Rational Capacities

Michael Smith

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511606977.008

6 - Rational Capacities

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009

Michael Smith

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Michael Smith: Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey

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Summary

In “Skepticism about Weakness of Will,” Gary Watson invites us to consider the distinction between recklessness, weakness, and compulsion.

Suppose that a particular woman intentionally takes a drink. To provide an evaluative context, suppose she ought not to have another because she will then be unfit to fulfill some of her obligations. Preanalytically, most of us would insist on the possibility and significance of the following three descriptions of the case. (1) the reckless or self-indulgent case; (2) the weak case; and (3) the compulsive case. In (1), the woman knows what she is doing but accepts the consequences. Her choice is to get drunk or risk getting drunk. She acts in accordance with her judgement. In (2) the woman knowingly takes the drink contrary to her (conscious) better judgement; the explanation for this lack of self-control is that she is weak-willed. In (3), she knowingly takes the drink contrary to her better judgement, but she is the victim of a compulsive (irresistible) desire to drink.

(Watson 1977: 324)

These three different ways of filling out the case are in turn important, Watson tells us, because they purport to legitimize the very different moral reactions that we have to the three cases.

We blame the woman who is reckless or self-indulgent, and what we blame her for is having the wrong belief about what she should do in the circumstances of action that she faces.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Ethics and the A Priori
Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics
, pp. 114 - 135
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606977.008 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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