On Strength of Will

Diplôme Thèse On Strength of Will eng 2023 2023 author Rebourg Antoine 691296 director Deonna Julien 0000-0003-2237-4444 83202 Département de philosophie (PHIL1) director Holton Richard 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:168321 urn:nbn:ch:unige-1683219 L. 1079 In this thesis, I explore the concepts of willpower and self-control from the perspective of their psychological underpinnings, their rational standing, and their value. Negatively, I criticize the views on which our capacity to overcome conflicting motivations exclusively depends on cognitive mental processes and I reject the idea that we should distinguish between "synchronic" and "diachronic" self-control. Positively, I argue that self-control is best construed as a skill that involves the flexible interplay of cognitive, affective and subpersonal processes. Self-control and willpower, I also insist, are distinctively normative concepts in the following sense: to exhibit self-control is to act under the guidance of one's perception of reasons. Drawing from this view, I turn to the opposite notion, weakness of will. I defend a unified account of weakness of will that reconciles the traditional Aristotelian-Davidsonian view, on which weak-willed agency is agency that runs against one's better judgment, and the revisionary Holtonian view, on which weakness of will is a kind of irresoluteness. I also provide sustained criticism of the now-popular view that weakness of will can be rational. Finally, I tackle the question of what makes strength of will a valuable skill. I argue that in addition to its much-discussed pragmatic and ethical benefits, strength of will yields epistemic benefits when stably manifested over time, to the extent that it enables us to acquaint ourselves, through temporally extended agency, with the (dis)value of ends and our personal reasons to pursue them or not. The resulting picture is one where practical reason has a distinctively experimental dimension. Willpower Self-control Action theory Skill Rationality Moral psychology Dewey 128.37 Dewey 100/501 89 Département de philosophie 3G 15 Centre interfacultaire en sciences affectives 0D8 false 961 Thumos c6d64a1e-2da6-4cd1-a4bd-aecc4e148efb Thesis Private ARebourg_OnStrengthOfWill_Dissertat.pdf 1287124 application/pdf 77a3bed2d42d3daa877656b19ed259dc1921868843928425e31ea6d45e29fdd5 26292a0e-c441-4d08-bdd4-daf20820de98 Imprimatur Public REBOURG_Imprimatur signé.pdf 52684 application/pdf 7ae2f5e5fb3cadc35c435551e8af032f51678ef3fe21168378ce58c7affd563c closedAccess Faculté des lettres / Département de philosophie Centres et instituts / Centre interfacultaire en sciences affectives

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On Strength of Will				2023	415	0

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Rebourg, Antoine

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