ABSTRACT
The treatments of weakness of will so far considered have tended to have what might be called a strong rationalist air. Akrasia is a matter of something going wrong with our reasoning, or else comes from the fact that the agent does not really believe that the action taken is not the best. Even when we drop the suggestion that the akratic is always acting against what is in some sense a more considered (and so rational?) judgment, and see the case as one of acting contrary to an apparently sincerely expressed intention, the impression is given of a less than model rational agent. Will plays no part in the discussion. The nearest we get to it is in talk of relative strength of desires. Yet why should one not recognize that the akratic is not irrational, but simply, as the English suggests, weak? But weak not in intellect or apprehension, but in will. The akratic know full well that what they are proposing to do is take the worse course, but take it because too weak of will to do anything else.
