One is practically irrational when one holds beliefs and intentions standing in incoherent relations. However, to be truly practically irrational, does one also need to believe that one’s incoherent intentions can make a difference in one’s future actions? In other words, does practical irrationality constitutively implicate a belief in the self-efficacy of one’s incoherent intentions? Intriguingly, an overwhelming majority of contemporary philosophers have given an affirmative answer to this question when it comes to instrumental irrationality. However, I argue that the seemingly innocuous incorporation of self-efficacy belief within our analysis of practical irrationality has dangerous results. And I motivate an alternative view on the relation between practical irrationality and self-efficacy belief.

We argue that when faced with a hard decision, we can and sometimes should decide decision-making away by (e.g.) flipping a coin. Deciding decision-making away might look suspect: it seems that conforming with the verdict of a coin flip and φ-ing as a result involves making the decision to φ. To address this worry, we inquire into the psychological structures that make deciding decision-making away possible. Our main contention is that it involves conditional intentions: you form the intention to φ if the coin lands on heads and ψ otherwise. We then use some commonly accepted features of intention to show why we do not make the decision to φ when the coin flip tells us to φ. We conclude by examining the normative status of deciding decision-making away. Not only is it often permissible, whether the choice situation is mundane or life-defining; deciding decision-making away is sometimes required.

Human motivations sometimes change. A travel lover stops flying to distant places in the face of climate change. A politician begins to seek power instead of justice. Sometimes changing preferences seems to be a good thing; at other times, it appears regrettable. How we evaluate such changes is an important question. Of equal importance, we must understand how preference change comes about in the first place. Why do one person’s preferences change in response to a given situation when the preferences of another person – in a similar situation – do not? When is it rational to change one’s preferences? Despite its strengths, standard decision theory cannot answer these questions. That is, it cannot describe fundamental preference changes. Moreover, emerging new theoretical models of preference change are still scarce and remain underdeveloped. In particular, existing approaches often overlook the fact that some preferences are more resistant to change—or “stickier”—than others. In this paper, we propose a commitment-based theory of preference change. This theory explains how and why certain preferences endure while others shift when confronted with experiences.