But no
one is encouraged to do the things that are neither in our power nor
voluntary; it is assumed that there is no gain in being persuaded
not to be hot or in pain or hungry or the like, since we shall
experience these feelings none the less. Indeed, we punish a man for
his very ignorance, if he is thought responsible for the ignorance, as
when penalties are doubled in the case of drunkenness; for the
moving principle is in the man himself, since he had the power of
not getting drunk and his getting drunk was the cause of his
ignorance. And we punish those who are ignorant of anything in the
laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult, and so too
in the case of anything else that they are thought to be ignorant of
through carelessness; we assume that it is in their power not to be
ignorant, since they have the power of taking care.
But perhaps a man is the kind of man not to take care. Still they
are themselves by their slack lives responsible for becoming men of
that kind, and men make themselves responsible for being unjust or
self-indulgent, in the one case by cheating and in the other by
spending their time in drinking bouts and the like; for it is
activities exercised on particular objects that make the corresponding
character.
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