‘My Name is Joe and I'm an Alcoholic’: Addiction, Self‐knowledge and the Dangers of Rationalism

Levy, Neil

doi:10.1111/mila.12105

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Knowing yourself means knowing hard facts about yourself, knowing who you decide to be, and knowing how you relate to others. For the distinction between impersonal and critical self-knowledge, I rely on a paper by Neil Levy (Levy, 2016 ). The relational dimension has so far been neglected in the debate on self-knowledge.…”

Section: Self-knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Impersonal self-knowledge covers facts about yourself, independent of your agency and what you think about them. It is knowledge about you that is gathered by the same or analogous methods you use to know other people (Levy, 2016 ). This includes inferring your character or beliefs by observing patterns in your behavior, asking others what they think about you, or when you use technologies to measure and represent you, such as a brain scan or a health tracker.…”

Section: Self-knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

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Track Thyself? The Value and Ethics of Self-knowledge Through Technology

Leuenberger

2024

Philos. Technol.

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Novel technological devices, applications, and algorithms can provide us with a vast amount of personal information about ourselves. Given that we have ethical and practical reasons to pursue self-knowledge, should we use technology to increase our self-knowledge? And which ethical issues arise from the pursuit of technologically sourced self-knowledge? In this paper, I explore these questions in relation to bioinformation technologies (health and activity trackers, DTC genetic testing, and DTC neurotechnologies) and algorithmic profiling used for recommender systems, targeted advertising, and technologically supported decision-making. First, I distinguish between impersonal, critical, and relational self-knowledge. Relational self-knowledge is a so far neglected dimension of self-knowledge which is introduced in this paper. Next, I investigate the contribution of these technologies to the three types of self-knowledge and uncover the connected ethical concerns. Technology can provide a lot of impersonal self-knowledge, but we should focus on the quality of the information which tends to be particularly insufficient for marginalized groups. In terms of critical self-knowledge, the nature of technologically sourced personal information typically impedes critical engagement. The value of relational self-knowledge speaks in favour of transparency of information technology, notably for algorithms that are involved in decision-making about individuals. Moreover, bioinformation technologies and digital profiling shape the concepts and norms that define us. We should ensure they not only serve commercial interests but our identity and self-knowledge interests.

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Section: Self-knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Self-knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Track Thyself? The Value and Ethics of Self-knowledge Through Technology

Leuenberger

2024

Philos. Technol.

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“…17 Levy (2016) makes a related point about addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous encourages participants to describe themselves third-personally, with the famous phrase "My name is X and I'm an alcoholic".…”

Section: Why Diane's Attitude Revision Is First-personalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rational Agency and the Struggle to Believe What Your Reasons Dictate

Gertler¹

2021

The Fragmented Mind

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According to an influential view known as agentialism, our capacity to believe and intend directly on the basis of reasons—our rational agency—has a normative significance that distinguishes it from other kinds of agency. Agentialists maintain that insofar as we exercise rational agency, we bear a special kind of responsibility for our beliefs and intentions, and those attitudes are truly our own. This chapter will challenge these agentialist claims. The argument centers on a case in which a thinker struggles to align her belief to her reasons and succeeds only by resorting to non-rational methods. The chapter argues that she is responsible for the attitude generated by this struggle, that this process expresses her capacities for rationality and agency, and that the belief she eventually arrives at is truly her own. So rational agency is not distinctive in the ways that agentialists contend.

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“… 7 To be sure, some have recently argued that the picture looks somewhat different when it comes to addiction, where not all types of self-knowledge about one’s own addiction (e.g., first-, third-personal, critical, impersonal self-knowledge) are equally apt to improve self-control; see Levy (2014 , 2016 ), Holton (2016) , and Morgan and O’Brien (2016) ; for empirically well-informed research on addiction and self-deception, which is congenial to my argument, see, however, Pickard (2016) . For further useful philosophical accounts of addiction and irrationality, however, different they may be (see Wallace, 1999b ; Schlimme, 2010 ; Uusitalo et al, 2013 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Collaborative Irrationality, Akrasia, and Groupthink: Social Disruptions of Emotion Regulation

Szanto

2017

Front. Psychol.

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The present paper proposes an integrative account of social forms of practical irrationality and corresponding disruptions of individual and group-level emotion regulation (ER). I will especially focus on disruptions in ER by means of collaborative agential and doxastic akrasia. I begin by distinguishing mutual, communal and collaborative forms of akrasia. Such a taxonomy seems all the more needed as, rather surprisingly, in the face of huge philosophical interest in analysing the possibility, structure, and mechanisms of individual practical irrationality, with very little exception, there are no comparable accounts of social and collaborative cases. However, I believe that, if it is true that individual akrasia is, in the long run, harmful for those who entertain it, this is even more so in social contexts. I will illustrate this point by drawing on various small group settings, and explore a number of socio-psychological mechanisms underlying collaborative irrationality, in particular groupthink. Specifically, I suggest that in collaborative cases there is what I call a spiraling of practical irrationality at play. I will argue that this is typically correlated and indeed partly due to biases in individual members’ affect control and eventually the group’s with whom the members identify.

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‘My Name is Joe and I'm an Alcoholic’: Addiction, Self‐knowledge and the Dangers of Rationalism

Cited by 6 publications

References 29 publications

Track Thyself? The Value and Ethics of Self-knowledge Through Technology

Track Thyself? The Value and Ethics of Self-knowledge Through Technology

Rational Agency and the Struggle to Believe What Your Reasons Dictate

Collaborative Irrationality, Akrasia, and Groupthink: Social Disruptions of Emotion Regulation

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