t is a striking feature of the times that never have so many insisted upon their right to so much freedom while, at the same time, claiming so little control over their choices.  On the one hand, people insist upon having a right to do anything and everything.  On the other, people invoke the excuse of an addiction at the drop of a hat as an explanation for their morally and rationally unacceptable behavior.  And, of course, there is always a psychology study to be found that provides scientific support for viewing the behavior in question as an addiction.  I am going to show rather quickly that this is all so much nonsense. 

Warning: The example I will provide will seem vulgar.  However, the appearance is well worth its illuminating power.  For I shall introduce and comment upon the example on one occasion; and then I shall return to it later.  Part of what makes the example so important is that it does not in any way require a partner.

It is common knowledge that lots and lots of folks engage in the act of masturbation with some regularity.  Presumably, this is owing to the sex drive.  Significantly, though, this common and frequently committed behavior is not referred to as an addiction.  And it is easy enough to see why it not referred to as an addiction, namely that there is next to no evidence whatsoever that people cannot control when and where they masturbate.  There are no reports of people turning the corner in a hallway only to stumble upon a person masturbating. 

To be sure, people are sometimes mistaken about whether or not they have a private moment or not.  But that is different from the thesis that they have no control over when and where they masturbate. 

Now, if masturbation is not an addiction, then one might very well ask how can be that, for example, playing video games and road rage are countenanced as addictions. 

I mean there is no disputing that sex is a basic biological drive that has had an enormous grip upon the souls of humankind since the beginning of its existence.  A like story cannot be told either for video games or road rage.  Nor, again, does either constitute a chemical dependency as is the case with cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs.  Finally, in this vein, it is not enough to say that an intense desire occasions video games and road rage.  For one thing, the same might be said of acts of self-eroticism.  For another, serial killers seem to have an intense desire to kill their victims.  Yet, we are loathed to understand their behavior as an addiction.  Quite the contrary, we insist upon holding them morally responsible for their behavior—as well we should.  The exact same parallel holds—and to the letter, in fact—for child molesters. 

Together, these considerations suggest that it is just so much nonsense to speak of a road rage as an addiction or having an addiction to playing video games.  Neither behavior has the right psychological ontogenesis to be countenanced an addiction. 

What is intriguing to me in all of this is that, on the one hand, we clamor for freedom at every turn while, on the other, we seem to insist that an intense desire to behave in this or that way thereby undermines freedom not to behave in that manner. 

Once again, the example of masturbation proves to be most illuminating.  If all it took to undermine freedom and responsibility were an intense desire, then it would follow that the sex drive automatically renders us less free as moral agents.  Yet, no one seems to be in the least bit inclined to advance this argument.  No matter how desirous of sexual relief a person may be, no one thinks for a moment that the individual thereby has an excuse to satisfy that desire on the spot.  No one thinks this notwithstanding the intense desire for sexual release.

Precisely what everyone rightly assumes, surely, is that each and every person is capable of exercising enough self-control to at least wait until she or he has sufficient privacy.  But if that assumption is plausible, and surely it is, then it is utterly implausible to countenance either road rage as an addiction or the desire to play video games as an addiction.  We cannot have it both ways.

While I have used the case of masturbation, notice that our moral objection to rape is predicated upon the truth that no matter how sexually desirous one person finds another individual, sex with that individual in the absence of consent is absolutely and unequivocally morally unacceptable; hence, a person has the wherewithal to refrain from acting upon the sexual desire for the individual in question. 

What I have done in this essay is drawn attention to a simple and ubiquitous features of our humanity, namely the sex drive.  And I have noted that in this area of life it is rightly expected that we can resist acting upon our sexual desires in inappropriate ways, notwithstanding the strength of our desires.  Peace and respect for others is predicated upon our doing so. 

I have assumed, with some plausibility, surely, that video games, road rage, and the like have not yet in their intensity achieved parity with the sexual desire.  And it is goes without saying that they do constitute a chemical dependency. 

Together, these considerations show that the very idea that playing video games and road rage constitute an addiction is none other than a farce.  Worse, it constitutes a flat out unwillingness to accept responsibility for our actions.  It is in the light of this reality that compassion for such individuals is utterly misplaced. 

I have hardly claimed that it is always easy to resist the desires that beset us.  Thought and foresight may be necessary.  But a desire that requires effort to resist—and most do—is not thereby a desire to which we must accede regardless of the facts of the world.  Not at all.  It cannot be, as the case of masturbation so clearly and forcefully and inescapably shows.  Since the sex act in its various forms is thought to be an expression of the self that is like none other and, moreover, the desire for sex is thought to have a potency that is second to none (in the absence of life threatening circumstances), then it has to be acknowledged that intense desires to do not thereby diminish our responsibility. 

Either that, or we must acknowledge that the desire to play video games and the desire to commit acts of road rage are more potent than the desire for sex itself.  But I don’t see that happening; and it should be manifestly obvious why I think that.