Michael Garnett (Kings College, London): 'Inner Constraint: Addiction, Duress and the True Self'
Abstract: Sometimes we are constrained, not by external obstacles, but by aspects of ourselves. The problem of inner constraint is that of explaining how one and the same agent can be both the constraint and the constrained. A familiar solution here is to think of the agent as split into two parts: a ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ part that is constrained, and an ‘alien’ or ‘external’ part that does the constraining. This is the True Self Approach to inner constraint. In this paper, I first argue that the True Self Approach must be rejected, on the grounds that it is incapable of allowing that some aspects of ourselves can be more constraining than others. This, I claim, makes it an empirically inadequate analysis of paradigmatic cases of inner constraint, such as addiction. Then, I propose an alternative, duress-based approach that makes no appeal to ideas of authenticity, externality or alienation. On this approach, certain psychological conditions can constrain us by ruling out varyingly-sized sets of compossible actions. I argue that this provides a better solution to the problem.
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Workshop in Moral Philosophy Convenor: David Owens
