Contracting with Yourself: Akrasia and Transaction Costs

Send us Fan Mail We start with a simple mystery: how the same person can make a proud plan at night and break it in the morning, even while still believing the plan is good. We connect akrasia, free will, and moral responsibility to transaction costs, treating self-control as a contracting problem between competing versions of ourselves.  • Jordan I and Jordan II as a model of divided preferences over time  • Hard determinism, libertarian free will, and compatibilism as the main philosophical map  • Responsibility and punishment as social conventions that reduce coordination costs  • Aristotle on voluntary intoxication and why blame can attach upstream  • Akrasia defined as wanting to want the right thing  • Plato’s knowledge-based denial of akrasia versus Aristotle’s acceptance of weakness of will  • Paul and Augustine on the internal conflict of the will  • Time-inconsistent preferences and hyperbolic discounting as a behavioral explanation  • Commitment devices as credible commitments and transaction cost engineering  • Odysseus and the sirens as the classic precommitment story  • Listener letter on military punctuality as costly signaling and institutional discipline  • Listener letter on recycling labels as regulation creating new transaction costs  Links and Sources **1. Ainslie, G. (1992). *Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person.* Cambridge University Press.**  Link: Cambridge University Press — Picoeconomics **2. Aristotle. (1999). *Nicomachean ethics* (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Batoche Books. (Original work published ca. 350 B.C.E.)**  Passage: Book VII (on incontinence/akrasia). Link: Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross (free PDF) **3. Augustine. (1838). *The confessions of Saint Augustine* (E. B. Pusey, Trans.). John Henry Parker. (Original work written ca. 397–400 C.E.)**  Passage: Book VIII, Chapters 8–9 (§§20–21). Link: Confessions, Book VIII, Pusey translation (free full text) **4. Davidson, D. (1970). How is weakness of the will possible? In J. Feinberg (Ed.), *Moral concepts* (pp. 93–113). Oxford University Press.** Link: Oxford Academic — "How Is Weakness of the Will Possible?" (in Essays on Actions and Events) *(gated — subscription/institutional access)* **5. Dennett, D. C. (1984). *Elbow room: The varieties of free will worth wanting.* MIT Press.** Link: MIT Press — Elbow Room *(gated — purchase; excerpts free)* **6. Dennett, D. C. (2003). *Freedom evolves.* Viking.**  Link: Internet Archive — Freedom Evolves *(gated — free with Internet Archive lending account)* **7. Hume, D. (1999). *An enquiry concerning human understanding* (T. L. Beauchamp, Ed.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1748)** Passage: Section VIII, "Of Liberty and Necessity." Link: Hume Texts Online — Section 8 *(free full text)* **8. King James Bible. (2017). *King James Bible Online.*** https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/ **(Original work published 1769)** Passage: Romans 7. Link: Romans, Chapter 7 (KJV) *(free full text)* **9. Plato. (1967). *Protagoras* (W. R. M. Lamb, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published ca. 380 B.C.E.)**  Link: Perseus Digital Library — Protagoras (Lamb trans.) *(free full text)* **10. Schelling, T. C. (1984). The intimate contest for self-command. In *Choice and consequence: Perspectives of an errant economist.* Harvard University Press.**  Link: National Affairs — "The Intimate Contest for Self-Command" (original 1980 essay, free full text) · Harvard University Press — Choice and Consequence *(book page, gated)* **11. Strawson, P. F. (1962). Freedom and resentment. *Proceedings of the British Academy, 48,* 1–25.** Link: The British Academy — Freedom and Resentment *(official publisher page, may be gated)* **12. Vaihinger, H. (1925). *The philosophy of 'as if': A system of the theoretical, practical and religious fictions of mankind* (C. K. Ogden, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace. (Original work published 1911)** Link: Internet Archive — The Philosophy of 'As If' *(free full text)* Book-o-da-Week:  Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s THE ODYSSEY, 2018, WW Norton.  # If you have questions or comments, or want to suggest a future topic, email the show at [taitc.email@gmail.com](mailto:taitc.email@gmail.com) ! You can follow Mike Munger on Twitter at @mungowitz