INNER CONFLICT

Many philosophers have written about it, recently more than ever before. Conflict remains a fact of life, all these studies notwithstanding. A person is often “divided” on some issue, often is prompted in opposite ways. How can someone be in a conflict with himself alone, and how can he get himself out of it? Also, how serious is it for him if he doesn't get out?

A person in a conflict wants two propositions he knows can't both hold. He wants h and also k and believes that if h then not-k, and thus that if k then not-h. This concept is comprehensive. It covers deep conflicts and trivial ones, moral conflicts and nonmoral ones. If h and k are both morally urgent, you are involved in a moral conflict. But say that you want to move to Utah and also to move to Maine; this conflict is morally neutral.

Some thinkers do not accept the idea of a person's having incompatible desires. How can a person knowingly want what would defeat his own wants? Plato tells a story about