Abstract

The author analyses the problem of weak will in Leo Tolstoy’s story Father Sergius. She ponders why the protagonist, a man with such heightened awareness of good and evil, at some point in his life chooses evil. She places the problem of weak will (akrasia) first into the context of the various iterations of determinism and subsequently of the considerations raised by Socrates and Aristotle. As their answers are not fully applicable to the problem of Tolstoy’s titular character, she looks for an explanation to Saint Augustine’s philosophy of free will.