## 1. Hare on the Impossibility of Weakness of Will




Let us commence our examination of contemporary discussions of this 
issue in appropriately Socratic vein, with an account that gives 
expression to and builds on many of the intuitions that lead us to be
sceptical about reports like (3) above. For the moral philosopher 
R. M. Hare--as for Socrates--it is impossible for
a person to do one thing if he genuinely and in the fullest sense 
holds that he ought instead to do something else. (If, that 
is--to echo the earlier quote from Socrates--he 
"believes that there is another possible course of action, 
better than the one he is following.") This certainly seems to 
constitute a denial of the possibility of akratic or weak-willed 
action. In Hare's case it is a consequence of the general account of 
the nature of evaluative judgments which he defends (Hare 1952; 
see also Hare 1963).




Hare is much impressed by what we vaguely referred to above as the 
"special character" of evaluative judgments: judgments, 
that is, such as that one course of action is *better* than 
another, or that one *ought* to do a certain thing. Such 
evaluative judgments seem to have properties that differentiate them 
from merely "descriptive" judgments such as that one 
thing is more expensive than another, or rounder than another 
(Hare 1952, p. 111). Evaluative judgments seem, in 
particular, to bear a special connection to *action* which no 
purely descriptive judgment possesses. Hare's analysis, then, takes 
off from something like the data we rehearsed earlier. Hare goes on 
to develop these data in the following way. He begins by identifying,
as the fundamental distinctive feature of evaluative 
judgments--that which lends them a special character--that 
evaluative judgments are intended to *guide conduct*. (See, 
e.g., Hare 1952, p. 1; p. 29; p. 46; p. 125;
p. 127; p. 142, pp. 171-2; Hare 1963, 
p. 67; p. 70.) The special function of evaluative judgments
is to be action-guiding: that is, if you will, what evaluative 
judgments are *for*. Hare then puts a more precise gloss on 
what it is for a judgment to "guide conduct": an 
action-guiding judgment is one which entails an answer to the 
practical question "What shall I do?" (Hare 1952, 
p. 29; see Hare 1963, p. 54 for the terminology "practical 
 question").[3]
 What is it that an action-guiding judgment must entail? That is, what
constitutes an answer to the question "What shall I do?" 
Hare holds that no (descriptive) statement can constitute an answer 
to such a question (Hare 1952, p. 46). Rather, such a 
question is answered by a first-person *command* or 
*imperative* (Hare 1952, p. 79), which could be 
verbally expressed as "Let me do *a*" 
(Hare 1963, p. 55).




To recap the argument thus far: it is the function of evaluative 
judgments like "I ought to do *a*" to guide 
conduct. Guiding conduct means entailing an answer to the question 
"What shall I do?" An answer to that question will take 
the form "Let me do *a*," where this is a 
first-person command or imperative. Therefore evaluative judgments 
entail such first-person imperatives (Hare 1952, p. 192). 
Now in general, if judgment *J*1 entails judgment 
*J*2, then assenting to *J*1 must
involve assenting to *J*2: someone who professed to
assent to *J*1 but who disclaimed 
*J*2 would be held not to have spoken correctly 
when he claimed to assent to *J*1 (Hare 1952, 
p. 172). So assenting to an evaluative judgment like "I 
ought to do *a*" involves assenting to the first-person 
command "Let me do *a*" (Hare 1952, 
pp. 168-9). We should inquire, then, what exactly is 
involved in sincerely assenting to a first-person command or 
imperative of this type. Just as sincere assent to a statement 
involves *believing* that statement, sincere assent to an 
imperative addressed to ourselves involves *doing* the thing 
in question:



> 
>  It is a tautology to say that we cannot sincerely assent to a
>  ... command addressed to ourselves, and *at the same
>  time* not perform it, if now is the occasion for performing it
>  and it is in our (physical and psychological) power to do so.
>  (Hare 1952, p. 20)
> 




So: provided it is within my power to do *a* now, if I do not 
do *a* now it follows that I do not genuinely judge that I 
ought to do *a* now. Thus, as Hare states at the very opening 
of his book, a person's evaluative judgments are infallibly revealed 
by his actions and choices:



> 
>  If we were to ask of a person 'What are his moral
>  principles?' the way in which we could be most sure of a true
>  answer would be by studying what he *did*.... It would
>  be when ... he was faced with choices or decisions between
>  alternative courses of action, between alternative answers to the
>  question 'What shall I do?', that he would reveal in
>  what principles of conduct he really believed. (Hare 1952,
>  p. 1)
> 




Note that Hare is not simply saying that a person's actions are the 
most reliable source of evidence as to his evaluative judgments, or 
that if a person did *b* the most likely hypothesis is that he
judged *b* to be the best thing to do. Hare is saying, rather,
that it *follows* from a person's having done *b* that 
he judged *b* best from among the options open to him at the 
time. On this view, then, akratic or weak-willed actions as we have 
understood them are impossible. There could not be a case in which 
someone genuinely and in the fullest sense held that he ought to do 
*a* now (where *a* was within his power) and yet did 
*b*. On Hare's view, "it becomes analytic to say that 
everyone always does what he thinks he ought to [if physically and 
psychologically able]" (Hare 1952, p. 169).




But *does* everyone always do what he thinks he ought to, when
he is physically and psychologically able? It may seem that this is 
simply not always the case (even if it is *usually* the case).
Have you, dear reader, *never* failed to get up off the couch 
and turn off the TV when you judged it was really time to start 
grading those papers? Have you *never* had one or two more 
drinks than you thought best on balance? Have you *never* 
deliberately pursued a sexual liaison which you viewed as an overall 
bad idea? In short, have you *never* acted in a way which 
departed from your overall evaluation of your options? If so, let me 
be the first to congratulate you on your fortitude. While weak-willed
action does seem somehow puzzling, or defective in some important 
way, *it does nonetheless seem to happen*.




For Hare, however, any apparent case of *akrasia* must in fact
be one in which the agent is actually *unable* to do 
*a*, or one in which the agent does not genuinely evaluate 
*a* as better--even if he says he 
 does.[4]
 As an example of the first kind of case Hare cites Medea 
(Hare 1963, pp. 78-9), who (he contends) is powerless,
literally helpless, in the face of the strong emotions and desires 
roiling her: she is truly *unable* (psychologically) to resist
the temptations besieging her. A typical example of the second kind 
of case, on the other hand, would be one in which the agent is 
actually using the evaluative term "good" or 
"ought" only in what Hare calls an 
"inverted-commas" sense (Hare 1952, p. 120; 
pp. 124-6; pp. 164-5; pp. 167-171). 
In such cases, when the agent says (while doing *b*) "I 
know I really ought to do *a*," he means only that most 
people--or, at any rate, the people whose opinions on such 
matters are generally regarded as authoritative--would say he 
ought to do *a*. As Hare notes (Hare 1952, p. 124), 
to believe this is not to make an evaluative judgment oneself; 
rather, it is to allude to the value-judgments of other people. Such 
an agent does not himself assess the course of action he fails to 
follow as better than the one he selects, even if other people 
would.




No doubt there are cases of the two types Hare describes; but they do
not seem to exhaust the field. We can grant that there is the odd 
murderer, overcome by irresistible homicidal urges but horrified at 
what she is doing. But surely not every case that we might be tempted
to describe as one of acting contrary to one's better judgment 
involves irresistible psychic forces. Consider, for example, the 
following case memorably put by J. L. Austin:



> 
>  I am very partial to ice cream, and a bombe is served divided into
>  segments corresponding one to one with the persons at High Table: I
>  am tempted to help myself to two segments and do so, thus succumbing
>  to temptation and even conceivably (but why necessarily?) going
>  against my principles. But do I lose control of myself? Do I raven,
>  do I snatch the morsels from the dish and wolf them down, impervious
>  to the consternation of my colleagues? Not a bit of it. We often
>  succumb to temptation with calm and even with finesse.
>  (Austin 1956/7, p. 198)
> 




(I might add that it also seems doubtful that irresistible psychic 
forces kept you on the couch watching TV while those papers were 
waiting.) As for the "inverted-commas" case, this too 
surely happens: people do sometimes pay lip service to conventional 
standards which they themselves do not really accept. But again, it 
seems highly doubtful that this is true of all seeming cases of 
weak-willed action. It seems depressingly possible to select and 
implement one course of action while *genuinely believing* 
that it is an overall worse choice than some other option open to 
you.




Has something gone wrong? We started with the 
unexceptionable-sounding thought that moral and evaluative judgments 
are intended to guide conduct; we arrived at a blanket denial of the 
possibility of akratic action which fits ill with observed facts. But
if we are disinclined to follow Hare this far we should ask what the 
alternative is, for it may be even worse. For Hare, the answer is 
clear: our only other option is to repudiate the idea that moral and 
other evaluative judgments have a special character or nature, namely
that of being action-guiding. For we should recall that Hare presents
all his subsequent conclusions as simply following, through a series 
of steps, from that initial thought. "The reason why actions 
are in a peculiar way revelatory of moral principles is that the 
function of moral principles is to guide conduct," Hare 
continues in the passage quoted earlier (Hare 1952, p. 1). For 
Hare, then, the only way to escape his "Socratic" 
conclusion about weakness of will would be to give up the idea that 
evaluative judgments are intended to guide conduct, or to "have
[a] bearing upon our actions" (Hare 1963, p. 169; see
also Hare 1952, p. 46; p. 143; p. 163; 
pp. 171-2; and Hare 1963, p. 70; p. 99).




The choices before us, then, as presented by Hare, are Hare's own 
view, or one which assigns no distinctive role in action or practical
thought to evaluative judgments, treating them as just like any other
judgment. We might call the first of these an extreme version of 
(judgment) *internalism.* (I use this polysemous label to 
refer, here, to the idea that certain judgments have an internal or 
necessary connection to motivation and to action.) By extension, we 
might usefully follow Michael Bratman in calling the second type of 
view "extreme externalism" (Bratman 1979, 
pp. 158-9).




Extreme externalism also seems unsatisfactory, however. First, it 
seems unable to explain why there should be anything perplexing or 
problematical about action contrary to one's better judgment, why 
there should be any philosophical problem about its possibility or 
its analysis. On this kind of view, it seems, Joseph's choice ((3) 
above) should strike us as no more puzzling than Julie's or Jimmy's 
((1) or (2)). As Hare puts it:



> 
>  On the view that we are considering, there is nothing odder about
>  thinking something the best thing to do in the circumstances, but
>  not doing it, than there is about thinking a stone the roundest
>  stone in the vicinity and not picking it up, but picking up some
>  other stone instead.... There will be nothing that requires
>  explanation if I choose to do what I think to be, say, the worst
>  possible thing to do and leave undone what I think the best thing to
>  do. (Hare 1963, pp. 68-9)
> 




But our reactions to (1), (2), and (3) show that we *do* think
there is something peculiar about action contrary to one's better 
judgment which renders such action hard to understand, or perhaps 
even impossible. An extreme externalist view thus seems to 
mischaracterize the status of akratic actions.




Perhaps even more importantly, however, extreme externalism has 
dramatic implications for our understanding of intentional action in 
general--not just weak-willed action. For such a view implies 
that



> 
>  deliberation about what it would be best to do has no closer
>  relation to practical reasoning than, say, deliberation about what
>  it would be chic to do. If one happens to care about what it would
>  be chic to do, then a consideration of this matter may play an
>  important role in one's practical reasoning. If one does not care,
>  it will be irrelevant. The case is the same with reasoning about
>  what it would be best to do. (Bratman 1979, p. 158)
> 




To adopt a general doctrine of this sort seems an awfully precipitous
response to the possibility of *akrasia*. For it seems 
extremely plausible to assign to our overall evaluations of our 
options an important role in our choices. Man is a rational animal, 
the saying goes; that is--to offer one gloss on this 
idea--we act on reasons, and in the light of our assessments of 
the overall balance of reasons. When we engage in deliberation or 
reasoning about what to do, we often proceed by thinking about the 
reasons which favor our various options, and then bringing these 
together into an overall assessment which is, precisely, intended to 
guide our choice.




Or, as Bratman puts it, we very often reason about what it is 
*best* to do as a way of settling the question of what 
*to* do. (He calls this "evaluative practical 
reasoning": Bratman 1979, p. 156.) "One's 
evaluations [thus] play a crucial role in the reasoning underlying 
full-blown action," Bratman holds (p. 170), and to be 
forced to deny this would be in his view "too high a price to 
pay" (p. 159). As Alfred Mele similarly puts it, 
"there is a real danger that in attempting to make causal and 
conceptual space for full-fledged akratic action one might commit 
oneself to the rejection of genuine ties between evaluative judgment 
and action" (1991, p. 34). But that would be to throw the 
baby out with the bathwater. If we want to resist Hare's conclusions,
we must do so in a way which steers clear of the danger to which Mele
alerts us. We must navigate between the Scylla of extreme internalism
and the Charybdis of extreme externalism.


## 2. Davidson on the Possibility of Weakness of Will




This is just what Donald Davidson set out to do in a rich, elegant, 
and incisive paper published in 1970 which has had a towering 
influence on the subsequent literature. Davidson's treatment aims to 
vindicate the possibility of weakness of will; to offer a novel 
analysis of its nature; to clarify its status as a marginal, somehow 
defective instance of agency which we rightly find dubiously 
intelligible; and to do all this within the contours of a general 
view of practical reasoning and intentional action which assigns a 
central and special role to our evaluative judgments. Let us see how 
he proposes to do these things.




First, Davidson offers the following general characterization of 
weak-willed or incontinent 
 action:[5]




> 
>  In doing *b* an agent acts incontinently if and only
>  if: (a) the agent does *b* intentionally;
>  (b) the agent believes there is an alternative action
>  *a* open to him; and (c) the agent judges that, all things
>  considered, it would be better to do *a* than to do
>  *b*.
> 




We initially described weak-willed action as free, intentional action
contrary to the agent's better judgment; it may be useful to see how
Davidson's more precise definition matches up with that initial
characterization. Davidson's condition (a) requires that the action in
question be intentional.[6] Condition (b) seems intended to ensure that
the action in question is

 free.[7]
 Part (c) of Davidson's definition represents what we have called the 
agent's "better judgment," that is, the overall 
evaluation of his options contrary to which the incontinent agent 
acts.




Davidson notes that "there is no proving such actions exist; 
but it seems to me absolutely certain that they do" 
(p. 29). Why, then, is there a persistent tendency, both in 
philosophy and in ordinary thought, to deny that such actions are 
possible? Davidson's diagnosis is that two plausible principles which
"derive their force from a very persuasive view of the nature 
of intentional action and practical reasoning" (p. 31) 
appear to entail that incontinence is impossible. He articulates 
those two principles as follows (p. 23):



> 
> **P1**. If an agent wants to do *a* more than he wants to
>  do *b* and he believes himself free to do either *a*
>  or *b*, then he will intentionally do *a* if he does
>  either *a* or *b* intentionally.
> 
> 
> 
> **P2**. If an agent judges that it would be better to do
>  *a* than to do *b*, then he wants to do *a*
>  more than he wants to do *b*.
> 
> 
> 




P2, Davidson observes, "connects judgements of what it is 
better to do with motivation or wanting" (p. 23); he adds 
later that it "states a mild form of internalism" 
(p. 26). Davidson is proposing, *contra* the extreme 
externalist position, that our evaluative judgments about the merits 
of the options we deem open to us are not motivationally inert. While
he admits that one could quibble or tinker with the formulation of P1
and P2 (pp. 23-4; p. 27; p. 31), he is confident
that they or something like them give expression to a powerfully 
attractive picture of practical reasoning and intentional action, one
which assigns an important motivational role to the agent's 
evaluative 
 judgments.[8]





The difficulty is, though, that P1 and P2--however 
attractive--together imply that an agent never intentionally 
does *b* when he judges that it would be better to do 
*a* (if he takes himself to be free to do either). And this 
certainly looks like a denial of the possibility of incontinent 
action. No wonder, then, that so many have been tempted to say that 
akratic action is impossible! Looking carefully, however, we can see 
that P1 and P2 do *not* imply the impossibility of incontinent
actions *as Davidson has defined them*. For Davidson 
characterizes the agent who incontinently does *b* as holding,
not that it would be better to do *a* than to do *b*, 
but that it would be better, *all things considered*, to do 
*a* than to do *b*. Is the "all things 
considered" just a rhetorical flourish? Or does it mark a 
genuine difference between these two judgments? If these are two 
different judgments, and one can hold the latter without holding the 
former, then incontinent action is possible *even if P1 and P2 are
true*.




In the rest of his paper Davidson sets out to vindicate that very 
possibility. The phrase "all things considered" is not, 
as it might seem, merely a minor difference in wording that allows 
weakness of will to get off on a technicality. Rather, that phrase 
marks an important contrast in logical form to which we would need to
attend in any case in order properly to understand the structure of 
practical reasoning. For that phrase indicates a judgment that is 
*conditional* or *relational* rather than 
*all-out* or *unconditional* in form; and that 
difference is 
 crucial.[9]
 We can better see the relational character of an 
all-things-considered judgment if we first look at evaluative 
judgments that play an important role in an earlier phase of 
practical reasoning, the phase where we consider what reasons or 
considerations favor doing *a* and what reasons or 
considerations favor doing *b*. (For simplicity, imagine a 
case in which an agent is choosing between only two mutually 
incompatible options, *a* and *b*.) These  *prima
facie* judgments, as Davidson terms them, take the form:



> 
> **PF**: In light of *r*, *a* is *prima
>  facie* better than *b*.
> 




In this schema *r* refers to a consideration, say that 
*a* would be relaxing, while *b* would be stressful. A 
PF judgment of this kind thus identifies one respect in which 
*a* is deemed superior to *b*, one perspective from 
which *a* comes out on top.




We should pause to note three things about PF judgments. (a) A PF 
judgment is not itself a conclusion in favor of the overall 
superiority of *a*. Such "all-out" evaluative 
judgments have a simpler logical form, namely:



> 
> **AO**: *a* is better than *b*.
> 




(b) Indeed, no conclusion of the form AO follows logically from any 
PF judgment. (c) More strongly: the fact, taken by itself, that 
someone has made a certain PF judgment does not even supply her with 
sufficient grounds to draw the corresponding AO conclusion. For even 
if she makes one PF judgment which favors *a* over *b*,
as in the case we imagined, she may *also* make *other*
PF judgments which favor *b* over *a* (say, when 
*r* is the consideration that *b* would be lucrative, 
while *a* would be expensive). We do not want to say in that 
case that she has sufficient grounds to draw each of two incompatible
conclusions (that *a* is better than *b*, and that 
*b* is better than *a*; these are incompatible provided
the better-than relation is asymmetric, assumed here).




We have contrasted PF judgments with AO or "all-out" 
evaluative judgments. PF judgments are relational in character: they 
point out a *relation* which holds between the consideration 
*r* and doing *a*. (We could call that relation the 
"favoring" relation.) That relation is not such as to 
permit us to "detach" (as Davidson puts it, p. 37) 
an unconditional evaluative conclusion in favor of doing *a* 
from PF and the supposition that *r* obtains. That is, we are 
not to understand PF judgments as having the form of a material 
conditional.




Davidson's innovative suggestion is that judgments with this PF 
logical form are an appropriate way to model what happens in the 
early stages of practical reasoning, where we rehearse reasons for 
and against the options we are considering. And his stressing that no
such PF judgment commits the agent to an overall evaluative 
conclusion in favor of *a* or *b* is useful in thinking
about a case like Julie's ((1) above). We described Julie as knowing 
(and therefore believing) that *b* was more expensive than 
*a*, but opting for *b* nonetheless. We can imagine, 
then, that among the ingredients of Julie's practical reasoning was a
PF judgment like this:



> 
>  In light of the fact that *b* is more expensive than *a*,
>  *a* is *prima facie* better than *b*.
> 




But this PF judgment alone, as we have seen, does not commit her to 
the overall judgment that *a* is better than *b*. For 
she may also have made other PF judgments, such as



> 
>  In light of the fact that *b* would be much more
>  gastronomically exciting than *a*, *b* is *prima
>  facie* better than *a*.
> 




But we would not then want to say Julie has sufficient grounds to 
conclude that *a* is better than *b* and to conclude 
that *b* is better than *a*. She does not have 
sufficient grounds to embrace a contradiction; her premises all seem 
consistent. So her various PF judgments, when considered separately, 
must *not* each commit her to a corresponding overall 
conclusion in favor of *a* or *b*.




Practical reasoning, Davidson suggests, starts from judgments like 
these, each identifying one respect in which one of the options is 
superior. But in order to make progress in our practical reasoning we
shall eventually need to consider how *a* compares to 
*b* not just with respect to *one* consideration, but 
in the light of several considerations taken together. That is, Julie
will eventually need to consider how to fill in the blanks in a PF 
judgment like this:



> 
>  In light of the fact that *b* is more expensive
>  than *a* *and* the fact that *b* would be much
>  more gastronomically exciting than *a*, ... is *prima
>  facie* better than ....
> 




This PF judgment is more *comprehensive* than the ones we 
attributed to Julie a moment ago, as it takes into account a broader 
range of considerations. (I take the label 
"comprehensive" from Lazar 1999.) Now in Julie's case we 
can surmise how she filled in those blanks: with "*b* is
*prima facie* better than *a*." Julie's filling 
in the blanks in that way can naturally be taken as expressing the 
view that the much greater gastronomic excitement promised by 
*b* *outweighs* or *overrides* *b*'s 
inferiority to *a* from a strictly financial standpoint.




We can generalize our schema for PF judgments to account for the 
possibility of relativizing our comparative assessment of *a* 
and *b* not just to a single consideration, but to multiple 
considerations taken together or as a body:



> 
> **PFN**: In light of *<r*1, ...,
>  *rn*> , *a* is *prima facie*
>  better than *b*.
> 




Notice that PFN judgments are still relational in form: they assert 
that a relation (the "favoring" relation) holds between 
the *set* of considerations *<r*1, 
..., *rn*>  and doing *a*. Indeed, 
the relational character of a PFN judgment remains even if we make it
as comprehensive as we can: if we expand the set 
*<r*1, ..., *rn*> 
to incorporate *all* the considerations the agent deems 
relevant to her decision. Following Davidson (p. 38), let us 
give the label *e* to that set. So even the following 
judgment:



> 
> **ATC**: In light of *e*, *a* is *prima
>  facie* better than *b*.
> 




is a relational or conditional judgment and not an all-out conclusion
in favor of doing *a*. To make a judgment of the form ATC is 
*not* to draw an overall conclusion in favor of doing 
*a.*




We may be better able to see this by considering an analogy from 
theoretical reason. Suppose Hercule Poirot has been called in to 
investigate a murder. We can imagine him assessing bits of evidence 
as he encounters them:



> 
> In light of the fact that the murder weapon belongs to Colonel
>  Mustard, Mustard looks guilty;
> 
> 
> In light of his having an alibi for the time of the murder, Mustard
>  looks not guilty;
> 
> 
> 




and so on. These are theoretical analogues of the PF judgments 
relativized to single considerations which we looked at earlier. 
However, Poirot will eventually need to consider how these various 
bits of evidence add up; that is, he will eventually need to fill in 
the blanks in a more comprehensive PFN judgment like this:



> 
>  In light of
>  <*e*1, ..., *en*> ,
>  ... looks to be the guilty party,
> 




where 
<*e*1, ..., *en*> 
is a set of bits of pertinent evidence. Notice, though, that no such 
PFN judgment actually constitutes settling on a particular person as 
the culprit. For even if we put in a maximally large 
<*e*1, ..., *en*> 
consisting of *all* the evidence Poirot has seen, and imagine 
him thinking



> 
>  All the evidence I have seen points toward Colonel Mustard as the
>  guilty party,
> 




to make this observation is manifestly *not* to conclude that 
Mustard is guilty.




In the same way, an ATC or all-things-considered judgment, although
comprehensive, is still relational in nature, and therefore distinct
from an AO judgment in favor of *a*. That is, it is possible to
make an ATC judgment in favor of *a* without making the
corresponding AO judgment in favor of *a.* (This is the
analogue of Poirot's position.) And this is the key to Davidson's
solution to the problem of how weakness of will is possible. For ATC
is, precisely, *the agent's better judgment* as Davidson
construes it in his definition of incontinent action. P1 and P2
together imply that an agent who reaches an AO conclusion in favor
of *a* will not intentionally do *b*. But the
incontinent agent never reaches such an AO conclusion. With respect
to *a*, he remains stuck at the Hercule Poirot stage: he sees
that the considerations he has rehearsed, taken as a body,
favor *a*, but he is unwilling or unable to make a commitment
to *a* as the thing to do.[10] He makes only a relational ATC judgment
in favor of *a*, contrary to which he then acts.




What should we say about an agent who does this? Returning to the 
three features of *prima facie* or PF judgments which we noted
earlier, features (a) and (b) hold even of the special 
subclass of PF judgments which are ATC judgments. Such judgments 
neither are equivalent to, nor logically imply, any AO judgment. So 
the incontinent agent who fails to draw the AO conclusion which 
corresponds to his ATC conclusion, and to perform the corresponding 
action, is not committing "a simple logical blunder" 
(p. 40). Notably, he does not contradict himself. He does, 
however, exhibit a defect in rationality, on Davidson's account. For 
feature (c) of PF judgments in general does *not* hold of the 
special subclass of such judgments which are ATC judgments. Drawing 
an *ATC* conclusion in favor of *a* *does* give 
one sufficient grounds to conclude that *a* is better *sans
phrase* and, indeed, to do 
*a*. For Davidson proposes that the transition from an ATC 
judgment in favor of *a* to the corresponding AO judgment, and
to doing *a*, is enjoined by a substantive principle of 
rationality which he dubs "the principle of continence." 
That principle tells us to "perform the action judged best on 
the basis of all available relevant reasons" (p. 41); and 
the incontinent agent violates this injunction. The principle of 
continence thus substantiates the idea that "what is wrong is 
that the incontinent man acts, and judges, irrationally, for this is 
surely what we must say of a man who goes against his own best 
judgement" (p. 41). He acts irrationally in virtue of 
violating this substantive principle, obedience to which is a 
necessary condition for rationality.




We must put this point about the irrationality of incontinence with 
some care, however. For recall that an incontinent action must itself
be intentional, that is, done for a reason. The weak-willed agent, 
then, has a reason for doing *b*, and does *b* for that
reason. What he lacks--and lacks by his own lights--is a 
*sufficient* reason to do *b*, given all the 
considerations that he takes to favor *a*. As Davidson puts 
it, if we ask "what is the agent's reason for doing 
[*b*] when he believes it would be better, all things 
considered, to do another thing, then the answer must be: for this, 
the agent has no reason" (p. 42). And this is so even 
though he does have a reason for doing *b* (p. 42, 
n. 25). Because the agent has, by his own lights, no adequate 
reason for doing *b*, he cannot make sense of his own action: 
"he recognizes, in his own intentional behaviour, something 
essentially surd" (p. 42). So akratic action, while 
*possible* on Davidson's account, is nonetheless necessarily 
*irrational*; this is the sense in which it is a defective and
not fully intelligible instance of agency, despite being a very real 
phenomenon.


## 3. The Debate After Davidson


### 3.1 Internalist and Externalist Strands




Davidson has certainly presented an arresting theory of practical 
reasoning. But has he shown how weakness of the will is possible? 
Most philosophers writing after him, while acknowledging his 
pathbreaking work on the issue, think he has not. One principal 
difficulty which subsequent theorists have seized on is that 
Davidson's view can account for the possibility of action contrary to
one's better judgment *only if* one's better judgment is 
construed merely as a conditional or *prima facie* judgment. 
Davidson's P1 and P2 in fact rule out the possibility of free 
intentional action contrary to an all-out or unconditional evaluative
 judgment.[11]
 But it seems that such cases exist. Michael Bratman, for instance, 
introduces us to Sam, who, in a depressed state, is deep into a 
bottle of wine, despite his acknowledged need for an early wake-up 
and a clear head tomorrow (1979, p. 156). Sam's friend, stopping 
by, says:



> 
>  Look here. Your reasons for abstaining seem clearly stronger than
>  your reasons for drinking. So how can you have thought that it would
>  be best to drink?
> 


To which Sam replies:



> 
>  I don't think it would be best to drink. Do you think
>  I'm stupid enough to think that, given how strong my reasons
>  for abstaining are? I think it would be best to abstain. Still,
>  I'm drinking. 
> 




Sam's case certainly seems possible as described. Davidson's view, 
though, must reject it as impossible. Given his conduct, Sam can't 
think it best to abstain; at most, he thinks it all-things-considered
best to abstain, a very different kettle of fish. But this seems 
false of Sam: there is no evidence that he has remained stuck at the 
Hercule Poirot stage with respect to the superiority of abstaining. 
He seems to have gone all the way to a judgment *sans phrase* 
that abstaining would be better; and yet he drinks.




Ironically, this complaint makes Davidson out to be a bit like Hare. 
Like Hare, Davidson subscribes to an internalist principle (P2) which
connects evaluative judgments with motivation and hence with action. 
(Indeed, in light of the difficulty raised here, one might wonder if 
Davidson is entitled to consider P2 a "mild" form of 
internalism (p. 26).) As with Hare, this internalist commitment 
rules out as impossible certain kinds of action contrary to one's 
evaluative judgment. Now Davidson, like Hare, does accept the 
possibility of certain phenomena in this neighborhood; but--as 
with Hare--critics think the cases permitted by his analysis 
simply do not exhaust the range of actual cases of weakness of will. 
The phenomenon seems to run one step ahead of our attempts to make 
room for it.




Those writing after Davidson have tended to focus, then, on the 
question of the possibility and rational status of action contrary to
one's *unconditional* better 
 judgment.[12]
Naturally, different theorists have plotted different courses through
these shoals. Some tack more to the internalist side, wishing to
preserve a strong internal connection between evaluation and action
even at the risk of denying or seeming to deny the possibility of
akratic action (or at least some understandings of it). Examples of
some post-Davidson treatments which share a broadly internalist
emphasis, even if they feature different flavors of internalism, are
those of Bratman (1979), Buss (1997), Tenenbaum (1999; see also 2007,
ch. 7), and Stroud (2003). The main danger for such approaches is that
in seeking to preserve and defend a certain picture of the primordial
role of evaluative thought in rational action--a picture critics
are likely to dismiss as too rationalistic--such theorists may be
led to reject common phenomena which ought properly to have
constrained their more abstract theories. (See the opening of Wiggins
1979 for a forceful articulation of this criticism.)




Other theorists, by contrast, are more drawn toward the externalist 
shoreline. They emphasize the motivational importance of factors 
other than the agent's evaluative judgment and the divergences that 
can result between an agent's evaluation of her options and her 
motivation to act. They are thus disinclined to posit any strong, 
necessary link between evaluative judgment and action. Michael 
Stocker, for instance, argues that the philosophical tradition has 
been led astray in assuming that evaluation dictates motivation. 
"Motivation and evaluation do not stand in a simple and direct 
relation to each other, as so often supposed," he writes. 
Rather, "their interrelations are mediated by large arrays of 
complex psychic structures, such as mood, energy, and interest"
(1979, pp. 738-9). Similarly, Alfred Mele proposes as a 
fundamental and general truth--and one that underlies the 
possibility of *akrasia*--that "the motivational 
force of a want may be out of line with the agent's evaluation of the
object of that want" (1987, p. 37). Mele goes on to offer 
several different reasons why the two can come apart: for example, 
rewards perceived as *proximate* can exert a motivational 
influence disproportionate to the value the agent reflectively 
attaches to them (1987, ch. 6). Such wants may function as 
strong *causes* even if the agent takes them to constitute 
weak *reasons*.



 With respect to these questions, the challenge sketched at the end of
Section 1 above remains in full force. What is required is a view
which successfully navigates between the Scylla of an extreme
internalism about evaluative judgment which would preclude the
possibility of weakness of will, and the Charybdis of an extreme
externalism which would deny any privileged role to evaluative
judgment in practical reasoning or rational action. For one's
verdict about *akrasia* will in general be closely connected to
one's more general views of action, practical reasoning,
rationality, and evaluative judgment--as was certainly true of
Davidson.




Views that downplay the role of evaluative judgment in action and 
hence tack more toward the externalist side of the channel may more 
easily be able to accept the possibility and indeed the actuality of 
weakness of will. But they are subject to their own challenges. For 
example, suppose we follow Mele's image of *akrasia* and posit
that a certain agent is caused to do *x* by motivation to do 
*x* which is dramatically out of kilter with her assessment of
the merits of doing *x*. In what sense, then, is her doing 
*x* free, intentional, and uncompelled? Such an agent might 
seem rather to be at the mercy of a motivational force which is, from
her point of view, utterly alien. Thus, worries about distinguishing 
*akrasia* from compulsion come back in full force in 
connection with proposals like these. (See 
 fn. 7
 above for relevant references; Buss and Tenenbaum press these worries
against accounts like Mele's in particular.) Moreover, there is the 
danger, for accounts of this more externalist stripe, of taking too 
much of the mystery out of weakness of will. Even if akratic action 
is possible and indeed actual, it remains a puzzling, marginal, 
somehow defective instance of agency, one that we rightly find not 
fully intelligible. Views that do not assign a privileged place in 
rational deliberation and action to the agent's overall assessment of
her options risk making akratic action seem no more problematic than 
Julie's or Jimmy's decisions, or Hare's agent who fails to pick up 
the roundest stone in the vicinity.


### 3.2 Weakness of Will as Potentially Rational




The "externalist turn" toward downplaying the role of an 
agent's better judgment and emphasizing other psychic factors instead
is connected to a second way in which some theorists writing after 
Davidson have dissented from his analysis. Davidson, as we saw, 
viewed akratic action as possible, but irrational. The weak-willed 
agent acts contrary to what she herself takes to be the balance of 
reasons; her choice is thus unreasonable by her own lights. On this 
picture, incontinent action is a paradigm case of practical 
irrationality. Many other theorists have agreed with Davidson on this
score and have taken *akrasia* to be perhaps the clearest 
example of practical irrationality. But some writers (notably Audi 
1990, McIntyre 1990, and Arpaly 2000) have questioned whether akratic
action *is* necessarily irrational. Perhaps we ought to leave 
room, not just for the *possibility* of akratic action, but 
for the potential *rationality* of akratic action.




The irrationality which is held necessarily to attach to akratic 
action derives from the discrepancy between what the agent judges to 
be the best (or better) thing to do, and what she does. That is, her 
action is faulted as irrational in virtue of not conforming to her 
better judgment. But--ask these critics--what if her better
judgment is itself faulty? There is nothing magical about an agent's 
better judgment that ensures that it is correct, or even warranted; 
like any other judgment, it can be in error, or even unjustified. 
(Recall that by "better judgment" we meant, all along, 
only "a judgment as to which course of action is better,"
not "a *superior* judgment.") Where the agent's 
better judgment is itself defective, in doing what she deems herself 
to have insufficient reason to do, the agent may actually be doing 
what she has most reason to do. "Even though the akratic agent 
does not believe that she is doing what she has most reason to do, it
may nevertheless be the case that the course of action that she is 
pursuing is the one that she has ... most reason to 
pursue" (McIntyre 1990, p. 385). In that sense the 
akratic agent may be wiser than her own better judgment.




How, concretely, could an agent's better judgment go astray in 
this way? Perhaps her survey of what she took to be the relevant 
considerations did not include, or did not attach sufficient weight 
to, what were in fact significant reasons in favor of one of the 
possible courses of action. She may have overlooked these, or 
(wrongly) deemed them not to be reasons, or failed to appreciate 
their full force; and in that case her judgment of what it is best to
do will be incorrect. Consider, for example, Jonathan Bennett's 
Huckleberry Finn (Bennett 1974, discussed in 
McIntyre 1990), who akratically fails to turn in his slave 
friend Jim to the authorities. Huck's judgment that he ought to do 
so, however, was based primarily on what he took to be the force of 
Miss Watson's property rights; it ignored his powerful feelings of 
friendship and affection for Jim, as well as other highly relevant 
factors. His "better judgment" was thus not in fact a 
very comprehensive judgment; it did not take into account the full 
range of relevant considerations.




Or consider Emily, who has always thought it best that she pursue a 
Ph.D. in chemistry (Arpaly 2000, p. 504). When she revisits
the issue, as she does periodically, she discounts her increasing 
feelings of restlessness, sadness, and lack of motivation as she 
proceeds in the program, and concludes that she ought to persevere. 
But in fact she has very good reasons to quit the program--her 
talents are not well suited to a career in chemistry, and the people 
who are thriving in the program are very different from her. If she 
impulsively, akratically quits the program, purely on the basis of 
her feelings, Emily is in fact doing just what she ought to 
 do.[13]
 That her action conflicts with her better judgment does not 
significantly impugn its rationality, given all the considerations 
that *do* support her quitting the program. "A theory of
rationality should not assume that there is something special about 
an agent's best judgment. An agent's best judgment is just another 
belief" (Arpaly 2000, p. 512). Emily's action 
conflicts, then, with one belief she has; but it coheres with many 
more of her beliefs and desires overall. So even though she may find 
her own action inexplicable or "surd," she is in fact 
acting rationally, although she does not know it. *Contra* 
Davidson, "we can ... act rationally just when we cannot 
make any sense of our actions" (Arpaly 2000, p. 513).




It is unclear, however, whether these arguments and examples are 
likely to sway those who take *akrasia* to be a paradigm of 
practical irrationality. These dissenters stress the *substantive 
merits* of the course of action the akratic agent follows. But 
traditionalists may say that is beside the point: however well things
turn out, the practical thinking of the akratic agent still exhibits 
a *procedural defect*. Someone who flouts her own conclusion 
about where the balance of reasons lies is *ipso facto* not 
reasoning well. Even if the action she performs is in fact supported 
by the balance of reasons, she does not think it is, and that is 
enough to show her practical reasoning to be faulty. The defenders of
the traditional conception of *akrasia* as irrational thus 
wish to grant special rational authority (in this procedural sense) 
to the agent's better judgment, even if they admit that such a 
judgment can be substantively incorrect. By contrast, the dissenters 
"[do] not believe best judgments have any privileged 
role" (Arpaly 2000, p. 513). We see again the 
contrast between "internalist" and 
"externalist" tendencies in the debates over weakness of 
will.


### 3.3 Changing the Subject




A final revisionist strand now emerging in the literature takes the
agent's better judgment even farther out of the picture. In an
outstandingly lucid and stimulating essay published in 1999 (see also
his 2009, ch. 4), Richard Holton argued that weakness of will is not
action contrary to one's better judgment at all. The literature has
gone astray in understanding weakness of will in this way; weakness of
will is actually quite a different phenomenon, in which the agent's
better judgment plays no
 role.[14]
 For Holton, when ordinary people speak of weakness of will they have 
in mind a certain kind of failure to act on one's 
*intentions*. What matters for weakness of will, then, is not whether
you deem another course of action superior at the time of action. It 
is whether you are abandoning an intention you previously formed. 
Weakness of will as the untutored understand it is not 
*akrasia* (if we reserve that term for action contrary to 
one's better judgment), but rather a certain kind of failure to stick to 
one's plans.[15] 
This understanding of weakness of will changes the 
subject in two ways. First, the state of the agent with which the 
weak-willed action is in conflict is not an evaluative judgment (as 
in *akrasia*) but a different kind of state, namely an 
intention. Second, it is not essential that there be 
*synchronic* conflict, as *akrasia* demands. You must 
act contrary to your *present* better judgment in order to 
exhibit *akrasia*; conflict with a *previous* better 
judgment does not indicate *akrasia*, but merely a change of 
mind. However, you can exhibit weakness of will as Holton understands
it simply by abandoning a previously formed intention.




Of course not all cases of abandoning or failing to act on a 
previously formed intention count as weakness of will. I intend 
to run five miles tomorrow evening. If I break my leg tomorrow 
morning and fail to run five miles tomorrow evening, I will not have 
exhibited weakness of will. How can we characterize 
*which* failures to act on a previously formed intention count
as weakness of will? Holton's answer has two parts. First, he says, 
there is an irreducible normative dimension to the question whether 
someone's abandoning of an intention constituted weakness of will 
(Holton 1999, 
 p. 259).[16] 
That is, there is no purely 
descriptive criterion (such as whether her action conflicted with her
better judgment) which is sufficient for weakness of will; in order 
to decide whether a given case was an instance of weakness of will we
must consider normative questions, such as whether it was 
*reasonable* for the agent to have abandoned or revised that 
intention, or whether she *should* have done so. In the case 
of my broken leg, for instance, it was clearly reasonable for me to 
abandon my intention; that is why I could not be charged with 
weakness of will in that case.




Second, says Holton, we need to attend to an important subclass of 
our intentions to do something at a future time, namely 
*contrary-inclination-defeating* *intentions*, or, as he
later terms them (Holton 2003), *resolutions*. 
Resolutions are intentions that are formed precisely in order to 
insulate one against contrary inclinations one expects to feel when 
the time comes. Thus one reason I might form an intention on Monday 
to run five miles on Tuesday--as opposed to leaving the issue 
open until Tuesday, for decision then--is to reduce the effect 
of feelings of lassitude to which I fear I may be subject when 
Tuesday rolls around. Then suppose Tuesday rolls around; I am indeed 
prey to feelings of lassitude; and I decide as a result not to run. 
*Now* I can be charged with weakness of will. Weakness of will
involves, specifically, a failure to act on a *resolution*; 
this is sufficient to differentiate weakness of will from mere change
of mind and even from caprice (which is a *different* species 
of unreasonable intention revision, according to Holton).




As a later paper by Alison McIntyre shows (McIntyre 2006), 
understanding weakness of will in this way casts a fresh light on the
issue of its rational status. The weak-willed agent abandons a 
resolution because of a contrary inclination of exactly the type 
which the resolution was expressly designed to defeat. Therefore, as 
McIntyre underlines, weak-willed action always involves a procedural 
rational 
 defect:[17]
 a technique of self-management has been deployed but has failed 
(McIntyre 2006, p. 296). To that extent we have grounds to 
criticize weak-willed action simply in virtue of the second of the 
ways in which Holton wishes to distinguish weakness of will from a 
mere change of mind, without even resolving the potentially murky 
issue of whether the agent was *reasonable* in abandoning her 
intention.




McIntyre holds, however, that it would be overstating the case to say
that because weakness of will involves this procedural defect, it is 
always irrational (McIntyre 2006, p. 290; 
pp. 298-9; p. 302). She proposes rather that 
practical rationality has multiple facets and aims, and that failure 
in one respect or along one dimension does not automatically justify 
the especially severe form of rational criticism which we intend by 
the term "irrational." For example, consider an agent who
succumbs to contrary inclination of exactly the type expected when 
the time comes to act on a truly *stupid* resolution. (Holton 
gives the example of resolving to go without water for two days just 
to see what it feels like: Holton 2003, p. 42.) There will 
indeed be a blemish on this agent's rational scorecard if he 
eventually gives in and drinks: he will have failed in his attempt at
self-management. But wouldn't it be rationally far *worse* for
him to stick to his silly resolution no matter what the cost?




We can also re-examine the issue of the rationality of 
*akrasia* in light of this analysis of weakness of will; for 
we can distinguish between akratic and non-akratic cases of the 
latter. As McIntyre points out, resolutions typically rest on 
judgments about what it is best that one do at a (future) time 
*t*. If an agent fails to act on a previously formed 
resolution to do *a* at *t*, thus exhibiting weakness 
of will, we can distinguish the case in which he still endorses at 
*t* the judgment that it is best that he do *a* at 
*t* (even though he does not do it) from the case in which he 
abandons that judgment as well as his resolution. In the latter, 
non-akratic type of case, the agent in effect rationalizes his 
failure to live up to his resolution by deciding that it is not after
all best that he do *a* at *t*. McIntyre points out 
that the traditional view that *akrasia* is always irrational 
seems to give us a perverse incentive to rationalize, since in that 
case we escape the grave charge of practical irrationality, being 
left only with the procedural practical defect present in all cases 
of weakness of will (McIntyre 2006, p. 291). But this seems
implausible: are the two sub-cases so radically different in their 
rational status? Indeed, she argues, if anything, akratic weakness of
will is typically rationally *preferable* to rationalizing 
weakness of will (McIntyre 2006, p. 287; pp. 309ff.). 
"In the presence of powerful contrary inclinations that bring 
about a failure to be resolute," she writes, "resisting 
rationalization and remaining clearheaded about one's reasons to act 
can constitute a modest accomplishment" (McIntyre 2006, 
p. 311). Have we witnessed the transformation of 
*akrasia* from impossible, to irrational, to downright 
admirable?


### 3.4 Recent Developments


#### 3.4.1 Epistemic Akrasia



One focus of renewed attention in recent years has been (so-called)
epistemic akrasia. An epistemically akratic agent holds beliefs of the
form "P, but my evidence doesn't support P." In an
influential discussion, Sophie Horowitz posits an analogy between
epistemic akrasia and practical akrasia: "Just as an akratic
agent acts in a way she believes she ought not act, an epistemically
akratic agent believes something that she believes is unsupported by
her evidence" (Horowitz 2014, p. 718).



Is epistemic akrasia possible? Some philosophers who are happy to
countenance practical akrasia have answered in the negative with
respect to its putative doxastic analogue (these include Hurley 1989,
Adler 2002, and Owens 2002). One argument for this denial focuses on
the notion of doxastic control. David Owens argues that we lack the
requisite sort of doxastic control required for our beliefs to be
formed freely and deliberately, "either in accordance with our
judgement about what we should believe or against those
judgements" (Owens 2002, p. 395). But such control, Owens
argues, would be necessary in order for epistemic akrasia to be
possible.



A second argument for the impossibility of epistemic akrasia
(discussed in Adler 2002) turns on what is seen as an important
disanalogy between epistemic and practical reasoning. Conflict between
two incompatible beliefs weakens one or both beliefs (since both
can't be true), whereas conflict between two desires that
can't both be satisfied need not weaken either desire. A
practically akratic agent who has formed an all things considered
judgment about what to do may thus still be in the grip of a desire to
do something else. But this, Adler says, has no analogue in the
epistemic realm: one can't remain in the grip of a belief if one
views the evidence for an opposing belief as decisive. Thus, practical
akrasia is "motivationally intelligible" in a way that
epistemic akrasia is not (Adler 2002, p. 8). Neil Levy responds to
this concern by arguing that while beliefs in some domains fit this
model, the disanalogy Adler points to does not hold in domains where
there is room for "ongoing, rational controversy,"
including philosophy (Levy 2004, p. 156). One may form a belief in
favor of a philosophical view while nonetheless feeling the pull of
incompatible views, just as one may retain a desire that one judges
all things considered one shouldn't satisfy. Though Levy only
claims that Adler's impossibility argument fails, Ribeiro (2011)
uses similar considerations to motivate the claim that epistemic
akrasia is not only possible, but actual.



Some philosophers who think there could be an epistemic version of
akrasia have raised questions about how closely it would parallel
practical akrasia. Daniel Greco (2014), for instance, argues that
while a divergence between one's moral emotions and one's
urges might play an important role in understanding some cases of
practical akrasia, there are no corresponding epistemic emotions that
would help to illuminate epistemic akrasia (Greco 2014,
p. 207). Practical and epistemic varieties of akrasia nonetheless have
in common that they involve a kind of fragmentation or inner conflict;
Greco uses this characterization to support the idea that both
epistemic and practical akrasia are always irrational. (Feldman 2005
also sees epistemic akrasia as a paradigm of irrationality.)



Just as the rational status of practical akrasia has become contested
(see section 3.2 above), however, some theorists have now argued that
epistemic akrasia could in fact be rational. For example, Coates
(2012), Weatherson (2019), Wedgwood (2011), and Lasonen-Aarnio (2014)
have argued for the rational permissibility of some beliefs of the
characteristic akratic form "*P*, but my evidence doesn't
support *P*." This discussion has been shaped by a growing
interest in higher-order evidence--that is, evidence about what
one's evidence supports. The notion of higher-order evidence
complicates the picture of belief at work in arguments like
Adler's (2002) above. Defenders of the rationality of epistemic
akrasia have argued that beliefs of the form "*P*, but my evidence
doesn't support *P*" can be rationally permissible when one
has misleading higher-order evidence. In such cases, they contend, a
person could have good grounds both for believing that *P* and for
believing that her evidence doesn't support the conclusion that
*P*.



For instance, Horowitz describes a case of epistemic akrasia involving
a detective, Sam, who stays up all night trying to identify a
thief. He knows the evidence he is working with is good, and concludes
on the basis of this evidence that the thief was Lucy. He calls his
partner and tells her that he's cracked the case, only to have
her remind him that his reasoning while sleepy is often poor. Sam
hadn't thought about his previous track record, but he believes
his partner that he's often wrong about what his evidence
supports when he's tired. (Horowitz 2014, p. 719).



Defenders would say that Sam could be rational in believing both that
Lucy was the thief, and in believing that his evidence doesn't
support that claim. Against this view, Horowitz (2014) maintains that
higher-order evidence should affect our first-order attitudes whenever
we expect our evidence to be truth-guiding (which rationally we almost
always should); the conjunction involved in an akratic belief is thus
rationally unstable (Horowitz 2014, p. 740). (See also Lasonen-Aarnio
2020 for the argument that epistemically akratic subjects, while
sometimes rational, nonetheless manifest bad dispositions).


#### 3.4.2 Addiction as Akrasia?




There has also been growing interest in the question of whether
addiction is perhaps best understood as a form of *akrasia*.
Building on the arguments of Mele (2002), Nick Heather (2016) contends
that addiction shares the core features of akratic action and should be
understood as a special kind of *akrasia*, one in which agents
consistently act against both their present judgments and their prior
resolutions (Heather 2016 p. 133-4). Heather thus accepts
Holton's (1999) distinction between *akrasia* and weakness
of will, but argues that addiction paradigmatically involves both
halves of this distinction.




In contrast, Edmund Henden (2016) argues against classifying
addiction as a form of weakness of will. He thinks that the
phenomenology of addiction tells against such an assimilation.
Addiction often involves habitual behavior, and relapses are often
triggered by environmental cues that the addict is not conscious of at
the time of action. Addicts may continue to take drugs even when they
don't find it pleasurable to do so, and while retaining a strong
sense of the disvalue of this course of action (Henden 2016, p. 122).
In these respects, Henden contends that addiction is unlike giving into
temptation, as paradigm examples of *akrasia* are often
described.




Henden also notes that weakness of will seems rationally
criticizable in a way that addiction does not, which suggests they
can't be the same phenomenon. Many addicts sincerely try very
hard to abstain from using drugs. Though their effort may be
insufficient for them to succeed in abstaining, it may nonetheless be
sufficient relative to ordinary standards. That is, if someone who was
not an addict made the same effort with respect to similar endeavors,
it would be reasonable to expect her to succeed. The challenges that
face addicts thus seem much more demanding than the challenges that
face the average practical agent, including those prone to
*akrasia* (Henden 2016, p. 123-4).