Akrasia
ἀκρασία (akrasia)
Incontinence, the lack of self-mastery: the state of one who knows the good yet does the wrong, their resolve swept away by passion. The incontinent person has no settled thought in favor of their fault; they still struggle against themselves, then yield. Aristotle makes it the central problem of *Book VII*: how can one act against what one knows to be good? To be distinguished from dissipation (the debauched), who deliberately chooses evil by conviction and feels no conflict, and from vice pure and simple, which corrupts even judgment.
Le débauché en effet est conduit à ses fautes par son libre choix, croyant qu’il faut toujours poursuivre le plaisir du moment.
The Greek word akrasia (ἀκρασία) is formed from the privative a- and kratos, meaning strength or power: literally, the absence of mastery, the lack of self-control. Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire translates it as “intemperance.” The incontinent person is one who knows what they should do yet does the opposite, because passion overrides resolve.
This paradox occupied Socrates, who denied even the possibility of such a thing: no one, he believed, knowingly acts against their own good; to act badly is to be ignorant. Aristotle refuses to preserve coherence at the expense of experience. Yes, the incontinent person “knows”—but with a knowledge that passion suspends at the moment of action, like a drunk man reciting verses without understanding them. The knowledge is present, dominated but not destroyed. This is why the incontinent person can later regain control and repent.
The weight of the analysis rests on a distinction. The incontinent and the debauched commit the same acts, but in entirely different ways. The debauched is led to his faults by free choice, convinced that one must always pursue present pleasure: he feels no remorse because he acts according to his conviction. The incontinent, however, has “no fixed thought”; he pursues the pleasure that presents itself while knowing he is wrong, still struggling against himself.
Thus, it must be distinguished from dissipation (the debauched), who chooses evil in cold blood and is torn by no inner conflict—hence, paradoxically, why he is harder to cure: one would have to change not his behavior but his very conviction. Incontinence attacks only execution; vice attacks prudence itself, corrupting the principle from which all action springs. Between the two, the incontinent person at least retains a correct aim—it is his weakness, not his deceit.