ABSTRACT
It should be clear that ‘weakness of will* is used in a specialist sense in philosophical contexts. That is not to say that people’s treatments of the philosophical problem(s) are uninfluenced by the pre-philosophical uses of the expression; but it is important to try to keep them free of each other. One point to note is that this expression, like ‘akrasia’, is commonly used as a term of moral opprobrium. What someone counts as weakness is therefore liable to vary in contrast to what they admire as strength. Another is that the usual connotations of ‘weakness’ direct the mind in certain directions, and discourage consideration of certain examples, and these bear an uncertain relation to the philosophical examples.
