Why is akrasia inconsistent with praxeology: a rejoinder to Callahan

Abstract The purpose of this paper is two-fold. Its negative part consists in illuminating the shortcomings of Callahan’s alleged demonstration of how acratic action can be conceptualized on praxeological grounds. First, we submit that Callahan misidentifies the tenet of praxeology that the phenomenon of akrasia apparently poses a threat to, as he says that it is rationality , as conceived of by Mises, that is at stake. Then we level a criticism at Callahan’s invocation of varying time preference rates exhibited by the supposed akrates, which is designed to capture the phenomenon of akrasia. We hold that this attempt may only partly succeed at best, as it still fails to illuminate what Mele dubs a “strict akratic action”. On a positive note, we recall that praxeology does not allow for a counterpreferential choice. For, in Mises’s view, it is an analytic truth that all-things-considered preferences are perfectly aligned with actual choices, the point Callahan himself acknowledges. Alternatively, on the Rothbardian view, one’s choices are evidentiary of preferences underlying them. This position also predicts that there is no possible world in which the actor chooses suboptimally. Thus, we conclude that the phenomenon of akrasia is inconsistent with praxeology.