Q&A: The Paradox of Weakness of Will
The Paradox of Weakness of Will
Question
In Faith, Jewish Law, and Morality lesson 4, you presented Donald Davidson’s paradox regarding weakness of will. The solution you proposed was the libertarian topography model. A person does not choose to eat the fattening cake, but only chooses not to choose and to let his urges run him.
I don’t understand how that solves the paradox. Even if the person does not directly choose to eat the cake, he does choose not to choose, and according to his worldview it is always right to choose to act out of choice and not to be governed by impulse.
Answer
I explicitly commented on this there and said that I’m also not entirely settled on this point. I elaborated more in column 173. In short, the basic problem is when a person does something that he himself thinks is wrong. Here he is not doing something wrong head-on, but only letting go of the reins. That in itself is not directly problematic. He is tired of constantly controlling the horses and decides to rest a little. It is only the outcome that turned out to be directly opposed to his own view.
Discussion on Answer
I think that when a person lets go of the reins, he is basically living with the consciousness that there is no problem with letting go of the reins. You rest a bit, and that’s it. The problem with letting go of the reins is not the letting go in itself, but its consequences, and those are not certain to happen. Therefore it is easier for a person to act in a way that is not ideal from his own point of view. It is not like a direct clash between an obligation and a prohibition against murder, and a decision to commit murder.
Letting go of the reins is directly problematic in my view, because he himself thinks it is wrong to let go of the reins and rest when there is a possibility of a destructive consequence. I don’t see how this solves the paradox. But of course I agree that there is a paradox here; I accept the intuition of weakness of will.