Weakness of will from Plato to the present

By Tobias Hoffmann

Subjects: Free will and determinism

Description: This volume contains 13 original essays on weakness of will by scholars of contemporary philosophy and the history of philosophy. It covers the major periods of Western philosophy. Kenneth Dorter. “Weakness and Will in Plato’s Republic,” pp. 1–21: Plato notes that self-mastery is paradoxical because someone who is master of himself is equally subject to himself. He resolves the paradox by dividing the self into better and worse parts, and defining self-mastery as the rule of the better over the worse. But Plato also recognizes the serious obstacles to demonstrating that our self is composed of parts, or that one part is better than another, and shows the limitations of his demonstrations and how to go beyond them. To appreciate his full teaching we must go beyond Book 4 to the later books of the Republic. Terence H. Irwin. “Aristotle Reads the Protagoras,” pp. 22–41: When Aristotle attributes to Socrates the denial of the possibility of incontinence, his account is based on the Protagoras. But Aristotle’s attitude toward the Protagoras is different in the Magna Moralia and the later treatment of Nicomachean Ethics 7. Only in EN 7 does Aristotle refer to Socrates’ view in the Protagoras that knowledge is not dragged around like a slave by passion. It is argued that Aristotle adds this specific reference in his later treatment because he now recognizes that Socrates says something true here. Only perceptual knowledge, not knowledge in the full sense, is dragged around by passion. Lloyd Gerson. “Plotinus on Akrasia: The Neoplatonic Synthesis,” pp. 42–57: This paper argues that Plotinus appropriates Peripatetic and Stoic insights into his expression of Platonic moral psychology generally and into his analysis of akrasia in particular. Plotinus’s account focuses on the Platonic distinction between the soul or true self and the embodied composite human being. With the Stoics, Plotinus argues that the true self is the subject of rational desire. Rational desire is here interpreted as a second-order desire in relation to the first-order desires of the composite individual. Plotinus argues along Platonic lines that vicious and akratic actions are involuntary because they arise from desires involving embodiment. James Wetzel. “Body Double: Saint Augustine and the Sexualized Will,” pp. 58–81: In Confessions 8, Augustine describes being unresolved between two wills: one pulling him back to a discredited life of sexual habit, the other pushing him forward to a resurrected life in Christ. Though his irresolution is taken to be a classic illustration of weakness of will, I argue that Augustine’s inner conflict is more likely the product of self-deception. Augustine has been assuming that his carnal knowledge has been a form of mortal knowing, whereas in fact his sexual habit has bound him to an illusion of immorality. He cannot transcend his sexual habit until he is properly disillusioned. Denis J. M. Bradley. “Thomas Aquinas on Weakness of the Will,” pp. 82–114: Aquinas treats weakness of will in various contexts: the discussion of the conflict between flesh and mind in chapter 7 of the Letter to the Romans, the treatment of “sin from weakness,” i.e. from passion, the commentary on book 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics, and the account of original sin and the need for grace. Aquinas differs from Aristotle in two important ways: he introduces the notion of the will as a distinct power of the intellectual soul that mediates between reason and the sense appetite; he considers human weakness to be innate due to original sin. Tobias Hoffmann. “Henry of Ghent’s Voluntarist Account of Weakness of Will,” pp. 115–37: According to Henry of Ghent, akrasia (incontinence or weakness of will) does not presuppose, but rather produces a cognitive defect. By tracing akratic actions and other evil actions to a corruption in the will rather than to a cognitive defect, Henry wants to safeguard their freedom. Though the will is able to reject what the intellect judges as best here and now, strength and freedom of the will increase to the degree that one adheres more firmly to the good. What strengthens the will are the moral virtues, which are essentially virtues of the will. Giuseppe Mazzotta. “Dante: Healing the Wounded Will,” pp. 138–58: The essential element of the Divine Comedy is freedom, which is the foundation of existence and the power of rational creatures to will or not to will what reason dictates. The poem’s ethical system affirms God’s justice and depends on the fact that Dante imputes to his characters the responsibility for their actions. The article showcases characters crushed by the discovery of the powerlessness of the will, the links between will and power in both private and political sphere, and the world of blind necessity. It concludes by examining Dante’s view of poetry as therapeutics of the soul. Ann Hartle. “Montaigne’s Marvelous Weakness,” pp. 159–74: Montaigne describes himself as “marvelously weak.” The metaphysical presuppositions and the moral and political implications of his weakness are explored, especially in terms of his rejection of Aristotle’s notion of form and perfection or final cause. Montaigne’s invention, the essay, is a new mode of philosophy that permits the emergence of possibility rather than actuality as the primary metaphysical category. Rejection of Aristotelian metaphysics entails a reordering of the virtues and vices and the rejection of the notion of the common good which had guided classical-Christian political philosophy. John C. McCarthy. “Descartes’s Feeble Spirits,” pp. 175–209: In response to an objection from Mersenne to his provisional morality, Descartes concedes that one can see and approve the better and yet pursue the worse. He adds that esprits faibles are prone to this very failing. In truth, the performance of “feeble spirits” in the Discourse on Method conforms neither to the pattern of Aristotelian akrasia nor to St. Paul’s sinful opposition of flesh to mind. Just how revolutionary is Descartes’s moral typology becomes still clearer in The Passions of the Soul, where feeble spirits are contrasted with his own human type, the “strongest” and “most generous” spirits. Thomas E. Hill Jr. “Kant on Weakness of Will,” pp. 210–30: For Kant moral weakness is not a physical incapacity or weakness but contrasts with virtue understood as developed strength of will to do right despite obstacles. The will is not literally a force, strong or weak, but is conceived as either law-giving practical reason (Wille) or choice to act on a maxim (Willkür). Morally weak persons choose to act on particular maxims in conflict with both practical reason and their general maxim to act rightly. This maxim, like laws, may be weak in content (vague and indeterminate) or willed weakly (without provision for implementation). Moral weakness mitigates culpability without excusing. Tracy B. Strong. “Nietzsche, the Will to Power, and the Weak Will,” pp. 231–51: Nietzsche differs from most contemporary discussions of weakness of will in three ways. He rejects the notion of the will; he holds that “weak” wills always win out over “strong” wills; he argues that rationality is the faculty that produces weak wills and thus cannot be the cure for weakness of will. I find that contemporary discussion of weakness of will presume a particular understanding of temporality, presuppose a particular conception of character, and pay little attention to the idea of strength in relation to will. I then explore these questions in Nietzsche’s texts with particular attention to his account of promising. Alfred R. Mele. “Akratic Action and Libertarianism,” pp. 252–75: One defining feature of akratic actions, according to a traditional conception, is that they are freely performed. Elsewhere (Irrationality: Oxford University Press, 1987), in arguing that akratic actions are conceptually possible and in developing a view about how they are to be explained, this author assumed that compatibilism is true – that is, that free action is compatible with determinism. In this paper, for the sake of argument, it is assumed that compatibilism is false and an incompatibilist position on how akratic actions are possible is developed. Alasdair MacIntyre. “Conflicts of Desire,” pp. 276–92: Formulations of the problem of weakness of will characteristically suggest that, when someone judges that it is best for him or her to act in some particular way, but acts otherwise, there is a need for an explanation, a need that has no counterpart when someone acts in accordance with his or her principled convictions. The central thesis of this paper is that this is a mistake. This mistake derives from an inadequate understanding of the place that conflicts of desire have in our lives. Many cases described as due to weakness of will would be better described as due to strength of desire.