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Choice's Final Origin
Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics

The text explains that moral choice is the result of deliberation, where an individual identifies the internal principle of action to make a definite decision.

...is the originator of his actions; and Deliberation has for its object whatever may be done through one’s own instrumentality, and the actions are with a view to other things; and so it is, not the End, but the Means to Ends on which Deliberation is employed. Nor, again, is it employed on matters of detail, as whether the substance before me is bread, or has been properly cooked; for these come under the province of sense, and if a man is to be always deliberating, he may go on ad infinitum.
Further, exactly the same matter is the object both of Deliberation and Moral Choice; but that which is the object of Moral Choice is thenceforward separated off and definite, because by object of Moral Choice is denoted that which after Deliberation has been preferred to something else: for each man leaves off searching how he shall do a thing when he has brought the origination up to himself, i.e. to the governing principle in himself, because it is this which makes the choice.
A good illustration of this is furnished by the old regal constitutions which Homer drew from, in which the Kings would announce to the commonalty what they had determined before. Now since that which is the object of Moral Choice is something in our own power, which is the object of deliberation and the grasping of the Will, Moral Choice must be “a grasping after something in our own power consequent upon Deliberation:” because after having deliberated we decide, and then grasp by our Will in...
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Aristotle

Nicomachean Ethics

The Deliberate Will

This excerpt directly agrees with the parent text by defining moral choice as a grasping after something in our own power consequent upon deliberation, which extends the parent's claim that moral choice is what is preferred after deliberation. It reinforces the connection between deliberation, will, and choice.

...10] because by object of Moral Choice is denoted that which after Deliberation has been preferred to something else: for each man leaves off searching how he shall do a thing when he has brought the origination up to himself, i.e. to the governing principle in himself,[11] because it is this which makes the choice. A good illustration of this is furnished by the old regal constitutions which Homer drew from, in which the Kings would announce to the commonalty what they had determined before.
Now since that which is the object of Moral Choice is something in our own power, which is the object of deliberation and the grasping of the Will, Moral Choice must be “a grasping after something in our own power consequent upon Deliberation:” because after having deliberated we decide, and then grasp by our Will in accordance with the result of our deliberation. Let this be accepted as a sketch of the nature and object of Moral Choice, that object being “Means to Ends.”
Chapter VI. That Wish has for its object-matter the End, has been already stated; but there are two opinions respecting it; some thinking that its object is real good, others whatever impresses the mind with a notion of good. Now those who maintain that the object of Wish is real good are beset by this difficulty, that what is wished for by him who chooses wrongly is not really an object of Wish (because, on their theory, if it is an object of wish, it must be good, but it is, in the case s...

John Stewart Mill

Utilitarianism

Habit's Three Stages

This excerpt challenges the parent's emphasis on deliberate choice by arguing that habitual acts of will can operate in opposition to deliberate preference. It suggests that not all voluntary actions result from the kind of deliberative process Aristotle describes, thereby questioning the necessity of deliberation for moral choice.

...lly as any one. Will, the active phenomenon, is a different thing from desire, the state of passive sensibility, and though originally an offshoot from it, may in time take root and detach itself from the parent stock; so much so, that in the case of an habitual purpose, instead of willing the thing because we desire it, we often desire it only because we will it. This, however, is but an instance of that familiar fact, the power of habit, and is nowise confined to the case of virtuous actions.
Many indifferent things, which men originally did from a motive of some sort, they continue to do from habit. Sometimes this is done unconsciously, the consciousness coming only after the action: at other times with conscious volition, but volition which has become habitual, and is put into operation by the force of habit, in opposition perhaps to the deliberate preference, as often happens with those who have contracted habits of vicious or hurtful indulgence. Third and last comes the case in which the habitual act of will in the individual instance is not in contradiction to the general inte...
The distinction between will and desire thus understood, is an authentic and highly important psychological fact; but the fact consists solely in this--that will, like all other parts of our constitution, is amenable to habit, and that we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire only because we will it. It is not the less true that will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire; including in that term the repelling influence of pain as well as the attractive on...

Aristotle

Nicomachean Ethics

Pleasure's Triple Grip

This excerpt explains the underlying motives that drive choice and avoidance: the honourable, the expedient, and the pleasant, along with their contraries. It provides a psychological account of what moves us to choose, which complements the parent's discussion of how deliberation leads to choice.

...anner, and so forth (for which reason, by the way, some people define the Virtues as certain states of impassibility and utter quietude,[7] but they are wrong because they speak without modification, instead of adding “as they ought,” “as they ought not,” and “when,” and so on). Virtue then is assumed to be that habit which is such, in relation to pleasures and pains, as to effect the best results, and Vice the contrary. The following considerations may also serve to set this in a clear light.
There are principally three things moving us to choice and three to avoidance, the honourable, the expedient, the pleasant; and their three contraries, the dishonourable, the hurtful, and the painful: now the good man is apt to go right, and the bad man wrong, with respect to all these of course, but most specially with respect to pleasure: because not only is this common to him with all animals but also it is a concomitant of all those things which move to choice, since both the honourable and the expedient give an impression of pleasure. Again, it grows up with us all from infancy, and so it...
Again, we adopt pleasure and pain (some of us more, and some less) as the measure even of actions: for this cause then our whole business must be with them, since to receive right or wrong impressions of pleasure and pain is a thing of no little importance in respect of the actions. Once more; it is harder, as Heraclitus says, to fight against pleasure than against anger: now it is about that which is more than commonly difficult that art comes into being, and virtue too, because in that which...

John Stewart Mill

Utilitarianism

Morality's Unresolved War

This excerpt reframes the discussion from the process of moral choice to the broader and more fundamental question of the criterion of right and wrong, i.e., the foundation of morality. It shifts the lens from the mechanics of decision-making to the search for a standard of moral judgment.

...NBERG EBOOK UTILITARIANISM *** UTILITARIANISM BY JOHN STUART MILL REPRINTED FROM 'FRASER'S MAGAZINE' SEVENTH EDITION LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1879 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS CHAPTER II. WHAT UTILITARIANISM IS CHAPTER III. OF THE ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY CHAPTER IV. OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY IS SUSCEPTIBLE CHAPTER V. OF THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY UTILITARIANISM. CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS.
There are few circumstances among those which make up the present condition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been expected, or more significant of the backward state in which speculation on the most important subjects still lingers, than the little progress which has been made in the decision of the controversy respecting the criterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum, or, what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the most gifte...
And after more than two thousand years the same discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same contending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to the old Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue be grounded on a real conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against the popular morality of the so-called sophist. It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in s...

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

The Philosopher's Verdict

This excerpt questions the philosopher's ability to arrive at a definitive verdict on the worth of life, highlighting the difficulties, doubts, and experiential nature of such judgments. This meta-level skepticism contrasts with Aristotle's confident analysis of moral choice and suggests that settling these issues may be more complex and uncertain.

...ew, his general estimate of things, is no longer of much importance. It is perhaps just the refinement of his intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the way, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost his self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should aspire to become a great play-actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and spiritual rat-catcher--in short, a misleader.
This is in the last instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of conscience. To double once more the philosopher's difficulties, there is also the fact that he demands from himself a verdict, a Yea or Nay, not concerning science, but concerning life and the worth of life--he learns unwillingly to believe that it is his right and even his duty to obtain this verdict, and he has to seek his way to the right and the belief only through the most extensive (perhaps disturbing and destroying) experiences, often hesitating, doubting, and dumbfounded.
In fact, the philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated man; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives "wisely," or "as a philosopher," it hardly means anything more than "prudently and apart." Wisdom: that seems to the populace to be a kind of flight, a means and artifice for withdrawing successfully from a bad...