Akrasia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
"Acrasia" redirects here. For other uses, see Acrasia (disambiguation).
 This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (February 2008)

Akrasia (ancient Greek ἀκρασία, "lacking command (over oneself)"), occasionally transliterated as acrasia, is the state of acting against one's better judgment.[1]

Contents

[edit] Classical approaches

Portrait of Socrates in marble. Socrates was an early investigator of the concept of akrasia.

The problem goes back at least as far as Plato. Socrates (in Plato's Protagoras) asks precisely how this is possible - if one judges action A to be the best course of action, why would one do anything other than A?

In the dialogue, Socrates attests that akrasia is an illogical moral concept, claiming “No one goes willingly toward the bad” (358d). If a person examines a situation and decides to act in the way he determines to be best, he will actively pursue this action, as the best course is also the good course, i.e. man's natural goal. An all-things-considered assessment of the situation will bring full knowledge of a decision's outcome and worth linked to well-developed principles of the good. A person, according to Socrates, never chooses to act poorly or against his better judgment; actions that go against what is best are only a product of being ignorant of facts or knowledge of what is best or good.

Aristotle on the other hand took a more empirical approach to the question, acknowledging that we intuitively believe in akrasia. He distances himself from the Socratic position by locating the breakdown of reasoning in an agent’s opinion, not appetite. Now, without recourse to appetitive desires, Aristotle reasons that akrasia occurs as a result of opinion. Opinion is formulated mentally in a way that may or may not imitate truth, while appetites are merely desires of the body. Thus opinion is only incidentally aligned with or opposed to the good, making an akratic action the product of opinion instead of reason.

The word ἀκρασία occurs twice in the koine greek New Testament. In Matthew 23:25 Jesus uses it describing hypocritical religious leaders. The Apostle Paul also gives akrasia as a reason for a husband and wife to not deprive each other of sex (1 Corinthians 7:5).

[edit] Contemporary approaches

Donald Davidson (1969/1980) took his stab at the problem by first criticizing earlier thinkers who wanted to limit the scope of akrasia to agents who despite having reached a rational decision were somehow swerved off their “desired” tracks. Indeed, Davidson expands akrasia to include any judgment that is reached but not fulfilled, whether it be as a result of an opinion, a real or imagined good, or a moral belief. “[T]he puzzle I shall discuss depends only on the attitude or belief of the agent…my subject concerns evaluative judgments, whether they are analyzed cognitively, prescriptively, or otherwise.” Thus he expands akrasia to include cases in which the agent seeks to fulfill desires, for example, but ends up denying himself the pleasure he has deemed most choice-worthy.

Davidson sees the problem as one of reconciling the following apparently inconsistent triad:

  • If an agent believes A to be better than B, then he wants to do A more than B.
  • If an agent wants to do A more than B, then he will do A rather than B if he only does one.
  • Sometimes an agent acts against his better judgment.

Davidson solves the problem by saying that, when people act in this way, they temporarily believe that the worse course of action is better, because they have not made an all-things-considered judgment, but only a judgment based on a subset of possible considerations.

Another contemporary philosopher, Amélie Rorty (1980) has tackled the problem by distilling out akrasia's many forms. She contends that akrasia is manifested in different stages of the practical reasoning process. She enumerates four types of akrasia: akrasia of direction or aim, of interpretation, of irrationality, and of character. She separates the practical reasoning process into four steps, showing the breakdown that may occur between each step and how each constitutes an akratic state.

Another explanation is that there are different forms of motivation which can conflict with each other. Throughout the ages, many have identified a conflict between reason and emotion, which might make it possible to believe that one should do A rather than B, but still end up wanting to do B more than A.

Psychologist George Ainslie argues that akrasia results from the empirically verified phenomenon of hyperbolic discounting, which causes us to make different judgements close to a reward than we will when further from it.[2]

[edit] Weakness of will

Much of the philosophical literature takes akrasia to be the same thing as weakness of the will. So, for example, smokers who judge that it is best for them to quit smoking, but don't quit, act against their better judgment and therein display weakness of will. That is, their being weak-willed consists in their failing to do what they think is best.

However, some have challenged the link. Richard Holton (1999), for example, argues that weakness of the will involves revising one's intentions too easily. Under this view, it is possible to act against one's better judgment (that is, be akratic), but without being weak-willed. Suppose, for example, Sarah judges that taking revenge upon a murderer is not the best course of action, but intends to take the revenge anyway and holds to that intention. According to Holton, Sarah behaves akratically but does not show weakness of will.

However, this view on akrasia falls victim to a normative view on ethics that does not account for people's judgments leading them to pursue a "bad" course of action.[citation needed] Although the person holds certain moral views in high esteem—such as, say, murder is wrong or revenge is wrong—the person, at base, holds other beliefs more strongly, such as doling out moral desserts or staying true to one's friends. With this in mind, the moral conceptual framework of the individual must be evaluated to determine the nature of the act. To show strength of will implies a pre-determined decision-making process that may or may not seem to be in conflict with generally accepted moral beliefs.

[edit] See also

Sister project Look up akrasia in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Although this philosopher's technical term is usually employed in its Greek form (i.e., akrasia/akratic) in English texts, it was once the philosophers' English language convention to use the precise English equivalent of akrasia/akratic, incontinence/incontinent. However, it now seems that the correct, widely established convention is to use the term akrasia.
  2. ^ Ainslie, George. "Picoeconomics". http://www.picoeconomics.com/. Retrieved on 2009-03-27. 

[edit] References

  • Adler, J.E., "Akratic Believing?", Philosophical Studies, Vol.110, No.1, (July 2002), pp.1–27.
  • Arpaly, N., "On Acting Rationally against One’s Best Judgement", Ethics, Vol.110, No.3, (April 2000), pp.488–513.
  • Arpaly, N. & Schroeder, T., "Praise, Blame and the Whole Self", Philosophical Studies, Vol.93, No.2, (February 1999), pp.161–188.
  • Audi, R., "Weakness of Will and Practical Judgment", Noûs, Vol.13, No.2, (May 1979), pp.173–196.
  • Bovens, L., "The Two Faces of Akratics Anonymous", Analysis, Vol.59, No.4, (October 1999), pp.230–236.
  • Cameron, M.E., "Akrasia, AIDS, and Virtue Ethics", Journal of Nursing Law, Vol.4, No.1, (1997), pp.21–33.
  • Campbell, P.G., "Diagnosing Agency", Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, Vol.7, No.2, (June 2000), pp.107–119.
  • Chan, D.K., "Non-Intentional Actions ", American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.32, No.2, (April 1995), pp.139–151.
  • Davidson, D., "How is Weakness of the Will Possible?", reprinted at pp.21–42 in Davidson, D., Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford University Press, (Oxford), 1980. (Essay originally published in 1969.)
  • Gilead, A., "How is Akrasia Possible After All?", Ratio, Vol.12, No.3, (September 1999), pp.257–270.
  • Haggard, P., Cartledge, P., Dafydd, M. & Oakley, D.A., "Anomalous Control: When ‘Free-Will’ is not Conscious", Consciousness and Cognition, Vol.13, No.3, (September 2004), pp.646–654.
  • Haji, I., "Moral Responsibility and the Problem of Induced Pro-Attitudes", Dialogue, Vol.35, No.4, (Fall 1996), pp.703–720.
  • Hardcastle, V.G., "Life at the Borders: Habits, Addictions and Self-Control", Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Vol.15, No.2, (2003), pp.243–253.
  • Hartmann, D., "Neurophysiology and Freedom of the Will", Poiesis & Praxis: International Journal of Technology Assessment and Ethics of Science, Vol.2, No.4, (May 2004), pp.275–284.
  • Harwood, Sterling, "For an Amoral, Dispositional Account of Weakness of Will," 27 Auslegung 38 (1992), reprinted in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 378–384.
  • Henry, D., "Aristotle on Pleasure and the Worst Form of Akrasia", Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol.5, No.3, (September 2002), pp.255–270.
  • Hodgson, D., "Plain Person's Free Will", Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol.12, No.1, (January 2005), pp.3–19.
  • Holton, R., "Intention and Weakness of Will", The Journal of Philosophy, Vol.96, No.5, (May 1999), pp.241–262.[1]
  • Hookway, C., "Epistemic Akrasia and Epistemic Virtue", pp.178–199 in Fairweather, A. & Zagzebski, L. (eds.), Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, Oxford University Press, (Oxford), 2001.
  • Jiang, X.-Y., "What Kind of Knowledge Does a Weak-Willed Person Have? — A Comparative Study of Aristotle and the Ch’eng-Chu School", Philosophy East & West, Vol.50, No.2, (April 2000), pp.242–253.
  • Joyce, R., "Early Stoicism and Akrasia", Phronesis: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy, Vol.40, No.3, (1995), pp.315–335.
  • Martin, M.W., "Alcoholism as Sickness and Wrongdoing", Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Vol.29, No.2, (June 1999), pp.109–131.
  • Mele, A.R., "Akrasia, Self-Control, and Second-Order Desires", Noûs, Vol.26, No.3, (September 1992), pp.281–302.
  • Mele, A.R., "Akratic Feelings", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol.50, No.2, (December 1989), pp.277–288.
  • Mele, A.R., "Incontinent Believing", Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.36, No.143, (April 1986), pp.212–222.
  • Mele, A.R., "Is Akratic Action Unfree?", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol.46, No.4, (June 1986), pp.673–679.
  • Mele, A.R., "Real Self-Deception", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol.20, No.1, (March 1997), pp.91–102.
  • Metcalfe, J. & Mischel, W., "A Hot/Cool-System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower", Psychological Review, Vol.106, No.1, (January 1999), pp.3–19.
  • Owens, D., "Epistemic Akrasia", The Monist, Vol.85, No.3, (July 2002), pp.381–397.
  • Peijnenburg, J., "Akrasia, Dispositions and Degrees", Erkenntnis, Vol.53, No.3, (2000), pp.285–308.
  • Rorty, A.O., "Political Sources of Emotions: Greed and Anger", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 22, (1998), pp. 21–33.
  • Rorty, A.O., "The Social and Political Sources of Akrasia", Ethics, Vol.107, No.4, (July 1997), pp.644–657.
  • Rorty, A.O. (1980). "Where Does the Akratic Break Take Place?" Australasian Journal of

Philosophy 58, pp. 333–46.

  • Santas, G., "Aristotle on Practical Inference, the Explanation of Action, and Akrasia", Phronesis, Vol.14, (1969), pp.162–189.
  • Santas, G., "Plato's Protagoras and Explanations of Weakness", The Philosophical Review, Vol.75, No.1, (January 1966), pp.3–33.
  • Searle, J.R., Rationality in Action, MIT Press, (Cambridge), 2001.
  • Shand, A.F., "Attention and Will: A Study in Involuntary Action", Mind, Vol.4, No.16, (October 1895), pp.450–471.
  • Stroud, Sarah. (2008). "Weakness of Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). link
  • Valverde, M., Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom, Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge), 1998.
  • Walker, A.F., "The Problem of Weakness of Will", Noûs, Vol.23, No.5, (December 1989), pp.653–676.
  • Wallace, R.J., "Three Conceptions of Rational Agency", Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol.2, No.3, (1999), pp.217–242.
  • Wegner, D.M., "Ironic Processes of Mental Control", Psychological Review, Vol.101, No.1, (1994), pp.44–52.
  • Wegner, D.M., The Illusion of Conscious Will, Bradford Books, MIT Press, (Cambridge), 2002.
  • Wegner, D.M. & Wheatley, T., "Apparent Mental Causation: Sources of the Experience of Will", American Psychologist, Vol.54, No.7, (July 1999), pp.480–492.
  • Williams, B., "Voluntary Acts and Responsible Agents", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol.10, No.1, (1990), pp.1–10.
  • Zheng, Y., "Akrasia, Picoeconomics, and a Rational Reconstruction of Judgement Formation in Dynamic Choice", Philosophical Studies, Vol.104, No.3, (June 2001), pp.227–251.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrasia"
Personal tools