Are we one self or multiple selves?: Implications for law and public policy

Legal Theory

Volumn 3, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 23-35

  Posner, Richard A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84924098879     PISSN: 13523252     EISSN: 14698048     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1352325200000628     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. William H. Gass, 77w Hmfring Ufe (reviewing Robert Musi!, THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES), NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, Jan. 11,1996, p. 56.
2. Plutarch, FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 298 (Rex Warner trans. 1972) (emphasis added), quoted in Elias L. Klialil, Buridan's Ass, Risk, Uncertainty, and Self-Competition: A Theory of Entrepreneurship 1 (Ohio State University (Mansfield), DepL of Economics, unpublished, 1996).
3. Derek Parfit, REASONS AND PERSONS, pt. 3 (1987 reprint).
4. See Bernard Williams, Persons, Cfuiracter and Morality, in THE IDENTITIES OF PERSONS 197 (Amclie Oksenberg Rorty ed., 1976), reprinted in Williams, MORAL LUCK 1 (1981).
5. Multiple-selves analysis is not original with me. See Parfit, Persons, Cfuiracter and Morality note 3, at 302-06, and other references in Posner, AGING AND OLD AGE, Persons, Cfuiracter and Morality, at 84 n. 34. Tlie characters in Edward Albee's play Three Tall Women: A Play in Two Acts (1995) are three selves-one aged 26, one aged 52, and one aged 92-of the same person.
6. My distinction between the future-oriented and the current self is very similar to the distinction between planner and doer in Richard H. Thaler and H.M. Shefrin, An Economic Theory ofSelf-ControU 89 J. POL. ECON. 392 (1981). The difference is that Thaler and Shefrin side with the planner (future-oriented self)i whom they regard as the rational actor-like the rider relative to the horse. I do not assign priority among tlie different selves. It might be questioned whether all cases of weakness of will involve a conflict between present and future selves, in which the victory of the present self is tlie proof of weakness of will. Might it not be weak willed to refuse a risky, exciting job for a dull one that promised a financially secure future? But I think that in such a case we would say, rather, that tlie person was excessively risk aversive-in a sense, too future-regarding.
7. Emphasized in Thomas C. Schclling, Sclf-Command in Ihactice, in Policy, and in a Theory of Rational Oioire, 74 AM. ECON. REV. PAPERS & PROC. 1 (May 1984). Schclling's article is the hcst introduction I know to the economic version of multiple-selves analysis, the version I am trying to elaborate in this paper.
8. The theme of Williams's important essay, Sclf-Command in Ihactice note 4.
9. This aspect of multiple-selves analysis was pioneered by Wlliam James and Erving Goffman. For a recent example of this analysis, see Eileen M. Donahue et al., Tlie Divided Self: Concurrent and longitudinal Effects of l*sychological Adjustment and Social Holes on Self-Concept Differentiation, 6A J. PERSONAIJTY & Soc Ps\CHOL. 834 (1993); and for general discussion, see Martin HoIIis, MODELS OF MAN: PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS ON SOCIAL ACTION, ch. 5 (1977). An application to literature is the tlistinction between the actual and the implied author of a work of literature, where the latter is the impression of the author that the actual autlior would like readers to form from the work. See, for an influential discussion, Wayne C. Booth, THE RHETORIC OF FICTION 71-76,80 (2d ed. 1983).
10. Sr Albert R.Jonscn and Stephen Toulmin, THE ABUSE OF GXSUISTRY: A HISTORYOF MORAL REASONING, cli. 9 (1988).
11. Another approach, this one closer to the multiple-selves approach, distinguishes between a person's “preferences” and his “metaprefcrences” (see, e.g., Albert O. Hirschman, Against Parsimony: Three Easy Ways of Complicating Some Categories of Economic Discourse, 1 Ecow & PHIL. 7, 8-9 [1985]), with the former corresponding to the preferences of what I am calling the present-oriented self and the latter to the preferences of what I am calling the future-oriented self.
12. See, e.g.,John Rawls, A THEORYOFJUSTICE 293 (1971).
13. The implicit discount rates used by people are often much higher. See, e.g. Thaler and Shcfrin, A THEORYOFJUSTICE note 6. This strengthens my point
14. See, e,g., David Friedman, What Is “Fair Compensation” for Death orlnjury?2 INTI-REV. L. & Eco.V. 81 (1982); Paul H. Rubin andjohn E. Calfec, Consequences of Damage Awards for Hedonic and Other Xonpecuniary Losses, 5 J. FORENSIC ECONT. 249, 251 (1992).
15. Posner, AGING ANO Oil) AGE, suftra at 84-85. A similar point is made indej>cndently in Steven P. Croley and Jon D. Hanson, The Nonfrntniary Costs of Accidents: Pain-andSujfering Damages in Tort IMW, 108 IIARV. L. REV. 1787, 1822-1827 (1995).
16. Rawls, The Nonfrntniary Costs of Accidents: Pain-andSujfering Damages in Tort IMW, at 295.
17. Not all; recall my example of the suicide engineered by the future-oriented self to spare the future self from suffering. Vet this could be viewed as a case in which the future self imposes a cost on the present self, without paying compensation.
18. Dworkin, Wilt Clintons Plan lie Fair? NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, Jan. 13,1994,p. 20. For a similar argument, see Dan W. Brock, Lire AND DEATH: PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAVS IN BIOMEDICAL ETHICS 358-60 (1993).