ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there are good reasons to resist the claim that loss of control over all things considered judgment is the only, or even the typical, form the impairment of self-control takes in addiction. It also argues that malfunctions in capacities associated with self-control in the broad psychological sense undermine addicts’ self-control also in the absence of failures of value-based or judgment-based self-control. In philosophical discussions of self-control, two kinds of motives tend to be highlighted. First, there are the motives that are expressed by the agent’s “all things considered” or “better” judgments. Second, there are the motives that are expressed by what the agent “genuinely values.” If one of the functions of midbrain dopamine neurons is indeed error prediction, the error predictions most likely lie outside of consciousness. This means that a lot hinges on N. Levy’s assumption that the error is passed on to higher levels of the processing hierarchy.
