Nicomachean Ethics III.2

In the next chapter of Book III, Aristotle moves on to that which is chosen. The word being used is prohairesis, which can be translated either as "choice" or "decision." It's the same Greek word whichever of those English words is used.

Both the voluntary and the involuntary having been delimited, we must next discuss choice; for it is thought to be most closely bound up with virtue and to discriminate characters better than actions do.

Choice, then, seems to be voluntary, but not the same thing as the voluntary; the latter extends more widely. For both children and the lower animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as chosen.

This is not how we today talk about choosing. Note that Aristotle is setting aside 'choice' as something that requires not only access to the Order of Reason, but in fact adult levels of reasoning. He is probably incorrect that neither children nor animals partake of that; some animals like crows and orcas seem to do so, and many children are more rational than he is giving them credit for here. Still, we can admit the exceptions without undermining the basic distinction he is making between that which is driven by impulse and that which is chosen after consideration. 

Those who say it is appetite or anger or wish or a kind of opinion do not seem to be right. For choice is not common to irrational creatures as well, but appetite and anger are. Again, the incontinent man acts with appetite, but not with choice; while the continent man on the contrary acts with choice, but not with appetite. Again, appetite is contrary to choice, but not appetite to appetite. Again, appetite relates to the pleasant and the painful, choice neither to the painful nor to the pleasant.

I mentioned this continent/incontinent distinction in I.13. We will hear a lot more about this, so you might want to review the note there.

Still less is it anger; for acts due to anger are thought to be less than any others objects of choice.

So much so that even today we have a lesser standard of punishment for murders committed in anger than murders that were premeditated in cold blood.

But neither is it wish, though it seems near to it; for choice cannot relate to impossibles, and if any one said he chose them he would be thought silly; but there may be a wish even for impossibles, e.g. for immortality. And wish may relate to things that could in no way be brought about by one's own efforts, e.g. that a particular actor or athlete should win in a competition; but no one chooses such things, but only the things that he thinks could be brought about by his own efforts. Again, wish relates rather to the end, choice to the means; for instance, we wish to be healthy, but we choose the acts which will make us healthy, and we wish to be happy and say we do, but we cannot well say we choose to be so; for, in general, choice seems to relate to the things that are in our own power.

You can't choose to ride a unicorn to work, obviously. There's a broader point here about the importance of ends and means being in alignment, and within one's own power. I wish for my favorite football team to win, but I can't really do anything about it; increasingly, our politics looks like that too. I wish for things to happen, but cannot control or even influence them through the means available to me.

This point is greatly elaborated by the Stoics, who will go on to find that much of the time we are fooling ourselves about what we actually have power to control. (If you are interested, follow the link on prohairesis for more.) That removes our responsibility for them, for Aristotle; for the Stoics, it should also liberate us from our need to be bothered about them. What we end up responsible for is how we choose to respond internally rather than what happens in the world outside of us. Aristotle does not go that far. He expects you still to care, even very deeply, about things you cannot control. He just doesn't think you are making choices that you are responsible for in doing so.

For this reason, too, it cannot be opinion; for opinion is thought to relate to all kinds of things, no less to eternal things and impossible things than to things in our own power; and it is distinguished by its falsity or truth, not by its badness or goodness, while choice is distinguished rather by these.

That point might be debatable to students of theology, and not merely Christian ones; your opinion about eternal things is often said by the monotheisms to be a choice of great significance. Some say your very soul may depend on this choice of what to believe about the eternal things. Terence Irwin's translation even gives this word not as "opinion" but as "belief," and framed that way we are used to hearing it described as a decision of the very first importance.

For Aristotle, it is not a decision nor choice at all, and definitely not something that would greatly inform us about your character. That is, pragmatically, how Americans tend to behave: we usually don't concern ourselves with others' religious views at all, but instead accept that anyone can be a good person (or a bad one) regardless of his or her religious opinions. Most of us have known people we greatly liked and considered to be good in spite of significant differences in religious opinions.

Whether Aristotle was right or wrong about that is, of course, an opinion of just the type under discussion. He goes on to dismiss all sorts of opinions (or 'beliefs' of this sort) from ethics; they are, he argues, not even the right kind of things to consider as ethical decisions.

Now with opinion in general perhaps no one even says it is identical [with decision]. But [decision] is not identical even with any kind of opinion; for by choosing what is good or bad we are men of a certain character, which we are not by holding certain opinions. And we choose to get or avoid something good or bad, but we have opinions about what a thing is or whom it is good for or how it is good for him; we can hardly be said to opine to get or avoid anything. And choice is praised for being related to the right object rather than for being rightly related to it, opinion for being truly related to its object. And we choose what we best know to be good, but we opine what we do not quite know; and it is not the same people that are thought to make the best choices and to have the best opinions, but some are thought to have fairly good opinions, but by reason of vice to choose what they should not. If opinion precedes choice or accompanies it, that makes no difference; for it is not this that we are considering, but whether it is identical with some kind of opinion.

What, then, or what kind of thing is [decision], since it is none of the things we have mentioned? It seems to be voluntary, but not all that is voluntary to be an object of choice. Is it, then, what has been decided on by previous deliberation? At any rate choice involves a rational principle and thought. Even the name seems to suggest that it is what is chosen before other things.

A consequence of that last is that all of ethics is limited to that which is or ought to be decided rationally. You can still be judged for irrational behaviors, but only if your reason should have controlled your actions and didn't.