers. Both assumptions are questionable, but these models’ biggest problem is that they do not let resolutions withstand re-examination while being challenged (...) by impulsive alternatives. The economists’ models all attempt to make a single equilibrium preference predictable from a person’s prior incentives. This was the original purpose of these models’ hyperboloid (“β–δ”) delay discount functions, which have been widely justified by the assumption that a person’s intertemporal inconsistency (impulsiveness) can be accounted for by the arousal of appetite for visceral rewards. Although arousal is clearly a factor in some cases of intertemporal inconsistency, it cannot be blamed for others, and furthermore does not necessarily imply hyperboloid discounting. The inadequacy of β–δ functions is particularly evident in models of internal self-control. I have reviewed several of these models, and have argued for a return to pure hyperbolic discount function as originally proposed, the relatively high tails of which can motivate a recursive process of self-prediction and thereby the formation of self-enforcing intertemporal contracts. Such a process does not require a separately motivated faculty of will, or incompatible goals among brain centers; but it also does not permit the prediction of unique preferences from prior incentives. (shrink)

Humans discount rewards as a function of the delay to their receipt. This tendency is referred to as delay discounting and has been extensively researched in the last decades. The magnitude effect and the trait effect are two phenomena which have been consistently observed for a variety of reward types. Here, we wanted to investigate if these effects also occur in the context of the novel but widespread reward types of Instagram followers and likes and if delay discounting of these (...) outcomes is related to self-control and Instagram screen time. In a within-subject online experiment, 214 Instagram users chose between smaller, immediate and larger, delayed amounts of hypothetical money, Instagram followers and likes. First, we found that the magnitude effect also applies to Instagram followers and likes. Second, delay discounting of all three reward types was correlated, providing further evidence for a trait influence of delay discounting. Third, no relationships were found between delay discounting and self-control as well as Instagram screen time, respectively. However, a user’s average like count was related to delay discounting of Instagram likes. (shrink)

This paper formulates and axiomatizes utility models for denumerable time streams that make no commitment in regard to discounting future outcomes. The models address decision under certainty and decision under risk. Independence assumptions in both contexts lead to additive or multiplicative utilities over time periods that allow unambiguous comparisons of the relative importance of different periods. The models accommodate all patterns of future valuation. This discount-neutral feature is attained by restricting preference comparisons to outcome streams or probability distributions on outcome (...) streams that differ in at most a finite number of periods. (shrink)

Standard axioms of additively separable utility for choice over time and classic axioms of expected utility theory for choice under risk yield a generalized expected additively separable utility representation of risk-time preferences over probability distributions over sure streams of intertemporal outcomes. A dual approach is to use the analogues of the same axioms in a reversed order to obtain a generalized additively separable expected utility representation of time–risk preferences over intertemporal streams of probability distributions over sure outcomes. The paper proposes (...) an additional axiom, which is called risk-time reversal, for obtaining a special case of the two representations—expected discounted utility. The axiom of risk-time reversal postulates that if a risky lottery over streams of sure intertemporal outcomes and an intertemporal stream of risky lotteries yield the same probability distribution of possible outcomes in every point in time then a decision-maker is indifferent between the two. This axiom is similar to assumption 2 “reversal of order in compound lotteries” in Anscombe and Aumann :199–205, 1963, p. 201). (shrink)

Time discounting is the phenomenon that a desired result in the future is perceived as less valuable than the same result now. Economic theories can take this psychological fact into account in several ways. In the economic literature the most widely used type of additive time discounting is exponential discounting. In exponential discounting, the fall of valuation depends by a constant factor on the length of the delay period. It is well known, however, that exponential time discounting often does not (...) describe well how people actually behave. Most people are averse to short delays in gratification now, while their future selves may not mind a bit of extra waiting. This behaviour can be described well by non-exponential discounting functions such as hyperbolic discounting. In hyperbolic discounting, valuations fall rapidly for small delay periods, but the fall gets slower for longer delay periods. Hyperbolic discounting captures phenomena such as procrastination, addiction and in general inconsistency over time. This chapter investigates whether forms of non-exponential discounting, in particular close to the so called Quasi-Hyperbolic model, could also be characterized in terms of dynamically consistent choices when individuals discount the welfare of future selves as well as their payoffs. (shrink)

This paper studies the interaction between savagean uncertainty and time preferences. We introduce a variation of the discounted subjective expected utility model, where time preferences are state dependent. Before uncertainty is resolved, the individual is unsure about the discount factor that will be used, even when evaluating certain payoffs. The model can account for the present bias and diminishing impatience, even if the future is discounted geometrically. The present bias disappears when the immediate payoff becomes uncertain. Although preferences are not (...) stationary, choices may be time consistent. (shrink)

Ross Harrison; IV*—Discounting the Future, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 June 1982, Pages 45–58, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristo.