Akratic Action Research Articles

Akratic and beneficial intentional self-deception

ABSTRACT The folk explanation of self-deception is that one mental subsystem deceives another. Deflationists appeal to motivated irrationality rather than deceptive subsystems to offer nifty accounts of many sorts of self-deception. However, I shall show that deflationists cannot explain the self-deception embedded within (1) impulsive, (2) vacillating, or (3) long-term akrasia. These akratic actions are respectively too short, too variable, or too long for motivated irrationality to do its dirty work. Nor can deflationists explain the self-deception required for motivating oneself to (4) suspend disbelief and lose oneself in fiction, (5) bother to make negligible contributions to very large projects, (6) accomplish daunting tasks by taking them one day at a time, or (7) cope with psychologically traumatic truths. In these four cases, the truth is undeniable, yet agents must also hold contravening false beliefs. Thus, the folk explanation of self-deception is preferable, despite its invocation of deceptive mental subsystems.

Unthinkable actions

Abstract For each person, some actions are unthinkable: performing them requires crossing a line that one's conscience cannot allow crossing. This article explores what such unthinkability is. In doing so, it introduces a novel categorization of theories of action and practical reason. The article argues that an action is unthinkable if and only if the agent judges that she should never treat any consideration as a reason in favor of performing this action. This view meets two important tests. The first is ‘Failure’: a theory of unthinkable action must allow for the conceptual possibility of doing the unthinkable and explain what is special about the failure implicated in doing the unthinkable, especially in comparison to the failure implicated in akratic action. The second is ‘Incapacity’: a theory of unthinkability must distinguish between not doing something because it is unthinkable and not doing something because of an extremely negative psychological reaction.

On Becoming Fearful Quickly: A Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Somatic Model of Socratean akrasia.

The Protagoras is the touchstone of Socrates’ moral intellectualist stance. The position in a nutshell stipulates that the proper reevaluation of a desire is enough to neutralize it.[1] The implication of this position is that akrasia or weakness of will is not the result of desire (or fear for that matter) overpowering reason but is due to ignorance. 
 Socrates’ eliminativist position on weakness of will, however, flies in the face of the common-sense experience regarding akratic action and thus Aristotle was at pains to render Socrates’ account of moral incontinence intelligible. The key improvement Aristotle makes to Socrates’s model is to underscore that the conditioning of the akratic’s body plays a critical role in determining the power of one’s appetites and, accordingly, the capacity of one to resist the temptations these appetites present for rational evaluation. As Aristotle puts it, “For the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e., on less than most people.” (1151a 3-4). Aristotle presents what I shall call a somatic paradigm (i.e. the drunkard analogy) in order to tackle the problem of akrasia and it is this somatic solution that marks a significant improvement over Socrates’s intellectualist or informational model or so the tradition tells us.
 In this paper, I wish to push back on the above Aristotelian explanation. I argue that when one fully examines Socrates’ account of weakness of will that Aristotle’s solution is less effective than is traditionally thought. In fact, Socrates can bring Aristotle’s model into his own; just as Aristotle absorbs what is right about Socrates’s model, namely, that akratic action utilizes reason but to a limited degree, Socrates in Meno (77C-78A) develops his own somatic model of weakness of will that connects to the intellectualist paradigm of the Protagoras. To achieve this rapprochement between the two models, I zero in on the description provided by Socrates of those individuals who desire bad things knowing they are bad as “ill-starred” or “bad spirited” (κακοδαίμων ). The “bad-spirited” is the coward and, in contrast to Aristotle’s drunkard, becomes fearful quickly from little danger. This additional somatic component, when connected to Socrates’s position on akrasia in Protagoras adds a new twist to Socrates’s model in the following way: while no one wishes to be ill-starred such that more harm than good will befall one, one may become so as a result of the bad choices one knowingly makes.
 
 [1] “After him came Socrates, who spoke better and further about this subject, but even he was not successful. For he used to make the virtues into sciences, and this is impossible. For the sciences all involve reason, and reason is to be found in the intellectual part of the soul. So that all the virtues, according to him arise in the rational part of the soul. The result is that in making the virtues into sciences he is doing away with the nonrational part of the soul and is thereby doing away with passion and character…” (Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1. 1182 a15-26)

Willing and not being able: Nietzsche on akratic action

ABSTRACT Nietzsche claims that weakness of will is a pervasive feature of modernity: ‘Nothing is as timely [zeitgemass] as weakness of will’ (BGE 212). In this paper I explore a textual puzzle regarding the phenomenon traditionally identified with weakness of will, akrasia. Specifically, I draw attention to an apparent inconsistency between Nietzsche’s views regarding the origins of action and evaluative judgment, on the one hand, and his commitment to the possibility of akratic action, on the other. Nietzsche appears to account for both action and ‘conscience’ – which functions like what philosophers today would call ‘better judgment’—by appealing to the strength of the drives. Thus, it is not immediately clear how action could ever diverge from conscience in the manner required for akratic action. As I argue, however, Nietzsche’s theoretical commitments regarding action and conscience are ultimately consistent with the possibility of akratic action. After motivating the interpretive tension, I offer a closer examination of Nietzsche’s remarks regarding the sources of action and conscience, respectively. I then demonstrate, drawing on his description of the relations between drives and his distinction between conscious and unconscious thought, that Nietzsche conceives of akratic action as a kind of ‘willing and not being able.’

Akratic Action and John Calvin’s Understanding of Adam’s Prelapsarian Free Choice

AbstractI argue in this article that the concept of akratic action can be profitably employed to better secure the twin notions that John Calvin sought to establish with the doctrine of the Fall: the necessity and inevitability of the Fall (due to God’s predetermination) and the assumption of full moral responsibility on the part of Adam (due to his action being a free choice). Furthermore, this picture of prelapsarian free will and choice, where Adam is not granted the constancy to persevere in choosing rightly resulting in an inevitable akratic action setting in at some point in time, comports well with Calvin’s wider understanding of free will and choice in postlapsarian, redeemed and glorified humanity.

Practical cognition as volition

AbstractPractical cognitivism is the view that practical reason is the self‐conscious will and that practical cognition is self‐conscious volition. This essay addresses two puzzles for practical cognitivism. In akratic action, I act as I understand is illegitimate and not as I understand is legitimate. In permissible action, I act as I understand is legitimate and also do not act as I understand is legitimate. In both types of action, practical cognition seems to come apart from volition. How, then, can practical reason be our will and practical cognition be volition? Practical cognitivists can solve these puzzles because the claims that practical reason is our will and that practical cognition is volition are about the nature of a capacity, and the nature of a capacity establishes standards of correctness for its exercises. Akratic action is a type of erroneous exercise of practical reason as tripping is an erroneous exercise our capacity to walk. Permissible action is a successful exercise of practical reason as stepping first with my right foot rather than my left is a successful exercise of my capacity to walk. The puzzles of akratic and permissible action do not refute practical cognitivism.

Akratic Action under the Guise of the Good

AbstractMany philosophers have thought that human beings do or pursue only what we see as good. These “guise-of-the-good” views face powerful challenges and counterexamples, such as akratic action, in which we do what we ourselves believe we ought not do. I propose a new way for guise-of-the-good views to address this central counterexample by appealing to conflicting beliefs. I then answer concerns that this appeal is insufficiently explanatory, attributes too much conflict, leaves out an essential asymmetry in action against one’s “better” judgment, attributes systematic error about one’s own beliefs, and is too implausible.

Moral Blameworthiness, Quality of Will, and Akratic Action

Moral Blameworthiness, Quality of Will, and Akratic Action

Aristotle on the Structure of Akratic Action

AbstractI argue that, for Aristotle, akratic actions are against one’s general commitment to act in accordance with one’s correct conception of one’s ends overall. Only some akratic actions are also against one’s correct decision to perform a particular action. This thesis explains Aristotle’s views on impetuousakrasia, weakakrasia, stubborn opinionated action and inverseakrasia. In addition, it sheds light on Aristotle’s account of practical rationality. Rational actions are coherent primarily with one’s commitments to one’s conception of the good and only secondarily with one’s decisions to perform a particular action.

Akratics as Hedonists: Protagoras 352b-355a

Sometimes we do one thing, though we take ourselves to have more reason to do another. This phenomenon is known as ‘akrasia’, and in the contemporary literature, such agents are depicted as acting on (and against) a wide variety of reasons. Donald Davidson, for instance, makes a point of the fact that the specification of an action as akratic does not involve reference to any particular value achieved or forgone by the akratic agent (2001, 30). Contemporary theorists of akrasia describe the phenomenon in a value-neutral way, as unified by the formal fact that such agents act against their better judgment. I will present and defend an alternative account, found in Plato’s Protagoras, on which the only value that can be at stake in an akratic choice is pleasure. In the Protagoras, Socrates famously rejects the standard ways in which people are prone to describing akratic actions. Although ‘the many’ (οἱ πολλοί) understand akrasia as being overcome by pleasure or knowingly doing what is bad or acting against belief, Socrates wants to show that such locutions are in some way incoherent. His argument has two parts: the first, which I shall call ‘the hedonism argument’ (352b-355a), secures the key premise of the second (355a356a), which is standardly dubbed ‘the ‘ridiculous’ argument’. In the second part Socrates translates the akratic’s claim to have chosen a lesser good because he was overcome by the pleasure into the ‘ridiculous’ (γeλοῖον) claim that he willingly chose a lesser pleasure over a greater one, being free to choose otherwise, when seeking only pleasure. My topic is the first part, an argument that establishes the hedonism deployed in the second part. Hiding in this seemingly preparatory section of the text is, I claim, an underappreciated argument for a restricted form of hedonism.

Is addiction a myth? Donald Davidson’s solution to the problem of akrasia says not*

Heather, N., & Segal, G. (2015). Is addiction a myth? Donald Davidson’s solution to the problem of akrasia says not*. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 77-83. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.195An obvious problem for the concept of addiction is its portrayal as involving involuntary behavior in the face of the addict’s intentional actions. This has led some writers to call addiction a myth and to describe the self-labeling of persons as addicts as an illustration of causal attribution. We argue that this position is seriously mistaken. We propose that it is possible to construct a meaningful concept of addiction without assuming it involves completely involuntary behavior and to do so within the language of agents engaging in intentional action. One way of doing so arises from the work of Donald Davidson (1917-2003), particularly his essay "How is weakness of the will possible?" (Davidson, 1969). Davidson proposes a solution to the classic philosophical problem (called the problem of akrasia or incontinence) of how it is logically possible for someone to perform an action against her better judgement, and his solution is relevant to an understanding of addiction (i.e., addiction is a class of akratic action). Thus, Davidson’s solution to this philosophical problem is also an answer to the question of how it is possible to understand addiction without assuming it entails completely involuntary behavior. At the same time, Davidson’s conclusion at the end of his essay—that the akrates cannot give a reason for preferring incontinent over continent action—suggests what addicts mean when they say they feel compelled to behave the way they do.

Moral ignorance and blameworthiness

In this paper I discuss various hard cases that an account of moral ignorance should be able to deal with: ancient slave holders, Susan Wolf’s JoJo, psychopaths such as Robert Harris, and finally, moral outliers (people who, despite a normal background, behave in odious ways). All these agents are ignorant, but it is not at all clear that they are blameless on account of their ignorance. I argue that the discussion of this issue in recent literature has missed the complexities of these cases by focusing on the question of epistemic fault. It is not clear that all blameworthy morally ignorant agents have committed an epistemic fault. There are other important issues that pull us in various directions: moral capacity, bad will, and formative circumstances. I argue that bad will is what is crucial, and moral ignorance itself can be a form of bad will. I argue that we should distinguish between two sorts of bad will, and correspondingly, two sorts of blameworthiness. Ordinary blameworthiness, requires moral knowledge, and is based on akratic action. The other kind of blameworthiness, objective blameworthiness, applies when the agent is morally ignorant, and when this indicates bad will. Objective blameworthiness can be undermined by unfortunate formative circumstances.

The Cambridge companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics

1. Introduction: ethics as practical science Ron Polansky 2. Beginning with eudaimonia C. D. C. Reeve 3. Happiness and the external goods T. D. Roche 4. Why is Aristotle's virtue of character a mean? Taking Aristotle at his word (NE II.6) Lesley Brown 5. Choice and moral responsibility (NE III.1-5) Susanne Bobzien 6. Courage and temperance Giles Pearson 7. The social virtues (NE IV) Helen Cullyer 8. Giving justice its due Ron Polansky 9. The book on wisdom Carolo Natali 10. Phronesis and the virtues (NE VI.12-13) Daniel Russell 11. Was Aristotle a Humean? A partisan guide to the debate Jessica Moss 12. Aristotle's analysis of akratic action Hendrik Lorenz 13. Philosophical virtue: in defense of the grand end Kristen Inglis 14. The Nicomachean Ethics on pleasure Verity Harte 15. Finding oneself with friends Patrick Miller 16. Competing ways of life and ring-composition (NE X.6-8) Thornton Lockwood 17. The relationship between Aristotle's ethical and political discourses (NE X.9) Rachana Kamtekar 18. Protreptic aspects of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics D. S. Hutchinson and Monte Ransome Johnson 19. The Eudemian Ethics and its controversial relationship to the Nicomachean Ethics Lawrence Jost 20. Topical bibliography to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics Thornton Lockwood.

Akrasia and the Rule of Appetite in Plato's Protagoras and Republic

According to a prevalent developmentalist line of interpretation, Plato’s introduction of the three-part soul in Republic 4 was motivated in part by his desire to acknowledge and account for cases of akratic action, and thereby to repudiate the psychology and the conclusions of the earlier dialogue Protagoras. In this paper I reject this interpretation, arguing that countenancing akrasia was never a major philosophical concern for Plato, and a fortiori that it was not his motivation for introducing the tripartite soul. I argue that his moral psychological focus and concern in the Republic was rather on the notion of psychic rule, and on illuminating various ways in which reasoning is corrupted by non-rational desires (rather than overcome by them through brute psychic ‘force’). I then offer an explanation of Plato’s lack of concern for akrasia by appealing to the Protagoras itself. I conclude with a rejection of sharp developmentalism between the two dialogues.

Agent-Causation, Explanation, and Akrasia: A Reply to Levy’s Hard Luck

I offer a brief review of, and critical response to, Neil Levy’s fascinating recent book Hard Luck, where he argues that no one is ever free or morally responsible not because of determinism or indeterminism, but because of luck. Two of Levy’s central arguments in defending his free will nihilism concern the nature and role of explanation in a theory of moral responsibility and the nature of akrasia. With respect to explanation, Levy argues that an adequate theory of moral responsibility must be able provide contrastive explanations of why an agent performs one action rather than another, and that libertarians lack the resources to provide such explanations. With respect to akrasia, Levy argues that it is impossible to be directly morally responsible for akratic actions. In response I argue that any sense of contrastive explanation that can reasonably be thought to be a requirement on an adequate theory of moral responsibility is a sense that agent-causal libertarians can secure. I then argue that the agent-causal theory of free will offers an alternative and attractive understanding of motivation and self-control (than offered by Levy) that makes it plausible to think that we can be morally responsible for akratic actions.

How is Recalcitrant Emotion Possible?

A recalcitrant emotion is an emotion that we experience despite a judgment that seems to conflict with it. Having been bitten by a dog in her childhood, Jane cannot shake her fear of dogs, including Fido, the cute little puppy that she knows to be in no way dangerous. There is something puzzling about recalcitrant emotions, which appear to defy the putatively robust connection between emotions and judgments. If Jane really believes that Fido cannot harm her, what is she afraid of? This article seeks to show how recalcitrant emotion is possible. I argue that reductive theories that identify emotions with judgments, desires, or some combination thereof, cannot explain the possibility of emotional irrationality without contradiction. I then show that the appeal to sui generis attitudes also fails to solve the puzzle of recalcitrant emotions, and diagnose this failure as stemming from a misleading analogy between emotions and perceptions, and in particular, between recalcitrant emotions and perceptual illusions. The solution can be found in a different analogy: between emotions and actions; more specifically, between recalcitrant emotions and weakness of the will, akrasia. Like akratic actions, recalcitrant emotions entail responding to reasons, but to inferior reasons. Irrational but non-contradictory emotions are possible just as weakness of will is possible.

Multiplicity, self-narrative, and akrasia

In this paper, I present a new account of akrasia based on the idea that human psychology and self-narrativity are more complex and layered than we have traditionally thought. I begin by arguing that, if we have at least some different beliefs, desires, preferences, etc. in different situations, then we can rationally do what we think, at the time of action, is best for, or from the standpoint of, “part of me” while acting contrary to what we think, at the time of action, is best for, or from the more comprehensive standpoint of, “me.” I then argue that many of us do, in fact, think and act this way in everyday life, and that this kind of action satisfies all the criteria for akrasia. Finally, I briefly argue that on my account of akrasia, akratic actions are not necessarily irrational or blameworthy, though they often will be.

Want of Care: An Essay on Wayward Action

Philosophers have taken little heed of the fact that people often act contrary to their better judgment not because they suffer a volitional infirmity like weakness of will or compulsion but instead because they care too little about what they judge best (they are unconcerned) or they care too much about something else (they are compromised). Unconcerned and compromised action, being varieties of akratic action that do not involve volitional infirmity, are phenomena worth examining not only in their own right but also for what they reveal about the better known varieties of akratic action for which they might easily be mistaken, such as weak-willed action and action (or inaction) that stems from accidie. Unconcern and compromise also are worth examining for what they reveal about a topic beyond philosophical psychology, namely, moral and legal accountability. Forgiveness, resentment, and retributive punishment each may have less to do with what an offender (morally) believes than with what he cares about.

Weakness of will, reasonability, and compulsion

Experimental philosophers have recently begun to investigate the folk conception of weakness of will (e.g., Mele in Philos Stud 150:391–404, 2010; May and Holton in Philos Stud 157:341–360, 2012; Beebe forthcoming; Sousa and Mauro forthcoming). Their work has focused primarily on the ways in which akrasia (i.e., acting contrary to one’s better judgment), unreasonable violations of resolutions, and variations in the moral valence of actions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will. A key finding that has emerged from this research is that—contrary to the predominant view in the history of philosophy—ordinary participants do not think of weakness of will solely in terms of akrasia but see resolution violations and moral evaluations as playing equally important roles. The present article extends this line of research by reporting the results of four experiments that investigate (i) the interplay between hastily revising one’s resolutions and the degree of reasonableness of the actions one had resolved to undertake, (ii) whether ordinary participants are willing to ascribe weakness of will to agents whose actions stem from compulsion or addiction, and (iii) the respects in which akratic action, resolution violations, and the seriousness of an addiction impact attributions of weakness of will to agents acting in accord with their addictions.

Understanding addiction: Donald Davidson and the problem of akrasia*

The aims of this article are threefold: (i) to show how the work of American philosopher, Donald Davidson can throw light on the concept of addiction; (ii) to argue thereby that addiction is not a myth; and (iii) to help understand the addicted person's experience of feeling compelled to behave repeatedly in ways she does not want. Addictive behaviour is obviously intentional and this had led some to argue that addiction is a myth. In contrast, we propose that it is possible to see addictive behaviour as intentional while at the same time constructing a meaningful and useful understanding of addiction. The principal way this can be done is by seeing addiction as a class of akratic action, something that has been a topic of philosophical reflection since the ancient Greeks. By illustration, we summarise Davidson's enquiry into how it is logically possible to say that akratic action exists and show that, in accepting that akratic action is logically possible, it may also be possible to understand how someone can continue to carry out an addictive behaviour despite repeated resolutions that they will refrain from doing it. We compare in passing Davidson's account of akrasia with recent behavioural choice theories of addiction. We finish by focussing on Davidson's conclusion at the end of his essay that the akrates cannot understand her own behaviour and by drawing out the possible significance of this for an understanding of addicts’ reports of feeling compelled to carry out addictive behaviour.