|
The voluntary implies a certain definite action, and so-called
involuntariness also implies a certain definite action. Further, many
attribute true involuntariness not only to suffering, but even to
action. We must then understand action to be rational energy.
Actions are followed by praise or blame, and some of them are
accompanied with pleasure and others with pain; some are to be desired
by the actor, others are to be shunned: further, of those that are
desirable, some are always so, others only at some particular time.
And so it is also with those that are to be shunned. Again, some
actions enlist pity and are pardonable, others are hateful and deserve
punishment. Voluntariness, then, is assuredly followed by praise or
blame, and renders the action pleasurable and desirable to the actor,
either for all time or for the moment of its performance.
Involuntariness, on the other
hand, brings merited pity or pardon in its train, and renders the act
painful and undesirable to the doer, and makes him leave it in a state
of incompleteness even though force is brought to bear upon him.
Further, what is involuntary, depends in part on force and in part on
ignorance. It depends on force when the creative beginning in cause is
from without, that is to say, when one is forced by another without
being at all persuaded, or when one does not contribute to the act on
one's own impulse, or does not co-operate at all, or do on one's
own account that which is exacted by force. Thus we may give this
definition: "An involuntary act is one in which the beginning is from
without, and where one does not contribute at all on one's own impulse
to that which one is force" And by beginning we mean the creative
cause. All involuntary act depends, on the other hand, on
ignorance, when one is not the cause of the ignorance one's self, but
events just so happen. For, if one commits murder while drunk, it is
an act of ignorance, but yet not involuntary: for one was one's self
responsible for the cause of the ignorance, that is to say, the
drunkenness. But if while shooting at the customary range one slew
one's father who happened to be passing by, this would be termed an
ignorant and involuntary act.
As, then, that which is involuntary is in two parts, one depending
on force, the other on ignorance, that which is voluntary is the
opposite of both. For that which is voluntary is the result neither of
force nor of ignorance. A voluntary act, then, is one of which the
beginning or cause originates in an actor, who knows each individual
circumstance through which and in which the action takes place. By
"individual" is meant what the rhetoricians call circumstantial
elements: for instance, the actor, the sufferer, the action
(perchance a murder), the instrument, the place, the time, the
manner, the reason of the action.
Notice that there are certain things that occupy a place intermediate
between what is voluntary and what is involuntary. Although they are
unpleasant and painful we welcome them as the escape from a still
greater trouble; for instance, to escape shipwreck we cast the cargo
overboard.
Notice also that children and irrational creatures perform voluntary
actions, but these do not involve the exercise of choice: further,
all our actions that are done in anger and without previous deliberation
are voluntary actions, but do not in the least involve free choice.
Also, if a friend suddenly appears on the scene, or if one
unexpectedly lights on a treasure, so far as we are concerned it is
quite voluntary, but there is no question of choice in the matter.
For all these things are voluntary, because we desire pleasure from
them, but they do not by any means imply choice, because they are not
the result of deliberation. And deliberation must assuredly precede
choice, as we have said above.
|
|
