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who has sworn off cigarettes to hide the package where his other,
nicotine-addicted self can't remember where to find it. And negotia–
tion, so often the key to resolving conflicts between persons, is
peculiarly difficult when the selves, being only sequentially present,
cannot sit down to talk. Moreover, Schelling observes, law and
society generally withhold help in achieving self-control that could,
in principle, be provided. I cannot sentence my overeating self to be
locked onto a "fat farm" against my (his?) will, nor can I make a
binding agreement to be put to death when certain bodily or mental
deteriorations occur, certainly not over the pleas of my deteriorated
self to be allowed to live.
It is a good question why a society as committed as ours is to
free contract, blocks this range of agreements. Part of the answer, as
Schelling stresses, is that it is sometimes far from obvious which is the
authentic self whom the law should heed: dieting can shade into an–
orexia, self-control into obsessive self-denial. But while law and
policy are probably right for the most part to try to stay out of such
intrapersonal disputes, we cannot be so standoffish with our dieting
friends. To whom should we listen when these divided selves ask for
our aid? Schelling does not offer ready answers, but insists, most
especially in light of our increasing capacity to prolong lives of
marginal value, upon the importance of the question.
But this question, and indeed the very phenomenon of conflict–
ing preference systems within the self, cannot be formulated within
the standard neoclassical theory of rational choice. A thoughtless
allegiance to that conception of the person can therefore blind us to
the features of reality that Schelling wants us to ponder. A number
of other theorists have recently been exploring ways of modifying the
theory of rational choice to account for phenomena of preference
conflict and "imperfect rationality." These include Gordon
Winston's,
The Timing of Economic Activities,
Jon Elster's,
Ulysses and
the Sirens: Essays on Rationality and Irrationality
and Howard
Margolis's,
Altruism, Selfishness and Rationality.
As these works show, maxims that apply perfectly well to the
seamless world of the unitary self can be positively dangerous when
misapplied to situations of intrapersonal conflict. Thus the familiar
notion that a wider range of choice always improves welfare breaks
down: would any of us really welcome a device that made instant,
painless, unreflected suicide a permanent option? Neither does im–
proved information always lead to better decisions: would it really
