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PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
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PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
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Breakdown of Will
George Ainslie
2001 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. xi +
258
ISBN 0 521 59300 (hb), £37.50/$54.95. 0 521 59694 (pb), £13.95/$19.95
Practical Philosophy (Book Reviews) Spring 2002Volume 4.2
Reviewed by: Antonia Macaro
Breakdown of Will begins with an introduction on self-defeating behaviour and all the disciplines that have a bearing on its study. It then divides the existing models about deciding into two groups: motivation-based ones and judgement-based ones. The former claim that people weigh feelings of satisfaction that follow different options and tend to repeat behaviours that lead to the greatest satisfaction; the latter maintain that there is a hierarchy of wants, and that people need to use cognitive faculties (reason) to relate their options to this hierarchy. These models are not incompatible, but they do raise the question of whether the ‘root process’ in cases of conflict between motivation and judgement is a matter of hedonism or cognition.
Ainslie argues that utility theory cannot account for self-defeating behaviour successfully (no way of telling ‘good’ and ‘bad’ rewards), but equally cognitive models do not really help to explain the dynamics of the relationship between judgement and motivation. Reason and motivation need to compete using the same ‘currency’, but an adequate theory has to be able to account for the possibility of self-defeating choices. Ainslie’s own theory is based on ‘hyperbolic discounting’. In conventional utility theory people are assumed to discount the future at exponential rates (goods are valued the same at both long and short delays), which does not explain self-defeating choices; if instead we assume that the curve is hyperbolic (future goods are devalued proportionately to their delay) it becomes possible to account for them. Ainslie then goes on to flesh out his own theory, which regards people as ‘an internal marketplace of hyperbolically discounted choices’, a collection of interests engaged in ‘limited warfare’ and forever playing a prisoner’s dilemma game. He discusses what ‘will’ may mean in this context, what its downsides are, and so on.
This book is definitely worth reading and food for thought. It raises and sheds light on difficult issues that should be of interest to anybody concerned with human behaviour, much more to the philosophical counsellor faced with people’s self-defeating choices. The style is fairly conversational and references are often made to real-life examples. The problem? The jargon, which is offputting in itself and somehow makes it quite hard work to connect this theory with real life. Talk of ‘utiles’, exponential and hyperbolic discounting, the self as a collection of interests engaged in a prisoner’s dilemma game and so on, makes this theory an unwieldy tool with which to address one’s own or other people’s dilemmas. Irrespective of the merits of this model, it is not entirely clear what the practical implications are of viewing weakness of will as ‘just maximizing expected reward, discounted in highly bowed curves’, or what difference it would really make to think in these terms rather than more traditional ones.
Having said that, I have recently found myself, having bought another bar of Cadbury Whole Nut, pondering about the game taking place between my interests, and what devices I – no, not ‘I’ – my long-term interests could use to outsmart my short-term ones. It’s a fairly vivid image, and apart from anything else it may serve as a useful metaphor in our deliberations. Shame about the ‘hyperbolic discounting’.
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