Future-Bias and Practical Reason

Now we might think that even if the foregoing is true, it fails to speak to our original topic of the rationality of future-biased preferences. This is because future-biased preferences were defined as preferences for future pleasure over past pleasure (and vice versa for pain). It was no part of this definition that one not have temporally neutral preferences between pleasures and other goods. So one might object that the rationality of future-biased preferences is not impinged by a rational requirement to have temporally neutral preferences between hedonic experiences and other goods. Instead, one might counter that one is rationally required to have a temporally neutral preference between a hedonic experience and, say, money, and nonetheless prefer that this experience is not over yet. In this way, one might try to confine future-bias just to the realm of hedonic experiences, while allowing that hedonic experiences should be exchanged for other goods in a temporally neutral fashion.