The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

are deliberate, but all deliberate acts are
conscious-no one is ignorant of what he deliberately intends.) The
causes of our deliberately intending harmful and wicked acts
contrary to law are (1) vice, (2) lack of self-control. For the
wrongs a man does to others will correspond to the bad quality or
qualities that he himself possesses. Thus it is the mean man who
will wrong others about money, the profligate in matters of
physical pleasure, the effeminate in matters of comfort, and the
coward where danger is concerned-his terror makes him abandon those
who are involved in the same danger. The ambitious man does wrong
for sake of honour, the quick-tempered from anger, the lover of
victory for the sake of victory, the embittered man for the sake of
revenge, the stupid man because he has misguided notions of right
and wrong, the shameless man because he does not mind what people
think of him; and so with the rest-any wrong that any one does to
others corresponds to his particular faults of character.
    However, this subject has already been cleared up in part in our
discussion of the virtues and will be further explained later when
we treat of the emotions. We have now to consider the motives and
states of mind of wrongdoers, and to whom they do wrong.
    Let us first decide what sort of things people are trying to get
or avoid when they set about doing wrong to others. For it is plain
that the prosecutor must consider, out of all the aims that can
ever induce us to do wrong to our neighbours, how many, and which,
affect his adversary; while the defendant must consider how many,
and which, do not affect him. Now every action of every person
either is or is not due to that person himself. Of those not due to
himself some are due to chance, the others to necessity; of these
latter, again, some are due to compulsion, the others to nature.
Consequently all actions that are not due to a man himself are due
either to chance or to nature or to compulsion. All actions that
are due to a man himself and caused by himself are due either to
habit or to rational or irrational craving. Rational craving is a
craving for good, i.e. a wish-nobody wishes for anything unless he
thinks it good. Irrational craving is twofold, viz. anger and
appetite.
    Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.
It is superfluous further to distinguish actions according to the
doers’ ages, moral states, or the like; it is of course true that,
for instance, young men do have hot tempers and strong appetites;
still, it is not through youth that they act accordingly, but
through anger or appetite. Nor, again, is action due to wealth or
poverty; it is of course true that poor men, being short of money,
do have an appetite for it, and that rich men, being able to
command needless pleasures, do have an appetite for such pleasures:
but here, again, their actions will be due not to wealth or poverty
but to appetite. Similarly, with just men, and unjust men, and all
others who are said to act in accordance with their moral
qualities, their actions will really be due to one of the causes
mentioned-either reasoning or emotion: due, indeed, sometimes to
good dispositions and good emotions, and sometimes to bad; but that
good qualities should be followed by good emotions, and bad by bad,
is merely an accessory fact-it is no doubt true that the temperate
man, for instance, because he is temperate, is always and at once
attended by healthy opinions and appetites in regard to pleasant
things, and the intemperate man by unhealthy ones. So we must
ignore such distinctions. Still we must consider what kinds of
actions and of people usually go together; for while there are no
definite kinds of action associated with the fact that a man is
fair or dark, tall or short, it does make a difference if he is
young or old, just or unjust. And, generally speaking, all those
accessory qualities that cause distinctions of human character are
important: e.g. the sense of wealth or poverty, of being lucky or
unlucky. This shall be dealt with later-let us now deal first with
the rest of the subject before us.
    The things that happen by chance are all those whose cause
cannot be determined, that have no purpose, and that happen neither
always nor usually nor in any fixed way. The definition of chance
shows just what they are. Those things happen by nature which have
a fixed and internal cause; they take place