Aristotle (2024) Nicomachean Ethics 3.3

Aristotle (2024). Nicomachean Ethics. Second Edition. Translated With Introduction and Notes By C. D. C. Reeve Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company

 

3.3 Deliberation

Do people deliberate about everything, and is everything an object of deliberation, or are there some things about which there is no delibera tion? And presumably one must call an “object of deliberation” not what a silly sort of person or a madman would deliberate about but what a person with understanding would.

No one deliberates about eternal things, then, about the universe, for example, or about the fact that the diameter and sides of a square are not proportional; or about things that include change but that always come about in the same way, whether from necessity (or indeed by nature) or due to some other cause, such as the solstices or the risings of the heavenly bodies; or about things that happen sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, such as droughts and rains; or about things that come about by luck, such as discovering a treasure; or about all human affairs either— for example, no Spartan deliberates about the best constitution for the Scythians; for none of these things comes about through ourselves.

We do deliberate, though, about things that are up to us and doable in action, and these in fact are the remaining ones. For the causes of things seem to be nature, necessity, luck, understanding, and everything that comes about through a human being. Among human beings, however, each group deliberates about what is doable in action through itself.

T here is no deliberation, however, about sciences that are both exact and self-sufficient—about orthography, for example, since we have no hesi tation about what way to write the letters.200 We do deliberate, however, about those things that come about through ourselves but not always in the same way (for example, about the things that medicine or moneymaking deals with). And we deliberate more about navigation than about athletic training, insofar as navigation has been less exactly worked out. Further, deliberation is involved in a similar way about the rest, but more about crafts than about sciences; for we are more hesitant about them.

Deliberation is found, then, in the sphere of what holds for the most part but where it is unclear what way things will turn out and where there is an element of indefinability. And we call on partners in deliberation on important questions, when we mistrust ourselves as not being adequate to determine the answer.

We deliberate not about ends, but about the things that further ends. For a doctor does not deliberate about whether to cure or an orator about whether to persuade or a politician about whether to produce good legisla tive order, nor do any of the rest deliberate about their end. Rather, they take the end for granted and investigate in what way and through which things it will come about. And if it appears that it can come about through several, they investigate through which ones it will most easily and best come about. But if it is brought to completion through only one, they investigate in what way it will come about through this and through which things it, in turn, will come about, until they arrive at the first cause, which is the last thing in the process of discovery. For a deliberator seems to inquire and analyze in the way we said just as though he were dealing with a diagram—but while it is evident that not all inquiry is deliberation (for example, mathematical inquiry), all deliberation is inquiry, and the last thing found in the analysis seems to come first in bringing about the result.

Also, if people encounter something impossible, they give up (for exam ple, if wealth is needed but there is no way to provide it), while if it appears possible, they set about doing the action. But possible things are those that could come about through ourselves; for what comes about through our friends comes about through ourselves in a way, since the starting-point is in us.

We inquire sometimes about instruments, sometimes about what way they are to be used, and similarly for the rest—sometimes through whom, sometimes in what way, and sometimes through which things.

It seems, then, as we said, that a human being is a starting-point of actions and that deliberation is about what is doable in action by him, while the actions are for the sake of other things.204 For what is deliberated about is not the end but the things that further ends, and neither, of course, is it particulars (for example, whether this thing is a loaf or whether it is cooked in the way it should be); for these are matters for perception. And if we deliberate at every point, we will go on without limit.

Objects of deliberation and objects of deliberate choice are the same, except that objects of deliberate choice are already something determinate; for it is what has been judged as a result of deliberation that is an object of deliberate choice. For each of us stops inquiring about what way to act when he brings back the starting-point to himself and, within himself, to the leading element, since this is what deliberately chooses.205 This is also clear from the ancient constitutions that Homer described; for it is what kings had deliberately chosen that they announced to the common people.

Since an object of deliberate choice is an object of deliberation and of desire that is among the things that are up to us, deliberate choice too would be a deliberative desire of things that are up to us; for having judged as a result of deliberation, we desire in accord with our deliberation.

So much, then, by way of an outline of deliberate choice, of the things it is concerned with, and that it is about the things that further ends.