Self-Control and Planning: A Reply to Williamson

Abstract

In Timothy Luke Williamson’s commentary on my article “Micromanagement and Poor Self-Control,” Williamson casts my focus on managerial failures in certain cases of poor self-control “as an especially fruitful tool for addressing problems of poor self-control”; but he suggests that the cases of poor self-control that I view as cases of managerial failure also involve control by a foreign force, in accordance with the “foreign force paradigm,” which I claim is off base in the cases on which I focus. Although I cannot get into Williamson’s entire interesting and elaborate argument, I here question The Weak Planning Perspective, which plays a key role in Williamson’s critical response, with the aim of addressing the issues he raises and shedding some light on why and how our views diverge.