Kitap 2
17
But there is another way in which people are said to act under compulsion and of necessity without disagreement between rational principle and appetition, when they do something that they consider actually painful and bad but they are faced by flogging or imprisonment or execution if they do not do it; for in these cases they say that they are acting under necessity.
18
Possibly, however, this is not the case, but they all do the actual deeds willingly, since it is open to them not to do them but to endure the penalty threatened.
19
Moreover, perhaps someone might say that in some cases these actions are done of necessity and in others not. For in cases where the presence or absence of such circumstances depends on the agent himself,Or for in those of such acts which it rests with himself to do or not. even the actions that he does without wishing to do them he does willingly and not under compulsion; but where in such cases the circumstances do not rest with himself, he acts under compulsion in a sense, though not indeed under compulsion absolutely, because he does not definitely choose the actual thing that he does but the object for which he does it; since even in the objects of action there is a certain difference.
