The Sooner the Better: An Argument for Bias Toward the Earlier

Thomas Saad

doi:10.1017/apa.2022.51

The Sooner the Better: An Argument for Bias Toward the Earlier

Thomas Saad

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Abstract

In this article I argue that we should be prudentially and morally biased toward earlier events: other things equal, we should prefer for good events to occur earlier and disprefer for bad events to occur earlier. The argument contends that we should accord at least some credence—if only a small one—to a theoretical package featuring the growing block theory of time and that this package generates a presumptive bias toward earlier events. Rival theoretical packages are considered. Under reasonable allocations of credence to them, the presumptive bias escapes defeat. The argument has several corollaries: other things equal, we should be biased toward the past over the future, the further past over the nearer past, and the nearer future over the further future.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	371-386
Number of pages	16
Journal	Journal of the American Philosophical Association
Volume	10
Issue number	2
Early online date	7 Jul 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2022.51
Publication status	Published - Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
For helpful discussion, I am grateful to Zach Barnett, Jon Morgan, Hedda Hassel Mørch, Nuño Sempere, Christian Tarsney, and Gustavs Zilgalvis. For helpful feedback on earlier drafts, I am grateful to Daniel Berntson, Alex Pruss, Mark Steen, Adam Taylor, Dean Zimmerman, participants in a discussion group at the 2022 God and the Spacetime Manifold summer seminar at Rutgers, and reviewers. I am also grateful to an editor and copy editor for the time they devoted to making or proposing many changes to the manuscript, which led to some improvements. Funding was provided by the John Templeton Foundation (Grant Number 61516), Rutgers University, Sentience Institute, and Universiteit Utrecht. The views expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of funders. 1

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association.

Funding

For helpful discussion, I am grateful to Zach Barnett, Jon Morgan, Hedda Hassel Mørch, Nuño Sempere, Christian Tarsney, and Gustavs Zilgalvis. For helpful feedback on earlier drafts, I am grateful to Daniel Berntson, Alex Pruss, Mark Steen, Adam Taylor, Dean Zimmerman, participants in a discussion group at the 2022 God and the Spacetime Manifold summer seminar at Rutgers, and reviewers. I am also grateful to an editor and copy editor for the time they devoted to making or proposing many changes to the manuscript, which led to some improvements. Funding was provided by the John Templeton Foundation (Grant Number 61516), Rutgers University, Sentience Institute, and Universiteit Utrecht. The views expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of funders. 1

Funders	Funder number
Sentience Institute
John Templeton Foundation	61516
John Templeton Foundation
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Universiteit Utrecht

Keywords

dominance reasoning
rationality
the growing block theory
the sure thing principle
time

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10.1017/apa.2022.51Licence: CC BY

the-sooner-the-better-an-argument-for-bias-toward-the-earlierFinal published version, 208 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The Sooner the Better: An Argument for Bias Toward the Earlier",

abstract = "In this article I argue that we should be prudentially and morally biased toward earlier events: other things equal, we should prefer for good events to occur earlier and disprefer for bad events to occur earlier. The argument contends that we should accord at least some credence—if only a small one—to a theoretical package featuring the growing block theory of time and that this package generates a presumptive bias toward earlier events. Rival theoretical packages are considered. Under reasonable allocations of credence to them, the presumptive bias escapes defeat. The argument has several corollaries: other things equal, we should be biased toward the past over the future, the further past over the nearer past, and the nearer future over the further future.",

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The Sooner the Better: An Argument for Bias Toward the Earlier

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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