The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

anger, or that we do the noble acts voluntarily and the
base acts involuntarily? Is not this absurd, when one and the same
thing is the cause? But it would surely be odd to describe as
involuntary the things one ought to desire; and we ought both to be
angry at certain things and to have an appetite for certain things,
e.g. for health and for learning. Also what is involuntary is
thought to be painful, but what is in accordance with appetite is
thought to be pleasant. Again, what is the difference in respect of
involuntariness between errors committed upon calculation and those
committed in anger? Both are to be avoided, but the irrational
passions are thought not less human than reason is, and therefore
also the actions which proceed from anger or appetite are the man’s
actions. It would be odd, then, to treat them as involuntary.
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2
    Both the voluntary and the involuntary having been delimited, we
must next discuss choice; for it is thought to be most closely
bound up with virtue and to discriminate characters better than
actions do.
    Choice, then, seems to be voluntary, but not the same thing as
the voluntary; the latter extends more widely. For both children
and the lower animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice,
and acts done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary,
but not as chosen.
    Those who say it is appetite or anger or wish or a kind of
opinion do not seem to be right. For choice is not common to
irrational creatures as well, but appetite and anger are. Again,
the incontinent man acts with appetite, but not with choice; while
the continent man on the contrary acts with choice, but not with
appetite. Again, appetite is contrary to choice, but not appetite
to appetite. Again, appetite relates to the pleasant and the
painful, choice neither to the painful nor to the pleasant.
    Still less is it anger; for acts due to anger are thought to be
less than any others objects of choice.
    But neither is it wish, though it seems near to it; for choice
cannot relate to impossibles, and if any one said he chose them he
would be thought silly; but there may be a wish even for
impossibles, e.g. for immortality. And wish may relate to things
that could in no way be brought about by one’s own efforts, e.g.
that a particular actor or athlete should win in a competition; but
no one chooses such things, but only the things that he thinks
could be brought about by his own efforts. Again, wish relates
rather to the end, choice to the means; for instance, we wish to be
healthy, but we choose the acts which will make us healthy, and we
wish to be happy and say we do, but we cannot well say we choose to
be so; for, in general, choice seems to relate to the things that
are in our own power.
    For this reason, too, it cannot be opinion; for opinion is
thought to relate to all kinds of things, no less to eternal things
and impossible things than to things in our own power; and it is
distinguished by its falsity or truth, not by its badness or
goodness, while choice is distinguished rather by these.
    Now with opinion in general perhaps no one even says it is
identical. But it is not identical even with any kind of opinion;
for by choosing what is good or bad we are men of a certain
character, which we are not by holding certain opinions. And we
choose to get or avoid something good or bad, but we have opinions
about what a thing is or whom it is good for or how it is good for
him; we can hardly be said to opine to get or avoid anything. And
choice is praised for being related to the right object rather than
for being rightly related to it, opinion for being truly related to
its object. And we choose what we best know to be good, but we
opine what we do not quite know; and it is not the same people that
are thought to make the best choices and to have the best opinions,
but some are thought to have fairly good opinions, but by reason of
vice to choose what they should not. If opinion precedes choice or
accompanies it, that makes no difference; for it is not this that
we are considering, but whether it is identical with some kind of
opinion.
    What, then, or what kind of thing is it, since it is none of the
things we have mentioned? It seems to be voluntary, but not all
that is voluntary to be an object of choice. Is it, then, what has
been decided on by previous deliberation? At any rate choice
involves a rational principle and thought. Even the name seems to
suggest that it is