Nicomachean Ethics

Since virtue is concerned with passions and actions, and praise and blame are bestowed on voluntary actions, while pardon, and sometimes even pity, are bestowed on involuntary ones, it is perhaps necessary for those who examine virtue to define the voluntary and the involuntary, and it is also useful for legislators with a view to honors and punishments. Those things seem to be involuntary which take place under compulsion or through ignorance. That is compulsory of which the moving principle is from without, being of such a character that the agent or the person acted upon contributes nothing to it; for example, if a wind should carry one somewhere, or men who have us in their power. But as for the things that are done through fear of greater evils or for some noble object—for instance, if a tyrant were to order one to do something base, having one’s parents and children in his power, so that if one did it they would be saved, but if not they would die—it is a matter of dispute whether they are involuntary or voluntary. Something of this sort happens also in the case of casting goods overboard in storms; for abstractly no one throws them away voluntarily, but for the safety of oneself and the others, any sensible person does so. Such actions, then, are mixed, but they are more like voluntary ones; for they are worthy of choice at the time when they are done, and the end of an action is relative to the occasion. Therefore, the voluntary and the involuntary must be spoken of with reference to the time of action. And he acts voluntarily; for the principle of moving the instrumental parts in such actions is in himself. And those things of which the principle is in himself, it is also in his power to do or not to do. Such actions, then, are voluntary, though abstractly they are perhaps involuntary; for no one would choose any of such things for its own sake. For such actions, people are sometimes even praised, when they endure something base or painful for the sake of great and noble objects; but if the reverse, they are blamed, for to endure the basest things for nothing noble or moderate is the mark of a base person. On some actions praise is not bestowed, but pardon is granted, when one does what one ought not to do on account of such things as overstrain human nature and which no one could endure. But there are some things, perhaps, which one cannot be compelled to do, but rather one must die, suffering the most terrible things; for the reasons that compelled Euripides’ Alcmaeon to murder his mother appear ridiculous. It is difficult sometimes to distinguish what is to be chosen in place of what, and what is to be endured in place of what, and still more difficult to abide by our decisions; for generally the expectations are painful and the things one is compelled to do are base, whence praise and blame are bestowed on those who are compelled or not. What kinds of things, then, are to be called compulsory? Shall we say that, abstractly, they are so whenever the cause is in external things and the agent contributes nothing? But those things which are in themselves involuntary, but now and in return for these objects worthy of choice, and whose principle is in the agent, are in themselves involuntary, but now and in return for these objects voluntary. They are, however, more like voluntary actions; for actions lie among particulars, and these are voluntary. But what kinds of things are to be chosen in place of what, it is not easy to state; for there are many differences among particulars. But if anyone should say that pleasant and noble things are compulsory (for they constrain us, being external), everything would be compulsory for him; for it is for the sake of these that everyone does everything. Moreover, those who act under compulsion and involuntarily do so with pain, but those who act for the sake of the pleasant and the noble do so with pleasure. It is ridiculous, then, to blame external things rather than oneself as being easily caught by such things, and to attribute the noble actions to oneself, but the base ones to pleasant things. The compulsory, then, seems to be that of which the principle is from without, the person compelled contributing nothing.