One difficulty in understanding recent debates is that not only have many terms been used to refer to weakness of will – “akrasia” and “incontinence” have often been used as synonyms of “weakness of will” – but quite different phenomena have been discussed in the literature. This is why the present entry starts with taxonomic considerations. The second section turns to the question of whether it is possible to freely and intentionally act against one’s better judgment.

Breaking one's dieting rule or resolution to quit smoking, procrastination, convenient lies, even the failure of entire nations to follow through with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions or keep a pandemic in check - these phenomena have been discussed by philosophers and behavioural scientists as examples of weakness of will and delay discounting. Despite the common subject matter both fields have to date rarely worked together for mutual benefit. For the empirical literature is hardly accessible to a (...) reader not familiar with econometric theory; and researchers in the behavioural sciences may find philosophical accounts invoking discounting models difficult to understand without inside knowledge of the debates and historical background. -/- Nora Heinzelmann targets this lacuna by making the ideas and findings from both disciplines intelligible to outsiders. This reveals that discounting - as philosophers have conceived of it - is neither necessary nor sufficient for weakness of will, even though there is substantial overlap. Heinzelmann develops a richer descriptive account of weakness of will that is based on the empirically founded assumption that weak-willed behaviour is determined by uncertainty about whether or when a good materialises. She also explains why weakness of the will understood in this way is irrational: the agent yields to a cognitive bias that leads them to underestimate the greater good they think they ought to and can obtain. Finally, she explores practical implications for individuals and policymakers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Motivational Externalism Avoiding Brinksmanship Motivational Internalism A Creative High Shall We Close the Gateway?

We show that Shelah’s Eventual Categoricity Conjecture for successors follows from the existence of class many strongly compact cardinals. This is the first time the consistency of this conjecture has been proven. We do so by showing that every AEC withLS below a strongly compact cardinalκis <κ-tame and applying the categoricity transfer of Grossberg and VanDieren [11]. These techniques also apply to measurable and weakly compact cardinals and we prove similar tameness results under those hypotheses. We isolate a dual property (...) to tameness, calledtype shortness, and show that it follows similarly from large cardinals. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have recently begun to investigate the folk conception of weakness of will (e.g., Mele in Philos Stud 150:391–404, 2010; May and Holton in Philos Stud 157:341–360, 2012; Beebe forthcoming; Sousa and Mauro forthcoming). Their work has focused primarily on the ways in which akrasia (i.e., acting contrary to one’s better judgment), unreasonable violations of resolutions, and variations in the moral valence of actions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will. A key finding that has (...) emerged from this research is that—contrary to the predominant view in the history of philosophy—ordinary participants do not think of weakness of will solely in terms of akrasia but see resolution violations and moral evaluations as playing equally important roles. The present article extends this line of research by reporting the results of four experiments that investigate (i) the interplay between hastily revising one’s resolutions and the degree of reasonableness of the actions one had resolved to undertake, (ii) whether ordinary participants are willing to ascribe weakness of will to agents whose actions stem from compulsion or addiction, and (iii) the respects in which akratic action, resolution violations, and the seriousness of an addiction impact attributions of weakness of will to agents acting in accord with their addictions. (shrink)

Weakness of will has been widely discussed from at least three points of view. It has been examined historically, with Aristotle recently occupying centre stage. It has been analysed conceptually, with the question of its nature and possibility in the forefront. It has been considered normatively in relation to both rational action and moral character. My concern is not historical and is only secondarily conceptual: while I hope to clarify what constitutes weakness of will, I presuppose, (...) rather than construct, an account of it. My chief aim is to assess the bearing of weakness of will on the rationality of actions that exhibit it--incontinent actions. Philosophers have tended to assume that incontinent action is a paradigm of irrationality, and none to my knowledge has seriously criticised this assumption. I challenge it and in doing so try to clarify rationality in general. (shrink)

Weakness of will is a common phenomenon of human experience. But what is it? It has proved highly resistant to analysis, and even the accounts that seem to capture our intuitions about what weakness of will is raise problems about how it is possible. This is because these accounts seem inconsistent with some highly plausible principles about action. My aim here is to propose a new account of weakness of will and its relation to (...) practical judgment, and to explain how weakness of will so conceived is possible. (shrink)

Richard Holton has developed a view of the nature of weak-willed actions, and I have done the same for akratic actions. How well does this view of mine fare in the sphere of weakness of will? Considerably better than Holton’s view. That is a thesis of this article. The article’s aim is to clarify the nature of weak-willed actions. Holton reports that he is "trying to give an account of our ordinary notion of weakness of will" (...) (1999, p. 262). One way to get evidence about ordinary notions is to conduct survey studies with ordinary people. I conducted four such studies on weakness of will. (shrink)

A common objection to particular views of attributability is that they fail to account for weakness of will. In this paper, I show that the problem of weakness of will is much deeper than has been recognized, extending to all views of attributability on offer because of the general form that these views take. The fundamental problem is this: current views claim that being attributionally responsible is a matter of exercising whatever capacity that they take to (...) be relevant to attributability; however, weakness of will cases show that we can be attributionally responsible for actions that result from failing to exercise that capacity. I propose a novel solution that any view of attributability can and must take on board in order to be viable. The solution is to recognize that being attributionally responsible is not fundamentally a matter of exercising the attributability-relevant capacity but is rather a matter of having that capacity, so long as that capacity figures in the explanation of the action. (shrink)

Among the many practical failures that threaten us, weakness of will or akrasia is often considered to be a paradigm of irrationality. The eleven new essays in this collection, written by an excellent international team of philosophers, some well-established, some younger scholars, give a rich overview of the current debate over weakness of will and practical irrationality more generally. Issues covered include classical questions such as the distinction between weakness and compulsion, the connection between evaluative (...) judgement and motivation, the role of emotions in akrasia, rational agency, and the existence of the will. The also include new topics, such as group akrasia, strength of will, the nature of correct choice, the structure of decision theory, the temporality of prudential reasons, and emotional rationality. Because these questions cut across philosophy of mind and ethics, the collection will be essential reading for scholars, postgraduates, and upper-level undergraduates in both these fields. (shrink)

This article focuses on both daily forms of weakness of will as discussed in the philosophical debate and psychopathological phenomena as impairments of decision making. We argue that both descriptions of dysfunctional decision making can be organized within a common theoretical framework that divides the decision making process in three different stages: option generation, option selection, and action initiation. We first discuss our theoretical framework, focusing on option generation as an aspect that has been neglected by previous models. (...) In the main body of this article, we review how both philosophy and neuropsychiatry have provided accounts of dysfunction in each decision-making stage, as well as where these accounts can be integrated. Also, the neural underpinnings of dysfunction in the three different stages are discussed. We conclude by discussing advantages and limitations of our integrative approach. (shrink)

The phenomenon of weakness of will – not doing what we perceive as the best action – is not recognized by neoclassical economics due to the axiomatic assumptions of the revealed preference theory (RPT) that people do what is best for them. However, present bias shows that people have different preferences over time. As they cannot be compared by the utility measurements, economists need to normatively decide between selves (short- versus long-term preferences). A problem is that neoclassical economists (...) perceive RPT as value-free and incorporate present bias within the economic framework. The axiomatic assumption that people do what is best for them leads to theoretical and practical dilemmas. This work examines weakness of will to resolve some shortcomings of RPT. The concept of intention is used to provide multiple self conception with the framework to decide between selves, which had not been done before. The paper concludes that individuals should not always follow their revealed preferences (desires) but the intentions (reason) because the latter indicates what people really want. (shrink)

This article argues for a novel approach to the measurement of freedom of choice, on which the availability of an option is a matter of degree, rather than a bivalent matter of being either available or not. This approach is motivated by case studies involving weakness of will, where deficiencies in willpower seem to impair individual freedom by making certain alternatives much harder to pursue. This approach is perfectly general, however: its graded analysis of option availability can be (...) extended to cases where weakness of will is not involved and can be used to generalize numerous existing measures of freedom. (shrink)

David Wiggins; XV*—Weakness of Will Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1.

David Wiggins; XV*—Weakness of Will Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1.

Given a countable graph, we say a set A of its vertices is universal if it contains every countable graph as an induced subgraph, and A is weakly universal if it contains every finite graph as an induced subgraph. We show that, for almost every graph on, (1) every set of positive upper density is universal, and (2) every set with divergent reciprocal sums is weakly universal. We show that the second result is sharp (i.e., a random graph on (...) class='Hi'>will almost surely contain non‐universal sets with divergent reciprocal sums) and, more generally, that neither of these two results holds for a large class of partition regular families. (shrink)

Empirical work on and common observation of the emotions tells us that our emotions sometimes key us to the presence of real and important reason-giving considerations without necessarily presenting that information to us in a way susceptible of conscious articulation and, sometimes, even despite our consciously held and internally justified judgment that the situation contains no such reasons. In this paper, I want to explore the implications of the fact that emotions show varying degrees of integration with our conscious agency—from (...) none at all to quite substantial—for our understanding of our rationality, and in particular for the traditional assumption that weakness of the will is necessarily irrational. (shrink)

Some authors have argued that, in order to give an account of weakness of the will, we must assume that the mind is divisible into parts. This claim is often referred to as the partitioning claim. There appear to be two main arguments for this claim. While the first is conceptual and claims that the notion of divisibility is entailed by the notion of non-rational mental causation (which is held to be a necessary condition of weakness of (...) the will), the second is explanatory and claims that the notion of divisibility is required for the causal explanation of weak-willed action. In this paper I want to argue that the partitioning claim remains unsupported, no matter how it is interpreted, and that weakness of the will can be made perfectly good sense of without the idea that the mind is divisible into parts. In fact, there are available various explanatory models each of which characterizes different psychological mechanisms that may be involved in weakness of will, none of which depends on any claims about mental division. I describe three familiar mechanisms and argue that weakness of will may occur as the result of any one of them. (shrink)

I think that clear sense can be made of weakness of will in terms of agents' acting against the dictates of their reason; and that this can be done without becoming enmeshed in the faculties of the mind, and without denying what is right about Humean views about reason and desire. My starting point is, in fact, a Humean position about reason and desire.

In The Force of Nonviolence, Judith Butler argues that nonviolent movements must replace a dominant neurotic identitarianism with a commitment to preserving relational life. However, Butler also argues that because relationality is volatile, freedom and equality cannot be accomplished through a simple negation of separation. Instead, nonviolence must be directed at moments of relational volatility precisely when violence is compelled. Drawing on Klein’s theory of subjectivity—in which imagining ourselves as other is a precondition for imagining ourselves independent—and on Benjamin’s vision (...) of conflict resolution in encountering the other without instrumentality, Butler asks that we meet such moments by honoring interdependence. While affirming much in Butler’s analysis, this article locates (1) a tension between Butler’s poststructuralist and psychoanalytic commitments, (2) the reification of a non-relational liberal subject as hegemonic, and (3) a tendency towards theoretical exclusivity. Through addressing these weaknesses, we can retain more of a positive role than Butler affords to traditional elements of the nonviolent toolkit such as love, morality, and upholding human rights prefaced on the integrity and dignity of the individual, to augment their theory as one among many resources for a diverse and multicultural nonviolent pursuit of social and political progress. (shrink)

My chief aim is to explain how someone can act freely against her own best judgment. But I also have a second aim: to defend a conception of practical rationality according to which someone cannot do something freely if she believes it would be better to do something else. These aims may appear incompatible. But I argue that practical reason has the capacity to undermine itself in such a way that it produces reasons for behaving irrationally. Weakness of (...) class='Hi'>will is possible because it is possible to conclude that one has sufficient reason to reject the verdicts of one's own reason. (shrink)

Weakness of will, or akrasia, is an exciting issue at the heart of moral psychology and the philosophy of mind and action. This articleoffers a problem-centered guide to the relevant literature in contemporary analytic philosophy with reference to the main classical texts. The topics covered include: contemporary versus classical conceptions of akrasia, the possibility of weakness of will and its significance within instrumental and substantive theories of practical rationality, the nature of akratic actions and akratic attitudes, (...) and the plausibility of a theoretical counterpart of weakness of will, such as epistemic akrasia. (shrink)

According to the traditional view of weakness of will, a weak-willed agent acts in a way inconsistent with what she judges to be best.1 Richard Holton has argued against this view, claiming that ‘the central cases of weakness of will are best characterized not as cases in which people act against their better judgment, but as cases in which they fail to act on their intentions’ (1999: 241). But Holton doesn’t think all failures to act on (...) one’s prior intentions, or all revisings of intentions, are cases of weakness of will (WW). Rather, he thinks an intention-revision is a case of WW only when it occurs ‘in circumstances in which [one] should not have revised [the intention]’. Holton points out that according to the traditional view of WW, to call an agent ‘weak-willed’ is to make descriptive claim about the agent (about whether an action in fact is inconsistent with what (s)he judges to be best). But according to Holton’s account, the question of whether the agent was weak-willed ‘will depend on which intentions [the agent] should have stuck with as a rational intender. That is a normative question’ (my emphasis) (241-3, 247-8. (shrink)

People backslide. They freely do things they believe it would be best on the whole not to do. Mele draws on work in social and developmental psychology and in psychiatry to motivate a view of human behavior in which both backsliding and overcoming the temptation to backslide are explicable.

A practical judgement is one which enjoys an internal, necessary relation to subsequent action or intention, and which can serve as a sufficient explanation of such action or intention. Does the phenomenon of weakness of will show that deliberation does not characteristically issue in such practical judgements? The author argues that the possibility of akrasia does not threaten the view that we make practical judgements, when the latter thesis is properly understood. Indeed, the author suggests that the alleged (...) possibility of global akrasia actually supports the practical‐judgement model over what she considers its main rival, a kind of ‘Humean externalism’ about practical reason. (shrink)

'Backsliding', 'weakness of, will', ' moral weakness', '"lack of self-restraint', 'lack of self-control'. Do all these have the same meaning ? Is there a philosophical problem here, and if so, what precisely is it? How is an account of what happens in cases to which these terms apply related to the meaning of the words, and to the philosophical problem? These are the questions which I shall try to discuss in this paper.

The study of intrapersonal economic relations, or economics , is still at the programmatic stage. There is no generally accepted paradigm, or even as well-defined set of problems that constitute it as a subdiscipline within economics. Some questions are, however, emerging as foci of interest for a small but increasing number of writers, not just in economics, but also in psychology and philosophy. The writings of Thomas Schelling on self-management, of George Ainslie on self-control, and of Derik Parfit on personal (...) identity testify to this convergence. (shrink)

Mental conflict not always amounts to weakness of will. Irresistible motives not always speak of addiction. This book proposes an integrated account of what singles out these phenomena: addiction and weakness of will are both forms of secondary akrasia. By integrating these two phenomena into a classical conception of akrasia as poor resolution of an unnecessary conflict – valuing without intending while intending without valuing – the book makes an original contribution to central issues in moral (...) psychology and philosophy of action, including the relationship between responsibility and intentional agency, and the nature and scope of moral appraisal. In particular, the proposed integrated account is grounded in a general theory of responsibility and a related model of action as actualisation bringing together insights from both volitional and non-volitional conceptions, such as the intuition that it is unfair to hold a person responsible for things that are not up to her and the parity of actions and attitudes as legitimate objects of moral appraisal. Furthermore, the actualisation model supports a distinctive version of the Guise of the Good thesis which links valuing and intending in terms of success in action and explains why akratic actions and their offspring – addiction and weakness of will – are necessarily less than successful yet fully responsible. (shrink)

This volume contains thirteen original essays on weakness of will by scholars of contemporary philosophy and the history of philosophy. It covers the major periods of Western philosophy.

We provide comprehensive, level-by-level characterizations of large cardinals, in the range from weakly compact to strongly compact, by closure properties of powerful images of accessible functors. In the process, we show that these properties are also equivalent to various forms of tameness for abstract elementary classes. This systematizes and extends results of [W. Boney and S. Unger, Large cardinal axioms from tameness in AECs, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.145(10) (2017) 4517–4532; A. Brooke-Taylor and J. Rosický, Accessible images revisited, Proc. AMS145(3) (2016) (...) 1317–1327; M. Lieberman, A category-theoretic characterization of almost measurable cardinals (Submitted, 2018); M. Lieberman and J. Rosický, Classification theory for accessible categories. J. Symbolic Logic81(1) (2016) 1647–1648]. (shrink)

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our (...) understanding of weakness of will attributions by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will. (shrink)

In this article, I develop an Augustinian response to some contemporary philosophical proposals concerning the problem of weakness of will. I argue that many philosophers tend to cast the problem in terms of irrationality, focusing on psychological components such as judgment, desire, and resolution. In contrast, I contend that weakness of will has more to do with the absence of a coherent conception of practical identity and with a misleading conception of practical identity that overestimates the (...) agent’s normative and motivational capacities. I claim that the irrationality of the weak-willed agent is at best a symptom, rather than the ultimate source, of weakness of will which cannot be properly understood without first addressing the deficiency of our internal resources relative to our willing and doing. (shrink)

The unconditional version of motivational internalism says that if an agent sincerely judges that to φ in circumstances C is the best option available to her, then, as a matter of conceptual necessity, she will be motivated to φ in C. This position faces a powerful counterargument according to which it is possible for various cases of practical irrationality to completely defeat an agent’s moral motivation while, at the same time, leaving her appreciation of her moral reasons intact. In (...) this paper, I will argue that weakness of will, as the paradigmatic case of practical irrationality, and all other cases of practical irrationality that feature in standard formulations of this argument do not represent genuine counterexamples to this version of motivational internalism. In this sense, the main aim of this paper is to show that proponents of this internalist position are well justified in their denial of the claim that there are people who are completely unmotivated by their judgments about what is the best option available to them. (shrink)

Weakness of will denotes a phenomenon that many would regard as forming part of everyday human experience. I hate to admit to it, but I do sometimes reprimand my children more harshly than I think I should, and similar situations occur daily. This could be an example of weakness of will or incontinence: I will to be constructive and provide a model of calm interaction, but fail to do so because my will is weak (...) and I end up acting against better knowledge. But what is it that happens in such situations? Philosophers, theologians, poets, and other writers have discussed this question as akrasia, as well as under other headings. Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present not only contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the history of akrasia, but is also the first book that attempts to cover the trajectory of this issue through all major periods of Western philosophy. The book invites a broad range of readers, focusing on canonical figures from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine and Aquinas to Descartes, Kant, and Nietzsche. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many scholars and managers endorse the idea that the primary purpose of the firm is to make money for its owners. This shareholder wealth maximization objective is justified on the grounds that it maximizes social welfare. In this article, the first of a two-part set, we argue that, although this shareholder primacy model may have been appropriate in an earlier era, it no longer is, given our current state of economic and social affairs. To make our case, we employ a (...) utilitarian moral standard and examine the apparent logical sequence behind the link between shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare. Upon close empirical and conceptual scrutiny, we find that utilitarian criteria do not support the shareholder model; that is, shareholder wealth maximization is only weakly linked to social welfare maximization. In view of the dubious validity of this sequential argument, we outline some of the features of a superior corporate objective—a variant of normative stakeholder theory. In the second article, we will advance and defend our preferred alternative and then discuss some institutional arrangements under which it could be implemented. (shrink)

Philosophical orthodoxy identifies weakness of will with akrasia: the weak willed person is someone who intentionally acts against their better judgement. It is argued that this is a mistake. Weakness of will consists in a quite different failing, namely an over-ready revision of one's intentions. Building on the work of Bratman, an account of such over-ready revision is given. A number of examples are then adduced showing how weakness of will, so understood, differs from (...) akrasia. (shrink)

Many would say that unlike other failures of practical rationality, which can be difficult to recognize, weakness of will wears its rational defect on its sleeve. Whenever we judge that it would be best not to do x, while intentionally doing x without relinquishing this judgment, we condemn quite explicitly the intention on which we act. This observation gives rise to the attractive idea that weak-willed agents indict themselves of irrationality as they fail to comply with their own (...) practical judgments. Weakness of will is often treated as the paradigm of practical irrationality just because of the explicit and quasi-logical form of incoherence in the weak-willed or akratic agent’s attitudes. Underpinning this idea is the assumption that practical rationality can be characterized as a kind of executive capacity that produces congruence between judgment and action by ensuring that practical judgments are faithfully enacted. Some are happy to call this capacity the will, so that the label “weakness of will” is literally true. I will argue against both of these assumptions. (shrink)

In addition to considering the work of a broad range of Renaissance authors (including Petrarch, Donato Acciaiuoli, John Mair, and Francesco Piccolomini), Risto ...

This essay applies John Searle’s account of weakness of will to explore the classical Chinese problem of weak-willed action. Searle’s discussion focuses on the shortcomings of the Western classical model of rationality in explaining weakness of will, so he naturally says little about the practical ethical problem of overcoming weak-willed action, the focus of the relevant Chinese texts. Yet his theory of action, specifically his notion of the Background, suggests a compelling approach to the practical issue, (...) one that converges with a plausible account of the classical Chinese conception of agency. On this approach, the practical problem is due to weaknesses of the self in carrying out intentions. The key to overcoming the problem lies not in restructuring the agent’s affective states, as suggested by prominent interpreters of Chinese thought such as David Nivison, but in strengthening the agent’s Background capacities, much as we do when mastering new skills. (shrink)

In this article, I develop an Aristotelian account of akrasia as a primary failure of intentional agency in contrast to a phenomenon I refer to as ‘ordinary weakness of will’: I argue that ordinary weakness of will is best understood as a secondary failure of intentional agency, that to tackle akrasia.

My concern in this paper will be to explore and develop a version of nonsocratic skepticism about weakness of will. In my view, socratism is incorrect, but like Socrates, I think that the common understanding of weakness of will raises serious problems. Contrary to socratism, it is possible for a person knowingly to act contrary to his or her better judgment. But this description does not exhaust the common view of weakness. Also implicit in (...) this view is the belief that actions which are contrary to one's better judgment are free in the sense that the agent could have done otherwise. To take seriously the possibility of acting contrary to one's better judgment is at the same time to raise problems about the distinction between weakness and compulsion. I argue that the common view, according to which the differentiating feature is that the weak are able to conform their behavior to their practical judgments, is unjustified. Instead, I have proposed that weakness of will involves the failure to develop certain normal capacities of self-control, whereas compulsion involves desires which even the possession of such capacities would not enable one to resist. (shrink)

This article defends a nonstandard position on free will that is based on three topics linked to contemporary debates about free will: autonomy, self-control, and weakness of will. It argues that autonomy, and hence also free will, requires more than self-control, including ideal self-control. It considers the additional conditions required, showing how contemporary discussions of autonomy are intertwined with debates about free will. These additional conditions for genuine autonomy do not require us to choose (...) between compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts of autonomy, because one can give a “robust, satisfiable” set of adequate conditions for both compatibilist autonomy and incompatibilist autonomy. One can thus remain agnostic on the Compatibility Question regarding autonomy and free will without giving up the belief that there are autonomous human beings. This view is called “agnostic autonomism”. (shrink)

In this paper, I am concerned to show that a wide and interesting range of phenomena commonly described as ‘weakness of will’ should be understood as manifesting a defect of what I shall call ‘executive cowardice’ rather than a strong kind of irrationality. More specifically, I claim that such cases should not be understood as an irrational bypassing of an all-things-considered judgment about the thing to do—a view succinctly described by Peacocke thus: The akrates is irrational because although (...) he intentionally does something for which he has some reason, there is a wider set of reasons he has relative to which he does not judge what he does to be rational. (shrink)