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    Akrasia (acting against one's better judgment) is possibl... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
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    Akrasia (acting against one's better judgment) is possible because some parts of the soul are indifferent to the good and can motivate actions that do not aim at what is good.

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The soul has multiple parts, some of which (appetite) pursue their objects without reference to whether those objects are good.
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    • 2.Reason pursues its objects always understanding them as good.
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    • 3.A part of the soul that is indifferent to the good can motivate action independently of reason's judgment.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Socrates argued that all wrongdoing is ignorance: the akratic agent misidentifies a lesser good as a greater one at the moment of action.
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    • 2.If appetite merely tracks a perceived good rather than being indifferent to goodness, the Platonic partition thesis overstates the soul's division.
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    • 3.Akrasia then requires no soul-part indifferent to the good, only a cognitive failure in comparative evaluation under the influence of pleasure.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aristotle's own account in NE VII holds that the akratic person's universal practical knowledge is not actively operative at the moment of acting.
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    • 2.A temporarily suppressed or occluded rational judgment is not equivalent to motivation by a faculty indifferent to the good.
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    • 3.Therefore akrasia can be explained by the weakness or non-activation of reason itself, without positing soul-parts that are constitutively indifferent to goodness.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics

    Connections

    1 topic

    Consciousness & Mind2 linked

    Related

    A part of the soul that is indifferent to the good can motivate action independe...A temporarily suppressed or occluded rational judgment is not equivalent to moti...Akrasia then requires no soul-part indifferent to the good, only a cognitive fai...Aristotle's own account in NE VII holds that the akratic person's universal prac...
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    If appetite merely tracks a perceived good rather than being indifferent to good...Reason pursues its objects always understanding them as good.Socrates argued that all wrongdoing is ignorance: the akratic agent misidentifie...The soul has multiple parts, some of which (appetite) pursue their objects witho...Therefore akrasia can be explained by the weakness or non-activation of reason i...

    Similar

    A part of the soul that is indifferent to the good can motivate action...90%One can desire something and hence act without thinking the object of ...83%It is unclear whether this guise-of-the-good interpretation of Kant su...82%The soul can pursue bodily pleasure despite reason's determination tha...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ethics-ancient
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    Some interpret this heedlessness as appetite’s being good-independent, whereas reason is good-dependent. Thus, appetite pursues what it pursues without reference to whether what it pursues is good; reason pursues what it pursues always understanding that what it pursues is good. In this kind of interpretation, Socrates in the Republic accepts the possibility of akrasia because some parts of the soul, which are indifferent to the good, can motivate actions that do not aim at what is good. Others
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit