INCONTINENCE, HONOURING SUNK COSTS AND RATIONALITY According to a basic principle of rationality, the decision to engage in a course of action should be determined solely by the analysis of its consequences. Thus, considerations associated with previous use of resources should have no bearing on an agent’s decision-making process. Frequently, however, agents persist carrying on an activity they themselves judge to be nonoptimal under the circumstances because they have already allocated resources to that activity. When this is the case, (...) agents are said to be honouring sunk costs. Honouring sunk costs is thus typically viewed as irrational economic behaviour. Two striking findings of the psychological literature on the sunk cost effect are that it is, in general, not lessened by having taken previously courses in economics, and that agents who did take such courses and that do honour sunk costs seem to be frequently aware of a cognitive dissonance in their behaviour. Davidson’s account of the possibility conditions of incontinent action renders continent action materially unfeasible. The very idea of incontinent action becomes thus a hollow one. I’ll present an alternative description of these possibility conditions that renders continent action materially feasible, and both, continent and incontinent action, cognitively plausible. In a nutshell, my proposal rests upon the drawing of an essential cognitive contrast between explicit processes of deliberative reasoning and lower level heuristic procedures. I conclude the paper arguing that my redescription of incontinent action accounts for the above mentioned cognitive dissonance effect better than the alternatives and that viewing at least an important subset of behaviours of honouring sunk costs as incontinent actions will enable us to consider them as peculiar manifestations of a more general and meaningful pattern in human behaviour. (shrink)

The “formidably brilliant” Žižek considers sexuality, ontology, subjectivity, and Marxian critiques of political economy by way of Lacanian psychoanalysis. If the most interesting theoretical interventions emerge today from the interspaces between fields, then the foremost interspaceman is Slavoj Žižek. In Incontinence of the Void (the title is inspired by a sentence in Samuel Beckett's late masterpiece Ill Seen Ill Said), Žižek explores the empty spaces between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the critique of political economy. He proceeds from the universal dimension (...) of philosophy to the particular dimension of sexuality to the singular dimension of the critique of political economy. The passage from one dimension to another is immanent: the ontological void is accessible only through the impasses of sexuation and the ongoing prospect of the abolition of sexuality, which is itself opened up by the technoscientific progress of global capitalism, in turn leading to the critique of political economy. Responding to his colleague and fellow Short Circuits author Alenka Zupančič's What Is Sex?, Žižek examines the notion of an excessive element in ontology that gives body to radical negativity, which becomes the antagonism of sexual difference. From the economico-philosophical perspective, Žižek extrapolates from ontological excess to Marxian surplus value to Lacan's surplus enjoyment. In true Žižekian fashion, Incontinence of the Void focuses on eternal topics while detouring freely into contemporary issuesfrom the Internet of Things to Danish TV series. (shrink)

The traditional problem of incontinence raises the question of whether there is any way to account for action contrary to judgment. When one acts, rather than only being acted upon by circumstances, the action is explained in terms of the reasons for action one judges oneself to have. It therefore seems impossible to explain action that iscontrary to such judgment. This paper examines the question of how such explanation would be possible. After excluding accounts that either eliminate incontinence (...) or render it inexplicable, I argue that genuine incontinence would require three components: first, a distinction between the types of judgments simultaneously present in the agent; second, the Aristotelian idea that not all of those types of judgments can be directly action-guiding; and third, that the judgments that are action-guiding can be pre-conceptual perceptions. I then use elements of Collingwood's aesthetics to make the case that although such pre-conceptual perceptions would not be propositional judgments and the relationship between them and the behaviors of the agent could not be causal, those behaviors could still qualify as incontinent actions. (shrink)

In this paper I shall attempt to characterize a central case of incontinent believing and to explain how it is possible. Akrasiais exhibited in a variety of ways in the practical or "actional" sphere; but in the full-blown and seemingly most challenging case the akratic agent performs an intentional, free action which is contrary to a judgment of what is better or best to do that he both consciously holds at the time of action and consciously believes to be at (...) odds with his performing the action at issue. More precisely, in intentionally and freely A-ing at t, S performs a full-blown akratic action if and only if, at t, S consciously holds a judgment to the effect that there is good and sufficient reason for his not doing an A at t. What I am after in this paper is an account of a comparable, full-blown variety of incontinent believing, and an explanation of its possibility. (shrink)

Alfred Mele has recentIy attempted to direct attention to a neglected species of irrational belief which he calls ‘incontinent belief’. He has devoted a paper and an entire chapter (chapter eight) of his book, Irrationality (Oxford University Press, 1987) to explaining its logical possibility. In what follows, I will appeal to familiar facts about the difference between belief and action to make a case that it is entirely unproblematic that incontinent belief is logically possible. In the process, I will call (...) into question the philosophical intercst of incontinent belief. If what I say is correct, incontinent belief does not warrant the attention of philosophers of mind. (shrink)

Discusses Aristotle's limitation of incontinence proper to the field of temperance, temptation by noble ends, the nature of incontinent ignorance, and what it is to use one's practical knowledge.

In this paper I suggest a reconstruction of the traditional concepts of con-tinent and incontinent action. This reconstruction proceeds along the lines of a standpoint of bounded rationality. My suggestion agrees with some relevant aspects of Davidson’s treatment of this topic. One of these aspects is that incontinent action is typically signalled by the following two subjective experiences: a feeling of surprise towards one’s own action and a difficulty in understanding oneself; another is that incontinence cannot simply be disposed (...) of in terms of some inability of the agent to avoid “succumbing to temptation”; still another is the view that inconti-nent action is common in real human affairs. But my suggestion dis-agrees with other relevant aspects of Davidson’s treatment of inconti-nence too. In particular, it avoids what I take to be its two major draw-backs. These are a view of continent action that falls prey to a com-pletely unrealistic concept of psychological rationality and the idea that incontinence necessarily involves a dimension of essential irrationality. (shrink)

토마스 아퀴나스의 자제력 없음 논의는 아리스토텔레스로부터 많은 영향을 받았음에도, 그만의 독특함이 여실히 드러나는 중요한 문제이다. 토마스는 『윤리학주해』, 『신학대전』, 『악론』에서 ‘선택으로 말미암지 않고(non ex electione)’, ‘선택하면서(eligens)’, ‘감정으로 인해(ex passione)’라는 세 가지 계기를 통해 자제력 없음을 설명한다. 토마스는 자제력 없음을 ‘선택에서 어긋나는 것’으로 설명하면서도, 자제력 없음에 ‘선택한다’는 설명을 주고 있다. 즉, 자제력 없음에 개입하는 ‘선택’은 아리스토텔레스와 갈라서는 토마스만의 새로운 이론임을 드러내는 동시에, 일견 상충되어 보이는 문제를 안고 있다. 이에 우선 토마스의 자제력 없음을 면밀히 분석하여 선택과 관련된 진술이 주는 외견상의 모순을 푸는 것이 (...) 본 논문의 하나의 목표이다. 이러한 분석을 통해 필자는 토마스가 의지와의 깊은 연관 속에서 자제력 없음을 다루고 있음을 드러내며, 그럼에도 불구하고 토마스가 자제력 없음에서 핵심으로 파악하고 있는 것이 감정이라는 점을 밝힐 것이다. 이 논의를 토대로, 자제력 없음의 제일원인을 의지에서 찾고 이로 인해 자제력 없음을 의지의 약함과 동일하게 이해하는 입장을 비판적으로 검토하며, 이 둘의 관계를 정확하게 설정하는 것이 본 논문의 다음 목표이다. 토마스는 자제력 없음뿐만 아니라 의지의 약함에서도, 의지가 아닌 ‘감정’에 제일원인으로서의 설명력을 부여하고 있다. 즉, 자제력 없음의 제일원인은 감정이며 의지의 약함의 제일원인도 감정이므로, 이 둘은 ‘감정’을 매개로 연결된다. 이때 의지의 약함은 모든 감정에, 자제력 없음은 욕망에 관련된 감각적 욕구에 관련되기 때문에, 자제력 없음이 의지의 약함에 포함되는 것이 이 둘의 구체적인 관계로 적절하다. 이처럼 자제력 없음과 의지의 약함을 분석할 때, 그 중심에는 ‘감정’이 놓여있으며, 감정을 간과해서는 안 될 중요한 요인으로 바라볼 때에야 비로소 자제력 없음과 의지의 약함은 온전히 이해될 수 있다. (shrink)

Moral incontinence (that is, knowing what one ought to do but doing otherwise) has often been explained in terms of psychological incapacity/inability (that is, “ought but can’t”). However, Socrates and others have argued that, whenever it is physically possible to act, there can be no rupture between judgment and behavior and therefore there are no instances of “ought but can’t”.The analysis that follows will conclude either that Socrates was correct in holding that there are no ruptures between judgment and (...) behavior or that, if there are such ruptures, then explanations in terms of psychological incapacity/inability are inappropriate. (shrink)

Is there a rational requirement enjoining continence over time in the intentions one has formed, such that anyone going in for a certain form of agency has standing reason to conform to such a requirement? This paper suggests that there is not. I argue that Michael Bratman’s defense of such a requirement succeeds in showing that many agents have a reason favoring default intention continence much of the time, but does not establish that all planning agents have such a reason (...) in every case of intending. I then defend an account on which such a reason is grounded in the need to maintain the capacity to commit oneself to a practical option. But although I think this applies more widely than Bratman’s account, it is also not a reason that any planning agent has in every case. I tentatively conclude that although we have many good reasons to stick with our intentions once we have formed them, it is not required by rationality. (shrink)

Brian McLaughlin, in “Incontinent Belief” (Journal of Philosophical Research 15 [1989-90], pp. 115-26), takes issue with my investigation, in lrrationality (Oxford University Press, 1987), of a doxastic analogue of akratic action. He deems what I term “strict akratic belief” philosophically uninteresting. In the present paper, I explain that this assessment rests on a serious confusion about the sort of possibility that is at issue in my chapter on the topic, correct a variety of misimpressions, and rebut McLaughlin’s arguments as they (...) apply to the psychological possibility of strict akratic belief and to the etiology of beliefs generally. (shrink)

IntroductionUrinary incontinence is a prevalent disorder amongst older women. Identifying the psychosocial experiences of older women in disease management can improve the patient care process. Hence, the present study aimed to determine the psychosocial experiences of older women in the management of urinary incontinence.MethodsThis qualitative study was conducted using conventional content analysis. The study data were collected via unstructured in-depth face-to-face interviews with 22 older women suffering from urinary incontinence selected via purposive sampling. Sampling and data analysis (...) were done simultaneously and were continued until data saturation. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the method proposed by Graneheim and Lundman.ResultsThe results indicated that the older people with urinary incontinence had various psychosocial experiences while living with and managing this disease. Accordingly, four main themes were extracted from the data as follows: “problem incompatibility with the disease,” “mental impasse,” “facing social restrictions,” and “concealment and social escapism.”ConclusionThe findings demonstrated that older people with urinary incontinence experienced significant psychosocial pressures while living with this disorder, which affected their psychosocial well-being. Thus, paying attention to these psychosocial experiences while supporting and taking care of these patients can positively impact their psychosocial health and quality of life. (shrink)

Argumentation virtue theory is a new field in argumentation studies. As in the case of virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, the study of virtue argumentation draws its inspiration from the works of Aristotle. First, I discuss the specifics of the argumentational virtues and suggest that they have an instrumental nature, modeled on the relation between the Aristotelian intellectual virtue of ‘practical wisdom’ and the moral virtues. Then, inspired by Aristotle’s discussion of akrasia, I suggest that a theory of fallacy in (...) argumentation virtue theory can be built upon the concept of ‘incontinence’. (shrink)

In philosophy of action, we typically aim to explain action by appealing to conative attitudes whose contents are either logically consistent propositions or can be rendered as such. Call this “the logical criterion.” This is especially difficult to do with clear-minded, intentional incontinence since we have to explain how two judgments can have non-contradicting contents yet still aim at contradictory outcomes. Davidson devises an innovative way of doing this but compromises his ability to explain how our better judgments can (...) cause our continent behaviors. In this essay, I preserve Davidson’s approach to the logical criterion but deviate from his broader theory of action by developing a default-interventionist dual systems theory of action. To do this, I focus on the dynamical relationship between System 1 and System 2: the logical construction of value judgments in System 2 from System 1 and the imaginative construction of non-propositional conative attitudes in System 1 from System 2. I draw on Street’s Humean constructivism and Peacocke’s theory of imagination for logical and imaginative construction, respectively. Within this framework, I provide a new definition of continence and incontinence that satisfies the logical criterion and explains how our better judgments can cause our continent behaviors. (shrink)

Tired of being weak-willed? Do you want to end procrastination and back-sliding? Are you envious of those paragons of self-control who always do what they consider best? Thanks to a breakthrough in therapeutic philosophy, you too can now close the gap between what you think you ought to do and what you actually do. Just send $1000 to the address below and you will never again succumb to temptation. This is a MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. The first time you do something that (...) you know to be irrational, your money will be refunded, no questions asked. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 5, August 2019, Page 570-578.

Included among the many topics on which Aristotle writes in the Nicomacheon Ethics is an account of incontinence or akrasia. Many controversies have arisen among interpreters of Aristotle on this issue, and a few of these disputes will be discussed in this paper. In the first part of this paper I shall indicate the usual way of reading Aristotle's account of incontinence, which I shall call the natural interpretation. In the second section I shall raise some apparent difficulties (...) with the natural interpretation by pointing out three passages in the Nicomacheon Ethics which seem to be inconsistent with it. Finally, in the concluding three sections of this paper I shall argue that the three passages allegedly inconsistent with the natural interpretation can be shown to be consistent with the general line of argument that the natural interpretation takes Aristotle to be following. In showing how these passages can be reconciled with the usual way of reading Aristotle's account of akrasia, a much clearer and more complete picture of what his view is emerges. In addition, this reading makes Aristotle's account of incontinence more philosophically acceptable - though it is not without its problems - than it is normally supposed to be. (shrink)

Practical reason is the means by which beliefs and desires come together to produce actions. Practical rationality is difficult because we have many beliefs and many desires, and they often pull us in conflicting directions. The theory of practical reason must explain the fact that desires can conflict with one another, and the fact that we can act against our all‐things‐considered judgment (weakness of will, akrasia, and incontinence). The standard explanation of these facts invokes some form of partitioning among (...) desires. Davidson's view creates, by contrast, a partition within practical reason itself. He distinguishes between forms of rationality that are constitutive of action, and forms of rationality that are normative standard from which action can fall short. Davidson's “principle of continence,” a rule against weakness of will, is such a principle: it is required for acting well, but not for acting. (shrink)

Philosophers have inherited a familiar taxonomy of character types from Aristotle. We are all acquainted with the labels of the virtuous, vicious, continent, and incontinent person. The goal of this paper is to argue that we should jettison this framework. The main reason is that psychological research in the past fifty years has suggested a much more complex picture of moral character than what can be usefully captured by these four categories. In its place, I will suggest a better taxonomy (...) that makes use of the idea of what I call mixed character. (shrink)

La argumentación en contra de la posibilidad de akrasia que encontramos en las Disertaciones de Epicteto ha sido frecuentemente desatendida en los desarrollos modernos y contemporáneos de la problemática de la incontinencia. Esto se ha debido fundamentalmente al hecho de que las reflexiones de Epicteto suelen ser reducidas a una mera reelaboración de motivos socráticos bajo ejes dogmáticos estoicos. Por el contrario, será nuestro objetivo poner de manifiesto la singular riqueza teórica que subyace bajo la argumentación de nuestro esclavo estoico (...) destinada... a comprender en forma sistemática la conducta del incontinente. Esto exigirá contrastar el modelo de análisis de Epicteto con otras alternativas interpretativas del fenómeno de la akrasia. The argument against the possibility of akrasia that we find en Epictetus , has frequently been neglected in modern and contemporary discussions around the problem of incontinence. This has mainly been due to the fact that Epictetus' meditations tend to be reduced to a mere reproduction of Socratic issues under Stoic dogmas. On the contrary, it will be our goal to bring to light the remarkable theoretical richness that underlies the argument of our Stoic slave that aims at understanding in a systematic manner the behaviour of the incontinent. This will oblige us to contrast Epictetus' model of analysis with other interpretative alternatives of the phenomenon of akrasia. (shrink)

That incontinent action is possible, I have argued elsewhere. The purpose of the present paper is to ascertain whether such action can ever be free.

What makes a government legitimate? Arthur Isak Applbaum rigorously argues that the greatest threat to democracies today is not loss of basic rights or despotism. It is the tyranny of unreason: domination of citizens by incoherent, inconstant, incontinent rulers. A government that cannot govern itself cannot legitimately govern others.

D. In doing x an agent acts incontinently if and only if: 1) the agent does x intentionally; 2) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to him; and 3) the agent judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x.

In Aristotelian virtue theories, phronesis is foundational to being good, but to date accounts of how this particularly important virtue can emerge are sketchy. This article plumbs recent thinking in Aristotelian virtue ethics and developmental theorizing to explore how far its emergence can be understood developmentally, i.e., in terms of the growth in ordinary conditions of underlying psychological capacities, dispositions, and the like. The purpose is not to explicate Aristotle, nor to assimilate Aristotelian ideas to cognitive developmental moral theorizing, but (...) to draw on both to build an independently plausible theory of practical intelligence and its development. It is argued that one fruitful direction attends to the psychology of virtues Aristotle associates with practical intelligence, including comprehension, understanding, sense, and cleverness, instead of Aristotle’s remarks distinguishing fully virtuous persons from the continent, incontinent and the many. (shrink)

Proponents of corporate moral responsibility take certain corporations to be capable of being responsible in ways that do not reduce to the responsibility of their members. If correct, one follow-up question concerns what leads corporations to fail to meet their obligations. We often fail morally when we know what we should do and yet fail to do it, perhaps out of incontinence, akrasia, or weakness of will. However, this kind of failure is much less discussed in the corporate case. (...) And, where it is discussed, the view is that corporations are less prone to weakness. Here, I argue that proponents of corporate responsibility should say that corporations can and often do instantiate weakness of the will, and that this is important to recognize. Weakness of the will requires certain capacities that these proponents typically take corporations to have. And once this is appreciated, we can assess how corporate weakness might proceed differently than how it does for individuals. We can also begin a conversation about how best to meet the distinctive challenges for recognizing and correcting corporate weakness, using a number of resources from management scholarship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Choice and Virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics ALFRED R. MELE COM~rNTATORS ON THr Nicomachean Ethics (NE) have long been laboring under the influence of a serious misunderstanding of one of the key terms in Aristotle's moral philosophy and theory of action. This term is prohairesis (choice), the importance of which is indicated by Aristotle's assertions that choice is the proximate efficient cause of action (NE 6. 1139a31--32) and (...) that in which "the essential elements of virtue and character" lie (NE 8. x163a2'~-23). The accepted view is that Aristotle employs two importantly different notions of choice in the NE, one on which the term refers exclusively to means or things which are pros (toward, related to)' ends and another on which it does not have this reference? This "two notion" interpretation is motivated by the following three considerations: i. Aristotle's good or virtuous agent is said (NE 2. 11o5a28-33, cf. NE 6. 1144ax8-2o ) to choose actions for their own sakes; but, according to the This paper is derived in part from a chapter of my doctoral dissertation, which was submitted to the University of Michigan in January of 1979. 1 would like to express my gratitttde to the chairman of my dissertation committee, Nicholas P. White, for his comments and criticisms on the relevant sections during the preparation of my dissertation and to theJHP's anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms and queries. ' It has often been pointed out that things which are pros an end are not necessarily "means," in the ordinary sense of the word. E.g., constituents of an end are pros the end, but they are not means to it. See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, trans. Leonard H. G. Greenwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19o9), pp. 46-47, 53ff.: and John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 1o-22. ' Among the many proponents of this "two notion" interpretation are William D. Ross and Donald J. Allan. See Ross, Aristotle, 5th ed. (London: Methuen, t953), p. 2oo. See Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 197o), p. 132; idem, "Aristotle 's Account of the Origin of Moral Principles," Xlth International Congress of Philosophy 12 (1953):124; idem, "The Practical Syllogism," in Autour d'Aristote, Studies for A. Mansion (Louvain : Publications Universitaires, 1955). Richard Sorabji, in "Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue" (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74 l t973-74]:t t6), says that he has noticed sixteen commentators who take this view. [4o5] 406 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY so-called formal account of prohairesis (NE 3. 2-3, 6. 2), the object of choice is what has been decided upon by deliberation (bouleuais), and what is decided upon by deliberation is a "means" to an end. 2. Aristotle says that choice is "closely bound up with virtue" and "discriminates characters better than actions do" (1 1t lb5; cf. t i lob3t, 1117a 5, 1163a22, 1t64bi); but commentators argue that these claims about choice are false unless choice is "of ends." 3. Though Aristotle holds that the impetuous akrat~s (incontinent agent) does not deliberate (e.g., t 152a 18-19), he says that the akrat~s' choice is good (1152ax5--17; cf. l l51a5-- 7, 29--32); and this appears to contradict his position in Book 3 that the object of choice is what is decided upon by deliberation, s In this paper I shall show that only one (philosophically significant) notion ofprohairesis is employed in the NE, namely, the notion developed in the "formal account" of deliberation and choice (3- 2-3, 6. 2), according to which choice is specifically of things which are pros ends. This point has several interesting applications. For example, it makes it easier to find in Aristotle (as I shall briefly explain) a comprehensive theory of practical reasoning or inference rather than several unconnected accounts of what practical inference is like in different types of cases; and it is helpful in clarifying what is involved in the evaluation of character on Aristotle's view (see Sec. ~). However, though I do think that the main point to be made... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a reconstruction of Aristotle's discussion of incontinence, which stresses the relevant aspects from the point of view of a virtue ethics, focusing as a such not primarily on particular actions but on habitual dispositions of character. The paper emphasizes also the connection between Aristotle's account of incontinence and his conception of practical rationality, especially the issue concerning the temporal dimension of practical reason.

Weakness of will has been widely discussed from at least three points of view. It has been examined historically, with Aristotle recently occupying centre stage. It has been analysed conceptually, with the question of its nature and possibility in the forefront. It has been considered normatively in relation to both rational action and moral character. My concern is not historical and is only secondarily conceptual: while I hope to clarify what constitutes weakness of will, I presuppose, rather than construct, an (...) account of it. My chief aim is to assess the bearing of weakness of will on the rationality of actions that exhibit it--incontinent actions. Philosophers have tended to assume that incontinent action is a paradigm of irrationality, and none to my knowledge has seriously criticised this assumption. I challenge it and in doing so try to clarify rationality in general. (shrink)

Although much human action serves as proof that irrational behavior is remarkably common, certain forms of irrationality--most notably, incontinent action and self-deception--pose such difficult theoretical problems that philosophers have rejected them as logically or psychologically impossible. Here, Mele shows that, and how, incontinent action and self-deception are indeed possible. Drawing upon recent experimental work in the psychology of action and inference, he advances naturalized explanations of akratic action and self-deception while resolving the paradoxes around which the philosophical literature revolves. In (...) addition, he defends an account of self-control, argues that "strict" akratic action is an insurmountable obstacle for traditional belief-desire models of action-explanation, and explains how a considerably modified model accommodates action of this sort. (shrink)

Pristine belief/desire psychology has its limitations. Recognizing this, some have attempted to fill various gaps by adding more of the same, but at higher levels. Thus, for example, second-order desires have been imported into a more stream- lined view to explicate such important notions as freedom of the will, personhood, and valuing. I believe that we need to branch out as well as up, augmenting a familiar 'philosophical psychology' with psychological items that are irreducible to beliefs and desires (for support, (...) see Mele 1987 and 1992). That theme will be left largely in the background here, however. The issue to be explored is a narrower one: the place of higher-order desires in a proper conception of continent and incontinent behavior. My guiding question is whether an action's counting as continent or incontinent depends upon the agent's having at the time a pertinent higher-order desire. The answer that I shall defend is, in a word, 'No.'. (shrink)

One difficulty in understanding recent debates is that not only have many terms been used to refer to weakness of will – “akrasia” and “incontinence” have often been used as synonyms of “weakness of will” – but quite different phenomena have been discussed in the literature. This is why the present entry starts with taxonomic considerations. The second section turns to the question of whether it is possible to freely and intentionally act against one’s better judgment.