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Weakness and compulsion: the essential difference

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13869795.2011.544398

1741-5918

Ferenc Huoranszki,

Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders

Abstract 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. Keywords: abilityweakness of the willcompulsionfree willirrationality Acknowledgements I thank Gary Watson, Tom Pink, Mike Griffin and two anonymous referees for many valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Notes On the compatibilist side, see, for instance, Ayer (Citation1982, 22); for a libertarian example, see Ginet (Citation1990, 118–21). In ‘Skepticism about Weakness of Will’, which was originally published in 1977. For an interesting early criticism, see Mele Citation1987, 27–8. For a more recent alternative account, see Smith Citation2003. It is a further and more contentious issue whether the weak-willed agent must fail to resist some temptation. Davidson Citation(1980) in his classic study on the subject argues that this is not true of all forms of weakness. Although I disagree with his general account about the weakness of will, I tend to agree with him that weakness of will is possible without temptation (see Note 23). I argue for the importance of this distinction in more detail in my Huoranszki (Citation2011, Chapter 6). I must mention that more recently Watson himself said that ‘this doctrine is unsatisfactory as it stands’. But he also claims that ‘the concept it identifies is an important one’ (Watson Citation2004, 73) and it is this claim that I wish to challenge. I assume here that the officer is not culpably ignorant because he had neither the opportunity nor the duty to learn how to decipher such texts. Watson argues convincingly against the popular view that addiction is compulsive in his ‘Disordered Appetites: Addiction, Compulsion, and Dependence’ in Watson (Citation2004, 59–87). I consider the problems about historical conditions of responsibility in more detail in my Huoranszki (Citation2011, Chapter 9). For an opposing view, see Mele Citation(1990). Perhaps, whenever we explain a human action by a human motive, it is assumed that the agent is capable of making a choice about whether or not he acts on that motive. If so, then we cannot ascribe a motive to an agent unless we assume that he has the ability both to act and to refrain from acting on that motive. My guess is that this is indeed so, but I shall not argue for this general claim here. At this point, I agree with Zaragoza Citation(2006) even if his understanding of compulsion is radically different from mine. As Watson correctly notes in Watson (Citation1977, 43–4). ‘… obsessive patients generally recognize the inappropriate, irrational, or dysfunctional character of their thoughts and may feel that they are blameworthy for thinking them. Unfortunately, such insight does not enable them to avoid thinking the obsessive thoughts’ (Stephens and Graham Citation2007, 204–5). ‘The subject feels compelled to think the thought ‘against her will’, i.e. despite her recognition that it would be better for her not to think it. She may also find herself compelled to act in response to the thought. Sometimes such actions are rationally related to the thought, e.g. checking the lock on the door in response to the thought that the door is unlocked, but they also may be purely ritualistic, e.g. counting by twos to one hundred’ (Stephens and Graham Citation2007, 205). See also Salkovskis Citation(1985). For an illuminating early comparison of the two models, see Reed Citation(1977). See Szechtman and Woody Citation(2004). As Szechtman and Woody Citation(2004) does. See Bratman classic video game example in Bratman (Citation1987, 113–6). I prefer saying that the agent must see herself as being able to perform a certain kind of action rather than believing that she is able to perform it, because the former is more general than the latter. Beliefs are propositional attitudes, but it is not clear to me that the representational content of all physical performance abilities must be propositional. The standard criteria in the DSM-IV include, indeed, intrusive thoughts that cause distress. However, it is contentious whether this feeling is or is not a necessary accompaniment of every form of compulsive behavior (see Reed Citation1985). In fact, Reed Citation(1985) argues that this is what explains the failure of cognitive therapy in many cases. See Boyer and Lienard Citation(2006). There are also interesting borderline cases. For instance, in some forms of akratic actions, agents may fail to perform what they desire more than the actually performed alternative. One can believe that it would be better to do something unconventional that he strongly desires than to follow some rigid convention. In this case, it is the performance of the desired action that may require strength and commitment. Sometimes, it is not easy at all to live up to one's own desire, and the reason is not necessarily that the agent is tempted by an even stronger one. See my Huoranszki (Citation2011, Chapter 4).