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vice will be just as much voluntary as virtue; for the bad
man equally with the good possesses spontaneity in his actions, even if not in his choice
of an end.
[20]
If then, as is said, our virtues are
voluntary （and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral
dispositions, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a
certain kind）, it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary
in the same manner as our virtues.
[21]
We have then now discussed in outline the virtues in general, having indicated their
genus [namely, that it is a mean, and a disposition1] and having shown that they render us
apt to do the same actions as those by which they are produced,2 and to do them in the way in which right reason may
enjoin3; and that they depend on ourselves and are voluntary.45
[22]
But our dispositions are not voluntary in the same way
as are our actions. Our actions we can control from beginning to end, and we are
conscious, of them at each stage.6 With our dispositions on the other hand, though
we can control their beginnings,
1 This clause looks like an interpolation: ἕξις is the genus of virtue, Bk. 2.5 fin., 6 init., μεσότης its differentia, 2.6.5,17.
2 See 2.2.8.
3 See 2.2.2. This clause in the mss. follows the next one.
4 See 5.2 and 20.
5 This section some editors place before 5.21, but it is rather a footnote to 5.14; and the opening words of 5.23 imply that a digression has been made.
6 τὰ καθ᾽ ἕκαστα seems to bear a somewhat different sense here from 1.15, ἡ καθ᾽ ἕκαστα （ ἄγνοια）.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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