ABSTRACT
It may help the reader to start with a brief account of the set of problems covered in this book, and the manner of treatment. The problems I shall deal with start from the thesis of Socrates that no-one can choose what they consider the worse course under the influence of pleasure, fear and so on. While Socrates voices his opposition to the view that emotions and desires could overcome knowledge, the basis of his opposition is that he thinks it is impossible that someone should deliberately act contrary to their judgment of what it is best to do. For this judgment must give what I take as reasons for acting in this case, so how could I for a reason act contrary to the reasons I have? A number of philosophers have thought that there is a problem about admitting such ‘weakness’, either holding it to be in some interesting cases impossible, or considering it possible, but needing careful distinctions to show it possible. Often the question has been treated as one about deliberate action under emotional stress, which explains the common term akrasia (lack of control) to describe the problem; but the problem has also been treated as one about deliberate wrong-doing, which might explain the expression ‘weakness of will’, and recently has been extended to questions outside the moral sphere to examples which seem to have the same basic structure.
