We now turn to a discussion of the individual's responsibility for his acts and the voluntary nature of moral purpose. As already shown, virtue or moral excellence is a matter of feeling and action. Since a man is praised or blamed only for things done voluntarily, it is essential to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary actions.
Involuntary actions are those performed under compulsion or as a result of ignorance. An act is compulsory if it originates in an external cause and the agent (doer of the act) contributes nothing to it (e.g., this is the case when the captain of a ship is forced off course by adverse winds).
The situation is not always this clear. Some acts involve a mixture of voluntary and involuntary (e.g., when a man obeys a tyrant's command to commit an immoral act in order to protect his loved ones). Such acts in the end must be classified as being more akin to voluntary, since the man freely chooses between alternatives. Actions cannot be judged only according to abstract moral principles, but must be evaluated in regard to the particulars of the given situation and there are some things which a good man ought not to do under any circumstances.
Acts committed in ignorance are not considered to be voluntary, but a distinction must be drawn between an act done through ignorance which is subsequently regretted by the agent (classified as an involuntary act), and such an act which is not regretted (classified as a non-voluntary act). There is also a distinction between an act due to ignorance and an act done in ignorance. A drunken man may act ignorantly, but his ignorance is due to the alcohol he has consumed and not to his own lack of knowledge; in this sense his act may be non-voluntary.
