Reconstructing L.A. Paul: Problems with Personally Transformative Choices

In Transformative Experience, Laurie Paul argues that we cannot make a rational choice regarding a personally transformative experience. She offers two primary reasons: (1) information critical to evaluating such a choice is inaccessible until the experience is had; (2) undergoing a personally transformative experience may alter our preferences in ways that could invalidate our initial judgment.

I will chronicle Paul’s argument as follows. First, I will detail two types of transformative experiences and why Paul considers them a barrier to rational, normative decision-making. Second, I will address a caveat that Paul acknowledges in her argument which reinforces her focus on personally transformative experiences in particular. Third, I will briefly illustrate the point mentioned above that personally transformative experiences can alter preferences. Lastly, I will conclude by relating the implications of Paul’s findings and summarizing the points made here.

I: Transformative Experiences, Normative Decisions, and Limitations

Paul (2014) proposes that experiences can be transformative in two ways. Consider the following glosses, derived from Paul (2014):

Epistemically transformative experience (ETE): an experience that teaches us some new information that we can only access by having that type of experience.

Personally transformative experience (PTE): an experience that fundamentally changes our point of view, our preferences, and/or our definitions of self.

Based on these glosses, skiing in Winnipeg in January might be an ETE for a person who had, until then, never left the tropical climes of their equatorial home. The same example would be a PTE if the trip motivated the traveler to move permanently to Winnipeg and become a ski instructor. In these examples, the initial decision to travel—or not—is a transformative choice. (Paul, 2014, p. 18)

Paul (2014) begins by arguing that in cases of both ETEs and PTEs, it is not possible to rationally decide in the normative, standard way whether to undergo such experiences because we are epistemically limited. Consider this additional gloss derived from Paul (2014):

Normative standard for decision-making: choosing the experience with the highest likelihood of resulting in the preferred outcome.

If by this standard, the rationality of choice depends on weighing the possible outcomes of the experience against our preferences, and we rely on information gathered from similar past experiences to inform that assessment, then the revelatory nature of ETEs and PTEs prevents us from forming that calculation. In the author’s words, “you cannot rationally choose to have the experience…to the extent that your choice is based on your assessments of what the experience would be like and what this would imply about the subjective value of your future lived experience” (Paul, 2014, pp. 18-19). Because our friend from the tropical country lacks experience with sub-freezing temperatures or snow, they cannot assess, as described above, whether choosing the initial experience of Winnipeg in the winter will be in line with their preferred outcome. Therefore, deciding in the standard way is hampered by a lack of critical phenomenal information (Paul, 2014).

II: The ETE Caveat

Paul (2014) admits that there is an alternative route to rationality with less-radical ETEs that are not personally transformative. If we reasonably assess that there is little risk of an experience having a profoundly negative effect on us, then we can reframe the decision. Using the example of tasting a unique fruit for the first time, Paul (2014) suggests that we can reconfigure the decision such that “the relevant outcome of choosing durian [fruit] is not the experience of what it is like to taste a durian, but the experience of tasting a new fruit, whatever it is like” (p. 38). Here, the choice is not based on what the decision-maker thinks the fruit will taste like; instead, it is based on the expectation that the decision-maker will taste something new. That is something they can reasonably expect. (Paul, 2014).

While these less-impactful ETEs can escape Paul’s (2014) argument, that is not the case with experiences that are also personally transformative—undergoing gender-affirming surgery, having children, changing careers mid-life. Such experiences are “simply too radically different from your previous experiences, and too life-changing, for you to be able to assess the nature, range, and tradeoffs of the subjective values involved before you know what [the experience] is like” (p. 41). For this reason, Paul narrows her argument to PTEs that are also ETEs (Paul, 2014).

III: Transforming Personal Preferences

In addition to ignorance of the phenomenal qualities of possible outcomes, Paul (2014) notes that the transformative nature of these experiences also shapes ignorance of our post-experience preferences; in the author’s words, you do not know “how the experience will change you” (p. 32). Let us say our equatorial friend personally identifies as a lover of hot, sunny, sandy days, preferring a sizzling porch to an air-conditioned interior. That might inform a decision never to leave the tropics. Say they make the trip to Winnipeg anyway and are overcome by the invigorating new feeling of sub-freezing air and the exhilaration of soaring down ski slopes; a year later, they move to Manitoba. This person could not have known beforehand whether or how profoundly the experience would change their preferences. It is precisely this personally transformative power that renders their pre-experience preferences unreliable for mapping future rational expectations (Paul, 2014).

Paul’s (2014) argument raises significant questions about our ability to assess some of our most important and impactful decisions in the standard way. She has shown that we cannot form decisions in the standard way concerning transformative experiences because we lack critical phenomenal information. While alternative routes to rational decision-making may exist for some less-radical, epistemically transformative experiences, Paul notes that the same cannot be said of more profound experiences that are also personally transformative. Moreover, decisions concerning personally transformative experiences are further compromised by our inability to predict how our preferences may be changed by undergoing the experiences. Therefore, Paul reasons that we cannot make rational decisions in the standard way concerning personally transformative experiences in particular.

Paul, L. A. (2014). Transformative Choice. Oxford University Press EBooks, pp. 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198717959.003.0002