ABSTRACT
Contemporary accounts of deliberation construe it as a reflective, evaluative process whereby one checks a proposed action for either permissibility - is it morally acceptable? - or optimality - is there a better choice? Aristotelian deliberation, by contrast, is neither reflective nor evaluative: the deliberator derives an action from a fixed end in an act of immersive reasoning that resembles geometrical analysis. The challenge, in a work of geometrical reasoning, is not simply to draw, for example, a square inside a circle, but to construct such a square. One must preserve the geometrical status of the object one is constructing by following the relevant geometrical rules; otherwise, one will end up merely having drawn something that looks like a square. Likewise, in practical reasoning, one’s aim is not simply to bring about, for example, health or wealth, but to do so in a way that preserves the status of those goods as properly ethical - as good for oneself. Like Hume, Aristotle thought that you could not reason about the end, because it must be held fixed over the course of deliberation; unlike Hume, Aristotelian deliberation depends on the ethical character of the reasoner to steer her away from bringing about the end in a vicious manner - for health and wealth produced in that way cease to be good for the agent in question. Thus Aristotle thought only people of good ethical character were capable of deliberating well.
