Because, ceteris paribus I care about things that happen sooner more than about things that happen latter. And, like I said, not having pure time preference seems incoherent.
As a meta-sidenote, I find that arguments about ethics are rarely constructive, since there is too little in the way of agreed-upon objective criteria and too much in the way of social incentives to voice / not voice certain positions. In particular when someone asks why I have a particular preference, I have no idea what kind of justification they expect (from some ethical principle they presuppose? evolutionary psychology? social contract / game theory?)
Because, ceteris paribus I care about things that happen sooner more than about things that happen latter.
This is separate to the normative question of whether or not people should have zero pure time preference when it comes to evaluating the ethics of policies that will affect future generations. Surely the fact that I’d rather have some cake today rather than tomorrow cannot be relevant when I’m considering whether or not I should abate carbon emissions so my great grandchildren can live in a nice world—these simply seem separate considerations with no obvious link to each other. If we’re talking about policies whose effects don’t (predictably) span generations I can perhaps see the relevance of my personal impatience, but otherwise I don’t.
Also, having non-zero pure time preference has counterintuitive implications. From here:
If applied consistently to the past, a modest rate of time preference of just 1% per annum would imply that Tutankhamen was more important than all 7 billion humans alive today.
So if hypothetically we were alive around King Tut’s time and we were given the mandatory choice to either torture him or, with certainty, cause the torture of all 7 billion humans today we would easily choose the latter with a 1% rate of pure time preference (which seems obviously wrong to me).
If you do want non-zero rate of pure time preference you will probably need it to decline quickly over time to make much ethical sense (see here and my explanation here).
This is separate to the normative question of whether or not people should have zero pure time preference when it comes to evaluating the ethics of policies that will affect future generations.
I am a moral anti-realist. I don’t believe in ethics the way utilitarians (for example) use the word. I believe there are certain things I want, and certain things other people want, and we can coordinate on that. And coordinating on that requires establishing social norms, including what we colloquially refer to as “ethics”. Hypothetically, if I have time preference and other people don’t then I would agree to coordinate on a compromise. In practice, I suspect that everyone have time preference.
So if hypothetically we were alive around King Tut’s time and we were given the mandatory choice to either torture him or, with certainty, cause the torture of all 7 billion humans today we would easily choose the latter with a 1% rate of pure time preference (which seems obviously wrong to me).
You can avoid this kind of conclusions if you accept my decision rule of minimax regret over all discount timescales from some finite value to infinity.
Hypothetically, if I have time preference and other people don’t then I would agree to coordinate on a compromise. In practice, I suspect that everyone have time preference.
Most people do indeed have pure time preference in the sense that they are impatient and want things earlier rather than later. However, this says nothing about their attitude to future generations.
Being impatient means you place more importance on your present self than your future self, but it doesn’t mean you care more about the wellbeing of some random dude alive now than another random dude alive in 100 years. That simply isn’t what “impatience” means.
For example—I am impatient. I personally want things sooner rather than later in my life. I don’t however think that the wellbeing of a random person now is more important than the wellbeing of a random person alive in 100 years. That’s an entirely separate consideration to my personal impatience.
I dunno if I count as “EA”, but I think that a social planner should have nonzero pure time preference, yes.
Why?
Because, ceteris paribus I care about things that happen sooner more than about things that happen latter. And, like I said, not having pure time preference seems incoherent.
As a meta-sidenote, I find that arguments about ethics are rarely constructive, since there is too little in the way of agreed-upon objective criteria and too much in the way of social incentives to voice / not voice certain positions. In particular when someone asks why I have a particular preference, I have no idea what kind of justification they expect (from some ethical principle they presuppose? evolutionary psychology? social contract / game theory?)
This is separate to the normative question of whether or not people should have zero pure time preference when it comes to evaluating the ethics of policies that will affect future generations. Surely the fact that I’d rather have some cake today rather than tomorrow cannot be relevant when I’m considering whether or not I should abate carbon emissions so my great grandchildren can live in a nice world—these simply seem separate considerations with no obvious link to each other. If we’re talking about policies whose effects don’t (predictably) span generations I can perhaps see the relevance of my personal impatience, but otherwise I don’t.
Also, having non-zero pure time preference has counterintuitive implications. From here:
So if hypothetically we were alive around King Tut’s time and we were given the mandatory choice to either torture him or, with certainty, cause the torture of all 7 billion humans today we would easily choose the latter with a 1% rate of pure time preference (which seems obviously wrong to me).
If you do want non-zero rate of pure time preference you will probably need it to decline quickly over time to make much ethical sense (see here and my explanation here).
I am a moral anti-realist. I don’t believe in ethics the way utilitarians (for example) use the word. I believe there are certain things I want, and certain things other people want, and we can coordinate on that. And coordinating on that requires establishing social norms, including what we colloquially refer to as “ethics”. Hypothetically, if I have time preference and other people don’t then I would agree to coordinate on a compromise. In practice, I suspect that everyone have time preference.
You can avoid this kind of conclusions if you accept my decision rule of minimax regret over all discount timescales from some finite value to infinity.
Most people do indeed have pure time preference in the sense that they are impatient and want things earlier rather than later. However, this says nothing about their attitude to future generations.
Being impatient means you place more importance on your present self than your future self, but it doesn’t mean you care more about the wellbeing of some random dude alive now than another random dude alive in 100 years. That simply isn’t what “impatience” means.
For example—I am impatient. I personally want things sooner rather than later in my life. I don’t however think that the wellbeing of a random person now is more important than the wellbeing of a random person alive in 100 years. That’s an entirely separate consideration to my personal impatience.