I argue, first, that the deprived individuals whose predicaments Nussbaum cites as examples of "adaptive preference" do not in fact prefer the conditions of their lives to what we should regard as more desirable alternatives, indeed that we believe they are badly off precisely because they are not living the lives they would prefer to live if they had other options and were aware of them. Secondly, I argue that even where individuals in deprived circumstances acquire tastes for conditions that (...) we regard as bad, they are typically better off having their acquired preferences satisfied. If they are badly off it is because they cannot get what we and they, would regard as more desirable alternatives. Preference utilitarianism explains why individuals in such circumstances are badly off whether they have adapted to their deprived circumstances or not. Even if they prefer the conditions of their lives to all other available alternatives, most would prefer alternatives that are not available to them which would, on the preferentist account, make them better off. And that, on the preferentist account, is the basis for a radical critique of unjust institutions that limit people's options and prevent them from getting what they want. (shrink)

An adaptive preference is a preference that is regimented in response to an agent’s set of feasible options. The fabled fox in the sour grapes story undergoes an adaptive preference change. I consider adaptive preferences more broadly, to include adaptive preference formation as well. I argue that many adaptive preferences that other philosophers have cast out as irrational sour-grapes-like preferences are actually fully rational preferences worthy of pursuit. I offer a means of distinguishing rational and worthy adaptive preferences from irrational (...) and unworthy ones. The distinction is based on the agent’s own appraisal of the adaptive preference. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Current literature in moral and political philosophy is rife with discussion of adaptive preferences. This is no accident: while preferences are generally thought to play an important role in a number of normative domains, adaptive preferences seem exceptions to this general rule—they seem problematic in a way that preference-respecting theories of these domains cannot adequately capture. Thus, adaptive preferences are often taken to be theoretically explanatory: a reason for adjusting our theories of the relevant normative domains. However, as I shall (...) argue here, the relentless focus on the phenomenon of preference adaptation is a mistake. While I do not take a stand on whether typical examples of adaptive preferences are or are not problematic, I argue here that if they are problematic, it cannot be because they are adaptive. (shrink)

While the concept of adaptive preferences is an important tool for criticizing injustice, it is often claimed that using the concept involves showing disrespect for persons judged to have adaptive preferences. In this paper, I propose an account of adaptive preferences that does the relevant political work while still showing persons two centrally important kinds of respect. My account is based in what I call an indirect substantive account of autonomy, which places substantive requirements on the options available to a (...) person, rather than on the option that she ultimately prefers. This allows us to pinpoint cases in which a person's circumstances have rendered her insufficiently autonomous, without saying that any conception of the good must be non-autonomous tout court. (shrink)

I argue that character planning differs from sour grapes in that the former but not the latter leaves the agent with a coherent preference structure.

We usually withhold attributions of moral responsibility when a person acts on preferences that are induced without her consent by other people by means of conditioning, post-hypnotic suggestion, neurological fiddling and similar techniques. However, this is not generally the case when a person induces preferences in herself by the process of character building. However, the distinction between non-responsibility and responsibility for preferences does not map neatly onto the distinction between psychological induction by other and by self. Sometimes responsibility-grounding freedom of (...) action and autonomy of will re compromised when a person induces preferences in herself by adaptive preference-formation, the mechanism that sets up the cry of “sour grapes.” They can also be compromised when a person intentionally undertakes a strategy of self-abnegating resignation to oppressive necessity. It remains unclear, nonetheless, how the unfreedom and heteronomy of preferences calibrated to the merely feasible contrasts with the freedom and autonomy of planned preferences-changes guided by the person’s own values in projects of character building. (shrink)

Despite being co-opted by economists and politicians for their own purposes, ‘welfare’ traditionally refers to well-being, and it is in this sense that L. W. Sumner understands the term. His book is a clear, careful, and well-crafted investigation into major theories of welfare, accompanied by a one-chapter defense of “welfarism,” the view that welfare is the only foundational value necessary for ethics. Sumner himself is attracted to utilitarianism, but he makes no commitment to it in this work, which will be (...) of interest to many moral philosophers. (shrink)