Expecting the Unexpected

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dc.citation.journalTitleRes Philosophica
dc.contributor.authorDougherty, Tom
dc.contributor.authorHorowitz, Sophie
dc.contributor.authorSliwa, Paulina
dc.date.accessioned2015-10-12T15:47:24Z
dc.date.available2015-10-12T15:47:24Z
dc.date.issued2015
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.
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.
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2015.92.2.5
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/81873
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherRes Philosophica
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.
dc.titleExpecting the Unexpected
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.publicationpost-print
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