The Moral Psychology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Jared Smith
Philosophy
UC Riverside

Persons with Obsessive-compulsive Disorder experience upsetting thoughts, images, or beliefs that lead them to engage in repetitive actions (compulsions) to alleviate anxiety. Typically, theorists do not consider an agent responsible for compelled acts. Nonetheless, philosophical accounts of compulsion and weakness of will return the counterintuitive result that those with OCD are responsible for their compulsive behavior. Similarly, obsessions are considered prototypically “external” to the agent, that is, they are thought not to represent the agent’s autonomous self, but rather an impediment to autonomy. Nonetheless, theories of internality which underpin philosophical conceptions of autonomy, when applied to the relevant attitudes, suggest that obsessions are internal to the agent experiencing them, making obsessing an instance of genuine autonomy. This project argues  that the confounding role of OCD for the standard models of internality and responsibility reflects a deeper conceptual error in the philosophical understanding of the relationship between autonomy, responsibility, and authorship. By investigating these implications and being sensitive to the reality of the condition, this project helps  better understand OCD as a disorder but can also refine our philosophical concepts, such as what it means to be compelled, to be weak of will, to identify with an attitude, and so on.