This paper serves both as a discussion of Henry’s (Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 5:255–270, 2002) interpretation of Aristotle on the possibility of akrasia – knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway – and an indication of the importance of desire in Aristotle’s account of moral reasoning. As I will explain, Henry’s interpretation is advantageous for the reason that it makes clear how Aristotle could have made good sense of genuine akrasia, a phenomenon that we seem to observe in the (...) real world, while maintaining non-trivial distinctions between temperance (sôphrosunê), self-indulgence (akolasia), self-control (enkrateia) and akrasia. There are, however, some interpretive challenges that follow from Henry’s account and this paper is intended to explain and resolve those. (shrink)

This article offers an account of akrasia as a primary failure of intentional agency in contrast to a recent account of weakness of will, developed by Richard Holton, that also points to a kind of failure of intentional agency but presents this as both separate from akrasia and more fundamental than it. Drawing on Aristotle’s work, it is argued that the failure of intentional agency articulated by the concept of akrasia is the central case, whereas the phenomenon Holton’s account is (...) after, referred to as ‘ordinary weakness of will’, is best understood as an unsuccessful attempt to tackle akrasia and, more specifically, a secondary failure of intentional agency. (shrink)

La argumentación en contra de la posibilidad de akrasia que encontramos en las Disertaciones de Epicteto ha sido frecuentemente desatendida en los desarrollos modernos y contemporáneos de la problemática de la incontinencia. Esto se ha debido fundamentalmente al hecho de que las reflexiones de Epicteto suelen ser reducidas a una mera reelaboración de motivos socráticos bajo ejes dogmáticos estoicos. Por el contrario, será nuestro objetivo poner de manifiesto la singular riqueza teórica que subyace bajo la argumentación de nuestro esclavo estoico (...) destinada... a comprender en forma sistemática la conducta del incontinente. Esto exigirá contrastar el modelo de análisis de Epicteto con otras alternativas interpretativas del fenómeno de la akrasia. The argument against the possibility of akrasia that we find en Epictetus , has frequently been neglected in modern and contemporary discussions around the problem of incontinence. This has mainly been due to the fact that Epictetus' meditations tend to be reduced to a mere reproduction of Socratic issues under Stoic dogmas. On the contrary, it will be our goal to bring to light the remarkable theoretical richness that underlies the argument of our Stoic slave that aims at understanding in a systematic manner the behaviour of the incontinent. This will oblige us to contrast Epictetus' model of analysis with other interpretative alternatives of the phenomenon of akrasia. (shrink)