Chapter 1
|1218b31| We should address what comes next and make a fresh start.
All goods are either external goods or goods inside the soul. The preferred goods are those in the soul, a distinction we also made in our popular discourses. For wisdom, virtue, and pleasure are in the soul, |b35| and either some or all of them seem to be everyone’s goal. Of the goods in the soul, some are states or powers, but others are activities and processes. Let these things be assumed, and let it be assumed concerning virtue that it is the best disposition, state, or power of each thing that has a use or a function (ergon). |1219a1| This is clear from induction, since we make this assumption in all cases. For example, a cloak has a virtue, for a cloak has a function and use, and the best state of the cloak is a virtue. Similarly, there is a best state of a ship, a house, and so on. |a5| Hence, there is a best state of a soul too, for it has a function.
Let us also assume that the better state has the better function. And as the states are related to each other, let the functions that arise from these states be related to each other. And the function of each thing is a goal (telos). It is clear from these assumptions, then, that the function is better than the state. |a10| For the goal, since it is a goal, is best, for it is assumed that a goal is what is best and is the ultimate thing for the sake of which all other things are.
It is clear, then, that the function (ergon) is better than the state and the disposition. But “ergon” has two meanings: <product and function>. In some cases, the product (ergon) is something different from and in addition to the use. For example, the product of the homebuilding art is a home, |a15| not the activity of homebuilding, and the product of the medical art is health, not the process of healing or treatment. In other cases, though, the function (ergon) is the use. For example, the function of the power to see is seeing, and the function of mathematical knowledge is contemplation. Hence, in cases where the function is the use, the use is necessarily better than the state.
Having made these distinctions, let us say that the function of a thing is the function of its virtue, but not in the same way. |a20| For example, a shoe is the product (ergon) of the shoemaking art and the product of shoemaking activity. So if there is a virtue of the shoemaking art and of an excellent shoemaker, the product is an excellent shoe. The same is true for the other cases too. Let us further assume that making something live is a function (ergon) of soul and that the function of being alive is to be in use and awake, |a25| for sleep is a kind of idleness and rest. Hence, since the function of the soul and the function of its virtue are necessarily one and the same, the function of its virtue would be excellent living. This, therefore, is the complete good, which is happiness, as we said. This is clear from our assumptions, namely, that happiness is the best good, |a30| that the goals are in the soul and are the best of the goods, and that <a good in the soul> is a state or an activity. Since the activity is better than the disposition, and the best state has the best activity, and virtue is the best state, an activity of the soul’s virtue is the best good. We also said that happiness is the best good. Therefore, happiness is an activity of a good soul. |a35| Since we said that happiness is something complete, and living can be complete or incomplete, as can virtue (for one kind of virtue is a whole, but another kind is a part), and the activity of incomplete things is incomplete, happiness would be an activity of complete living in accordance with complete virtue.
The opinions that we all hold are evidence that we are stating properly the genus and the definition of happiness. |1219b1| For both “doing well” and “living well” are the same as “being happy”; each of them—living and doing—is a use and an activity (since the life of action is one that uses things, for the blacksmith makes a bit, but the rider uses it); and one cannot be happy for just one day, or when a child, or only during the prime of one’s life. |b6| That is why Solon’s pronouncement is well said: “Do not call ‘happy’ someone still alive, but only when his life is complete,” for nothing incomplete is happy, since it is not whole.
Furthermore, people praise others for virtue because of their deeds, and congratulatory speeches are for deeds. It is the winners who receive crowns of glory, |b10| not those who are able to win but who fail to do so. People judge from someone’s deeds the kind of person he is. Furthermore, why is happiness itself not praised? Because other things are praised in virtue of their relation to happiness, either by leading up to it or by being parts of it. That is why calling someone “happy,” praising someone, and congratulating someone are different. We congratulate someone for a particular deed, |b15| we praise someone for being a certain kind of person in general, and we call someone “happy” for achieving the goal.
From these considerations the difficulty that sometimes arises is clarified, namely, why it is that excellent people are no better than bad people for half of their lives, for all people are similar when they are asleep. The reason they are similar is that sleep is idleness of soul, not activity. |b20| That is why, if there is some other part of soul, for example, the nutritive part, the virtue of this part is not a part of virtue as a whole. Neither is the body’s virtue, for the nutritive part is more active in sleep, but the perceiving and the desiring parts do not achieve their goals in sleep. However, to the extent that the perceiving and desiring parts are stimulated in some way, even the dream images of excellent people are better, |b25| unless the images are caused by illness or impairment.
Next we should consider the soul. For virtue belongs to the soul, and not by coincidence. Since we are looking for human virtue, let us assume that, although there are two parts of soul that share in reasoning (logos), they do not both share in reasoning in the same manner. Rather, one part shares in it by giving orders, |b30| the other by naturally obeying and listening. If there is a part that is without reasoning in another way, let us set that part aside. But it makes no difference whether the soul is divided into parts or not; the soul certainly has different powers, including the ones mentioned—just as in a curved object what is concave and what is convex are unseparated. |b35| So too are the straight line and the white line, although the straight line is not white except coincidentally; it is not white essentially.
If there is some other part of soul, for example, the part belonging to plants, it has been excluded. For the parts mentioned above are distinctive of human soul. That is why the virtues of the part that governs nutrition and growth are not virtues of a human being. For if a part belongs to a human being as a human being, rational calculation (logismos) must be inside it as a ruling cause. |1220a1| Action must be inside it too. But rational calculation does not rule rational calculation; it rules desire and feelings. It is therefore necessary that human soul have those parts. And just as the fitness of the body is composed of the virtues of the several parts, so too is the virtue of the soul insofar as it is an end (telos).
There are two kinds of virtue: moral and intellectual. |a5| For we praise not only people who are just but also intelligent people and experts. For it was assumed that virtue or its product is an object of praise. Virtue and its product are not active, but they have activities associated with them. Since the intellectual virtues are accompanied by reasoning, such virtues belong to the part of the soul that has reasoning, the part of the soul that gives orders insofar as it has reasoning. |a10| The moral virtues, on the other hand, belong to the part of the soul that is without reasoning but is by nature obedient to the part that has reasoning. For we do not say what kind of character a person has when we say that he is an expert or clever, but when we say that he is gentle or rash.
After this we should first consider moral virtue: what it is, what its parts are (for they are relevant to what moral virtue is), and by what means it comes about. |a15| We should conduct our search as everyone does in other matters, that is, by having something to start with. Consequently, by using statements that are spoken truly but not clearly, we should try to arrive at a statement that is spoken both truly and clearly. For we are now like someone who says that health is the best disposition of the body or that Coriscus is the darkest man in the marketplace, |a20| for we do not know what either of them is, but for the purpose of understanding what each of them is it is helpful to be in this condition.
First, then, let it be assumed that the best disposition is produced by the best things and that, concerning each thing, the best actions are done from the virtue of each thing. For example, the best exercises and food are those from which physical fitness is produced, |a25| and it is from a condition of physical fitness that people do exercises best. Furthermore, let it be assumed that each disposition is produced or destroyed by the same things depending on how they are applied, just as health is produced or destroyed by food, exercise, and climate. These facts are clear from induction. Virtue, then, is a disposition of this kind: it arises by means of the best movements involving a soul, |a30| and from virtue the best of the soul’s deeds and feelings are produced.
And it is by the same things that, if applied in one way, virtue is produced and, if applied in another way, virtue is destroyed. And the use of virtue is related to the same things by which it is increased and destroyed, and virtue disposes the soul toward them in the best way. An indication of this is that both virtue and vice are concerned with pleasures and pains. |a35| For punishments work through these, since punishments are forms of therapy that, like other forms of therapy, are produced through opposites.
Chapter 2
It is clear, then, that moral virtue concerns pleasures and pains. Now, a character trait (ēthos) exists, as even the name indicates, |1220b1| because it is built up from habit (ethos). A person becomes habituated into a character trait by means of a non-instinctive training process that involves frequent repetition of certain movements. The trait is thus eventually able to act of its own accord, which is not something we find in inanimate objects. For no matter how many times you throw a stone upwards, it will never move upwards except by force. |b5| Let a character trait, then, be a quality that is in accordance with prescriptive reasoning; it is a quality of the non-reasoning part of the soul that is able to obey the reasoning.
We should now speak about what in the soul is related to character traits of various kinds. Character traits are related both to people’s capacities for feelings, with reference to which people are called “sensitive,” and to people’s states of character, with reference to which people are said to be sensitive in one way or another to these feelings or to be insensitive to them. |b10|
Next is the distinction established previously between feelings, capacities, and states. By “feelings” I mean such things as anger, fear, shame, lust, and in general things that in themselves are usually accompanied by perceptible pleasure or pain. There is no character trait corresponding to the feelings, |b15| even though the soul experiences them, but there is a character trait corresponding to the capacities. By “capacities” I mean the things we refer to when we describe people whose feelings are active, for example, hot-tempered, callous, amorous, bashful, and shameless. States are the causes of the feelings’ being in accordance with reasoning or contrary to reasoning, for example, courage, temperance, cowardice, and indulgence. |b20|
Chapter 3
With these distinctions in place, one must understand that in everything continuous and divisible there is an excess, a deficiency, and a middle, and these are either in relation to each other or in relation to us. For example, they are in exercise science, medical science, the art of household management, the art of navigation, and in any action whatever, |b25| scientific and non-scientific, artistic and non-artistic. For movement is continuous, and action is a movement.
In all cases, the middle in relation to us is best, for this middle is as knowledge and reasoning prescribe. This middle is the one that in all cases produces the best state of character. And this is clear from induction and reasoning. |b30| For opposites destroy each other, and the extremes <of excess and deficiency> are opposite both to each other and to the middle. For the middle is an extreme to each extreme. For example, the equal is larger than the smaller but smaller than the larger. Hence, moral virtue must involve certain middles and be a certain mean. |b35| One must therefore understand what kind of mean virtue is and what kind of middles it involves. For the sake of illustration, let each item be selected from the table and studied: |1220b38–1221a12|
These feelings and others like them occur in souls. All feelings are called what they are because in some cases they overshoot the mark, but in other cases they fall short of the mark. |a15|
It is superfluous to state in the definition that the manner in which a person is related to each feeling must not be coincidental, |b5| for no science, whether theoretical or productive, adds this clause to the definition either in theory or in practice. Rather, this clause is added in response to the quibbles of those skilled in dialectic. Let the definition be given simply in the above manner, but let it be given more precisely when we talk about the states of character that are opposed to <the feelings>.
These feelings themselves have forms that receive their different names according to how much they overshoot the mark in time or degree, or in relation to an aspect of the things that produce the feelings. |b12| I mean, for example, that a person is called “quick-tempered” for becoming angry more quickly than he ought, “harsh” and “fierce” for becoming angry to a greater degree than he ought, “bitter” for nursing his anger, and “violent” and “abusive” for the chastisements that arise from his anger. |b15| People are called “gourmets,” “gluttons,” and “winebibbers” in relation to the kind of nourishment they are prone to enjoy beyond reason.
One should not overlook the fact that some of the feelings mentioned are not understood to be in the “how” category if “how” is taken to mean “how much it is experienced.” |b20| For example, an adulterer is not a man who has more affairs with other men’s wives than he ought, for there is no such man. Rather, adultery is itself a kind of wickedness. For what the feeling is called implies what sort of thing it is. Personal assault is similar. That is why they dispute the accusation by saying that they had intercourse with her but that they did not commit adultery since they did not know <that the woman was not their wife> or were forced <to be with her>; |b25| or by saying that they struck someone but that it was not an assault. The same holds for other such cases.
Chapter 4
With these things understood, we should next say that, since there are two parts of the soul, the virtues are divided according to these parts. On the one hand, the virtues of thought belong to the part that has reasoning (logos). The function of these virtues is truth, |b30| whether about how things are or about how they come to be. On the other hand, there are virtues of the part that is non-reasoning but that has desire, for not just any part of the soul has desire, if the soul is divided into parts. Bad and good character, then, must be due to pursuing and avoiding certain pleasures and pains. This is clear from the distinctions we have made concerning feelings, capacities, and states. |b35| For capacities and states are of the feelings, but the feelings are distinguished by pain and pleasure. Hence, both from these considerations and from our earlier claims it follows that every moral virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains. For every soul is related to and concerned with the things that make it naturally become better or worse. |1222a1| We call people “bad” on account of pleasures and pains because they pursue and avoid them as they should not, or they pursue and avoid the ones they should not. That is why everyone readily defines the virtues as unaffectedness and calmness concerning pleasures and pains, and the vices as arising from the opposite conditions. |a5|
Chapter 5
Since it has been established that virtue is the kind of character state from which people do the best deeds—a state that puts them in the best disposition concerning what is best—and that what is best and most excellent is that which is in accordance with correct reasoning, and that this is the middle relative to us between excess and deficiency, |a10| it would have to follow that the moral virtue in each case is a mean and is concerned with certain middles in pleasures and pains and in pleasant and painful things. The mean is sometimes in pleasures (for excess and deficiency are there too), sometimes in pains, and sometimes in both. The person who is excessive in his enjoyments overshoots the mark in pleasure, |a15| and the person who is excessively pained overshoots in the opposite direction. These excesses may be absolute or in relation to some standard, for example, when someone does not experience pleasure or pain as most people do. The good person, though, feels pleasure and pain as one ought.
Since there is a certain state of character that makes its possessor susceptible to the excess and the deficiency of the same thing, |a20| it must be the case that, as the excess and the deficiency are contrary to each other and to the middle, so too the <bad> states of character are contrary to each other and to virtue.
It happens, however, that in some cases the contrary states are all rather obvious, but in other cases the states on the excessive side are obvious, and sometimes the states on the deficient side are obvious. A reason for the discrepancy is that the degree of difference from or similarity to the middle is not always the same; |a26| sometimes a person will change more quickly from the excessive state to the middle state, sometimes more quickly from the deficient state. The person who is more distant from the middle state seems to be more contrary to it. When it comes to the body, for example, excessive exercise is healthier and closer to the middle than deficient exercise is, |a30| but deficient eating is healthier and closer to the middle than excessive eating is. Hence, the character states directing deliberate choice that love physical fitness will produce the more healthy choice on each occasion. Such states belong to people who exercise a lot and to those who maintain a strict diet. The person contrary to due measure and correct reasoning is, with respect to exercise, the lazy person (rather than both the lazy person and the fitness addict), |a35| but with respect to diet, the indulgent person (rather than the person suffering from hunger).
This turns out to be the case because our nature at the start does not diverge from the middle in the same way in relation to everything. Rather, we are less prone to exercise and more prone to indulgence. The situation is similar concerning the soul. |a39| We hold that the state contrary to the middle is the one toward which we and most people are more prone to err. The other extreme escapes our notice as if it did not exist, for due to its infrequency it is undetected. For example, anger is contrary to gentleness and the angry person is contrary to the gentle person. |1222b1| Nevertheless, there is also an excess in the direction of being gentle and compliant and in not getting angry when being hit. But few people are like that; all are more prone to the other extreme. That is why our temper is not deferential.
Since we now have the catalog of the character states according to each of the emotions, |b5| both the excesses and the deficiencies, and of the contrary character states in accordance with which people conform to correct reasoning (and we must examine later on what correct reasoning is and what standard one should aim at in explaining the middle), it is apparent that all the moral virtues and vices have to do with excesses and deficiencies of pleasures and pains, |b10| and that pleasures and pains arise from the aforementioned states and emotions. But the best state is the middle state concerning each <emotion>. It is clear, then, that the virtues will be either all or some of these mean states.
Chapter 6
|b15| Let us then take another starting point (archē) for the following inquiry. All substances are, in accordance with nature, starting points of a certain sort. That is why each substance is able to generate many things of the same kind. For example, a human being can generate human beings, and in general an animal can generate animals, and a plant can generate plants. But in addition to these facts, the human being is, alone among the animals, also a starting point of certain actions, |b20| for we would not say that any of the other animals acts.
But the starting points that are of this sort, those from which movements first arise, are said to be supreme, and a starting point is most justly called “supreme” whose results cannot be otherwise. Perhaps God rules as a starting point of this kind. Among starting points that do not cause movement, for example, among mathematical ones, there is no supremacy, although the word is still used due to similarity; |b25| for in this case, too, if the starting point is changed, then all the theorems demonstrated from it would certainly change. But the theorems do not change themselves by one theorem refuting another, unless a theorem refutes the hypothesis and thereby demonstrates <that other theorems derived from the hypothesis are refuted>. But the human being is a starting point of a certain kind of movement, for action is a movement. |b29|
Since, as in the other cases, the starting point is a cause (aitia) of the things that exist because of it or that come to be because of it, we must understand it as we do in the case of mathematical demonstrations. For if it is necessary that when the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, then the square has four right angles, it is clear that the cause of this is the fact that the triangle contains the equivalent of two right angles. But if the triangle were to change, then the square must change too. |b35| For example, if the triangle contained three right angles, then the square would have six, or if the triangle contained four, then the square would have eight. But if the triangle were not to change but remain as it is, then the square must also remain as it is. It is clear from the Analytics that what we are trying to show is necessarily the case. For now, though, it is possible neither to deny nor to affirm precisely that it is so, except to say this: if nothing else is the cause of the triangle’s being this way, then it would be a certain kind of starting point and a cause of the consequences that follow. |b40|
Hence, if some things allow for being contrary to the way they are, then it must be the case that their starting points are that way too. |1223a1| For that which follows from things that are necessarily the case is itself necessarily the case, but things that follow from starting points that are not necessarily the case can turn out in contrary ways. Many of the things that can turn out in contrary ways are up to human beings themselves, and humans themselves are the starting points of such things. |a4| Hence, it is clear that those actions over which the human being is a starting point and supreme can come to be or not come to be, and the actions whose coming-to-be or not coming-to-be is up to him are the very ones over whose existence or non-existence he is supreme. All the things whose doing or non-doing is up to him are those he is a cause of, and all the things that he is a cause of are up to him.
Since virtue and vice and the deeds that come from them are in some cases praised and in other cases blamed |a10| (for blame and praise are given not on account of things that arise from necessity or luck or nature, but on account of things of which we ourselves are causes; since for things of which someone else is a cause, that person gets the blame and the praise), it is clear that both virtue and vice have to do with the things of which a person himself is a cause, a starting point of actions. |a15| One must grasp, then, the sort of actions of which he himself is a cause and a starting point. Now, we all agree that a person is a cause of all things that are voluntary and in accordance with his deliberate choice, but of all things that are involuntary, he is not a cause. And all things that he has deliberately chosen to do are clearly things that he does voluntarily. It is clear, then, that both virtue and vice would have to do with voluntary things. |a20|
Chapter 7
Therefore, we must grasp what voluntariness and involuntariness are. We must also grasp what deliberate choice is. We should first consider voluntariness and involuntariness since virtue and vice are defined by them. Voluntariness would seem to belong to one of three categories: that which accords with desire, with deliberate choice, or with thought. |a25| Voluntariness is being in accordance with one of them; involuntariness is being contrary to one of them. But desire is itself divided into three kinds: wish, temper, and appetite. Hence, these should be distinguished, starting with what accords with appetite.
Everything that accords with appetite would seem to be voluntary. For everything involuntary seems to be forced, |a30| and what is forced is painful, even everything that humans are compelled to do or suffer, as Evenus too says, “Everything compelled is naturally grievous.” Hence, if something is painful, it is forced, and if something is forced, it is painful. And everything contrary to appetite is painful, since appetite is for what is pleasant. Hence, what is contrary to appetite is forced and involuntary. |a35| Therefore, what is in accordance with appetite is voluntary, for voluntariness and involuntariness are contrary to each other.
Furthermore, every kind of immorality makes a person more unjust, and the lack of personal discipline seems to be immorality. The undisciplined person is the kind that acts in accordance with appetite and against rational calculation. Whenever he acts in accordance with appetite, he lacks personal discipline. But acting unjustly is voluntary. Hence, the undisciplined person will do injustice by acting in accordance with appetite. |1223b1| Therefore, he acts voluntarily, and that which is in accordance with appetite is voluntary. For it would be strange if those becoming undisciplined thereby became more just.
From those considerations it would seem that what is in accordance with appetite is voluntary, but from the following considerations the opposite seems to be the case. |b5| Everything that someone does voluntarily he does when wishing to do it, and that which he wishes to do he does voluntarily. But no one wishes for what he believes to be bad. But the undisciplined person does not do the things he wishes, for to be undisciplined is to act, because of appetite, contrary to what one believes to be best. Hence, it will turn out that the same person acts voluntarily and involuntarily at the same time. But that is impossible. |b10|
Furthermore, the disciplined person will act justly, for personal discipline is more of a virtue than the lack of discipline is, and virtue makes people more just. A person acts with discipline whenever he acts contrary to appetite and in accordance with rational calculation. Hence, if acting justly is voluntary, as acting unjustly is |b15| (for they both seem to be voluntary, and it must be the case that if one of them is voluntary, the other is too), but that which is contrary to appetite is involuntary, then the same person will at the same time do the same thing voluntarily and involuntarily.
The same account applies to temper too. For personal discipline and the lack thereof seem to concern temper just as they concern appetite. That which is contrary to temper is painful, and suppression is forced. |b20| Hence, if what is forced is involuntary, everything that is in accordance with temper would be voluntary. Heraclitus too seems to have temper’s strength in view when he says that keeping it in check is painful. “For it is hard,” he says, “to fight against temper; for it pays for victory at the cost of its life.” |b24| But if it is impossible for the same person to do the same thing voluntarily and involuntarily at the same time with respect to the same aspect of the situation, that which accords with wish will be more voluntary than that which accords with appetite or temper. Evidence for this is that we do many things voluntarily without anger or appetite.
Therefore, it remains to consider whether wishing and voluntariness are the same thing. But even this seems impossible. |b30| For we assume, and it seems true, that immorality makes people more unjust, and lack of personal discipline seems to be a kind of immorality. But if wishing and voluntariness are the same, then the opposite will follow. For no one wishes for things he believes to be bad, but he does things he believes to be bad whenever he becomes undisciplined. So if acting unjustly is voluntary, and the voluntary is what accords with wish, then whenever someone becomes undisciplined, |b35| he will no longer act unjustly but will be more just than before he became undisciplined. But that is impossible.
Chapter 8
It is evident, then, that voluntariness is not acting in accordance with desire, nor is acting contrary to desire involuntary. It is clear from the following considerations that voluntariness is not acting in accordance with deliberate choice either. That which is in accordance with wish has been shown not to be involuntary; |1224a1| rather, everything that is wished is also voluntary. (Only this has been shown: that it is possible to act voluntarily while also not wishing to act. But we do many things suddenly when wishing to do them, but no one deliberately chooses anything suddenly.)
If it was necessary that voluntariness be one of three things, |a5| either that which accords with desire, or with deliberate choice, or with thought, and it is not two of these alternatives, then the remaining alternative is that voluntariness lies in acting while thinking in a certain way. Taking the argument forward a little more, let us complete the definition of voluntariness and involuntariness. What is done by force and what is not done by force seem relevant to what we have said, |a10| for we say that what is forced is involuntary and that everything involuntary is forced. Hence, we should first consider what happens by force: what it is and how it relates to voluntariness and involuntariness.
When it comes to actions, it seems that what is forced and what is compelled, as well as force and compulsion, are opposite to voluntariness and persuasion. |a15| But in general we speak of the forced and of compulsion also in the case of inanimate objects, for we say that the stone is carried upwards and the fire is carried downwards by force and by being compelled. But whenever inanimate objects are carried along in accordance with their nature and their own internal impulse, they are not said to do so by force, though they are not said to be carried along voluntarily either. |a20| The opposite condition has no name, but whenever they are carried contrary to their natural impulse, we say that this happens by force. Similarly regarding living things, including animals, we see many things done and many things suffered by force whenever something from the outside moves them contrary to their own internal impulse. The starting point is simple in inanimate objects, but in living things it is complex, for desire and reasoning do not always harmonize. |a25| Hence, what is forced is simple in the case of the other animals, as it is with inanimate objects, since they do not have a conflict between reasoning and desire; they live by their desire. Both are present in a human being, at least at a certain age, the age at which we also attribute to them the ability to act. For we do not say that the child acts, or the wild animal, but the person already acting by means of rational calculation. |a30|
Now, it seems that everything forced is painful, and no one does anything by force and enjoys it. That is why the most controversy has to do with the disciplined person and the undisciplined person. For each of them acts while having contrary impulses within himself. Hence, the disciplined person, they say, drags himself away from the pleasant appetites by force, |a35| for he feels pain when pulling against the resisting desire. The undisciplined person goes contrary to reasoning by force, but he seems to be in less pain since appetite is for what is pleasant, and he enjoys following his appetite. Hence, because he is not in pain, the undisciplined person is more voluntary and not by force. But persuasion is set in opposition to force and compulsion, and the disciplined person goes for the things that he has been persuaded to go for. |1224b1| He proceeds not by force but voluntarily. Appetite, on the other hand, leads not by persuading, for it does not share in reasoning.
It has been said that these people alone seem to do things by force and involuntarily. The reason for this is a certain similarity to the forced movement that we attribute to inanimate objects. |b5| However, if one adds what was included in the earlier definition, the issue is resolved. For whenever something external to an object moves it or stops it contrary to the object’s internal impulse, we say that the object moves or is stopped by force, but whenever this is does not happen, it is not moved or stopped by force. But the impulse internal to the disciplined person and the undisciplined person drives them, |b10| for both have an internal impulse. Hence, neither of them would be acting by force, but each would be acting voluntarily because of these impulses, nor would either person be compelled. For we call “compulsion” the starting point that comes from outside the person that either hinders or moves him contrary to his impulse, as if someone were to grab another person’s hand and strike a third person against both the wish and the appetite of the hand’s owner. But whenever the starting point comes from within the person, the hindrance or movement is not by force. |b15|
Furthermore, both pleasure and pain are inside both the disciplined person and the undisciplined person, for the person who maintains personal discipline feels pain when he acts contrary to his appetite, and he takes pleasure from the hope that he will be benefitted later on, or even from the fact that he, being healthy, is benefitted already. The undisciplined person takes pleasure in getting the object of his appetite when he lacks personal discipline, |b20| but he is distressed at the pain he expects, for he believes that he is doing something bad. Hence, there is some reason for saying that each of them is doing something by force and that, whether from desire or from rational calculation, each of them acts involuntarily sometimes, for desire and rational calculation, having been separated from each other, are driven back by each other. And so people transfer involuntariness to the whole soul whenever they see something of that sort among the soul’s parts. |b26| In the case of the parts, it is possible to say this; but the whole soul, whether the disciplined person’s or the undisciplined person’s, acts voluntarily. Neither the disciplined person nor the undisciplined person acts by force. Rather, something among their parts does, since we have both <desire and rational calculation> by nature.
For reasoning is by nature among the starting points <of action> in that reasoning will be present in us if our development is allowed to proceed and is not impaired. |b30| Appetite is too in that it is present in us and follows immediately from the hour of birth. Roughly speaking, by these two marks we define what is by nature, that is, by whatever arises for everyone immediately after being born, and whatever comes to be for us when our development is allowed to go straight ahead, for example, gray hair, old age, and other such things. |b35| Hence, each of the two people is not acting in accordance with nature <in one respect>, but each of them is acting in accordance with nature in an absolute sense, just not in accordance with the same nature.
These, then, are the problems concerning the undisciplined person and the disciplined person that have to do with whether one or both of them act by force, with the result that they do not act voluntarily, or act by force and voluntarily at the same time; and if what is by force is involuntary, they act voluntarily and involuntarily at the same time. |1225a1| From what has been said it is more or less clear to us how these problems should be addressed.
When reasoning and desire are not in conflict, people are said to act by force and to be compelled in another way. This happens when people do what they understand to be both painful and base, |a5| yet if they do not do it, they will receive beatings, imprisonment, or death. For people say that they do these things when compelled. Or is this not so, and is it rather that everyone does this very thing voluntarily? For it is possible not to do it and to submit to the suffering instead.
Furthermore, someone might say that some of these cases are voluntary, but others are not. For in all cases where it is up to oneself whether something happens or not, including cases where one does things that one does not wish to do, one acts voluntarily and not by force. |a11| But in cases where it is not up to oneself whether something happens or not, one acts by force in a certain way, but not by force absolutely, since one does not deliberately choose the thing that one does, but that for the sake of which one does it: there is a certain distinction to be made in these items too. For if, when feeling around blind-folded, a person kills in order that someone not grab hold of him, |a15| it would be ridiculous if one were to say that he acted by force and was compelled. Rather, it must that he will suffer something worse and more painful if he does not do the thing. For being thus compelled he will act, though not by force or, at any rate, not by nature, whenever he does something bad for the sake of something good or for the sake of escaping from a worse evil, and certainly involuntarily, for these things were not up to him.
That is why many people hold that sexual desire too is involuntary, |a20| as well as some tempers and natural conditions, since these things are strong and go beyond our nature. We have sympathy for their victims as these things are naturally capable of overpowering our nature by force. One would seem to be acting by force and involuntarily more when trying to avoid intense pain than when trying to avoid slight pain, and in general when trying to avoid pain than when seeking enjoyment. |a25| For what is up to oneself, which is what everything comes down to, is what one’s nature is able to bear; what it is unable to bear and is not from one’s natural desire or rational calculation is not up to oneself. That is why, with respect to people who are divinely inspired and prophesying, although they are producing a work of thought, we nevertheless say that it was not up to them to say what they said or do what they did. |a30| But neither was it due to appetite, of course. Hence, certain thoughts and emotions, or actions in accordance with such thoughts and rational calculations, are not up to us. Rather, as Philolaus said, some reasonings are stronger than we are.
Hence, if it was necessary to investigate voluntariness and involuntariness, and their relation to what is by force, let the distinction be drawn in this way. |a35| For those who interfere the most with <understanding> voluntariness <are those who say> that people are acting by force but voluntarily.
Chapter 9
Since this is the end, and voluntariness has been defined neither by desire nor by deliberate choice, it remains, then, to define what is in accordance with thought. |1225b1| Now, voluntariness seems opposite to involuntariness and seems to be knowledge of whom one acts upon, what one acts with, or that for the sake of which one acts (for sometimes one knows that this is one’s father, but one is not trying to kill him but to save him, as in the case of Pelias’s daughters; or in the case of what one acts with, one knows that this is a drink, but one thinks that it is a love potion and wine, but in fact it is hemlock), |b5| and voluntariness seems opposite to being ignorant of whom one acts upon, what one acts with, and what one is doing, due to ignorance and not coincidentally. What is due to ignorance, of what and with what and upon whom, is involuntary. Therefore, the opposite is voluntary.
Anything that a person does that is up to him not to do, and that he does by means of his own agency and not when ignorant, must be voluntary, and voluntariness is this. |b10| Everything that a person does when ignorant and because of being ignorant is involuntary. But since knowing and understanding are of two kinds—possessing knowledge and using knowledge—the person who possesses knowledge but is not using it could be said to be justly ignorant in some circumstances but not in others, for example, if he is not using his knowledge due to negligence. Similarly, someone who does not even possess knowledge would be blamed if the knowledge that he does not have was easy or necessary to obtain and his failure to have it is due to negligence, pleasure, or pain. |b16| Let these points be added to our definition, then.
[More chapters are forthcoming.]