Unified Agency And Akrasia In Platos Republic

This chapter argues that Plato does and does not disagree with the Socrates of the Protagoras . While he accepts, as all must, that what is called implementation failure is possible, Plato continues to maintain that narrow akrasia , the sort which earns Socrates’ ire is impossible. The Socrates of Republic IV is standing on guard against the Socrates of the Protagoras , who had insisted in uncompromising terms upon the incompatibility of narrow akrasia and a moral psychology committed to highly unified agency. The picture of the soul as an aggregate of homunculi is a picture of a group, not that of a minimal agent, an intentional actor capable of engaging in conscious goal-directed activity. The just person, as highly unified, will be no more liable to akratic conduct than was Socrates’ highly unified hedonist. There is thus a fundamental form of continuity between Socratic and Platonic attitudes towards narrow akrasia . Keywords: homunculi ; moral psychology; narrow akrasia ; Plato; Protagoras ; Republic IV; Socrates; unified hedonist