EleutherIA — Defined term

Prohairesis (Deliberate Choice)

προαίρεσις

Classical Greek

Prohairesis is Aristotle's term for deliberate choice or decision. Nicomachean Ethics III.2 distinguishes it from the broader voluntary: children and non-rational animals act voluntarily but do not exercise prohairesis. At III.3, 1113a10–11, Aristotle characterizes choice as deliberative desire concerning things up to us; deliberation concerns the things that contribute toward an end, not the end itself. Prohairesis therefore joins desire and deliberative reasoning and is especially revealing of character, without being a separately named faculty.

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