Nicomachean Ethics · Chapter
The Will explained
This chapter explores the nature of voluntary and involuntary actions, arguing that virtue and vice are both voluntary because individuals are responsible for their character and choices.
What happens
This chapter explores the nature of voluntary and involuntary actions, arguing that virtue and vice are both voluntary because individuals are responsible for their character and choices. It discusses the role of compulsion, ignorance, and deliberation in moral responsibility, emphasizing that the good man correctly discerns the true end, while pleasure often misleads people. The chapter also examines mixed actions, such as those done under duress, and concludes that habits are formed through repeated acts, making character a matter of personal responsibility.
Themes in this chapter
Virtue and Character
The chapter argues that virtues and vices are voluntary habits formed through repeated actions, emphasizing personal responsibility for character.
Practical Wisdom and Reason
Discusses how the good man uses right reason to discern the true end, while pleasure misleads others, highlighting the role of practical wisdom in moral choice.
Pleasure and Pain
Examines how pleasure often appears good when it is not, leading people to choose the pleasant as good and shun pain as evil, influencing voluntary action.
Characters to notice
- Aristotle
Primary author and philosopher presenting the analysis of voluntary action, virtue, and vice.
- Euripides
Referenced for the example of Alcmaeon being compelled to kill his mother, used to discuss the limits of compulsion.
- Alcmaeon
Mentioned as a character in Euripides' play who was compelled to kill his mother, illustrating a controversial case of compulsion.
Key passages
“both alike, for the good man as for the bad, and both alike refer all their acts of whatever kind to it.”
Both the good and the bad person direct all their actions toward what they perceive as their end.
Highlights the universal tendency to act toward an end, regardless of moral character.
“If then, as is generally allowed, the virtues are voluntary (for we do, in fact, in some way help to make our character, and, by being of a certain character, give a certain complexion to our idea of the end), the vices also must be voluntary; for all this applies equally to them.”
Since virtues are voluntary because we contribute to forming our character, vices must also be voluntary for the same reason.
Central argument for the voluntary nature of both virtue and vice.
“But our particular acts are not voluntary in the same sense as our habits: for we are masters of our acts from beginning to end when we know the particular circumstances; but we are masters of the beginnings only of our habits or characters, while their growth by gradual steps is imperceptible, like the growth of disease.”
Individual acts are fully voluntary when we are aware of the circumstances, but habits develop gradually and imperceptibly, though we control their initial formation.
Distinguishes between the voluntariness of specific actions and the gradual formation of character.
“What misleads people seems to be in most cases pleasure; it seems to be a good thing, even when it is not. So they choose what is pleasant as good, and shun pain as evil.”
Pleasure often deceives people into thinking it is good when it is not, leading them to pursue pleasure and avoid pain as if they were good and evil.
Explains the common error in moral judgment caused by pleasure.
“For it is repeated acts of a particular kind that give a man a particular character.”
A person's character is formed by repeatedly performing certain types of actions.
Key principle linking habitual action to the development of moral character.