Abstract

Opinions differ widely as to whether addicts lose the ability to control their behavior and employ free will. This article reviews empirical findings regarding multiple questions relevant to the issue of free will among addicted smokers: Is smoking voluntary behavior? Can people quit smoking? Why don't people quit smoking? Why do smokers relapse when they try to quit? Do addicted smokers suffer from irresistible cravings? Are there some people who cannot quit? Are there conditions that make resistance impossible? Why would they smoke knowing it can kill them? The evidence reviewed here seems most consistent with the view that smokers retain control over their actions but cannot easily stop having frequent desires to smoke.

Abstract

Certain people are at risk for using alcohol or other drugs excessively and for developing problems with their use. Their susceptibility might arise from a variety of factors, including their genetic make-up, brain chemistry, family background, personality and other psychological variables, and environmental and sociocultural variables. Moreover, after substance use has become established, there are additional cognitive-motivational variables (e.g., substance-related attentional bias) that contribute to enacting behaviors consistent with the persons motivation to acquire and use the substance. People who are at such risk are likely to choose to use addictive substances even though doing so entails negative consequences. In the sense of complete freedom from being determined by causal factors, we believe that there is no such thing as free will, but defined as ability to make choices from among multiple options, even though the choices are ultimately governed by natural processes, addicted individuals are free to choose. Although they might appear unable to exercise this kind of free will in decisions about their substance use, addictive behaviors are ultimately always goal-directed and voluntary. Such goal pursuits manifest considerable flexibility. Even some severely addicted individuals can cease their use when the value of continuing the use abruptly declines or when the subjective cost of continuing the use is too great with respect to the incentives in other areas of their lives. Formal treatment strategies (e.g., contingency management, Systematic Motivational Counseling, cognitive training) can also be used to facilitate this reversal.

Abstract

This paper addresses two overlapping questions: Do addicts have the capacity to voluntarily quit drugs? And do individuals knowingly pursue courses of action that they realize are bad for them, such as excessive drug use? I propose two testable versions of free will. First, the observation that activities differ in the degree to which they are susceptible to the influence of their consequences (e.g., costs and benefits) has proven a useful criterion for classifying behavior as voluntary or involuntary. Thus, we can ask if drug use in addicts is influenced by its consequences. For instance, do laws that promise legal sanctions for drug use reduce drug use in addicts? Second, the philosopher Harry Frankfurt proposed a definition of free will that takes into account desires and self-reflection. I propose that addicts who do not want to desire drugs and successfully stop craving drugs pass his test. Dependence on illicit drugs typically ends after about four to six years. Dependence on cigarettes and alcohol persists for much longer, but most smokers and alcoholics eventually voluntarily quit using. Smokers and heroin addicts can voluntarily regulate their drug cravings as a function of the availability of their drug of choice. They have the capacity to pass Frankfurts test of free will. Addicts have free will as defined by the capacity to voluntary quit using drugs and to voluntarily regulate their cravings.

Abstract

The world, led by the United States, is hell bent on establishing the absence of choice in addiction, as expressed by the defining statement that addiction is a “chronic relapsing brain disease” (my emphasis). The figure most associated with this model, the director of the American National Institute on Drug Abuse, Nora Volkow, claims that addiction vitiates free will through its effects on the brain. In reality, while by no means a simple task, people regularly quit their substance addictions, often by moderating their consumption, usually through mindfulness-mediated processes (Peele, 2007). Ironically, the brain disease models ascendance in the U.S. corresponds with epidemic rises in opiate addiction, both painkillers (Brady et al., 2016) and heroin (CDC, n.d.), as well as heroin, painkiller, and tranquilizer poisoning deaths (Rudd et al., 2016). More to the point, the conceptual and treatment goal of eliminating choice in addiction and recovery is not only futile, but iatrogenic. Indeed, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholisms epidemiological surveys, while finding natural recovery for both drug and alcohol disorders to be typical, has found a decline in natural recovery rates (Dawson et al., 2005) and a sharp increase in AUDs (Grant et al., 2015).

Abstract

It is widely believed that addiction entails a loss of free will, even though this point is controversial among scholars. There is arguably a downside to this belief, in that addicts who believe they lack the free will to quit an addiction might therefore fail to quit an addiction. A correlational study tested the relationship between belief in free will and addiction. Follow-up studies tested steps of a potential mechanism: 1) people think drugs undermine free will 2) people believe addiction undermines free will more when doing so serves the self 3) disbelief in free will leads people to perceive various temptations as more addictive. People with lower belief in free will were more likely to have a history of addiction to alcohol and other drugs, and also less likely to have successfully quit alcohol. People believe that drugs undermine free will, and they use this belief to self-servingly attribute less free will to their bad actions than to good ones. Low belief in free will also increases perceptions that things are addictive. Addiction is widely seen as loss of free will. The belief can be used in self-serving ways that may undermine peoples efforts to quit.

Abstract

The authors of this paper attempt to uncover a possible relationship between Calderón de la Barca and Borges, based on the hypothetical question whether or not the argentine writer read Calderon’s plays. They analyze two key concepts in both writers: the phrase «La vida es sueño» and the problem of free will, describing the different visions of Calderón and Borges. It all ends with an open conclusion: there are more concomitants than those that the reader may find at first glance.

Abstract

The universality of La vida es sueño, a unique work within calderonian writing, is studied in this paper under the parameter of the Aristotelian concepts of mimesis and catharsis. Paul Ricoeur’s reading of Poetics in his proposed «triple mimesis» provides tools to analyze the communicative potential of the work. The pre-configuration of the plot from theological debate in its historical context, and its refiguration in certain contemporary determinism such as psychoanalysis, explain the ability of La vida es sueño to enter into dialogue with the most different times stating humanity’s free will.