Akrasia

Housing policy and common sense: an inquiry and a method

by Albert Schorsch

Dissertation, Copyright 1992, Albert J. Schorsch, III, All Rights Reserved

This Dissertation situates a review of federal housing policy within a discussion of common sense, and focuses this... more This Dissertation situates a review of federal housing policy within a discussion of common sense, and focuses this discussion on the public policy issues involving the effects of changes in the homeowner's mortgage interest tax deduction. By considering questions relating to common sense, qualitative and quantitative induction, and certainty, it also begins to structure a rationale and method for the choice of appropirate policy analysis tools for this and related housing policy questions. Housing policy is examined in the context of chaos, akrasia, free market assumptions, and or rational expectations theory.

The judgment of a weak will

by Sergio Tenenbaum

Huck Finn the Inverse Akratic: Empathy and Justice

by Chad Kleist

"Further Applications" (Chapter 8 of *Mind and Supermind*)

by Keith Frankish

Eprint of the final chapter of my *Mind and Supermind* (CUP 2004)

This chapter sketches some applications of the two-level framework developed in the book, focusing on akrasia,... more This chapter sketches some applications of the two-level framework developed in the book, focusing on akrasia, self-deception, and first-person authority. To understand the details, you'll need to read the earlier chapters, but the general ideas should be clear enough. I particularly like the applications to akrasia and first-person authority, and I plan to develop them in more detail in new  papers.

Have we vindicated the motivational unconscious yet? A conceptual review

by Alexandre Billon

Forthcoming in Frontiers in psychoanalysis and neuropsychanalysis

Motivationally unconscious (M-unconscious) states are unconscious states that can directly motivate a subject’s... more Motivationally unconscious (M-unconscious) states are unconscious states that can directly motivate a subject’s behavior and whose unconscious character typically results from a form of repression. The basic argument for M-unconscious states claims that they provide the best explanation to some seemingly non rational behaviors, like akrasia, impulsivity or apparent self-deception. This basic argument has been challenged on theoretical, empirical and conceptual grounds. Drawing on recent works on apparent self-deception and on the ‘cognitive unconscious’ I assess those objections. I argue that (i) even if there is a good theoretical argument for its existence, (ii) most empirical vindications of the M-unconscious miss their target. (iii) As for the conceptual objections, they compel us to modify the classical picture of the M-unconscious. I conclude that M-unconscious states and processes must be affective states and processes that the subject really feels and experiences —and which are in this sense conscious— even though they are not, or not well, cognitively accessible to him. Dual process psychology and the literature on cold-hot empathy gaps partly support the existence of such M-unconscious states.

How to Act Against Your Better Judgement

by Constantine Sandis

Unocrrected Proofs, please do not quote (for example the references to 'Charles Taylor' are actually to Christopher Taylor!) Final version available here: Philosophical Frontiers 3.2 (2008). Reprinted in commemorative book (2009)

Those who object to Donald Davidson’s understanding of how so-called weakness of the will is possible tend to argue... more Those who object to Donald Davidson’s understanding of how so-called weakness of the will is possible tend to argue that he is in some way committed to claiming that the weak-willed agent holds contradictory judgements in deliberation. In this paper I try to refine the more ambiguous aspects of Davidson’s account in the light of some such objections, with the hope of showing that there is nothing paradoxical in what Davidson says. This refinement points to a different kind of weakness in Davidson’s account, namely that it only deals with the kind of akrasia which Aristotle referred to as propeteia, when the case that is meant to me truly puzzling case is that of astheneia. I next argue that despite the failings of his explanation - which stem from his motivation internalism - Davidson’s theory is essentially equipped with the right distinctions to show how astheneia may be possible after all.
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Is the Design(er) Able of Enkratic Behaviour?

by Luís M Inácio

Inácio, L. M. & Gerardo, R. (2006, October). Is the Design(er) Able of Enkratic Behaviour?. Paper
presented at the WonderGround: Design Research Society International Conference 2006, in Lisbon,
Portugal.

We believe designers ought to be able to perform their activity in a “good way”, assuming that their actions transform... more We believe designers ought to be able to perform their activity in a “good way”, assuming that their actions transform the everyday life for better; however, endorsing a close analysis to some of the consequences of the design activity, we realize that the impact of the designed is, sometimes, a negative one.
Can we explain why the design activity doesn’t have a consistent ethical behaviour? To answer this question, we will discuss a meta-moral philosophy of design framework – in connection to philosophy of action and moral philosophy – discussing, in this paper, the: (1) the morality of Design, and, (2) moral actions of the designer. Determining if it is possible to account a pre-responsibility on the designer, on is actions, providing a reflection on the enkratic (mastery or continence on moral actions) and therefore akratic (incontinence in moral actions) behaviours. In this sense, we will not focus our study of akrasia in the objects, the consequents of action of the designer, but in the process, construction of intentions, and the
subsequent actions performed by the responsibility of the designer.
Keywords: philosophy of design, design ethics, design theory.

Davidson on Rationality and Irrationality

by Simone Gozzano

In M. De Caro (Ed) Interpretations and Causes. New Perspectives on Donald Davidson's Philosophy, Synthese Library 285, Kluwer, Dordrech 1999, pp. 137-49.

In this paper I argue that Davidson's solution to the paradoxes of irrationality is incompatible with his holistic... more In this paper I argue that Davidson's solution to the paradoxes of irrationality is incompatible with his holistic assumption on the mental.