The rational relation of an agent to its attitude at one time and to its attitude at another time is a general problem of rationality. Elizabeth Harman has perceptively suggested that 'Parfit's fourteen-year-old girl' case involves this type of problem. I sympathize with some of Harman's main conclusions: The girl's later preference for her loved one can be reasonable, and the prior overall judgment that she should prefer not to conceive a child can also be correct. However, I regard some of the principles that are abandoned or restricted by Harman as more defensible than she believes.
In this paper, I show that one of the principles that Harman abandons, 'Reflection for Desires', which she regards as an analogue of the 'Reflection Principle' for subjective probability (cf. van Fraassen 1984), is not an exact analogue of it. The proper analogue of the consequence of the principle—that is, Pa,t(Da, t+α(p))=1⊃Da,t(p)—is not refuted by the fourteen-year-old girl case, since its antecedent is not satisfied in that case. In addition, I suggest that the principle that the better alternative should be preferred need not be restricted by this case, if we integrate personally biased, egocentric factors with others into our all-things-considered judgment. Which world is better as a whole for us can vary from time to time, especially when our new loved ones come into existence.
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