Voluntary Vs Involuntary Action

The pursuit of justice is an endeavor that many find to be challenging and a quest itself, as one will come across various trials and complications that may stop them in their pursuit or may mislead them. As humans, we find moral correctness and righteousness a very appealing state to be in, as justice will act as a platform to satisfy the desire for this correctness. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, we meet our miserable anti-hero, Oedipus, in his pursuit for truth and righting the wrong of the plague that is affecting his people of Thebes. As he makes efforts to solve this problem, he comes to find out that he is the source of the issue, thus exposing the tragic flaw of Oedipus and effectively making this play a very effective Greek tragedy. This pursuit of righteousness ends up being the downfall of Oedipus. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus pursues justice through his realization of his past, his interactions with various characters in the play, and comes to understand more of justice in his situation through his reactions to adversity in this play, in order to portray a questionably successful pursuit of justice.

The idea of blame, defined as, “A particular kind of response (e.g. emotion), to a person, at fault, for a wrongful action,” plays a significant role in the study of crime, with respect to degrees of “fault.” In most modern societies, “criminal culpability,” or degrees of wrongdoing, makes a difference between the kinds of punishment one receives for his action(s). To be culpable for a crime, there must be a guilty act (Actus Rea), and a guilty mind (Mens Rea). Degrees of culpability often depends on the kind of mental state, (Mens Rea), one brings to the act in which he engaged. How much one is blameworthy for wrongful conduct depends in part on the state of mind in relation to the wrongful conduct. One’s mental state while engaging in wrongful conduct, which in a legal sense is determined by legislators, is characterized by the following terms: purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligence.

Mencius addresses that men can become evil because of their actions. He uses the analogy of the forest. First it is beautiful but because of actions it can become barren. In other words, a man is born good and innocent. Still this man can do actions that lead to him becoming evil. This man still has the chance to go back to his good nature, but if he continues to be evil there is a point where he will be unable to turn back to his good ways. After a while of a person being evil people will stop believing that this person was ever good. Take Hitler for example, no one thinks of the innocent baby he was when he was born. Okay that is a pretty bad example but you get what I am saying, hopefully.

Oedipus killed a person that just so happens to be his father and that makes him guilty. “Crimes worse than deadly done against them both”, says Oedipus, as he realizes the extent of his actions. He knew what he has done was way out of his control even though he fought hard to avoid his fate. Oedipus knew wrong was wrong, agreeing that his actions were indeed a crime.

Furthermore, justice in its true form cannot be used solely for the advantage of the stronger without the masses acknowledging the injustices being imposed upon them, as Thrasymachus suggests is the case. For justice is one of the many characteristics of morality, which is considered to be intrinsic based on an inner conviction.7 Therefore, if the many were acting against said inner conviction wholly for the benefit of the stronger,

In this paper, I will argue that Aristotle view of the 4 kinds of people are accurate. These 4 kinds of people are the virtuous, strong-willed, vicious, and weak-willed. First, I will set out Aristotle’s argument about a strong-willed person who struggles to overcome desires, and does it make them morally wrong. Next, I will show the 4 kinds of persons that Aristotle believes exist, they are the virtuous, strong-willed, weak-willed, and the vicious persons and his arguments concerning them. Finally, I will set out my own position to support Aristotle’s view.

Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" generally focuses on living a virtuous life and having virtuous characteristics. In Book III Chapter II of "Nicomachean Ethics", Aristotle focuses on different types of actions. He divides actions into three categories: voluntary, involuntary and nonvoluntary. Aristotle makes this distinction mainly because his evaluation of someone's actions depends primarily on whether their actions are voluntary, involuntary, or nonvoluntary.

On the other hand, Aristotle would take a different approach. Aristotle believed in virtue ethics. This type of theory bases all on moderation. It also asks the question of what makes a person moral, instead of what acts are moral. Reason is directly correlated with a virtue that we have become accustom to. When evaluating this situation, we have to ask, "What is a virtue?" Virtues are traits of a person's character that are habitual actions that are good for that particular person to possess. We also need to know character traits of the virtue. These character traits consist of things like being nice to each other, sharing your possessions with those less fortunate, caring for people, etc. With this incident we know that you are showing compassion, thoughtfulness, friendliness, etc by helping this elderly man. By having these qualities you did not have to think about what you were doing and you assisted the man because of you possessed these virtues. So in this situation, Aristotle would say that it was a moral act. You are a virtuous person that is why you did the action. It was habitual and the reason you did it was because it was directly correlated to the virtues you possessed.

Virtue Ethics is neither deontological nor teleological, since it is concerned with neither duty nor consequences, but rather the state of the person acting. Aristotle believed that once you are good, good actions will necessarily follow, and this belief is at the centre of Virtue Ethics. Rather than defining good actions, Virtue Ethics looks at good people and the qualities that make them good. The non-normative theory, although very effective in determining the morality of individuals, is particularly flawed when applied to whole societies. This weakness is largely due to its imprecision and abstraction; however, before these weaknesses can be considered, it is necessary to give an account of the theory itself.

In this paper, I will present a similarity and difference between Aristotle’s concept of a virtuous act and Kant’s discussion of dutiful action. In The Nicomachean Ethics, The source of a virtuous action happens when your passions and thoughts are balanced. It is balanced when there is

In our society today, we are mostly challenged by two questions: ‘is it right to do this or that? And ‘how should I be living in society?’(Bessant, 2009). Similar questions were greatly discussed in the history by our ancestors in their philosophical discussions. The most ancient and long-lasting literature on moral principles and ethics were described by Greek philosopher Aristotle. He had an excellent command on various subjects ranging from sciences to mathematics and philosophy. He was also a student of a famous philosopher. His most important study on ethics, personal morality and virtues is ‘The Nicomachean Ethics’, which has been greatly influencing works of literature in ethics and heavily read for centuries, is believed to be

Anscombe’s theory of intentional action is one of different depths and levels. On the surface of the meaning, there are intentional actions with no reasons behind them and ones with reasons. There are also unintentional actions involving unaware actions or involuntary reflexes. I will start with the explanation for intentional acts: Intentional actions are those that give a positive or negative response when the question ‘Why?’ is asked and the question ‘Why?’ has application. It is rational to ask why someone is doing an action, because they are doing it for an intentional reason. Even if an act is being done absent mindedly, like tapping your fingers on a chair while you wait at the doctor’s office, you do it for no reason, but you do not have to be doing it, it is

behavior and whether that is an act of freedom or determinism. A question that I propose and

This contradiction can perhaps be resolved within Aristotle’s analysis of justice in Book V. Here he makes evident that justice as a virtue is inherently intertwined with law-abidingness, so much so that he calls lawfulness “complete virtue” (1129b28). Yet, Aristotle also provides an extensive critique of laws. Giorgi Areshidze examines this critique in his essay, “Aristotle’s Critique of Justice, the Rule of Law and the Common Good in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics.” According to Areshidze, “laws are deficient because they are expressed as universals and therefore are likely to fail to secure justice in particular cases (1137b13), and above all because at the core of laws rest deeply flawed assumptions about human beings: laws require penalties because they assume that the lawbreaker gets away with too much good, and must therefore be subjected to punishment through which “the judge tries to take away his gain and restore the equilibrium” (1132a8).” As a result of this assumption, Areshidze states, “all

A moral person will make choices out of good faith; choosing what is good for the sake of being good. Moral choices must be done voluntarily not by coincidence or ignorance. Someone cannot be deemed a hero due to their own mishap. Someone accidentally going the wrong way down a one-way-street blocks a get-away car from passing. The traffic-violator cannot take credit for stopping the criminals due to coincidence by his default in directions. Actions done by ignorance cannot be rationalized to be substantially moral. A person may act by reason of ignorance or act in ignorance. Acting by reason of ignorance is done by acting on good intentions without realizing potential danger and does not exempt a person from morality. A nurse distributing milk to patients may give a lactose intolerant patient chocolate milk instead of soy milk not realizing that the chocolate milk will make the patient sick (which she would definitely loose her job). The nurse had good intentions but she fell short and caused more damage. Acting in ignorance cannot be justified to due incapacitation or other unusual circumstances. A drug user cannot justify a bank robbery because of the voices in his head. If he would not have participated in drug use then the voices would not have told him to rob a bank. Actions done due to fear or accident are exempt from the moral realm. Aristotle taught that a virtuous person must obtain both dimensions in order to achieve