Frog and Toad Together — Chapter 3

Narration Prompt

Summarize the chapter's argument or narrative arc, then identify the central tension and evaluate whether the author handles it honestly.

Discussion Questions

1. Evaluate 'Cookies' as a narrative treatment of akrasia. Does Lobel's story support the Socratic position (wrongdoing is ignorance — understanding the harm would produce right action), the Aristotelian position (one can know the good and still fail to enact it), or does it advance a third position that neither philosopher fully articulated?
2. The barrier escalation embodies what behavioral economists call 'commitment devices.' Analyze whether Lobel's 1972 story anticipates the insight — developed decades later by Thaler, Sunstein, and Ariely — that rational self-governance is structurally unreliable, or whether the narrative resonance is coincidental rather than prescient.

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide