Transformative experience and the shark

According to the Experiential Range View (ERV), there are two different kinds of experiential outcomes. We define normal outcomes, such as being a parent, as outcomes whose subjective values are crucial to their evaluation, and to which the Prior Experience Claim applies. And we define sharky outcomes, such as being eaten alive by sharks, being hit by a bus, getting your legs amputated without anesthesia, etc., as outcomes that can be evaluated as bad and worse than normal outcomes, and to which the Prior Experience Claim does not apply.^{Footnote 3}

A fully developed version of ERV will include an explanation as to why the Prior Experience Claim either does or does not apply to a particular set of outcomes. We leave open what this explanation might be.^{Footnote 4} For we think that on any plausible version of ERV, a normal outcome can be gradually transformed into a sharky outcome. To see this, imagine a spectrum of possible experiential outcomes ranging from an outcome with a very small amount of intense pain, to an outcome with a large amount of intense pain, such that one can move from the first outcome to the last outcome in a finite series of steps, each involving the addition of only one more second of intense pain. The outcomes in this spectrum (S) are depicted in Fig. 1 below.

Each outcome (O₁, O₂, etc.) has a duration of 30 days^{Footnote 5} and is represented by one of the horizontal lines distributed vertically in Fig. 1. Each notch in one of these horizontal lines represents one second of intense pain, as well as the temporal location of this pain within the 30-day outcome in which it occurs. The number of notches increases as one moves downward from O₁, since each outcome after O₁ contains one more second of intense pain than the immediately preceding outcome. For example, O₁ might be a brief stretch of a life as a parent that includes one second of intense pain; O₂ might be a brief stretch of an experientially different life that includes two seconds of intense pain, etc. We assume that the extra second of pain in each step does not alter the temporal distribution of the other seconds of pain.^{Footnote 6} Each of the solid bars in O_500,000 and O_500,001 represents many seconds of intense pain closely grouped together in time.

Importantly, each outcome in S is experientially different enough from the others that a person that has had experiences in only one of these outcomes would be unable to grasp the experiences in the other outcomes; she would be unable to know what these other outcomes are like. Thus, while it is true that, for example, O_500,000 and O_500,001 are phenomenologically similar with respect to the pain they contain, they are phenomenologically dissimilar enough that they cannot be compared by an agent who is unfamiliar with the experiences that occur in them. The amount of pain in O_500,000 is less than ¼ of its total duration (7 days out of a total of 30). Therefore, even though O_500,000 and O_500,001 contain similar amounts of the same type of extreme pain, most of the experiences in O_500,000 are radically different from most of the experiences in O_500,001, and from most of the experiences in the rest of the outcomes in S. A crucial assumption here is that the number of possible types of experience is sufficiently large to fill in S. We defend this assumption in Sect. 3.

For our present purposes, what is important is that while certain outcomes in S, for example O₁ and O₂, contain an amount of pain that is consistent with their being normal outcomes, other outcomes in S, such as O_500,001 and each subsequent outcome, contain enough intense pain to be sharky.

If ERV is true, then there must be a boundary between the range of normal outcomes and the range of sharky outcomes. In our setup, this boundary is precise—O_500,001 is sharky while O_500,000, containing just one fewer second of intense pain, is normal. Later, we consider the possibility that the boundary between the normal and the sharky is vague.

Let us assume that O₁ is the status quo to which the other outcomes in S are to be compared. Thus, we imagine that the agent who is trying to evaluate these outcomes can grasp what O₁ is like but cannot grasp what the other outcomes in S are like. ERV entails the following two claims:

(1)
The agent cannot evaluate O_500,000 and compare it to O₁ because she cannot grasp what O_500,000 is like.
(2)
The agent can evaluate O_500,001 as worse than O₁ even though she cannot grasp what O_500,001 is like.

The conjunction of (1) and (2) entails that there are sharp discontinuities in the evaluability of outcomes. We find this implausible. In particular, we find it implausible that the agent’s ability to evaluate an outcome and compare it to O₁ vanishes due to the absence of just one fewer second of pain. We call this objection to ERV the discontinuity objection.^{Footnote 7}

At first glance, the discontinuity here may not seem so implausible. For example, a small physical change can make a difference to whether a certain property, such as the property of being tall or being bald, is instantiated. But the case that we are currently considering is not like these cases. According to ERV, in evaluating O_500,001, the agent can have some doxastic attitude about the value of this outcome and how it compares to O₁. For example, suppose the agent can know that O_500,001 is bad and worse than O₁. In that case, it seems she could at least have some credence that O_500,000 is also bad and worse than O₁. After all, she has knowledge of the badness of O_500,001 only because in this outcome she would experience a certain amount of intense pain, and O_500,000 has only one fewer second of intense pain than O_500,001. But although the agent knows that O_500,001 is bad and worse than O₁, according to ERV she is totally clueless about the value of O_500,000 and how it compares to O₁. She cannot grasp the value of O_500,000. This discontinuity in evaluability is striking.

The reason for the discontinuity here is that, according to ERV, the standard of evaluation differs depending on whether the agent is trying to evaluate O_500,000 or O_500,001. In order to evaluate O_500,001, the agent does not have to cognitively model that outcome. O_500,001 contains enough intense pain that the agent can evaluate it as bad even though she cannot grasp what it is like. However, in order to evaluate O_500,000, the agent must cognitively model it. Since the agent cannot grasp what O_500,000 is like, when she attempts to cognitively model it, she ends up in a state that is similar to the state that Mary the scientist is in when, sitting in her black and white room, she tries to imagine what it is like to see red.^{Footnote 8}

The discontinuity objection is not the end of ERV’s problems. ERV also faces what we will call the sensitivity objection. Consider again Fig. 1, and outcomes O₁, O_500,000, and O_500,001. ERV implies:

(1)
The agent cannot evaluate O_500,000 and compare it to O₁ because she cannot grasp what O_500,000 is like.
(3)
The agent can evaluate O_500,001 as worse than O_500,000 even though she cannot grasp what either of these outcomes is like.

We find the conjunction of (1) and (3) very implausible. The difference in the amount of intense pain between O_500,001 and O_500,000 is tiny compared to the difference in intense pain between O₁ and O_500,000. It is implausible that while there being a difference of one second of intense pain is enough for the agent to be able to evaluate O_500,001 as worse than O_500,000, a difference of 499,999 seconds of intense pain is insufficient for the agent to be able to evaluate O_500,000 as worse than O₁. Thus, when it comes to evaluating outcomes, ERV is very sensitive to certain small differences in intense pain but completely insensitive to certain much larger differences in intense pain. This is the sensitivity objection.

The discontinuity and sensitivity objections, although related, are importantly different. The first objects to the claim that while the agent cannot evaluate O_500,000 and compare it with O₁, she can evaluate O_500,001 as worse than O₁. A difference of only one second of pain determines whether an agent who is clueless about the phenomenology of an outcome can evaluate and compare it to the status quo—there is an implausibly sharp cut-off in the evaluability of outcomes. The second objects to the claim that while the agent cannot evaluate O_500,000 and compare it with O₁, she can evaluate O_500,001 as worse than O_500,000, even though the difference in pain between the first two outcomes is much greater than the difference in pain between the second two outcomes—the agent’s evaluation of the outcomes is not proportionally sensitive to the variation in the amount of pain that they contain.

One may wonder whether the source of ERV’s trouble is due to a failure to account for vagueness. It might be that the discontinuity and sensitivity objections arise only because we have falsely assumed a precise cut-off between the range of normal outcomes and the range of sharky outcomes. Let’s suppose instead that the boundary between these two ranges is not precise but vague. Under this version of ERV, while some outcomes clearly belong to the range of normal outcomes, some other outcomes are neither determinately normal nor determinately sharky. Is recognizing vagueness sufficient to answer the discontinuity and sensitivity objections? To answer this question, we need to look further at the details.

Figure 2 below represents S under a version of ERV that accounts for vagueness. Figure 2 is similar to Fig. 1. The main difference is the presence, in Fig. 2, of the rectangular grey zone that covers O_500,001, O_500,002, and O_500,003. This zone represents the range in which the status of outcomes is vague or borderline—i.e. neither determinately sharky nor determinately normal. For now, we assume that there is a sharp demarcation between the zone of vagueness, the range of normal outcomes, and the range of sharky outcomes. Thus, we assume that O_500,000 is a normal outcome situated just above the zone of vagueness, and O_500,004 is a sharky outcome situated just below that zone. (We question this assumption later in our discussion).

Now, there are different ways of understanding vagueness. In the remainder of this section, we will consider the implications of ERV under three such understandings: Supervaluationism, Epistemicism, and ontic vagueness. We will argue that none of these understandings of vagueness, when combined with ERV, alleviates the discontinuity and sensitivity problems. Let’s see this.

Table 1 Precisifications of ‘normal’ and ‘sharky’

According to Supervaluationism, a sentence attributing some value to an outcome is vague if and only if it comes out true on some precisifications of the relevant evaluative predicates, but false on others.^{Footnote 9} Applied to our spectrum S (Fig. 2) Supervaluationism implies that on any admissible precisifications of ‘normal’ and ‘sharky,’ O₁ and O_500,000 are normal outcomes, and O_500,004 is sharky. But because of the imprecision in our language, this is not true of O_500,001, O_500,002, and O_500,003. For each of these outcomes, on some ways of making our language more precise, it will be normal; on others, it will be sharky. Table 1 above illustrates the different possible precisifications of ‘normal’ and ‘sharky’. For each precisification there is at least one outcome that can be evaluated as bad and worse than O₁ and at least one other outcome that contains exactly one fewer second of intense pain and cannot be evaluated and compared with O₁. Notice that P₃, P₅, P₆, and P₇ (the bold rows in Table 1) contain multiple instances of this kind of discontinuity. We think that these four precisifications are inadmissible, since they involve bizarre alternating patterns in evaluability. We will therefore only focus our analysis on the other precisifications, P1, P2, P4, and P8.

Figure 3 below shows the admissible precisifications, P1, P2, P4, and P8. For each of these precisifications, there is a line marking the transition between the normal and sharky outcomes.

The fact that the precisifications of the relevant predicates result in sharp discontinuities is not surprising. This is an established consequence of Supervaluationism, which can be observed by applying this view to other cases of vague predicates such as ‘tall’. But recall that the problems that arise with sharp discontinuities in the case of the evaluative predicates ‘normal’ and ‘sharky’ concern the evaluability of outcomes. And these problems do not go away simply because one makes ‘normal’ and ‘sharky’ more precise. Thus, even after the predicates have been precisified, we still get the result that the standard by which outcomes are evaluated changes depending on the presence of 1 more second of pain. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that for predicates such as ‘tall’ there is nothing analogous to the sensitivity objection. Recall that this objection arises because ERV entails that the agent’s ability to make evaluative comparisons is very sensitive to certain small differences in pain but completely insensitive to certain much larger differences in pain. On ERV, evaluative comparisons are not proportionally sensitive to differences in amounts of pain. But the relation “taller than” is always proportionally sensitive to differences in height. Moreover, comparisons of the heights of objects (tall and short) can be made no matter how those heights differ. There are no cases of the following kind: Anna is 1,50 m tall, Peter is 1,51 m tall, and Maria is 2m tall, and one can compare the heights of Peter and Anna and determine that Peter is taller than Anna but one cannot compare the heights of Peter and Maria and determine that Maria is taller than Peter. This suggests that the sensitivity objection should be understood as an objection specifically to ERV, and not to Supervaluationism per se.

Like Supervaluationism, Epistemicism cannot help ERV avoid the discontinuity and sensitivity objections. Epistemicism construes vagueness not as linguistic indecision but as a kind of ineliminable uncertainty. Assuming Epistemicism, there is some number n of seconds of pain such that outcome O_n in our spectrum is sharky and outcome O_n-1 is normal, although it is impossible to know the value of n. The discontinuity and sensitivity objections thus remain unanswered. After all, these objections arise because the range of sharky outcomes and the range of normal outcomes are separated by the mere presence or absence of just one second of pain. Epistemicism just confirms that this is the case and adds that we cannot know exactly where the separation occurs.

Paul might claim that vagueness is not a matter of imprecision in language, or of ineliminable uncertainty, but is rather “out there” in the world. This would be a substantial theoretical commitment on Paul’s part. Very few contemporary philosophers defend this view of vagueness.^{Footnote 10} Moreover, it seems to us that this view is vulnerable to the discontinuity and sensitivity objections. For example, ERV with ontic vagueness would have the following result. Although O_500,004 (a sharky outcome) can be evaluated as bad and worse than O_500,000 (a normal outcome), it is indeterminate whether O_500,003 (which has only one fewer second of intense pain than the sharky outcome O_500,004) can be evaluated as bad and worse than O₁. But this is implausible, given that the difference in pain between O₁ and O_500,003 is much greater than the difference in pain between O_500,000 and O_500,004. The evaluations here are not proportionally sensitive to differences in pain.

Moreover, ERV with ontic vagueness doesn’t specify what the agent should do when at least one of the outcomes that she is evaluating is borderline. Suppose that a standard is introduced in order to guide the agent in her evaluation of borderline outcomes. For example, suppose the relevant standard says that when an agent is considering two different outcomes and at least one of them is borderline, she is rationally required to cognitively model both outcomes, just as if she were evaluating and comparing two normal outcomes. Then there may be an implausibly sharp demarcation between outcomes to which this standard applies and those to which it does not apply. For example, suppose that as we have been assuming, in our spectrum O_500,000 is normal, O_500,004 sharky, and O_500,001—O_500,003 are borderline. Then, on the proposal that we are now considering, while an agent who is deciding between O₁ and O_500,003 must cognitively model these outcomes, an exercise that leaves her completely clueless as to how they compare, that same agent can just know, without any cognitive modelling, that O_500,004 is worse than O₁, and, moreover, that O_500,004 is worse than O_500,000. But this is basically what we found objectionable about ERV without vagueness—an implausibly sharp evaluative discontinuity and an implausibly volatile sensitivity to natural differences between outcomes.

One might wonder whether these problems can be avoided by appealing to higher-order vagueness. One might claim that, contrary to what we have assumed, it is indeterminate whether O_500,000 is borderline and indeterminate whether O_500,004 is borderline. One might also claim, for example, that it is indeterminate whether it is indeterminate whether O_499,999 is borderline, and indeterminate whether it is indeterminate whether O_500,005 is borderline, etc., etc.

Even if such claims are true, we doubt that they will be of much help. Let’s say that an outcome is second-order borderline if it is indeterminate whether it is borderline. Now suppose that the agent is considering a second-order borderline outcome. (Assume that in this case there is no vagueness of any order higher than 2). How should the agent evaluate this outcome? Here is one proposal. The relevant standard of evaluation for borderline outcomes requires that the agent cognitively model them, so for any second-order borderline outcome O, the relevant standard requires that the agent make a second-order evaluation by cognitively modelling an outcome in which she cognitively models O. Extrapolating to higher orders, we can say that for any n-order borderline outcome, where n > 1, the relevant standard requires the agent to make an n-order evaluation by cognitively modelling an outcome in which she uses cognitive modelling to make an (n-1)-order evaluation.

The problem with this proposal is that using cognitive modelling for higher-order evaluations is a redundant epicycle. We are interested in cases of evaluation in which the agent is clueless about what the outcomes are like phenomenologically. But if an agent is clueless about what a certain outcome is like, then presumably she is also clueless about what it is like to cognitively model that outcome. After all, cognitively modelling an outcome involves estimating what it is like. Thus, with respect to outcomes such that the agent is clueless about what they are like, using cognitive modelling for higher-order evaluations would only exacerbate her cluelessness.^{Footnote 11}

We think that the problem just considered points toward an alternative proposal: in cases of n-order vagueness, where n > 1, rather than go through some number of redundant epicycles, the agent should just act exactly as she would in any case of first-order vagueness. In other words, the standard of evaluation for cases of higher-order vagueness is just the standard of evaluation for cases of first-order vagueness. Assuming that in cases of first-order vagueness cognitive modelling is required for the agent’s first-order evaluation, this is also true in cases of higher-order vagueness; in such cases, no higher-order evaluation is required.

But this proposal faces problems of its own. Suppose that in our spectrum S there is a sharp demarcation between outcomes that are n-order borderline for some n ≥ 1 and outcomes that are not n-order borderline for any n. Then, on the current proposal, in S there will be a sharp demarcation between outcomes to which the standard requiring cognitive modelling applies and outcomes to which it doesn’t. But this is precisely what gets ERV into trouble in the first place.

Suppose instead that every outcome in S is n-order borderline for some n ≥ 1. Then on the current proposal, for any outcome in S, in order to evaluate that outcome, the agent must cognitively model it. But this is incompatible with one of ERV’s assumptions, namely that at least some outcomes in S, for example those involving hours and hours of extreme pain are sharky—i.e. are such that one doesn’t need to cognitively model them but can just know (or grasp) that they are bad no matter what they are like.

At this point, one might wonder whether the problems that we have discussed can be avoided by abandoning cognitive modelling as the standard of evaluation for borderline outcomes and adopting some alternative standard. Although we cannot rule out this possibility, the onus is on those who accept both the Shark Claim and the Prior Experience Claim to demonstrate it. However, we suspect that any reasonable alternative to a standard that requires cognitive modelling will face either the discontinuity and sensitivity problems or problems that are structurally analogous to them. In Sect. 4, we show that Paul’s proposed alternative standard for cases of transformative choice faces such problems, and we cannot think of any other reasonable standard that avoids them.

To sum up, the Experiential Range View (ERV), which restricts the application of the Prior Experience Claim in order to accommodate the Shark Claim, involves an implausible discontinuity in the evaluability of outcomes. Moreover, on this view, evaluative comparisons of outcomes are not proportionally sensitive to variation in the underlying features of these outcomes. Finally, these problems don’t seem to go away on the assumption that the boundary between the range of normal outcomes and the range of sharky outcomes is vague.

Transformative experience and the shark problem | Philosophical Studies | Springer Nature Link