Akrasia in Aristotle's Ethics

The gap between moral judgment and moral action, or in other words, “weakness of moral will” is a topic to which different ethical schools have paid attention. In Aristotle’s ethics, this topic developed under the title “Akrasia”, which is correspondent with Plato’s “Unity of Knowledge and Virtue”. In Aristotle’s ethical view, one can find a number of factors involved in the realization of the acts. While accepting the considerable impact of knowledge on moral action, Aristotle held that human beings, in spite of their clear knowledge, may act against their moral obligation; such a failure to act according to a sense of moral obligation originates from going after the desires provoked by the imagination of the soul susceptible to impiety. In such a case, the person who behaves immorally does so out of ignorance. Thus, the origin of moral weakness is the desire, which should be opposed so that the moral action could be fulfilled.