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May & Holton on Weakness of Will

By Lawrence Solum

Joshua May (UC Santa Barbara) Richard Holton (MIT) have posted What in the World is Weakness of Will? (direct link to PDF) on the Internet. Here is a taste of this very interesting paper:

Our project is to shed light on what in the world the concept of weakness of will is. Is there an ordinary notion here? If so, is it disjunctive as Mele contends? Employing some empirical methods ourselves, we argue that neither the traditional account of weakness of will, nor Holton?s, nor Mele?s, is quite right. Indeed, our findings suggest that no simple account phrased in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions will do the job. The ordinary notion of weakness of will is more like a prototype or cluster concept. There are core cases that possess a number of features. As these features are removed, people are less inclined to describe the resulting cases as ones of weakness of will. Akrasia and resolution-violation are indeed among these features. However, neither is sufficient on its own for an ascription of weakness of will; and other features also play a role.

Highly recommended. Download it while its hot!

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on May 31, 2010 (boomark / email).