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Self‐prediction in practical reasoning: Its role and limits

Are predictions about how one will freely and intentionally behave in the future ever relevant to how one ought to behave? There is good reason to think they are. As imperfect agents, we have responsibilities of self-management, which seem to require that we take account of the predictable ways we’re liable to go wrong. I defend this conclusion against certain objections to the effect that incorporating into one’s practical reasoning predictions concerning one’s voluntary conduct amounts to evading one’s responsibility for that conduct. There is, however, some truth to this sort of objection. To understand the legitimate role of self-prediction in practical reasoning, we need to distinguish instances of coping responsibly with an anticipated failure to behave as one ought, on the one hand, from mere acquiescence in one’s flaws, on the other. I argue that, to draw this distinction, we must recognize certain limits on the use of self-prediction as a ground of choice. Imagine a friend of yours has just come into a large sum of money. You ask him what he will do with it. “I’m probably going to take it to the track and gamble it away,” he says. You try to dissuade him. It would be better to put it into savings, or perhaps spend it on some needed home repairs. He agrees that these things would be better, but says that you’re missing his point. He’s not saying gambling away the money is what he thinks he should do. He is simply predicting this is what he will do. And he might insist that he has good grounds for making such a prediction. “Ask anyone who knows me what I’m likely to do with a windfall such as this and they’ll tell you the same thing.” There is, intuitively, something wrong with your friend’s attitude toward his future behavior. He treats his own conduct as if it were merely something to speculate about rather than a matter for him to decide. In doing so, he displays a kind of Sartrean bad faith, a failure take responsibility for himself and his actions (Sartre, 1956). This conclusion might at first incline us toward the view that agents ought to adopt a strong anti-predictive stance toward matters that are subject to their will. If someone is