Abstract
The traditional problem of incontinence raises the question of whether there is any way to account for action contrary to judgment. When one acts, rather than only being acted upon by circumstances, the action is explained in terms of the reasons for action one judges oneself to have. It therefore seems impossible to explain action that iscontrary to such judgment. This paper examines the question of how such explanation would be possible. After excluding accounts that either eliminate incontinence or render it inexplicable, I argue that genuine incontinence would require three components: first, a distinction between the types of judgments simultaneously present in the agent; second, the Aristotelian idea that not all of those types of judgments can be directly action-guiding; and third, that the judgments that are action-guiding can be pre-conceptual perceptions. I then use elements of Collingwood's aesthetics to make the case that although such pre-conceptual perceptions would not be propositional judgments and the relationship between them and the behaviors of the agent could not be causal, those behaviors could still qualify as incontinent actions.
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Notes
Plato proposes the most famous version of the distinction between reason and appetite in Book IV of his Republic, although whether it is his final verdict on the subject is not as clear; see Dorter (2008). The distinction between prima facie and all-things-considered judgment comes from Davidson (1980).
See, for example, Korsgaard (1996).
References
Aristotle (1976) Ethics, Thomson (trans.), Tredennick (rev.). Penguin, London
Collingwood RG (1958) The principles of art. Oxford University Press, New York
Davidson D (1980) How is weakness of the will possible? In: Essays on actions and events. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 21–42
Dorter K (2008) Weakness of will in Plato’s republic. In: Hoffman T (ed) Weakness of will from Plato to the present. Catholic University of America Press, Washington, pp 1–21
Grgic F (2002) Aristotle on the Akratic’s knowledge. Phronesis 4:336–358
Henry D (2002) Aristotle on pleasure and the worst form of Akrasia. Ethic Theory Moral Pract 5(3):255–270
Korsgaard C (1996) The sources of normativity. Cambridge University Press, New York
Nussbaum M (1984) Plato on commensurability and desire. Proc Aristot Soc 58:55–96
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the faculty and students at Clark University and Hope College, both of whom listened to versions of this paper and offered useful comments; in particular, the point I make in the final paragraph originated as a comment from Anthony Perovich. Special thanks go to Amy Pattullo and Caroline Simon for reading and offering helpful criticisms of drafts of this paper.
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Bassett, G. Incontinence and Perception. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 16, 1019–1028 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-013-9401-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-013-9401-z