Breakdown of WillAinslie 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. |
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Contents
| 3 | |
| 13 | |
| 27 | |
| 48 | |
| 71 | |
| 73 | |
Sophisticated Bargaining Among Internal Interest | 90 |
The Subjective Experience of Intertemporal Bargaining | 105 |
The Downside of Willpower | 143 |
An Efficient Will Undermines Appetite | 161 |
The Need to Maintain Appetite Eclipses the Will | 175 |
Conclusions | 198 |
Notes | 201 |
References | 227 |
Name Index | 247 |
Subject Index | 253 |
Getting Evidence about a Nonlinear Motivational System | 117 |
THE ULTIMATE BREAKDOWN OF WILL NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS | 141 |
Common terms and phrases
addiction Ainslie akrasia alcohol Alexithymia alternatives animals available appetite aversive avoid basic become belief called chaos theory Chapter choice choice-making choose classical conditioning cognitive committing compulsion conditioning conventional utility theory cooperation create decision defection delay depend described diet disulfiram dominant drink eating economists effect Elster emotional reward empathy example expectation experience exponential discounting fact factor feel future gambling Gary Becker goals Herrnstein hungers hyperbolic discount curves impulse incentive individual instance intertemporal bargaining itches Jon Elster Julius Kuhl lapse less long-range interest matching law maximize mechanism motivation Newcomb's problem occasions pain passion pattern personal rules philosopher philosophy of mind players pleasure predict premature satiation prisoner's dilemma problem properties prospect psychologists puzzle Rachlin rational reason recursive responses seems self-control short-range interests social sometimes stake stimuli strategy subjects suggest superego temporary preference temptation there's things tion urge willpower
Popular passages
Page 5 - The good which I want to do, I fail to do; but what I do is the wrong which is against my will; and if what I do is against my will, clearly it is no longer I who am the agent, but sin that has its lodging in me.
Page 49 - Father; we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.
Page 86 - ... others are drinking and it would be churlishness to refuse; or it is but to enable him to sleep, or just to get through this job of work; or it isn't drinking, it is because he feels so cold; or it is...
Page 222 - Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness, without dreaming of it; but likely enough it is gone the moment we say to ourselves, " Here it is ! " like the chest of gold that treasure-seekers find.
Page 5 - I discover this principle, then: that when I want to do the right, only the wrong is within my reach. In my inmost self I delight in the law of God, but I perceive that there is in my bodily members a different law, fighting against the law that my reason approves and making me a prisoner under the law that is in my members, the law of sin.
Page 80 - The essential precaution, therefore, is so to regulate the two opposing powers, that the one may have a series of uninterrupted successes, until repetition has fortified it to such a degree as to enable it to cope with the opposition, under any circumstances.
Page 78 - Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse; and if this contrary impulse ever arises from reason, that latter faculty must have an original influence on the will, and must be able to cause, as well as hinder any act of volition. But if reason has no original influence...
References to this book
Handbook of Emotions, Third Edition Michael Lewis,Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones,Lisa Feldman Barrett Limited preview - 2008 |
Handbook of Consumer Psychology Curtis P. Haugtvedt,Paul M. Herr,Frank R. Kardes No preview available - 2008 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | Breakdown of Will |
| Author | George Ainslie |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 2001 |
| ISBN | 0521596947, 9780521596947 |
| Length | 258 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Economics / Theory Philosophy / Free Will & Determinism Philosophy / Logic Philosophy / Mind & Body Political Science / History & Theory Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition Psychology / Movements / General |
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