Philos Stud (2009) 142:307–324

DOI 10.1007/s11098-007-9188-7

In defense of adaptive preferences

Donald W. Bruckner

Published online: 24 November 2007

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract An adaptive preference is a preference that is regimented in response to

an agent’s set of feasible options. The fabled fox in the sour grapes story undergoes
an adaptive preference change. I consider adaptive preferences more broadly, to
include adaptive preference formation as well. I argue that many adaptive prefer-
ences that other philosophers have cast out as irrational sour-grapes-like preferences
are actually fully rational preferences worthy of pursuit. I offer a means of distin-
guishing rational and worthy adaptive preferences from irrational and unworthy
ones. The distinction is based on the agent’s own appraisal of the adaptive
preference.

Keywords Rational choice
Preferences
Adaptive preferences

Sour grapes
Elster
Bovens

1 Introduction

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. The canonical case is that of the fabled fox who, upon realizing that
he cannot reach the grapes hanging just out of reach, decides that he does not want
those grapes anyhow because they are sour. Jon Elster, in Sour Grapes, claims that
the fox’s preference change is irrational because it is not autonomous. That is, the
fox did not set out intentionally to develop this preference. Rather, this change of
preference is something that merely happened to him through a causal mechanism
irrelevant to rationality. By way of contrast, Elster argues that preferences that are
changed intentionally through deliberate character planning are rational.

D. W. Bruckner (&)
Penn State University, New Kensington, PA 15068, USA
e-mail: dwb12@psu.edu

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Since the publication of Elster’s groundbreaking work, there has been an

inadequate and unsteady trickle of literature devoted to adaptive preferences. A little
bit of ink has been splashed on Elster’s distinction between autonomous and non-
autonomous preferences. Although I will discuss Elster’s distinction, I wish to
broaden the scope of the dialog by taking a step back and examining adaptive
preferences more generally. While Elster’s focus was on adaptive preference
change, I wish to focus on adaptive preference formation as well.
Once adaptive preferences are considered more broadly, we shall see that the
causal genesis of a preference by way of adaptation to the set of feasible options is
not as relevant—and certainly not as damning—as Elster originally thought. In
particular, I shall argue that many adaptive preferences that Elster would cast out as
irrational sour-grapes-like preferences are actually fully rational preferences worthy
of pursuit. So I have two basic goals in this paper. First, I wish to show that many
adaptive preferences are perfectly rational and worthy of pursuit. Second, I wish to
offer a means of distinguishing rational and worthy adaptive preferences from
irrational and unworthy ones.
To begin, I explain in Sects. 2 and 3 the notion of adaptive preferences more
adequately, and explain the central reasons that philosophers have given for
claiming that these preferences are somehow illegitimate. In Sect. 5, I begin to argue
that many of our adaptive preferences are perfectly legitimate and worthy of pursuit.
In the next section, I provide an account of what distinguishes rational and irrational
adaptive preferences. Finally, in Sect. 6, I consider and respond to several objections
to the claims of Sects. 4 and 5.

2 Adaptive preferences

Generally speaking, an adaptive preference is a preference that is regimented in

response to an agent’s set of feasible options.1 An adaptive preference change
occurs when an agent’s preference changes as a result of a change in the agent’s
feasible set. An agent’s feasible set can change in a variety of ways (expand,
contract, or expand here while contracting there), but we shall be concerned here
mainly with the case in which the feasible set contracts. In such a case, an option
formerly within the feasible set is now excluded, and the agent’s preference for the
excluded option changes. Although it is possible for an agent to desire more
strongly what has become infeasible, we shall be concerned here with the case in
which the agent downgrades the option that has become infeasible.2
Consider Zvi, who learns of an opportunity for advancing in his firm with a new
position that has just been advertised. The new position would pay handsomely
(though at the cost of much more time at work) and would carry much more
professional status (at the cost of much more stress). He desires this position, and

1
Throughout, I shall use ‘‘preference’’ broadly, to include desire generally as well as preference in the
decision theorist’s sense of a binary relation over possible states of affairs. Context will provide any
necessary disambiguation.
2
See Welsch (2005) for an interesting formal model of upgrading and downgrading.

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the accompanying pay and status, very strongly. Zvi approaches the hiring manager
to express his interest. The manager tactfully but directly tells Zvi that he definitely
is not qualified for the position and should not waste his effort applying. Zvi decides
that he does not want the position anyway. The extra pay, he reasons, would not be
worth the expectation of much longer hours, and the status would not be worth the
additional stress associated with the position. So Zvi ends up preferring his current
position to the unattainable promotion.
This is a clear adaptive preference change. The feasible set has contracted, and
Zvi’s preference has changed as a result. As a typical case of sour grapes, many
claim that Zvi’s new preference for his current position over the promotion is
somehow irrational. I shall claim that, depending on the details of the case, Zvi’s
preference might be perfectly rational. But that is getting ahead of the story.
An adaptive preference formation occurs when an agent acquires a preference for
something in response to the content of the agent’s feasible set. Again, the
preference formation can be responsive to the constitution of the feasible set either
by desiring more strongly what is outside of the feasible set or by desiring less
strongly what is outside the feasible set. The more typical case is that in which the
non-feasible is desired less strongly, and that is the case on which we shall focus
here.
Consider Yvonne, who is raised in a family with traditional gender roles. Yvonne
learns from her mother how to bake, prepare meals, and keep the house clean while
the males in the family spend their time engaged in traditional male tasks of lawn
mowing, car repair, and home maintenance. Although she never considers the
matter, it is clear that Yvonne has no option but to help her mother with the
traditional female chores because engaging in the traditional male activities is not
within her feasible set. As a result of the exclusion of certain activities from her
feasible set and her resulting lack of experience with these activities, she comes to
prefer the activities within her feasible set. Again, some want to claim that this
adaptively-formed preference is somehow alien to Yvonne and unworthy, but I shall
claim that her preference for the traditional female role is perfectly rational under
certain conditions. Again, that is getting ahead of the story.

3 Criticism of adaptive preferences

Let us turn to a more careful examination of some of the criticisms philosophers

have given of certain types of adaptive preference.
Jon Elster distinguishes two varieties of adaptive preference change, sour grapes
and character planning. Zvi’s case above is a typical case of sour grapes. For a case
of character planning, consider Luc Bovens’ (1992) helpful example of the poker
player—let us call him Xavier—who enjoys the game tremendously because of the
thrill he receives from the challenge of cheating. When his local casino installs
surveillance and lighting that make cheating no longer feasible, instead of quitting
he decides to try to develop a preference for playing poker fairly. After working at
this style of play for some time, he finds that he prefers playing fair to cheating.

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What distinguishes sour grapes and character planning, according to Elster, is

that sour grapes occurs through ‘‘a causal process occurring non-consciously,’’
whereas character planning is ‘‘deliberate adaptation’’ (1983, p. 25). A sour-grapes
preference change occurs behind an individual’s back, as it were, whereas character
planning involves intentional action (1983, p. 117). So we can fairly say that a sour-
grapes adaptation is something that merely happens to someone, whereas adaptation
through character planning is bona fide action. Thus, the upshot of Elster’s analysis
of the distinction is that sour-grapes preferences are generated through irrelevant
causal processes, whereas character-planning preferences are acquired autono-
mously, i.e., through intentional action. Sour-grapes preferences are the offspring of
causal mechanisms alien to the agent and therefore irrational, whereas the
preferences of character planning are the legitimate children of the agent’s own
autonomous actions and therefore rational.
Bovens also distinguishes sour-grapes preferences and character planning.
Whereas Elster’s distinction is based on the causal reasons of the adaptive
preference, Bovens’ is based on the justificatory reasons for the adaptive preference.
According to Bovens, in a case of sour grapes,
nothing changes about the arbitration problem over the criterial judgments for
the ranking at hand. Hence, the adjusted preference cannot be informed by the
all-things-considered judgment, i.e., it cannot result from proper arbitration
over all criterial judgments. And this is what accounts for the irrational
character of preferences acquired through [sour grapes]. (1992, p. 74)
To illustrate in the case of Zvi, suppose that Zvi continues to value extra pay over
extra free time and professional status at the cost of added stress. If he, nevertheless,
undergoes an adaptive preference change for his current position over the
promotion, then this is a case of an irrational, sour-grapes preference change. The
preference has changed, but the criterial judgments on which it is based have not.
On the other hand, if Zvi changes his criterial judgments and decides he values free
time over pay and less stress over professional status, then his adaptive preference
change counts as a case of rational character planning. The preference change is
supported by the changed criterial judgments. Thus, for Bovens, the irrationality of
a sour-grapes preference boils down to the reasons (criterial judgments) that justify
the preference, as opposed to the causal genesis of the preference.
Elster and Bovens both offer accounts of the distinction between two sorts of
adaptive preference change, sour-grapes and character-planning. Both claim that
sour-grapes preference changes are irrational and character-planning preference
changes are rational, on their accounts of the distinction. I intimated above that it
would be important to examine not just adaptive preference change, but adaptive
preference formation as well. Some authors have objected to some adaptive
preference formation on moral and political grounds. Martha Nussbaum (2001) and
Amartya Sen (1995), for example, are concerned with the adaptively-formed
preferences of deprived people, including some women.
Nussbaum discusses cases of women whose narrow feasible sets leads to their
toleration of abuse and complacency with abominable living conditions. One
woman ‘‘seems to have thought that abuse was painful and bad, but, still, a part of

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women’s lot in life, just something women have to put up with as part of being a
woman dependent on men’’ (2001, pp. 68–69), while another woman in an
especially oppressive situation ‘‘did not waste time yearning for another way’’
because ‘‘it was just the way things were’’ (2001, p. 69). Another group of women
outside Mahabubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, was severely malnourished and had no
reliable clean water supply. These women did not consider themselves to be
malnourished and did not consider their conditions unhealthy or unsanitary, because
‘‘[t]hey knew no other way’’ (2001, p. 69).
There is a clear moral and political problem with such adaptively-formed
preferences. The trouble comes when social policy is driven by people’s actual
preferences. If what people in oppressed circumstances want is conditioned by their
presently-feasible options, no social action would seem to be called for to improve
the lot of such oppressed people who do not express dissatisfaction with their
circumstances. Thus, Nussbaum argues, these actual adaptively-formed preferences
should not count as a basis for social policy.
The problems with adaptive preference formation are not limited to the moral and
political problem just discussed. Yvonne’s preference for women’s work over men’s
work came by way of adaptive preference formation. We might not necessarily say
that Yvonne, with the adaptively-formed preference for women’s work over men’s
work, is deprived, but we might nonetheless say that there is something suspect
about a preference formed in light of the infeasibility of alternatives. Yvonne’s
preference thus formed is in some measure not truly her own, so there is a question
as to the rational worthiness of that preference as a basis for guiding Yvonne’s
action.
Let us take stock. Elster and Bovens both object to the sour-grapes variety of
adaptively-changed preferences. Although they have different criteria for separating
sour-grapes preferences and character-planning preferences, they both agree that
sour-grapes preferences are irrational. Nussbaum and Sen object to some
adaptively-formed preferences on moral and political grounds. Another basis for
suspicion of adaptively-formed preferences is that such preferences are somehow
not fully the agent’s own, so a question arises as to what role such preferences
should have in rational deliberation.

4 In favor of adaptive preferences

4.1 The project

In this section, I want to begin to make the case in favor of adaptive preferences.
The first question to address, then, is: What is it we are speaking in favor of when
speaking in favor of adaptive preferences? In other words, what is it about adaptive
preferences that I aim to defend?
I want to claim that many of our adaptive preferences ought to play the same role
in our rational deliberation as the rest of our preferences. All else equal, preferences
give us reasons to seek means to their satisfaction. Preferences guide our
deliberation and give us reasons for action. I want to claim that adaptive

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preferences should play these roles too. So in making the case in favor of adaptive
preferences, I mean to be arguing in favor of their pursuit, in favor of their being
normative for the agent who holds them. These claims stand against the claims
reviewed above, that adaptive preferences are illegitimate, that they are irrational, or
that they are unworthy of consideration in an agent’s rational deliberation.
Now, the reasons that our ordinary preferences give us are defeasible, so it will
be necessary to spell out what can defeat the presumption of the reason-giving force
of adaptive preferences.3 That account will have to wait until Sect. 5, however, until
after I have given some reasons in favor of the presumption of normativity for
adaptive preferences. Only after that will we be able to consider what can defeat that
presumption.

4.2 Many of our preferences are, and should be, adaptive

The beginning of my defense of adaptive preferences in this section will be made by

way of two claims: First, many of our preferences are adaptive; second many of
those preferences should be adaptive.
We shall consider first adaptively-formed preferences. Before doing so, however,
note that an alleged adaptively-formed preference can often be better explained by
some mechanism other than adaptation to the agent’s feasible set. For instance, one
might think that the taste in food one develops is responsive to one’s feasible set of
options. A person who has been raised in one culture will usually prefer that
culture’s food to the food of another culture. But food preferences are not adaptive
as much as they are endogenous, developed through experience and learning. For
example, the preference an American might have for hamburgers over sushi can be
explained by the experience she has with hamburgers and her lack of experience
with sushi. It is unlikely that sushi is downgraded in her ranking of food choices
because it is not within her feasible set. Rather, a taste is simply developed
endogenously for hamburgers and this leads to a preference for hamburgers over
sushi when the sushi is eventually tasted.
Consider another preference formation that can be mistaken for an adaptive
preference formation. A son of a professional considers what sort of career to
pursue, and is drawn to the life of a long-distance truck driver. Due to this family’s
cultural and social background, however, it is clear that choosing this career would
be very costly for him because he would suffer much disutility from disappointing
his parents, being ridiculed by his friends, and so on. So he chooses the expected
path of a college education and professional career, and he ends up with a
preference for his chosen career over trucking. It may appear that his preference is
adaptive, but it is not. Adaptive preferences are conditioned by what is and is not in
an agent’s feasible set. Being a truck driver is fully within this agent’s feasible set. It
is something he can pursue and obtain. This option and the resulting preference are
3
The claim that our ordinary preferences give us defeasible reasons for action is not uncontroversial, but
I cannot pause here to defend it. Some have claimed that some preferences—for example the sudden urge
to drink cyanide—do not give us any reasons for action, even defeasible ones. On this point see Copp
(1993).

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passed up as a result of the disutility of family and social fallout, not as a result of
infeasibility.
It is important, then, to examine any alleged case of adaptive preference
formation to be sure that the preference is due to downgrading infeasible options or
upgrading feasible ones, rather than some other cause.4 Nevertheless, adaptively-
formed preferences do exist, and can be perfectly rational to have and pursue.
Take as our first case William, who has decided to purchase a new car. He begins
his deliberation by asking himself, ‘‘If I could have any car in the world, what car
would that be?’’ William decides he would own a Hummer, a massive sport utility
vehicle originally designed for military use. He quickly realizes that this option is
not feasible for him, due to its prohibitive cost. He simply does not have the
financial resources to allow him to purchase this vehicle. William downgrades the
Hummer due to its infeasibility and decides that what he really wants is a used
sedan, due to its greater practicality and its lower emission of pollution. He is glad
he has arrived at this preference, because he knows he will derive more enjoyment
from the sedan if it is what he really wants rather than settling for the sedan and
longing for the Hummer. William’s preference for the used sedan is indeed formed
due to the infeasibility of the Hummer, but this fact does not seem to make it less
worthy than any other preference. His reasons for his preference—greater
practicality and lower emission of pollution—seem to be perfectly good reasons.
While William’s preference for the used sedan was adaptively formed (he had no
preference over cars before he began to consider the matter), Veronica’s preference
in the following example undergoes an adaptive change. Veronica aspires to achieve
a level of ability in an Olympic sport—tennis, say—that will allow her to compete
in the Olympics. She trains for years, but it becomes evident that, while she is very
talented, she will very likely not reach the Olympic level. She adjusts her
aspirations, therefore, and decides it really will be better for her if she competes in
regional tournaments, develops a strong reputation, and offers lessons at local tennis
clubs. After her preference change and upon reflection, Veronica is glad she arrived
at this new preference so she can be free of the constant stress of high-level
competition and so she can devote more time to helping others develop their tennis
talents. Veronica’s preference change and lowering of her aspirations seem to be
rational reactions to a realistic assessment of her situation. Although this change
might occur behind her back and therefore be non-autonomous, it nevertheless
seems reasonable to say that Veronica is better off in some sense with a more
realistic goal. Indeed, if she were to retain the goal of competing in the Olympics
and continue to strive for this goal that is perhaps just out of reach, we would
question her rationality for retaining this unattainable goal and we might very well
4
Some authors, including Ann Levey (2005), construe adaptive preferences more broadly to include
‘‘any preferences formed in response to past choices and available options’’ (2005, p. 133). Levey cites
her love of meatloaf, because she grew up eating her mother’s excellent meatloaf (p. 134), and her
aversion to high heels and make-up, because her early attempts to learn the relevant practices were
ridiculed by her brothers when she was a girl (p. 131). These can be shown to be non-examples of
adaptive preference formation in my sense by the reasoning used in my examples of preferences for
cultural food and career. Nevertheless, we will see in Sect. 5.1 that the general sensitivity our preferences
show to past choices plays an important role in my argument for the presumption in favor of the
rationality of adaptive preferences.

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judge her life to be going less well as a result of her continual frustration and
disappointment.
Consider finally Ursula, whose husband dies a premature death in an automobile
accident. Before his death, she strongly desired to share special moments with him
and spend their lives together, but this option is now infeasible. Through the
mourning process, she gradually loses this desire. After some time, she eventually
remarries, and equally desires sharing special moments with her new husband and
spending her life with him. Reflecting on the journey she has taken, she is glad she
was able to adapt and form these new desires rather than remaining in a depressed
and grieving state, longing for her deceased husband. Ursula has undergone an
adaptive preference change. She once desired a life with her first husband, but no
longer does; instead, she desires a life with her new husband.
We can safely assume that the gradual extinguishing of Ursula’s desire to spend
her life with her first husband is non-autonomous and not undertaken deliberately.
Indeed, if she were consciously to plot a course of action that she expected would
rid her of her desire, we would question whether this desire were genuine after all.
So Ursula’s case seems to count as a case of sour grapes for Elster, yet Ursula’s
change appears entirely reasonable. Indeed, it would be irrational for her to live her
life preoccupied with the infeasible option of life with her deceased husband. As
well, it is clear that Ursula’s preference change would count as sour grapes for
Bovens, since we can suppose that none of the factors (or ‘‘criterial judgments’’ as
Bovens calls them) that supported her desire to spend her life with her first husband
have changed.
These are but a few examples where we tend to think that an adaptive preference
is rational and advisable. I have given a few reasons for thinking these preferences
worthy, though these examples are intended largely as intuition pumps. Before
turning to my account of what separates worthy and unworthy adaptive preferences,
let us consider some psychological evidence for the rationality of adaptive
preferences.

4.3 Empirical evidence

There is an area of research in empirical psychology that studies what psychologists

term subjective well-being. In this subsection, I want to argue that to the extent that
one desires the thing psychologists measure as subjective well-being, one has reason
to have preferences suitably adapted to one’s feasible set.
According to one influential model, subjective well-being is comprised of
several measurable affective and cognitive components. These components are the
following (with subcomponents listed parenthetically): pleasant affect (joy,
elation, contentment, pride, affection, happiness, ecstasy); unpleasant affect (guilt
and shame, sadness, anxiety and worry, anger, stress, depression, envy); life
satisfaction (desire to change life, satisfaction with current life, satisfaction with
past, satisfaction with future, significant others’ views of one’s life); domain
satisfactions (work, family, leisure, health, finances, self, one’s group) (Diener
et al. 1999, p. 277). To be clear from the outset, the psychologists who study

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subjective well-being do not claim that high subjective well-being is constitutive

of the good life for a human. But there should be widespread agreement among
philosophers and psychologists alike that subjective well-being—well-being as
judged from the individual’s perspective—contributes to a good human life for
many people.
Not surprisingly, ‘‘people react in positive ways when making progress toward
goals and react negatively when they fail to achieve goals’’ (Diener et al. 1999, p.
284). There is good empirical evidence that preferences and aspirations that are
realistic and congruent with one’s resources are predictive of subjective well-
being (Diener and Fujita 1995, pp. 931–932, p. 934). That the goals are
‘‘approached at a feasible level’’ is an important factor in subjective well-being
(Cantor and Sanderson 1999, p. 232), and ‘‘[i]ndividuals who are able to shift
their goals in response to various environmental factors’’ fare better than those
who cannot (Cantor and Sanderson 1999, p. 236). One study shows that
aspirations that are highly abstract and perceived as too difficult or out of reach
negatively affect well-being, and can lead to higher levels of psychological
distress (Emmons 1992, p. 296). On the other hand, another study shows that
goals that are usually predictive of subjective well-being, such as having
satisfying intimate relationships, are inversely related to subjective well-being
when the ability to achieve these goals is impaired by incarceration (Kasser 1996,
p. 1373).
Importantly, none of this is to say that any old goals will do. The adoption of
easily-attained goals does not necessarily lead to subjective well-being. Individuals
who adopt and achieve goals that are incongruent with their general motives (needs)
will experience less subjective well-being (Brunstein et al. 1998, p. 499), and
conflicting goals and ambivalence toward goals are met with negative affect
(Emmons 1986, p. 1064, pp. 1065–1066). Moreover, strongly aspiring toward
certain goals, such as financial success, has a negative influence on subjective well-
being (Kasser and Ryan 1993, p. 420).
These empirical results are relevant to the present debate. They are relevant
because subjective well-being, while perhaps not constitutive of a good human life,
is an important component of a good life for many. So, for many of us, adopting and
holding goals that conduce to the achievement of subjective well-being is more
rational than adopting and holding goals that do not. This research shows that
adaptive preferences can conduce to the achievement of subjective well-being.
Therefore, this empirical evidence argues in favor of the presumption of rationality
for preferences formed or changed through adaptation.
To be clear, I mean to be claiming something very weak, that this empirical
evidence offers reasons in favor of the view that adaptive preferences can be
rational to hold and pursue. These reasons might be overridden by other reasons.
The fuller account to be given in the next section will help us distinguish when the
balance of reasons is in favor of the rationality of an adaptive preference and when it
is not.
To sum up: the intuition-pumping examples and empirical evidence lend
credence to the view that many of our preferences are, and should be, adaptive.

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5 Examined adaptive preferences count

Previous authors have considered cases of adaptive preferences similar to those of

William, Veronica, and Ursula, and have also concluded that such preferences can
be perfectly rational. However, few have stopped to give an account of what makes
some adaptive preferences rational and others irrational.5 In this section and the
next, I will give such an account. The positive account in this section will be
relatively brief. The case will be rounded out by defending my account against a
series of objections in Sect. 6.
In this section, I argue that many of our preferences are formed through highly
contingent causes, yet we appropriately hold a presumption in favor of the
normativity of those preferences. So similarly, I shall argue, there should be a
presumption in favor of the normativity of adaptive preferences, even though the
causal origin of adaptive preferences is highly contingent. What separates a rational
adaptive preference from one that does not carry normative force (or that carries less
force) is whether the agent holding the preference endorses the preference upon
reflection. Or so I shall argue.

5.1 Contingency of preferences generally

Many of our preferences are formed through causal processes outside of our control.
I discussed earlier the preference for the food of one’s own culture, and the
preference for one career over another. In these cases, agents wind up with
preferences that are non-autonomous in Elster’s sense. These preferences, it could
be said, are merely things that they acquire, like the color of their eyes, rather than
things they achieve through deliberate planning. Nevertheless, we do not criticize
these contingent preferences. On the contrary, there is a presumption in favor of
their normativity. The agent who prefers hamburgers to sushi should choose the
former over the latter, even though this preference was formed behind her back, as it
were. The man who formed his preference for a professional career rather than long-
distance trucking should pursue the professional career, even though it was formed
in response to external forces.
Just as there is a presumption in favor of the normativity of these preferences, so
too there should be a presumption in favor of the normativity of adaptive
preferences. The relevant similarity is in the externality of the causal mechanisms
that led to their formation. The point here is that although this causal mechanism is
contingent and outside of the agent’s deliberate control, the preference thereby
acquired is still the agent’s preference. As such it carries normative force and
provides the agent with a reason for acting.
Now Elster might very well respond that the preferences cited are exempt from
his autonomy requirement, since they are preferences formed as the agents are

5
For instance, Sandven (1999a, b) provides several examples of adaptive preferences that seem rational
(including examples that have inspired mine of tennis and grieving above), but he offers no philosophical
account of what separates rational and irrational adaptive preferences.

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children and not fully rational or autonomous. But many other preferences are
formed in adulthood in the same contingent way. An adult often stumbles upon a
preference for some object or activity as a result of a non-deliberate introduction to,
or sampling, of that object or activity. I enjoy and appreciate drinking Irish whiskey
as a result of a tasting that was arranged for me during a recent trip to Ireland. Less
recently but still well into my adulthood, I developed a preference for semi-
primitive camping. Again, my initial exposure to this activity was only partly under
my control, as my fiancée arranged the trip for us and I followed her plans. Surely
the reader can reflect on her or his own preferences and similarly find many that
have been formed through experiences in adulthood that are at most partly under her
or his deliberate control. These preferences belong to those who hold them. As their
preferences, there is a presumption that they provide them reasons for action.

5.2 Reflective endorsement

An adaptive preference is also a preference that belongs to the person who holds it.
Although William, Veronica, and Ursula find themselves with certain preferences as
a result of adaptation, these preferences still belong to them.6 As such, there is a
presumption in favor of the normativity of those preferences.
Surely, though, a preference can be more or less an agent’s own. William’s
adaptive preference for the used sedan seems to be fully his own. Upon reflection,
he is glad he ended up with that preference, because of the greater practicality and
lower pollution of the sedan. Veronica, also, upon reflection, endorses her adaptive
preference for competing in regional tournaments and giving lessons instead of
pursuing her former goal of Olympic competition. Again, her reasons for endorsing
this preference are good reasons: she will have a less stressful life and will be able to
help others achieve to their highest ability. Finally, Ursula, without lessening the
importance of the love and devotion she once had for her deceased husband, is able
to reflect on her journey and endorse the new goals she has come to have involving
her life with her new husband. These preferences fully belong to these agents
because they are reflectively endorsed.
Notice that the notion of reflective endorsement in play here is not mere
endorsement through a second-order preference, i.e., a preference for the preference
one has. Rather, the endorsement is an all-in judgment that can conflict with a
second-order preference. An agent might, for example, have a preference for fine
wines but prefer not to have that preference because of the negative impact acting
on that preference has on her budget. Nevertheless, she may reflectively endorse that
preference for fine wine because she identifies with being a connoisseur of fine
wines. It is part of who she is, so she endorses the tradeoff at the highest level of

6
Walker (1995, p. 464) makes this point in connection with an agent whose preferences are shaped by
oppressive circumstances.

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reflection. Thus, reflective endorsement of a preference is more than merely holding

a second-order preference for that preference.7
While William, Veronica, and Ursula seem fully to endorse their adaptive
preferences, one can easily imagine cases of non-endorsement or outright disavowal
of adaptive preferences. Return to the case of Zvi, who formed an adaptive
preference for his current position over the promotion. As we told the story
originally, Zvi was guilty of irrational sour grapes on Elster’s view because the
change was non-autonomous. On Bovens’ view, Zvi’s could be a case of rational
character planning as long as Zvi’s new preference was supported by proper
arbitration of the criterial judgments valuing free time over extra pay and lower
stress over professional prestige.
I also want to say that Zvi’s new preference might or might not be rational, but
my way of slicing things up differs from Bovens’. I want to say, contrary to Bovens,
that even if Zvi values free time over pay and values lower stress over prestige, his
change might still be irrational if he fails to endorse this change upon reflection. If,
after he is over his initial disappointment at the hiring manager’s discouragement,
he finds that he wishes his preference had not changed, then this new preference
could be irrational. Suppose, upon reflection, he realizes that the lowering of his
sights will result in complacency in his lower-level position and a lack of incentive
to rise to a higher level of performance. If, upon reflection, he repudiates the new
preference that he actually holds and that is supported by the criterial judgments he
actually makes, then Zvi is irrational.
What makes the difference between Zvi’s case and the cases of William,
Veronica, and Ursula is that Zvi’s new preference is less fully his own. It is less
fully his own because he does not endorse the preference. On the contrary, he
distances himself from this preference. What makes one’s preference more fully
one’s own is that it is endorsed at a higher level of reflection. So one’s preference
can be more or less fully one’s own depending on whether one endorses the
preference or repudiates it. One can have a preference that is one’s own but that
does not carry the presumptive normative force, as is the case with Zvi’s repudiated
preference. This disavowal of an adaptive preference defeats the presumption of
normativity.
That is the core of my account. Adaptive preferences carry a presumption of
normativity. This presumption is defeated if, upon reflection, the agent repudiates
the adaptive preference. This account is given additional strength if we consider the
other contingent preferences discussed in Sect. 5.1. There I claimed that people
commonly acquire preferences through contingent causal mechanisms, but that this
contingency does not affect our judgment of the normative force of those
preferences. What would affect our judgment of the normative force of those
preferences is a lack of reflective endorsement. If I found that my preference for
camping was taking too much of the time I want to spend writing philosophy papers
during the summer, then I might repudiate that preference. In that case, the

7
Indeed, I believe that second-order preferences do not have any special role to play in instrumental
rationality, as I argue in ‘‘Second-Order Preferences and Instrumental Rationality’’ (unpublished
manuscript).

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In defense of adaptive preferences 319

preference would be less fully my own and it would carry less normative force.
Similarly, the son of the professional who chose the professional career might
reflect on his preference for that career and repudiate it, perhaps because he comes
to resent the social forces that caused him to choose it. This repudiation would make
the preference less fully his own, and the presumption of its normativity would be
less strong.
Finally, it may be worth pointing out that my account of rational adaptive
preferences bears some similarity to Elster’s. For an adaptive preference to count as
rational for Elster, the preference has to be autonomously acquired through
intentional action. On my account, for an adaptive preference to be rational, it need
not be autonomously acquired, but we could say it needs to be autonomously
retained. Examined adaptive preferences that are endorsed by the agent and
therefore truly the agent’s own are autonomously retained.
To summarize: In general, there is a presumption in favor of the normativity of
an agent’s preference. This presumption holds, even when the causal genesis of the
preference is outside the agent. These points apply equally to adaptive preferences.
The presumption in favor of normativity is defeated when the agent fails to endorse
the preference upon reflection.

6 Objections

Let us round out the account developed here by considering some objections against it.

6.1 Lowering sights

According to this first objection, adaptation can involve lowering one’s sights and
confining one’s ambitions. This seems, in many cases, intuitively objectionable.
Suppose that Tami has adapted to her impoverished country life due to the
resignation that the sophisticated city life is beyond the reach of a country bumpkin.
Because her preferences are adapted to her feasible set, she will be well-satisfied in
that state. But compare that adapted state to another state in which she comes to
realize that city life is not beyond her reach after all, and that she can enjoy modest
success at city life with considerable effort. Even if her country upbringing leads to
greater frustration in the city, there is something preferable about this latter
frustrated state because it pushes the agent to achieve to her highest potential, rather
than being resigned to confined ambitions in meager circumstances.8
Notice that as this objection stands, it is actually not an objection against adaptive
preferences. For in the case as described, the agent has a false belief about what is
feasible for her and what is not: She thought that the city life was beyond her reach,
but came to realize that it was not after all. In genuine cases of adaptive preferences,
the agent’s preferences are responsive to the agent’s feasible set, not her false
beliefs about her feasible set. So I agree that there is some irrationality in the case as

8
The essentials of this objection are due to Rickard (1995, pp. 282–283).

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described, but the irrationality is due to the false belief about what is feasible, not an
adaptive preference.9
We could retell this story, however, so that the agent’s preference does not rest
on a false belief. Let us say in this new case that Tami correctly believes that city
life is within her feasible set, but on the very edge. She correctly believes, that is,
that city life is within her reach, but that it will be difficult to succeed at city life,
whereas it will be easy for her to succeed at the status quo country life. Redescribed
this way, we can now see the true force of this objection. The resigned country
bumpkin has downgraded the options that will be more difficult to obtain. She has
lowered her sights and confined her ambition. Surely, the objection goes, there is
something rationally objectionable in this.
To reply, I refer back to my reflective endorsement account. Whether there is
something rationally objectionable in the case of the resigned country bumpkin will
depend on how she sees the matter upon examination. Suppose she reflects on her
preference for country life and realizes that her preference was formed in response
to the difficulty of pursuing the city life. Suppose even that someone points out to
her that she is not achieving her highest potential if she limits herself to country-life
preferences. In response she says that that is fine with her. She says that she does not
much care for achieving her highest potential. She gets quite enough satisfaction
from simple, routine pursuits such as collecting the chicken eggs, drawing water
from the well, and working in the fields. When she has tried more challenging things
in the past, she has gotten terribly frustrated. She has not enjoyed learning new
things and pushing the limits of her capacities, so she would prefer to stick with her
confined ambitions. If this is her response, then she reflectively endorses her
adaptive preference and is fully rational. Her sights are lowered and her ambitions
confined, but she consciously chooses to remain in that state.
If, on the other hand, she considers her adaptive preference and repudiates it, then
it would be irrational to retain that preference. She may very well repudiate it when
she realizes that she has unconsciously limited her potential and lowered her sights.
If, contrary to the story just told, she is not satisfied with a life of easily-attained
achievements but wishes, instead, for a more colorful life with greater challenges
and opportunities, then it would indeed be irrational for her to retain her adaptive
preference.
In sum, when the lowering of sights is due to false belief about the elements of
one’s feasible set, there is irrationality, but the irrationality is due to the false belief,
not an adaptive preference. When the lowering of sights is due to downgrading

9
It is also important to distinguish preference changes due to false beliefs about the qualities of the
objects that are feasible or infeasible from the cases under discussion here. In the sort of case under
discussion here, the preference change is due to downgrading the infeasible or upgrading the feasible.
Oddly enough, as the fable of the fox is most commonly told, the fox’s irrationality is due to a false belief
that the grapes that are just out of reach are sour. Many authors have failed to recognize this distinction,
including Zimmerman (2003). His examples include a fox who ‘‘forms the motivated false general belief
that all vermilion grapes are sour’’ (p. 231) and a job seeker otherwise similar to Zvi, but who ‘‘has
managed to get himself to believe … falsehoods’’ (p. 223) about a job he decides not to pursue. Of course,
on a different natural reading, the fox changes his tastes so that the inaccessible grapes—however sour
they are—are too sour for his tastes. This reading is supported by the moral to the fable, that ‘‘it is easy to
despise what you cannot get.’’ See Elster (1983, p. 123) and Bovens (1992, p. 58) on this point.

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elements on the edge of one’s feasible set, whether the resulting preference is
irrational depends on whether the agent endorses that preference. Confined
ambitions resulting from downgrading what is difficult to attain are fully rational
if reflectively endorsed.

6.2 The objection from objectivism

Part of what makes the resigned country bumpkin objection have some force is that
there seems to be something unworthy in the less sophisticated country life, in
comparison, say, to the cultured life of the city, with opportunities for learning,
experiencing other cultures, visiting museums, and generally developing and
exercising one’s distinctly human capacities. According to this objection, the
options available to one are more or less worthy of pursuit. The worth of an option is
determined not by the person considering whether to pursue it, but by the nature of
the object itself. Simply because someone prefers A to B, and endorses this
preference upon reflection, says nothing about whether this preference is rational or
whether A is worthy of pursuit.
I introduce this objection here not in order to respond to it but to clarify the battle
lines and declare my loyalties. To respond to this objection would involve an
examination—out of bounds here—of the nature of value and the relative merits of
objective and subjective theories of value. I can only say here that my defense of the
reflective endorsement criterion of rational and irrational adaptive preferences
presupposes that some sort of subjective theory of value is true. So contrary to the
objection from objectivism, I do believe that when someone prefers A to B and
reflectively endorses this preference, then A is indeed thereby constituted as worthy
of pursuit by this agent. To say more, however, would take us too far afield.10

6.3 The reflection requirement

The next objection questions the role of reflective endorsement. Consider any of the
examples that I have trotted out in order to support my allegation that adaptive
preferences are rational if reflectively endorsed. In those examples, the agents
actually engaged in the reflection and examined their adaptive preferences. This
objection claims that requiring actual reflection is too stringent. That would be like
requiring, in order for an agent’s beliefs to qualify as rational, not only that they be
consistent but that the agent examine them to verify consistency. There is nothing
irrational, one might claim, in leading an unexamined life. Much like the standard of
logical consistency among beliefs, the standard of the rationality of adaptive
preferences must also not require active participation in reflection or actual
10
I cannot resist the temptation, however, to acknowledge a helpful point from a reviewer. It need not be
full-fledged objectivism that provides the opposing view here. Instead, the opposing view might only be
that one’s talents and potential determine the worthiness of one’s desires, so that someone who sets
extremely low aspirations in order to avoid frustration wastes her life. For a good articulation of this
point, see Kraut (1979), especially sections IV and V. I still want to resist this opposing view, of course.

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examination by the agent. Rather, the standard must be external in the sense that a
spectator could perform the assessment of rationality according the standard, while
the agent need not actually perform the assessment.11
This objection certainly gets something right, namely that the requirement of
actual examination is too stringent. So I want my proposed standard to be
interpreted subjunctively: An agent’s adaptive preference is rational provided that if
she were to examine the preference, then she would endorse it upon reflection. The
parallel with logical consistency for beliefs is partly correct, for an agent who
satisfies this consistency condition would not uncover any contradictions if he were
to examine his beliefs for consistency. The parallel with beliefs, however, is partly
incorrect, for the examination of one’s own preferences requires a first-person
perspective that an external spectator may not be able to take up. Again, this point
relies on the subjectivist underpinning of the account given here. The standpoint for
judging logical consistency is objective in that anyone can take up that standpoint.
The standpoint for judging value for an individual is subjective in that only the
individual subject may be able to take up that standpoint.
So to summarize my response: Yes, the examination need not actually be
undertaken, so the proposed standard is a subjunctive condition. No, the
examination cannot necessarily be performed by an external spectator.12

6.4 Taking some preferences too seriously

One might charge that allowing an agent’s endorsement or repudiation of an

adaptive preference to determine its rational worth fails to take seriously the moral
and political problems with some adaptively-formed preferences. As discussed in
Sect. 3, members of an oppressed or deprived group might very well, upon
reflection, not repudiate their limited desires and their satisfaction with the lives
they lead. But their failure to object to their situation is rooted in the lack of
alternatives.
Nussbaum proposes a solution to this problem. She argues that there are certain
capabilities, liberties, and opportunities that all citizens should be provided. She
deals with adaptive preferences by claiming that an adaptive

11
Brännmark (2006, pp. 74–75) makes a similar objection against ‘‘deliberative underpinning’’ accounts
such as Frankfurt’s (1971) account of the endorsement of desires by second-order desires and Brandt’s
(1978) rational desire theory.
12
Nevertheless, the notion of reflective endorsement is not without other difficulties. Presumably, not
just any sort of reflection will count, as one can easily imagine someone reflectively endorsing, say, his
own intransitive preferences or other irrational things. At the opposite extreme, to require that the
reflection be full-blown critical reflection that includes full information about the relevant alternatives
would clearly be too much. See Sobel (1994) and Rosati (1995) for two excellent accounts of the
challenges any such full information account would have to overcome. Thus, more work remains to be
done to provide a more adequate notion of reflective endorsement. Thanks to Eric Cave and a reviewer for
this journal for pressing me on this point.

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preference not to have an item on the list (political liberties, literacy, equal
political rights, or whatever) will not count in the social choice function, and
the equally habituated preference to have these things will count. Finally, the
list does justice to the intrinsic value of the items it contains, by not
subordinating them to something else, such as preference-satisfaction. (2001,
pp. 83–84)
I agree with the spirit of Nussbaum’s proposal, that in order for an agent’s
reflectively-endorsed, adaptively-formed preference to count, morally and politi-
cally speaking, the agent’s feasible set must meet any applicable moral conditions.
If there are moral conditions on an agent’s feasible set, these conditions must be met
in order for an agent’s actual preferences that she reflectively endorses to count as
an input in the social choice function. I tend to agree with Nussbaum that there are
such conditions. It is immaterial here what those conditions are and how we can
determine what they are. What matters is that the objection is defused with my
agreement that, if there are moral conditions on an agent’s feasible set, then an
agent’s adaptive preferences count, morally and politically, only if those conditions
are met.

7 Conclusion

Adaptive preference changes have been maligned by philosophers. Elster and

Bovens have provided accounts of irrational sour-grapes preferences and rational
character-planning preferences. I have broadened the discussion here by considering
adaptive preferences more generally. By recognizing that adaptively-formed
preferences bear much similarity to our highly contingent preferences generally,
we see (contrary to Elster) that the contingent causal genesis of a preference does
not automatically make it irrational. Rather, there should be a presumption in favor
of the normativity of an adaptive preference. This presumption is defeated when an
agent fails reflectively to endorse the preference. This reflective endorsement
standard is, in one sense, stricter than Bovens’ standard. Even if an agent’s criterial
judgments support the preference change (so it counts as rational character planning
for Bovens), the preference change may still not be fully rational if the agent fails to
endorse it at a higher level of reflection.
The major claims of this paper can be summarized as follows. Many of our
preferences are, and should be adaptive (4). Evidence for this claim comes from
intuition-pumping examples (4.2), as well as from the psychological literature on
subjective well-being (4.3). There should be a presumption in favor of the
normativity of adaptive preferences (5), as there is for our contingent preferences
generally (5.1). This presumption is defeated when the agent fails reflectively to
endorse the adaptive preference (5.2). Surely the present contribution is not the last
chapter on adaptive preferences. I hope, however, to have shown the shortcomings
of previous accounts and to have proposed an alternative account worthy of
consideration.

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Acknowledgements My thanks go to Rick Harnish for introducing me to the psychological literature on

subjective well-being, and for written feedback and several fruitful discussions on an earlier version. I am
also grateful to Luc Bovens and Eric Cave for written feedback.

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