The Space of Reasons 2008-05-15

Davidson on Weakness of Will

According to Davidson, some agent a acts incontinently in performing some action x iff: (D1) a does x intentionally; (D2) a believes there is an alternative action y open to him; and (D3) a judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x.For example, we can imagine an agent, let us call him Mr. Smith, who has the all-things-considered judgement that it would be better not to have a third glass of wine, and yet—freely, deliberately, and for a reason—proceeds to have a third glass of wine. Thus described, Mr. Smith would constitute an incontinent agent. Given the above definition of incontinence, the following three principles seem to be in conflict: (P1) If some agent a wants to do x more that she wants to do y and she believes herself free to ...

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