Kitap 6
4
Now the cause of action (the efficient, not the final cause) is choice,Cf. 3.2.1 note. Here again προαίρεσις seems to mean choice of means, not of ends. and the cause of choice is desire and reasoning directed to some end. Hence choice necessarily involves both intellect or thought and a certain disposition of character [This clause must be rejected as superfluous and logically unsound: the nature of action is explained by that of choice, not vice versa. for doing well and the reverse in the sphere of action necessarily involve thought and character].
5
Thought by itself however moves nothing, but only thought directed to an end, and dealing with action. This indeed is the moving cause of productive activityFor this distinction between making and doing, production and action or conduct, see 1.1.2, 5. also, since he who makes some thing always has some further end in view: the act of making is not an end in itself, it is only a means, and belongs to something else. Whereas a thing done is an end in itself: since doing well (welfareSee second note on 1.4. 2.) is the End, and it is at this that desire aims.
5
Hence Choice may be called either thought related to desire or desire related to thought; and man, as an originator of action, is a union of desire and intellect.
