Book 2
10
And if it is impossible to do the same act voluntarily and involuntarily at the same time and in respect of the same part of the act, action guided by one’s wish is more voluntary than action guided by desire or passion. And a proof of this is that we do many things voluntarily without anger or desire.
11
It remains, therefore, to consider whether acting as we wish and acting voluntarily are the same. This also seems impossible. For it is a fundamental assumption with us, and a general opinion, that wickedness makes men more unrighteous; and lack of self-control seems to be a sort of wickedness. But from the hypothesis that acting as we wish and acting voluntarily are the same the opposite will result; for nobody wishes things that he thinks to be bad, yet he does them when he has become uncontrolled, so if to do injustice is voluntary and the voluntary is what is in accordance with one’s wish, then when a man has become uncontrolled he will no longer be acting unjustly but will be more just than he was before he lost control of himself. But this is impossible. Therefore it is clear that acting voluntarily does not mean acting in accordance with appetition nor acting involuntarily acting in opposition to appetition.
1
Also it is clear from the following considerations that voluntary action does not mean acting in accordance with purposive choice. It was provedOr, altering the text, It was proved not that acting in accordance with one’s wishes is the same thing as acting voluntarily, but rather that all one wishes is also voluntary although it is possible to act voluntarily without wishing—this is all that has been proved; but many things that we wish— that acting in accordance with one’s wish is not acting involuntarily, but rather everything that one wishes is also voluntary—it has only been proved that it is possible to do a thing voluntarily without wishing; but many things that we wish we do suddenly, whereas nobody makes a purposive choice suddenly.
