The Socratic identification of virtue with knowledge alone is insufficient once the soul is understood to have non-rational parts.

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