In defense of adaptive preferences

Bruckner, Donald W.

doi:10.1007/s11098-007-9188-7

Cited by 87 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The aim of adapting one's preferences is to reduce the emotional affect (i.e., tension or frustration) one feels in having wants that cannot be satisfied. Yet, others argue that not all adaptive preferences are necessarily irrational and consider Elster's constraints too narrowly focused [48][49][50][51]. Martha Nussbaum maintains that over the course of our lives, we all adapt our preferences, not because we are acting irrationally, but because we adjust to feasible options through experience.…”

Section: Adaptive Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing from a Disabled Body: The Case of Architect Marta Bordas Eddy

Liebergesell

Vermeersch

Heylighen

2018

MTI

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Studies on design, disability and phenomenology offer rich insights into how the designed environment is experienced by people with different abilities. In architectural design, this experience is only starting to become recognized as a valuable resource for designers. Considering disability as a particular kind of experience, we report on the focused ethnography of architect Marta Bordas Eddy's design practice. We analyze how her design practice and outcomes connect with her embodied experience of being a wheelchair user and the role of architecture therein. We interviewed Marta, her sister/co-worker and her life partner/co-habitant, gathered design documents, and analyzed the house she designed for and by herself. Our study highlights how Marta's experience of being disabled, combined with her background, informs how she assesses design and establishes distinct architectural qualities. Being a disabled person and a designer enables Marta to detect problems in an intuitive body-based manner and think of solutions at the same time. The analysis of Marta's house moreover raises awareness of architecture's role in (disabled) people's lives insofar it can support or impair human capabilities. It challenges prevailing views of what a house for a disabled person looks and is like, and how design can neutralize apparently restricted capabilities.

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Section: Adaptive Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing from a Disabled Body: The Case of Architect Marta Bordas Eddy

Liebergesell

Vermeersch

Heylighen

2018

MTI

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“…For Elster, individuals lack adaptive preferences if it is the case that the facts of feasibility have no general effect on their preference structure (Elster, 1982: 229.) Bruckner holds that ‘one type of adaptive preference is a preference that changes in response to the contraction of the set of options that are feasible for the agent, that is, capable of being attained, (Bruckner 2009: 307). Elizabeth Barnes holds that adaptive preferences are `formed toward something sub-optimal in light of a severely diminished set of options’ (Barnes 2009: 5) 2 .…”

Section: Adaptive Preferences and A Skeptical Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Preferences Are a Red Herring

Dorsey¹

2017

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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ABSTRACT:Current literature in moral and political philosophy is rife with discussion of adaptive preferences. This is no accident: while preferences are generally thought to play an important role in a number of normative domains (including morality, the personal good, and political justice), adaptive preferences seem exceptions to this general rule—they seem problematic in a way that preference-respecting theories of these domains cannot adequately capture. Thus, adaptive preferences are often taken to be theoretically explanatory: a reason for adjusting our theories of the relevant normative domains. However, as I shall argue here, the relentless focus on the phenomenon of preference adaptation is a mistake. While I do not take a stand on whether typical examples of adaptive preferences are or are not problematic, I argue here that if they are problematic, it cannot be because they are adaptive.

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“…Adaptive preferences may also help them survive, emotionally and physically. Donald Bruckner, in a “defense” of adaptive preferences, examines psychological evidence and concludes, “adaptive preferences can conduce to the achievement of subjective well‐being,” arguing “in favor of the rationality for preferences formed or changed through adaptation” (Bruckner , 315). If a victim can't change her circumstances, perhaps the only way to alleviate some of the pain is through adaptive preferences, that is, by unconsciously adjusting oneself to the inevitable.…”

Section: “And I Love It the More That I Suffer I Suffocate”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…7 Colburn also identifies an endorsement condition of autonomy that requires a disposition to reflect on values and choices or, at least, a disposition to implicitly seek a relationship between outcomes and desires. But, as Bruckner explains, Colburn conflates causal and justificatory reasons behind choice (Bruckner 2011). Colburn's endorsement condition fails to adequately account for the agent who unwittingly acquires a preference but subsequently genuinely chooses that same preference.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminism, Adaptive Preferences, and Social Contract Theory

Walsh¹

2015

Hypatia

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Feminists have long been aware of the pathology and the dangers of what are now termed “adaptive preferences.” Adaptive preferences are preferences formed in unconscious response to oppression. Thinkers from each wave of feminism continue to confront the problem of women's internalization of their own oppression, that is, the problem of women forming their preferences within the confining and deforming space that patriarchy provides. All preferences are, in fact, formed in response to a (more or less) limited set of options, but not all preferences are unconscious, pathological responses to oppression. Feminist theory therefore requires a method for distinguishing all preferences from adaptive or deformed preferences. Social contract theory provides such a tool. Social contract theory models autonomous preference‐acquisition and retention at both the external level of causation and the internal level of justification. In doing so, social contract theory exposes preferences that do not meet those standards, acting as both a conceptual test that identifies adaptive preferences and as a practical tool for personal and social clarification. A social contract approach helps persons and societies to identify and to confront preferences rooted in unconscious response to oppression.

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In defense of adaptive preferences

Cited by 87 publications

References 26 publications

Designing from a Disabled Body: The Case of Architect Marta Bordas Eddy

Designing from a Disabled Body: The Case of Architect Marta Bordas Eddy

Adaptive Preferences Are a Red Herring

Feminism, Adaptive Preferences, and Social Contract Theory

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