David Wiggins; XV*—Weakness of Will Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1.

David Wiggins; XV*—Weakness of Will Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1.

The question why Bevir's account of intentionality is conceptualized purely in terms of individual beliefs is important as such a conceptualization appears to depart from standard accounts of intentionality within the philosophy of mind, that include reference to individual desires. It is beliefs and desires which are usually considered the rock?bottom components of individual intentional states, yet Bevir defines weak intentions solely in terms of the former while explicitly rejecting attention to the latter. There are a number of difficulties (...) which an account of meaning that excludes reference to desires faces. Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons for historians of ideas to embrace a theory of meaning that includes reference to beliefs but not desires. Through an extension of a different argument put forward by Bevir, it is suggested that such a belief?based definition of the nature of meaning is made defensible through reference to an account of the identity of the history of ideas as a discipline, a distinct area of academic enquiry that can be ? and for good reasons is ? individuated from the history of human action. (shrink)

In this article, I confront Garvey’s argument that a weak-willed individual deserves partial excuse for trying to resist a strong desire that pushes him toward commission of a criminal act even though in the end he unreasonably abandons his resistance and commits the crime. I attempt to refute Garvey’s argument on two counts: one, I question whether the law should indeed provide mitigation to such an offender; and two, I argue that, even if it should, this mitigation may not (...) come in the form of a partial defense. Defenses, even partial, are desert based, and there is nothing in Garvey’s offender’s circumstances that makes him less blameworthy for the crime he committed. A court may choose to treat such an offender more leniently but it should not be mandated to do so. (shrink)

This paper examines the view that desires are beliefs about normative reasons for action. It describes the view, and briefly sketches three arguments for it. But the focus of the paper is defending the view from objections. The paper argues that the view is consistent with the distinction between the direction of fit of beliefs and desires, that it is consistent with the existence of appetites such as hunger, that it can account for counterexamples that aim to show that beliefs (...) about reasons are not sufficient for desire, such as weakness of will, and that it can account for counterexamples that aim to show that beliefs about reasons are not necessary for desire, such as addiction. The paper also shows how it is superior to the view that desires are appearances of the good. (shrink)

A logical constant is weakly disharmonious if its elimination rules are weaker than its introduction rules. Substructural weak disharmony is the weak disharmony generated by structural restrictions on the eliminations. I argue that substructural weak disharmony is not a defect of the constants which exhibit it. To the extent that it is problematic, it calls into question the structural properties of the derivability relation. This prompts us to rethink the issue of controlling the structural properties of a (...) logic by means of harmony. I argue that such a control is possible and desirable. Moreover, it is best achieved by global tests of harmony. (shrink)

The standard case of weakness of will involves a strong temptation leading us to reconsider or act against our judgments. Here, however, I consider cases of what I call ‘habitual weakness', where we resolve to do one thing yet do another not to satisfy any grand desire, but out of habit. After giving several examples, I suggest that habitual weakness has been under-discussed in the literature and explore why. These cases are worth highlighting for their ubiquity, and I show three (...) further advantages of appreciating habitual weakness as a kind of weakness: It challenges purportedly necessary conditions on akrasia, it side-steps outstanding skeptical concerns, and it provides a new model for considering the weak-willed behavior of group agents. I conclude by arguing that cases of habitual weakness are genuine cases of akrasia and weakness of will. Rather than lacking strength of will, habitual weakness involves lacking diligence, vigilance, or fortitude. (shrink)

Top-down synthetic biology makes partly synthetic cells by redesigning simple natural forms of life, and bottom-up synthetic biology aims to make fully synthetic cells using only entirely nonliving components. Within synthetic biology the notions of complexity and emergence are quite controversial, but the imprecision of key notions makes the discussion inconclusive. I employ a precise notion of weak emergent property, which is a robust characteristic of the behavior of complex bottom-up causal webs, where a complex causal web is one (...) that is incompressible and its behavior cannot be derived except by crawling through all of the gory details of the interactions in the web. The central thesis of this article is that synthetic biology centrally is the activity of engineering the desired weak emergent properties of synthetic cells. Synthetic biology has many different ways to engineer desired weak emergent properties of synthetic cells, including Edisonian trial and error, standardized parts, refactoring, and reprogramming synthetic genomes. The article ends by noting two philosophical consequences of engineering weak emergence. One is epistemological: synthesis is crucial for discovering weak emergent properties. The other is metaphysical: simple life forms are nothing but complex chemical mechanisms. (shrink)

The phenomenon of weakness of will – not doing what we perceive as the best action – is not recognized by neoclassical economics due to the axiomatic assumptions of the revealed preference theory (RPT) that people do what is best for them. However, present bias shows that people have different preferences over time. As they cannot be compared by the utility measurements, economists need to normatively decide between selves (short- versus long-term preferences). A problem is that neoclassical economists perceive RPT (...) as value-free and incorporate present bias within the economic framework. The axiomatic assumption that people do what is best for them leads to theoretical and practical dilemmas. This work examines weakness of will to resolve some shortcomings of RPT. The concept of intention is used to provide multiple self conception with the framework to decide between selves, which had not been done before. The paper concludes that individuals should not always follow their revealed preferences (desires) but the intentions (reason) because the latter indicates what people really want. (shrink)

I think that clear sense can be made of weakness of will in terms of agents' acting against the dictates of their reason; and that this can be done without becoming enmeshed in the faculties of the mind, and without denying what is right about Humean views about reason and desire. My starting point is, in fact, a Humean position about reason and desire.

In this article, I develop an Augustinian response to some contemporary philosophical proposals concerning the problem of weakness of will. I argue that many philosophers tend to cast the problem in terms of irrationality, focusing on psychological components such as judgment, desire, and resolution. In contrast, I contend that weakness of will has more to do with the absence of a coherent conception of practical identity and with a misleading conception of practical identity that overestimates the agent’s normative and motivational (...) capacities. I claim that the irrationality of the weak-willed agent is at best a symptom, rather than the ultimate source, of weakness of will which cannot be properly understood without first addressing the deficiency of our internal resources relative to our willing and doing. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to clarify how Actual Desire Satisfactionism should accommodate the ways in which desire and time are connected. In particular, I argue that Weak Concurrentism represents the most promising way for the Desire Satisfactionist to capture the temporal nature of desire. I consider the Desire Satisfactionist's other main options, but argue that none succeeds. This leaves Weak Concurrentism looking attractive. However, Weak Concurrentism might also be thought to have some implausible consequences of its (...) own. Nonetheless, I argue that, on closer inspection, these consequences are not implausible at all – at least by the lights of the Desire Satisfactionist. I do not offer a full-blown defence of Weak Concurrentism, but rather aim to defend only a conditional conclusion: in so far as one is committed to Actual Desire Satisfactionism, Weak Concurrentism represents the best way to tackle the problems raised by the temporal nature of desires. (shrink)

In this paper I shall put forward a version of the so-called logical connection argument to try to show that desires cannot be causes of actions. Now for anyone who wishes to use that kind of argument to show this, the ideal way of proceeding would be to first set out a complete analysis of the causal relation, and then to go on to argue that the relation between desires, certain other conditions, and actions fails to match some essential feature (...) revealed by that analysis. But I cannot proceed in this way; for I do not possess any full-blooded analysis of the causal relation. Nonetheless, I do not think that this places me in a position of real weakness. For the argument I shall present requires the truth of only one claim with respect to the nature of the causal relation. This is the claim that the causal relation is a contingent relation. I think that this claim is a relatively uncontroversial one; I am going to assume that it is true; and the argument which follows will exploit that claim. (shrink)

I begin with a resume ofJ ackson's position. I shall follow this with some counter- examples; and end with a diagnosis of why the problems with Jackson's account arise. In objecting to Jackson's account I am not presupposing the truth of one or other particular account of akrasia. What I am supposing is that unless we recognize some kind of conflict of mind as engaged at the time of action, we are not speaking of akrasia. I hive argued that Jackson, (...) in supposedly giving an account of the akratic conflict between 'reason and desire', turns it into a temporal relation between states of a person which can obtain without a conflict of the relevant kind obtaining at all. The account therefore fails to clarify the nature of the conflict out of which an akratic action may arise. It does in fact seem that a Humean view of the relation between reason and desire is ill-fitted to recognition of the phenomenon of weakness of will. But Humeans have proved themselves most ingenious over two centuries. Perhaps they will yet manage to effect the fit. (shrink)

My concern in this paper will be to explore and develop a version of nonsocratic skepticism about weakness of will. In my view, socratism is incorrect, but like Socrates, I think that the common understanding of weakness of will raises serious problems. Contrary to socratism, it is possible for a person knowingly to act contrary to his or her better judgment. But this description does not exhaust the common view of weakness. Also implicit in this view is the belief that (...) actions which are contrary to one's better judgment are free in the sense that the agent could have done otherwise. To take seriously the possibility of acting contrary to one's better judgment is at the same time to raise problems about the distinction between weakness and compulsion. I argue that the common view, according to which the differentiating feature is that the weak are able to conform their behavior to their practical judgments, is unjustified. Instead, I have proposed that weakness of will involves the failure to develop certain normal capacities of self-control, whereas compulsion involves desires which even the possession of such capacities would not enable one to resist. (shrink)

Judgement internalism claims that our evaluative judgements will motivate us to act appropriately, at least in so far as we are rational. I examine how this claim should be understood, with particular focus on whether valuing enjoys a kind of 'normative priority' over desiring. I consider and reject views according to which valuing something provides one with a reason to be moved; this claim of normative priority and the readings of internalism it suggests are too strong. I also reject an (...) interpretation which eschews claims of normative priority, whilst maintaining that valuing nevertheless rationally commits or requires one to be motivated; this rejection of normative priority and the reading of internalism it supports are too weak. In the final sections I sketch the understanding of judgement internalism I favour, and defend it against objections. (shrink)

One of the most controversial theses of Jacques Lacan is his conviction that a very specific relationship links ethics and desire. The aim of the article is to present what this new relationship consists in, and, further on, to outline the weaknesses of this concept, which does not take into account the existence of the sovereign good as a category available to cognition. According to my thesis, Lacan believes that the ethics of Supreme Good, or simply traditional ethics of goods, (...) leads the human subject to remain, voluntarily, within the Imaginary dimension. The idea of the ethical postulate will be treated here not so much as something applied during psychoanalysis, but as a general clue as to how people should behave. (shrink)

Judgement internalism claims that our evaluative judgements will motivate us to act appropriately, at least in so far as we are rational. I examine how this claim should be understood, with particular focus on whether valuing enjoys a kind of 'normative priority' over desiring. I consider and reject views according to which valuing something provides one with a reason to be moved; this claim of normative priority and the readings of internalism it suggests are too strong. I also reject an (...) interpretation which eschews claims of normative priority, whilst maintaining that valuing nevertheless rationally commits or requires one to be motivated; this rejection of normative priority and the reading of internalism it supports are too weak. In the final sections I sketch the understanding of judgement internalism I favour, and defend it against objections. (shrink)

Augustine of Hippo is often regarded as the champion of the doctrine of weakness of the will. John M. Rist in his 1994 'Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized' draws an interesting analogy between Aristotle's 'akrasia' and Augustine's 'concupiscentia'. However, such an analogy without further qualification is defective and misleading because it implies that Augustine commits himself to the notion that since everyone is perpetually akratic and, thus, always morally blameworthy. I argue that, for Augustine, weakness of the will has equivocal meanings (...) and is manifested in four kinds of case--their scope goes far beyond Aristotle's discussion of 'akrasia' in Book Seven of the 'Nicomachean Ethics'. There are, therefore, considerable differences between Aristotle's and Augustine's account of weakness of the will. Consequently, for Augustine, moral responsibility for the moral agent also varies in each of the four cases. (shrink)

This paper aims to defend the common-sense view that we exempt compulsive agents from responsibility to the extent that they are unable to choose what they do and hence they cannot control their actions by their choices. This view has been challenged in a seminal paper by Gary Watson, who claimed that akratic agents lack control in the same sense but they are responsible nonetheless. In the first part of the paper, I critically examine the arguments Watson advances for this (...) claim first in his original paper and then in some more recent works. I conclude that his account is based on the widely held assumption that both compulsive behavior and weakness of the will must be understood as a direct result of some inner motivational conflict. In the second part, I argue for an alternative understanding of the difference between weakness and compulsion. My claim is that compulsion is a cognitive rather than a motivational deficiency, since the compulsive, unlike the weak-willed, does not desire to perform the action which she actually performs. Furthermore, I argue that compulsive agents cannot control their actions by their choices because they have a distorted view of their own actional abilities. In the final part of the paper, I discuss a consequence of this account to the conditional analysis of free will as a condition of responsibility. (shrink)

Publication date: 15 October 2018 Source: Author: Mohsen Hanif, Hamed Badri Theodor Dreiser's Sister Carrie dramatizes the unbridled greed for wealth and craze for status in an extremely commercialized world. It exemplifies the servitude of a society beholden to a consumerist market, where the affluent prey on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the poor. The novel captures human relations in their seismic change, where family bonds are breaking down and the family is losing its role as a basic social unit. (...) This article will argue that human desire lies at the heart of family breakdowns in Sister Carrie. In doing so, it will provide an insight into the workings of the capitalist system, including its inroads into the shores of human desire – explaining how it robs individuals of their true essence and dehumanizes them. Finally, the article will call for checks and balances vis-à-vis our uncontrollable desires and recommend collective efforts in order to protect the institution of family and bring back commercialized societies from the brink. (shrink)

I argue that there is a continuum of judgments ranging from those that are affectively rich, what might be called passionate judgments, to those that are purely cognitive and nonaffective, what might be called dispassionate judgments. The former are akin to desires and other affective states and so are necessarily motivating. Applying this schema to moral judgments, I maintain that the motivational internalist is wrong in claiming that all moral judgments are necessarily motivating, but right in regard to the subset (...) of passionate moral judgments. This picture of moral judgments has implications for related debates in metaethics between cognitivists and non-cognitivists and between Humeans and anti-Humeans. (shrink)

How should addictive behavior be explained? In terms of neurobiological illness and compulsion, or as a choice made freely, even rationally, in the face of harmful social or psychological circumstances? Some of the disagreement between proponents of the prevailing medical models and choice models in the science of addiction centres on the notion of “loss of control” as a normative characterization of addiction. In this article I examine two of the standard interpretations of loss of control in addiction, one according (...) to which addicts have lost free will, the other according to which their will is weak. I argue that both interpretations are mistaken and propose therefore an alternative based on a dual-process approach. This alternative neither rules out a capacity in addicts to rationally choose to engage in drug-oriented behavior, nor the possibility that addictive behavior can be compulsive and depend upon harmful changes in their brains caused by the regular use of drugs. (shrink)

In his “Two Kinds of Moral Reasoning; Ethical Egoism as a Moral Theory”, Jesse Kalin defines ethical egoism as “the position that a person ought, all things considered, to do an action if and only if that action is in his overall self-interest”, by which he means that each person is ‘rationally justified in’ or ‘has conclusive reasons for’ acting thus, and not that ‘it is good', or that ‘it is desirable', or that ‘it conduces to any intrinsically desirable state (...) of affairs', for each to act only self-interestedly.In this way, Kalin seeks to formulate an egoism which he takes to be rational, insofar as, in the interests of consistency, the egoist holds a principle applicable to all, and yet is not committed, ex hypothesi, to valuing collective goods or states of affairs which would tend to compromise his own interests. (shrink)

Chapter VI is an extended sketch of Plato 's psychological theory found in the Republic, especially Book IV. Plato, unlike Socrates, distinguishes among three kinds of desire, corresponding to the three parts of the soul. Plato, however, still agrees with Socrates that all desires are belief-dependent. Furthermore, because Plato is much clearer than Socrates about the nature of goods, he is able to distinguish among three distinct kinds of beliefs about what is good. So Plato also agrees with Socrates that (...) all desires are for the good, if we speak properly of what is believed to be good. The picture of Plato 's views that emerges in this study is a fundamentally Socratic one and a development of Socratic psychology. This picture is somewhat contrary to what recent commentators have claimed about how the positions of Socrates and Plato are related. Plato, it is said, rejects the Socratic proposal about desire and its role in human motivation. It is argued in this study, however, that such a view rests upon certain misconceptions of both the Socratic and Platonic positions. ;This study has the following structure. Chapter I discusses the methodology of this dissertation and the chronology of Plato 's dialogues. Chapters II-V develop the central features of Socratic psychology. In chapter II, we establish that virtue is a craft. This is particularly important because, unlike other Socratic crafts which are merely cognitive, virtue has affective characteristics also. Virtue, moreover, aims at producing goods. Chapter III examines the nature of Socratic desire. We argue by examining both linguistic evidence and texts where there is some suggestion to the contrary that Socrates does not distinguish among kinds of desire. It is also shown that desire has two key features for Socrates. All desire is belief-dependent and, in particular, involves beliefs about what is good. Because of these features, chapter IV is concerned with the Socratic analysis of the structure of goods. We find in such dialogues as the Lysis, Euthydemus, Gorgias, and Meno a record of some confusion about the nature of goods. Finally in chapter V, we show how Socrates applies his account of desire to problems in philosophical psychology. He holds that knowledge is necessary and sufficient, not only to achieve a certain psychological state, but also for certain kinds of action. He provides an alternative explanation for what is commonly held to be weakness of will. There are also suggestions which we explore that Socrates has original views, deriving from his account of desire, about the nature of action and psychological freedom. ;Both Socrates and Plato attempt to demonstrate that moral behavior is rational, by grounding it in the structure of human wants. This study examines the accounts of desire to which they appeal and shows how desire so conceived is related both to human rationality and to human motivation. Much of what is said here bears upon ethical questions, but our principal concern is not ethics, but moral psychology--the psychological underpinnings for the Socratic and Platonic ethical views. (shrink)

In Plato's Meno , there is a famous discussion of desire and evil. This paper is not a contribution to Platonic scholarship, but a direct taking up of the issue whether someone can desire evil. One stock interpretation of the putative impossibility of desiring what is evil or bad is the interpretation which emphasizes an internal or conceptual tie between desire and good. This interpretation compares pairs of terms such as ‘fear—danger’, ‘belief—truth’ and ‘desire—good’. To fear something is to regard (...) it as, or believe that it is, dangerous ; to believe something is to regard it as, or believe it to be, true ; to desire something is to regard it as, to believe it to be, good. Since it is obvious that people believe things which are false, it is maintained that it is equally obvious that people may desire what is bad and fear what is harmless or of no danger. Let us call this interpretation of the doctrine that it is impossible to desire evil the weak thesis. The weak thesis allows what seems a plain fact of human reality, that people believe falsehoods, fear things that cannot harm them and desire things which are not good. Equally obviously, it allows that people fail to believe truths, fail to desire goods, and fail to fear things that are dangerous. On this weak interpretation, the manner in which wickedness to others and self-destructiveness are due to ignorance is that people are ignorant about the nature of things and ways of acting, ignorant about what it would be like to possess something or ignorant about what it would be like to do something or other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Desire is Mimetic: A Clinical Approach Jean-Michel Oughourlian Université de Besançon, American Hospital ofParis What is the clinical expression ofmimetic desire? Rivalry. What I see every day in my practice is not mimicking, nor copying, nor learning; it is rivalry. Rivalry is recurrent, it repeats itself. The repetition syndrome identified by psychoanalysis is mimetic for two reasons: 1) because it is always the clinical expression of a rivalry and (...) that rivalry is always mimetic; 2) because it reproduces itself, duplicates itself, imitating the circumstances of the first rivalry and always looking for an impossible victory. That victory is impossible, since it stems from a situation which mimics the circumstances of defeat. But those circumstances are the only ones of interest, since the only battle worth winning is the one that has every chance to be lost. Mimetic rivalry (as I have tried to show elsewhere1) is always rooted in one ofthe two following claims: the claim ofthe selffor the ownership of its own desire; and the claim of desire for its anteriority, its seniority over the other's desire, the other desire that has generated it, on which it is modeled. Clinically, the self and the desire are going to develop various strategies to ascertain those two claims. The interdividual psychotherapy has to diagnose the nodal points of the mimetic conflict. It has to see ' See Jean-Michel Oughourlian, The Puppet ofDesire: The Psychology ofHysteria, Possession, and Hypnosis, trans. Eugene Webb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991). Ed. 44Jean-Michel Oughourlian through the clinical variety of strategies and symptoms to the essential unity ofthe two claims underlying it. Let me give a few examples. Vengeance As we know, violence is mimetic. When violence cannot be immediately retaliated, imitated, duplicated, the energy for that retaliation is saved for later use. The more humiliating the violence, the greater the stored-up energy. Humiliation, in turn, stems from weakness: the humiliation of a child raped by an adult, ofa civilian beaten up by soldiers, ofa poor person insulted by a rich one, or, generally speaking, ofthe weak overpowered by the strong. Ifa weak person is the perpetrator ofthe first violence, it does not generate humiliation and, most ofthe time, does not entail vengeance. When an angered child kicks an adult, for example, this usually produces laughter rather than violence precisely because the child is smaller and weaker. As time goes by, the energy of postponed or deferred violence accumulates and increases. Clinically, it manifests itself in two ways: as a feeling ofhatred; and as a strength, a drive, a compulsive desire to destroy which will animate the offended and organize all his efforts in view ofthe vengeance that will set him free. The mimetic retaliation ofviolence will drive him until that retaliation is accomplished. In my experience, all the young girls who were raped by their fathers could not restore their mental health and psychological balance unless they were able, in one way or another, to avenge themselves. In the absence of such revenge, the enormous energy built up throughout their childhood and adolescence produced psychological symptoms which last for a lifetime. One such example is a patient, Miss L., 35 years old, who seeks treatment for alcoholism. It is a strange type ofalcoholism: each time, she must enter a meeting and speak before a group of people—and especially if her boss is in the group—she goes to the bathroom and drinks white rum from a hidden bottle. She has been in psychoanalysis for the past 12 years with no significant results. The history of her malady shows that she has wide mood swings, ups and downs often labeled as manic-depressive. Very quickly I see that she has stored within herself an enormous amount of violence which is fairly well controlled, but which manifests itselfthrough different types of aggressive behavior, especially towards men. A few sessions later, she finally tells me that she had been raped by her father and, as a consequence, that her parents had divorced. She was then obliged to remain with her father and take care ofhim. Psychoanalysis, of course, has Desire is Mimetic: A Clinical Approach45 commented extensively on the actual achievement ofher oedipal... (shrink)

The Confucian classic the Liji 禮記 defines ‘desire’ as ‘the arousal of nature’. In line with this classical definition, Dai Zhen 戴震 sees desire as human nature in activation. However, while the Liji ascribes human deceits and debauchery to the susceptibility of human nature, Dai Zhen speaks highly of its responsiveness and receptivity. This article discusses Dai Zhen’s conception of desire and argues that Dai Zhen distinguishes himself from other Confucian moral thinkers by bringing to light the dimension of the (...) Other in addressing the issue of desire. As the Confucian tradition has long been disturbed by an anxiety to keep desire in check, Dai Zhen draws our attention to how to cultivate the affective faculty inherent in human nature to develop our sensitivity to the needs and desires of others, especially those of the widow, the orphan, the solitary, the sick, and the weak. (shrink)

This paper argues that the force and weaknesses of Thomas Nagel’s arguments against psychophysical reductionism can be felt more fully when held up to the defense of a similar view in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. What follows for both from their shared rejection of psychophysical reductionism is a defense of the claim that an objective conception of subjective reality is necessarily incomplete. I examine each one’s defense of this claim. However, although they both claim an objective conception of subjectivity (...) will be incomplete, they do think we have some ability to form such a conception and I examine next the quite different ways in which Nagel and Sartre relate this ability to our use of language. The last sections of the paper discuss each philosopher’s belief that although the tension between the objective and the subjective is irreconcilable, humans continue to desire such reconciliation, i.e., they desire to be God. (shrink)

This paper argues that the force and weaknesses of Thomas Nagel’s arguments against psychophysical reductionism can be felt more fully when held up to the defense of a similar view in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. What follows for both from their shared rejection of psychophysical reductionism is a defense of the claim that an objective conception of subjective reality is necessarily incomplete. I examine each one’s defense of this claim. However, although they both claim an objective conception of subjectivity (...) will be incomplete, they do think we have some ability to form such a conception and I examine next the quite different ways in which Nagel and Sartre relate this ability to our use of language. The last sections of the paper discuss each philosopher’s belief that although the tension between the objective and the subjective is irreconcilable, humans continue to desire such reconciliation, i.e., they desire to be God. (shrink)

Orthodoxy holds that the difference between weakness of will and compulsion is a matter of the resistibility of an agent's effective motivation, which makes control-based views of agency especially well equipped to distinguish blameworthy weak-willed acts from non-blameworthy compulsive acts. I defend an alternative view that the difference between weakness and compulsion instead lies in the fact that agents would upon reflection give some conative weight to acting on their weak-willed desires for some aim other than to extinguish (...) them, but not to their compulsive desires. This view allows identificationist theorists of moral responsibility to explain why weak-willed actions, but not compulsive actions, are attributable to agents such that they can, in theory, be praised or blamed for them. After motivating and presenting the view in detail, I show how it has unique resources for explaining the ethics of managing one's compulsions. (shrink)

We prove from suitable large cardinal hypotheses that the least weakly compact cardinal can be unfoldable, weakly measurable and even nearly θ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\theta}$$\end{document}-supercompact, for any desired θ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\theta}$$\end{document}. In addition, we prove several global results showing how the entire class of weakly compactcardinals, a proper class, can be made to coincide with the class of unfoldable cardinals, with the class of weakly measurable cardinals or (...) with the class of nearly θκ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\theta_\kappa}$$\end{document}-supercompact cardinals κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document}, for nearly any desired function κ↦θκ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa\mapsto\theta_\kappa}$$\end{document}. These results answer several questions that had been open in the literature and extend to these large cardinals the identity-crises phenomenon, first identified by Magidor with the strongly compact cardinals. (shrink)

Argument quality has consistently been shown to have strong and lasting persuasive effects. The question is what criteria people use to distinguish strong from weak arguments and how these criteria relate to the ones proposed in normative argumentation theory. In an experiment 235 participants without training in argumentation theory rated the acceptance of 30 claims about the desirability of a consequence that were supported by either an argument from analogy, from authority, or from consequences. The supporting arguments were (...) systematically manipulated to violate argument type specific criteria. Participants proved sensitive to the violation of most, but not all, argument type specific criteria. From a normative perspective these findings suggest that people act in a fairly adequate way. These findings also enable a more precise description of what people may do when critically appraising arguments, which has important implications for the use of argument quality as a methodological tool in persuasion research. (shrink)

The first third of John Pollock’s Thinking about Acting is on the topics of pleasure, desire, and preference, and these topics are the ones on which this paper focuses. I review Pollock’s position and argue that it has at least one substantial strength (it elegantly demonstrates that desires must be more fundamental than preferences, and embraces this conclusion wholeheartedly) and at least one substantial weakness (it holds to a form of psychological hedonism without convincingly answering the philosophical or empirical objections (...) that might be raised). (shrink)

This study aims to develop and defend an account of practical rationality and intention that explains how weakness of the will is conceptually possible. I first present two sceptical arguments against the possibility of weakness and then distinguish two different responses to scepticism that defends its possibility. Both sceptical arguments are motivated by what many have believed is an analogy between theoretical and practical reasoning. This analogy holds that the conclusion of practical reasoning is an intention just as the conclusion (...) of theoretical reasoning is a belief. The particular version held by what I call the Socratic theorists claims, in addition, that the value of desirability is transferred from premisses to conclusion in practical reasoning, just as probability is transferred from premisses to conclusion in theoretical reasoning. One example of an author who takes the analogy as a basic premise and seek to explain how weakness of the will still may be possible, is Donald Davidson. Critics of Davidson object that the the kinds of difficulties that his account runs into shows that the Socratic version of the analogy must be false; not only is this account phenomenologically implausible, it also exaggerates the degree of irrationality of the weak agent. In this study I suggest the possibility of a weaker version of the Davidsonian account. The main source of difficulty for the Davidsonian account, I argue, may not be its reliance on the Socratic version of the analogy between practical and theoretical reasoning, but rather its particular understanding of this analogy in terms of an analogy between practical and inductive-statistical reasoning. This understanding may lead one to accept too “rationalistic” a picture of the reasoning processes behind weakness of the will which, in effect, may make the account vulnerable to objections that it is phenomenologically implausible and exaggerates the irrationality of the weak agent. The weaker version of the Davidsonian account that I propose, ties in the account of weakness with the notions of “satisficing” and “default reasoning”. Although it preserves the central idea of the stronger version that intentions are unconditional evaluative judgements, it proposes a different view of the contents of these judgements, as well as of the reasoning process that lie behind them. It is not difficult to motivate this weaker view: given our human finitary predicament, both satisficing and default reasoning seem to be likely results of an optimal trade-off between the speed and reliability of our computational processes. The question is how these notions may shape the concepts we use to understand weakness of the will. I argue that if we modify the account usually ascribed to Davidson in the light of these notions, the result is a less rationalistic picture of weakness of the will. The gains are more phenomenological credibility as well as a less extreme view of the degree of irrationality involved. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to reconsider Barthes’s theory of textuality, as presented in his The Pleasure of the Text. Barthes’s approach is based on the rejection of the “referential” or “realistic” theories of literary text: the Barthesian pleasure is drawn from the texture of the text itself rather that from its alleged referential character. In this sense, the author’s suggestion is to return to the notion of representation rejected by Barthes, even though this representation should not be identical (...) with the reference in the classical sense of the word. The notion of “weak representation”, suggested by the author, does not mean a return to a naïve conception of realism. It rather implies that the referent would be a fantasmatic rather than “realistic” entity. The notions of representation and reference are exemplified by the interpretation of Richardson’s Clarissa and Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbevilles. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay provides a sketch of Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of love in relation to human experience and to the conceptualization of φιλία and σοφία outlined in his later works. In response to what he calls a “cruel thought … that is more fear of error than it is a love of truth”, Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on love and jealousy in Proust offer a concept of “fugitive love”. Opposed to the Cartesian desire for apodicticity that seeks to seize and arrest, fugitive love means (...) withholding one’s touch and letting the beloved die. In its offer of dispossession rather than possession, love requires faith. This faith, the opposite of faith in an absolute λόγος, invites and accepts being’s occultation as the very means of its openness. Merleau-Ponty’s thought offers a mode of philosophizing that no longer aims to make being its captive but a philosophy of weakness that allows for its withdraw. (shrink)

George Sher’s recent book A Wild West of the Mind offers a sustained argument against moralism: the view that private mental states are not subject to the authority of moral obligation. In developing this argument, Sher first argues that leading normative theories cannot account for the wrongness of private mental states like beliefs, desires, or emotions. He then offers an argument that the countervailing value of moral freedom is itself a positive reason to reject moralism. Against Sher, I argue for (...) a form of weak moralism. To do this, I first argue that the value of moral freedom does not clearly trump other significant values. I then support this argument by arguing that valuing anything at all puts rational constraints of private mental states. And because we have reason to value objects of moral value, we therefore have reason to conform our mental lives to those constraints. (shrink)

The field of business ethics has shown little attention to the dynamics of memory in maintaining moral character. Yet memory is a complex process that involves the repression of some experiences in order to protect the moral integrity of the personality. Without the capacity to repress what one's moral conscience would not accept, the mind can be overtaken by neurotic ambivalence and moral confusion. In the context of business competition, where the pressures for potential gains and losses can be immense, (...) long repressed desires can receive renewed strength resulting in a weakening of moral constraint. In this essay, I use the psycho-analytic theory of repression to investigate the complex, psychological vicissitudes of human memory. The theory of repression is a particularly powerful tool to investigate the moral implications of memory because memories which are repressed - i.e., forbidden consciousness - are done so at the behest of the individual's moral ideals. Experiences that offend these ideals or threaten the integrity of the ego can be repressed. Repression, then, is an infallible index of moral judgement. I will apply the theory of repression to the characters in and story line of Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" to elucidate the relationship between memory and ethics in business. "Death of a Salesman" is well suited for this purpose because the memories of the main characters are central to the play and are inextricably linked to the moral challenge competition in business poses. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions of akrasia over the last fifteen years have focused on certain skeptical arguments which purport to question the possibility of a kind of akratic action which, following Pears, I call 'last ditch akrasia' (Pears [38]). An agent, succumbing to last ditch akrasia, freely, knowingly, and intentionally performs an action A against his better judgment that an incompatible action B is the better thing to do. (See Audi [1] for a detailed analysis.) Last ditch akrasia is not the only (...) kind that has been discussed. Some philosophers (Mele [32], Scaltas [48]) have been concerned with a more extreme form of akratic action, viz. one in which the agent not only judges that action B is best, but in addition intends (chooses, decides) to B. Some have even questioned whether freely acting against one's better judgment is sufficient for akratic action (Schiffer [49]: 201-3).1 Weaker types of akratic action have been discussed, though to a much lesser extent, since they are thought less problematic. Pears distinguishes last ditch akrasia from what he calls, "motivated irrational action" ([38]: 160). In cases of the latter, the akrates' rebellious desire infects his prior reasoning and thinking in such a way that his contemplated action seems to him warranted, and he acts accordingly. (For a taxonomy of cases of akratic action, see Rorty ([44])). Nor has the discussion of akrasia been restricted to akratic action. Philosophers have discussed whether akrasia can be exhibited in the formation of intentions, wants (See Audi [1]: 181-185), and beliefs (Mele [32]: ch. 8; Heil [19]). The primary focus in this paper is on last ditch akratic action. (shrink)

Can absolute freedom of will be defended by arguing that apparent cases of diminished freedom when we act out of passion are cases of weakness of will? Rogers Albritton thought so. What is intriguing about Albritton's view is that he thought when we act from desire we are making choices, yet our desires are not functioning as reasons for those choices. So our desires must be influencing our choices in some other unspecified way that does not diminish our freedom. I (...) challenge the coherence of this position. My strategy is to examine the views of leading theorists of the will – Descartes, Aquinas and Reid – to argue that the only clear way in which passions can influence our choices so that we can accurately be described as weak-willed and yet nevertheless free is that our passions influence our choices by providing reasons for them. (shrink)

This essay evaluates John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza's mature semi-compatibilist account of moral responsibility, focusingon their new theory of moderate reasons-responsiveness as a model of "moral sanity." This theory, presented in _Responsibility and Control_, solves many of the problems with Fischer's earlier weak reasons-responsiveness model, such as its unwanted implication that agents who are only erratically responsive to bizarre reasons can be responsible for their acts. But I argue that the new model still faces several problems. It does (...) not allow sufficiently for non-psychotic agents (who are largely reasons-responsive) with localized beliefs and desires incompatible with full responsibility. Nor does it take into account that practical "fragmentation of the self" over time may also reduce competence, since moral sanity requires some minimum level of narrative unity in our plans and projects. Finally, I argue that actual-sequence accounts cannot adequately explain sane but weak-willed agency. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s notion of weakness or frailty warrants more attention, for it reveals much about his theory of motivation and general metaphysics of mind. As the first and least severe of the three grades of evil, frailty captures those cases where an agent fails to act on their avowed recognition that the moral law is the only legitimate determining ground of the will. The possibility of such cases raises many important questions that have yet to be settled by interpreters. Most (...) importantly, should we account for the failures of weakness by appealing to the activity of reason or sensibility? I will discuss this question in light of a tendency to adopt an overly dualistic reading of Kant’s moral psychology. Focusing on Kant’s remarks on weakness from the Religion and the Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that we should understand weakness as arising from the unique difficulties of sense-dependent judgment, rather than from self-deception, flagging commitment, or overwhelming desire. The resulting account offers a unified moral psychology capable of accommodating the many features of weakness that are difficult to reconcile on other readings. (shrink)

The exercise of synchronic self-control is the way in which an actor can attempt to bring a desire into alignment with his better judgement at the moment and during the interval of time over which, but for the exercise of such self-control, the desire would become the actor’s preponderant desire, which the actor would then translate into an act contrary to his better judgment. The moral psychology of an actor who fails to achieve such self-control can be analyzed in two (...) ways. One way is meant to be consistent with compatibilist metaphysics; the other with libertarian metaphysics. The implications of these analyses for the criminal law are complicated, but perhaps the most important is this: the criminal law should in principle recognize a partial excuse for an actor who exercises synchronic self-control but who gives up his effort because he believes that he can no longer continue to resist. His effort to achieve self-control thus fails, and he ends up translating into action the very desire he set out to control. (shrink)

Many philosophres have attempted to argue from the "Humean Theory of Motivation" (HTM) and the "Internalism Requirement" (IR) to the "Humean Theory of Practical Reason" (HTPR). This argument is familiar, but it has rarely been stated with sufficient precision. In this paper, I shall give a precise statement of this argument. I shall then rely on this statement to show two things. First, the HTPR is false: it is incompatible with some extremely plausible assumptions about weakness of will or akrasia. (...) Second, this argument for the HTPR is invalid: even if the HTM and the IR are true, they do not provide any support whatsoever to the HTPR. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mensonge MélodramatiqueTriangular Desire in Sense and SensibilityMatthew Taylor (bio)The Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, (...) mouth, hands and feet; what sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of Death—this Miss Austen ignores.—Charlotte Brontë1"Oh! mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!" [End Page 189]—Marianne in Sense and Sensibility2Charlotte Brontë had probably not read Sense and Sensibility (SS) before making her famous indictment of Jane Austen above, otherwise she would have found herself prophetically, and mercilessly, parodied through the character of Marianne Dashwood.3 Marianne's critique of Edward above matches Brontë's denunciation with uncanny precision. Marianne, the "stormy sister" of the novel, carries on in the same vein through most of it. What she proclaims as passionate sensibility comes off instead as, at varying times, snooty, self-indulgent, exhibitionist, and histrionic. Marianne even assumes the role of Brontë's "sentient target of Death" not long after she is cruelly jilted by Willoughby, when she wanders listlessly outdoors in the damp. It is not unlike Jane Eyre's numb wanderings when she flees Thornfield and Rochester. This "acting out" by Marianne comes close to killing her.Marianne's romantic "sensibility" contrasts with her sister Elinor's "sense." Yet, of course, readers of SS will come to know that Elinor can feel just as deeply and passionately as Marianne; she just has to conceal it. Elinor can suffer as much, too, only without the luxury of wearing it on dew-drenched sleeves. Thus, we have the thematic frame of the novel, suggested in the title. As Austen's first published novel, SS is brilliant, mature, and confident. One weakness seems to be a Brontëan one, the melodramatic coincidence in the plot that connects Colonel Brandon's secret life of compassion to Willoughby's secret sins. Otherwise, SS sits very well alongside Austen's other five masterpieces.4From the perspective of René Girard's mimetic theory, mimesis comes out with a bang in SS.5 Not only is Marianne a principal character in Austen's first canonical novel, but her romantic sensibility is thematized in the title.6 "Sensibility" for Marianne is feeling, unmediated desire expressed in unrestrained language and impulsive action. Yet Marianne's actions are anything but unmediated, and they are compulsive rather than impulsive. Even when she finally overcomes the worst symptoms under the influence of Elinor, and even though we do develop genuine sympathy for her, Marianne never comes to any deep self-knowledge. Marianne perfectly encapsulates Girard's mensonge romantique, or "romantic lie."Implying that Marianne is a liar is not a comfortable stance, and not just because we may be fond of her, but because she is open and sincere—to a fault. Yet just because Marianne is honest about her feelings, it does not follow that she is accurate about them. In fact, this is often a problem in interpreting Marianne: Her self-characterization is accepted uncritically.7 From that basis, she is framed, somewhat understandably, as representing one side of a moral debate about sensibility.8 Austen is seen as being for it, or against it, or working out some sort of accommodation. Austen is further assessed as having done [End Page 190] so well, or badly, or indifferently, as the case may be. Then Austen is seen as conforming to cultural standards, or challenging... (shrink)

This paper argues that Donald Davidson''s account ofassertions of evaluative judgments contains ahere-to-fore unappreciated strategy forreconciling the meta-ethical ``inconsistenttriad.'''' The inconsistency is thought to resultbecause within the framework of thebelief-desire theory assertions of moraljudgments must have conceptual connections withboth desires and beliefs. The connection withdesires is necessary to account for theinternal connection between such judgments andmotivation to act, while the connection withbeliefs is necessary to account for theapparent objectivity of such judgments.Arguments abound that no class of utterancescan coherently be understood (...) as having suchconceptual connections to attitudes of bothsorts, hence that an inconsistency results. Buton Davidson''s account assertions of evaluativejudgments have just such connections to boththe relevant desire and a belief concerning anevaluative matter of fact. I argue that thisaccount has the resources to respond tostandard objections, and at least meritsconsideration as one among other plausiblealternatives. (shrink)