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This chapter explains how arguments in Meno, Protagoras, and Lysis present a coherent conception of desire. Furthermore, it is argued that the much discussed passage at Gorgias 466–68 is hermeneutically insignificant for the early dialogues' conception of desire. Finally, the chapter examines salient forms of antiphilosophical desire among the texts: philotimia (love of honor) and philhêdonia (love of pleasure).

Plato's Socrates denies akrasia (wanting the course one thinks worse), but his Republic allows that Leontius did that, at the cost of revealing a divided soul, since one thing cannot simultaneously have opposite desires about the same thing. Pseudo-Plutarch protests one can have simultaneous opposite capacities. Plato becomes increasingly sensitive to different reasons why one can want the course one thinks worse, but Aristotle concedes Socrates' position that ignorance must be responsible, while explaining the ignorance as types of attention-failure, that allow violation of one's deliberate policy (prohairesis). Since Chrysippus denies Plato's division of the soul, he has to postulate that one's unitary reason oscillates between the better judgement and the worse. The Christians Origen and Augustine deny two souls in us, but accept two wills. One may act with less than one's full will. Christ engaged in a conditional willing comparable to Stoic willing with reservation.

This chapter reconsiders the question of whether Socrates is represented in the Protagoras as maintaining some version of hedonism in his own person, or merely arguing ad hominem that the sophists and/or ordinary people are committed to hedonism. While the author had previously maintained the former, the present chapter argues — by close attention to the details of the text — that Plato deliberately leaves the question open. It is suggested that he does so because the cognitive theory of the early dialogues needs to be supplemented by an account of the good, and that he wished to explore the theory that pleasure is the good without explicitly endorsing it.

The argument of the previous chapter suggests that, in general, people act in the way that they have best reason to act. This constitutes a tacit denial of the view that there is such a thing as intentional counterpreferential choice. The argument of this chapter makes this denial more plausible, by drawing out the philosophical implications of the phenomenon of hyperbolic discounting. The philosophical literature on weakness of will is marred by a failure to render explicit any assumptions that may be being made about individual time-preference. Incorporating an explicit discount rate resolves many of these issues, but also shows how many of the phenomena traditional classified as weakness of will can easily be given a rationalizing explanation, as temporary preference reversals.

Examines Hooker’s philosophy of action, and in particular his views on defective action and belief-formation, in order to understand how the mental faculties, examined in the previous chapter, interact together. It is argued that Hooker stresses the inherently voluntary nature of all sin, and humanity’s potential through diligence to know and choose the good. Attention is given to Hooker’s theory of certainty, which considers just how certain the reason must be in any given case in order to fulfil its responsibilities, and this also forms a fundamental basis for the discussion of religious authority to be found in ch. 4.

This chapter investigates whether procrastination is a species of weakness of will. Procrastination resembles weakness of will: the procrastinating agent is not doing x even though he in some sense thinks he ought to be. However, the more precise characterizations of weakness of will that have been developed in the literature do not capture the full range of cases of procrastination. Is procrastination simply a variety of akrasia? No, because akrasia is a purely synchronic phenomenon, whereas procrastination is poor performance in the management of one’s agency over time. On a recent revisionist account from Holton and McIntyre, weakness of will centrally involves a failure to act on antecedently formed intentions. But this account, even though diachronic, cannot cover all cases of procrastination, either: weakness of will in this sense is exclusively a defect in plan implementation, whereas procrastination is sometimes constituted by defects in plan drafting and adoption.

Plato's psychology in the Phaedo and the Republic is committed to a partitioning thesis that partitions the individual human being into a compound of distinct agent‐like parts. This chapter argues that the Laws abandons the Republic's theory of parts of the soul. I examine the Laws’ new theory of akrasia (weakness of will) and some of the implications of the Laws’ new psychology for broader issues in Plato's ethics.

This chapter focuses on phantasia’s role in appetites, and in particular in Aristotle’s account of akrasia, weakness of will (acting on appetite against rational desire). This chapter uses Chapter 3’s analysis of the apparent good to show that the de Anima contains an overlooked account of akrasia: the akratic is torn between a rational desire for what she judges good, and an appetite for what appears good to her phantasia. The chapter then argues that recognizing this account helps us to solve the interpretative problems that have plagued the more famous account in the ethical works: once we realize that akrasia involves a cognitive conflict similar to that involved in optical illusions, we can use Aristotle’s discussion of illusion in the de Insomniis to show why and how phantasia sometimes wins out over intellect.

This chapter explores the presentation of the passions in The Faerie Queene, arguing that Spenser treats these as hostile, morally disruptive forces within the soul, powers which reason must fight against in a perpetual psychomachia. It examines the limits of Spenser's debt to Aristotle: Spenser mirrors Aristotle's idea that men are constantly prone to degenerate from a state of akrasia (weakness of will) into one of outright vice (a love of evil), but he does not match Aristotle's faith that characters can develop the other way too, towards moral perfection and consistently virtuous conduct. Afflicted by shame at their own weakness, Spenser's knights struggle to realize virtues such as temperance, often requiring the help of grace. However, important though that grace is, Spenser repeatedly affirms the primacy of reason in steering men's conduct towards goodness. Grace is an assistant power in the struggle for virtue; rational self-determination remains central.

In a celebrated passage of Plato’s Protagoras (351b–58e) Socrates argues that it is impossible for us to do things that we know are better left undone. His claim, roughly put, is that we are capable of acting incorrectly only if and only when we fail to recognize that we are acting incorrectly. Of all the counterintuitive arguments in the so-called Socratic dialogues, this one is probably the most famous. Historians have extensively examined its structure, its motivation, and its place within the broader sweep of Socratic and Platonic moral psychology. As a result of this, perhaps, many contemporary philosophers of action now feel compelled to mention it, if not to scrutinize it, when addressing themselves to the general topic of practical irrationality. But in recent years the historians and the philosophers have begun to diverge in their assessments of the argument’s intrinsic merit. While most of the philosophers have come to agree that it is implausible, either in whole or in part, many of the historians have defended it against this very charge, and have implied that the argument’s detractors are, as a rule, either exegetically misguided or philosophically shallow. Sadly, these two camps seem to have little if any sustained interaction with each other. So it is hardly surprising to find, in the recent literature on the subject, an unresolved and (largely) unengaged dispute between the majority of contemporary philosophers, on the one hand, and a cadre of devoted historians on the other. The purpose of this chapter is to get the dispute back on track, by providing both parties with a reliable guide to the issues that continue to divide them.

Philosophical orthodoxy identifies weakness of will with akrasia: the weak willed person is someone who intentionally acts against their better judgment. This chapter argues that this is a mistake. Weakness of will consists in a quite different failing, namely an over-ready revision of one's resolution. A number of examples are then adduced showing how weakness of will, so understood, differs from akrasia.

This chapter identifies the book’s goal—to show that weak-willed action is possible and to explain why it happens. The chapter provides conceptual and historical background, including background on skepticism about weakness of will. Concepts discussed include akrasia, better judgment, rationality, self-control, and weakness of will. Philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Donald Davidson, and Richard Hare. A definition of core akratic action is offered: it is free, sane, intentional action that, as the nondepressed agent consciously recognizes at the time of action, is contrary to his better judgment. The chapter sets the stage for the remainder of the book and provides a preview of what is to come.

There is a voluminous philosophical literature on akrasia that at least purports to be about weakness of will. Richard Holton has developed a view of the nature of weak-willed actions that, as he reports, departs from most of the literature on the subject. If his view is correct, much of what has been written about akrasia and akratic actions is not about weakness of will and weak-willed actions. This chapter argues that the author’s view of the nature of akratic actions in earlier work—a view that accommodates both core akratic actions and akratic actions of other kinds—fares considerably better in the sphere of weakness of will than Holton’s view does. The argument benefits from some studies of folk conceptions of weakness of will that employ techniques of experimental philosophy. The chapter’s aim is to clarify the nature of weak-willed actions.

The author believes that large‐scale rationality on the part of the interpretant is essential to his interpretability, and therefore, in his view, to her having a mind. How, then are cases of irrationality, such as akrasia or self‐deception, judged by the interpretant's own standards, possible? He proposes that, in order to resolve the apparent paradoxes, one must distinguish between accepting a contradictory proposition and accepting separately each of two contradictory propositions, which are held apart, which in turn requires to conceive of the mind as containing a number of semi‐independent structures of interlocking beliefs, desires, emotions, memories, and other mental states.