Abstract

Addiction is a phenomenon that usually offers challenges to theories of action. If we consider the standard causal theory of addiction, explaining addicts’ action in terms of their addictive desires leaves them without agency. If the compulsive desires bring about the action, despite the addicts’ views and attitudes toward their addiction, the desire just seems to force the addict to act accordingly. In light of philosophical studies, this is not a plausible way of understanding addicts’ action, as they are agents in the sense that they are basically able to control their action and refrain from acting according to their addiction. Still it seems more difficult for addicts to act against the addictive desire. There has been empirical research that heroin addicts, for instance, have strong attentional bias to heroin-related cues and this feeds the strong desire they have for heroin. In the presentation, I will consider two ways in which the addictive desire may be understood as a source of difficulty that the agent may experience in their action.