How To Make Sense Of Akratic Action

Weakness of will has been used to describe the situation in which agents voluntarily act against their evaluative judgments.Despite the fact that this phenomenon is quite common in our daily life,it is very difficult to make a reasonable explanation in theory.When we take an internalistic position that there is an internal connection between evaluative judgments and motivations,the akratic actions will be interpreted as actions out of ignorance or compulsion,while the akratic agents usually act against their own judgments with full knowledge and free will.This paper will take the contradiction between motivational internalism and weakness of will as a clue,summarize the interpretations of akratic actions from the standpoint of internalism,and try to find a relatively reasonable explanation among them.There are two versions of motivational internalism.The strong one holds that there is a proportional relationship between evaluative judgments and motivations,while the weak one holds that evaluative judgments only provide us with motivations in the minimum sense.After clarifying those basic conceptions and the background information about weakness of will,this paper will first focus on the arguments of Socrates and Hare in order to find out the problems that the internalists who are in favor of the strong version of motivational internalism may face in interpreting akratic actions,namely attributing them to ignorance or compulsion.At the mean time,this paper will also discuss the solution provided by Davison,and find out the possible defects.Secondly,this paper will focus on the interpretations provided by internalists who are in favor of the weak version of motivational internalism.Comparatively speaking,weak internalism seems to leaves more room for weakness of will,since there is only a loose connection between evaluative judgments and motivations.However,we may find out that weak interalism may still confuse akratica actions with forced behavior after studying the arguments given by Mele,for it can not be shown that the violationof evaluative judgment is due to the voluntary choice of the agent.Finally,this paper will focus on the strong version of the motivational internalism again.By comparing the two inerpretations provided by Tenenbaum and Buss on the basis of Davisons' s initial solution,this paper will try to demonstrate that Buss' s interpretation can better answer the problem mentioned above,and fits in best with the common understanding of weakness of will.