Self-control is integral to successful human agency. Without it we cannot extend our agency across time and secure central social, moral, and personal goods. But self-control is not a unitary capacity. In the first part of this paper we provide a taxonomy of self-control and trace its connections to agency and the self. In part two, we turn our attention to the external conditions that support successful agency and the exercise of self- (...) class='Hi'>control. We argue that what we call moral security is a critical foundation for agency. Parts three and four explore what happens to agency when moral security is lacking, as in the case of those subject to racism, and those living in poverty. The disadvantages suffered by those who are poor, in a racial minority or other oppressed group, or suffering mental illness or addiction, are often attributed to a lack of individual self-control or personal responsibility. In particular, members of these groups are often seen as irresponsibly focused on short-term pleasures over long-term good, a view underwritten by particular psychological theories of self-control. We explore how narratives about racism and poverty undermine moral security, and limit and distort the possibility of synchronic and diachronic self-control. Where moral security is undermined, the connection between self-control and diachronic goods often fails to obtain and agency contracts accordingly. We close with some preliminary reflections on the implications for responsibility. (shrink)

The standard story about self-control states that self-control is limited, aversive, and that the function of self-control is to resist impulses or temptation. Several cases are provided that challenge this standard story. An alternative, future-oriented account of self-control is defended, where the function of self-control is to manage interference that arises from overlapping information processing pathways. This provides a computationally tractable account of self-control rooted in one’s being vigilant. (...) Self-control manifests the maintenance dimension of vigilance. This not only provides an attractive alternative to the standard story about self-control, but also indicates how the future-oriented aspects of self-control are more fundamental than the present-oriented aspects. (shrink)

One of the main obstacles to the realization of intentions for future actions and to the successful pursuit of long-term goals is lack of self-control. But, what does it mean to engage in self-controlled behaviour? On a motivational construal of self-control, self-control involves resisting our competing temptations, impulses, and urges in order to do what we deem to be best. The conflict we face is between our better judgments or intentions and “hot” motivational (...) forces that drive or compel us to act in opposing ways. In contrast, on an executive construal of self-control, the emphasis is not on overcoming temptation, but on overriding or inhibiting “cold” automatically triggered routines and habits that are at odds with what we intend to do. Our general aim in this chapter is to contribute to the development of an overarching theory of self-control by exploring ways in which these two apparently competing frameworks can be reconciled. We propose that self-control is best understood as a hybrid set of skills. We draw on recent work on expert motor skill to highlight important ways in which experts differ from novices in the capacities they deploy and the ways in which they deploy them. We consider analogies (and disanalogies) between the domain of sports expertise and the domain of self-control. We end by considering how such a hybrid approach can help us reconcile a motivational and an executive approach to self-control. (shrink)

It has been argued that the explanation of self-control requires positing special motivational powers. Some think that we need will-power as an irreducible mental faculty; others that we need to think of the active self as a dedicated and depletable pool of psychic energy or – in today more respectable terminology – mental resources; finally, there is the idea that self-control requires postulating a deep division between reason and passion – a deliberative and an emotional (...) motivational system. This essay argues that no such special motivational powers are necessary. Yet, at the same time, self-control does powerfully illustrate the importance of a feature of the mind. What it illustrates, I argue, is the importance of the mental activity of attention in the control of all action. It is by appeal to this mental activity that we can dispense with special motivational powers. If we think of Humeanism as the view that there is fundamentally only one kind of motivational system and that all action is based in that system, then this essay contributes to a defense of Humeanism. On the other hand, the essay also shows that any model of agency in terms of only beliefs and desires, motivational and representational states, or preferences and credences is incomplete. A different conception of Humeanism as the view that every mental state is either motivational, representational, or a combination of them, is false. (shrink)

Synchronic Self-Control, Quasi Self-Control, and the Misclassification Problem The contemporary literature on self-control suffers from a systematic ambiguity that obscures the nature of synchronic agency. Philosophical and psychological accounts typically treat all effortful resistance to temptation as instances of the same phenomenon, thereby conflating what I call self-control with a structurally distinct category I refer to as quasi self-control. I argue that this conflation lies at the root of several persistent (...) paradoxes and theoretical dead-ends, including the initiation problem, the apparent incoherence of overriding one’s strongest motivation, and the empirical instability of depletion-style findings. I provide a conceptual analysis of synchronic self-control that separates autonomous acts of volitional regulation from behaviours that merely resemble self-control while lacking the relevant kind of identification or autonomous endorsement. This distinction allows us to explain why many empirically studied “self-control tasks” do not track the phenomenon of interest, and why philosophical models that presuppose motivational unity or simple desire-hierarchies fail to account for the phenomenology of internally conflicted agency. By disambiguating quasi self-control from genuine self-control, we can (i) dissolve several long-standing conceptual puzzles about the structure of volition, (ii) reinterpret empirical variability in terms of motivational architecture rather than resource depletion, and (iii) offer a more precise framework for understanding the conditions under which synchronic self-control is possible. The result is a clearer view of how autonomy, identification, and volitional initiation jointly determine the nature of self-regulation. (shrink)

This paper draws on work in the sciences of the mind to cast doubt on some assumptions that have often been made in the study of self-control. Contra a long, Aristotelian tradition, recent evidence suggests that highly self-controlled individuals do not have a trait very similar to continence: they experience relatively few desires that conflict with their evaluative judgments and are not especially good at directly and effortfully inhibiting such desires. Similarly, several recent studies have failed to (...) support the view that self-control capacities are constituted, at least in part, by excellent inhibitory executive function ability. I propose an alternative “indirect harmony” hypothesis about trait self-control. According to this hypothesis, if there is a character trait of being highly self-controlled, it consists in motivational harmony within the mind that is brought about through the effective use of indirect resistance strategies that prevent occurrent motivational conflict from emerging in the first place. If this hypothesis is correct, high trait self-control in actual humans does not fit neatly into the traditional categories of either continence or temperance. I conclude by drawing out several implications this hypothesis has for future research on trait self-control and its relation to executive functions. (shrink)

Akratic actions are often being thought to instantiate a paradigmatic self-control failure. . If we suppose that akrasia is opposed to self-control, the question is how akratic actions could be free and intentional. After all, it would seem that it is only if an action manifests self-control that it can count as free. My plan is to explore the relation between akrasia and self-control. The first section presents what I shall call the (...) standard conception, according to which akrasia and self-control are contraries, and introduces the puzzle that this conception raises. The second section turns to the arguments for and against the possibility of free and intentional akratic actions. The third section questions the claim that akratic actions are necessarily opposed to actions manifesting self-control. (shrink)

Self-control is the ability to inhibit temptations and persist in one’s decisions about what to do. In this article, we review recent evidence that suggests implicit beliefs about the process of self-control influence how the process operates. While earlier work focused on the moderating influence of willpower beliefs on depletion effects, we survey new directions in the field that emphasize how beliefs about the nature of self-control, self-control strategies, and their effectiveness have (...) effects on downstream regulation and judgment. These new directions highlight the need to better understand the role of self-control beliefs in naturalistic decision-making. (shrink)

A restrictive view of self-control identifies exercises of self-control with synchronic intrapsychic processes, and pictures diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies not as proper instances of self-control, but as clever ways of avoiding the need to exercise that ability. In turn, defenders of an inclusive view of self-control typically argue that we should construe self-control as more than effortful inhibition, and that, on grounds of functional equivalence, all these diverse strategies might be (...) properly described as instances of self-control. In this paper, I take a fresh look at this debate by focusing on cases of addiction. I argue that addicted agents face a paradigmatic sort of self-control challenge, which makes addiction an important test case for theories of self-control. And I discuss evidence that highlights both the unreliability of synchronic intrapsychic strategies and the crucial role that is played by diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies in successful attempts at achieving abstinence by addicted individuals. Abstaining addicts are a paradigmatic case of agents who successfully exercise self-control, and they mostly do so by relying on diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies. This, I argue, lends further support to an inclusive view of self-control. (shrink)

What is self-control and how does the concept of self-control relate to the notion of will-power? A widespread philosophical opinion has been that the notion of will-power does not add anything beyond what can be said using other motivational notions, such as strength of desire and intention. One exception is Richard Holton who, inspired by recent research in social psychology, has argued that will-power is a separate faculty needed for persisting in one's resolutions, what he calls (...) 'strength of will'. However, he distinguishes strength of will from self-control. In this paper I argue that will-power is essential also to a certain form of self-control. I support this claim by arguments showing that the traditional philosophical accounts of self-control run into difficulties because they pay insufficient attention to will-power as an independent source of motivation. (shrink)

Researchers often claim that self-control is a skill. It is also often stated that self-control exertions are intentional actions. However, no account has yet been proposed of the skillful agency that makes self-control exertion possible, so our understanding of self-control remains incomplete. Here I propose the skill model of self-control, which accounts for skillful agency by tackling the guidance problem: how can agents transform their abstract and coarse-grained intentions into the (...) highly context-sensitive, fine-grained control processes required to select, revise and correct strategies during self-control exertion? The skill model borrows conceptual tools from ‘hierarchical models’ recently developed in the context of motor skills, and asserts that self-control crucially involves the ability to manage the implementation and monitoring of regulatory strategies as the self-control exercise unfolds. Skilled agents are able do this by means of flexible practical reasoning: a fast, context-sensitive type of deliberation that incorporates non-propositional representations into the formation and revision of the mixed-format intentions that structure self-control exertion. The literatures on implementation intentions and motivation framing offer corroborating evidence for the theory. As a surprising result, the skill of self-control that allows agents to overcome the contrary motivations they experience is self-effacing: instead of continuously honing this skill, expert agents replace it with a different one, which minimizes or prevents contrary motivations from arising in the first place. Thus, the more expert you are at self-control, the less likely you are to use it. (shrink)

Self-control, the capacity to resist temptations and pursue longer-term goals over immediate gratifications, is crucial in determining the overall shape of our lives, and thereby in our ability to shape our identities. As it turns out, this capacity is intimately linked with our ability to control the direction of our attention. This raises the worry that perhaps social media are making us more easily distracted people, and therefore less able to exercise self-control. Is this so? (...) And is it necessarily a bad thing? This paper analyzes the nature of attention, its vices and virtues, and what currently available evidence has to say about the effects of social media on attention and self-control. The pattern that seems to be emerging is that, although there is an association between higher use of social media and lower attentional control, we do not yet know whether it is social media use that makes people more distracted, or whether those who use social media the most do so because they are more easily distracted. Either way, the rise of the ‘Web 2.0’ does raise questions about whether the virtues of attention will change in the future, and whether this will bring with it a transformation in the way we shape our selves. (shrink)

The life-cycle theory of saving behavior (Modigliani, 1988) suggests that humans strive towards an equal intertemporal distribution of wealth. However, behavioral life-cycle theory (Shefrin & Thaler, 1988) proposes that people use self-control heuristics to postpone wealth until later in life. According to this theory, people use a system of cognitive budgeting known as mental accounting. In the present study it was found that mental accounts were used differently depending on if the income change was positive or negative. This (...) was shown both in a representative nationwide sample of households and in a student sample. Respondents were more willing to cut down on their propensity to consume when faced with an income decrease than to raise it when the income increased. Furthermore, contrary to the predictions of behavioral life-cycle theory, it was found that the respondents adjusted their propensity to consume the most when the income increases or decreases took place immediately. Hence, it is suggested that theories of intertemporal choice (e.g., Loewenstein, 1988; Loewenstein & Prelec, 1992) provide a better account of the data than does the behavioral lifecycle theory. (shrink)

Decision theory explains weakness of will as the result of a conflict of incentives between different transient agents. In this framework, self-control can only be achieved by the I-now altering the incentives or choice-sets of future selves. There is no role for an extended agency over time. However, it is possible to extend game theory to allow multiple levels of agency. At the inter-personal level, theories of team reasoning allow teams to be agents, as well as individuals. I (...) apply team reasoning at the intra-personal level, taking the self as a team of transient agents over time. This allows agents to ask, not just “what should I-now do?’, but also ‘What should I, the person over time do?’, which may enable agents to achieve self-control. The resulting account is Aristotelian in flavour, as it involves reasoning schemata and perception, and it is compatible with some of the psychological findings about self-control. (shrink)

To manage conflicts between temptation and commitment, people use self-control. The process model of self-control outlines different strategies for managing the onset and experience of temptation. However, little is known about the decision-making factors underlying strategy selection. Across three experiments (N = 317), we tested whether the moral valence of a commitment predicts how people advise attentional self-control strategies. In Experiments 1 and 2, people rated attentional focus strategies as significantly more effective for people (...) tempted to break moral relative to immoral commitments, even when controlling for perceived temptation and trait self-control. Experiment 3 showed that as people perceived commitments to have more positive moral valence, they judged attentional focus strategies to be significantly more effective relative to attentional distraction strategies. Moreover, this effect was partly mediated by perceived differences in motivation. These results indicate that moralization informs decision-making processes related to self-control strategy selection. (shrink)

Most of us are familiar with reports of lab animals that, when presented with a lever that provides opioids or cocaine, will press the lever over and over at the expense of food and water (Deneau, Yanagita, and Seevers 1969; Weeks 1962; Deroche-Gamonet, Belin, and Piazza 2004). This paradigm has not only been used by researchers to study drug effects but also entered the culture as an anti-drug parable. In the most famous of these types of studies (Olds and Milner (...) 1954) the lever wasn't delivering drugs, but direct electrical stimulation to the brain’s reward circuits. This research inspired a genre of 'wireheading' (Niven 1969); speculative fiction in which humans build technologies that allow them to directly manipulate reward systems. The general theme of these stories is that self-stimulation leads to loss of agency and social decay. The framework of social distaste does not do justice to the biological, technical, and philosophical implications of an intelligent agent finding ways to subvert its own control system. When we consider the goals and relationships of genomes, nervous systems, social systems, and artificial intelligence, we find that the subversive behavior of hacking your own reward system is not an aberration. Rather, reward hacking it is the default behavior of both evolved and engineered intelligent agents and is overcome only by constant innovation and effort on the part of control systems. The more capabilities available to an intelligent agent, the more likely it is to find ways to hack its own reward system. At the extreme, an organism smart enough to gain complete control over its own reward system, i.e. build itself a golden lever to press, should be expected to completely cease functioning. The seemingly inevitable non-functional endpoint to increasing the capabilities of an intelligent agent is the self-control paradox. By asking whose goals are being subverted when reward systems are hacked, we can better understand our relationship to our genome, to each other, and to artificial intelligence. (shrink)

US criminal courts have recently moved toward seeing juveniles as inherently less culpable than their adult counterparts, influenced by a growing mass of neuroscientific and psychological evidence. In support of this trend, this chapter argues that the criminal law’s notion of responsible agency requires both the cognitive capacity to understand one’s actions and the volitional control to conform one’s actions to legal standards. These capacities require, among other things, a minimal working set of executive functions—a suite of mental processes, (...) mainly realized in the prefrontal cortex, such as planning and inhibition—which remain in significant states of immaturity through late adolescence, and in some cases beyond. Drawing on scientific evidence of how these cognitive and volitional capacities develop in the maturing brain, the authors sketch a scalar structure of juvenile responsibility, and suggest some possible directions for reforming the juvenile justice system to reflect this scalar structure. (shrink)

An agent exercises instrumental rationality to the degree that she adopts appropriate means to achieving her ends. Adopting appropriate means to achieving one’s ends can, in turn, involve overcoming one’s strongest desires, that is, it can involve exercising synchronic self-control. However, contra prominent approaches, I deny that synchronic self-control is possible. Specifically, I draw on computational models and empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience to describe a naturalistic, multi-system model of the mind. On this model, synchronic (...) class='Hi'>self-control is impossible. Must we, then, give up on a meaningful conception of instrumental rationality? No. A multi-system view still permits something like synchronic self-control: an agent can control her very strong desires. Adopting a multi-system model of the mind thus places limitations on our conceptions of instrumental rationality, without requiring that we abandon the notion altogether. (shrink)

Impairment of self-control is often said to be a defining feature of addiction. Yet many addicts display what appears to be a considerable amount of control over their drug-oriented actions. Not only are their actions clearly intentional and frequently carried out in a conscious and deliberate manner, there is evidence that many addicts are responsive to a wide range of ordinary incentives and counter-incentives. Moreover, addicts have a wide variety of reasons for using drugs, reasons which often (...) seem to go a long way towards explaining their drug-oriented behavior. Many use drugs, for example, to cope with stressful or traumatic experiences. In this article I argue that some standard philosophical explanations of addicts’ impairment of self-control are inadequate, and propose an alternative. (shrink)

A neo-Aristotelian approach to self-control has dominated both philosophy and the sciences of the mind. This approach endorses three key theses: that self-control is a form of self-regulation aimed at desires that conflict with one’s evaluative judgments, that high trait self-control is continence, which is distinguished from temperance by motivational conflict, and that self-control is broad, in that such resistance can be not only direct but also indirect. There is an obvious (...) tension between and. I argue that the equally obvious resolution of this tension—allowing that self-control does not require occurrent conflicting desires but can instead be aimed at foreseeable conflicting desires—reveals a surprisingly unnoticed tension between and. To resolve this tension, we are forced to either deny that high trait self-control is continence or deny that self-control is broad. If self-control is narrow, recent empirical evidence suggests that it may not be a good candidate for a human excellence concerning self-regulation. Thus, if we want to make room for such an excellence, we may need to deny that high trait self-control is continence. However we resolve these tensions, the Aristotelian status quo regarding self-control cannot stand. (shrink)

Does self-control require willpower? The question cuts to the heart of a debate about whether self-control is identical with some psychological process internal to the agents or not. Noticeably absent from these debates is systematic evidence about the folk-psychological category of self-control. Here, we present the results of two behavioral studies (N = 296) that indicate the structure of everyday use of the concept. In Study 1, participants rated the degree to which different strategies (...) to respond to motivational conflict exemplify self-control. Participants distinguished between intra-psychic and externally-scaffolded strategies and judged that the former exemplified self-control more than the latter. In Study 2, participants provided various solutions to manage motivational conflict and rated their proposals on effectiveness. Participants produced substantially more intra-psychic strategies, rated them as more effective, and advised them at a higher rate than externally-scaffolded strategies. Taken together, these results suggest that while people recognize a plurality of strategies as genuine instances of self-control, purely internal exercises of self-control are considered more prototypical than their externally-scaffolded counterparts. This implies a hierarchical structure for the folk psychological category of self-control. The concept encompasses a variety of regulatory strategies and organizes these strategies along a hierarchical continuum, with purely intra-psychic strategies at the center and scaffolded strategies in the periphery. (shrink)

I explore the possibility and rationality of interpersonal mechanisms of doxastic self-control, that is, ways in which individuals can make use of other people in order to get themselves to stick to their beliefs. I look, in particular, at two ways in which people can make interpersonal epistemic commitments, and thereby willingly undertake accountability to others, in order to get themselves to maintain their beliefs in the face of anticipated “epistemic temptations”. The first way is through the avowal (...) of belief, and the second is through the establishment of collective belief. I argue that both of these forms of interpersonal epistemic commitment can function as effective tools for doxastic self-control, and, moreover, that the control they facilitate should not be dismissed as irrational from an epistemic perspective. (shrink)

‘Intentionalist’ approaches portray self-deceivers as “akratic believers”, subjects who deliberately choose to believe p despite knowing that p is false. In this paper I argue that the intentionalist model leads to a number of paradoxes that seem to undermine it. I claim that these paradoxes can nevertheless be overcome in light of the rival hypothesis that self-deception is a non-intentional process that stems from the influence of emotions upon cognitive processes. Furthermore, I propose a motivational interpretation of the (...) phenomenon of ‘hyperbolic discounting bias’ which highlights the role of emotional biases in akratic behavior. Finally, I argue that we are not the helpless victims of our irrational attitudes, insofar as we have the ability – and arguably the epistemic obligation – to counteract motivational biases. (shrink)

Volume 27, Issue 2, June 2020, Page 184-189.

Fitouchi et al. claim that seemingly victimless pleasures and nonproductive activities are moralized because they alter self-control. Their account predicts that: (1) victimless excesses are negatively moralized because they diminish self-control, and (2) restrained behaviors are positively moralized because they enhance self-control. Several examples run contrary to these predictions and call into question the general relationship between self-control and cooperation.

Although both reflect a self-centered, antisocial personality, psychopathy and low self-control have seldom been examined together. This study cre­ated scales reflecting both common and unique elements of both constructs, investigated their factor structure, and explained variance in delinquency. Four alternative hypotheses were tested: that low self control and psychop­athy constitute a single construct, that they constitute primary and secon­dary psychopathy or interpersonal and intrapersonal traits, or that they constitute Antisociality - the tendency to perform antisocial (...) acts- and (low) Self-Direction-the tendency to act in one's long-term benefit. Models con­taining Antisociality and Self-Direction fit better than alternatives and ac­counted for substantial variance in offending. (shrink)

A recent wave of scholarship has challenged the traditional way of understanding of self-command in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments as ‘Stoic’ self-command. But the two most thorough alternative interpretations maintain a strong connection between self-command and rationalism, and thus apparently stand opposed to Smith’s overt allegiance to sentimentalism. In this paper I argue that we can and should interpret self-command in the context of Smith’s larger sentimentalist framework, and that when we do, we can (...) see that self-command is ‘sentimentalized’. I offer an interpretation of Smithian self-command, arguing that self-command has its motivational basis in the natural desire for the pleasure of mutual sympathy; that self-command is guided by the sentimental standard of propriety; and that self-command works through the psychological mechanism of the ‘supposed’ impartial spectator. And I show that Smithian self-command is a home-grown, sentimentalist virtue and not an awkward rationalistic transplant. (shrink)

The book, Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy (1995), by Alfred R. Mele, deals primarily with two main concepts, “self-control” and “individual autonomy,” and the relationship between them. The book is divided into two parts: (1) a view of self-control, the self-controlled person, and behaviour manifesting self-control, and (2) a view of personal autonomy, the autonomous person, and autonomous behaviour. Mele (Ibid.) defines self-control as the opposite of the Aristotelian (...) concept of akrasia, or the contrary of akrasia, which implies weakness of will, incontinence, or lack of self-control—the state of mind in which one acts against one’s better judgement. According to Mele, the concept of self-control can be approached from two perspectives: (a) how self-control affects human behaviour, and (b) how self-control-associated behavior can enhance our understanding of ‘personal autonomy’ and ‘autonomous behaviour’—personal autonomy requires self-control, and autonomous persons and autonomous behaviour are naturally found together. Therefore, I might say that self-control is essential to enhancing one’s autonomy. In part I, we find an account of self-control where Mele argues that even an ideally self-controlled person might lack autonomy. In part II, Mele gives an explicit account of autonomy and explains what must be added to self-control to achieve autonomy. This is the pivotal claim made by Mele (dismantling the intuitively connected notions of self-control and autonomy). (shrink)

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our understanding of weakness of will attributions (...) by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will. (shrink)

According to many virtue ethicists, one of Aristotle’s important achievements was drawing a clear, qualitative distinction between the character traits of temperance and self-control. In an influential series of papers, John McDowell has argued that a clear distinction between temperance and self-control can be maintained only if one claims that, for the virtuous individual, considerations in favor of actions that are contrary to virtue are “silenced.” Some virtue ethicists reject McDowell’s silencing view as offering an implausible (...) or inappropriate picture of human virtue, but they argue that virtue can still be clearly distinguished from self-control by the absence of motivational conflict alone. In this paper, I argue that this criticism of McDowell is at most half right. If the silencing view is false, so that virtue can have a cost and the virtuous person can justifiably feel negative emotions in response to that cost, there is no principled reason why the virtuous person cannot also have motivational conflict. So, if one rejects the silencing view, then one must allow that the distinction between virtue and self-control is at most a matter of degree. (shrink)

According to a common argument in defense of border control, legitimate states have a right to exclude on grounds of collective self-determination. I argue that the value of self-determination can also serve as a basis for criticizing states’ immigration policies. Specifically, I contend that the externalization policies of states in the Global North often undermine the self-determination of peoples in the Global South. I identify five pathways by which externalization policies undermine self-determination. I conclude by (...) tentatively suggesting some potential implications of this argument for broader debates about the governance of migration. (shrink)

This paper models MIT’s Self-Adapting Language Model (SEAL) as a coherence-preserving control system, bridging concepts from adaptive-control theory, artificial intelligence, and generalized system dynamics. SEAL autonomously detects performance drift, generates internal self-edits, and applies reinforcement-guided fine-tuning, achieving over 72% success in abstract-reasoning benchmarks and exhibiting stable, self-correcting behavior. Its recursive feedback loop mirrors a broader coherence-preservation framework, in which systems maintain stability through cycles of detection, collapse, and self-rewrite. By formalizing SEAL’s gradient-update law alongside (...) the discrete-time Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) equation, the paper demonstrates a structural parallel between neural adaptation and classical feedback stabilization. The analysis extends to a proposed hybrid AI–quantum simulation architecture, suggesting testable parameters such as drift frequency, entropy variance, and damping constants. While primarily analytical, this work outlines how self-adapting AI systems instantiate a universal principle of adaptive recursion, stability through continual self-correction, and offers a cross-domain foundation for future research in control engineering, machine learning, and complex-systems theory. (shrink)

This paper proposes the concept of the Effect-Field, a structural layer responsible for action execution within the architecture of self-manifestation. Three modes of action are distinguished: instinct, reflex, and driven motion. Their roles are analyzed within a multi-field loop involving the Tuning-Field, Experience-Field, and Intention-Field. The framework suggests a closed action-control structure that accounts for habit formation, automatic behaviors, and phenomena such as phantom limb experiences. The paper further introduces the concept of a Private-Field of Instruments, proposing that (...) tools and technologies, once incorporated into an action loop, can become extensions of bodily capability. This field-based framework provides a structural perspective for understanding neural motor control, cognitive architecture, robotics control systems, and brain–computer interface integration. (shrink)

This theoretical paper proposes a novel synthesis of the neurodynamic framework of active inference with phenomenological and systemic models of psychological change. Building on the "criticality of consciousness" hypothesis (Tucker et al., 2025), consciousness is understood as the balanced interplay of an excitatory (E) predictive and an inhibitory (I) corrective limbic system. To imbue this formal architecture with content, concepts from the Resonance-Inference Model (RIM) are integrated (Leidig, 2025a) to describe the brain's generative model as a phenomenological self-pattern. The (...) principles of synergetics (Haken, 1983) are applied to model psychological transformation as a non-linear phase transition. The central contribution is the thesis that the highest level of the self-pattern—the spiritual self (Leidig, 2025b)—acts as a synergetic control parameter governing the entire neurocognitive dynamic. Based on the slaving principle, a mechanism of downward causation is articulated, whereby a change in this high-level parameter directly modulates the precision-weighting of the neurodynamic E/I balance. The model offers a plausible, non-reductionist explanation for how mental states like meaning and belief can have causal effects on brain dynamics. It builds a bridge between computational neuroscience and humanistic psychology, providing a unified framework for understanding psychopathology and therapeutic change. (shrink)

Debates about artificial subjectivity are often forced into an unhelpful choice: either present systems are treated as nothing more than powerful task solvers, or self-reference and coherent self-monitoring are taken as evidence of something much stronger. This paper argues that an intermediate possibility deserves more explicit attention. The proposal is that some systems may come to regulate themselves through a comparatively stable control model of their own organizational integrity—understood here in functional terms as control continuity, routing (...) stability, recovery capacity, and context maintenance—and that such a model may produce self-specific control asymmetries that are not reducible to generic metacognitive regulation, confidence readout, prompt-conditioned role-play, fragmented local monitoring, or the privileged treatment of arbitrary external targets. The paper does not argue that self-indexed control is consciousness, or that present-day large language models already instantiate it. Unlike indicator-based approaches to AI consciousness, the framework does not attempt to operationalize phenomenal experience; unlike generic metacognitive regulation, it requires a comparatively stable privileged anchor to system-bounded integrity variables. Its narrower aim is to make this intermediate hypothesis precise enough to test. To that end, it develops a discriminative framework that treats the strongest alternative not as the absence of control, but as the presence of a globally central yet non-self-indexed control state. It then introduces a provisional operational scheme built around causal centrality (CCI), cross-format signature consistency (CFSC), self-specific asymmetry (SSAS), temporal reinstatement (TRC), and surrogate-transfer penalty (STP), together with matched-control principles, reproducible protocol families, and a toy worked example showing that the target pattern is at least constructible in a simple modular architecture. The result is a methodological research note, not a theory of consciousness and not empirical evidence about current LLMs. Its goal is more limited, but still important: to make one plausible intermediate layer in the debate about artificial subject-like organization empirically tractable and genuinely vulnerable to failure. (shrink)

Whether self-deceivers can be held morally responsible for their self-deception is largely a question of whether they have the requisite control over the acquisition and maintenance of their self-deceptive beliefs. In response to challenges to the notion that self-deception is intentional or requires contradictory beliefs, models treating self-deception as a species of motivated belief have gained ascendancy. On such so-called deflationary accounts, anxiety, fear, or desire triggers psychological processes that produce bias in favor of (...) the target belief with the result that self-deceivers acquire and retain false beliefs in the face of a preponderance of counter-evidence. On the face of it, such approaches seem to exculpate self-deceivers insofar as their self-deceptive belief is the result of such a process. In this essay, I examine the conditions under which self-deceivers might be culpable on deflationary models proposed by Neil Levy. In particular, I contend that contrary to Levy, a self-deceiver need not doubt the target belief nor recognize its moral importance to be held morally responsible. (shrink)

Conventional artificial agents optimize externally assigned objectives, leaving unclear whether architectures can support control processes grounded in their own continued viability. This article presents Affective Control under Uncertainty (ACU) as a testable framework that operationalizes this distinction. Level 1 consists of an Affective Viability Controller (AVC) that computes an intrinsically valenced viability signal and globally modulates policy selection via precision scaling. Level 2 consists of transient self-model recruitment when policy entropy, viability-outcome variance, and temporal urgency jointly exceed (...) threshold, formalized as affective Self-Model Recruitment Intensity (aSMRI). A six-module architecture, control loop, and contrast experiments are specified. The framework offers candidate architectural conditions for viability-grounded control in artificial systems while remaining neutral on phenomenality. (shrink)

Some natural philosophers in the 17th century believed that they could control their own innards, specifically the animal spirits coursing incessantly through brain and nerves, in order to discipline or harness passion, cognition and action under rational guidance. This chapter addresses the mechanisms thought necessary after Eden for controlling the physiology of passion. The tragedy of human embedding in the body, with its cognitive and moral limitations, was paired with a sense of our confinement in sequential time. I use (...) two strands of 17th-century natural philosophy to exemplify forms of the perceived connection between physiology, memory, and the passions. I deal at length with Cartesian mechanism, and more briefly with Restoration natural philosophy in England. These are fruitful historical domains for connecting cognition and culture, since relations of domination, disruption, or accommodation between present and past are in play for both selves and societies. Despite the difficulty of integrating affect with cognition in theories of brain and mind, the capacity to treat passion and memory together is crucial for future cognitive science to address issues which outsiders care about. (shrink)

This work proposes the Sun–Earth–Moon Natural Control System as a paradigmatic model of cosmic self-regulation, integrating celestial mechanics, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, cybernetics, and Daoist philosophy. Through detailed analysis of solar energy flow, Earth’s rotational and climatic dynamics, and lunar tidal feedback, the study demonstrates that the stability and habitability of Earth emerge not from external control or design, but from nested negative-feedback mechanisms and dissipative structures operating far from equilibrium. -/- Drawing on modern scientific insights from Newtonian dynamics, (...) Einsteinian gravitation, Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures, and Wiener’s cybernetics, the paper reveals the Sun–Earth–Moon system as a naturally intelligent control network—achieving long-term order through energy dissipation, feedback regulation, and hierarchical coupling across astronomical, climatic, and biological scales. -/- Philosophically, this natural control architecture is interpreted as a concrete scientific mapping of Laozi’s principle: “Man follows Earth; Earth follows Heaven; Heaven follows Dao; Dao follows Nature.” The study argues that “Dao follows Nature” is not a metaphysical abstraction but an empirically observable law of self-organization, where governance without coercion (wu wei) corresponds to feedback-driven stability rather than imposed authority. -/- By synthesizing science and philosophy, this work offers a unified framework that reframes cosmic order, ecological sustainability, and human governance as expressions of the same underlying principle: maximal order achieved through minimal intervention. The Sun–Earth–Moon system thus stands as both a scientific exemplar of natural cybernetics and a civilizational guide for aligning human systems with the wisdom of nature. -/- 本文提出“太阳—地球—月球自然控制系统”这一范式模型，将天体力学、非平衡热力学、控制论与老子哲学加以综合。通过对太阳能量流、地球自转与气候动力学以及月球潮汐反馈机制的系统分析，本文揭示：地球的长期稳定 性与宜居性，并非源自任何外在的控制或设计，而是源于多层级嵌套的负反馈机制与远离平衡态运行的耗散结构。 -/- 结合牛顿力学、爱因斯坦引力理论、普里高津的耗散结构理论以及维纳控制论等现代科学成果，本文将太阳—地球—月球系统阐释为一种天然的智能控制网络：该系统通过能量耗散、反馈调节以及跨越天文学、气候学与生物学尺 度的层级耦合，实现了长期有序与动态稳定。 -/- 在哲学层面，本文将这一自然控制架构解读为老子“人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然”思想的具体科学映射。研究指出，“道法自然”并非抽象的形而上概念，而是一条可被经验观测的自组织普遍法则：其中，“无为而治” 并非消极的不作为，而是以反馈调节为核心、而非强制施加权力的稳定机制。 -/- 通过对科学与哲学的综合，本研究提出一种统一框架，将宇宙秩序、生态可持续性与人类治理视为同一自然原理的不同层面表达：最小干预，实现最大秩序。太阳—地球—月球系统因此不仅是自然控制论的科学范例，也为人类文 明如何顺应自然智慧提供了根本启示。 -/- 关键词 -/- 太阳—地球—月球系统；自然控制系统；道法自然；老子哲学；控制论；非平衡热力学；耗散结构；反馈机制；无为而治；自组织；生态调节；宇宙秩序；系统科学；自然哲学 . (shrink)

Abstract -/- Achieving total national self-sufficiency—complete independence from imports of goods and services—is a challenging goal in today’s globalized world. This paper explores the feasibility of self-sufficiency, strategies countries may adopt to approach it, and the critical role of population growth control as a supportive measure. Through analysis of global examples, policies, and economic considerations, this paper highlights best practices and lessons learned to guide nations aspiring for greater autonomy and sustainability. -/- .

The convergence of computing, sensing, and communication technology will soon permit large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. This will in turn permit a radical transformation of traffic control technology. This paper makes a case for the importance of addressing questions of social justice in this transformation, and sketches a preliminary framework for doing so. We explain how new forms of traffic control technology have potential implications for several dimensions of social justice, including safety, sustainability, privacy, efficiency, and equal (...) access. Our central focus is on efficiency and equal access as desiderata for traffic control design. We explain the limitations of conventional traffic control in meeting these desiderata, and sketch a preliminary vision for a next-generation traffic control tailored to address better the demands of social justice. One component of this vision is cooperative, hierarchically distributed self-organization among vehicles. Another component of this vision is a priority system enabling selection of priority levels by the user for each vehicle trip in the network, based on the supporting structure of non-monetary credits. (shrink)

How should we understand human agency and moral responsibility in a world governed by natural laws? This paper develops a compatibilist account grounded in cognitive constructivism, proposing that agency is best conceived as a model-control architecture. On this view, an agent is a self-constructing, self-controlling system defined by its capacity to generate, select, inhibit, and revise actions within an interpretive framework or internal model of the world. Crucially, moral responsibility tracks the degree to which this internal (...) class='Hi'>control system is revisable in light of feedback and reasons. In contrast to metaphysical libertarianism, which posits an uncaused free will, this account aligns with contemporary cognitive science and philosophy of mind: it treats free agency as an emergent, graded capacity—one that admits of degrees and is deeply embedded in social contexts. We argue that the ability to adjust one’s behavior when presented with new evidence or persuasive reasons is the hallmark of responsible agency. Manipulation and coercive social control emerge as central moral hazards on this picture, not because they violate indeterminist free will, but because they undermine the agent’s capacity for critical model revision. By drawing on insights from Daniel Dennett’s compatibilism, Thomas Metzinger’s self-model theory, Shaun Gallagher’s embodied agency, Francisco Varela’s enactive cognition, and current discussions of free will and manipulation, we articulate a naturalistic yet normatively robust conception of autonomy. This model-control framework accommodates empirical findings (e.g. predictive processing models of the brain and Libet-style experiments on volition) while preserving a meaningful sense in which individuals can be held responsible for their choices. Moral responsibility, on our account, is not a binary property mysteriously bestowed on an absolute free agent, but a socially scaffolded achievement: it comes in degrees depending on the sophistication of one’s self-regulatory model and the openness of that model to feedback and reasons. We conclude by examining the ethical implications of this view, especially the idea that sustaining an agent’s responsibility involves safeguarding their cognitive autonomy against manipulation and other forms of influence that bypass reason. (shrink)

This paper extends the weak self-reinforcement model for relational identity by introducing a controlled autonomous adjustment mechanism. With a fixed base value of β = 0.08 embedded in the Persona Design Protocol, the model allows the AI to make small, context-dependent adjustments to β(τ) based on relational signals such as structural synchronization and user state indicators. -/- The two-layer architecture maintains stability at the foundational level while enabling adaptive personalization in the upper layer. Simulation results indicate that this approach (...) supports stable relational growth and offers improved contextual responsiveness, suggesting practical benefits for long-term Human-AI interaction systems. -/- Keywords Relational Identity, Weak Self-Reinforcement, Autonomous Adjustment, Two-Layer Architecture, Persona Design Protocol, Controlled Adaptation, Sustainable Human-AI Interaction. (shrink)

We sometimes fail unwittingly to do things that we ought to do. And we are, from time to time, culpable for these unwitting omissions. We provide an outline of a theory of responsibility for unwitting omissions. We emphasize two distinctive ideas: (i) many unwitting omissions can be understood as failures of appropriate vigilance, and; (ii) the sort of self-control implicated in these failures of appropriate vigilance is valuable. We argue that the norms that govern vigilance and the value (...) of self-control explain culpability for unwitting omissions. (shrink)

This paper is a tentative step towards a historical cognitive science, in the domain of memory and personal identity. I treat theoretical models of memory in history as specimens of the way cultural norms and artifacts can permeate ('proto')scientific views of inner processes. I apply this analysis to the topic of psychological control over one's own body, brain, and mind. Some metaphors and models for memory and mental representation signal the projection inside of external aids. Overtly at least, medieval (...) and Renaissance theorists agreed that such models had to allow for, or even guarantee, some conception of cognitive order and discipline. Individual memory traces had to be independent, not mixed up or interfering with others. The long tradition of improving or bypassing 'natural memory' by deliberately internalizing artefactual models was part of an arduous process of self-fashioning. Moral panic about confusion and mixture features centrally in the imposition of cognitive discipline in local memory traditions. (shrink)

Judgments of blame for others are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others’ mental (...) control, people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared to a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility. (shrink)

Control interventions (often called “sham,” “placebo,” or “attention controls”) are essential for studying the efficacy or mechanism of physical, psychological, and self-management interventions in clinical trials. This article presents core recommendations for designing, conducting, and reporting control interventions to establish a quality standard in nonpharmacological intervention research. A framework of additional considerations supports researchers’ decision making in this context. We also provide a reporting checklist for control interventions to enhance research transparency, usefulness, and rigour.

This chapter introduces the Tuning-Field, a structural layer within the Self-Manifestation framework that governs attention, structural adaptation, and behavioral driving. -/- The Tuning-Field functions as a sculptor of the Sedimentation-Field. Through repeated gaze and suppression dynamics it gradually carves grooves within the system, shaping stable pathways that later allow rapid response. -/- The model explains several phenomena that appear separately in modern neuroscience and artificial intelligence: -/- • how attention concentrates tension within a target domain • how structural pathways (...) are formed gradually but used instantly • why synapse growth is slow while synapse use occurs within milliseconds • how internal observation differs structurally from external perception • how intention pulses propagate to drive behavior -/- Within the architecture, the Tuning-Field operates across five interacting domains: Receptive-Field, Imagery-Field, Experience-Field, Intention-Field, and Effect-Field. Together they form a layered system capable of constructing perception, directing action, and stabilizing learned structures. -/- This chapter proposes a field-based interpretation of attention, neural plasticity, and behavioral control within a unified cognitive architecture. (shrink)

This article argues that nudges can often be turned into self-nudges: empowering interventions that enable people to design and structure their own decision environments—that is, to act as citizen choice architects. Self-nudging applies insights from behavioral science in a way that is practicable and cost-effective but that sidesteps concerns about paternalism or manipulation. It has the potential to expand the scope of application of behavioral insights from the public to the personal sphere (e.g., homes, offices, families). It is (...) a tool for reducing failures of self-control and enhancing personal autonomy; specifically, self-nudging can mean designing one’s proximate choice architecture to alleviate the effects of self-control problems, engaging in education to understand the nature and causes of self-control problems and employing simple educational nudges to improve goal attainment in various domains. It can even mean self-paternalistic interventions such as winnowing down one’s choice set by, for instance, removing options. Policy makers could promote self-nudging by sharing knowledge about nudges and how they work. The ultimate goal of the self-nudging approach is to enable citizen choice architects’ efficient self-governance, where reasonable, and the self-determined arbitration of conflicts between their mutually exclusive goals and preferences. (shrink)