The Thief Of Time: Philosophical Essays On Procrastination

The Thief of Time The Thief of Time Philosophical Essays on Procrastination Edited by Chrisoula Andreou Mark D. White 2010 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The thief of time: philosophical essays on procrastination / edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D. White. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-537668-5 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Procrastination. I. Andreou, Chrisoula. II. White, Mark D., 1971– BF637.P76T45 2010 128'.4—dc22 2009021750 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Mike and Kaemon and Paul and Ree Acknowledgments We owe special thanks to the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature for funding a workshop in New York City in the summer of 2008 for the contributors to gather and share ideas; Jennifer Hornsby and Olav Gjelsvik, the research directors of the Rational Agency section of CSMN, played an integral role in arranging this tremendous collaborative opportunity. We also thank the philosophy program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for hosting the workshop. We are very grateful to Peter Ohlin and Brian Hurley at Oxford University Press for their support and encouragement of this project. Most of all, we would like to thank the contributors, who not only developed insightful analyses of procrastination but helped prove wrong everybody who heard about this book and joked, “Oh, but you will never get it done.” vii Contents Notes on the Contributors, xi Introduction, 3 Chrisoula Andreou & Mark D. White Part I 1 Procrastination: The Basic Impulse, 11 George Ainslie 2 Economic Models of Procrastination, 28 Don Ross 3 Is Procrastination Weakness of Will? 51 Sarah Stroud 4 Intransitive Preferences, Vagueness, and the Structure of Procrastination, 68 Duncan MacIntosh 5 Bad Timing, 87 Jon Elster Part II 6 Prudence, Procrastination, and Rationality, 99 Olav Gjelsvik 7 Procrastination and Personal Identity, 115 Christine Tappolet 8 The Vice of Procrastination, 130 Sergio Tenenbaum 9 Virtue for Procrastinators, 151 Elijah Millgram 10 Procrastination as Vice, 165 Jennifer A. Baker ix Part III 11 Overcoming Procrastination through Planning, 185 Frank Wieber & Peter M. Gollwitzer 12 Coping with Procrastination, 206 Chrisoula Andreou 13 Resisting Procrastination: Kantian Autonomy and the Role of the Will, 216 Mark D. White 14 Procrastination and the Extended Will, 233 Joseph Heath & Joel Anderson 15 Procrastination and the Law, 253 Manuel A. Utset Bibliography, 275 Index, 293 x Notes on the Contributors George Ainslie is a behavioral economist who has used several different methods to explore the basic determinants of choice. His modeling of higher mental processes from the motivated interaction of simple reward-seekin