This will conclude the chapter on Epictetus in Boulnois’s investigation into the origins of the concept of free will. While Epictetus introduces a moral ideal of freedom into ethics, and in common with other later Stoics speaks of something like a will, Boulnois finds that Epictetus still makes no claim about free will, as that term came to be understood and advocated in Christian theology.

“What is the content of this freedom? For the Stoics, the order of the world is the objective expression of reason (logos). At the moment when the individual is forced to conform to it, it measures the distance that separates them. Into this gap slips a concept of resolution, distinct from reason alone. The Aristotelian term proairesis, which plays only a minor role in the earlier Stoics, is taken up again by Epictetus, for whom it becomes essential. In Aristotle, we deliberate about that which depends on us; but in the context of Stoic physics, what depends on us is reduced to our assent. This being the object of our resolution, the latter becomes the only thing that depends on us. ‘Dependent on us: resolution (proairesis) and all the actions that can be resolved upon (ta proairetika erga); not dependent on us: the body, parts of the body, our possessions, our parents.’ The human is only responsible for her assent and her resolution. But the latter reflects her character and her dispositions. From here on, resolution is no longer the choice of what depends on us; it has become itself all that depends on us (anterior to objects). This allows the agent to be circumscribed by rigorously distinguishing the interior from the exterior, and concentrating the self [le moi] in the faculty of making up one’s mind [se determiner]” (Généalogie de la liberté, p. 213, my translation throughout, emphasis in original throughout, female pronouns mine).

Stoic fate is at once a universal and univocal order of cause and effect, and a divine logos that immanently governs every detail of the world. The Stoics also develop what scholars generally agree is a theory of representation, which unites physical and physiological causality with introspective psychology. Impressions and initial appearances that we experience are governed by the causal order, and thus not subject to our control. For the Stoics, the one thing that is subject to our control is our rational attitude toward these causally determined impressions and appearances. We can assent to them, or refuse assent, or suspend judgment.

Within this context, Epictetus sharpens the relative distinction of inner and outer to a strictly univocal form. He raises the new question of what solely depends on us. He claims that the inner is solely governed by our assent, while causality still strictly governs the outer. For Epictetus, only the inner is properly “us”. We are our assent. Who we really are in an ethical sense depends on our patterns of assent, and nothing else. Moreover, assent is said to govern the whole soul. Even being swayed by passion is explained as rational assent that has gone wrong.

“But indirectly, what depends on us is what we choose, the object of our resolutions: ta proairetika. Our opinions and desires are called ‘proairetic’ by Epictetus; they pertain to the domain of realities to which one can consent. The realities that depend on our resolution are free by nature, precisely because the power of proairesis is absolute: nothing can prevent us from choosing — not suffering, not sickness, not death. On the other hand, whatever is a stranger to our resolution — our body, our goods, our honor — does not properly pertain to it, and does not deserve to be chosen (‘aproairetic’)” (pp. 213-214).

In spite of Boulnois’s strong contention that proairesis should not be identified with choice in either Aristotle or Epictetus, he does not hesitate to mention choice where it is appropriate, even relating it to an “absolute” power that will be called assent. Discussing Epictetus, Boulnois metaphorically speaks of the “choice” of a way of life. But as the example of a way of life suggests, this is not a bivalent punctual choice in the moment. It rather consists in a stance, which is to say in what we fundamentally embrace or are committed to. Not only does Epictetus not speak of a bivalent choice, he also does not accept Aristotle’s notion of bivalent potentiality in the action of a rational being. In the next chapter, Boulnois will attribute the decisive turn in the reading of Aristotle on these matters to the great commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias, who flourished around 200 CE, thus after Epictetus.

“Stobaeus (like Aristotle) understands the prefix pro in a temporal sense; he interprets the term [proairesis] as signifying a ‘taking before the taking’ (hairesis pro haireseos); it is a matter of a fundamental resolution, of the choice of a form of life, in a sort of conversion of the preceding ensemble that definitively orients all particular decisions. — In Epictetus, proairesis covers a triple dimension: 1) it concerns an act of punctual decision: ‘at the origin of our faults, we find resolution (proairesis) and impulse’; 2) it defines the faculty of making decisions (resolutions); 3) as a consequence, it comes to designate the fundamental choice of a way of life, a conversion, that which gives the value of moral character, or ‘moral personality’. Decisive point: the resolution taken is not only a part of what depends on me (as in Aristotle); it has become the act and the very faculty that depends on me: the god ‘has given me what belongs to the domain of resolution (ta proairetika)’ — and depends on me” (p. 214).

Stoicism introduces a systematic theory of “representation” that we do not see in Aristotle, as well as the concept of assent to representations. The early Stoics do not seem to make much use of Aristotle’s term proairesis (resolution or “choice”). Epictetus on the other hand gives it a central role, while changing the meaning, as we just saw.

As came out in the last post, Epictetus focuses on what exclusively depends on us (assent and resolution). Aristotle uses the phrase mainly to refer to the actions in the world that deliberation and resolution are concerned with. Our actions depend on us, but not exclusively.

“Since representations are produced in us by the world, we are not responsible for their arising in our consciousness. But we are responsible for the use we make of them. It is essential to discern what depends on us and what does not. Assent implies a judgment about the representational content: the soul approves, rejects, or remains suspended before its mental representations. The ‘domain of assent’ is identical to the empire of resolution. And precisely, in this empire we are sovereign” (ibid).

Sovereignty is an extremely problematic concept in any ethical setting, precisely because it is supposed to be unconditional and unilateral. While it has deep roots in Roman law and the privilege of the emperor, an explicit theory of sovereignty only emerges much later, in the justification of absolute monarchy by Bodin and Hobbes. Epictetus’s metaphor of the “citadel of the soul”, though well-intentioned, is itself highly problematic. Granted that it only properly applies to the ideal of the Stoic sage, a radical separation of inner and outer is still not something we should even strive for. Much later, Hegel will argue that such a radical separation is the mark of alienation.

“It is a matter of an act of moral decision toward what attention is concerned with: ‘she is free (eleutheros) to whom all arrives in conformity to her resolution (proairesis), and whom nothing can obstruct’. Certainly, Epictetus here makes a connection between resolution and freedom, but this is not to say that we can have a free will (libre arbitre). Freedom consists precisely in a conformity between our resolution and what arrives necessarily. She is free who consents to nothing other than fate. This is already what Nietzsche will call amor fati” (p. 215).

“Proairesis is free by nature; but in fact it is not so always; we have to work to make it free. It will become so if we exercise a scrutiny of our resolution, because that is what determines the ensemble of our moral character. This is accomplished by a quotidian attention to our feelings and our representations. From here on, proairesis designates the interior man, a personal identity that is unbreakable and imperceptible from the exterior: ‘– I will put you in chains. — Man, do you say that? Me? It is only my leg that you enchain. My resolution (proairesis) Zeus himself cannot overcome’. Nothing (not even God) can overcome my resolution: if it does not want anything that escapes it, it is free. The concept of proairesis thus defines the essence of the human: ‘– Are you a piece of furniture? — No, a proairesis‘. Proairesis serves as ‘object of identification’; it is what I can be and what I wish to become — a faculty of aiming at nothing but the good. But it is never defined as an undetermined choice” (ibid).

The bold claim that Zeus himself cannot breach the citadel of my soul is certainly striking, but here he speaks in the first person, which implies that it is applicable here and now, even though, as we will see shortly, he does not consider himself to have achieved sagehood.

“Only a good resolution gives actions their goodness: ‘the essence of the good is a property of resolution’. Resolution is no longer good if it chooses the good action, but the inverse: the action is good if our resolution is. Outside of resolution, neither good nor evil exists. In the vocabulary of Seneca and Augustine, reprised by Kant, there is no good other than a good will. The freedom enjoyed by the sage is a purely interior freedom, that of consenting to the order of the world. Rather than vainly attempting to resist necessity, it consents to it. Unable to change the order of the world, it has to work to overcome its desires, so that they conform to it” (p. 216).

Granted that good will is extremely important, in the bigger picture this still seems one-sided. Consequences matter too. The goodness of actions includes consequences as well as intent, so it seems more comprehensive.

It seems that Epictetus puts a kind of freedom before goodness in the order of ethical explanation. Independent of more particular claims about free will, does this make him a sort of Stoic anthropological voluntarist, as odd as that sounds? This is a serious concern that Boulnois does not address.

Boulnois has already thoroughly discussed why proairesis in Epictetus should not be understood in terms of later concepts of free will. Next he turns to autexousion, which we previously saw is also associated with free will by a number of early Christian theologians.

“Epictetus concentrates the principle of responsibility in proairesis, and makes it the condition of ethical freedom; but for him, this concept does not imply imply free will (libre arbitre), since we do not have the possibility of exercising a contingent choice. Must we rather search for free will in the concept of autexousia (power exercised by oneself)? Certainly, Epictetus uses the term autexousion in relation to ‘what depends on us’; with him the word takes on a technical sense, and acquires legitimacy. But how to translate it? ‘Independence’, ‘self-mastery’, ‘mastery’ (Souilhé)? ‘Free self-determination’ (C. Horn)? — Since Antiquity, the term has been translated as ‘free will’ [libre arbitre]; this is already the interpretation of Tertullian [ca. 155 to ca. 220 CE], who understands the term autexousion as a technical term, which he translates as libera arbitrii potestas, ‘free power of arbitration’. After this, the concept will become that of free will [libre arbitre] (liberum arbitrium). — But are this interpretation and this translation legitimate?” (pp. 216-217).

Once again we see how translation often imposes an interpretation. Whether or not they are tied to more specific claims about free will, unqualified independence and mastery are themselves very strong claims that I take to be decisively rejected by Hegel.

“Epictetus clearly uses the term in opposition to the power (exousia) that someone else exercises over me. The term puts the accent on the fact of being itself (autos) the origin of the power it exercises. One who has disciplined her consent can say: ‘No one has power over me’. She has the initiative of action. It will become necessary to translate it as ‘having power from oneself’. Also, Burgundio of Pisa in the 12th century translates it as per se potestativum, and Cudworth in the 17th as sui potestas or ‘self-power’. But as we have seen, this ‘power from itself’ is reduced to a power over itself: the only thing that is in our power is the power to correctly use our representations. The concept does not in any way refer to a choice, a will, or an undetermined freedom. It concentrates on what depends on us alone. When our power is well restrained to what is proper to us, it is free. We understand why the term is translated by Tertullian as libera potestas ” (p. 217).

Again, beyond the critique of free will as overly strong, the very idea that there are things that depend on us alone ought to be questioned as well. This depends on the assumption that it is good or adequate to think of ourselves as splendidly isolated individuals. I think we ought to think of ourselves as engaged in the world, and as essentially social creatures.

“But why add arbitrii (of choice)? Is the power from oneself that of a will? — Certainly, resolution (proairesis) is sometimes described as an act of will. Seneca: ‘what is necessary in order to become a man of the good? Willing.’ Epictetus: ‘No one can force me to use my representations otherwise than I want’. Resolution is a gift from God, and a part of the divine: it can only be overcome by itself. There is no impediment in ourselves; it is our will that renders us dependent on the exterior world and on necessity, but itself can do all it chooses, and can only be obstructed by itself” (pp. 217-218).

The main argument is sound, but here I question the claim that there is no impediment in ourselves. This again depends on accepting a radical separation of inner and outer.

“Freedom is not given at the outset, but attained at the end of an ethical progression. According to Epictetus, freedom is the end of the human, the content of happiness: ‘What is it that the human seeks? To live calmly and happily, to do what she wills (thelei) without obstruction or constraint’. The ignorant agent, or the slave of nature and her passions, remains responsible for her actions; but only the sage is free” (p. 218).

That freedom is a kind of end and not a given is right and proper. But I would not call it the ultimate end of the human. The ultimate end should be simply the good. At the next level below that, friendship, reciprocity, love, beauty, understanding, and contemplation are all strong contenders. Each of these is an end in itself that is not sought for the sake of anything else. Freedom on the other hand is an end because it is a multipurpose means to many goods. It seems to me that it is sought for the sake of what it enables.

“Epictetus promotes an ethical focus not seen in the [earlier] Stoic analyses; it depends on us to aim at a goal, but not to attain it. This is why we cannot make ourselves happy, but only deserving to be so. It depends on us not to will what does not depend on us. Thus it does not depend on Epictetus that he was born a slave, but it does depend on him to be free, that is to say to remain master of oneself, indifferent to all that is indifferent, and to will only that which falls within the scope of his resolution” (ibid).

The attainment of a goal does not exclusively depend on us. For that matter, it is not entirely clear that aiming at a goal always depends exclusively on us. Some goals cannot even be formulated until we have attained some other goals. It seems to me that all the ends that are sought for their own sake have prerequisites. The meeting of basic needs is not a lofty goal in itself, but without it we often cannot even begin to seek the things that are sought for their own sake.

“The concept of freedom has nothing to do with a choice between alternative possibilities, and even less to do with an undetermined will. Epictetus does not say we are ‘free’ to give our assent or not. We can simply act, in conformity to nature (correctly, according to a comprehensive representation), or in a nonconforming way (incorrectly, or according to an incomplete representation). Even if we manage more or less well, according to our proper limits, we pursue a goal of accomplishing our nature” (ibid).

Epictetus is a Stoic after all, even if he does not give us a presentation of the whole grand system.

“For to attain freedom, it is first necessary to examine the order of the world. This order is necessary, inviolable, and universal. It is necessary to distinguish this exterior order from the one that is proper to us, and that is in our power. To confuse these domains is to believe that things that are necessary are free, and to condemn oneself to be a slave when one thinks oneself free. On the other hand, to distinguish these orders is at the same time to attain freedom. It suffices to know what is ours, what depends on us, to depend on nothing else, and to be free:”

[quote from Epictetus:] “If you believe that the things that are by nature slavish are free, and that what depends on others is proper to you, you will encounter obstacles and be afflicted and troubled, and you will complain about the gods and about people. If on the other hand you think that only what is yours is yours, and that what is someone else’s is someone else’s, no one can constrain you or obstruct you” (p. 219).

Elsewhere, Epictetus says that we should only apply concepts of good and evil to the things that are up to us. This was the point that stood out most when I first read him, many years ago. It seemed intriguing as a therapy of the soul, but ultimately untenable.

Boulnois has highlighted the difference between Aristotle’s collective “up to us” and Epictetus’s individual “up to us”. What made the suggestion about good and evil seem untenable was the individualistic focus of Epictetus’s “up to us”. This effectively puts all social and political issues on the side of fate, which leads to an extreme quietism. But things come out quite differently if “us” is read us “us citizens of our city”, and different still if “us” is “us humans” or “us talking animals”.

“The discipline of assent is the key to ethics. It permits us to attain that freedom. To act correctly, it is necessary to make sure that we only give our assent to things that merit it. When we have an adequate representation, its evidence guarantees its conformity with things; we can give our assent to what is truly good. This is what distinguishes the sage. It is why only the sage is really free (eleutheros), while ordinary people are slaves” (ibid).

If it is not overstated to the point where we purely are our assent and nothing else, the notion of assent seems like a worthy addition to our considerations. Even the immoderate version is not as bad as many other exaggerated beliefs.

Need it be said? We should try to ensure that we have adequate understanding of people, things, and situations. This applies whether or not we accept the Stoic hybrid of realism and representationalism.

We might wonder, how do we know that a representation is adequate? Much more needs to be said about what constitutes the evidence that is capable of guaranteeing conformity with things. If this is left in the shadows, we lapse into dogmatism.

Socratic questioning serves as a check on dogmatism. Even if it does not seem very Socratic compared to Plato and Aristotle, Stoicism in general greatly reveres Socrates, treating him as the only known example of a real-life Stoic sage. Scholars see the influence of two of the most important so-called minor Socratic schools (the Cynics and the Megarians) on the Stoics. Secondary sources also point out that Epictetus in particular draws inspiration from not only from Xenophon’s portrayal of Socrates as a helpful, down-to-earth good friend and neighbor exemplifying practical wisdom, but also from those of Plato’s dialogues — thought by Werner Jaeger to be early — that focus on Socrates and his way of questioning things said, as a role model.

“We can believe that freedom is reduced to social standing (enjoying honors, not being born a slave); nonetheless, neither birth nor social standing constitutes true freedom. Precisely, freedom has become interior, independent of the world; it has ceased to be a political condition. By this, Epictetus does not oppose true freedom to a capacity to choose; he metaphorically transposes political freedom to the internal life of the sage. This metaphor will be used, and will cease to be perceived as such. Nonetheless, it is this provocative metaphor (coming from an emancipated slave!) that consecrates the entrance of the concept of freedom into ethical debate, where it had played no role up to that point. Addressing an aristocratic audience, the emancipated former slave ironically replays the original scene from the Lysis. The context of enunciation has changed, but not the sense: only one who knows (and knows how to vanquish her passions) is free. Thus the terms ‘free’ and ‘slave’ slide from the status of (political) metaphors to that of concepts” (pp. 219-220).

Epictetus is the first philosopher to strongly thematize freedom in an ethical context.

Stoicism’s de-emphasis on social standing and its egalitarianism are among its most attractive features. Long before Kant and his Rousseauian turn, it treated equality as a recognition of the human as inherently valuable.

Plato’s dialogue Lysis asks about friendship and love, relating these to wisdom and a kind of humility. While it ends without a firm conclusion on the main question, it suggests that freedom has more to do with wisdom than with social status.

“Everyone is responsible for their actions, but sages are rare. The sage is one who guides her conduct by the causal determinism: she takes into account the limits of what depends on us; this gives her an absolute serenity: [quote from Seneca:] ‘we must […] support our human condition, and not trouble ourselves with that which is not in our power to change. […] To obey god, that is freedom‘. Freedom coincides with virtue. It is the capacity to consent only to what is good, to divine wisdom; it brings serenity, the absence of obstacles, of trouble and of passion” (p. 220).

The mark of the Stoic sage is perfect assent to fate. Seneca famously identifies assent to fate with a kind of obedience to divine order, but even he does not reduce virtue to obedience. Stoic assent is supposed to be eminently rational; it is not a kind of faith.

Boulnois concludes, “Freedom is proper to the sage; it remains a goal that Epictetus regrets not having attained. This state is anything but accessible: a sage is born every 500 years. The last sage was no doubt Socrates. Sagehood is nothing but an ideal toward which our nature must tend; it is a goal that orients action; it is hardly an example. As a consequence, freedom itself is ideal; it may not be accessible, but it remains the goal of our existence” (ibid).

The ideal of freedom is anything but a simple possession that we “have”. Instead it points to a striving.

“Stoicism (certainly that of Epictetus) is a turning point in the history of ethics: in posing that the source of all action resides in our resolution and our will, it posits that the ensemble of human faculties and impulses is overseen by assent, the key of all morality. If an action depends on me, I am its cause, and I am responsible; if I accomplish it, I deserve praise; if I do not accomplish it, I bear the blame. In the same way, when freedom (eleutheria) intervenes in Epictetus as an attribute of resolution (proairesis), this does not make a free will [libre arbitre]” (pp. 220-221).

Boulnois does not hesitate to give positive mention to will in the sense of definite intent, and neither should we. The freedom of the Stoic sage is not an attribute of a faculty of choice, but rather is marked by the Stoic virtue of constancy or coherence in matters of intent.

“Stoicism admits at once a universal causal determinism and the responsibility of each human for her actions. ‘What depends on us’ is thus conceived as a spontaneity. An agent is responsible for her action when it is she, and not another, who is the cause of the action; it is not necessary that she have the capacity to act otherwise. Everything that happens occurs necessarily; but my action is no less attributable to me; I am responsible” (p. 221).

Here is a positive notion of spontaneity that is not contaminated by voluntarism. As in Aristotle, it characterizes actions that are neither coerced nor forced by extraordinary circumstance.

“Many conclusions follow:”

“1. The concept of ‘what depends on us’ remains relevant, for thinking responsibility for our actions. It is concentrated in our assent.”

“2. But assent has nothing to do with a concept of free will [libre arbitre]: it is not possible to choose between alternative lines of action. Like a balance scale, it tips or inclines our desires and our representations. My assent is moved by the conjuncture of the world and the state of my mind [esprit] (beliefs and emotions).”

“3. That to which our ‘own power’ (autexousia) pertains is monovalent. If I have the power to consent to some action, this does not mean that I also have the power not to consent to it (in contrast to the bivalent Aristotelian concept of ‘what depends on us’).”

“4. Only the sage is free, but this is because she has decided to limit the domain of her choice to what depends on her. Her freedom is monovalent: it is a power to consent to the order of the world.”

“5. Freedom does not qualify an arbitration; it is the state of the sage, thought by metaphorical transfer from political freedom” (ibid).

“The Stoic position is indeed compatibilist, but in a very precise sense. It upholds a compatibilism not between the necessity of causes and the free will [libre arbitre] of the individual, but between fate and what depends on us. As for freedom, it is an ideal of sagehood and perfect serenity. But neither for the ordinary human nor for the sage must we think a free will” (pp. 221-222).

“Resolution is an act of the agent. Is it a form of opinion or of desire? At the outset, is resolution an opinion or a belief (doxa), for example the opinion that ‘this is to be done’? No, for three reasons.”

“1. Opinions are vaster objects: we have opinions about eternal truths and about impossible things; but we only resolve to act on the real and the temporal. What is more, opinions are true or false, but not resolutions. We care about whether an opinion is true, but about whether a resolution is just. It is precisely in the character of resolution that what is proper to ethics, the difference between theory and practice, comes into play.”

“2. Having a true opinion is not the same thing as taking the good resolution. An agent can believe precisely that she should do something without acting in accordance with this opinion: ‘Some have good opinions, but by reason of their malice, choose what they should not’. The agent can be intelligent, informed about the truth, and make a bad choice, because her choice is affected by her emotions, themselves concretized in habitus. When she is affected by vices, her resolution is not the better.”

“3. The more a thing appears to us as good, the more we resolutely aim for it. Our degree of engagement in a resolution is proportional to our certitude that it is a good, while opinion is concerned with what we do not know in a sure way. Otherwise said, opinion goes together with incertitude, but resolution does not. We can hesitate over what is uncertain, but we resolve without difficulty on what appears to us as risky” (Boulnois, Généalogie de la liberté, pp. 141-142, my translation throughout).

“From this the fundamental principle of ethics: ‘It is by our resolution for the good or the bad, and not by our opinion, that we become good or bad’. This principle is radically anti-intellectualist; contrary to what Plato says in the Protagoras, it does not suffice to know the better to be able to do it. Our moral character does not depend on our theoretical attitude, but on the ensemble of our resolutions, where repetition constitutes our disposition to act, indeed our aptitude for performing good actions” (p. 142).

“Resolution draws closer to affective dispositions. Aristotle, following the Platonic tripartition of the soul, distinguishes three forms of desire (orexis): appetite (epithumia), spiritedness (thumos), and rational wish (boulesis); the first two are not deliberated, while only the third presupposes logos. Is resolution a form of appetite or spiritedness? No, for three reasons. 1) Animals without language have appetite and spiritedness, but not resolution, which characterizes the human. 2) Humans can aim resolutely at an object without appetite or spiritedness. The one who masters herself (the ‘continent’) indeed aims at an object contrary to her appetite by resigning herself to it, even though she has no appetite for it. 3) In contrast to desire, resolution is not concerned with pleasure: ‘The object of appetite is pleasure and pain; that of resolution is neither the one nor the other’. Certainly pleasure accompanies every virtuous life, worthy of being aimed at by a resolution, and some (the intemperate) make pleasure itself the end of their existence. But what Aristotle wants to insist upon is that every resolution is not in its essence determined by the representation of a pleasure” (pp. 142-143).

“Resolution can be dissociated from sensible desires, appetite and spiritedness. Can it be identified with the third term, boulesis? And to begin with, what does boulesis mean? — Since Cicero, the boulesis of the Stoics has been translated to Latin by voluntas: [quote from Cicero:] ‘As soon as the image of something that appears to be good is presented, nature moves us to obtain it’. Nonetheless, the Stoics affirm that such a mastery of impulse is found only in the sage: only the sage wants what he does; the others are obstructed and tossed around by their passions. It is much later, with Augustine, that this prerogative of the sage will become a faculty accessible to all. Our concept of will, as capacity to consent or not to our representations, carries all this history. — But in Aristotle, boulesis always designates the desire that pertains to the part of the soul gifted with speech (logos). It is an enunciable, intelligible form of desire. The translation by ‘will’ does not agree with this: will is the triggering principle of action, while boulesis can rest without an effect. Boulesis is a wish: the wish does not require the existence of a will; it is the form that desire takes in the discursive part of the soul; like all desire, it is moved by its object, whereas the will is an active principle; finally, we can wish for what does not depend on us, even for what is impossible” (p. 143).

“Thus resolution cannot be identified with a wish. Aristotle cites three reasons for this. 1) We do not take the impossible as a resolution, but we can wish for it (say, to be immortal). 2) No one resolves to do what is not in her power, but we can wish for it (say, the victory of our city at the Olympic Games). 3) We wish to attain an end, but we resolve to take up the means that lead to it (if we wish for health, we decide on the means to achieve it). The first two reasons prevent seeing in boulesis a concept of will (efficacious, trigger of action): we cannot will the impossible, or will on someone’s behalf. As a consequence, boulesis designates a wish more than a willing: we wish to obtain what appears to us as good. Like resolution it is a form of desire, but resolution and wish are distinguished by their objects: the wish can concern the end, the action of another, and even the impossible, while we only resolve on a means that we can accomplish ourselves” (pp. 143-144).

“Thus proairesis is neither desire nor opinion. It is the conjoint act of these two faculties, for there is no ‘intentional faculty’, no power distinct from resolution. Resolution results from the complex conjunction of many operations. Medieval authors tried to express this phenomenon in their metaphysical language: Thomas Aquinas, in affirming that freedom has the will as its subject but the intellect as its cause; Duns Scotus, in holding that the act of the will results from the concurrence of two partial causes, the intellect and the will. But this only serves to obscure the concept again, in the absence of an adequate ontological elucidation” (p. 144).

“If all proairesis bears on an action accomplished willingly, all willing action is not for all that a proairesis: children and animals act willingly, but without deliberation. Since they do not possess the power of anticipating and organizing an action, their movement depends on them, but they have no resolution. Within our desires, resolution results from a deliberation, which is deployed by means of language: ‘we desire because we have deliberated’, and not the inverse; otherwise said, ‘the principle and the cause’ of our resolution ‘is deliberation’. This point is decisive against all the empiricist, mechanist, or naturalist explanations: it is not the mere brute presence of the desirable object that provokes our resolution; the principle that triggers it is situated at the level of discourse (logos). The conjunction of an opinion and a desire is not sufficient, again it is necessary that the resolution comes from a reasoning. The true principle of our resolution is of the order of language and thought. Like all living beings, the human is necessarily moved by what appears to her as desirable, but in contrast to the other living beings, it is by speech that the desirable appears to her. Deliberation discerns as good the object that our resolution entails, and triggers our desire” (pp. 144-145).

“For we deliberate neither about that which is necessary and immutable, nor about an unforeseeable hazard, nor about the impossible, but solely about that which depends on us. Resolution concerns action that can be accomplished by us, ‘what can come to be through us (di’ hemon)’, that of which we can be the cause. We deliberate on that which no one can do in our place. — As a result, we do not deliberate on the end that we pursue, but on the means for attaining it. No more do we deliberate when it comes to following a rule, respecting orthography, or following a recipe. There is only a place for deliberation when many lines of action are possible. — It is necessary to underline: Aristotle does not say precisely that resolution depends on us. What depends on us is the action that is the object of this resolution, and not the anticipative resolution in itself. And if there is a choice of one means among many, from this point of view it is accidental. Aristotle indeed proposes a theory of decision, or of resolution, but not a theory of freedom of choice, or of free arbitration” (pp. 145-146).

“For what depends on us is ambivalent. Resolution concerns actions that we have the power to accomplish, on the condition that we also have the power to not accomplish them. ‘Where it depends on us to act, it also depends on us to not act, and there where there is a place for the “no”, there is a place for the “yes” ‘. The principle of mastery applies to all our willing actions, including those that are resolved upon or deliberated. It would be too easy to affirm that only beautiful actions depend on us because we accomplish them, while ugly ones do not depend on us, as if beliefs and the emotions they evoke prevent us from being the source of them; this would be to shirk our responsibility. As Chisolm used to say, we are responsible not for all we have done, but for what it depends on us to do or not do: ‘that which can be or not be’. This is why we can resolve to execute them or not. The touch stone of ‘what depends on us’ is the power to say no. It is the possibility of negation that reveals that a statement is implicitly an affirmation. But precisely, this does not imply the existence of a common power, anterior to affirmation and negation, to pursuit and to flight. Aristotle does not feel the need for a third instance, consent, preliminary to the yes and no. Every action coming from me is implicitly a yes. But I could have not done it” (p. 146).

“Such actions are ontologically contingent: they could also not be. The metaphysical tradition, in deducing the existence of a power of choice, of a will or a free arbitration: ‘the rational is equivalent to the fact of having in oneself the principle [that allows] the choosing or rejection of a thing’ (Alexander of Aphrodisias); ‘this is proper to the will, by which a substance is the mistress of her act, because it depends on her to act or not act’ (Thomas Aquinas). — But in the alternative between acting and not acting, Aristotle does not specify whether he speaks of actions in the generic sense (in general, the human can laugh or not laugh), or of singular actions (at this instant, can this human walk or not walk?). And precisely, the absence of supplementary characterization obliges us to understand actions in a broader (generic) sense. If the agent walks, she is responsible for having walked, because she also has the faculty of not walking. This does not imply that in a given situation, taking into account her beliefs and desires, she can act or not act, and act in one way or another way. — On the other hand, contingency is not indetermination. Nothing obliges us to understand this contingency in an absolute manner, and as subject to our power. Aristotle has in mind the ensemble of actions that depend on us (eph’ hemin) in general (in the sense of a collectivity: the humans, the agents, the citizens), but not those that depend on me here and now. It is a matter of actions that are imputed to us, if we are not prevented by an exterior constraint” (pp. 146-147).

“The contingency of our action is simply generic, it does not necessarily signify that the action has no determining cause: the human has in general the capacity to act or not act, to do x rather than y. But Aristotle never claims that an agent has, all things being equal otherwise, at a given instant, the capacity to do a thing or its contrary, to act and to not act. ‘What depends on us is a generic capacity, proper to the human, and not that of this particular individual, here and now. Reciprocally, in insisting on the idea that deliberation is the cause of our resolution, Aristotle holds that at the interior of this bivalence, we aim more often at what the logos presents to us as desirable. He does not claim that at a given instant, the state of the universe being given, the human has the choice between committing such an action or not. Aristotle quite simply mentions neither determinism nor free choice, because he does not debate about choice or about destiny, and he has no need to explain our responsibility for an action” (pp. 147-148).

“The principle of our resolution is not an exterior cause, but the conclusion of a reasoning. The agent ceases to ask herself about the good way of acting when there is in herself the point of departure of the action, ‘when she brought back the principle to herself, and within herself to the part that leads, because that is what resolution means’. In effect, deliberation starts from the end that we desire, and investigates the means to achieve it. It is complete when the last means that we have found corresponds to a gesture in which we have the initiative. For Aristotle, the principle of movement is analogous to the principle in geometric analysis, which signifies precisely that the relation between deliberation and action is necessary” (p. 148).

“In ourselves, resolution initiates movement, and action that depends on us consists in this, of which we have to give an account: ‘We all agree that in actions that are willing and in conformity with a resolution (kata prohairesin), each of us is responsible (aition), and that in actions accomplished in spite of ourselves, we are not responsible’. Can we with Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire translate: ”with respect to the causes that are voluntary and which result from free arbitration, each is the cause and is responsible’? — Precisely not. Is this a matter of a ‘libertarian’ conception? That would be to presuppose what is in question: the existence of an indeterminate will in Aristotle. All we can say is that for Aristotle, by anticipatory resolution the agent becomes herself the responsible one who can justify what happens (as with the political action of Demosthenes)” (pp. 148-149).

“According to R. A. Gauthier, we have here a ‘draft of the theory of free arbitration’. But we must reject the retrospective illusion that consists in attributing to Aristotle the conclusions of his successors. Why does an analysis that does not speak of free arbitration become an analysis that almost speaks of it, and that already speaks of it? Aristotle in no way seeks to resolve the problem of free arbitration, because it is not posed in his ethics: [quote from Pierre Aubenque:] ‘Approaching the notion of proairesis from the perspective of “freedom of the will” is to condemn oneself to looking in the Aristotelian texts for what is not there, and neglecting what is there. What is not found there is a doctrine of freedom and responsibility. What is found there is a new contribution to an ontology, and to an anthropology of action’ ” (p. 149).

“An action is implicitly ours when we are in sum its principle, except when there is a constraint, in the same way that a statement is implicitly an affirmation, except when the signs indicate a negation. It is not necessary to have a principle of choice that allows passage from the one to the other. At the same time, our action is called willing when it is entailed by an internal principle, that is to say that it is necessarily caused by our deliberation: given the premises, the conclusion of a practical reasoning is necessary. In brief, what characterizes a willing action is spontaneity, and what characterizes a resolved action is the intervention of language. In the one case as in the other, this does not prevent its depending necessarily on its conditions” (pp. 149-150).

“In this context, what is the principle of action? If resolution is entailed by deliberation, what triggers action is the directive part of the soul. ‘Three things are mistresses (kuria) of action and of truth: sensation, intellect, and desire’. — Is sensation sufficient? It determines the particularity of circumstances, because it perceives the concrete singular in a practical reasoning (‘here is a drink’), but it is not the principle of action, because it is not the beginning of a causal chain that leads there. Is thought sufficient? No more so: it is not thought alone that is the origin of action, but practical deliberation. — Is it necessary to hold to desire alone? Not any more so. It is not necessary to confound the origin of an action and its control, the principle (arkhe) and the master (kurios). Only an articulation between desire and thought constitutes the moving principle of human action. This is operated by practical reason, which starts from an aim, the object of desire, and researches the means to attain it” (p. 150).

“The principle of action is indeed resolution (proairesis), ‘and the principle of resolution is desire and reason — that which pursues an aim’. Resolution is a principle, but it has principles of its own, desire and practical reason. all the better suited to join forces because they are analogous: ‘What affirmation and negation are in thought, pursuit and flight are in desire; […] for the resolution to be good, it is necessary at the same time that the discourse be true and the desire just: it is necessary that the latter pursue what the first affirms’. Resolution concerns what is presented to us as desirable in language, so that the object of desire corresponds to the object described as feasible by a reasoning. The affirmation that concludes discourse and the pursuit that animates desire concur in one sole and same act. Thus the principle of properly human action is resolution, that is to say the conjunction of desire and of the logos in pursuit of an aim” (pp. 150-151).

“Resolution is not the only principle of the conduct of humans, but it is its principle par excellence: no action can be fully good if it is not decided upon intentionally, resolved. Indeed more so than action, resolution reveals the virtues of character. For we judge the moral character of the agent not according to her intelligence, but according to the quality of her resolutions” (p. 151).

“If the quality of resolution makes the quality of moral character, the trajectory of ethics consists in passing from desire, which concerns the apparent good, to resolution, which concerns a good determined by a deliberation. When we pursue what appears to be a good, how do we know whether what we pursue is an ‘absolute’ or an ‘apparent’ good? The Sophists affirm that whatever anyone desires is good; Plato, that we can only will the true and absolutes good. Aristotle leaves this alternative behind by referring to the honest man, the man of the good (spudaios): ‘That which is in truth the object of a wish is the object of the wish of the man of the good […] For the man of the good judges correctly about each sort of thing, and in each the truth is what appears to him […] Without a doubt the most important difference between the man of the good and the others is that he sees the truth in each sort of thing, for he is the rule and the measure of each of them’ ” (pp. 151-152).

“This passage has been taken as a sort of relativism tempered by the prudence of the man of the good: with the incapacity of discovering the truth about the good, it is necessary to trust the honest man, and to universalize his subjective judgment. But even as he reprises the sophism (Protagoras: ‘man is the measure of all things’), Aristotle rejects the relativism that it implies: certain humans can see ‘the truth in each sort of things’ — simply, the condition for achieving this is not just theoretical (it does not suffice to know the good in order to desire it), it is also affective or practical (it is necessary to have acquired the habit of finding pleasure in choosing acts that are worthy). While the Sophists identify freedom with the capacity to act as we want, and Plato with sole adherence to the Good, Aristotle proposes a third way: ethical freedom is the art of deciding well, of taking the resolution required by the circumstances” (p. 152).

“The good human like the vicious desires what is pleasant, for pleasure is the phenomenon of good. But the good human reasons correctly and desires justly, and this is why her choice bears on that which is truly good, while the vicious holds tight to the form of the apparition, that is to say to pleasure, and can associate it with any object whatever. Vicious resolution concerns the uncontrolled pursuit of agreeable objects; virtuous resolution to pursuit of the correct middle term. The good human’s ethical virtue ensures that she will make good choices, and her prudence ensures that she deliberates correctly. The resolution taken by the good human is indeed a point of coincidence between the apparent good (which all seek) and the true good (which she discerns). In order to leave behind the confrontation between Sophists and Platonists, Aristotle has recourse neither to a relativism of appearances nor to an objective norm; in the element of virtue (and of desire), he aims at a coincidence between the phenomenon of the good and its truth. There are certainly degrees, but they mark a progression: each perceives the measure of good of which she is capable” (pp. 152-153).

For a longer excerpt from Sach’s translation of this part of the Nicomachean Ethics, see here.