Willpower is a metaphor that is widespread in both common usage and expert literature across disciplines. This paper looks into willpower as a ‘metaphor we live by’, analyzing and exploring the consequences of the tacit information content of the willpower metaphor for agentive self-understanding and efficacy. In addition to contributing to stigma associated with self-control failures, the metaphor causally contributes to self-control failures by obscuring available self-control strategies and instructing agents to superfluous self-control efforts.

Although it seems commonsensical to say that one cannot merely have too little, but also too much self-control, the philosophical debate has largely focused on failures of self-control rather than its potential excesses. There are a few notable exceptions. But, by and large, the issue of having too much self-control has not received a lot of attention. This paper takes another careful look at the commonsensical position that it is possible to have too much self-control. One key insight that will (...) emerge is that there are certain important confusions surrounding this view. Once these are removed, however, we are led to the conclusion that there need not be anything intrinsically problematic about being a paragon of self-control. (shrink)