Doxastic psychology and addiction

Doxastic psychology says we can explain human behavior, in part, through what humans believe. If someone believes that life is meaningless, then we can explain their depression-behavior (lack of motivation, excessive sleeping, inability to enjoy anything, etc.) by this belief.

One question for this idea is from addiction. If someone is addicted to smoking, and yet wants to quit, one option is to say that this person believes against their behavior but the addiction causes them to act contrary to their belief.

Another option is to say that their behavior is in line with their belief, because the addiction causes them to believe that smoking is all-things-considered worth it. If someone wishes they did not have the addiction, then their second-order belief is against their first-order belief. You can believe something but wish you didn't.

Hypocrisy is when you say one thing but do another, like telling your kids that you shouldn't smoke while being a smoker yourself. The smoker has an option: either I be consistent and say smoking is (at least in some cases, such as in my case) worth it, or be a hypocrite and say it's wrong. I'm morally obligated to say it's wrong (to protect my kids), so I'm morally obligated to be a hypocrite.

But is the smoker really a hypocrite here? They could believe that smoking is wrong, and the addiction causes the behavior against the belief. It's exactly because smoking causes you to act against what you know to be right that is one of the reasons why you shouldn't start.

And so belief in some cases does not help us predict or explain behavior. People can behave opposite their beliefs.

And yet, it sounds crazy that someone could perform a voluntary action, like smoking a cigarette, while at the same time not having some belief in the action. There is pleasure in the addictive act, and the pleasure explains the motive behind the act. But the agent has to believe that the act is in fact pleasurable to engage in it. People absolutely can and do have conflicted beliefs, but that doesn't mean one belief doesn't win out at the end of the day. I believe eating junk food is bad for you. I also believe it tastes good. Sometimes the "tastes good" belief is just strong enough to beat out the "is bad for you" belief. How can you tell which belief has won out? By the behavior.

So the smoker really is a hypocrite when they tell their kids not to smoke. You believe smoking is not worth it, hence warning your kids, and yet you believe it's worth it, hence your continued smoking.

But not so fast. The smoker does believe, if only barely, that smoking is worth it, hence the continued smoking. The parent warns their kids because the addiction causes the pleasure to rise to a level so strong that it's able to beat out, if only barely, the belief that you shouldn't smoke. Without the addiction, the irrational belief wouldn't be there, and the addiction behavior wouldn't be there either.

To have a second-order belief that runs against the first-order belief is to believe that the first-order belief is irrational, and yet cannot be shaken (by addiction, genetics, social conditioning, or what have you). Addiction is evil not because it causes you to behave against your first-order beliefs, but because it causes you to take on irrational first-order beliefs, such as the irrational belief that smoking is all-things-considered worth it. I know eating junk food is all-things-considered not worth it. Often I still eat it anyway because I hold an irrational belief, even if just for a moment, that it is worth it, caused by the sneaky chemicals in junk food. In the moment you are engaging in the addiction, your brain is saying "Yeah, this is worth it", even though you know it's not. This is why second-order beliefs (or second-order desires) can run against first-order beliefs (or first-order desires). (You could argue it's not the chemicals in junk food that causes the irrational belief that it's worth it, but our own akrasia, or weakness of will. Or it's just our own irrationality in general. But if that were true, then we wouldn't have a second-order desire that runs contrary to the first-order desire.)

So doxastic psychology is safe. When someone believes smoking is worth it, because of addiction, we can predict that this person will continue smoking. When someone believes smoking is worth it, and yet believes that this belief is irrational, then we can predict that they will warn others against smoking, or will try to quit. This person is not being hypocritical (hypocrisy is always wrong; there can never be a moral obligation to hypocrisy); when engaging in the addiction behavior, they are behaving according to their (irrational) first-order belief, and when giving their warning they are behaving according to their second-order belief.

This does place a limit on doxastic psychology: behavior reveals first-order beliefs, but not necessarily second-order beliefs. As Frankfurt argued (roughly), it's really the second-order beliefs (or desires) that reveal the moral qualities of the person.

If someone has a first-order desire to smoke, but a second-order desire to quit, then the second-order desire places pressure against the first-order desire. Eventually, this pressure may reach a critical mass where the irrationality of the addiction act is felt strongly enough by the agent to where the desire against it wins out, allowing them to break free from the addiction. But if someone has no such second-order desire, then there is no internal pressure against the behavior, and so the irrational behavior is more likely to be permanent. If the irrational belief is caused by addiction, that speaks less against the quality of the agent than if the irrational belief is caused by the agent's innate irrationality.

Whenever there is apparent hypocrisy, there might not be hypocrisy, but a mismatch between first- and second-order beliefs. The addict believes in the addiction act, but believes they shouldn't believe it.

But am I contradicting myself here? I'm saying that if a person truly believed against the addiction act, then they wouldn't engage in it. But if that's true, then wouldn't a person who truly believed against believing in the addiction act not believe in the addiction act? I said you can't act against belief, because act entails belief. But then how could someone believe against belief?

The addiction forces the irrational belief upon the addict. The act follows the belief. So the addiction indirectly forces the act. The act depends on belief(1) (first-order belief), and so the act entails belief(1). Belief(1) obviously entails belief(1), and in that sense you can't believe against belief. But belief(1) does not depend on belief(2) such that the former entails the latter. So you can believe(2) against belief(1). And you can act(2) against act(1), like warning someone to not smoke while smoking yourself.

First-order beliefs and second-order beliefs can come apart, exactly because of things like addiction. But addiction doesn't allow first-order and first-order beliefs to come apart, which is what believing(1) against an act would mean. So you can believe(2) against an act, but you can't believe(1) against an act.

It sounds like I'm saying there can be a clash of mixed-ordered beliefs, but not a clash of first-order beliefs. But then what is hypocrisy, or self-contradiction, if not a clash of first-order beliefs?

I'm not saying you can't have both belief and non-belief. Let's say someone believes that they should not phi. They phi. So they believe that they should not phi and that they should. Contradiction. But in the case of self-contradiction, there is no mismatch between first- and second-order beliefs. The hypocrite believes(1) that they should phi and not phi, and believes(2) that they should believe that they should phi and not phi. (Or at least doesn't believe that they should not believe that they should phi and not phi.)

Often, hypocrisy is not taken to just be self-contradiction. Rather, it's special pleading – when a person makes themselves an exception to a personal rule without good reason for doing so. Hypocrisy is not a failure to recognize contradiction in this case, but a failure to recognize that there is no relevant difference between your case and others' case. Though the contradiction reintroduces itself when the hypocrite would not accept the same special pleading from others. (Which then returns to a relevant difference case when the hypocrite doesn't see the special pleadings as the same. I guess this could go on forever.)

Other than addiction, I wonder if social conditioning could force irrational beliefs the way addiction can? Someone who is raised around extreme ableist language and attitudes might find themselves stuck with that way of looking at things, while believing that such attitudes are irrational.

Or someone raised in a very strict household is stuck with the belief that they should never cuss. But then later comes to the belief that this belief is irrational, and yet is still stuck with it.

Or someone who works a job that they hate might be forced by survival pressures to hold the belief that they ought to work the job, even though they believe that the belief that they ought to do the job is false. Actually, this example is a reverse, where the person desires(1) against the act of doing the job, but desires(2) to desire to do the job so that they would be less miserable (unless they approve of their hatred of the job). But hang on, how can someone do a job they don't believe in? Doesn't act entail belief? That's simple: they believe in the job for its extrinsic rewards, but they don't believe in the job per se.

Summary:

• Doxastic psychology says that because behavior is grounded in belief, we can psychoanalyze and understand someone's behavior in light of their beliefs.
• A challenge to doxastic psychology arises: there are cases, like addiction, where folks can hate their own behavior and believe against it, and yet find themselves falling into the behavior anyway. So behavior doesn't always entail belief, and so we cannot always explain someone's behavior in terms of what they believe. (Which, by the way, of course we cannot understand all human behavior in terms of belief. That would be a silly suggestion. Doxastic psychology is simply an additional tool in the psychoanalyst's toolbox.)
• Obsessive-compulsive behavior, hypocrisy, and self-contradiction are further candidates for when people behave in one way and either lack a belief in that behavior or even believe against it.
• But this challenge runs into its own challenge: how could it be possible for someone to will a voluntary action while simultaneously holding no belief in the action whatsoever? How could the action even be psychologically possible?
• Suggestion: Actions require belief. Some actions are conflicted, meaning that there are considerations pulling in opposite directions for the belief that grounds the action. When the agent acts, their action proves which belief won out in this end, even if it only just barely won out.
• Continuing the suggestion, the badness of addiction is found in, among other things, not the fact that it causes someone to act contrary to what they believe, but because it causes such pain in withdrawal, and such satisfaction in the addiction act, that it forces the person to believe, at least in the moment, that satisfying the addiction is worth it all-things-considered when engaging in the addiction behavior is decidedly not worth it. Therefore, addiction causes irrational beliefs. 
• An addict can recognize the irrationality of these beliefs caused by the addiction, leading to a higher order belief that they ought not believe what they do. The addict desires the object of their addiction, but desires to be rid of this desire. 
• This mismatch between first- and second-order desires (and beliefs) reveals a moral quality in some folks. The irrational behavior of the addict is grounded in the irrationality of the belief caused by the addiction and not caused by the irrationality of the addict per se. The fact that the addict can recognize the irrationality of their first-order beliefs goes a long way in 1) Showing that this person is sensitive to reasons, and 2) Generates internal reason-based pressure against the addiction behavior. This pressure shows potential for the individual to one day feel the pressure generated by this reason-sensitivity strongly enough to one day kick the habit.
• Contrast this with an addict whose second-order beliefs are in line with their first-order ones. This addict fails to display the same sensitivity to reasons, and fails to generate the same internal pressure against the irrational behavior, significantly reducing the chances of overcoming the addiction in the long term.
• But if you cannot act without believing in the act, then how could someone believe without believing in the belief? How could the belief be psychologically possible?
• The belief is psychologically possible for reasons mentioned: the satisfaction of the addiction act. The (reasons-sensitive) addict sees the reasons for abstaining from the addiction act, and sees how these reasons would win out if it weren't for the addiction causing the satisfaction from the addiction act to overpower the addict's sensitivity to reason.
• This irrationality is not subjective (the psychosomatic reasons are real) but objective (the reasons to abstain from the addiction act are real). You could say then that the irrationality is external, imposed by the addiction, and not internal, from the addict's innate capacities. In theory, the more rational someone is, the harder it is for their sensitivity to reasons to be defeated.
• So an addict genuinely believes that the addiction act is worth it, as otherwise engaging in the addiction behavior would not happen. And yet, the (reasons-sensitive) addict believes that the addiction behavior is not worth it (and will thereby warn against it). Is this self-contradiction, or hypocrisy?
• One option would be to say that this is a contradiction, and addiction causes the reasons-sensitive addict to self-contradict. But it's weird that reason-sensitivity would cause contradiction when it should do the opposite.
• Compare two addicts, one that is sensitive to reasons and one that is not. The one who is not does not contradict itself; its lower and higher order beliefs are in sync. The one who is does contradict themselves, because their rationality forces them to believe that the addiction behavior is not worth it, while the addiction behavior forces them to believe it is. So ironically, the more rational addict is the one that self-contradicts. This would suggest that there are cases where self-contradiction is more rational than not.
• Another option is to say that it's totally consistent to have a desire and yet to desire for yourself to not have that desire. You can believe P and yet wish you did not believe P, because you know P is objectively irrational, but subjectively rational because of addiction (i.e. addiction gives you reasons to engage in the addiction behavior. The irrationality of the addiction behavior is not grounded in the subjective irrationality of the behavior, but in the fact that the objective reasons are good reasons for abstaining from the behavior while the "it feels good" reasons are not good reasons for engaging in it, and are mere motivating reasons).
• But if one cannot act without belief and cannot believe without belief, then how is self-contradiction possible?
• Absolutely one can believe P and believe ~P, contradicting themselves. Because act entails belief, one could act, entailing belief in P, while internally holding ~P, generating the contradiction. The mistake is in thinking that acting entails a lack of counter-belief. I do not say this, only that acting entails the positive belief needed to ground the action.
• We might think of hypocrisy as different from simple self-contradiction, but an instance of special pleading where the hypocrite makes themselves an exception to a rule when there are no good reasons for doing so.