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When the Shape of a Life Matters

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Abstract

It seems better to have a life that begins poorly and ends well than a life that begins well and ends poorly. One possible explanation is that the very shape of a life can be good or bad for us. If so, this raises a tough question: when can the shape of our lives be good or bad for us? In this essay, I present and critique an argument that the shape of a life is a non-synchronic prudential value—that is, something that can be good or bad for us in a way that is not good or bad for us at any particular time. After distinguishing two interpretations of ‘the shape of a life’, I argue that the first type of shape can be good or bad for us at particular moments while the other cannot be good or bad for us at all. This suggests that the shape of a life gives us no reason to posit non-synchronic prudential values.

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Notes

  1. To achieve more precision, we must articulate distinct principles. One principle states that something is intrinsically good/bad for us only if it is intrinsically good/bad for us at some particular time. Another states that something is instrumentally good/bad for us only if it leads to or promotes something that is intrinsically good/bad for us at some particular time. (There will be further principles applying to other forms of derivative prudential value.)

  2. I borrow the phrase ‘timing puzzle’ from Steven Luper (2009), ch. 6, who discusses this puzzle in relation to death and posthumous events.

  3. This definition leaves open the possibility that a single thing might be a non-synchronic value and a synchronic value. This can occur if something is non-synchronically good/bad for someone in one respect and synchronically good/bad for her in another.

  4. This tends to happen in one of two ways. It is sometimes said that a thing might be good or bad for us ‘timelessly’ or ‘atemporally’. See, for instance, Luper (2009), 139; Bigelow et al. (1990), 121; Broome (2004), 47, 237–38; Bradley (2009), 74–78; Johansson (2013), 266–70; and Bramble (2014). Other times, the suggestion is that a thing might impact one’s ‘lifetime well-being’ or ‘diachronic well-being’ without impacting that individual’s ‘synchronic well-being’ at any time. (These terms are defined in Section 1.) See Bigelow et al. (1990); Velleman (1993); Glasgow (2013), 666; and Bramble (2014).

  5. What follows is adapted from an influential passage in Velleman (1993), 331. I quote the passage in Section 1.

  6. Feldman (2004), ch. 6; Portmore (2007), 21–24.

  7. This line of explanation has been entertained or endorsed by several philosophers, including Sen (1979), 470–71; Bigelow et al. (1990), 121–23, 137; Kamm (2003), 222–23; Temkin (2012), 111–12; and Glasgow (2013). Competing explanations of the Shape-of-a-Life Phenomenon are discussed in Slote (1983); Velleman (1993); Kamm (2003), 222–23; Feldman (2004), ch. 6; Portmore (2007), 21–24; Glasgow (2013), 669–80; and Dorsey (2014).

  8. It should be clarified that, while my discussion of the Shape of a Life Argument is inspired by Velleman’s discussion, he does not present or discuss this argument nor does he talk much of ‘shape’. Instead, he employs this thought experiment to argue against the view that ‘well-being is additive’, a view that implies that one’s lifetime well-being necessarily equals the sum of her synchronic well-being levels. Velleman (1993), 331–32.

  9. Ibid., 331.

  10. Glasgow (2013) defends something close to this view. However, his focus is on the shape of one’s ‘non-relational [synchronic] well-being’, which is a measure of how well a person is doing only in virtue of states of affairs that obtain at that very time. First-order synchronic well-being, as I have defined it, need not screen off the prudential impacts of states of affairs obtaining at other times, though it does screen off the impacts of second-order prudential values.

  11. Velleman (1993), 331.

  12. Ibid., 339.

  13. Portmore (2007), 21. I should emphasize that Portmore offers this characterization in the process of explicating Velleman and does not seem to be committed to it as a claim about synchronic well-being. Later in the same essay (26), he acknowledges the possibility that ‘welfare value is relational’ in such a way that ‘the value of our past sacrifices can be affected (or determined) by subsequent events’. Glasgow (2013), 666, offers a very similar characterization of (non-relational) ‘momentary well-being’, though he immediately acknowledges the possibility that ‘some moments’ value can be at least partly relational’.

  14. This view is closely related to the principle that Ben Bradley dubs ‘Internalism’, according to which ‘The intrinsic value of a time for a person is determined entirely by the value atoms obtaining at that time.’ Bradley provides a positive argument for Internalism at (2009), 19. For two critiques of that argument, see Johansson (2013), 262–63, and Dorsey (2013), 167–69. See also McMahan (2002), 180, and Portmore (2007), 25–26.

  15. Bigelow et al. (1990) argue against this view. They make the case that the properties that determine one’s mental well-being and physical well-being ‘will include a host of relational properties that link the person to events or states, some of which will be at that very same time, but many of which will be at other times’ (133–34).

  16. I borrow this talk of ‘meaning’ from Velleman (1993), though he denies that meaning, at least when it is determined by past or future events, can influence synchronic well-being (339–40). On this matter, I side with McMahan (2002), 179–80, and Dorsey (2014), who contend that meaning can influence synchronic well-being. See also Portmore (2007), 25–26, who takes this latter view seriously without committing himself to it.

  17. A variation on this view is explored in Scheffler (2013), who observes that we would lose motivation to engage in many of our current projects and activities if we came to believe that the human race will be wiped out in the near future.

  18. Glasgow (2013), 681, defends a similar point.

  19. To be clear, Zack does not think that having this synchronic well-being curve is good for a person because Chaplin had that curve. Rather, he considers having that synchronic well-being shape to be beneficial, in and of itself. Thus, on his view, having that synchronic well-being shape was intrinsically good for Chaplin himself.

  20. The argument that follows can be adapted for other forms of restricted well-being, such as non-relational synchronic well-being (see note 10). But I will continue to focus my discussion on first-order synchronic well-being.

  21. Here, I am in full agreement with Jennifer Hawkins (2014), 535–36. She notes that the idea of a non-synchronic prudential value (which she calls a 'timeless good') 'is really incredibly odd when we start to think about it’ and ultimately concludes that we should only posit such values as a last resort.

  22. Granted, news of a non-synchronic harm might be distressing if, and to the extent that, it provides evidence that something is synchronically bad for you. But my present concern is one’s attitudes toward the non-synchronic harm itself.

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Acknowledgments

For their helpful comments, I wish to thank Alex Sarch, Sven Nyholm, Jason Konek, Elizabeth Anderson, Allan Gibbard, Peter Railton, Sarah Buss, Anne Baril, David Wiens, Billy Dunaway, Ben Bramble, Dale Dorsey, Ralf Bader, two anonymous reviewers of ETMP, and the audience at the 2013 APA Pacific Division.

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Correspondence to Stephen M. Campbell.

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Campbell, S.M. When the Shape of a Life Matters. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 18, 565–575 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9540-x

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