Will, desire, and training

Crows in an Old Tree, by Yosa Buson, 18th century

From "How to Do Nothing," by Jenny Odell: (72)

Margaret Y. Henry writes about Cicero:

He freely admits that antecedent and natural causes gives men a tendency in one direction or another. But he insists that men are nevertheless free to perform specific acts independent of such tendencies and even in defiance of them... Thus a man may build a character quite at variance with his natural disposition.

Cicero cites the example of Stilp and Socrates: "It was said that Stilpo was drunken and Socrates was dull, and that both were given to sensual indulgence. But these natural faults they uprooted and wholly overcame by will, desire, and training (voluntate, studio, disciplina).  

If we believed that everything were merly a product of fate or disposition, Cicero reasons, no one would be accountable for anything and therefore there could be no justice. In today's term, we'd all just be algorithms. Furthermore, we'd have no reason to try to make ourselves better or different from our natural inclination.