The single fact that I value a candy today slightly more than I value a candy tomorrow doesn’t make my utility function inconsistent (AFAIK), so it’s not a bias.
In practice, temporal discounting usually arises “naturally” in any case, because we tend to be less sure of events further in the future and so their expected utility is lower.
Upvoted and I mostly agree, but there’s one point I don’t get. I though temporal discounting was considered a bias. Is it not necessarily one?
The single fact that I value a candy today slightly more than I value a candy tomorrow doesn’t make my utility function inconsistent (AFAIK), so it’s not a bias.
In practice, temporal discounting usually arises “naturally” in any case, because we tend to be less sure of events further in the future and so their expected utility is lower.