Ethics

Having thus drawn out the distinction between voluntary and involuntary action our next step is to examine into the nature of Moral Choice, because this seems most intimately connected with Virtue and to be a more decisive test of moral character than a man’s acts are.

Now Moral Choice is plainly voluntary, but the two are not co-extensive, voluntary being the more comprehensive term; for first, children and all other animals share in voluntary action but not in Moral Choice; and next, sudden actions we call voluntary but do not ascribe them to Moral Choice.

Nor do they appear to be right who say it is lust or anger, or wish, or opinion of a certain kind; because, in the first place, Moral Choice is not shared by the irrational animals while Lust and Anger are.  Next; the man who fails of self-control acts from Lust but not from Moral Choice; the man of self-control, on the contrary, from Moral Choice, not from Lust.  Again:  whereas Lust is frequently opposed to Moral Choice, Lust is not to Lust.

Lastly:  the object-matter of Lust is the pleasant and the painful, but of Moral Choice neither the one nor the other.  Still less can it be Anger, because actions done from Anger are thought generally to be least of all consequent on Moral Choice.

Nor is it Wish either, though appearing closely connected with it; because, in the first place, Moral Choice has not for its objects impossibilities, and if a man were to say he chose them he would be thought to be a fool; but Wish may have impossible things for its objects, immortality for instance.

Wish again may be exercised on things in the accomplishment of which one’s self could have nothing to do, as the success of any particular actor or athlete; but no man chooses things of this nature, only such as he believes he may himself be instrumental in procuring.

Further:  Wish has for its object the End rather, but Moral Choice the means to the End; for instance, we wish to be healthy but we choose the means which will make us so; or happiness again we wish for, and commonly say so, but to say we choose is not an appropriate term, because, in short, the province of Moral Choice seems to be those things which are in our own power.

Neither can it be Opinion; for Opinion is thought to be unlimited in its range of objects, and to be exercised as well upon things eternal and impossible as on those which are in our own power:  again, Opinion is logically divided into true and false, not into good and bad as Moral Choice is.

However, nobody perhaps maintains its identity with Opinion simply; but it is not the same with opinion of any kind, because by choosing good and bad things we are constituted of a certain character, but by having opinions on them we are not.

Again, we choose to take or avoid, and so on, but we opine what a thing is, or for what it is serviceable, or how; but we do not opine to take or avoid.

Further, Moral Choice is commended rather for having a right object than for being judicious, but Opinion for being formed in accordance with truth.

Again, we choose such things as we pretty well know to be good, but we form opinions respecting such as we do not know at all.

And it is not thought that choosing and opining best always go together, but that some opine the better course and yet by reason of viciousness choose not the things which they should.

It may be urged, that Opinion always precedes or accompanies Moral Choice; be it so, this makes no difference, for this is not the point in question, but whether Moral Choice is the same as Opinion of a certain kind.

Since then it is none of the aforementioned things, what is it, or how is it characterised?  Voluntary it plainly is, but not all voluntary action is an object of Moral Choice.  May we not say then, it is “that voluntary which has passed through a stage of previous deliberation?” because Moral Choice is attended with reasoning and intellectual process.  The etymology of its Greek name seems to give a hint of it, being when analysed “chosen in preference to somewhat else.”