Before giving an account of specific virtues included in the moral life Aristotle discusses a number of questions having to do with the nature of a moral act and the degree to which a person is responsible for what he does. He begins by distinguishing between actions that are voluntary and those that are involuntary. Because involuntary actions are those over which man has no control at all they do not belong in the field of ethics and man has no moral responsibility with reference to them. In the case of voluntary actions the situation is different. When a man chooses a particular course of action he is responsible not only for the choice he has made but for the consequences which follow from it. Now if all actions could be classified as either voluntary or involuntary the problems would be quite simple.
Actually the situation is very complicated for we are constantly being faced with problems in which the decisions we make are neither entirely free nor entirely determined. Our responsibilities in these matters will vary with the degree of freedom which we are permitted to have.
