Explaining the Phenomenon Sample Clauses

Explaining the Phenomenon. The scholarly debate surrounding weakness of will can be made more structured and accessible, however. A preliminary degree of organization can be brought to the debate by distinguishing between the behavior of weakness of will and the many philosophical descriptions that have been offered for it. Everyday experiences of weakness of will are 4 Levy (2012, 2) divides the latter category as the ‘What’ and the ‘How’ questions of weakness of will. He explains, “The ‘what’ question concerns what psychological or mental states or entities must be postulated in order to explain weakness of the will […] The ‘how’ question asks how the mental states or entities required to explain weakness of will actually cause the weak-willed behavior.” noncontroversial and widely accepted. It is competing descriptions and explanations of the phenomenon that have proved to be so challenging for philosophers. The question of whether instances of it genuinely exist can, I suggest, be disposed of relatively quickly. This is because the everyday referent of the term ‘weakness of will’ is generally clear. We all know what it is like to do something we know we shouldn’t do or hadn’t wanted to do, whether it is to skip a workout or follow through on a more detrimental course of action. In many respects, even Plato’s Socrates assumed that the phenomenon of weakness of will (or akrasia) was familiar enough that he could use it as an example to illustrate a more complex claim about the nature of virtue (see Chapter 3, Section 2). When he introduces the issue in the Protagoras, he invites his listeners to consider the familiar “experience which they call being overcome by pleasure” (Xxxxxx, 1997/353a). Problems only arise once the group begins to discuss explanations of the phenomenon. Xxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxx does a good job of characterizing this everyday behavior while carefully distinguishing it from whatever account we give of it (2007). Any discussion of weakness of will should begin, he claims, with the following “apparently incontestable datum: we sometimes resolve to pursue a course of action a in preference to b, because we suppose, or suppose that we suppose, that a is all-things-considered preferable to b, and yet then at the moment of action opt for b” (2007, 65). Optionally, this account can also include post-action experiences including self-recrimination, regret, and some form of resolve not to repeat this behavior in the future. Helpfully, Xxxxxxx calls this experience ‘implemen...