Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Dispositions' and 'On Virtue Ethics'

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2 ideas

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111
     A reaction: This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions.
There may be inverse akrasia, where the agent's action is better than their judgement recommends [Hursthouse]
     Full Idea: There seem to be cases of 'inverse akrasia', in which the course of action actually followed is superior to the course of action recommended by the agent's best judgement.
     From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.7)
     A reaction: This must occur, as when an assassin lets his victim off, and then regrets the deed. It strengthens the case against Socrates, and in favour of their being two parts of the soul which compete to motivate our actions.