PHL244H1 Lecture Notes - Akrasia, Amour-Propre
Document Summary
Today"s agenda: frankfurt and marino on ambivalence, exam review. A conflict between attitudes/desires that are (a) second-order and (b) necessarily inconsistent. Valuing generosity and frugality (giving money and gifts to other people and being conservative with your money) Wanting your friendly rival to win an award and wanting to win it yourself. Caring about monogamy with person a and sex with person b. Wanting to be a stay-at-home mom and have a successful career. Ambivalence poses a threat to (1) agency, (2) rationality, (3) autonomy, and (4) happiness. it is a disease of the will. There"s nothing much wrong with ambivalence. in particular, it doesn"t threaten agency, rationality, autonomy, or happiness. Problems between first-order desires are not that serious because it doesn"t have to do with our internal beings. An ambivalent agent can"t make up his mind as to what he wants He can"t decide what to do so he is unable to act at all.