Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I BREAKDOWNS OF WILL: THE PUZZLE OF AKRASIA
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Dichotomy at the Root of Decision Science
- 3 The Warp in How We Evaluate the Future
- 4 The Warp Can Create Involuntary Behaviors
- Part II A BREAKDOWN OF THE WILL: THE COMPONENTS OF INTERTEMPORAL BARGAINING
- PART III THE ULTIMATE BREAKDOWN OF WILL: NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
2 - The Dichotomy at the Root of Decision Science
Do We Make Choices By Desires or By Judgments?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I BREAKDOWNS OF WILL: THE PUZZLE OF AKRASIA
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Dichotomy at the Root of Decision Science
- 3 The Warp in How We Evaluate the Future
- 4 The Warp Can Create Involuntary Behaviors
- Part II A BREAKDOWN OF THE WILL: THE COMPONENTS OF INTERTEMPORAL BARGAINING
- PART III THE ULTIMATE BREAKDOWN OF WILL: NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Our ideas about deciding divide into two kinds, each of which goes back to ancient times. Theorists from classical Greece to the present have focused on two conspicuous experiences in choice-making, wanting and judging, and have built models around each of them. Models based on wanting say that people weigh the feeling of satisfaction that follows different alternatives and selectively repeat those behaviors that lead to the most satisfaction. Models based on judging take a hierarchy of wants as given and focus on how a person uses logic – or some other cognitive faculty – to relate options to this hierarchy. The weighers, who include the British empiricist philosophers like David Hume, the psychoanalysts, and behaviorists like B. F. Skinner, developed satisfaction-based models that are called “hedonistic” or “economic” or “utilitarian.” On the other side, the German idealists, Jean Piaget, and modern cognitive psychologists like Roy Baumeister and Julius Kuhl have centered their explanations on judgments; this approach is called “cognitive” or “rationalistic.”
Skinner said that not only choice but also deliberation depend on differential reinforcement:
The individual manipulates relevant variables in making a decision because the behavior of doing so has certain reinforcing consequences.
His explanation of addictions is simple: “The effects induced by [addictive] drugs reinforce the behavior of consuming them.” By contrast, cognitivist writers attribute addiction and other “misregulations” to various kinds of interpretive errors, as we're about to see.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Breakdown of Will , pp. 13 - 26Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001