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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. 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Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. 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Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
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- 05 August 2015
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- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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2 - Autonomy without Free Will
- Edited by James Stacey Taylor, Louisiana State University
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- Personal Autonomy
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- 03 December 2009
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- 10 January 2005, pp 58-86
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Summary
Discussions of personal autonomy often proceed as if the free-will problem does not exist. Yet an incompatibilist – one who regards determinism as a genuine threat to free will – may wish to argue that an account of autonomy or self-government is severely compromised by the discovery that the self in question is a deterministic product of heredity and environment. Such a discovery would entail, in her eyes, that, even if I am judged autonomous through, say, a capacity for uncoerced and rational review of my deepest commitments (plus the ability to make appropriate adjustments), the failure in a deterministic world to control the origination of my desires and values, elements that explain my commitments, renders my self-governance seriously inauthentic.
Yet compartmentalization is an essential tool for the avoidance of intellectual paralysis. Perhaps then we ought not to worry simultaneously about both the conditions of autonomous decision making and the possibility that determinism will render our results a sham. If autonomy is our concern, we can let the other philosophical fellow raise the specter of enslavement of self arising from the domination exerted by heredity and environment over the elements that manifest our autonomy. Although no one can object to this pillar of intellectual practice, I would like to try to accommodate that peculiarly philosophical mindset that drives us to excess, that demand to be in good faith that, we suppose, fails to be met by a shallow theory that refuses to face the implications of our immersion in a controlling, hostile world.
IDENTIFICATION, THE SELF, AND AUTONOMY
- Bernard Berofsky
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- Social Philosophy and Policy / Volume 20 / Issue 2 / July 2003
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- 17 December 2003, pp. 199-220
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- July 2003
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Autonomy, we suppose, is self-regulation or self-direction. There is a distinct idea that is easily confused with self-direction, namely, self-expression, self-fulfillment, or self-realization. (I do not mean to suggest that the latter three terms are all synonymous. But in this essay, whatever differences there are among them play no role, so I will use them interchangeably.) Although it will turn out paradoxically that autonomy is neither self-regulation nor self-realization, it is reasonable to suppose that the former is a superior candidate. My teacher of Indian religion, Dr. Subodh Roy, blind from birth, chose not to undergo an operation that would have made him sighted because he believed, perhaps rightly, that the ability to see would interfere with his religious quest. He thereby chose not to realize one of his fundamental human capacities, one whose cultivation has produced some of the finest fruits of civilization. Joseph Raz describes a case in which a man places his life in jeopardy by undertaking a trip to deliver medical aid to a group of people in a distant place. Since he will be unable to secure food for several days, he, in effect, subordinates one of his own basic needs or interests to a goal that he deems more important. There is no reason to believe that, in refusing to express or realize a dimension of self, either Dr. Roy or Raz's philanthropist have failed to act autonomously.
Identification, the Self, and Autonomy
- Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Fred D. Miller, Jr, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Jeffrey Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
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- Autonomy
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INTRODUCTION
Autonomy, we suppose, is self-regulation or self-direction. There is a distinct idea that is easily confused with self-direction, namely, selfexpression, self-fulfillment, or self-realization. (I do not mean to suggest that the latter three terms are all synonymous. But in this essay, whatever differences there are among them play no role, so I will use them interchangeably.) Although it will turn out paradoxically that autonomy is neither self-regulation nor self-realization, it is reasonable to suppose that the former is a superior candidate. My teacher of Indian religion, Dr. Subodh Roy, blind from birth, chose not to undergo an operation that would have made him sighted because he believed, perhaps rightly, that the ability to see would interfere with his religious quest. He thereby chose not to realize one of his fundamental human capacities, one whose cultivation has produced some of the finest fruits of civilization. Joseph Raz describes a case in which a man places his life in jeopardy by undertaking a trip to deliver medical aid to a group of people in a distant place. Since he will be unable to secure food for several days, he, in effect, subordinates one of his own basic needs or interests to a goal that he deems more important. There is no reason to believe that, in refusing to express or realize a dimension of self, either Dr. Roy or Raz's philanthropist have failed to act autonomously.
5 - Values and the self
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 77-106
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Having pressed for a value-neutral account of freedom, I cannot but be impressed by the insistent demand for a central role for the notion of value or evaluation, if not in the analysis of freedom, then perhaps in that of autonomy of choice. (By definition, scope of autonomy implicates values, but that is not the notion we are currently trying to understand.) Even relativistic interpretations inevitably require that free or autonomous agents be essentially concerned to realize their values, no matter how silly, odious, or bizarre. There is no way to deal satisfactorily with this deeply ingrained view without a careful attempt to understand the nature of value and evaluation.
Values and desires
Even if we are sympathetic with the notion of objective value, it is clear that a person can have values that are not aligned with objective value; a person can be immoral, for example. Our project, then, concerns the difference between an individual's desires and her values.
We might describe this task as a search for the factor that forces a distinction between the two notions. For example, desires come in varying strengths. But since we certainly want to accommodate the thought that one state of affairs or goal is more highly valued or prized than another, we are not forced to distinguish and do not yet comprehend the difference between a strong desire for some goal and the placing of great value on that goal.
4 - Agent freedom
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 57-76
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Advocates of valuational freedom are reacting against the idea that ascriptions of freedom to a human being are just ascriptions of the capacity to engage in unfettered or unimpeded activity or the absence of sufficient causes. Freedom has a moral as well as a metaphysical dimension. If we ignore the former, there would be no difference between the freedom of a human agent and the freedom of a fly or an electron. Freedom is that state which enables its bearer to be guided through life by values; it permits the agent to embody in action moral and nonmoral values, thereby sanctioning third party judgments of the agent's worth and responsibility for those actions. Although the absence of impediments or the availability of adequate opportunity may be a necessary condition for any being to achieve this state, there are also conditions internal to the agent, including those which set creatures with values apart from others. Although I upheld the centrality of a nonvaluational conception of freedom of action in the last chapter, we will have to look more closely at the claims made on behalf of this normative component for the case of free agency.
This project – the definition of free agency – is complicated by the fact that the same internal change can either enhance or diminish freedom depending upon the environment and the same external change can either enhance or diminish freedom depending upon internal capacities.
2 - Freedom and autonomy
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 16-33
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This book is about autonomy. In the next three chapters a conception of freedom will be defended according to which autonomy is different from, but dependent upon, freedom. I want first to summarize, without argument or elaboration, the results about freedom so that I can contrast freedom with autonomy and thereby introduce the basic ideas about the latter which guide my thinking.
Positive freedom and autonomy
Positive freedom is comprised of a set of personal traits which are essential or highly useful to the satisfaction of a wide range of activities and decisions, both short- and long-term. It encompasses relevant knowledge, including self-knowledge, and a variety of intellectual and physical competences. (Among intellectual competences, I include capacities for memory, perception, calculation, reasoning, information processing, and the elimination of irrational and inconsistent belief sets.) A free agent is free of debilitating physical infirmities, addictions, and severe stress. (I count a certain level of emotional health as a separate condition of autonomy. The details are presented in Chapters 8 and 9. Personal integrity, including the absence of conditions like severe psychosis, multiple personality, and split brains, is regarded as a condition of positive freedom rather than one of its elements.) Free agents may or may not possess the freedom to do and decide to do what is (deeply) important to them.
Frontmatter
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp i-vi
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10 - The value of autonomy
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 239-249
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Most people believe they have a right to be autonomous, at least in many domains. The value of autonomy may then be construed as the value of conferring or possessing this right – the right to be a certain way and the right not to be interfered with as one cultivates this state – and that depends on the precise nature and scope of this right. The right will not be of much value to a person who finds that he only has a right to exercise autonomy over matters of little moment to him. I do not propose to address the scope of this right for such a discussion would have to rest on a general theory of rights I am not in a position to offer.
Instead, I wish rather to seek to know the value of that state, autonomy, to which one may or may not have a limited or unlimited right. Here, again, the question may be divided. For one may wish to know the value of making a decision autonomously rather than heteronomously, regardless of the specific content of the decision. Or one may want to know the value of incorporating a particular domain into the scope of one's autonomy.
Liberation from self
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp xi-xii
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Bibliography
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 258-264
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3 - Freedom of action
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 34-56
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In a sense, we are all free to run four-minute miles. There is no law against it; we all have access to tracks, shorts, and running shoes; we will be neither ostracized nor beaten by our neighbors in the event that we are about to succeed. Insofar as no one is interfering with us, we possess negative freedom. As desirable as this condition is, its shortcomings as a complete account of freedom are conspicuous when we consider how unfair it would be to blame an octogenarian for her failure to reach this goal in spite of her best efforts. In another sense of freedom, positive freedom, the deficiency is internal. In virtue of her inability to run a four-minute mile, she lacks positive freedom to do so and is consequently blameless. With respect to our context, she lacks an essential tool for a display of autonomy as proficiency. We turn first to the idea of ability that is appealed to here.
Ability
Let us begin inside the skin. In one important sense of “free,” to be free to do something, one must be able to do it. Since differences of ability have a lot to do with internal differences among human beings, we may try to characterize ability as an internal state.
Liberation from Self
- A Theory of Personal Autonomy
- Bernard Berofsky
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995
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This is a detailed, sophisticated and comprehensive treatment of autonomy. Moreover it argues for a quite different conception of autonomy from that found in the philosophical literature. Professor Berofsky claims that the idea of autonomy originating in the self is a seductive but ultimately illusory one. The only serious way of approaching the subject is to pay due attention to psychology, and to view autonomy as the liberation from the disabling effects of physiological and psychological afflictions. A sustained critique of concepts such as moral autonomy, self-realisation, ideal autonomy, and identification is offered. The author replaces these with an alternative model that reveals how spontaneity, vitality and competence enable human beings to act in the real world.
1 - Introduction
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 1-15
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Acts of God are not acts of God. They are sudden, unexpected, natural occurrences with a significant impact on human affairs. It is, therefore, not incoherent to contend, as I do, that autonomous agents are not individuals whose actions and decisions are self-directed. I hasten to add that this negative conclusion about autonomy is not just fallout from the rejection of the very project of theorizing about the self. It is rather a result which is forced on us by the convergence of a variety of considerations, including powerful intuitions about particular cases.
Taking etymology seriously, we begin, like everyone else, with the assumption that autonomy is self-direction and embark on a search for the difference between self and other. When William Blier, a member of David Koresh's cult, acquiesced in his own suicide, he was acting from motives, values, and beliefs that were inculcated from without in a way which made him a virtual paradigm of heteronomy. Although Blier's action was inspired by motives that were in a sense his, that were among other things accessible to him in the unique way any person knows her own mental states, we rightly hesitate to describe his behavior as self-directed. His submission to another person – Koresh – was as complete as is possible for a human creature.
8 - The liberation theory of autonomy: Objectivity
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 182-209
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The picture of the autonomous agent that has evolved so far incorporates the following elements: (1) Freedom: an autonomous agent possesses a variety of intellectual and physical skills and capacities which confer upon him the further capacity to assess his options competently. His autonomy is enhanced by a strong rational will. (2) Values: an autonomous agent has and acts on values, but it is not necessary that these values be understood as the Evaluative Theory demands. That is, he is not necessarily disposed to evaluate his desires and options from a moral point of view or from the point view of the worth of his motivations. (3) Rationality: an autonomous agent is basically rational. He possesses rational powers and is generally disposed to use these powers in decision making, even though he may retain and occasionally act on the power to flout rational principles. (4) Independence: the procedures and principles of decision making adopted by an autonomous agent are held by that agent on the grounds of their reliability in the process of decision making. Regardless of origin, they are subject to evaluation in terms of criteria that are as objective as possible. Although an autonomous agent may enter relationships which entail (self-imposed) limitations, he does not thereby abandon either his ultimate capacity for or his right to rational review.
Index
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 265-270
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Notes
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 250-257
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Contents
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp vii-x
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7 - Rationality, values, and integrity
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 140-181
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We turn finally to the role of values in rational decision making.
It is well known that theorists disagree on the principles a rational agent must invoke when making decisions under uncertainty. One might try to assimilate such situations to ones of decision making under risk and recommend the maximization of expected utility, or one might invoke minimax, maximax, Hurwicz's variant of the latter, or the strategy of minimizing maximum regret. It is commonly supposed that reason per se does not dictate this decision, in which case rational agents are obliged to adopt principles grounded extrarationally. If some such principles are associated with values, then rational agents, all of whom must confront decision making under uncertainty at one time or another, must have values, although these values cannot be derived from the assumption of rationality.
Now the term “value” is used so widely that even these general methodological principles may be said to reflect values. The maximin rule expresses the value of conservatism or caution, the maximax rule that of optimism. If the term “value” is to be stretched this far, it is indeed impossible for any but the most seriously disturbed psychotics to proceed through life without values. The thesis we would then be examining would be reduced to triviality.
9 - The liberation theory of autonomy: The place of self
- Bernard Berofsky, Columbia University, New York
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- Liberation from Self
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- 16 September 2009
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- 29 September 1995, pp 210-238
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Summary
As we have just seen, the case of the addict or compulsive initiates a quest for an internal difference between the genuine autonomy of the normal person and the heteronomy of the addict. But there are features of an addict's life having nothing to do with the origin of his addiction which can explain his heteronomy. First of all, an unwilling addict lacks proficiency, the capacity to control his environment in accordance with his desires. However he came to this state, the loss of proficiency is grounded in his current condition, independently of origin. He is a cripple even if he freely chose to become one. More likely, the evolution to addiction was not initiated by a free choice. A fully informed, rational adult would not choose to become an addict, especially since one item of information at his disposal is that he would come seriously to regret the decision later. But here again the heteronomy of the original decision has to do with contemporaneous features of the decision, namely, ignorance or irrationality.
But we cannot just ignore the etiological component. People become addicts out of hopelessness, the need to become oblivious to their desperate condition, the desire to be free of physical and emotional pain, and the anticipation of intensely satisfying experiences.