Choice and Moral Responsibility
Susanne Bobzien
In Polansky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Cambridge, 2014

"According to Aristotle, action (praxis) is a specifically human activity. [EE 1222b18-20, NE {actually EE} 1139a19-20] An action is a change (kinesis) that has its origin (arche) in the human being, who is also the efficient cause of the actions (EE 1222b28-31). [11] All action is goal-directed, that is, aims at an end (telos), though its end may lie in itself (NE I.1). Action requires the agent to have a reasoning capacity (EE 1224a29-30). This is why people do not say of toddlers or animals that they perform actions (EE 1224a28-30). [fn11: Aristotle says or implies that actions are changes in both the EE (e.g., 122b29) and in the NE (e.g., 1139a31-32). This is in line with his assumption that actions have an efficient cause (ibid.). Here 'efficient cause' is the standard translation for the kind of cause that Aristotle refers to as 'that from which' (ibid.), or as 'the origin of change' (Physics 195a11), and that he defines as 'that from which the alteration or absence of alteration has its origin' (Physics 194b29-30). In the NE Aristotle referts to actions both as changes (kineseis) and as activities (energeiai). (e.g., NE I.1, III.5).]" (BOBZIEN, pp. 85-86)

"Aristotle holds that the objects of choice (prohaireta) are taken form the same pool of things as the objects of deliberation: the things within our reach." (BOBZIEN, p. 93) [PSA: note the connection to my preferred translation of orexis as reaching.]

"The object of deliberation has an element of indefiniteness to it. By contrast, the object of choice (i.e., the chosen course of action) is determinate (1112b9, 1113a3). An object of deliberation becomes an object of choice via the agent's judging or deciding (krinein, 1113a4, 1113a12).... Hence, where there was an indeterminacy between at least two possible courses of action, there is only one course, once the choice has come into being. The object of choice is thus determined and rationally desired, whereas the object of deliberation was not (yet). Being a desire, choice essentially has a duration, which in the standard case continues from the moment of judgment to the completion of the action. [36] The English translation 'choice' does not (clearly) capture this point." [PSA: but the English translation 'commitment' does.] [fn 36: This becomes more intellegible, if we consider that for Aristotle the choice (prohairesis) of a particular action is the actuality (energeia) of a dispositional state of the soul, and as such is complete at any moment and can be continued (until the action is completed).]" (BOBZIEN, pp. 93-94)

"Aristotle's choice (prohairesis), as he uses it in NE III.1-5, is nothing like an act of deciding or an act of choice between alternatives. [38] Nor is it (or it is issued from) a faculty of causally undetermined choice or decision, or of free will, as is sometimes assumed (e.g., Grant 1874, II.14). The judgment (krisis) that co-causes this desire, too, is not a faculty for undetermined decision making, nor is there any decision-making faculty such as a will in the agent that determines which way the judgment will go. [fn38: When Aristotle says, at NE 1112a16-17, that the name prohairesis suggests that to prohaireton is something (to be) chosen before, or in preference to, other things, this does not imply that prohairesis is an act of choice between alternatives. Rather, one needs to read it in its context, where Aristotle emphasizes that reason and deliberation are necessary conditions for prohairesis. It is since prohairesis requires reason, that prohairesis is of what is preferable to other things.]" (BOBZIEN, p. 94) [PSA: The prohaireton is thus bound up with the deliberator's values, and in the case of the phronimos with commitment to the objective or true good over the apparent good.]

"The virtuous agent is one in whom all factors of voluntary action are realized in an excellent way. (i) The agent's character dispositions are good; they are virtues. They cause the agent's ends, which are the intermediate relative to each dimension of virtue. Since the charaacter dispositions are states of the desiring part of soul, the virtuous agent desires - more precisely, wants [PSA: more precisely, resolves to realize] - the intermediate with respect to each dimension of virtue. (ii) The agent's practical intellect works without flaws. The agent has practical wisdom. As a result, and given the agent's wants, the agent reasons correctly about how to realize the intermediate in her action, using an accurate assessment regarding what is in her power. (iii) All other desires of the agent are fully aligned with what the agent wants.... The agent's wanting-of-the-end and deliberation-of-the-means together then cause a choice." (BOBZIEN, pp. 101-102)

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