Organon F

Volume 31, November 2024, Issue 4, Pages 367–387

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

Some remarks in the Eudemian Ethics and the Nichomachean Ethics indicate that the voluntariness of actions is significantly related to compulsion and ignorance. According to a plausible interpretation, these remarks suggest that if an agent performs an action under compulsion or due to ignorance of some relevant facts, then she does so involuntarily. An objection to this interpretation with regard to compulsion is that an agent can voluntarily do what she is compelled to do. With regard to ignorance, one might object that it is necessary to clarify the proper range of relevant facts when considering whether an action performed out of ignorance is involuntary. In this paper, I develop two principles that align with the view that compulsion and ignorance are sufficient conditions for involuntary actions, while accommodating potential counterexamples and complications.

Aristotle; compulsion; Eudemian Ethics; Nichomachean Ethics; ignorance; involuntary action.

Author

Huiyuhl Yi

Affiliation

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Address

School of Liberal Arts, 50 Unist-gil, Ulju-gun, Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea

E-mail

huiyuhl@unist.ac.kr 

Received

5 May 2024

Revised

5 August 2024

Accepted

7 August 2024

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Yi, H. (2024). Compulsion, Ignorance, and Involuntary Action: An Aristotelian Analysis. Organon F, 31(4), 367–387. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31402

Chicago

Yi, Huiyuhl. 2024. "Compulsion, Ignorance, and Involuntary Action: An Aristotelian Analysis." Organon F 31 (4): 367–387. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31402

Harvard

Yi, H. (2024). Compulsion, Ignorance, and Involuntary Action: An Aristotelian Analysis. Organon F, 31(4), pp. 367–387. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31402

© Huiyuhl Yi

https://www.sav.sk/?lang=sk&doc=journal-list&part=article_response_page&journal_article_no=36118

The above URL is linked to the article's response page. The response page is a permanent location associated with the article's DOI number.

This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).