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Weakness of Will as a Species of Executive Cowardice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Christine Swanton
Christine Swanton*
Affiliation:
The University of Auckland, Private Bag Auckland, New Zealand
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Extract

In this paper, I am concerned to show that a wide and interesting range of phenomena commonly described as ‘weakness of will’ should be understood as manifesting a defect of what I shall call ‘executive cowardice’ rather than a strong kind of irrationality. More specifically, I claim that such cases should not be understood as an irrational bypassing of an all-things-considered judgment about the thing to do—a view succinctly described by Peacocke thus:

The akrates is irrational because although he intentionally does something for which he has some reason, there is a wider set of reasons he has relative to which he does not judge what he does to be rational.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 123 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1991

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References

1 ‘Intention and Akrasia,’ in Vermazen, Bruce and Hintikka, Merril B. eds., Essays on Davidson Actions and Events (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1985), 52Google Scholar

2 Bratman, Michael ‘Practical Reasoning and Weakness of the Will,’ Nous 13 (1979) 153-71CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Davidson, Donald ‘How is Weakness of the Will Possible?’ in Feinberg, Joel ed., Moral Concepts (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1970), 93-113Google Scholar

4 Hare, R.M. Freedom and Reason (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1963), Chapter 5, 67-85Google Scholar

5 Watson, Gary ‘Skepticism about Weakness of Will,’ Philosophical Review 86 (1977) 316-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Pears, David Motivated Irrationality (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1984)Google Scholar

7 Schiffer, Stephen ‘A Paradox of Desire,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (1976) 159-203Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 201

9 Davidson, 113

10 ‘Restrictive Consequentialism,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (1986) 438-55

11 Silverstein, Harry S. ‘Utilitarianism and Group Co-ordination,’ Nous 13 (1979) 336CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Davidson, 101-2

13 Watson, Gary ‘Free Agency,’ The Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975) 210-11CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Ibid., 210

15 See, e.g., Robert Audi’s example of the adulterer in ‘Weakness of Will and Practical Judgment,’ Nous 13 (1979) 173-95; and Irving Thalberg’s example of the curious landlady in ‘Acting Against One’s Better Judgment,’ in Mortimore, G.W. ed., Weakness of Will (New York: Macmillan 1971) 233-53Google Scholar.

16 Schiffer, ‘A Paradox of Desire’

17 See Taylor, Charles ‘Agency and the Self,’ in Taylor, Charles Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Schiffer, 447

19 Ibid.

20 See her account of virtue as a corrective in ‘Virtue and Vices,’ in Philippa Foot, Virtue and Vices and Other Essays (Oxford: Blackwell1978), 1-18.

21 It is refreshing to see Amelie Oksenberg Rorty discuss accidie or melancholia in the context of akrasia; see ‘Where does the Akratic Break Take Place,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (1980) 333-46.

22 A version of this paper was read at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, New Zealand Division, in May 1987. Recent versions were read at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, May 1988, and to the Philosophy Department, University of Alberta, September 1988. I am grateful both to the audiences at these sessions for their comments, and to Rosalind Hursthouse, who provided comments on a recent draft. I have also benefited considerably from the comments of the anonymous referees for the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. An expanded version of this paper will appear in my forthcoming book Freedom: A Coherence Theory (Hackett).