Ambiguity of rationality in addiction behavior

As follow up to this post: https://benstowell.blogspot.com/2025/03/stream-of-consciousness-doxastic.html

I want to revisit an idea. I said that in theory a perfectly rational person is immune to addiction, because a perfectly rational person would be perfectly sensitive to reasons. The reasons to refrain from the addiction behavior would cause the perfectly rational person to be so bothered by engaging in the addiction behavior that this bothering would overpower the bother from the withdrawal symptoms, and so always successfully resist the urges generated by the addiction.

This would seem to mean that, technically, addiction always disparages the rationality of the person addicted. But this is not the case. If all a person's addiction says about them is that they are not perfectly rational, then effectively this says nothing because all humans are not perfectly rational. What we really want to know is whether a person's irrationality is a special cause of their addiction behavior.

There could be two addicts who have identical levels of rationality, and yet one engages in the addiction behavior far more than the other. How could this be? The answer is that susceptibility to addiction depends on one's genetics, brain structure (especially the "reward centers" of the brain), hormones, chemical balances, and so on. Alcoholism is famously strongly genetically correlated.

So if one person is in the throes of an addiction, it's ambiguous to what degree this disparages the addict's rationality. The addict might simply be very unfortunate to be attached to a body and brain that comes with the absolute perfect combination of genetic factors to render them highly susceptible to addiction to the point that even a highly rational person will have their sensitivity to reasons overruled by the pleasure/pain calculation caused by their addiction.

However, if the addict has a strong desire to overcome their addiction, and can express recognition of the reasons to refrain from the addiction behavior, then this is evidence that it’s not the case that this person’s irrationality is a special cause of their addiction behavior, and it's more of their unfortunate biological susceptibility that is driving the addiction behavior.

But if the addict shows no signs of recognition of the reasons to refrain from the addiction behavior, and even expresses a delight or approval of their behavior, or denies that they are addicted or denies any wrongness of the behavior, then this suggests it's more of the innate irrationality of the addict that is driving the behavior rather than the susceptibility of the addict.

This is a bit silly, because no one chooses to have the "innate irrationality" that drives engagement in addiction behavior anymore than anyone chooses to have the genetics that drives engagement in addiction behavior. So both addicts are equally blameless in their addiction. Of course, I don't believe in free will, so I believe that everyone is blameless anyway and is a mere victim of circumstance.

But victimhood comes in different forms, and it's useful to know what kind you are dealing with. A victim-to-genetics, or a rational addict, is someone who can be worked with and is more likely to overcome their addiction. A victim-to-irrationality (which also is to be a victim to genetics, as rationality is partially grounded in genetics, though also grounded in one's upbringing, social environment, access to education, etc.) is someone who is much harder to work with and is less likely to overcome their addiction.

So while it's true that there are no good reasons for judging addicts (or anyone for that matter), there are good reasons to view one addict as having different qualities than another, and that can affect different approaches to treatment. An irrational addict requires more medical-based treatments while a rational addict can be cured using therapy-based approaches.