Kitap 2
16
Now nobody deliberates about his End—this everybody has fixed; but men deliberate about the means leading to their End—does this contribute to it, or does this ? or when a means has been decided on, how will that be procured? and this deliberation as to means we all pursue until we have carried the starting-point in the process of producing the End back to ourselves.
17
If, then, nobody chooses without first preparing, and deliberating as to the comparative merits of the alternatives, and a man deliberates as to those among the means to the End capable of existing or not existing that are within our power, it is clear that purposive choice is deliberative appetition of things within one’s power. For we deliberate about everything that we choose, although of course we do not choose everything that we deliberate about. I call appetition deliberative when its origin or cause is deliberation,and when a man desires because of having deliberated.
18
Therefore the faculty of purposive choice is not present in the other animals, nor in man at every age nor in every condition, for no more is the act of deliberation, nor yet the concept of cause: it is quite possible that many men may possess the faculty of forming an opinion whether to do or not to do a thing without also having the power of forming this opinion by process of reasoning.
19
For the deliberative faculty is the spirit’s power of contemplating a kind of cause—for one sort of cause is the final cause, as although cause means anything because of which a thing comes about, it is the object of a thing’s existence or production that we specially designate as its cause: for instance, if a man walks in order to fetch things, fetching things is the cause of his walking. Consequently people who have no fixed aim are not given to deliberation.
