Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T22:44:11.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transformative Choices and the Specter of Regret

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2021

DANA HOWARD
DANA HOWARD*
Affiliation:
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY howard.1146@osu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When people are making certain medical decisions—especially potentially transformative ones—the specter of regret may color their choices. In this essay, I ask whether predicting that we will regret a decision in the future serve any justificatory role in our present decision making. And if so, what role? While there are many pitfalls to such reasoning, I ultimately conclude that considering future retrospective emotions like regret in our decision making can be both rational and authentic. Rather than indicating that one is about to make a mistake or that there is some underlying value that one already cares about but is overlooking, the prediction that one will regret a decision in the future makes one confront how her present values and priorities may change as a result of her choice in ways she cannot at present anticipate.

Keywords

moral psychologypractical reasontransformative experiencesmedical ethicsregret
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Spring 2022 , pp. 72 - 91
Check for updates
Creative Commons
This is a work of the US Government and is not subject to copyright protection within the United States. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association.
Copyright
Copyright © NIH Clinical Center, 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Thanks to Elizabeth Barnes, R. Lanier Anderson, Justin D'Arms, L.A. Paul, David Plunkett, Benjamin McKean, Emma Saunders-Hastings, Larisa Svirsky, Rebecca Stangl, Rosa Terlazzo, and Alex Voorhoeve for guiding comments and discussion on this essay. Thank you also to the participants at Stanford University Center for Ethics in Society Junior Scholars Workshop, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Working Group, Dartmouth College Workshop, and members of the University of Virginia Philosophy Department and Bioethics Program.

References

Adler, Nancy. (2000) ‘Abortion and Null Hypothesis’. Archive of General Psychology, 57, 785–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnes, Elizabeth. (2015) ‘Social Identities and Transformative Experience’. Res Philosophica, 92, 171–87.Google Scholar
Boerstler, Kyle. (2017) ‘The Challenge of Transformative Experiences for Advance Directives: Predicting a Future with Alzheimer's Disease’. Palgrave Communications, 3, article no. 17034 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2017.34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chung, Ken. (2017) ‘Is Dying a Transformative Experience?’ Ken Chung (blog), August 23, 2017. https://professorkenchung.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/is-dying-a-transformative-experience/.Google Scholar
Connolly, Terry, and Reb, Jochen. (2003) ‘Omission Bias in Vaccination Decisions: Where's the “Omission”? Where's the “Bias”?’ Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91, 186–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Arms, Justin, and Jacobson, Daniel. (2000) ‘The Moralistic Fallacy: On the “Appropriateness” of Emotions’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 61, 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Arms, Justin, and Jacobson, Daniel. (2011) ‘Regret and Irrational Action’. In Sobel, David and Wall, Steven (eds.), Reasons for Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 179–99.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Daniel T., Morewedge, Carey K., Risen, Jane L., and Wilson, Timothy D.. (2004) ‘Looking Forward to Looking Backward: The Misprediction of Regret’. Psychological Science, 15, 346–50.Google ScholarPubMed
Greasely, Kate. (2012) ‘Abortion and Regret’. Journal of Medical Ethics 38, 705–11.Google Scholar
Harman, Elizabeth. (2009) ‘“I'll Be Glad I Did It” Reasoning and the Significance of Future Desires’. In Hawthorne, John (ed.), Ethics (Malden: Wiley), 177–99.Google Scholar
Howard, Dana. (2015) ‘Transforming Others: On the Limits of “You'll Be Glad I Did It” Reasoning’. Res Philosophica, 92, 341–71.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Daniel. (2013) ‘Regret, Agency, and Error’. In Shoemaker, David (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 95–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liptak, Adam. (2016) ‘Eyes on Kennedy, Women Tell Supreme Court Why Abortion Was Right for Them’. New York Times, February 29, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/us/politics/abortion-supreme-court-women-explain-choices.html.Google Scholar
Little, Miles. (2009) ‘The Role of Regret in Informed Consent’. Bioethical Inquiry, 6, article no. 49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-008-9116-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, Miles, Jordens, C. F. C., McGrath, C., Montgomery, K., Lipworth, W., and Kerridge, I.. (2008) ‘Informed Consent and Medical Ordeal: A Qualitative Study’. Internal Medicine Journal, 38, 624–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loewenstein, George, and Schkade, David. (1999) ‘Wouldn't It be Nice? Predicting Future Feelings’. In Kahneman, Daniel, Diener, Ed, and Schwartz, Norbert (eds.), Well-Being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), 85–105.Google Scholar
Loomes, Graham, and Sugden, Robert. (1982) ‘Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty’. Economic Journal, 92, 805–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, Jennifer. (2019) Moving upward Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Major, Brenda, Cozzarelli, Catherine, Lynne Cooper, M., Zubek, Josephine, Richards, Caroline, Wilhite, Michael, and Gramzow, Richard H.. (2000) ‘Psychological Responses of Women after First-Trimester Abortion’. Archive of General Psychology, 57, 777–84.Google ScholarPubMed
Moller, Dan. (2011) ‘Anticipated Emotions and Emotional Valence’. Philosophers’ Imprint. 11, article no. 9. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0011.009.Google Scholar
Paul, L. A. (2014) Transformative Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, L. A. (2015a) ‘Précis of Transformative Experience’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91, 760–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, L. A. (2015b) ‘What You Can't Expect When You're Expecting’. Res Philosophica, 92, 149–71.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Richard. (2015) ‘Transformative Experience and Decision Theory’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91, 766–74.Google Scholar
Tsai, George. (2014) ‘Rational Persuasion as Paternalism’. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 42, 78–112.Google Scholar
Wallace, R. Jay. (2013) The View from Here: On Affirmation, Attachment, and the Limits of Regret. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Emily. (2020) ‘Cognitive Transformation, Dementia, and the Moral Weight of Advance Directives’. American Journal of Bioethics, 20, 54–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, Bernard. (1981) Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velleman, J. David. (1996) ‘Self to Self’. Philosophical Review, 105, 39–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziarnowski, Karen L., Brewer, Noel T., and Weber, Bethany. (2009) ‘Present Choices, Future Outcomes: Anticipated Regret and HPV Vaccination’. Preventive Medicine, 48, 411–14.Google ScholarPubMed
Zeelenberg, Marcel. (1999) ‘The Use of Crying over Spilled Milk’. Philosophical Psychology, 12, 325–40.Google Scholar