This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.

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I want to write and record this cue.

Sure. Well, a bit of me does. but another bit of me would rather be plonked in front of the

telly with a family sized pack of mini Mars bars which bit of me will win out

here's Jessica Moss of New York University on weakness of will.

Jessica Moss, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

The topic we're going to focus on is Plato and Aristotle on weakness of

will. Before we get on to Plato and Aristotle, perhaps we could just say a little

bit about what weakness of will is. Okay so what philosophers mean by weakness of will is this phenomenon

where you think you know what's best but you do something else instead. So a classic

example you've had your dessert already, you want to be a moderate healthy eater

but there's this very tempting piece of chocolate cake there it looks so good you think yeah better not to eat the cake you really want the cake and you the cake. So that's a classic case of weak-willed

action. You believed you knew what was best and you did something else instead because you had a strong

desire to do it. Why is that a philosophical problem?

Good.

So some people think it's just not a problem or mystery at all.

That's just how humans are.

I think for the Greeks it was a problem because they had this very fundamental idea that we're rational

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