Actions based on Ignorance and Compulsion

Do men deliberate about everything, and is anything soever the object of Deliberation, or are there some matters with respect to which there is none?

(It may be as well perhaps to say, that by “object of Deliberation” is meant such matter as a sensible man would deliberate upon, not what any fool or madman might.)

Well: about eternal things no one deliberates; as, for instance, the universe, or the incommensurability of the diameter and side of a square.

Nor again about things which are in motion but which always happen in the same way either necessarily, or naturally, or from some other cause, as the solstices or the sunrise.

Nor about those which are variable, as drought and rains; nor fortuitous matters, as finding of treasure.

Nor in fact even about all human affairs; no Lacedæmonian, for instance, deliberates as to the best course for the Scythian government to adopt; because in such cases we have no power over the result.

But we do deliberate respecting such practical matters as are in our own power (which are what are left after all our exclusions).

I have adopted this division because causes seem to be divisible into nature, necessity, chance, and moreover intellect, and all human powers.

And as man in general deliberates about what man in general can effect, so individuals do about such practical things as can be effected through their own instrumentality.

Again, we do not deliberate respecting such arts or sciences as are exact and independent: as, for instance, about written characters, because we have no doubt how they should be formed; but we do deliberate on all buch things as are usually done through our own instrumentality, but not invariably in the same way; as, for instance, about matters connected with the healing art, or with money-making; and, again, more about piloting ships than gymnastic exercises, because the former has been less exactly determined, and so forth; and more about arts than sciences, because we more frequently doubt respecting the former.

So then Deliberation takes place in such matters as are under general laws, but still uncertain how in any given case they will issue, i.e. in which there is some indefiniteness; and for great matters we associate coadjutors in counsel, distrusting our ability to settle them alone.

Further, we deliberate not about Ends, but Means to Ends. No physician, for instance, deliberates whether he will cure, nor orator whether he will persuade, nor statesman whether he will produce a good constitution, nor in fact any man in any other function about his particular End; but having set before them a certain End they look how and through what means it may be accomplished: if there is a choice of means, they examine further which are easiest and most creditable; or, if there is but one means of accomplishing the object, then how it may be through this, this again through what, till they come to the first cause; and this will be the last found; for a man engaged in a process of deliberation seems to seek and analyse, as a man, to solve a problem, analyses the figure given him.

Not every search is Deliberation, those in mathematics to wit, but every Deliberation is a search, and the last step in the analysis is the first in the constructive process.

If in the course of their search men come upon an impossibility, they give it up; if money, for instance, be necessary, but cannot be got: but if the thing appears possible they then attempt to do it.

And by possible I mean what may be done through our own instrumentality (of course what may be done through our friends is through our own instrumentality in a certain sense, because the origination in such cases rests with us). And the object of search is sometimes the necessary instruments, sometimes the method of using them; and similarly in the rest sometimes through what, and sometimes how or through what.[9]

So it seems, as has been said, that Man is the originator of his actions; and Deliberation has for its object whatever may be done through one’s own instrumentality, and the actions are with a view to other things; and so it is, not the End, but the Means to Ends on which Deliberation is employed.

Nor, again, is it employed on matters of detail, as whether the substance before me is bread, or has been properly cooked; for these come under the province of sense, and if a man is to be always deliberating, he may go on ad infinitum.

Further, exactly the same matter is the object both of Deliberation and Moral Choice.

But that which is the object of Moral Choice is thenceforward separated off and definite,[10] because by object of Moral Choice is denoted that which after Deliberation has been preferred to something else: for each man leaves off searching how he shall do a thing when he has brought the origination up to himself, i.e. to the governing principle in himself,[11] because it is this which makes the choice.

A good illustration of this is furnished by the old regal constitutions which Homer drew from, in which the Kings would announce to the commonalty what they had determined before.

The object of Moral Choice is something in our own power, which is the object of deliberation and the grasping of the Will. This is why Moral Choice must be “a grasping after something in our own power consequent upon Deliberation:”

After having deliberated we decide, and then grasp by our Will in accordance with the result of our deliberation.[12]

Let this be accepted as a sketch of the nature and object of Moral Choice, that object being “Means to Ends.”