Thomas Nagel has argued that the rationality of prudence is secured by the fact that reasoning about what to do necessarily involves the adoption of a standpoint which is temporally neutralJ He argues that a rational agent must regard practical matters from a standpoint which is neutral with respect to whether what is considered is past, present, or future. In short, the argument is supposed to issue in the conclusion that if it is true that a person has, had, or will have a reason to do something, then it is now true that person has a reason to desire the doing of that action. And thus if the possibility of action is present or future, he has reason to take steps which will aid in or constitute the performing of that action, or if it is past, to desire (wish) that the action was performed, or perhaps, to be glad that it was. Nagel also asserts that this conclusion can be equivalently stated in metaphysical terms; namely, that a rational agent must see himself as a temporally extended being for whom "the present is just a time among others, and that other times are equally real" (p. 88).
In a recent article 2, Richard Kraut dissents from Nagel's conclusion and from his contention that having a conception of oneself as a being which exists throughout a series of times which are 'equally real' implies that in practical reasoning one must adopt a standpoint which is temporally neutral. In particular, Kraut argues that it is rational to prefer that a pain be in one's past rather than in one's future and thus that "Nagel is wrong in holding that a rational person regards all his reasons as being timeless." (p. 353) Furthermore, having this preference does not mean that one considers one's past any the less real than one's future.
Kraut also suggests that a similar objection can be brought against Nagel's argument for altruism. Nagel argues (in absolute parallel to his argument for the rationality of prudence) that practical reasoning necessarily involves the adoption of an impersonal standpoint. That is, if one is to reason practically one must consider practical situations from