Chapter 6
Relevant texts: Book III, chs 1–5 Problems of interpretation
• Does Aristotle have a consistent account of willingness?
• Does he contrast compulsive behaviour with behaviour for which one is accountable?
• Does he think children are accountable?
Critical issues
• Are we responsible for our upbringing and character?
• Does Aristotle provide good arguments for Libertarianism?
first sight appears to determine what constitutes being responsible, or to say who is responsible for what, and why. Aristotle, probably thinking in the first instance of the terminology used in the Athenian courts, says that the key to responsibility, praiseworthiness and blame- worthiness is whether or not someone can be said to act heko¯n. So he sets out to analyse how this term is used, in order to see under what conditions we are justified in praising or blaming someone either for their character, or for what they do. He hopes that this inquiry will be useful both to add to our understanding of virtues, and to help legis- lators who have to deal with honours and punishments.
Once again, it is tricky to find a good English equivalent for heko¯n. In Greek there are in fact two pairs of words used in this context: hekousionand akousion, which are used of actions, and the corresponding words heko¯nand ako¯nwhich are used of persons. If, as is often done, hekousionis translated ‘voluntary’, the opposite would have to be ‘involuntary’; but it is not right to say that the storm-tossed captain jettisons the cargo involuntarily, though Aristotle says that he does so ako¯n. (One might sneeze involuntarily, and that’s quite different from the case of the captain.) I shall therefore mostly use
‘willingly’ and ‘unwillingly’, so as to have a neat pair of opposites in English.1
As we will discover, Aristotle’s account is on the face of it quite simple: but upon closer examination, it is less simple than it looks. I propose to outline the simple version, and then to discuss those remarks which make it more complicated.
‘Acting willingly’: sorting out common opinions
The simple theory starts once again from what is commonly believed (1109b35), and goes like this. There are just two ways of denying that something was done willingly:
(1) By showing that what was done was done under compulsion.
(2) By showing that what was done was done because of ignorance.
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1For the niceties of English usage in such discussions, see the amusing and perceptive article by J. L. Austin [1956].
In all likelihood, these two types of exculpation reflect the two types of plea which might be accepted in the Athenian courts at the time.
Aristotle is being true to his announced intention of helping to clarify the issues for the sake of legislators and juries. At any rate he sets out to comment upon and where necessary to tidy up each of these commonly accepted conditions.
Compulsion Aristotle starts off with what looks like a definition, which once again might be well taken from contemporary legal practice: something is compelled if its origin comes from outside the agent, who contributes nothing.2 His examples include sailors being blown off course by a storm; and someone being overpowered and forced to go somewhere (1110a1–4, 1110b2–3). Such events simply are not actions at all, as Aristotle defines actions, since they are not to be explained by desires or choices of the agent, nor do they express anything about the agent’s character. The cause of what happens comes from outside, and the agent contributes nothing.
Aristotle refuses to allow this type of defence to be stretched too far. Defendants in court tried on occasion to claim that they were over- come by attacks of blind rage as though swept away by a storm, and characters in some of Euripides’s tragedies sought to excuse their actions by saying that the Goddess of Love had carried them away with irresistible force.3Aristotle will have nothing of this. He refuses to accept that in general someone can escape blame by saying that they were overcome by anger or desire (1110b9–17). The cause of the action is within the agent, he insists. Since desires are involved in all actions, acting under the influence of a desire cannot of itself show that one was being forced to act. Moreover, is anyone really going to say that goodactions, too, are done unwillingly when someone feels
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2Since I shall argue in the next paragraph but one that this definition is quite misleading, it would certainly be convenient if it could be shown that it is an accepted legal view, but notAristotle’s own. He takes it as an accepted starting point, but his own examples effectively undermine its usefulness.
3Illustrative texts are cited by Gauthier and Jolif [1970], Vol. II, 2, pp.177–78.
inclined to do them, or will they invoke this theory only when they need an excuse? For these reasons he regards the claim, if it is made quite in general, as simply ridiculous.4
However, he is willing to admit at least some exceptions: ‘In some cases, though there is no question of praise, we do exonerate5 someone who does what they should not, when human nature is strained beyond anyone’s capacity to endure’ (1110a23–26). An example might be Winston in George Orwell’s 1984, who has a phobia of rats. He betrays his girlfriend when he is locked in a cage with a pack of rats that attack him.6Aristotle himself gives a different kind of example in VII, 5. He is talking about madness, and about what he describes as cases of
‘brutishness’: a woman who ate human foetuses, tribes who devour one another’s children, a madman who sacrificed and ate his mother. He denies that in such cases it is right to speak of moral weakness. By implication therefore he denies that such behaviour is willingly engaged upon. For this reason, I have translated him as saying that in such cases we exonerate and pity people, rather than saying that we excuse them.
Aristotle takes the same line, by implication, in VII, 7, where we for- give people’s behaviour if they resisted overpowering desires as much as could be expected (1150b8–16).7Perhaps another example is to be found in his remarks about reckless soldiers driven by sheer passion to rush at the enemy. They are not brave, Aristotle says; because ‘driven 1
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4He also makes remarks about the behaviour of children (1111a26), to which we shall return later.
5The Greek word sungno¯me¯can mean ‘an excuse’, ‘pity’, ‘forgiveness’ or ‘exon- eration’. Perhaps here there are overtones both of exoneration and of pity.
6T. H. Irwin takes a different view of this and of several other passages, I think on the grounds that Aristotle also says that even terrible threats must sometimes be resisted. I do not see that this undermines the previous sentence in which Aristotle clearly says that some threats are such that nobody could withstand them. See Irwin [1980], and on this passage particularly his comment in note 40.
See also Sorabji [1980] ch. 16, which also differs in several details from the interpretation I have given in this section.
7The clear example is not being able to contain one’s laughter; the other exam- ples involve allusions to incidents in plays whose details are not entirely clear, but have to do with finally not being able to resist crying with pain upon being bitten by a snake, or weeping at the rape of one’s daughter.
by pain and anger they rush into danger without foreseeing any of the perils: in that sense even donkeys would be brave when they are hun- gry!’ (III, 8, 1116b33–36). The contrast between being driven and acting with foresight, which explains why such crazed soldiers are not brave, may be similar to that drawn between passions which can be resisted and those which cannot.
Reasonable as Aristotle’s approach to these examples is, we should notice that cases of what we would term psychological compul- sion at least do not obviously fit the definition of being compelled with which Aristotle started, that ‘the origin comes from outside the person, who contributes nothing’. For the desires and fears clearly come from within the persons concerned. We shall have to see later whether he can further explain the grounds on which such behaviour can be regarded as compulsive, beyond asserting that in such cases human nature is strained beyond its limits. In particular, can he perhaps argue that these types of behaviour, too, are not actionsin the proper sense, any more than being blown off course, or frog-marched, are actions?8 Simply discussing whether the cause is within the agent or not is of no help at all so far as this problem is concerned. This might reinforce the impression that the distinction is not Aristotle’s own, but one which he uses as a starting point since it reflected the common terminology of the courts.
Aristotle goes on to discuss more complex cases, where someone acts under threat – meeting a tyrant’s demands in order to save his wife and family, or jettisoning cargo in a storm to save a ship from foundering. He says:
Nobody simply jettisons cargo willingly, though any sensible person does so to ensure the safety of himself and his compan- ions. So actions like this are mixed, but are more closely comparable to actions done willingly, since at the time of acting they are chosen and the aim of the action accords with the
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8The issue is further confused by the fact that he does use the Greek verb prat- teinwhich corresponds to praxis, his normal word for an action in the strict sense.
I presume that he here uses the word in a non-technical sense. We too can speak of a sleepwalker, for instance, ‘doing’ something without implying that they performed an action in the proper sense.
situation, and we should use the terms ‘willingly’ or ‘unwill- ingly’ depending upon what someone does at the time. So the person acts willingly. The origin of the movement of the bodily parts in such actions is within the agent, and those actions whose origin is within the agent are things he can either do or not do.
Such actions, then, are done willingly, even though when described without qualification they might be said to be done unwillingly, since nobody would choose any such thing for its own sake.
(III, 1, 1110a9–19) The key to this passage depends upon the view which contem- porary philosophers might express by saying that actions are performed under a description. The captain’s action is not, given the circumstances of the storm, properly described as simply and without qualification
‘jettisoning his cargo’; no reputable captain would simply do that. What he did was more complex: he jettisoned his cargo to save the lives of those on board; and thataction was, we are to suppose, entirely justi- fiable. Once again, it is central to Aristotle’s view that an agent sees himself as behaving in a particular way for reasons, and that this has to be taken into account when asking what that agent did.9That’s just what the captain would argue at a public inquiry later on. His defence against any criticism would consist in showing that it is mistaken to say that he just jettisoned the cargo; what he did was a more complex action, jettisoning cargo as the only way to save lives. If he success- fully establishes that point, then his defence succeeds. Indeed, if that is what he willingly did, he is not merely not blameworthy, he is to be praised. His action is not excusablein the circumstances; it is entirely justifiable and needs no excusing. He did what he did with mixed feel- ings, however, since we might assume that, being a reputable captain, he regretted the necessity of losing the cargo.
Threat, therefore, functions quite differently from madness, brutishness, or external force. These last undermine the presumption 1
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9I think it is closer to Aristotle’s view to say that simply jettisoning cargo, and jettisoning cargo when the ship is in danger of foundering are two different actions, rather than two ways of looking at or describing one and the same action.
that the person performed an action, in the strict sense, at all: things just happen to them. Threat, in contrast, will not incline us to deny that the person acted, but it will often lead us to revise our view about which action the person willingly performed, and how that action is accurately to be described. There is, then, an ambiguity in the way in which, both in English and in Greek, someone might be said to be compelled. To behave compulsivelyis not to perform an action at all;
but the captain who was compelledto jettison the cargo did not behave compulsively, he chose the best course of action in the circumstances.
Hence Aristotle in this passage makes it clear that it was, in the circum- stances, up to him to jettison or not to jettison; but compulsive behaviour is not in the person’s power in that way at all.
Aristotle then goes on to point out that sometimes even dire threats should be resisted, and that people are to be praised for resisting them, even though in different circumstances people might well be criticized for taking enormous risks for no really worthy purpose. Here again, as so often, it is not easy to draw any hard and fast line about what it is worth doing at what cost. He concludes with the remark we have already seen, that when some threat is too much for human nature to withstand, the person deserves to be exonerated, neither praised nor blamed. I think the reason for withholding both praise and blame is that, in cases like the unfortunate Winston, it was not in his power to do other than he did.10
Ignorance We might expect that ignorance, too, will force us to focus on which action the agent can properly be said to be doing. For plainly the agent is aware of the action as he sees it, and that is the action which Aristotle thinks the agent performs. Equally plainly, the agent who acts in igno- rance is unaware of the way in which his behaviour would be seen by someone who knew the full facts of the situation. It is simplest to start with those cases where the agent, once he has found out the full facts, regrets what was done. Aristotle gives several examples; passing on knowledge which one did not know was confidential; mistaking a
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10There is what I take to be a parallel text in the Eudemian Ethics, 1224a25–26.
sharpened spear for a practice spear with a button on it; giving someone medicine with fatal results, showing someone a loaded military catapult which goes off and injures someone (III, 1, 1111a10–13).11 Aristotle says two things about these actions: they are not performed willingly (III, 1, 1110b18): and, if the agent subsequently regrets what happened, they can be said to be performed unwillingly (1111a19–21).
Whichactions? Clearly, revealing a secret, hurting someone with a spear in practice, killing one’s patient, launching a missile at someone.
The agent did not perform any of those actions willingly, since he did not perform thoseactions, so described, at all. As he saw it, he was per- forming quite different actions, and actions are to be defined in terms of the agent’s desires and thoughts at the time of acting.
There is a slight problem, though. Aristotle uses the phrase ‘not willingly’ to describe the action as performed at the time, and ‘unwill- ingly’ to describe it in the light of the agent’s subsequent reaction to what happened. The first claim is easy to defend. One can neither be willingly nor unwillingly doing something which one is not doing at all, and what one is doing depends on what one believes (1110b20).
Moreover, as we have seen, the terms ‘willingly’ and ‘unwillingly’ are to be used of actions which the agent performed at the time. The second claim is rather more difficult, since Aristotle here does use ‘unwill- ingly’ in the light of hindsight, despite what he has said about these terms being applied to the action as done at the time. Perhaps his thought is that at the time the agent would have been unwilling to behave as he did had he but known. So what if the agent does notregret what happened once he finds out? Aristotle is still not willing to say, even with hindsight, that the agent acted willingly. Why does he not treat this case in exactly the same way as he deals with the case of the person who later regrets what happened, and hence say that the unre- pentant agent can be said to have acted willingly?
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11It is clear enough that he is thinking of cases where no negligence is involved.
So an unsuspected allergy to a drug might do in the medical example. I am not sure how to explain the catapult example, since whether a catapult is loaded or not is usually obvious. Perhaps the release mechanism was abnormally sensitive?
He may well have been referring to a well-known legal case, the facts of which would have been clear.
Maybe (and to some extent this must be conjectural) he is once again thinking about the legal implications of what he is saying.
Athenian courts would hold someone accountable only if they could properly be said to have acted willingly. Aristotle, then, agrees that the captain could rightly be held accountable for jettisoning the cargo during the storm, since he did so willingly. To avoid being blamed, he would therefore have to show that it was the only way open to him of saving the ship and the lives of those on board. If he could not show that, he would rightly be held liable for damages to the owner of the cargo. Equally, Aristotle does not believe that someone should be held accountable for what they did when they had no way of knowing the full facts; he therefore refuses to regard any such action as willingly performed, since that action was not performed at all. The agent can properly say ‘But that’s not what I was doing!’ This remains true, even if the agent is, with hindsight, pleased at the way things worked out.
Still, one does want to make some distinction between the regretful agent and the agent with no subsequent regrets, morally speaking if not legally. That is what Aristotle does, by saying that the regretful agent acted unwillingly, while leaving the agent with no regrets to live with the purely legal let-out that he did not act willingly at the time.
The characters of the regretful and the delighted agents are quite different.12
In the examples of ignorance which we have so far seen, Aristotle assumes that the agent is not himself responsible for being ignorant or, in modern terminology, that there is no question of negli- gence or recklessness.13Of course, this is not always so. Aristotle deals with other cases by distinguishing things done because ofignorance
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12In his Rhetoric, I, 13, 1373b25–1374a15, Aristotle insists that someone is accountable only for what was willingly done: and gives several examples of instances in which the accused will admit what happened, but will refuse to admit the prosecution’s description of what he did.
13Aristotle gives more examples in V, 8, where he explicitly discusses negligence as contrasted with misadventure. The ways in which he uses ‘willing’ and
‘unwilling’ in that chapter differ from what is said here in Book III. The differ- ences are in part to be accounted for by the more narrowly legal context of the discussion in V, 8. It must also be remembered that Book V may well originally