ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we introduce the first of three interesting puzzles of self-control. Our guiding question is the following: how can we exercise self-control given that we only ever act on our strongest desires? The Law of Desire tells us, roughly speaking, that, when they act, people try to do what they want most to do of the options they believe are available to them. Self-control, however, is plausibly exercised only in service of what we don’t want most to do—after all, self-control is used to curb wayward strong temptations. In combination, these views suggest that no one ever successfully exercises self-control. We explore some possible responses to this puzzle, including the proposal that the Law of Desire is false given indeterminism, the proposal this puzzle rules out only synchronic self-control, not that of a diachronic kind, that exercising self-control is not an action, and Alfred Mele's account which attempts to retain both the spirit of the Law of Desire and the possibility of self-control. We find all of these proposals somewhat wanting.
