Habit, Rule-Following, and Value Sensitivity

Whether we consider habit as a psychological phenomenon or as part of the ontology of social structures, it resists exact localization. Owing to this fact, the motivational factors that link habit to the repetition of the same action in a specific context are often overlooked. To shed light on the nature of habit and the process of habit formation, I distinguish two main lines of interpretation: the intellectualist and the social view. Both accounts reproduce, in different ways, the paradigm of rule‐following. Drawing on Merleau‐Ponty’s phenomenology, I outline an alternative model of explanation that centres on the relation between habit and value sensitivity. This approach illustrates the sort of responsiveness (and associated limits) at stake in habit formation, and what makes habit a required response to the context.