Picture a heroin addict of the sort frequently found in philosophical work on freedom and responsibility. In Harry Frankfurt's terms, she is an unwilling addict. She wishes she were not an addict, has attempted to break her addiction but failed, and hopes to escape from the demands of the drug — but in spite of her will to resist, she satisfies her craving in the end. The unwilling addict does not merely have a conflict of desires: she experiences herself as surrendering to a desire which is not really hers, a desire with respect to which she feels a passive observer or an active opponent. Her desire strikes her as alien, incomprehensible. There are at least two striking features of such an addict. The first is what we will call her akrasia.(We use the term ‘akrasia’ here in a broad sense, to mean ‘ acting against one's better judgment,’ and assume for this paper that akrasia in this form exists.) Her better judgment recommends not taking heroin, indeed ending the habit, yet she takes heroin anyway. The second is what we will call her alienation from her desire to use the drug.