Fear and Integrity

Abstract

I'll begin this paper with an autobiographical example — an instance of a common enough kind of case involving agents who are faced with making a choice they strongly care about, but who have tendencies that incline them towards choosing an option they prefer not to choose. Later in the paper, I apply some of the general lessons learned from this case to a philosophically more familiar example of a hard-to-make choice, and to the well-known problem the example generates for the idea of rational agency: Gregory Kavka's toxin puzzle (Kavka 1983).Some time ago I did a bungy jump. Nothing remarkable in that (nor in the fact that I have, or had, a great fear of heights; the desire to overcome a fear of heights is common among bungy jumpers).