Abstract

In the Platonic tradition, weakness of will is not the failure to implement a practical judgement, but a different sort of failure. In describing that different failure, philosophers typically supplement the phenomenon of akrasia by an additional judgement. It is argued that with this supplementation, the experience of weakness of will becomes distorted. Using instead a suitably designed distinction between evaluation and motivation allows for a more direct description. On the basis of this description akrasia may be understood as an experience which helps persons to find their true subjective values