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Wellsprings
ethics

The Voluntary and the Involuntary

τὸ ἑκούσιον καὶ τὸ ἀκούσιον

When are we truly to blame? Aristotle draws the line between what we choose and what force or ignorance does to us.

Before we can praise or punish anyone, Aristotle argues, we must ask whether an act was genuinely their own. An action is "voluntary" when its origin lies within the agent, who knows the relevant circumstances; it is "involuntary" when done under compulsion or out of ignorance of the particulars. By mapping these boundaries — and the gray cases, like a captain who jettisons cargo to save a ship in a storm — he lays the groundwork for the entire Western idea of moral responsibility.

Where this idea shows up

26 Greek sources·1 Jewish-canon citation

Where to read it