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The broad spectrum revolution brought greater dependence on skill and knowledge, and more demanding, often social, choices. We adopt Sterelny's account of how cooperative foraging paid the costs associated with longer dependency, and transformed the problem of skill learning. Scaffolded learning can facilitate cognitive control including suppression, whereas scaffolded exchange and trade, including inter-temporal exchange, can help develop resolve. |
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I argue that denial plays a central but insufficiently recognized role in addiction. The puzzle inherent in addiction is why drug use persists despite negative consequences. The orthodox conception of addiction resolves this puzzle by appeal to compulsion; but there is increasing evidence that addicts are not compelled to use but retain choice and control over their consumption in many circumstances. Denial offers an alternative explanation: there is no puzzle as to why drug use persists despite negative consequences if these (...) |
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ABSTRACT The article begins by contrasting medical and moral views of addiction and how such views influence responsibility and policy analysis. It suggests that since addiction always involves action and action can always be morally evaluated, we must independently decide whether addicts do not meet responsibility criteria rather than begging the question and deciding by the label of ?disease? or ?moral weakness?. It then turns to the criteria for criminal responsibility and shows that the criteria for criminal responsibility, like the (...) |
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Most people who are regular consumers of psychoactive drugs are not drug addicts, nor will they ever become addicts. In neurobiological theories, non-addictive drug consumption is acknowledged only as a prerequisite for addiction, but not as a stable and widespread behavior in its own right. This target article proposes a new neurobiological framework theory for non-addictive psychoactive drug consumption, introducing the concept of Psychoactive drugs are consumed for their effects on mental states. Humans are able to learn that mental states (...) |
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The distinction that Ainslie draws among the triple-phenomena “suppression,” “resolve,” and “habit” is a great advance in decision making theory. But the conceptual machinery “willpower,” and its underpinning distinction between small/soon rewards as opposed to large/later rewards, provides a faulty framework to understand the triple-phenomena. |
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Building on an overview of dual systems theories in behavioural economics, the paper presents a methodological assessment in terms of the mechanistic explanations framework that has gained prominence in philosophy of the neurosciences. I conclude that they fail to meet the standards of causal explanations and I suggest an alternative ‘dual functions’ view based on Marr’s methodology of computational neuroscience. Recent psychological and neuroscience research undermines the case for a categorization of brain processes in terms of properties such as relative (...) |
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So far, the methodological debate about neuroeconomics rarely refers to original methodological positions in the neurosciences. I confront one of the most influential ones, the constitutive explanations or mechanism approach, with methodological claims that directly relate the economic model of choice with neuronal embodiments, represented by Glimcher’s influential work. Constitutive explanations are composite and non-reductionist, therefore allow for recognizing complex causal interactions between basal neuronal phenomena and cognitive structures, also involving external symbolic media. I demonstrate the power of this methodology (...) |
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It is common to think of addiction as involving behavior which in some sense is ?out of control.? But does this mean addictive actions occur because of compulsion or because of ordinary weakness of will? Many philosophers argue that addictive actions occur because of weakness of will, since there is plenty of evidence suggesting that they are not caused by irresistible desires. In fact, addicts seem, in general, to perform these actions freely in the sense of having the ability to (...) |
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I argue for the role of reinforcement learning in the philosophy of mind. To start, I make several assumptions about the nature of reinforcement learning and its instantiation in minds like ours. I then review some of the contributions of reinforcement learning methods have made across the so-called 'decision sciences.' Finally, I show how principles from reinforcement learning can shape philosophical debates regarding the nature of perception and characterisations of desire. |
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In this opinionated review, I draw attention to some of the contributions reinforcement learning can make to questions in the philosophy of mind. In particular, I highlight reinforcement learning's foundational emphasis on the role of reward in agent learning, and canvass two ways in which the framework may advance our understanding of perception and motivation. No categories |
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The shift in the prevailing view of alcoholism from a moral paradigm towards a biomedical paradigm is often characterized as a form of biomedicalization. We will examine and critique three reasons offered for the claim that viewing alcoholism as a disease is morally problematic. The first is that the new conceptualization of alcoholism as a chronic brain disease will lead to individualization, e.g., a too narrow focus on the individual person, excluding cultural and social dimensions of alcoholism. The second claim (...) |
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I propose that the successes and contributions of reinforcement learning urge us to see the mind in a new light, namely, to recognise that the mind is fundamentally evaluative in nature. No categories |
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Normative thinking about addiction has traditionally been divided between, on the one hand, a medical model which sees addiction as a disease characterized by compulsive and relapsing drug use over which the addict has little or no control and, on the other, a moral model which sees addiction as a choice characterized by voluntary behaviour under the control of the addict. Proponents of the former appeal to evidence showing that regular consumption of drugs causes persistent changes in the brain structures (...) |
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The psychiatric category of addiction has recently been broadened to include new behaviors. This has prompted critical discussion about the value of a concept that covers so many different substances and activities. Many of the debates surrounding the notion of addiction stem from different views concerning what kind of a thing addiction fundamentally is. In this essay, we put forward an account that conceptualizes different addictions as sharing a cluster of relevant properties (the syndrome) that is supported by a matrix (...) |