< Back to Book 3, Part 1, Commentary
We find ourselves at 1111a.20 with the discussion of voluntary and involuntary acts continuing. Aristotle summarizes as "An involuntary action being one done under compulsion or through ignorance, a voluntary act would seem to be an act of which the origin lies in the agent, who knows the particular circumstances in which he is acting."
That seems fairly straightforward, but Aristotle can't resist tying himself up in knots all over again. He talks about whether we can say that acts committed through anger or desire (διὰ θυμὸν ἢ ἐπιθυμίαν) are always involuntary. We're familiar with ἐπιθυμίαν (epithymian "desire"), but the other word deserves a quick digression.
I found it interesting that the Greek for "anger" in this passage is θυμός (thymos) which does mean "anger" but has a much richer connotation in the original language. In fact, the Oxford Classical Dictionary has an entire article on the meanings of the word. That article also calls attention to the derivatives of that word, including epithymian itself. For example, "when one wants to drink, but believes that it is better not to do so, a reasoning part (logos, to logistikon) is opposed to appetite (epithymia, to epithymētikon)." This is again why I insist it is so important to look at the original Greek in addition to multiple translations when it comes to understanding texts from the ancient world.
In light of this, I admit I'm intrigued by Aristotle's question: "Are none of our actions that are caused by desire or anger voluntary, or are the noble ones voluntary and the base involuntary?" (1111a.23) Reading on, I'm curious to see his answer. At least he says it's absurb to think this, but, oh wait, there's more. He dances around the subject, and asks, "what difference is there in respect of their involuntary character between wrong acts committed deliberately and wrong acts done in anger? Both are to be avoided." Plus, he goes on to say that actions done through "irrational feelings" (τὰ ἄλογα πάθη, ta aloga pathe > a+loga (as in logismos/"logic, rational")) are as much a part of us as as reason itself so it would be strange to class actions done through anger or desire as "involuntary." Again, it seems to me that Aristotle is trying to downplay or denigrate the feelings/pathe, but he's also saying acts done due to the feelings/emotions/pathe are done voluntarily. Egads, make up your mind!
He begins his next section with "having defined voluntary and involuntary action." LOL! Have we? Really? Have we, Aristotle?? Well, I guess we have. Moving on then...
Now, we get into a section that I found genuinely interesting. In Epicureanism, we often speak of "choice and avoidance" (or, as my preference, "choice and rejection") which are, to use the title of Epicurus's book, Περὶ αἱρέσεων καὶ φυγῶν ("Concerning choice and 'fleeing'") Peri haireseon kai phygon. Remember that haireseon "choice" is the basis for the word "heresy" as in "You will be punished for making the WRONG choice! In fact, you have no choice. THIS is the faith that you will follow!" ugh... But I digress.
Back to Aristotle. So, here he talks about what constitutes "choice" and what are actions people feel are synonyms or components of that word "choice." His main reason for examinging "choice" is that, according to Aristotle, choice is intimately connected with virtue. He maintains our choices are a better "test of character" than our actions themselves.
"Choice is manifestly a voluntary act. But the two terms are not synonymous, the latter being the wider. Children and the lower animals as well as men are capable of voluntary action, but not of choice. Also sudden acts may be termed voluntary, but they cannot be said to be done by choice." (1111b.2)
So, he's still maintaining that "children and lower animals" can perform voluntary actions but cannot make choices on what actions to perform. That just seems counter-intuitive to me, but it all depends - I suppose - on how you *define* choice, voluntary, etc. That's why Aristotle likes to be nitpicky and hair-splitting. It allows him to define his terms on ... his terms.
The word Aristotle uses for "choice" or "choosing" is προαίρεσις proairesis which is obviously connected to αἱρέσεων haireseon. Aristotle's word gets at choosing one thing before another. Now, here's where it gets interesting, because Aristotle says "Some identify Choice with Desire, or Passion, or Wish, or some form of Opinion. These views however appear to be mistaken." I want to make sure we know the words used by Aristotle and not in translation (with links to LSJ):
Choice/Choosing προαίρεσις
Desire (Ostwald uses "Appetite") ἐπιθυμία (epithymia) "desire, yearning; longing after a thing, desire of or for it"
Passion θυμός (thymos ... look familiar?) "feeling and thought, esp. of strong feeling and passion" (check out the LSJ definitions. It's a complex word with a lot of connotations.)
Wish βούλησιν (boulesin) "wish, desire, hope for something"
Some form of Opinion τινα δόξαν (tina doxan) Note that this is the same doxan as used in Epicurus's Kyriai Doxai "Principal Doctrines, Primary Beliefs, Key Opinions, Key Maxims, etc."
So, Aristotle goes to great lengths to show that *choice* is NOT the same as desire, passion, wish, or "some form of opinion." It's worth reading his arguments in full at the beginning of section 1111b. He does say that "The irrational animals do not exercise choice, but they do feel desire, and also passion." This is important because up through the early 20th century, scientists insisted that animals didn't have feelings or emotions or anything like any human capacity. Aristotle, writing well over two thousand years ago, at least gave animals desires and passions!
As for wish, he maintains that we can wish for something impossible to have (ex., immortality) but we can't choose something impossible to have. We can only choose things under our control.
As for doxai, "we distinguish opinion by its truth or falsehood, not by its being good or bad, but choice is distinguished rather as being good or bad." Here is where Epicurus would beg to differ. Choices are distinguished as "good" or "bad" (and that's shaky ground even) if they lead to pleasure or pain in the long term. We may choose a painful outcome in the short term if it leads to pleasure overall. Epicurus, it seems to me, doesn't get hung up on the morality of choices. It's their results that are important!
Later, after some hoop-jumping and hair-splitting, we get to what Aristotle thinks choice is composed of. In 1112a, he concludes that:
Choice is a voluntary action.
Choice is "preceded by deliberation."
And, therefore, choice "involves reasoning and some process of thought."
And here is where he says choice προαίρεσις means "something chosen before other things."
He then begins to pick apart what "deliberation" βουλεύονται (bouleuontai) means! At its most basic, it means "take counsel, deliberate; plan, devise." It is obviously related to wish βούλησιν (boulesin) but is distinct in meaning and connotation. Some of Aristotle's big questions are: Do we really deliberate about everything? Are all things able to be deliberated about? Is it impossible to deliberate about some things?
Well, he first establishes that to deliberate you have to be rational and sensible and can't be a ἠλίθιος (helithios) or μαινόμενος (mainomenos). These are two fun words. An helithios is silly, idle, vain, a fool, but it can also mean "without sense" as in dead. Rackham translates mainomenos as "madman" but the LSJ also gives "to be in a rage, furious; mad with wine; and even 'one in the throes of a Bacchic frenzy,' μαινόμενος Διώνυσος."
Aristotle maintains that we don't deliberate about:
things eternal, such as the order of the universe
the incommensurability of the diagonal and the side, of a square
things that change but follow a regular process
irregular occurrences, such as droughts and rains
the results of chance, such as finding a hidden treasure
matters fully ascertained and completely formulated as sciences (ex., orthography, for we have no uncertainty as to how a word ought to be spelt) (Note: I love that he says "fully ascertained" and "completely." He's pretty sure of himself, and then uses something like how words are spelled as his example.)
He does say "we deliberate more about the *arts* than about the sciences, because we are more uncertain about them." Rackham notes that *arts* in some texts is *more about our opinions* which might make more sense in that Aristotle doesn't always make hard distinctions between arts and sciences.
He maintains that we don't deliberate about these because "none of them can be effected by our agency." So, it appears we could maybe investigate them but not deliberate about them??
"We deliberate about things that are in our control and are attainable by action (which are in fact the only things that still remain to be considered; for Nature, Necessity, and Chance, with the addition of Intelligence and human agency generally, exhaust the generally accepted list of causes)."
He continues deliberating about deliberation for quite some time up until section 1112b.20, at which point he says "Let this serve as a description in outline of Choice, and of the nature of its objects, and the fact that it deals with means to ends."
Then he turns his attention to what it means to wish.
Since Book 3 is very long, we'll pause here and pick up on wishes in the next section...