University of Groningen
Acting against one's best judgement
Peijnenburg, Adriana
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Acting Against One’s Best Judgement
An Enquiry into Practical Reasoning,
Dispositions and Weakness of Will
Jeanne Peijnenburg
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Acting Against One’s Best Judgement
An Enquiry into Practical Reasoning,
Dispositions
and Weakness of Will
Proefschrift
ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de
Wijsbegeerte
aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
op gezag van de
Rector Magnificus, Dr. F. van der Woude,
in het openbaar te verdedigen op
donderdag 31 oktober 1996
des namiddags te 4.15 uur
door
Adriana Johanna Maria Peijnenburg
geboren op 30 oktober 1952
te Eindhoven
Promotor: Prof. dr. Th.A.F. Kuipers
Referent: Dr. J.A. van Eck
Is it possible to see this simple business
as obscure and mysterious? We must try.
J.S. Bell
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
i
PART ONE
The History of the Akrasia Problem
Chapter I: From Socrates to Stoicism
0. Introduction
1. Socrates
2. Plato
3. Aristotle
3.1 Three distinctions from the Nichomachean Ethics
3.2 Two questions and the last protasis
3.3 Two readings
3.4 Conclusion and evaluation
4. The Stoics
4.1 Diogenes, Plutarch and Galen
4.2 Stoic psychology
4.2.1 Pluralism
4.2.2 Monism
4.2.3 Moderate monism
4.2.4 A note on free will
3
3
6
14
16
19
24
28
31
32
34
36
37
38
38
PART TWO
Revival in Contemporary Philosophy
Chapter II: Hempel’s Argument on Action Explanation
0. Introduction
1. The key question
43
46
2. Action explanations as dispositional explanations
3. Action explanations as rational explanations
3.1 Four comments
3.2 Acting rationally: the higher-order disposition
to comply with decision theory
4. Criticism of Hempel’s argument
4.0 Introduction
4.1 The Erklären-Verstehen controversy
Chapter III: The Logical Connection Argument
0. Introduction
1. Intentions, reasons, causes
2. The logical connection argument
3. The analyticity of the rationality assumption or
the pseudo-character of DIF-2
3.1 Carnap’s reduction sentences
3.2 Dispositions
3.3 Broad dispositions
3.4 Higher-order dispositions
3.5 Excursion: epistemic interdependence
3.6 Higher-order dispositions again
4. The analyticity of the empirical law assumption or
the pseudo-character of DIF-1
5. Objections
6. The return of the akrasia problem
Chapter IV: Davidson’s Argument on Causality
0. Introduction
1. An ontology of events as particulars
1.1 Quantifying over events
1.2 Solving two problems
2. A problem in the classical causalist view
3. Three noteworthy distinctions
3.1 DISTINCTION 1: events and descriptions of events
3.1.1 Pros and cons of the identity thesis
3.1.2 Davidson’s response to Goldman’s arguments
3.2 DISTINCTION 2: mental descriptions and
physical descriptions
49
53
54
59
61
61
62
67
67
72
78
79
84
86
90
91
94
95
96
98
103
106
106
108
111
115
116
118
122
123
3.2.1 Mental events and physical events
3.2.2 Ontological token identity
3.3 Two thorny questions
3.4 DISTINCTION 3: causal statements and causal
explanations
3.4.1 Anomalous monism
3.4.2 Causal statements and causal explanations
3.4.3 The explanation of actions
3.5 Summary and conclusions
4. Problems
4.1 Unsolved problems
4.2 Akrasia
123
126
129
131
131
134
137
140
142
142
145
PART THREE
Towards a Solution
Chapter V: The Concept of a Partitioned Mind
0. Introduction
1. Split brains
2. Divided minds
2.1 Standard economics and the divided mind
2.2 Kenneth May’s model
2.3 Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
2.4 The model of Steedman and Krause
2.4.1 A multi-faceted individual
2.4.2 Types of character
2.4.3 Partial success
2.5 More difficulties
Chapter VI: The Davidsonian Division
0. Introduction
1. An apparent paradox: Davidson’s version of
the akrasia problem
2. Freudian thoughts
2.1 Three Freudian theses
2.2 Partitioning and structuring the mind
2.3 Inner conflicts and conflicting practical syllogisms
149
152
156
157
160
162
165
165
168
173
176
179
180
183
184
185
186
2.4 Handling the conflict
2.4.1 Two solutions
2.4.2 A higher-order syllogism
2.4.3 Prima facie and sans phrase
2.4.4 Practical reasoning and probabilistic reasoning:
similarities
2.4.5 Practical reasoning and probabilistic reasoning:
a difference
2.4.6 The principle of continence
2.4.7 The logical possibility of akrasia
2.4.8 The second revision
2.5 The factual possibility of akrasia and the existence
of causal relations between mental parts
3. Evaluation and conclusion
Chapter VII: Dispositions and Reduction Sentences
0. Introduction
1. Positions in the debate on action explanation
2. A common misinterpretation
2.1 Events as causes
2.2 Application to reduction sentences
3. Hempel’s approach gradualised
4. Making the reduction sentences probable
Chapter VIII: Reichenbach’s Probability Meaning
0. Introduction
1. Reichenbach’s gradualisation: probability meaning
2. Probability meaning: implications and resemblance to
Hempel’s probabilistic reduction sentences
2.1 Resemblance to probabilistic reduction sentences
2.2 Reduction and projection
2.3 Abstracta, illata and the question of existence
3. Reichenbach and Carnap
3.1 Three similarities
3.2 Excursion: open and closed terms
3.3 A difference
4. Are beliefs and desires abstracta or illata?
4.1 The first two groups
187
189
191
192
194
201
205
206
209
213
218
221
227
228
231
234
236
237
241
241
247
247
249
252
255
256
258
262
264
265
4.2 The third group
268
Chapter IX: Gradualised Dispositions and Degrees of Strength
0. Introduction
1. An example: agoraphobia
2. AP as an illatum
2.1 On the reduction sentence (IX.5)
2.2 Ways to escape
2.3 On the reduction sentence (IX.4)
2.4 A daring detour
3. Origin of the problem and solution
3.1 Analytic and synthetic
3.2 Pap’s degree of entailment
3.3 Gradualised dispositions
3.3.1 An intuition: degree of intensity
3.3.2 A distinction among events
3.3.3 Agoraphobia again
3.3.4 Gradualisations: differences in domain and nature
3.3.5 Gradualising simple dispositions
3.3.6 Knowing what and knowing how much
4. Affinities with other views
273
273
276
277
279
281
282
283
284
286
288
290
291
293
296
298
302
306
Bibliography
311
Index of Names
329
Summary in Dutch
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Were it not for the material support of the Netherlands Organisation for
Scientific Research (NWO), and the immaterial backing of friends,
colleagues, and supervisors, this book would not have been written.
First of all I would like to thank my promotor, Professor Theo
Kuipers, for his finely balanced and unfailingly encouraging supervision in
the course of the years. I am also grateful to Dr Job van Eck, who, as a
referee, made numerous suggestions for improvement. I thank Professor Joop
Doorman, Professor Dagfinn Føllesdal, and Professor Erik Krabbe. They
formed an almost ideal Reading Committee in that they meticulously read
(and corrected!) even the bibliography, all within a short space of time.
Friends have been indispensable. Some of them witnessed the
gestation of this book from day to day. I am especially grateful to Jeroen
and Jet, with whom I tried to explain into the wee hours many a true-to-life
akratic action. I thank Han and Jan, Arjo and Thijs, Sara, and my
‘paranimfen’ Linus and Rinus. The members of the Promotion Club
Cognitive Patterns (PCCP) read most of the manuscript, and provided me
with useful comments. The administrative staff of the Faculty of Philosophy
has been very helpful, especially Ate Veenstra, who made the layout and
helped with the printing. David Atkinson fashioned the cover, and he
carefully checked the Dutch, the French, the German, the Latin, and, now
and then, the English sentences. I dedicate this book to Japi, the scrounger
in Nescio’s story, who also has a fundamentum in re.
INTRODUCTION
Is it possible to act against your own best judgement? Can you do something
intentionally, i.e. knowingly and uncompelled, thinking at the moment when
you do it that it would be better, all-things-considered, if you did not do it?
That is the main problem of this book. Before going into it, let me
first explain what it is not. First, it is not merely a moral problem, although
it is easily and often depicted that way. Whether or not someone can go
against his best judgement is a general question that has to be dealt with in
action theory, not just in ethics. Ethics only comes in when the judgement
concerned is a moral one. To that extent, the ethical approach to our
problem might considered to be a special case of the general action
theoretical analysis, or as John Benson would have it: "Moral weakness is
just one variety of weakness of will." (Benson 1968, 201). Second, the
problem is not how someone can change his mind. Changing your mind no
doubt involves a complicated process which gives rise to many interesting
philosophical questions. But those are not the questions I am interested in
here. Third, the problem is also not whether someone’s actions are free or
determined. The debate on actions and free will is as old as it is fascinating,
and it has not been satisfactorily settled. Yet I will pass it by. The only
place where I will again mention the free will problem is in Section 4.2.4
of Chapter I, where I make the conjecture that questions related to free will
spring from the problem that interests me here.
The problem can also be phrased as follows: is it possible for a man
to act akratically? Can a man be an akratès? As can already be inferred from
the title of Hintikka 1988 (‘Was Leibniz’s Deity an Akrates?’), the question
is not confined to the sublunary species that we know and love. However,
I think the entire subject is already difficult enough in its restriction to
mortals, and I shall, therefore, leave God for what He is.
The adverb ‘akratically’, and the noun ‘akratès’ are connected to
the Greek noun akrasia or akrateia, usually translated by ‘lack of selfcontrol’, ‘immoderateness’, ‘intemperance’, or ‘weakness of will’. More
recent translations of akrasia are ‘irrationality’, or even ‘incontinence’, thus
calling forth undesired associations of physiological ailment. In recent times
authors have distinguished between strict, hard, clear-eyed, synchronic or
prima-facie akrasia on the one hand, and broad, soft, diachronic or apparent
i
Introduction
akrasia on the other (Inwood 1985; Mele 1987; Charlton 1988; Penner 1990;
Price 1995). Roughly speaking, broad akrasia covers cases in which an
agent fails to stand by a previous decision about what he will do. Suppose
a man wants a glass of wine, and consequently takes one, although the other
day he has decided not to drink any more. Then his drinking is an akratic
action in the broad sense of the word; at the very moment the man starts to
drink, he prefers drinking over not drinking. As will be clear from this
example, broad akrasia usually touches upon the question of how someone
can change his mind. Since that is not the question I am dealing with here,
my use of the word akrasia refers to strict (hard, clear-eyed, synchronic)
akrasia. A strict akratic action goes against a judgement which the agent still
considers the best at the time of the action.
Are such actions possible, then? It seems rather foolish to deny that
they are. Daily life is full of akratic actions, and a substantial part of the
world literature would be inconceivable without them. Homerus’ Helena
knows she should not run away with Paris, yet she lets him abduct her.
Euripides’ Medea knows she should not murder her children, still she
perpetrates the blood-curdling crime. Flaubert’s Emma Bovary firmly
decides not to see Rodolphe anymore, nonetheless she looks for him in the
woods around Yonville. "I do know where [the truth] lies", twenty-eightyear-old Vita Sackville-West writes on the first page of her diary, "but I
have no strength to grasp it; here I am already in the middle of my
infirmities." In his characteristic, visionary style Frederik van Eeden
described the phenomenon thus:
"Feeling myself to be a helpless thing driven by irresistible
forces. Feeling myself to be split in two, one that acts, the
other that observes, shocked, and asks: ‘what are you
doing? That is not at all what you want? Don’t do it. Are
you really doing it?’" (Van Eeden 1892, 349).1
1
My translation of: "Mijzelf voelen een hulpeloos ding, dat gedreven wordt door
oversterke machten. Mijzelf voelen twee, de een die doet, de ander die verschrikt toeziet
en vraagt: ’wat doe je? Dat wil je immers niet? Doe het niet. Doe je het nu toch?’"
About the same time, the French novelist Alphonse Daudet exclaimed on the first page
of his Notes sur la vie: "Homo duplex, homo duplex! ... This horrible duality has often
given me matter for reflection. Oh, this terrible second me, always seated whilst the
other is on foot, acting, living, suffering, bestirring itself. This second me that I have
ii
Introduction
A walking, or perhaps we had better say reclining, example of an akratès is
Gontsjarov’s Oblomov. Oblomov very well knows that he should get up and
dress himself; in fact, several times a day he solemnly decides to do so. Yet
he stays in bed, continuing the cantankerous squabbles with his servant
Zahar. In 1864 Fjodor Dostoyevsky published a novel which is entirely
devoted to the phenomenon of akratic actions, Notes from Underground. In
this brief but psychologically rich book the ‘I’ argues that man often acts
against his own interest, and that this exactly is what makes man human.
Man is, ‘I’ argues, just like that friend of his:
"You see, ladies and gentlemen, I have a friend - of
course, he’s your friend, too, and, in fact, everyone’s
friend. When he’s about to do something, this friend
explains pompously and in detail how he must act in
accordance with the precepts of justice and reason.
Moreover, he becomes passionate as he expostulates upon
human interests. ... Then, ... without any apparent external
cause, ..., he pirouettes and starts saying exactly the
opposite of what he was saying before; that is, he
discredits the laws of logic and his own advantage. ...
Now, since my friend is a composite type, he cannot be
dismissed as an odd individual." (Notes from Underground,
Chapter VII, translation by A.R. MacAndrew; cf. Davidson
1970a, 29, footnote 12, which, too, contains a quote from
the book).
Long before Dostoyevsky, the phenomenon of akratic actions stupefied
Augustine of Hippo. The mind orders itself to will, Augustine argues, and
in doing so the mind itself is willing something; yet what it wills it does not
do. "How can this incredible thing be? Why is this so?", Augustine
repeatedly exclaims, as usual slightly in despair.2 Indeed, Augustine made
matters even more complex by his puzzling prayer in the Confessiones VIII,
never been able to intoxicate, to make shed tears, or put to sleep. And how it sees into
things, and how it mocks!" (translated and quoted by William James - James 1901-1902,
173).
2
"Unde hoc monstrum? Et quare istuc?" (Confessiones VIII, 9).
iii
Introduction
7, which became a famous joke: "Give me chastity and continence, Lord, but
not yet." Paul, to mention another sinner who rose to be a saint, seems to
have been entangled in a similar struggle. His lament to the Romans is wellknown: "For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but
what I hate, that I do. ... the good that I would I do not: but the evil which
I would not, that I do." (Romans 7:15, 7:19). P.L. Gardiner, not a saint but
at any rate an ethicist, even goes so far as to deny that akratic actions are
exceptions. They are part of normal human behaviour, Gardiner argues; it
is the non-akratic behaviour that is peculiar and thus in need of an
explanation (Gardiner 1954; a similar opinion is put forward by Horsburgh
in Horsburgh 1954).
Even though akratic actions are part and parcel of daily life and
classic literature, they nonetheless constitute a grave problem for scientists
and philosophers. Disparate philosophers and many psychologists have tried
to capture the meaning and the origin of akratic behaviour. As for
philosophy, most of the attempts to understand akrasia are made explicitly,
as in Mele’s Irrationality, Davidson’s ‘How is Weakness of the Will
Possible?’, or Jeffrey’s ‘Preference among Preferences’. But there also exist
implicit attempts. An example of the latter is Anscombe’s famous study on
intention. Anscombe’s book gained wide attention and became a classic in
the field; yet it has been scarcely noticed that it is, at least in part, an
attempt to cope with akrasia. The book culminates in a reference to the
akratic behaviour of yet another saint, viz. St. Peter. While Jesus was led
away to Annas and Caiaphas, Peter "did not change his mind about denying
Christ, and was not prevented from carrying out his resolution not to, and
yet did deny him" (Anscombe 1957, 93). In order to explain this fullblooded akratic action, Anscombe is driven back to assumptions about
"ignorance as to the way in which the prophecy would be fulfilled"
(Anscombe 1957, 94). Only by invoking such miraculous presumptions can
she draw her final conclusion and write down the last words of her fine
book: "thus St. Peter could do what he intended not to, without changing his
mind, and yet do it intentionally" (Anscombe 1957, 94). In the sequel I will
cite Anscombe several times, but contrary to her approach I shall eschew
invoking the Christian Revelation.
As far as the interest of psychologists in akrasia is concerned, we
can point to all of those psychological experiments which tell us that
irrational actions do occur, even though they are very difficult to understand.
In an interview granted to Fred Backus of NRC-Handelsblad, Nico Frijda
iv
Introduction
mentions the occurrence of irrational actions as an example of whatpsychology-does-not-yet-understand:
NF: For instance, how does it happen that people do things
they know to be irrational.
FB: They react with their reptile brain.
NF: Yes, but that is no answer. Because they know that
they react with their reptile brain and at the same time
they know that it is not rational. I have not managed to
find a conclusive explanation for this; by the way, no one
has.3
The philosopher and psychologist Jaap van Heerden confides a similar
thought to Max Pam of Vrij Nederland:
"People perform actions that they did not intend, or even
positively wished to avoid. ... Human behaviour is
miraculously contradictory. Apparently you don’t want
what you want most."4
In this domain, Van Heerden argues, it is practically impossible to measure
or to explain something in a scientific manner. If we want to explain
irrational behaviour, then we must accept "the unconscious". On the other
3
My translation of:
NF: "Hoe het bijvoorbeeld komt dat mensen dingen doen waarvan ze wéten dat ze niet
verstandig zijn."
FB: Ze reageren vanuit hun reptielehersenen.
NF: "Ja, maar dat is geen antwoord. Want ze weten dat ze vanuit hun reptielehersenen
reageren en tegelijkertijd weten ze dat het niet verstandig is. Om daar een sluitende
verklaring voor te vinden - dat is mij nog niet gelukt. Niemand trouwens." (In: De mond
vol tanden. Dertig vraaggesprekken over wat de wetenschap niet weet. Prometheus,
Amsterdam, 1992, 93.)
4
"Mensen verrichten handelingen die zij niet van plan waren, of eigenlijk in het
geheel niet wilden. ... Het menselijk gedrag is wonderlijk tegenstrijdig. Kennelijk wil je
niet wat je het liefste wilt" (Vrij Nederland 27-5-1978).
v
Introduction
hand, Van Heerden realises very well that "methodologists will immediately
raise the objection that the unconscious is an unworkable concept."5 Later
I will try to do what Van Heerden thinks is impossible: account for irrational
behaviour without using the concept of the unconsciousness.
This book consists in three parts. The first part deals with the
history of the akrasia problem. It comprises only one chapter, in which I
describe how the old Greeks and the early Stoics struggled with the problem.
Then I make a huge jump, leaping right over the Middle Ages and early
modern times, to the contemporary scene discussed in Part Two. I argue that
the old akrasia problem, after having lain dormant for ages, reappeared on
the philosophical stage as a result of the debate on action explanation.
Within this debate I distinguish three different factions, headed respectively
by Carl G. Hempel, Georg Henrik von Wright and Donald Davidson. Their
positions are discussed in Chapters II, III and IV. I explain that each of the
factions stumbles upon the akrasia problem, and that none of them is able
to solve it. Part Three is called ‘Towards a Solution’. It has five chapters,
of which the first, Chapter V, is about the notion of a divided mind. This
chapter mainly serves as an introduction to Chapter VI, which is devoted to
Davidson’s famous solution of the akrasia problem. In that chapter I show
how Davidson’s solution makes use of three Freudian ideas: the idea that the
mind consists of parts, that among the parts conflicts may arise, and that the
parts can interact causally. Especially the latter idea, the idea of mental
causation, will prove to be bothersome. In Chapters VII-IX I develop my
own solution, from which the concept of mental causation is banished
altogether. The crucial notion in my approach is the notion of grade or
degree. I distinguish between degrees of probability on the one hand and
degrees of intensity or strength on the other. As far as degrees of probability
are concerned, I extend an argument concerning the works of Hempel and
Hans Reichenbach (Chapter VII and Chapter VIII), only to show why their
approaches are unsatisfactory. In Chapter IX I maintain that the notion of
degrees of strength can give us a better understanding of what happens when
a person acts irrationally.
5
"Op dat terrein is het vrijwel onmogelijk iets te meten of wetenschappelijk te
verklaren en methodologen zullen dan ook onmiddellijk naar voren brengen dat het
onbewuste een onhanteerbaar begrip is" (ibid.).
vi