Browsing by Author "Pitchford, Michael Thomas."

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How treatment is possible in the absence of a concept of mental disorder.
(2015) Pitchford, Michael Thomas.; Lindegger, Graham Charles.
Commonly it is accepted that one of the advantages of the concept of mental disorder is its necessity when it comes to practical treatment issues. It is for this and other practical reasons that the concept of mental disorder is so ubiquitous. However since the adoption of mental disorder by psychiatry there have been sceptics. In recent years there has been a push to abandon the concept of mental disorder citing problems with validity and reliability of any concept that proposes a clear boundary between the normal and the abnormal. There are many potential arguments that a proponent of mental disorder could raise in objection to such a position. One of these arguments is that the concept of mental disorder is necessary for practitioners to provide the most effective treatment, thereby emphasising the necessity of the concept. One response available to these arguments is to argue that treatment issues are not necessarily a matter resolved by diagnosis. The aim in this dissertation is to set out an argument to that effect.
Weakness of the will and akrasia: responding to Holton's account.
(2012) Pitchford, Michael Thomas.; Beck, Simon.
There is a standard problem in action theory regarding weakness of the will. The problem arises from a pair if claims that seem to be mutually exclusive. On the one hand there is the traditional account of action as put forward by Davidson in 1963 which says that an action x is intentional if the agent judges there to be a good reason to x , and so does x. On the other hand it seems that often an agent intentionally performs some action and yet that action is not what they judged to be best and so we call that action weak willed. The former statement of intentional action cannot account for the intentional action in the latter claim, and so there is on the face of things, a problem for the traditional Davidsonian account of action. Richard Holton argues that we need to completely redefine weakness of the will in terms of the revision of resolutions. He offers a range of arguments which he thinks show the traditional account to be flawed. In his book Willing, Wanting, Waiting (2009) Holton argues that there is both theoretical room for, and evidence of, intentions (and more specifically resolutions) as self-standing states. Resolutions are a second-order type of intentions with the specific goal of defeating contrary inclinations. Holton argues that, using resolutions, we can redefine weakness of the will. His claim is that an agent is weak willed if an only if the agent unreasonably reconsiders and revises their resolution to act. Much of this relies on his exposition of the notion of choice, where he argues that intentions and resolutions are formed independently of judgments. This means that weakness of the will in terms of resolutions avoids some of the problems posed by unorthodox cases of weakness of the will. In this dissertation I will argue three central points. First, Holton does not show adequately that resolutions are the sorts of intentions that can be formed prior to judgment. Second I will argue that even if the first argument were to fail, there is no real problem for the Davidsonian account of weakness of the will. Finally I will argue that the inclusion of intentions warrants much further investigation. I will show that following Holton's elucidation of choice, the intentions-theorist faces a dilemma. I will argue that neither of these options is palatable for the intentions-theorist.