The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

What is done through ignorance is always " not- 13 voluntary," but is " involuntary " * when the agent is pained afterwards and sorry when he finds what he has done.f For when a man, who has done something through ignorance, is not vexed at what he has done, you cannot indeed say that he did it voluntarily, as he did not know what he was doing, but neither can you say that he did it involuntarily or unwillingly, since he is not sorry.

A man who has acted through ignorance, then, if he is sorry afterwards, is held to have done the deed involuntarily or unwillingly ; if he is not sorry afterwards we may say (to mark the distinction) he did the deed " not- voluntarily ; " for, as the case is different, it is better to have a distinct name.

Acting through ignorance, however, seems to be 14 different from acting in ignorance. For instance, when a man is drunk or in a rage he is not thought

* i.e. not merely " not-willed," but done " unwillingly," or " against the agent's will." Unfortunately our usage recognizes no such distinction between "not-voluntary" and "involuntary."

t «V ixirafxeKila, lit. " when the act involves change of mind." This, under the circumstances, can only mean that the agent who willed the act, not seeing the true nature of it at the time, is sorry afterwards, when he comes to see what he has done.

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act through ignorance, but through intoxication or , and yet not knowingly, but in ignorance. Every vicious man, indeed, is ignorant of* what ought to be done and what ought not to be done, and I it is this kind of error that makes men unjust and

15 bad generally. But the term " involuntary " is not properly applied to cases in which a man is ignorant f what is fitting."!* The ignorance that makes an act involuntary is not this ignorance of the principles which should determine preference (this constitutes vice), — ^not, I say, this ignorance of the universal (for we blame a man for this), but ignorance of the particular occasion and circumstances of the act.

16 These are the grounds of pity and pardon ; for he who is ignorant of any of these particulars acts involimtarily.

It may be as well, then, to specify what these particulars are, and how many. They are — first, the doer ; secondly, the deed ; and, thirdly, the circumtance or occasion of it; sometimes also that wherewith {e.g. the instrument with which) it is done, and that for the sake of which it is done {e.g. for protection), and the way in which it is done {e.g. jently or violently), i , Now, a man cannot (unless he be mad) be igno-

* i.e. forms a wrong judgment ; cf. rj fioxOripia Staii/fvSfodai -woiti irepl TCLs TTpcucrucii^ «PX»^> ^^- ^2, 10 : not that the vicious man does not know that such a course is condemned by society, but he does not assent to society's rules — adopts other maxims contrary to them.

■j" rh ffvfixpfpov, what conduces to a given end, expedient. The meaning of the term varies with the end in view : here the end in view is the supreme end, happiness : t^ trvfitpfpov, then, means here the rule of conduct to which, in a given case, the agent must conform in order to realize this end ; cf. 11. 2, 3.

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rant of all these particulars ; for instance, he evidently cannot be ignorant of the doer : for how can he not know himself?

But a man may be ignorant of what he is doing ; e.g. a man who has said something will sometimes plead that the words escaped him unawares, or that he did not know that the subject was forbidden (as ^schylus pleaded in the case of the Mysteries) ; or a man might plead that when he discharged the weapon he only intended to show the working of it, as the prisoner did in the catapult case. Again, a man might mistake his son for an enemy, as Merope * did, or a sharp spear for one with a button, or a heavy stone for a pumice-stone. Again, one might kill a man with a blow intended to save him, or strike a serious blow when one only wished to show how a blow should be delivered (as boxers do when they spar with open hands).

Ignorance, then, being possible with regard to all li these circumstances, he who is ignorant of any of them is held to have acted involuntarily, and especially when he is ignorant of the most important particulars, which are generally taken to be the occasion and the result.f