Compare Plato's Theory Of Akrasia

Still, Plato’s full psychological theory is much more complicated than the basic division of persons would suggest. First, there are different kinds of appetitive attitudes (558d–559c, 571a–572b): some are necessary for human beings; some are unnecessary but regulable (“lawful”), and some are unnecessary and entirely uncontrollable (“lawless”). So there are in fact five kinds of pure psychological constitutions: aristocratically constituted persons (those ruled by their rational attitudes), timocratically constituted persons (those ruled by their spirited attitudes), oligarchically constituted persons (ruled by necessary appetitive attitudes), democratically constituted persons (ruled by unnecessary appetitive attitudes), and tyrannically constituted

Socrates does not concentrate on these people, nor does he say how common they are. But he does acknowledge their existence (544c–d, cf. 445c). Moreover, the occurrence of akrasia would seem to require their existence. For if I am perfectly ruled by my spirit, then I take my good to be what is honorable, and how could I be akratic? My spirit and my reason are in line, so there will be no overpowering of rational preferences about what is best by spirit. You might suppose that my appetite could overcome my sense of what is honorable, but in that case, it would seem that I am not, after all, perfectly ruled by my spirit. Things might seem different with people ruled by their appetite. Certainly, if I were perfectly ruled by appetite, then I would be susceptible to akrasia of the impetuous sort, acting on appetitive desires without reflectively endorsing them as good. But impetuous akrasia is quite distinct from the standard akrasia in which I endorse φing as best for me and at just that moment intentionally ψ instead, and standard akrasia would seem to be impossible in any soul that is perfectly ruled by any one part of the soul. If you think that competing appetitive attitudes could give rise to a strict case of standard

Moreover, the dialogue is filled with pointed observations and fascinating speculations about human psychology. Some of them pull us up short, as, for example, the Freudian recognition of Oedipal desires that come out only in dreams (571c–d). The full theory is complex, and there remain numerous questions about many of its details.

Fortunately, these questions do not have to be settled here for us to entertain Socrates’ response to Glaucon and Adeimantus’ challenge. Indeed, although his response builds closely on the psychological theory, some broad features of the response could be accepted even by those who reject the tripartite