Weakness of will

Perhaps these worries can be met by suitable refinements. Another, even more obvious, concern comes to the fore in Glover s discussion to avoid conflating incapacity and incontinence. How is unalterability to be distinguished from weakness of will 18 Here is Glover s suggestion ... 

The appeal to choice suggests a further complication. An intention might be unalterable because it expresses a determination to close off further consideration. Such resolution might be a kind of strength, if not a virtue, or it might just be stubbornness—but it should not count as compulsive. (Nor, indeed, as weakness of will.)... 

Understood in this way, compelling desires are often implicated in a kind of impairment of normative competence.21 This impairment admits of degrees and does not entail complete incapacity. I am inclined to see the distinction between weakness and compulsion as a normative one Roughly, individuals we describe as weakly giving into temptation are those who reasonably could be expected to have resisted or to have developed the capacities to resist. This view locates compulsion toward one end of a continuum that includes weakness of will those at this end of the continuum are subject to such strong desires that it is unreasonable to expect even a strong-willed person to hold out.22... 

Watson, Gary, 1977. "Skepticism About Weakness of Will." Philosophical Review (April) 316-39. 

Gosling, Justin. 1990. Weakness of Will. London Routledge. 

When philosophers refer to the problem or weakness of will and the problem of self-deception, they usually have in mind the question how these phenomena are at all possible. Davidson and Pears have pioneered in offering non-mythical answers to that question. When non-philosophers refer to these problems, they are more likely to have in mind the question how weakness of will and self-deception can be overcome. Both questions turn upon the notion of the divided self. For these paradoxical phenomena to be possible, there must be some breakdown of internal communication in the mind. To restore communication, or to prevent the defective lines from doing serious damage, some further action is required. Whether this also needs a separate, further agent is more doubtful. While it might appear that a third party is needed to prevent the subversive action of one part of the self against another, it is more plausible to identify the referee with one of the parts - but operating at a different time. I return to this issue in several later sections. 

Weakness of will, as traditionally conceived, is a problem of impulsive behaviour. It is clear, however, that impulsiveness is neither sufficient nor necessary for weakness of will. It is not sufficient, since the totally impulsive person, in whom there is no inner conflict, cannot be subject to weakness of will. That notion requires both that there is a conflict between two opposed wishes, and that the wish that the person himself judges to be the more decisive loses out. Nor does weakness of will always take the form of giving in to impulsive urges. As noted by Davidson (1980, p. 30), compulsive, rigid, rule-governed behaviour can also be a form of weakness of will, that is, acting against one s own... 

Consider next weakness of will in the simple or the complex form (i.e. with exponential or non-exponential time-discounting). This has been the paradigm for writers on strategic manipulation of the self... 

Elster, J. (1983) Weakness of will and the free-rider problem, Economics and Philosophy 1,231-66. 

The essays in this volume consider the question of whether the self is a unity or whether it should be conceived without metaphor as divided - as a multiple self. The issue is a central one for several disciplines. It bears directly on the account of rationality and the explanation of individual decision-making and behaviour. Is the hypothesis of a multiple self required to deal with the problems of self-deception and weakness of will and can the conceptual tools developed in the study of interpersonal conflict be applied to the analysis of intra-personal struggle ... 

Player II might also bum his bridges if he anticipates that weakness of will may prevent him from fighting if he has another way out. 

IS I am not referring here to weakness of will. As 1 said earlier, and will explain in the next chapter, there can be impulsiveness without weakness of will. 

Self-destructive behavior is not in itself a sign of weakness of will. A person who doesn t care about the future, or who cares consistently less about it than he does about the present, does not suffer the frustrating experience of doing what, all things considered, he would rather not do. That experience arises when the discounting of the future takes a special form, which prevents us from holding consistently to past decisions. 

These are examples of weakness of will. I decide to do something, but when the time comes to execute the decision I do something else. This phenomenon cannot be reduced to a tendency to favor the present over the future, or the near future over the distant future. That tendency might explain my never making an appointment with the dentist in the first place, but not my making it and then canceling it. It could explain why I spend most of my inheritance in the first year, but not why I... 

In this case, the present has the same status relative to the near future as the near future to the more distant future. An implication is that, if one option is preferred to another at some time before the time of choice, it is preferred to the other at all times. In other words, the person will not change his mind as the time lo consummate the choice approaches. Although he behaves impulsively, he is not subject to weakness of will. 

Here the present counts for more relative to the near future than does the near future relative to the distant future. Because of this, preference reversal may occur. At time /. B ceases to be the most preferred option and A begins to look more attractive, right up to the time of choice. This is weakness of will the inability to do what, all things considered, one believes one should do. 

II To cope with weakness of will one can also act on one s desires, so as to make the temptation seem less attractive when it arrives. Weighiwatchers religiously follow the principle "Never shop on an empty stomach." Some people ask to be hypnotized to acquire an aversion to smoking. This technique. while less costly than the others, is also much more rarely applicable. 

One can also cope with weakness of will by creating new principles for mental bookkeeping, without any intervention in the external world. The trick is to put oneself in a frame of mind in which one violation of the rule allows one to predict rule violations on all later occasions. "If I take a second helping of cream cake today. I m just fooling myself if I think 1 won t do it the next time. Since there is nothing special about this occasion, the causes that make me yield to temptation today will have the same effect on the next occasion." By setting up this domino eflert, I raise the slakes. One cigarette - just one - will inevitably lead me back to a pack a day. One drink, and I am on the... 

As mentioned in chapter IV. they may also, but in their very different way, suffer from weakness of will. 

An individual usually knows what he wants 1 have argued that a society does not. An individual can usually do what he has decided to do I shall argue that a society cannot. For the individual, there is no gap between decision and execution, barring weakness of will and physical inability. The transmis-... 

Among Racine s plays, Phedre is often singled out as offering the most vivid portrait of passion, and it is indeed a stunning portrayal of the power of adulterous love. Stephen Holmes has recently argued for a connection between Ph tre s psychology and Descartes s Passions of the Soul, emphasizing her weakness of will and inability to control her emotions.112 In my opinion Racine has more in common with La Rochefoucauld. Whether one reads Racine as a Jansenist and therefore close to La Rochefoucauld,113 or (less plausibly) as a neo-Epicurean and therefore close to La Rochefoucauld,114 he is far from the neo-Stoic views of Descartes. 

We may compare Hermione and Phfedre with a third seventeenth-century heroine, the Princesse de Clfcves in Mme. de Lafayette s novel of the same name. All three experience passionate love, yet suffer very different effects. Hermione deceives herself about her emotion. Phfedre remains for the most part lucid but succumbs to weakness of will. The Princesse de Clfeves exhibits lucidity and willpower, remaining virtuous in the face of a passion for a man other than her husband. 

Charlton, William. 1988. Weakness of Will. Oxford Basil Blackwell. 

---