IFFS PLAY

Laurie Ann Paul, Milestone Family Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. L.A. Paul's book Transformative Experience has sparked many discussions in philosophy since its publication in 2014. In the book she describes how experiences wehave not had before can transform us in several ways – we can learn new things,and change our views radically – which, among other things, has implications for decision-making. In this talk she argues that we should recognize the importance of value by acquaintance, both as a philosophical concept in its own right and as a concept with applications for decision making. Her argument centers on how the distinctive epistemic structure of knowledge-how is reflected in a distinctive capacity to value. After delineating my account of value by acquaintance and discussing its connection to Molyneux’s problem and the neuroscience of decision making, she discusses its role in reasoning and practical decision making, including transformative decision making, connecting it to the reference class problem and the role of generativity in artificial intelligence. Her discussion, in effect, shows how experience can matter for expertise in value assessment, and why such expertise (or wisdom) can be needed for practical decision making. This talk was part of the workshop "Transformative ethics. First international workshop", which was organised as part of the research project Transformative Ethics at the Institute for Futures Studies.