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1	Overeating, Obesity, and Weakness of the Will Sommers, Jennifer Heidrun 28 August 2015 (has links) The philosophical literature on akrasia and/or weakness of the will tends to focus on individual actions, removed from their wider socio-political context. This is problematic because actions, when removed from their wider context, can seem absurd or irrational when they may, in fact, be completely rational or, at least, coherent. Much of akrasia's apparent mystery or absurdity is eliminated when people's behaviours are considered within their cultural and political context. I apply theories from the social and behavioural sciences to a particular behaviour in order to show where the philosophical literature on akrasia and/or weakness of the will is insightful and where it is lacking. The problem used as the basis for my analysis is obesity caused by overeating. On the whole, I conclude that our intuitions about agency are unreliable, that we may have good reasons to overeat and/or neglect our health, and that willpower is, to some degree, a matter of luck. / Graduate / 0630 / 0573 / 0422 / felshereeno@aol.com akrasia action theory addiction agency Alison McIntyre applied ethics Bernard Williams body studies Bourdieu Cartesian dualism Christine Korsgaard compulsion continence deviance diet Distinction Donald Davidson dualism externalism incontinence inequality internalism intuition Irving K. Zola Marx medicalization morality Nichomachean Ethics Nomy Arpaly obesity epidemic orthorexia overeating overweight personal identity Petr Skrabanek Philip Kitcher philosophical intuition picoeconomics Pierre Bourdieu fat free will Gary Watson George Ainslie habitus healthism rat park rational choice rationality Richard Holton Robert Crawford social class stigma taste for luxury temperance utility maximization virtue weakness of the will willpower

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Overeating, Obesity, and Weakness of the Will