Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T17:01:22.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reasons Internalism and the Problem of Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2020

Andrew Spaid Open the ORCID record for Andrew Spaid [Opens in a new window]
Andrew Spaid*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article looks at a version of the “too-few-reasons” problem for reasons internalism stemming from the existence of cases of clinical depression. People with clinical depression lack motivation to do things like go to work or seek treatment for their depression. Internalism appears committed to saying that such people lack reasons to do these things since internalism makes having reasons depend on having motivations. But, intuitively, depressed people do have reasons to do them. This article considers a number of possible solutions to this problem, such as that depressed people have actual or ideal desires which explain their reasons, and argues that these solutions do not succeed.

Type
Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 1 - 16
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alloy, Lauren B. and Abramson, Lyn Y.. 1979. Judgment of Contingency in Depressed and Non-depressed Students: Sadder but Wiser? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 108: 441–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (Arlington: American Psychiatric Association).Google Scholar
Brandt, Richard. 1979. A Theory of the Good and the Right (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Bubl, Emanuel, Kern, Elena, Ebert, Dieter, Bach, Michael, and van Elst, Ludger Tebartz. 2010. Seeing Gray When Feeling Blue? Depression Can Be Measured in the Eye of the Diseased. Biological Psychiatry 68(2): 205–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwall, Stephen. 1983. Impartial Reason (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Dobson, Keith and Franche, Renee-Louise. 1989. A Conceptual and Empirical Review of the Depressive Realism Hypothesis. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 21(4): 419–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alan. 2009. Reasons from Within (Oxford University Press: New York).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaltenboeck, Alexander and Harmer, Catherine. 2018. The Neuroscience of Depressive Disorders: A Brief Review of the Past and Some Considerations about the Future. Brain and Neuroscience Advances 2: 1–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kant, Immanuel. 1967. Philosophical Correspondence: 1759–99, ed. and trans. Zweig, Arnulf (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Lauinger, William. 2013. The Missing-Desires Objection to Hybrid Theories of Well-being. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 51(2): 270–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melrose, Sherri. 2015. Seasonal Affective Disorder: An Overview of Assessment and Treatment Approaches. Depression Research and Treatment 2015: 1–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Messer, Stanley B. and Wampold, Bruce E.. 2002. Let's Face Facts: Common Factors Are More Potent Than Specific Therapy Ingredients. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 9: 21–25.Google Scholar
Alliance, National on Illness, Mental. 2020. Psychotherapy. National Alliance on Mental Illness. https://www.nami.org/About-Mental-Illness/Treatments/Psychotherapy [accessed April 23, 2020].Google Scholar
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Help Someone Else. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-someone-else/ [accessed April 1, 2020].Google Scholar
O'Connor, Lynn, Berry, Jack, Lewis, T., Mulherin, K., and Crisostomo, P. S.. 2007. Empathy and Depression: The Moral System on Overdrive. In Empathy in Mental Illness, ed. Farrow, T. and Woodruff, P. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 49–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, Derek. 2011. On What Matters, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Rosati, Connie. 1995. Persons, Perspectives, and Full Information Accounts of the Good. Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy 105(2): 296–325.Google Scholar
Rudnick, Abraham. 2002. Depression and Competence to Refuse Psychiatric Treatment. Journal of Medical Ethics 28: 151–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schroeder, Mark. 2007. Slaves of the Passions (Oxford University Press: New York).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael. 1994. The Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Smith, Michael. 1996. Normative Reasons and Full Rationality: Reply to Swanton. Analysis 56(3): 160–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, David. 1994. Full Information Accounts of Well-Being. Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy 104(4): 784–810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, David. 2011. Parfit's Case against Subjectivism. In Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 6, ed. Shafer-Landau, Russ (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 52–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, Andrew. 2002. Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (New York: Touchstone).Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Leo. 1954. A Confession, The Gospel in Brief, and What I Believe (London: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Watson, Rebecca, Harvey, Kate, McCabe, Ciara, and Reynolds, Shirley. 2020. Understanding Anhedonia: A Qualitative Study Exploring Loss of Interest and Pleasure in Adolescent Depression. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 29: 489–499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, Bernard. 1979. Internal and External Reasons. In Rational Action, ed. Harrison, Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 101–113.Google Scholar
Young, A. H. 2001. Recurrent Unipolar Depression Requires Prolonged Treatment. British Journal of Psychiatry 178: 294–295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed