Akrasia

Knowing the good yet failing it

Akrasia is the condition of one who judges a course best and yet, overcome by appetite or passion, does otherwise. Socrates denied it was even possible — for him no one knowingly does wrong, and apparent weakness is really ignorance. Aristotle, taking the phenomenon seriously, explains it by the way passion can cloud or suspend the knowledge one has. Its cure is the harmony of reason and desire that is temperance.