There are cases in which both prudential rationality and morality allow you to burden yourself in some way at one time in order to secure something you value at another time. And there are cases in which prudential rationality and morality both prohibit doing this. But I will argue that there are also cases in which prudential rationality permits the trade-off but morality prohibits it. If that’s right, we do not have full self-ownership; we are not completely free to use ourselves as we wish to further our ends. I explain this apparent puzzle by appealing to an account of moral normativity inspired by David Hume’s account of artificial virtues and Susan Wolf’s version of rule consequentialism.

Richard Pettigrew is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol in the UK. He received his PhD in Mathematical Logic in 2008, then held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship until 2011, when he joined the Department of Philosophy as a permanent faculty member. His research covers formal epistemology, decision theory, and the philosophy of logic and mathematics, as well as recent work in ethics and political philosophy. 

His books include Accuracy and the Laws of Credence, Choosing for Changing Selves, and Epistemic Risk and the Demands of Rationality. He’s a keen birdwatcher and a wildlife enthusiast, and he’s a lover of cats, theatre, and photography.

Website: richardpettigrew.github.io