Against Desert Part 1: Temporal Scrambling

Beginning a series on which I argue against desert

Trigger warning: Confusing and dense analytic philosophy.

Thank you to

Non-Natural Facts

for helpful commentary on this article.

Introduction

People often believe in desert. They think that there is some robust sense in which we are morally responsible, and this moral responsibility makes it so that it is fortunate when bad things befall us. I don’t think this doctrine is defensible, and in this series, I’ll argue for that conclusion. The articles stand alone, but can also be read as a series.

Let me begin with some mandatory throat-clearing; declaring that no one deserves anything does not entail that no one should be punished. There are lots of good justifications for punishing people—for example, punishment deters crime and incapacitates people. However, some people claim that one additional reason to punish people is that they deserve to be punished. I argue against that here.

An analogy is the following; virtually no one thinks that small children deserve to be punished. They are not moral agents and are not evil, even when they do bad things. Nonetheless, it is often worth punishing them to make them less likely to misbehave in harmful ways. So too we can say that people should be punished even if they don’t deserve it.

The argument

Okay, now that we have the boring introductions out of the way, into the first argument against desert.

1. If desert exists, what people deserve depends on what has happened in the past.

2. If what people deserve depends on what has happened in the past, it depends on what will happen in the future.

3. What people deserve doesn’t depend on what will happen in the future.

Therefore, desert doesn’t exist.

Premise 1 is very plausible. Suppose that the best person ever took a pill that temporarily turned them very evil for 30 minutes. During those 30 minutes, they would not deserve to suffer. However, if a very evil person took the pill, such that during those 30 minutes they were just as evil as the first person, they would deserve different things from the other person. If a good person took a pill that turned them as evil as Jeffrey Dahmer for 30 minutes, they would, during those 30 minutes, deserve different things from Jeffrey Dahmer.

Premise 2 is not initially obvious, but it is plausible nonetheless. To see this, we can imagine a temporally scrambled life. Suppose that Amos the serial killer is born in the year 2000 and commits 1 murder a year between the years 2020 and 2030. The temporally scrambled version of Amos would live his years out of order—so he’d be born in the year 2000 as a 40-year-old man, with all the memories as if he had lived the previous years. Then, in the year 2001, he’d live the year that he appeared to live when he was 22, for example. So the idea behind a temporally scrambled life is that one lives their years out of order.

If a life is temporally scrambled, this does not seem to affect what the person who lives the life deserves at each time. Making their actions and subjective experiences the same, and just changing exactly when the events occur cannot change what they deserve. But if this is true, then desert at some time depends on what one will do in the future. To see this, suppose that the life is temporally scrambled so that one lives their first year as a 40-year-old man, and then lives the rest of their years in order. Well, by changing when their “40th year of life” one doesn’t affect what they deserve, and if time progressed the normal way, what they’d deserve when they were 40 would depend on what happened in previous years, so by transitivity, what they deserve right after they were born, when they have the memories of a 40-year-old, would depend on what will happen in the future. I’ll address objections to premise 2 later.

Premise 3 is very intuitive—it seems weird to think that what a person deserves at some time depends on what they’ll do in the future. Additionally, what one will do in the future depends on various chance events, therefore, if what a person deserves depends on what they’ll do in the future, then what they deserve at some time will depend on contingent chance circumstances. For example, suppose that someone will carry out a homicide in the future if and only if there is lead in their water. This would mean that what they deserve now would depend on whether there will, in the future, be lead in their water. This is very unintuitive.

Objections

“Oh yeah, I know Matthew. He and I R related.”

—A dumb joke

One could reject 1. They might claim that what a person deserves depends on their character at the present moment. Perhaps they would think this if they are an eliminativist about personal identity. However, to avoid thinking that generally good people who take a pill that makes them temporarily evil deserve to suffer, they might think that no one deserves to suffer. Instead, they might think that it is less good when evil people get well-being than when good people do, but in all cases, it is good. This view can also help accommodate intuitions like the following.

You have a tasty cookie that will produce harmless pleasure with no other effects. You can give it to either serial killer Ted Bundy, or the saintly Mother Teresa. Bundy enjoys cookies slightly more than Teresa. Should you therefore give it to Bundy?

But this view produces even weirder results. For example, suppose that Mother Teresa would enjoy the cookie more but she temporarily takes a pill that makes her even more evil than Dahmer. On this account, the cookie should be given to Dahmer.

Additionally, this view runs afoul of the following limited first-person Pareto principle.

If some action is good for you and bad for no one, and you have no deontic reasons not to take it, you should take the action

This account requires denying this view, because it implies that one should redistribute the well-being in their life so that they’ll experience more of it when they’re more moral, even if it decreases their total well-being and affects no one else.

This view is very revisionary. It implies that the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer killed many people last year would not affect what he currently deserves at all. If one is accepting accounts this revisionary, it seems worthwhile to just reject desert—we’re already going to have to reject nearly all of our desert-based intuitions.

One could reject 2. They could claim that temporally scrambling one’s life does change what they deserve. But this is not at all plausible—temporal scrambling just changes when events occur. When acts are taken doesn’t affect what one deserves for carrying out various acts.

An additional argument can be given for 2. Desert, it seems, depends on some combination of one’s acts and one’s character. But temporal scrambling does not affect the acts one takes or their character. Therefore, it seems that it cannot affect desert. None of the plausible desert makers, on any account, seem affected by temporal scrambling.

One could object to 3. They could claim that what is relevant is not temporal dependence but instead causal dependence. Thus, in the scramble cases, if one’s current memories and psychological states are causally dependent on their future actions, what they deserve may depend on their future actions. If one is somehow psychologically continuous with their future self, then what they deserve may depend on what their future self does.

Even setting aside metaphysical questions of whether this is a permissible type of psychological continuity, this view produces objectionable results. Suppose that Amos is born in the year 2000 as a 40-year-old man. On this account, what Amos deserves now depends on whether he is psychologically continuous with his future self. Whether he is, we may suppose, will depend on whether in the future, there will be lead in Amos’ water; if there is lead in his water, he’ll have a certain violent character which will happen to correspond with his current mental states. Thus, what Amos deserves now will depend on whether, in the future, there will be lead in his water, in ways that don’t affect his current character at all. Notably, we may suppose that Amos’ current memories and dispositions will not change regardless of whether or not his future self will be violent—thus, this view of desert implausibly results in what one deserves now depending causally on future actions that don’t affect their current character or psychology at all.

One might suppose that the relevant feature surrounding desert is, rather than mere psychological continuity, whether one’s psychology connects up in the right way to their future self. Thus, a person can be held responsible for the actions of a future being if their current memories and psychological states depend causally on the future actions of that being. This, however, reaches similarly implausible results.

The argument above establishes that even if one is psychologically continuous with a future person who will do immoral things, they cannot deserve to suffer based on the actions of the future immoral person. On this account, however, if they are psychologically continuous and causally dependent on the actions of their future self, then they can be responsible for it. To illustrate the difference, I might be psychologically continuous with myself of 40 years in the sense that I have all my memories and psychological states the same, but I might not be causally dependent on them in that my psychology would not be changed by my 40-year-old self being different. Or, to use a simpler example, moving my arm in a semi-circle may be continuous with moving it in another semi-circle, such that it’s one continuous motion, but not causally dependent, in that I would have moved my arm in the second semi-circle even if I never moved my arm in the first case.

But it’s wildly implausible that what a person deserves depends on the causal connection between themselves and their future states. If in the year 2000, I’m born as a 40-year-old man, with memories of what I’ll do in 2039, when I live as a 39-year-old man, it’s wildly implausible that the causal connection between my current psychology and my future psychology determines what I deserve. This causal connection doesn’t affect my current viciousness, what immoral things I’ll do, or anything of the sort.

For example, suppose that there is an extrapolation, wherein my psychology in the year 2000 is determined by some future extrapolation of my psychology in the year 2039 who predicts what my psychology will be. Suppose the extrapolator is fully accurate—similar to the predictor in Newcombe’s problem. It is implausible that what I’d deserve in this case would depend on whether there is a causal connection between my current psychology and future self or whether there is merely a non-causal counterfactual dependence.

An additional worry arises: whether I deserve something on this account depends on whether my mental states are causally dependent on and psychologically continuous with my future psychology. This relationship of causal dependence and psychological continuity is called relation R by Parfit and others. Whether relation R obtains depends on whether there are discontinuous jumps in psychology—for example, whether after some psychological event happens, my psychology jumps randomly to another state, which my psychology would have arrived at a minute later, in the absence of the jump. But it’s implausible to suggest that if one has this discontinuous jump in their psychology, then they wouldn’t deserve mistreatment for their past crimes; for example, it’s not plausible that, if desert exists, Jeffrey Dahmer could avoid desert by having a 10-second jump in his psychology.

Notably, these worries arise for this account of desert generally, even if they don’t invoke backward causation. We can imagine a case that doesn’t involve backward causation; for example, we can imagine that one’s psychology depends non-causally on their past psychology. One’s psychology at some moment might be determined by a predictor who guesses what their psychology would be at that moment. Thus, their psychology at each moment does not causally depend on their psychology at previous moments, but it seems that this fact would not affect their desert. The causal correspondence between one’s mental states and their past ones cannot, it seems, affect their desert. This means that even if one rejects backward causation, these arguments will still have force; they don’t rely on the future causing past things. They just rely on the intuition that the causal connection between one’s past and future mental states cannot explain desert, because we can imagine changing the causal connection between one’s past and future mental states without changing any of their actions or mental states, in ways that don’t seem to affect what they deserve.

One could try to defend this by claiming that personal identity depends on psychological continuity combined with causal dependence. Thus, people united by relation R are the same person, and one can be punished for what they do. But this is not plausible for the reasons Parfit described; relation R may be what matters, but it is not what grounds personal identity.

This can be seen by split identity cases. Suppose that the left side of my brain goes into one skull and the right side goes into a different skull. Both are causally dependent on, and psychologically continuous, with me, but they can’t both be me—I can’t be in two places at once. So it can’t be personal identity that explains this puzzling fact. Lewis had a defense of relation R grounding personal identity, but Parfit argued compellingly that Lewis’ defense did not succeed, part of which I’ll briefly outline in a footnote¹. For a shorter argument against Lewis' account, just note that it requires that each of us contains multiple persons inside us, which is implausible.

If relation R does not ground personal identity, then it seems that it cannot ground desert. One cannot deserve things based on what others have done.

Parfit claimed that relation R was not what explained personal identity, but it was what mattered. This is plausible as it stands, but relation R cannot ground desert. Suppose that Jeffrey Dahmer and I trade the left side of our brains with the other, so that his left brain is in my skull and mine is in his. If I deserve some well-being level and Dahmer deserves a different well-being level, then this new being that is R related to both of us would have both of our desert levels simultaneously, despite them being contradictory. Thus, relation R cannot ground desert. Even if one accepts that relation R explains what matters about personal identity, it cannot explain desert.

One can additionally object to 3 by claiming that what one deserves does depend on what they’ll do on the future, but cannot depend on chance events. Thus, whether a person deserves something depends on the intrinsic character of their future self, but the intrinsic character of their future self is not affected by chance events. Thus, we can suppose that intrinsic character is a feature that means something like “what one’s character would be under certain conditions,” which doesn’t change based on what the actual conditions are.

But this produces wild results of its own. It’s plausible that evil people would not have been evil under an enormous range of conditions. Thus, this account requires either saying that lots of good people deserve bad things or that lots of bad people deserve good things. If, for example, Hitler would have been a normal art student in most circumstances, then this view requires saying either that Hitler doesn’t deserve a bad fate or that kindhearted, normal art students deserve bad things because of what they’d have been like in counterfactual scenarios.

Additionally, what a person does is determined by their brain, and their brain depends wholly on various physical facts (combined with psychophysical laws), so in any case, what a person does is determined by various physical forces. It’s unclear why only the physical facts that shape their brain determine desert, but the physical facts that affect the brain after birth (E.g. lead in their water) don’t determine desert. No doubt, if desert exists, a person would deserve bad things if part of the brain that they were born with causes them to do evil things—but this doesn’t seem any different morally from lead affecting what they deserve after birth.

Furthermore, this account just seems to require saying implausible things about what people deserve. If a person is currently a sadistic serial killing psychopath, who has murdered lots of people and has no regrets, it seems bizarre to say that they don’t deserve misfortune because they wouldn’t have been a serial killing psychopath in the absence of lead in the water when they were a child.

Additionally, it just doesn’t seem that one’s future actions can affect what they deserve. A child would not, for example, deserve to suffer because they’ll be a bad person as an adult. Perhaps there’s some way to make one’s desert depend on their future actions without implying that children deserve to suffer, but this is not at all obvious.

Finally, it seems that most people are either amoral or very immoral in general (this claim sounds surprising but it is hard to deny as the linked Huemer article shows; this is attested to by, for example, the fact that most people are fine inflicting vast amounts of pain and suffering for the sake of comparatively minor benefits on animals). Thus, if people deserve mistreatment based on intrinsic features of their character, it seems that nearly everyone would deserve to suffer. But this is not plausible.

Are Humans Amoral?

Thus, I don’t think that believers in desert can say anything even remotely plausible about temporally scrambled cases. The only view that can is the one that says that desert depends on the R relation, but that view is deeply implausible, and it requires saying very implausible things about personal identity—either that or being even more implausible.

Now, perhaps if one has very strong intuitions about desert, they will not be moved by this. They will be left accepting some unintuitive result, because they’re so committed to desert that these arguments won’t sway them. Anyone can always accept any crazy conclusion if they’re sufficiently committed to their initial view. But hopefully, this shows that there is a very significant cost to accepting desert. This, alongside the other arguments against desert in this series will hopefully be enough to rationally sway even the most avid defenders of desert.

Questions? Objections? Reasons I deserve to suffer and would even if I was temporally scrambled? Leave a comment.

1. In the case where people split, let S be the shared stage prior to the split, S1 and S2 the later two persons after splitting. The two continuant persons are C1 and C2, though C1 consists of S and S1 and C2 consists of S and S2.

Suppose we’re asking, before the division, whether C1’s present stage is R related to C2’s future stage. C1’s present stage is S and C2’s future stage is S2. But if C1 is not the same as C2, then what matters for C1 is what will happen to someone else (namely C2)—but if this is true, then identity can’t be what matters.

Lewis replies by saying that the R relation between stages, so it is not the relation of identity, but it may correspond to the relation of identity. He calls the I relation the relation that holds between time slices who collectively comprise one person, and then says that the I relation corresponds perfectly with the R relation. S is R related to S2 as well as I related to S2, therefore, there’s no worry here.

But as Parfit notes S2 stands to C1’s present stage in the relation of what matters which is relation R. Therefore, S2 would be I related to C1, if Lewis is right, but this is impossible, because S1 is I related to C2, not C1. If S2 was C related to C1, then S1 would also be C related to C2, meaning that S would continue to doubly exist.

This is not the entire explanation—Parfit goes on to address various other moves that could be made. But he shows convincingly that Lewis’ account cannot succeed.