Akrasia

Akrasia refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment—the state in which one intentionally performs an action while simultaneously believing that a different course of action would be better. Sometimes translated as "weakness of will" or "incontinence," akrasia describes the paradoxical human experience of knowingly choosing what one judges to be the inferior option.

The concept of akrasia raises philosophical questions regarding the connection between reason, desire, and action by challenging the intuitive assumption that rational judgment governs an agent's behavior. For example, there can be an instance of akrasia when (i) an agent is aware of what they should do (ii) they choose to do something else, and (iii) it is appropriate to say that the agent does this other thing because of some impulse or emotion.