Expecting the Unexpected

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dc.citation.journalTitleRes Philosophicaen_US
dc.contributor.authorDougherty, Tomen_US
dc.contributor.authorHorowitz, Sophieen_US
dc.contributor.authorSliwa, Paulinaen_US
dc.date.accessioned2015-10-12T15:47:24Zen_US
dc.date.available2015-10-12T15:47:24Zen_US
dc.date.issued2015en_US
dc.description.abstractIn an influential paper, L. A. Paul argues that one cannot rationally decide whether to have children. In particular, she argues that such a decision is intractable for standard decision theory. Paul’s central argument in this paper rests on the claim that becoming a parent is “epistemically transformative”—prior to becoming a parent, it is impossible to know what being a parent is like. Paul argues that because parenting is epistemically transformative, one cannot estimate the values of the various outcomes of a decision whether to become a parent. In response, we argue that it is possible to estimate the value of epistemically transformative experiences. Therefore, there is no special difficulty involved in deciding whether to undergo epistemically transformative experiences. Insofar as major life decisions do pose a challenge to decision theory, we suggest that this is because they often involve separate, familiar problems.en_US
dc.identifier.citationDougherty, Tom, Horowitz, Sophie and Sliwa, Paulina. "Expecting the Unexpected." <i>Res Philosophica,</i> (2015) Res Philosophica: http://dx.doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2015.92.2.5.en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2015.92.2.5en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/81873en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherRes Philosophicaen_US
dc.rightsThis is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by the authors and Res Philosophica.en_US
dc.titleExpecting the Unexpecteden_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.type.dcmiTexten_US
dc.type.publicationpost-printen_US
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