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| Concerning what is Voluntary and what is Involuntary.
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Chapter
XXIV.—Concerning what is Voluntary and what is
Involuntary.
The voluntary1868
| 1868 Cf.
Greg. Nyss., in Maxim.; Nemes., ch. 29. | implies
a certain definite action, and so-called involuntariness also implies a
certain definite action. Further, many attribute true
involuntariness not only to suffering, but even to action. We
must then understand action to be rational energy. Actions are
followed by praise or blame, and some of them are accompanied with
pleasure and others with pain; some are to be desired by the actor,
others are to be shunned: further, of those that are desirable,
some are always so, others only at some particular time. And so
it is also with those that are to be shunned. Again, some actions
enlist pity and are pardonable, others are hateful and deserve
punishment. Voluntariness, then, is assuredly followed by praise
or blame, and renders the action pleasurable and desirable to the
actor, either for all time or for the moment of its performance.
Involuntariness, on the other hand, brings merited pity or pardon in
its train, and renders the act painful and undesirable to the doer, and makes him leave it in
a state of incompleteness even though force is brought to bear upon
him.
Further, what is involuntary, depends in part on
force and in part on ignorance. It depends on force when the
creative beginning in cause is from without, that is to say, when one
is forced by another without being at all persuaded, or when one does
not contribute to the act on one’s own impulse, or does not
co-operate at all, or do on one’s own account that which is
exacted by force1869
. Thus we
may give this definition: “An involuntary act is one in
which the beginning is from without, and where one does not contribute
at all on one’s own impulse to that which one is
forced.” And by beginning we mean the creative cause.
All involuntary act depends, on the other hand, on ignorance, when one
is not the cause of the ignorance one’s self, but events just so
happen. For, if one commits murder while drunk, it is an act of
ignorance, but yet not involuntary1870
: for
one was one’s self responsible for the cause of the ignorance,
that is to say, the drunkenness. But if while shooting at the
customary range one slew one’s father who happened to be passing
by, this would be termed an ignorant and involuntary act.
As, then, that which is involuntary is in two
parts, one depending on force, the other on ignorance, that which is
voluntary is the opposite of both. For that which is voluntary is
the result neither of force nor of ignorance1871
. A voluntary act, then, is one of
which the beginning or cause originates in an actor, who knows each
individual circumstance through which and in which the action takes
place. By “individual” is meant what the rhetoricians
call circumstantial elements: for instance, the actor, the
sufferer, the action (perchance a murder), the instrument, the place,
the time, the manner, the reason of the action.
Notice that there are certain things that occupy a
place intermediate between what is voluntary and what is
involuntary. Although they are unpleasant and painful we welcome
them as the escape from a still greater trouble; for instance, to
escape shipwreck we cast the cargo overboard1872
.
Notice also that children and irrational creatures
perform voluntary actions, but these do not involve the exercise of
choice: further, all our actions that are done in anger and
without previous deliberation are voluntary actions, but do not in the
least involve free choice1873
. Also,
if a friend suddenly appears on the scene, or if one unexpectedly
lights on a treasure, so far as we are concerned it is quite voluntary,
but there is no question of choice in the matter. For all these
things are voluntary, because we desire pleasure from them, but they do
not by any means imply choice, because they are not the result of
deliberation. And deliberation must assuredly precede choice, as
we have said above.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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