But thus determined, human beings are found to be characterized by the ζωὴ πρακτική, by προαίρεσις. All of these aspects are plainly there in προαίρεσις, in the possibility that human beings be resolved thus and so with these aspects and on their basis.
Aristotle enumerates nine different characters that characterize different situations in which a human being can encounter others as frightening.
1. He to whom I am compromised is frightening, for example, “for someone who has committed some crime, his accessories are frightening”; for they are mainly greedy and are after harm, with them is the danger that they will betray him.365 Being-compromised to definite human beings is a definite possibility having to do with what is frightening.
2. “The powerful” are frightening to those who are inferior to them.366 For the powerful, there is the dual possibility of the ‘can’ that we have already characterized.
3. “Those who are injured or believe themselves to have been injured,” to have been insulted, are frightening insofar as they are out to avenge the injury or insult. One expects something from them.367
4. “Those who have injured another and now fear revenge”368 are frightening. They take precautions against being injured in return by the other whom they have injured.
5. Those who are “competitors in one and the same matter”369 are frightening to each other insofar as the other is capable of anything in order to gain the advantage. This being-capable-of-anything carries with it the possibility of threat.
6. “Those who are a threat to whoever can themselves obtain more than we can; if the ones that are more powerful than we are are vulnerable, then we are even more so.”370 Here, the possibility of coming-into-danger again appears through the peculiar detour of others—a characteristic enhancement of the possibility through the detour.
7. “Those who are superior to us, and have already ruined us”371 are frightening.
8. Frightening are “those who are weaker than we are, and are out to ruin”; for it can be expected from them that one day they will attack us.372
365. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 6 sq.: οἱ συνειδότες πεποιηκότι δεινὸν φοβεροὶ ἢ κατειπεῖν ἢ ἐγκαταλιπεῖν.
366. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 8: οἱ δυνάμενοι ἀδικεῖν τοῖς δυναμένοις ἀδικεῖσθαι.
367. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 10 sq.: οἱ ἠδικημένοι ἢ νομίζοντες ἀδικεῖσθαι· ἀεὶ γὰρ τηροῦσι καιρόν.
368. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 11 sq.: οἱ ἠδικηκότες [ . . . ] δεδιότες τὸ ἀντιπαθεῖν.
369. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 13: οἱ τῶν αὐτῶν ἀνταγωνισταί.
370. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 15: οἱ τοῖς κρείτοσιν αὐτῶν φοβεροί· μᾶλλον γὰρ ἂν δύναιντο βλάπτειν αὐτούς, εἰ καὶ τοὺς κρείττους.
371. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 17 sq.: οἱ τοὺς κρείττους αὐτῶν ἀνῃρηκότες.
372. Rhet. Β 5, 1382 b 18 sq.: οἱ τοῖς ἥττοσιν αὐτῶν ἐπιτιθέμενοι· ἢ γὰρ ἤδη φοβεροὶ ἢ αὐξηθέντες.