Academian comments on Willpower: not a limited resource? - Less Wrong
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Comments (28)
Utility theory is a normative theory of rationality; it's not taken seriously as a descriptive theory anymore. Rationality is about how we should behave, not how we do.
This is a common confusion about the what dynamic inconsistency really means, although I'm now noticing that Wikipedia doesn't explain it so clearly, so I should give an example:
Monday self says: I should clean my room on Thursday, even if it will be extremely annoying to do so (within the usual range of how annoying the task can be), because of the real-world benefits of being able to have guests over on the weekend.
Thursday-self says: Oh, but now that it's Thursday and I'm annoyed, I don't think it's worth it anymore.
This is a disagreement between what your Monday-self and your Thursday-self think you should do on Thursday. It's a straight-up contradiction of preferences among outcomes. There's no need to think about utility theory at all, although preferences among outcomes, and not items is exactly what it's designed to normatively govern.
ETA: The OP now links to a lesswrongwiki article on dynamic inconsistency.