Aristotle, Akrasia, and the Place of Desire in Moral Reasoning
This paper serves both as a discussion of Henry’s (Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 5:255–270, 2002) interpretation of Aristotle on the possibility of akrasia – knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway – and an indication of the importance of desire in Aristotle’s account of moral reasoning. As...
Published in: | Ethical theory and moral practice |
---|---|
Main Author: | |
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
2007
|
In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2007, Volume: 10, Issue: 2, Pages: 195-207 |
Further subjects: | B
Desire
B Practical Reasoning B Devin Henry B Akrasia B Aristotle |
Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | This paper serves both as a discussion of Henry’s (Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 5:255–270, 2002) interpretation of Aristotle on the possibility of akrasia – knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway – and an indication of the importance of desire in Aristotle’s account of moral reasoning. As I will explain, Henry’s interpretation is advantageous for the reason that it makes clear how Aristotle could have made good sense of genuine akrasia, a phenomenon that we seem to observe in the real world, while maintaining non-trivial distinctions between temperance (sôphrosunê), self-indulgence (akolasia), self-control (enkrateia) and akrasia. There are, however, some interpretive challenges that follow from Henry’s account and this paper is intended to explain and resolve those. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-006-9050-6 |