Weakness of Will and Delay Discounting

Weakness of Will and Delay Discounting PDF Author: Nora Heinzelmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192865951
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Breaking one's dieting rule or resolution to quit smoking, procrastination, convenient lies, even the failure of entire nations to follow through with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions or keep a pandemic in check - these phenomena have been discussed by philosophers and behavioural scientists as examples of weakness of will and delay discounting. Despite the common subject matter both fields have to date rarely worked together for mutual benefit. For the empirical literature is hardly accessible to a reader not familiar with econometric theory; and researchers in the behavioural sciences may find philosophical accounts invoking discounting models difficult to understand without inside knowledge of the debates and historical background. Nora Heinzelmann targets this lacuna by making the ideas and findings from both disciplines intelligible to outsiders. This reveals that discounting - as philosophers have conceived of it - is neither necessary nor sufficient for weakness of will, even though there is substantial overlap. Heinzelmann develops a richer descriptive account of weakness of will that is based on the empirically founded assumption that weak-willed behaviour is determined by uncertainty about whether or when a good materialises. She also explains why weakness of the will understood in this way is irrational: the agent yields to a cognitive bias that leads them to underestimate the greater good they think they ought to and can obtain. Finally, she explores practical implications for individuals and policymakers.

Weakness of Will and Delay Discounting

Weakness of Will and Delay Discounting PDF Author: Nora Heinzelmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192865951
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
Breaking one's dieting rule or resolution to quit smoking, procrastination, convenient lies, even the failure of entire nations to follow through with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions or keep a pandemic in check - these phenomena have been discussed by philosophers and behavioural scientists as examples of weakness of will and delay discounting. Despite the common subject matter both fields have to date rarely worked together for mutual benefit. For the empirical literature is hardly accessible to a reader not familiar with econometric theory; and researchers in the behavioural sciences may find philosophical accounts invoking discounting models difficult to understand without inside knowledge of the debates and historical background. Nora Heinzelmann targets this lacuna by making the ideas and findings from both disciplines intelligible to outsiders. This reveals that discounting - as philosophers have conceived of it - is neither necessary nor sufficient for weakness of will, even though there is substantial overlap. Heinzelmann develops a richer descriptive account of weakness of will that is based on the empirically founded assumption that weak-willed behaviour is determined by uncertainty about whether or when a good materialises. She also explains why weakness of the will understood in this way is irrational: the agent yields to a cognitive bias that leads them to underestimate the greater good they think they ought to and can obtain. Finally, she explores practical implications for individuals and policymakers.

Weakness of Will and Delay Discounting

Weakness of Will and Delay Discounting PDF Author: Nora Heinzelmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192690728
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Breaking one's dieting rule or resolution to quit smoking, procrastination, convenient lies, even the failure of entire nations to follow through with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions or keep a pandemic in check - these phenomena have been discussed by philosophers and behavioural scientists as examples of weakness of will and delay discounting. Despite the common subject matter both fields have to date rarely worked together for mutual benefit. For the empirical literature is hardly accessible to a reader not familiar with econometric theory; and researchers in the behavioural sciences may find philosophical accounts invoking discounting models difficult to understand without inside knowledge of the debates and historical background. Nora Heinzelmann targets this lacuna by making the ideas and findings from both disciplines intelligible to outsiders. This reveals that discounting - as philosophers have conceived of it - is neither necessary nor sufficient for weakness of will, even though there is substantial overlap. Heinzelmann develops a richer descriptive account of weakness of will that is based on the empirically founded assumption that weak-willed behaviour is determined by uncertainty about whether or when a good materialises. She also explains why weakness of the will understood in this way is irrational: the agent yields to a cognitive bias that leads them to underestimate the greater good they think they ought to and can obtain. Finally, she explores practical implications for individuals and policymakers.

The Weakness of the Will

The Weakness of the Will PDF Author: Justin Gosling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134966814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Addiction and Choice

Addiction and Choice PDF Author: Nick Heather
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198727224
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
Views on addiction are often polarised - either addiction is a matter of choice, or addicts simply can't help themselves. But perhaps addiction falls between the two? This book contains views from philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and the law exploring this middle ground between free choice and no choice.

Impulsivity

Impulsivity PDF Author: Gregory Jude Madden
Publisher: Amer Psychological Assn
ISBN: 9781433804779
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
Impulsivity explores the basis for the seemingly universal tendency to devalue rewards or punishments that are not immediately available. When confronted with any number of modern impulsive behaviorssuch as drug use, pathological gambling, marital infidelity, and gluttonyindividuals have a choice with two outcomes: an immediate benefit, such as getting high, or a delayed or probabilistic benefit, such as health, money saved, or the satisfaction of a good life. This volume is an approachable, comprehensive overview of the behavioral science and neuroscience of these impulsive choices and their relation to delay discounting--the tendency to devalue temporally distant rewards or punishments, even though they may greatly outbalance the immediate benefit of our choices. The cutting-edge researchers who contributed to this volume have documented cross-species similarities in impulsive decision making and pioneered the neuroscience of impulsive choice. In this text they provide insights into harmless impulsive acts as well as those that dominate and destroy lives. The contributors tackle key issues such as whether impulsivity and risk taking are a trait or state; the neuroscience, neuroeconomics, and computational modeling of neural systems underlying impulsivity; and the relation between impulsivity and addictions, health decision making, altruism, and attention-deficit disorder. Theoretical debates regarding the origins of impulsivity round out this text, which will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in psychology, behavioral economics, psychopharmacology, behavioral analysis and therapy, and the science of decision making.

Breakdown of Will

Breakdown of Will PDF Author: George Ainslie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521596947
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Ainslie argues that our responses to the threat of our own inconsistency determine the basic fabric of human culture. He suggests that individuals are more like populations of bargaining agents than like the hierarchical command structures envisaged by cognitive psychologists. The forces that create and constrain these populations help us understand so much that is puzzling in human action and interaction: from addictions and other self-defeating behaviors to the experience of willfulness, from pathological over-control and self-deception to subtler forms of behavior such as altruism, sadism, gambling, and the 'social construction' of belief. This book integrates approaches from experimental psychology, philosophy of mind, microeconomics, and decision science to present one of the most profound and expert accounts of human irrationality available. It will be of great interest to philosophers and an important resource for professionals and students in psychology, economics and political science.

Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality

Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality PDF Author: Sarah Stroud
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191531456
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Among the many practical failures that threaten us, weakness of will or akrasia is often considered to be a paradigm of irrationality. The eleven new essays in this collection, written by an excellent international team of philosophers, some well-established, some younger scholars, give a rich overview of the current debate over weakness of will and practical irrationality more generally. Issues covered include classical questions such as the distinction between weakness and compulsion, the connection between evaluative judgement and motivation, the role of emotions in akrasia, rational agency, and the existence of the will. The also include new topics, such as group akrasia, strength of will, the nature of correct choice, the structure of decision theory, the temporality of prudential reasons, and emotional rationality. Because these questions cut across philosophy of mind and ethics, the collection will be essential reading for scholars, postgraduates, and upper-level undergraduates in both these fields.

Conceptual Categories and the Structure of Reality: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches

Conceptual Categories and the Structure of Reality: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches PDF Author: Paul M.W. Hackett
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889457311
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
In this eBook, Conceptual Categories and the Structure of Reality, the title very well describes the book's content. Within the book's pages a selection of academics from a variety of human behaviour, human/social science and humanities disciplines write about their research all of which can be typified by their consideration of how categories are used to structure understanding of phenomena. These authors have considered how reality may be understood through notions such as categorial and structural ontologies, part-whole relatoinships (mereology), the qualitative, quantitative and philosophical use of the facet theory approach to research, mapping sentences and declarative mapping sentence, hermeneutics, concepts and constructs, similarities and differences. The resulting collection presents the foregoing conceptual and empirical approaches to knowledge development in general (chapter 1&3 Hackett); Phillips and Wislons' review of compositional syntax in bird calls (chapter 2); neurobehavioral decision systems (chapter 4 Foxall); representations of human psychological processes (chapter 5 Juan-Miguel López-Gil; Rosa Gil; Roberto García); free associations mirroring and its relation to self- and world-related concepts (chapter 6 Martin Kuška; Radek Trnka; Aleš Antonín Kuběna; Jiří Růžička); local knowledge and going beyond the data (chapter 7 Steven Phillips); categorical etiologies of speech sound disorders (chapter 8 Kelly Farquharson); similarity of visual appearance (chapter 9 Nao Nakatsuji; Hisayasu Ihara; Takeharu Seno; Hiroshi Ito); and a consideration of the seminal writing of David Oderberg's on the categorial classification of reality (chapter 10 Hackett).

Religion, Neuroscience and the Self

Religion, Neuroscience and the Self PDF Author: Patrick McNamara
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429671431
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The purpose of this book is to use neuroscience discoveries concerning religious experiences, the Self and personhood to deepen, enhance and interrogate the theological and philosophical set of ideas known as Personalism. McNamara proposes a new eschatological form of personalism that is consistent with current neuroscience models of relevant brain functions concerning the self and personhood and that can meet the catastrophic challenges of the 21st century. Eschatological Personalism, rooted in the philosophical tradition of "Boston Personalism", takes as its starting point the personalist claim that the significance of a self and personality is not fully revealed until it has reached its endpoint, but theologically that end point can only occur within the eschatological realm. That realm is explored in the book along with implications for personalist theory and ethics. Topics covered include the agent intellect, dreams and the imagination, future-orientation and eschatology, phenomenology of Time, social ethics, Love, the challenge of AI, privacy and solitude and the individual ethic of autarchy. This book is an innovative combination of the neuroscientific and theological insights provided by a Personalist viewpoint. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Cognitive Science, Theology, Religious Studies and the philosophy of the mind.

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Operant and Classical Conditioning

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Operant and Classical Conditioning PDF Author: Frances K. McSweeney
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111846818X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 773

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Book Description
This combined survey of operant and classical conditioning provides professional and academic readers with an up-to-date, inclusive account of a core field of psychology research, with in-depth coverage of the basic theory, its applications, and current topics including behavioral economics. Provides comprehensive coverage of operant and classical conditioning, relevant fundamental theory, and applications including the latest techniques Features chapters by leading researchers, professionals, and academicians Reviews a range of core literature on conditioning Covers cutting-edge topics such as behavioral economics