Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Akrasia

« apparent contradiction.

Certainly, though, VII 3 does make it seem as though Aristotle is inclined to deny that there can be such a thing as utterly clear-eyed akrasia - the calm, deliberate and intentional performance of an action known not to be in one's own best interests.

The chapter is largely concerned with the application to the problemof akrasia of two distinctions, one rooted in Aristotle's doctrine of the practical syllogism, the other concerned with a contrast between the mere possession of knowledge and its use or exercise , and it is hard to see how these epistemic considerations are intended if not as qualified support for the Socratic view that knowledge cannot be'dragged around like a slave'.

The suggestion seems to be that passion or desire makes it impossible for the akrates to reach full-fledged knowledge of the conclusion of the practical syllogism which would lead him to perform theright action.

But if so, Aristotle would seem to be in agreement with Socrates that weakness of will is never reallyjust that - that it is always bound up with some form of self-deception, delusion or other epistemic error.

3 Davidson on weakness of will In a famous article entitled 'How is Weakness of the Will Possible?' (1970), Donald Davidson locates the problem of akrasia firmly within the philosophy of action, discarding its traditional connections with morality and the defeat of moral judgment by passions of various kinds.

According to Davidson, an agent actsincontinently if and only if: (a) the agent does x intentionally; (b) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to them; and (c) the agent judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x.

It follows that, for Davidson, there is not necessarily anything iniquitous about incontinence.

He gives the followingexample.

Suppose that I suddenly remember, having already gone to bed, that I have not brushed my teeth.

It isclear to me that missing one night's brushing won't make much difference to my dental health and that getting upmay result in my having a disturbed and fitful night's sleep, so I conclude that, all things considered, it would bebetter for me to stay in bed.

Nevertheless, I reluctantly get up and plod to the bathroom.

On Davidson's definition,my action counts as incontinent - though it is more plausible to say here that pleasure has been worsted by dutyrather than the other way round.

The problem of incontinence is represented by Davidson as an apparentinconsistency between three principles, all of which, according to Davidson, seem 'self-evident', or at any rate canbe made so, given suitable interpretation.

The three principles (from Davidson [1970] 1980: 23 ) are the following: 'P1: If an agent wants to do x more than they want to do y and they believe themselves free to do either x or y, then they will intentionally do x if they do either x or y intentionally.

P2: If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then they want to do x more than they want to do y.

P3: There are incontinent actions.' Davidson rejects what he calls 'the most common way of dealing with the problem of incontinence', that is, theabandonment of P2.

Though he admits that 'wanting' and 'judging better' can readily be interpreted so as to renderP2 false, he insists that there is also a natural reading that makes it true, which leaves the apparent inconsistencyintact.

'Judging better', he suggests, cannot be totally divorced both from behaviour and from desire - if onesincerely believes that x is a better course of action, all things considered, than y, then one must, in some sense or other, want to do x more than one wants to do y.

And provided one concedes this, the problem about weakness of will will remain.

Davidson's solution to the problem is an attempt to show that P1-P3 are not, after all, inconsistent.The argument turns on a distinction made by Davidson between unconditional evaluative judgments (for example,the straightforward judgment that it is better to do x than to do y) and conditional, or prima facie , evaluative judgments, which are relative to some body of evidence or other (such as the judgment that it is better to do x than to do y, given all the relevant factors known to the agent).

Davidson offers a treatment of the latter variety of judgment from which it follows that no conditional evaluative judgment can be in any logical conflict with anunconditional one.

This enables him to reconcile P1-P3 by saying that the incontinent agent who does x rather than y does indeed want to do x more than y and makes an unconditional judgment that the incontinent course of action, x, is better than y.

The awareness that y is better than x, on the other hand, is relative to a body of reasons - the total body of reasons available to the agent - and therefore does not contradict the unconditionaljudgment in accordance with which the agent acts.

4 Moral weakness Moral weakness is that particular form of akrasia which consists in failing to live up to one's sincerely expressed beliefs about what it would be morally best to do.

Nothing is more obvious, one might think, than that people often do things they genuinely consider to bemorally wrong; but the existence of this type of weakness has sometimes been thought to present problems forcertain moral theories.

In particular, any theory which makes action the test or criterion of the sincerity of moralbeliefs may have difficulty accounting for moral weakness.

For such theories will tend to suggest that those who donot act on the principles they profess cannot really be said to hold those principles at all - thus their failing will turnout to be not akrasia , but hypocrisy.

R.M.

Hare's ethical prescriptivism is one theory in particular which has been thought to conflict with the existence of moral weakness.

Hare's view ( 1963 ) is that it is part of the meaning of moral judgments that they prescribe ; that is, they are intended as guides to conduct.

The acceptance of some particular moral judgment, then, is the acceptance of a recommendation to act in some particular way in somegiven circumstance or type of circumstance - but how could one be said sincerely to have accepted such arecommendation if one fails to act in accordance with it? Hare's response, roughly, is to insist that typically, casesof 'moral weakness' are cases where the agents concerned are psychologically incapable of doing what they thinkthey ought.

Hare's view is that 'I ought but I can't' is not a contradiction; the agent here is 'prescribing in generalterms, but exempting himself because of the impossibility, in his case, of obeying this general prescription' ( 1963: 53).

One might wonder though, whether this is really a satisfactory account of all cases of moral weakness. Sometimes, no doubt, moral agents are prevented from acting as they think they ought by compulsions andirresistible forces, but it seems wrong to think of this as the general, or even the typical case.. »