AeroRails comments on Morality open thread - Less Wrong
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Comments (86)
I have a question: what is akrasia exactly?
Say I have to finish a paper, but I also enjoy wasting time on the internet. All things considered, I decide it would be better for me to finish the paper than for me to waste time on the internet. And yet I waste time on the internet. What's going on there? It can't just be a reflex or a tick: my reflexes aren't that sophisticated. Given how complicated wasting time on the internet is, and that I decidedly enjoy it, it looks like an intentional action, something which is the result of my reasoning. Yet I reasoned that I shouldn't go on the internet, so it can't really be an intentional action. My intention was exactly not to go on the internet.
Maybe I'm just being hypocritical, and I actually value the internet more than finishing a paper?
A bit late but I just want to chime in that the consensus is that akratic action is intentional. You CAN act intentionally against your better judgment, and your example of wasting time on the internet is almost certainly an intentional rather than reflex action.