Peters heads these chapters "THE WILL", and his text says that what is chosen is willed, but "what is willed is not always" chosen. The Greek behind willed is hekousion, what is done of one's own accord. The adjective is fair, since the ordinary Greek for a willing agent is hekōn, but the heading and the noun turn it into a faculty: a page earlier, children and other animals are said to have will, where Aristotle says only that they share in the voluntary. Boulēsis, wishing for an end, Peters renders wish; prohairesis, choice or purpose. Aristotle's test is whether an act originates in an agent who knows its particulars. The English sets behind that test a power of willing which the Greek never names.
The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)
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Again, we are more properly said to wish the end, to choose the means ; e.g. we wish to be healthy, but we choose what will make us healthy : we ^ash to be happy, and confess the wish, but it would not be correct to say we purpose or deliberately choose to be happy ; for we may say roundly that purpose or choice deals with what is in our power.
Nor can it be opinion; for, in the first place, anything may be matter of opinion — what is unalterable and impossible no less than what is in I >ur power ; and, in the second place, we distinguish opinion according as it is true or false, not according as it is good or bad, as we do with purpose or choice.
We may say, then, that purpose is not the same as opinion in general; nor, indeed, does any one maintain this.
But, further, it is not identical with a particular kind of opinion. For our choice of good or evil
68 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF AEISTOTLE. [Bk. III.
makes us morally good or bad, holding certain opinions does not.
Again, we choose to take this or to avoid it, and 12 so on ; we opine what its nature is, or what it is good for, or in what way ; but we cannot opine to take or to avoid.
Again, we commend a purpose for its rightness 13 rather than its correctness, an opinion for its truth.
Again, we choose a thing when we know well that it is good ; we may have an opinion about a thing of which we know nothing.
Again, it seems that those who are best at choosing 14 are not always the best at forming opinions, but that some who have an excellent judgment fail, through depravity, to choose what they ought.
It may be said that choice or purpose must be 15 preceded or accompanied by an opinion or judgment ; but this makes no difference : our question is not that, but whether they are identical.
What, then, is choice or purpose, since it is none 16 of these ?
It seems, as we said, that what is chosen or purposed is willed, but that what is willed is not always chosen or purposed.
The required differentia, I think, is " after previous 17 deliberation." For choice or purpose implies calculation and reasoning. The name itself, too, seems to indicate this, implying that something is chosen before or in preference to other things.* wedeiiberaie 3. Now, as to deliberation, do we deliberate about2, 12-3, 7] THE WILL. 69 everything, and may anything whatever be matter m wkai »« for deliberation, or are there some things about which on end*, but deliberation is impossible ?
* irpoalpfcris, lit. " choosing before." Our " preference " exactly corresponds here, but unfortunately cannot always be employed.
By "matter for deliberation" we should understand, I think, not what a fool or a maniac, but what a rational being would deliberate about.
Now, no one deliberates about eternal or unalterable things, e.g. the system of the heavenly bodies, or the incommensurability of the side and the diagonal of a square.
Again, no one deliberates about things which change, but always change in the same way (whether the cause of change be necessity, or nature, or any other agency), e.g. the solstices and the sunrise ; * nor about things that are quite in-egular, like drought and wet; nor about matters of chance, like the finding of a treasure.
Again, even human affairs are not always matter of deliberation ; e.g. what would be the best constitution for Scythia is a question that no Spartan would deliberate about.
The reason why we do not deliberate about these thinofs is that none of them are things that we can ourselves effect.
But the things that we do deliberate about are matters of conduct that are within our control And these are the only things that remain; for besides nature and necessity and chance, the only remaining cause of change is reason and human agency in general Though we must add that men severally deKberate about what they can themselves do.
* These are instances of " necessity ; " a tree grows bj " nature,"' i.e. by its own natural powers.
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A further limitation is that where there is exact 8 and absolute knowledge, there is no room for deliberation; e.g. writing: for there is no doubt how the letters should be formed.