Professor, your class is awesome. Especially because you go straight to the point of the theory and at the same time you make it sound simple, and you keep it inside a short time for such complex ideas. Anyway, congratulations.
Choice can certainly be exercised by cats. Case in point: "Trixie" (named by my Mom) never peed in the house I grew up in. When Mom moved, my brother said he would take care of Trixie. But his work suddenly required him to travel a great deal. He asked if his then (temporary) girl friend would give Trixie a home. She said yes, a plane flight away. A week later, Trixie had peed every day in every room in her house. My brother retrieved her and I took her into my home. She never peed inside the house for the several years that she lived. Cats choose to pee when they're pissed off; no pun intended:-) Otherwise a good set of lectures, ironically employing a Quasi-Socratic form of inquiry in reading Aristotle. Well done.
I'm personally somewhat ambivalent about the prospect of "choice" in non-human animals, but I'm not sure that your example necessarily qualifies as "choice" in the sense that Aristotle is discussing. I believe that cats have "volition" but "choice" (prohairesis) for Aristotle requires rational deliberation about the means to ends and that those ends are set not by desire or mere preference, but a rational wish (boulesis). This sets the bar a lot higher than voluntary action. Are you suggesting that Trixie had a rationally selected goal that they were pursuing by peeing in the house? Isn't it possible that the change of scenery confused the cat so much that her previous peeing habits were unsettled and she no longer had a conditioned response to use the litterbox?
