Conflicting Judgments and Weakness of Will
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Conflicting Judgments and Weakness of Will Nora Heinzelmann 1,2 Received: 26 March 2020 / Revised: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 29 July 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper shows that our popular account of weakness of will is inconsistent with dilemmas. In dilemmas, agents judge that they ought to do one thing, that they ought to do something else, and that they cannot do both. They must act against either of their two judgments. But such action is commonly understood as weakness of will. An agent is weak-willed in doing something if she judges that she ought to and could do something else instead. Thus, it seems that, in a dilemma, the agent is weak-willed by definition. But this is puzzling: clearly, the two are different phenomena. The puzzle may support scepticism about weakness of will or dilemmas. Here, I argue that the two are consistent on a revised understanding of weakness of will. To do so, I further distinguish the mental states of an agent in a dilemma from those of a weak-willed person. Keywords Dilemmas . Weakness of will . Conflict . Judgment . Davidson
1 Introduction In a conflict of judgment, the agent must pick one of several1 mutually exclusive options without being aware of decisive reasons to choose one rather than another. We can divide such cases into mild conflicts and dilemmas. In a mild conflict, the agent judges that, prima facie, they ought to φ (rather than ψ), and that, prima facie, they ought to ψ (rather than φ). They also judge that they cannot both φ and ψ. Perhaps she also judges that, overall, she ought to either φ or ψ. In a dilemma, the agent believes of each option that she ought to choose it. That is, she judges that, overall, she ought to φ. 1
I focus on conflicts about two options.
* Nora Heinzelmann [email protected]
1
Institute for Philosophy, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bismarckstrasse 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
2
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich 80539 Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, Germany
Philosophia
She also judges that, overall, she ought to ψ. As in a mild conflict, the agent also judges that she cannot both φ and ψ. Imagine an agent in a dilemma ends up, say, φing. When she φs, she at the same time judges that she ought to and could have acted differently: she could have ψed. The agent then fulfils the conditions for what is commonly understood as weakness of the will. An agent is weak-willed in failing to φ if she judges, overall, that she ought to φ and that it is possible for her to do so. In a dilemma, the agent is thus weak-willed by definition. But this is puzzling: weakness of will and dilemmas are two different phenomena. A range of reactions is available to address this puzzle. For one thing, sceptics about weakness of will or dilemmas may see the issue as independent support for their positions. Here, I develop a different response: I argue that plausible accounts of dilemmas and weakness of will can be given that are consistent with one another. The p
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