Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is twofold. First of all, I set forth the objective of exploring and analyzing, taking into consideration some commentators of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, his account of akrasia. The path I will follow could be broken down into a series of steps: I will begin by stating the relevance of Aristotle's discussion of incontinence in the context of this book and I will also highlight the method which he will use in tackling this issue, namely the dialectical one. Afterwards, I will focus on the four solutions of the puzzle, proposed by him in the Nicomachean Ethics. Last but not least, in the final section of my paper, I wish to explore whether it would be possible to construct an analogy between Aristotle's fourth solution and George Ainslie's concept of hyperbolic discounting.