LESSON 9: THE WILL, HUMAN

ACTS AND VOLUNTARINESS

(1)The will, in philosophy and psychology,  is  a  term  used to describe the  faculty of 
mind that is  alleged  to  stimulate  motivation  of  purposeful  activity.  The  concept 
has  been variously interpreted by philosophers, some accepting the will as a personal
faculty or function (for example, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Kant) and other
seeing it as the externalized result of the interaction of conflicting elements (for
example, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Huma). Still others describe the will as the manifestation
of personality (for example, Hobbes, Nietzche, and Schopenhauer). The reality of
individual will is denied altogether by the doctrine of determinism. Modern psychology
considers the concept of the will as unscientific (as in Skinner) and has looked to other
factors such as unconscious motivation or psychological influence to explain human
actions.
(2)However, the existence of the will can be demonstrated philosophically and confirmed
by data derived from everyday experience. For example, every act of real self-control is
an implicit manifestation of the will. In such an act we are conscious of the fact that
some tendency in us is held in check by a higher tendency. That higher tendency is the
will.
(3)Against this argument the following objection can be raised.  Animals also exercise
self-control. Thus a hungry but well-trained dog will not take the meat he sees on the
table.
(4)This, however, is not real self-control. The sight of the meat has aroused in the dog
two conflicting tendencies; hunger and fear. The fear is the product of his experience.
Maybe on previous occasion, his grabbing the meat has been followed by some very
disagreeable sensation, like a spank, a whip or any punishment. The memory of these
painful sensations is now associated with the perception of “meat-on-the-table”.
(5)Another empirical confirmation of the existence of the will derives from the fact that
we sometimes will an object which is repulsive to our body and sense tendencies; for
instance, when we swallow a bitter medicine, or submit to a painful operation or tooth
extraction. In all these cases we are not attracted by a material, sensible good but some
good presented by our intellect.
(6)Another proof for the existence of the will is the phenomenon of voluntary attention.
Voluntary attention is distinct from spontaneous attention. Spontaneous attention is
present in animals; it is the concentration of the senses and of the mind on some object
which appeals to one of the lower drives. In voluntary attention we concentrate our
senses and our mind on some object which does not spontaneously interest us. We
concentrate because we want to concentrate, and we want to concentrate because our
intellect tells us that it is good to concentrate. Compare the attention you pay to an
interesting movie with that given to a dull but important lecture.  So the existence of the
will cannot be denied. But what is the very nature of the will? If a will exists, then what is
it? What is its object? Let us now turn to a particular excerpt in John Kavanaugh’s article
entitled Human Freedom for a clearer understanding of what the will really is.
 
READING 1.  HUMAN FREEDOM
John Kavanaugh

The Will is an intellectual tendency, or a tendency toward an intellectually known good

(1)The Will is an intellectual tendency, or a tendency toward an intellectually known

good. It is different from sense appetite in that it is not “chained down” by the
immediacy of the sensed object. I know not only this object as good, but I know all
objects, all subjects, all that is, is good in some respect—at least insofar as it exists.
Anything then, because it can be seen as good, might be the object of my will—whether
it is a good steak, a good person, a good feeling, or a good action. It is precisely because
a thing or action can be seen as having good aspects that my will goes to it or ends
toward it. The very reason that I find myself having a tendency toward an object in the
first place is because I sense it or know it as having good things about it. It is the “good”
quality of the thing by which the will is drawn or moved.
 
(2)We might say, the, that the will is naturally determined to seek the good; and if I were
presented with an unmitigated, simple, unqualified good, my will would certainly be
necessitated toward it. With this in mind—that all things are good in some way and that
my will tends spontaneously toward them because they are somehow good—I recognize
nevertheless that my ‘tending’ is always concerned with an existential, real world in
which good are precisely limited, finite, conditioned, interrelated, and ordered to other
goods. If I am about to undertake a course of action, it is often evident that a number of
possibilities—all of which have good and bad points to recommend and discredit them—
are presented to me as alternatives. Since none of these alternatives ‘goods’ can be
called unconditional or simple goods, and since none of them can exhaust the total
meaning of good in which they all participate, none of them can force my will to a
necessary choice, This is our reasoning:
 

 the will is a tendency toward an intellectually known good; thus it is precisely

the ‘good’ aspect of the object which attracts my will,
 the only object which could necessitate my will would be a good that is
unconditionally good in an unqualified sense;
  in many of my choices, however, the goods from which I select as the “the
good for me in this decision” are all conditioned, limited and qualified;
 therefore freedom of choice can be operative in my behavior.

 
(3)We might note that if there should be a case in which a particular good appeared to
be absolute—due to lack of knowledge or an excess of fear and emotion- then freedom
of choice would be inoperable, Similarly we might ask ourselves: if the will tends toward
the known good all the time, does that mean we never choose evil? If we reflect upon
moments of deliberation and choice, it becomes rather clear that this is not the case. It is
precisely in deliberation upon and selection of a particular good among many-in relation
to our knowledge of who we are and what our potentialities may be—that moral failure
occurs. I can freely choose a particular good-for-me-now which I consciously know is not
in continuity with my identity and potentialities.
Amid these reflections, however, we must not forget that we also experience our
freedom as being severely limited and modified at times. As we have seen, knowledge is
of primary importance. We cannot have self-possession if we never arrive at an
understanding of the self and its meaning. We cannot choose if we are not aware of
option of different possibilities, of various alternatives. We could neither choose nor love
that which we do not in some way know. We might even have experienced people who
seemingly never have known goodness, nobility, kindness or sympathy and consequently
were never able to exercise their freedom with respect to these values. Moreover, there
are ample data that point to the importance of the environment, conditioning,
deprivation, habit, emotion, natural preferences, and one’s own history in the formation
of the projects and choices. All these factors are undeniable, and they must be weighed
with the factors that point to man’s freedom.
(4)Consequently, reflection upon my experience leads me to conclude at least initially
there are forces which can shape and influence my present and future behavior.
Nonetheless, there are also data that cannot be ignored which point to the conclusion
that determining ‘forces’ do not totally destroy my ability to take possession of myself.
As long as I can question, as long as I can achieve a distance from my environment and
from immediate needs, and as long as I can know various values and goods as limited and
conditional, I can take hold of my life and my situation and I can say something about it.
(5)In conclusion I might say, first, that I feel free. This is an important consideration. But
feeling free does not necessarily make it so. The feeling of freedom does not indicate,
however, that such an experience is quite primary and fundamental to our behavior.
Second and more important is that there are levels of human behavior which, upon
reflection and analysis, indicate freedom as self-possession and freedom of choice.
These levels of behavior, moreover, are not just feelings. They are the incontrovertible
evidence of questioning, self-reflection, distance, and the awareness of goods-precisely
as conditional. If these actions did not exist, I could not be doing what I am doing right
now.
 
READING 2. Thomas Aquinas’ Ideas About the Will and Human Freedom
Eleonore Stump
(1)Aquinas' ideas about the will are a complex of three powers of the human soul, which
can be described as the intellect (perceptive, apprehensive, cognitive), the will (motive,
appetitive, conative) and the passions or feelings (sensitive, emotive). Eleonore
Stump (Links to an external site.), in her 2003 book Aquinas, compared Aquinas' view of
human freedom with contemporary accounts of free will. For Aquinas, she says, freedom
is a property of the whole human being, not a component part of a person. Secondly, the
will is not independent of the intellect.
 
(2)Intellect and will are engaged in a dynamic, complex interaction, with multiple stages
between an initial perception and cognition by the intellect to the final action of the will,
with occasional interruptions or overrides by the passions. All these stages may happen
in the "twinkle of an eye" or in a long drawn-out process. At any stage the will can
change the subject and ask the intellect to think about something else. The intellect may
or may not do so, however.
 
(3)Stump condenses Aquinas complicated picture of what goes on in an action to these
simplified five stages of a human act (from perception to action of the will).

 Intellect - apprehends a situation and determines that a particular end is

appropriate (good) for the given circumstances.
Will - approves a simple volition for that end (or can reject, change the
subject, etc.)
 Intellect - determines that the end can be achieved, is within the power of the
agent.
Will - Intention: to achieve the end through some means
 Intellect - Counsel: determines various means to achieve the end.
Will - accepts these means (or can ask for more means)
 Intellect - determines the best means for the given circumstances.
Will - Electio (choice): selects the means the intellect proposes as best.
 Intellect - Command: says "Do the best means!"
Will - Use: exercises control over the body or mind as needed.

 
(4)One of these five stages, the electio, is most often identified with the liberum
arbitrium - free decision or judgment. Aquinas used this term rather than free will (libera
voluntas).
Stump says that Aquinas puts limits on the liberum arbitrium and distinguishes freedom
of action (limited by external constraints) from freedom of willing. He also recognizes
that mental problems can cause a loss of intellect and so be an internal constraint on the
will.
Note that Aquinas locates (Links to an external site.) multiple open possibilities or
potentialities in the intellect. He locates the determination of the choice (the electio) in
the will, which then causes the body to act. This agrees well with our Cogito (Links to an
external site.) model.  But note that in Stump's fourth stage, it is the intellect that de-
liberates (Links to an external site.), when it evaluates the best of the alternative means.
 
(5)Aquinas associates the liberum arbitrium with the power to do otherwise (Links to an
external site.). In those rare cases when the intellect provides only a single means to
achieve an end, the Counsel and Electio stages are skipped, but Aquinas nevertheless
describes them as freely willed, even in the absence of alternative possibilities (Links to
an external site.).  This, says Stump, is like the contemporary debate about whether
actions can be free in the absence of alternative possibilities. Following Aristotle (Links
to an external site.), Aquinas in De Malo denied that the will was necessitated. That
would be heretical because it eliminates praise and blame, denying moral
responsibility (Links to an external site.).
On the other hand, for Aquinas' God, time is an eternal moment (totem simul). With
respect to God's foreknowledge, Aquinas is a compatibilist (Links to an external site.).
But Stump is convincing in her arguments that Aquinas may have been
an incompatibilist (Links to an external site.) with respect to causes, at least causes
originating outside our minds. (See Peter van Inwagen (Links to an external site.)'s
Consequence Argument.)
However, if the will was caused by events that originate within us, then Stump thinks
Aquinas would regard those actions as free, because they would be "up to us".
 
(6)Aquinas followed Aristotle in allowing chance events in the universe as accidentally
intersecting causal chains. God as divine providence was seen as executing a plan (ratio)
that includes continued governance of the world. Since providence means foresight,
Aquinas believed in divine foreknowledge of all events, even those "chance" events. 
(1)We have human dignity because we are intelligent and free persons, capable of
determining our own lives by our own free choices. We give this dignity to ourselves by
freely choosing to shape our lives and actions in accord with the truth; that is, by making
good moral choices. Such choices are in turn dependent upon true moral judgments.
These choices performed as free persons are called human acts.
WHAT ARE HUMAN ACTS. Human acts are those acts that man does as a man, that is,
of which he is properly master because he does them with full knowledge and of his
own will. Human acts are therefore those acts that proceed from a deliberate will.
WHAT ARE ACTS OF MAN.  Acts of man are those acts that man performs without
being master of them through his intellect and will. In principle, acts of man are not the
concern of morals, since they are not voluntary.These include:

1. The natural acts of vegetative and sense faculties (digestion, beating of the
heart, growth, corporal reactions, and visual or auditive perceptions)
2. Acts of persons who lack the use of reason. (children or insane persons)
3. Acts of people who are asleep or under the influence of hypnosis, alcohol, or
other drugs. In this case, however, there may still be some degree of control
by the will. Also, there is indirect responsibility if the cause of the loss of
control is voluntary.
4. Quick, nearly automatic reactions (reflex and nearly instantaneous reactions)
5. Acts performed under violence or threat of violence. This includes physical or
—in some cases—moral violence.

 
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS.  Certain factors which may affect any of the
voluntariness of human acts. These factors may diminish one’s culpability Also known as
obstacles affecting the voluntariness of human acts.
 

IGNORANCE. Lack or absence of knowledge in a person capable of knowing a certain

thing or things.

1. Invincible Ignorance. The type of ignorance which cannot be dispelled by

ordinary diligence. It may be impossible for the individual to remove his
ignorance because he has no way of suspecting that he is ignorant. (a waiter
who is not aware of the poison on the food that he serves). No objectively
wrong act is culpable if it is performed in invincible ignorance in as much as
the element of knowledge is not due to the fault of the agent.

2. Vincible ignorance. The type of ignorance which can and should be dispelled. The
agent could know and should know Can be cleared up if one is diligent enough A manila
resident who violates traffic laws due to his ignorance of such laws is still responsible.
INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE eliminates moral responsibility or culpability.
2. VINCIBLE IGNORANCE does not eliminates culpability but lessens it. “ignorance of
the law excuses no one” When one is invincibly ignorant, the act one does would be
without knowledge, without knowledge, there can be no voluntariness, hence no
culpability.
3. A mental agitation of disturbance brought about by the apprehension of some present
or imminent danger. The danger may be real or imaginary, for as long as something
apprehended as a danger, it can cause fear. GRAVE FEAR – aroused by the presence of a
danger That is regarded by most people as serious e.g. death, loss of leg, loss of a loved
one) That is judged to be serious by the one concerned SLIGHT FEAR – aroused by a
danger that is not serious A grave danger that is not very probable. One acts BECAUSE
of fear if it is fear that induces him to act so Being robbed, surrendered the wallet One
acts WITH fear – fear merely accompanies one’s act but does not cause it. A student
fears to be caught while cheating. Actions that are done because of fear, however great
or small, are voluntary, hence, imputable. Actions done
4. CONCUPISCENCE/PASSION. A movement of the sensitive appetite which is
produced by good or evil as apprehended by the mind. Strong tendencies towards the
possession of something good or towards the avoidance of something evil. Movements
of passions are usually called feelings. TYPES OF PASSION. ANTECEDENT Arises
spontaneously before the will controls the situation Sudden feelings of joy, hatred, pity,
grief, anger, as reactions to news, objects, etc. CONSEQUENT Deliberately aroused by
the will to ensure a more prompt and willing operation Continuously brooding over an
insult, attacks the enemy and kills him. Antecedent passions do not destroy freedom ,
but lessens freedom and hence the responsibility of the agent because it tends to blind
judgment of the intellect and freedom of the will. Consequent passions do not lessen
voluntariness but may increase it because these passions are deliberately excited.
5. VIOLENCE An external force applied by someone on another in order to compel him
to perform an action against his will. If one resists the violence as much as possible, the
evil act to which one is forced is not culpable. A man forces a young girl to have sex with
him. The girl fights back, nevertheless, since the man is stronger than the girl, he
succeeds in doing his evil intention. In this case, the young girl is not responsible for the
act. If one sees that any resistance would be wholly ineffective, there is no obligation to
resist. The reason is one is not obliged to do what is useless. Though a little resistance
may be useful to show lack of consent to the violence being done. A bank cashier and his
two bodyguards are held up by ten heavily armed men.
6. HABITS Are inclination to perform some particular action acquired by repetition, and
characterized by a decrease power of resistance and an increase facility of performance.
Sometimes called second nature; something deeply embedded in an individual, but
ingrained by being acquired not being inborn Repeated actions performed by the agent.
Evil habits do not lessen the imputability of evil actions performed by force of habit if
the habit has been recognized as evil and is freely permitted to continue. Evil habits
lessen the imputability of evil actions performed by force of habit if one is sincerely
trying to correct the habit.
 
OBJECT, END, AND CIRCUMSTANCE: THE DETERMINANTS OF MORAL ACTION
(1)The three moral determinates of the human act are the object, the end (or intention),
and the circumstances. For an action to be morally good, all three determinates must be
good.  A lack in any of them will, at least in a qualified way, make the morality of the act
to be bad.
(2)The object of the human act is that which is actually done.  From this, we get the
character of the objective morality.  There are actions that are objectively in conformity
or not in conformity with the created human person, and thus, actions in conformity
with them or against them are objectively good or evil as such.
(3)For example, the object of murder is the taking of an innocent life.  Murder is
objectively wrong, and thus the taking of an innocent life is never morally good. No
intention or circumstances can make it to be otherwise, and this is because of its basis in
reality itself.  It is the eternal law, which we are created under, that establishes this
objective moral order, and we and our actions are, by our very creation, subject to this
eternal law.
(4)However, the subjective nature of us as human may reduce the culpability of our
action if we do not know that the object of our action is morally evil.  While this cannot
change the objective nature of the act, one may be more or less morally responsible for
the good or evil of the action based on one’s knowledge of the objective character of the
act.
(5)The second moral determinate is the intention, and this is the purpose or motive for
which the agent acts.  While a wrong intention can make a morally good act subjectively
wrong and cause culpability in the agent, a good intention can never make an objectively
evil act to be good.  The end does not justify the means.
(6)All intentions should be in conformity to the objective truth, and again this is to be
found in the eternal law.  Humans first of all find this “written in their hearts” and this
participation of the rational creature in the eternal law is called the natural law.
Conscience is closely related to this, as it is a judgment of reason. Our intentions, then,
must be in conformity with our conscience.  Besides the natural law, we also have the
revealed truths from God, and we are obligated to form our conscience in accordance
with both.  Our culpability in this is only known perfectly by God.
(7)The circumstances of an action are individual conditions of specific acts in time and
place that are not of themselves part of the nature of the action.  They do, however,
modify the moral quality of the action.  The who, what, when, and where of actions are
bearing on the goodness or otherwise of specific actions.  These circumstances cannot,
of course, make an objectively evil action to be good, but they can increase or decrease
both moral culpability and the degree of goodness or evil in the act.
(8)Prudence is important here, and this virtue helps us to take correct actions in
particular circumstances. Conscience as well includes an act of judgment, and thus it
applies not only to the morality of the object and intentions of the act, but is closely tied
with the particulars of the acts in a given situation or circumstance.
(9)Briefly, it may be said that law, which all law has its foundation in the eternal law, is
the norm by which all objective truth is measured.  Likewise, conscience is closely
related to our participation in the eternal law, first by way of the natural law and also by
our understanding of revealed truth.  Conscience then, while its purpose is to lead man
to perform actions in accordance with objective truth, can be said to be on the side of
his subjective culpability.
(10)God knows the hearts of men, and men may be said to be judged by their intentions. 
This, however, has a qualifier.  Among the intentions of men must be included the
intention to form their consciences with objective truth.  We will thus be culpable for
seeking the truth, and a willful neglect of seeking the objective morals is itself an evil, for
man, being rational, must seek the truth.  A being must act in accordance with its nature,
and this means that a rational being must act with reason.
(11)We are always obliged to follow our conscience, but we are also responsible to form
it according to the law.  “Conscience has rights because it has obligations.”