There are more failure modes of willpower than just acquiring the power to resist urges bequeathed us for good reasons by evolution.
Obsessive-compulsive disorders sound like a good example to study; possibly of willpower taken too far. Most of us have to be reminded to wash our hands before eating, or (in the current period of paranoid fears of swine flu contagion) after sneezing. OCD sufferers don’t need reminding, they must wash their hands several times a day, or check, double-check and triple-check that they have locked their doors before leaving home, and so on.
Ainslie’s analysis of “personal rules” as one of the components of willpower might be relevant here; he mentions “fussiness” as one downside of willpower, and OCD is an extreme of fussiness.
I don’t think OCD makes sense as willpower taken too far, since the compulsive behaviors are the defaults and the lack of ability to override those defaults via willpower is the problem. To the OCD sufferer, overriding those defaults requires superhuman levels of willpower they can’t reliably summon and sustain.
There are more failure modes of willpower than just acquiring the power to resist urges bequeathed us for good reasons by evolution.
Obsessive-compulsive disorders sound like a good example to study; possibly of willpower taken too far. Most of us have to be reminded to wash our hands before eating, or (in the current period of paranoid fears of swine flu contagion) after sneezing. OCD sufferers don’t need reminding, they must wash their hands several times a day, or check, double-check and triple-check that they have locked their doors before leaving home, and so on.
Ainslie’s analysis of “personal rules” as one of the components of willpower might be relevant here; he mentions “fussiness” as one downside of willpower, and OCD is an extreme of fussiness.
I don’t think OCD makes sense as willpower taken too far, since the compulsive behaviors are the defaults and the lack of ability to override those defaults via willpower is the problem. To the OCD sufferer, overriding those defaults requires superhuman levels of willpower they can’t reliably summon and sustain.