Addiction as a disorder of belief
Addiction is almost universally held to be characterized by a loss of control over drug-seeking and consuming behavior. But the actions of addicts, even of those who seem to want to abstain from drugs, seem to be guided by reasons. In this paper, I argue that we can explain this fact, consistent wit...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Netherlands
2014
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| _version_ | 1797066478108803072 |
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| author | Levy, N |
| author_facet | Levy, N |
| author_sort | Levy, N |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Addiction is almost universally held to be characterized by a loss of control over drug-seeking and consuming behavior. But the actions of addicts, even of those who seem to want to abstain from drugs, seem to be guided by reasons. In this paper, I argue that we can explain this fact, consistent with continuing to maintain that addiction involves a loss of control, by understanding addiction as involving an oscillation between conflicting judgments. I argue that the dysfunction of the mesolimbic dopamine system that typifies addictions causes the generation of a mismatch between the top-down model of the world that reflects the judgment that the addict ought to refrain from drugs, and bottom-up input caused by cues predictive of drug availability. This constitutes a powerful pressure toward revising the judgment and thereby attenuating the prediction error. But the new model is not stable, and shifts under the pressure of bottom-up inputs in different contexts; hence the oscillation of all-things-considered judgment. Evidence from social psychology is adduced, to suggest that a similar process may be involved in ordinary cases of weakness of will. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T21:42:39Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:4876c462-2214-495b-b7f9-ce3dc6b9fe6d |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T21:42:39Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Springer Netherlands |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:4876c462-2214-495b-b7f9-ce3dc6b9fe6d2022-03-26T15:25:56ZAddiction as a disorder of beliefJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:4876c462-2214-495b-b7f9-ce3dc6b9fe6dPhilosophy of mindEthics of the biosciencesEnglishOxford University Research Archive - ValetSpringer Netherlands2014Levy, NAddiction is almost universally held to be characterized by a loss of control over drug-seeking and consuming behavior. But the actions of addicts, even of those who seem to want to abstain from drugs, seem to be guided by reasons. In this paper, I argue that we can explain this fact, consistent with continuing to maintain that addiction involves a loss of control, by understanding addiction as involving an oscillation between conflicting judgments. I argue that the dysfunction of the mesolimbic dopamine system that typifies addictions causes the generation of a mismatch between the top-down model of the world that reflects the judgment that the addict ought to refrain from drugs, and bottom-up input caused by cues predictive of drug availability. This constitutes a powerful pressure toward revising the judgment and thereby attenuating the prediction error. But the new model is not stable, and shifts under the pressure of bottom-up inputs in different contexts; hence the oscillation of all-things-considered judgment. Evidence from social psychology is adduced, to suggest that a similar process may be involved in ordinary cases of weakness of will. |
| spellingShingle | Philosophy of mind Ethics of the biosciences Levy, N Addiction as a disorder of belief |
| title | Addiction as a disorder of belief |
| title_full | Addiction as a disorder of belief |
| title_fullStr | Addiction as a disorder of belief |
| title_full_unstemmed | Addiction as a disorder of belief |
| title_short | Addiction as a disorder of belief |
| title_sort | addiction as a disorder of belief |
| topic | Philosophy of mind Ethics of the biosciences |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT levyn addictionasadisorderofbelief |