Ultimus hominis finis est bonum increatum, scilicet Deus, qui solus sua infinita bonitate potest voluntatem hominis perfecte implere

Preface

It should be prefaced that the following is in no way to be interpreted contrary to the magisterial statement of Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, in which he insists upon the possibility of God creating intellectual natures (humans and angels) without ordering them to the beatific vision. This insistence is important for ensuring our recognition of the gratuity of the supernatural order, a fact so emphasised by, amongst others, P. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. To be sure, as Garrigou himself recognises, an intellectual creature such as man even naturally has a desire to see God face to face in the beatific vision, but, without grace, this desire remains conditional and inefficacious.

At any rate, the will's natural ordering towards universal good means that, implicitly, it calls out for, as it were, at least a natural knowledge and love of God (it might not possibly will these things, but I mean that God, at least naturally obtained, is objectively wherein the will's desire for good is found). The very nature of the will means that it cannot be satisfied with any good other than God. 

(The nature of the intellect means that it only reaches its greatest possible perfection when its object is God directly. And, when the cause of nature is known by the light of natural reason, a natural desire, albeit conditional and inefficacious, is elicited to see the essence of that cause in itself. Hence, the will can only be perfectly or totally satisfied - that is, so satisfied that nothing further is left to be desired or sought after - by God as obtained by a direct intellectual vision of his essence. With supernatural grace, which is at the same time very fitting for God to give but also free and gratuitous for him to choose to give, there is infused supernatural hope, a far loftier desire than the merely conditional and inefficacious natural desire for utterly perfect beatitude. The Beatific Vision is what 'perfect beatitude' consists in. Perfect beatitude is such a perfect good that so totally satisfies the appetite, that there is nothing else to be sought after. It turns out that such a beatitude is proper to the Divinity, and cannot be attained by an intellectual creature's natural powers. An intellectual creatures's level of natural beatitude or, more properly, felicitas is always capable of increase without reaching the immediate vision of the Divine Essence).

The Will's Appetite for Infinite Good

According to St Thomas, beatitudo can defined as "the perfect good of an intellectual nature" (ST Ia Q.26 a.1: Nihil enim aliud sub nomine beatitudinis intelligitur, nisi bonum perfectum intellectualis naturae). Only in God, who possesses total perfection essentially, can there be an entire identification of esse and bonitas. Creatures are good secundum quid by merely existing, since their esse by itself is a certain good thing, but to be good simpliciter, they must acquire some further perfection or act (Ia Q.5 a.1). In physical things, the form perfects the matter as its first act, but the form itself is ordered towards operation as a further perfection. This is also true for angels, in whom there are distinctions between their essence, the actus essendi which actualises that essence, the powers that flows from that essence, and the operation which the angel is ordered towards as the perfection of its nature (Dionysius, Caelest. Hier., cap. XI: caelestes spiritus dividuntur in essentiam, virtutem, et operationem). Like God and angels, humans are intellectual, and like angels and material things, humans are creatures. Therefore, for humans, beatitude is a perfection to be acquired and an end to be obtained.

St Thomas calls beatitude a perfect good which totally satisfies the appetite (Ia IIae Q.2 a.8: Beatitudo enim est bonum perfectum, quod totaliter quietat appetitum). Since beatitude is the perfection of an intellectual nature, we are here dealing with the rational appetite, the will. It is precisely because of the nature of the intellect and will that a being with intellect and will cannot be perfectly satisfied by anything other than God. The intellect presents to the will its fundamental and natural object, which is universal goodness (ibid: Obiectum autem voluntatis...est universale bonum). The will is a power of soul which is defined as being an appetitus for such an object. Because beatitude is a perfect good which totally satisfies the rational appetite, a good would not be beatitude si adhuc restaret aliquid appetendum (ibid). And because the object of the rational appetite is universal goodness, it will not be totally satisfied with a good that falls short of universal goodness (Nihil potest quietare voluntatem hominis nisi bonum universale). Therefore, any good that falls short of universal goodness will not be beatitude. St Thomas then says that the will's desire for bonum universale cannot be satisfied in anything created but only in God, since all creatures have only participated goodness (Quod non invenitur in aliquo creato sed solum in Deo: quia omnis creatura habet bonitatem participatam). As was said above, only God is identical with his own goodness and possesses his entire goodness and perfection essentially. Everything created neither possesses its partial goodness of mere esse simpliciter essentially, nor its complete goodness. Its substantial act of esse is received from an extrinsic cause and its complete good is achieved by further perfection, namely the acquiring of any accidents necessary for its perfect operation, and ultimately by that perfect operation (Ia Q.6 a.3). This means that everything created possesses goodness by participation and not per se. Therefore, no created thing can be that in which is found the unqualified and unlimited goodness that alone can correspond to the will's appetite for universal goodness. The will's appetite for universal goodness is an appetite for goodness itself, which everything created participates in but falls short of. However, God is complete and unlimited goodness itself. As the argument of the Fourth Way goes, the maximum in any genus will be the cause of that genus. So also, the maximum in being and goodness will be the cause of all being and goodness. The maximum of goodness will be that which has goodness per se, which is the ultimate cause of anything which has participated goodness per aliud. Therefore, God is that which can totally satisfy the rational appetite (Ia IIae Q.3 a.1: ultimus hominis finis est bonum increatum, scilicet Deus, qui solus sua infinita bonitate potest voluntatem hominis perfecte implere). The rational appetite is at rest at the attainment of this good, needing nothing else for its contentment: beatitudo perfecta...habet congregationem omnium bonorum per coniunctionem ad universalem fontem totius boni; non quod indigeat singulis particularibus bonis (Ia IIae Q.3 a.3 ad 2).

 

Summary

According to St Thomas Aquinas, man is of such a nature that he has an appetite for an infinite good. This is because he has an intellect that can conceive of universal goodness, and a will whose object is that unrestricted notion of goodness which the intellect presents to it. No finite, restricted, limited good can match up to such an appetite, so as to fully satiate it. Therefore, only the attainment of an infinite good can fully satiate it.

Free Will in Aristotle?

Aristotle claims that we are responsible for our characters and contributes much towards explaining how this is the case.

Aristotle says that it is necessary for those examining virtue to define the voluntary and involuntary (Nic. Eth. 3.1, 1109b30-34). This is because the voluntary (τὸ ἑκούσιον) in actions and passions gives rise to praise and blame, whereas the involuntary (τὸ ακούσιον) gives rise to sympathetic understanding and sometimes even pity. Since human beings are praised for virtue and blamed for vice, it would seem then that virtue and vice are voluntary. Aristotle defines the involuntary as that which comes about as a result of force or an account of ignorance (1109b35- 1110a1). ‘Force’ here is used in a strong sense. That which is forced is something whose origin (ἀρχὴ) is completely external to the person forced. Aristotle describes this as something “to which the person who is acting or undergoing something contributes nothing” and gives the example of a wind carrying someone off somewhere (1110a1-4). 

What does he mean by ἀρχὴ and what does he mean by contributing nothing? For Aristotle, nature is (in varying senses) a principle of change and rest in all things, and living organisms are (in varying senses) self-movers, at least inasmuch as one part can move another part. However, animals are self-movers in an even stronger sense than plants, and humans in an even stronger sense than other animals. Aristotle says in the De Anima that the soul is a cause and principle in three ways, as formal, final, and also efficient or moving cause (De Anima II.4, 415b8-12), and that, in animals, the soul can initiate motion “through some sort of choice and reasoning”[1] (ibid I.3, 406b24-25). It is properly the initiator of motion (κίνησις) because it itself does not undergo κίνησις. He very strongly rejects the view that the soul is moved in this sense (it cannot undergo locomotion, alteration in quality, or change in size). So, the efficient origin or principle of motion can be found in the animal itself. 

However, the bodies of animals are susceptible to κινήσεις from external movers, such as the wind. However, in the case of the sailors throwing cargo overboard, they themselves are the efficient origin of that action. They themselves choose to execute this action, given the circumstances. Their souls initiate this motion. What is it in the soul that initiates motion? It is clear that some form of knowledge and some form of appetition or desire are involved. It seems to me that what Aristotle means by ‘contributing nothing’ is that the one acting involuntarily does not initiate the action and that his appetite or desire contributes nothing. I say ‘appetite or desire’ because one might very well know what is going on when his hand is forcibly used by somebody else’s hand to strike someone but not desire it at all. But clearly, if he in no way desires the action, it cannot be him who is initiating the action. However, appetition or desire requires some form of cognition. One cannot desire something which one does not know in some way. This is why ignorance can be a cause of involuntariness. If somebody stabs his own son, thinking it to be an enemy, the action of killing his son was not voluntary. Or if someone gives a drink in order to save somebody, but the drink ends up killing them, then he was involuntarily the cause of the drinker’s death (Nic. Eth. 3.1, 1111a11-14). Aristotle says that “what is voluntary would seem to be something whose origin is in the person himself, who knows the particulars that constitute the action” (1111a22-24). An action will originate from an animal insofar as the animal is the efficient cause of its own action because its appetite aims at the action as a good (the final cause), which is presented by a cognitive faculty (whether sensible or rational). Therefore, I would conclude that something is voluntary if it accords with elicited appetition. This also helps us to see why the noble and the pleasant do not force (11110b9-17). The noble and the pleasant are final causes, not efficient causes. They do not push against the appetite that seeks them but are precisely what the appetite that seeks them desires. 

It might be asked whether voluntariness is sufficient for praise and blame. Given the above, even infants and non-rational animals are capable of voluntary action. Do we praise and blame infants and non-rational animals? I sometimes get angry with my dogs and tell them off, and I sometimes praise them when they obey and behave well. Sometimes they are punished for their correction and rewarded to encourage good behaviour. This is to rectify their appetite so that they are obedient and loyal, which is pleasing to me. However, I am aware that the sort of praise and blame due to rational agents are not due to them. My dogs once destroyed somebody’s car in order to get to a rabbit inside the bonnet. This caused frustration, but they were not taken to court, and they were not thought of as wicked and unjust. If a human being had done this, things would have been different. We do not hold non-rational animals as morally responsible for their characters, even though we may be pleased or displeased with these characters. 

Aristotle can help us to explain this. He says that choice (προαίρεσις) is voluntary but is not identical with the voluntary. Rather, the voluntary is wider in scope, “for both children and the other animals share in what is voluntary but not in choice” (3.2, 1111b6-9). Just before this, he says that we should define choice because it “seems to belong very much to virtue and to distinguish people’s characters more than actions do” (1111b5-6). Earlier in the Nicomachean Ethics, he had said that virtue was a habit marked by choice (ἕξις προαιρετική; 2.6, 1106b36). 

He also says many times, such as in 2.1, 2.3, and 3.5, that, while habits do dispose towards certain actions, those habits were originally produced by the very sort of actions which those habits dispose us to repeat. Hence, “by living loosely, people are themselves the causes of their becoming such a sort and of their being unjust and licentious” (3.5, 1114a4-5). As well as committing bad actions, people are also responsible for refraining from good ones which would have prevented culpable ignorance. Thus, as well as punishing those whose ignorance results from a bad action like getting drunk, lawgivers also punish “those who are ignorant of anything in the laws which people ought to know and which it is not difficult to know,” for “whenever people seem to be ignorant through carelessness...they are in control of taking the appropriate care” (1113b30-1114a3). He links explicitly becoming the sort of person we are with choice in 3.2: “it is by choosing the good or bad things that we are of a certain sort, not by opining about them” (1112a1-2). 

When Aristotle says that virtues, vices, acting, and not acting are “up to us” because “where there may be a “no,” there may also be a “yes”” (1113b6-8), what does he mean by this? Is he attributing freedom of action to the human agent? He very clearly is. Consider the comparison he makes to the sick person who ignores his doctor: “At one time, then, it was possible for him not to be sick; but in letting himself go, it is no longer possible” (1114a16-17). If it is possible that he did not get sick, then it is possible that he did not choose to ignore his doctor. Therefore, he was not somehow necessitated to ignore his doctor. If where there is a “no”, there may also be a “yes”, then there really must be a possibility for the agent to choose either. 

If the agent was really necessitated to only choose one option, then Aristotle’s statement is false. In what act can there simultaneously be a possibility for both a “no” and a “yes”? The answer seems to be choice. 

However, many modern scholars have insisted that Aristotle does not believe in free choice between alternatives. For example, Bobzien says that Aristotle’s προαίρεσις “is nothing like an act of deciding or an act of choice between alternatives. Nor is it (or is it issued from) a faculty for causally undetermined choice or decision, or of free will...nor is there any decision- making faculty such as a will in the agent that determines which way the judgment will go.”[2] I firmly disagree with this. In fact, in De Anima 3.9 (432b), Aristotle explicitly says that there is ὄρεξις in all three parts of the soul (nutritive, sensitive, rational). Appetite (ὄρεξις) in the nutritive or vegetative part of the soul would be appetite in a much lower and analogous sense. The plant has a certain form and the immanent actions of the plant tend towards the perfection, preservation, and replication of that form. This directedness is a sort of natural appetite, but it is entirely unconscious. However, in the non-rational animals, there is a level of consciousness. They can receive the forms of things without their matter according to the manner of sense- perception. Therefore, they can have a desire for the things whose forms they receive and, therefore, who they perceive. This is desire or appetite in a stricter sense because it follows from a form of knowledge. Humans, possessors of νοῦς, have a much higher kind of knowledge. They can abstract and understand the essences of things. 

Aristotle indicates in the De Anima passage that there is a form of appetition corresponding to this rational knowledge of man. Now, while in that passage, Aristotle explicitly locates βούλεσις in the rational part of the soul, and, in Nic. Eth. 3.3, he denies that προαίρεσις is βούλεσις, this need not necessarily mean that Aristotle did not see προαίρεσις as being an act of the rational appetite. In fact, in 6.2 (1139b4-5), Aristotle says that choice is either intellect influenced by appetite (ὀρεκτικὸς νοῦς) or appetite influenced by intellect (ὄρεξις διανοητική). The latter description seems to make more sense and that this is the preference of Aristotle himself is indicated by his definition of choice in 3.3 as “deliberative appetite (βουλευτικὴ ὄρεξις) for things that are up to us” (1113a10-11). When he denies that choice is ἐπιθυμία (usually used to mean sensible desire) or θυμος, he does so because these are shared also by οἱ ἀλόγοι (1111b10-13). This shows that Aristotle sees choice is only an act of rational animals capable of using reason. When he denies that προαίρεσις is βούλεσις, he does so on the basis that the latter is about ends, while the former is about means. This does not mean that they are acts of a separate faculty. In fact, he says that they are closely related. Also, the means that can be chosen are limited by the bounds of the ends already willed. Furthermore, it seems what was the object of προαίρεσις can subsequently be the object of βούλεσις in the sense in Nic. Eth. 3.2-4. Some means are desired for other means and not all ends are the final end. 

It is also suitable that choice be for Aristotle an act of the rational appetite rather than reason itself (ie. of the will rather than the intellect) because, as he says when contrasting choice and opinion, the object of opinion is the true and we speak of true and false opinions, whereas the object of choice is the good and we speak of good and bad choices (3.2, 1111b3-4). It is clear by how he contrasts choice and opinion that choice is an act of (rational) appetite rather than the intellect: “we choose to take or to avoid one of these sorts of things, but we opine about what is, or to whom or in what manner it is advantageous, and we really do not opine about taking or avoiding them. Choice is also praised more for being directed at what it ought to...whereas opinion is praised for how true it is.” He explicitly distinguishes choice from even opinions about good and bad things, and he even goes so far as to say that “the same people do not seem both to choose and to opine what is best; rather, some opine what is better, yet, on account of their vice, they choose what they ought not” (1112a8-11). 

We praise and blame an agent with reason and rational appetite in a very different way from any analogous way of praising and blaming anything else. This is because, while even non- rational animals are the origin of their acts, they act according to their natural instinct and learned behaviour, neither of which they are morally responsible for. They are not responsible for the latter because they are not capable of rational choice, which, in humans, determines their virtues and vices, and because, without reason, one cannot have a grasp of the intelligible καλόν or intelligible shamefulness. For example, if one willingly departs from the noble in order to pursue a pleasure of the senses, one is susceptible to a much more serious kind of blame. Humans are not merely determined by natural instinct because we have a rational appetite which is only necessitated towards its general object, the intelligible good, and the complete good as final end (the broadest meaning of εὐδαιμονία). That Aristotle would not see it as otherwise necessitated is evidenced by Metaphysics θ.2, which treats of rational potencies, which are capacities for contraries. The rational appetite is not determined to either contrary nor moved of necessity, as irrational potencies are. Aristotle explains this on the basis that, in intellectual knowledge, the same λόγος makes clear both the positive thing and its lack. Although Aristotle’s foundations of the understanding of the rational appetite are not as developed or emphasised as they are by St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, in their treatments of the liberum arbitrium voluntatis, Aristotle presents us a sound basis by which we can praise and blame human beings as being morally responsible for their acts and habits. 

---

[1] διὰ προαιρέσεώς τινος καὶ νοήσεως. It can be noted that he often uses words that more properly refer to rational human beings but can be used analogously in reference to non-rational animals. Other examples include φρόνιμος and διάνοια. 

[2] S. Bobzien, “Choice and Moral Responsibility (NE iii 1-5)” in Polansky (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge, 2014, 94 

 

St. Thomas on the causality of the will's acts, in relation to itself, the intellect, and God

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, there are different ways by which the will (rational appetite) is 'moved' by 1) the intellect, 2) by itself, and 3) by God. This article discusses what exactly St. Thomas's thought is on the motion of the will. In particular, it will become clear how the ways in which the intellect and God are said to move the will in no way undermine the reality of free will.

Summary

The will is moved by the intellect insofar as the intellect presents to it its final cause. This is, first of all, what the will is necessarily and naturally ordained to: the universal good, or the bonum in communi. The intellect also presents any particular good, which the will freely accepts or rejects as an object of its appetition. The intellect does not necessitate the will's adherence to any particular good, because its causal function is just to present that particular good, and that particular good does not necessitate the will's adherence to it.

The intellect is not an efficient cause of the will's action. There are only two efficient causes of the will's acts. St. Thomas says that the will itself is the efficient cause of its own free acts, but that God, as the author of human nature, is the efficient cause and mover of the will's natural orientation towards its object, the bonum in communi.

Appetite

Aquinas understands the will (voluntas) as a faculty or a power of the rational soul which has as its object the universal or intelligible good. It is a kind of appetitus, a word which translates what Aristotle called ὄρεξις.

Inanimate things and plants have a kind of 'natural appetite' (appetitus naturalis) for their own good. This is an unconscious natural orientation to that which is proper to them given the kind of things they are. This includes conservation of their being as it is, directedness to their natural place, and anything else which follows necessarily from their substantial form. All these are the good (bonum) and what is conveniens for that thing.

Animals have sense cognition, whereby they know particulars by receiving the forms of sense objects in a 'spiritual' or 'intentional' manner. To this sort of cognition corresponds sensitive appetite, which has an orientation towards those things perceived which by natural instinct it recognises as good and conveniens, given its nature (and consequent upon this, an orientation to flee from what is perceived as bad). Brute animals desire these particular goods by natural instinct because they do not understand them with reference to universal good. Not having an intellect, they cannot grasp the intelligible reason for why they seek these particular goods, but are merely attracted to these particular goods by an instinctive recognition of their particular goodness.

Rational appetite and its fundamental object

The will is a rational appetite, consequent upon the intellect's mode of cognition. Because the intellect grasps universals, the will is not limited in its scope to being orientated towards a particular good, but has as its natural object the universal good or the bonum in communi (ST Ia IIae Q.10 a.1: Hoc autem est bonum in communi, in quod voluntas naturaliter tendit, sicut etiam quaelibet potentia in suum obiectum). This directedness towards bonum in communi is necessary given the nature of the will. It just is the sort of thing the will is for it to be an appetite for bonum in communi. For Aquinas, any power of the soul is defined by its object. The power of sight would not be what it was if it did not have colour for its per se object. The will would not be the will if it was not directed towards the bonum in communi as its object. 

The necessity of desiring beatitude

It follows from this that it could not fail to desire a good which is immediately seen to be completely and perfectly good. This is because such a good would be infallibly seen to be infallibly without any defectus boni, the only possible motive for nolition. Such a good is felicitas or beatitudo (εὐδαιμονία for Aristotle), which, in the most basic analysis, is just goodness under the ratio of final end, and therefore complete or perfect. Aquinas compares this necessary orientation of the will towards the ultimate end to the role of first principles in understanding (ST Ia Q.82 a.1; Ia IIae Q.10 a.1), which are known to be true necessarily when they are cognised, and which any subsequent act of the intellect presupposes.

How the intellect can be said to move the will

Unlike appetitus naturalis, which just follows the inherent substantial form of the thing, sense appetite must follow an object presented by sense perception, while the rational appetite must follow an object presented by the intellect. If there were no object apprehended by the intellect, there would be no rational appetition. Therefore, there is a way in which Aquinas thinks we can speak of the intellect 'moving' the will, namely by presenting its object (ST Ia IIae Q.9 a.1: Et ideo isto modo motionis intellectus movet voluntatem sicut praesentans ei obiectum suum). However, 'motion' here does not mean efficient causality. Rather the intellect moves the will by presenting to it its object, and that object moves the will as a final cause (ibid: Et hoc modo intellectus movet voluntatem, quia bonum intellectum est obiectum voluntatis, et movet ipsam ut finis). St Thomas explains that movere can be taken in two ways: uno modo, per modum finis; sicut dicitur quod finis movet efficientem...Alio modo dicitur aliquid movere per modum agentis; sicut alterans movet alteratum, et impellens movet impulsum. As is clear from discussions of the four causes throughout the Thomistic corpus, Aquinas thinks that the final cause is a kind of causa causarum, without which no efficient cause would act, but he does not think that the final cause is an efficient cause of the efficient cause. Rather, the efficient cause is always an agent which acts for the sake of an end. Elsewhere, Aquinas explicitly denies that the intellect moves the will as an efficient cause. Here it is clear enough. To move as an efficient cause is to move per modum agentis. This is how the will can move the intellect to its operation, as well as all the other powers of the soul. It is not how the intellect moves the will. If we are looking for the efficient cause of the action of the will, St Thomas directs us partly to the will itself and partly to God, as will be discussed later.

That the intellect is not the efficient cause of the will (whereas the will is often the efficient cause of the intellect) is also clear enough in Ia IIae Q.9 a.1, where St Thomas distinguishes between two ways in which a power of the soul has to be moved, quantum ad exercitium vel usum actus and quantum ad determinationem actus. The first is ex parte subiecti, which is responsible for acting or not acting (quantum ad agere et non agere...quod quandoque invenitur agens, quandoque non agens). This is clearly the efficient cause of the action. The second is ex parte obiecti, which specifies the action as being an action of this or that (quantum ad agere hoc vel illud... secundum quod specificatur actus). The general object of sight is colour in general, but sight will be of a particular colour according to the specific colour of the object. In this article, St Thomas simply repeats that the object of the will is the bonum in communi and that the intellect presents this to the will. In this way, the intellect is responsible for the specification of the will's object (Bonum autem in communi, quod habet rationem finis, est obiectum voluntatis... Et ideo isto modo motionis intellectus movet voluntatem, sicut praesentans ei obiectum suum).

The liberty of the will to accept or reject particular goods

While it is true that that the intellect is also responsible for presenting any particular goods which are capable of becoming or which do actually become objects of the will's appetition, that they do become determinate objects of the will is not due solely to the intellect's apprehension of them. As St Thomas makes abundantly clear, the will has the liberty to accept or reject any particular good as an object of its appetition. As should be clear from above, the object presented by the intellect does move the will ex necessitate, if we are understanding the bonum in communi. However, this does not hold for particular goods. The necessary object of the will is bonum in communi, under which many particular goods can be either accepted by the will as coming under its object or rejected on the basis of a perceived deficiency of good (Ia IIae Q.10 a.1 ad 3: Cum igitur voluntas sit quaedam vis immaterialis sicut et intellectus, respondet sibi naturaliter aliquod unum commune, scilicet bonum...Sub bono autem communi multa particularia bona continentur, ad quorum nullum voluntas determinatur; Ia IIae Q.10 a.2 ad 1: sufficiens motivum alicuius potentiae non est nisi obiectum quod totaliter habet rationem motivi. Si autem in aliquo deficiat, non ex necessitate movebit; cf. Ia Q.82 a.2 ad 2).

When discussing the act of consent, St Thomas makes it clear that the final decision of whether to accept a particular good resides with the will, rather than the intellect: quandiu enim iudicandum restat quod proponitur, nondum datur finalis sententia...Finalis autem sententia de agendis est consensus in actum. Et ideo consensus in actum pertinet ad rationem superiorem, secundum tamen quod in ratione voluntas includitur (Ia IIae Q.15 a.4). Here he makes it clear that consent, an act of the will, is what determines whether a sententia is finalis. This would be true of electio as well, inasmuch as they are only differentiated insofar as there are multiple ways of action consented to, which need to be reduced to one last choice.

Aquinas repeatedly brings up Aristotle's discussion of 'rational potencies' in Metaphysics θ.2, which are capacities for contraries. These are not determined to either contrary nor moved of necessity, as irrational potencies are. Aristotle explains this on the basis that, in intellectual knowledge, the same λόγος makes clear both the positive thing and its lack. The intellect can understand something as good but as falling short (according as the intellect sees it) of total goodness, and Aquinas says that defectus cuiuscumque boni habet rationem non boni (ST Ia IIae Q.10 a.2). According to simultaneous diverse considerations, the will can choose to accept or reject the object: quaelibet particularia bona, inquantum deficiunt ab aliquo bono, possunt accipi ut non bona, et secundum hanc considerationem, possunt repudiari vel approbari a voluntate, quae potest in idem ferri secundum diversas considerationes. For example, to speak can be good but also to be silent. Speaking can be seen both as being good to some extent, but also defective insofar as it eliminates the good of silence. Therefore: ad illa opposita prosequenda se habet voluntas, quae sub bono comprehenduntur, sicut moveri et quiescere, loqui et tacere, et alia huiusmodi, in utrumque enim horum fertur voluntas sub ratione boni (Ia IIae Q.8 a.1 ad 2).

How the will moves itself

St Thomas devotes an article to explaining how the will moves itself (ST Ia IIae Q.9 a.3, Utrum voluntas moveat seipsam). This kind of movement is not that of final causality, as is that of the object presented by the intellect, but of efficient causality (ad 3: non eodem modo voluntas movetur ab intellectu, et a seipsa. Sed ab intellectu quidem movetur secundum rationem obiecti, a seipsa vero, quantum ad exercitium actus). St Thomas emphasises the importance of affirming the self- movement of the will. If the will did not have the power to move itself to any act of will, then it would not be the domina of any of its acts (voluntas domina est sui actus, et in ipsa est velle et non velle. Quod non esset, si non haberet in potestate movere seipsam ad volendum). How does it move itself as an efficient cause? For St Thomas, no inanimate thing is capable of self-motion based upon a proof in Aristotle's Physics Book VII. In a living organism, one part can move another. But the will is itself one part or power of the soul. How can it move itself? Indeed, in the respondeo of the article in question, St Thomas does not just limit this sort of self-movement to the will. He also affirms it of the intellect. He says that the intellect, by way of knowing principles, can reduce itself from potency to act, as regards the knowledge of corresponding conclusions (intellectus per hoc quod cognoscit principium, reducit seipsum de potentia in actum, quantum ad cognitionem conclusionum, et hoc modo movet seipsum). The will moves itself in a similar way: et similiter voluntas per hoc quod vult finem, movet seipsam ad volendum ea quae sunt ad finem.

Without going into too much detail, the argument in Physics Book VII only applies to the physical motion of extended material things. The intellect and will, however, are immaterial. Nevertheless, there is another argument in Physics Book VIII, which, although in its precise context it has to do with material things, can be analogically stretched to apply beyond material things, insofar as it utilises the more fundamental principles of act and potency. St Thomas brings this argument up in Objection 1: Omne enim movens, inquantum huiusmodi, est in actu, quod autem movetur, est in potentia, nam motus est actus existentis in potentia, inquantum huiusmodi. Sed non est idem in potentia et in actu respectu eiusdem. Ergo nihil movet seipsum. Neque ergo voluntas seipsam movere potest. A mere passive potency, insofar as it is such, cannot be the active agent which brings it to its corresponding act. It can only act insofar as it is already somehow in act, because only what is somehow actual can be an agent. Secondly, that 'somehow in act' must make it a proportionate agent to the effect brought about, either by having the effect formally or virtually. Neither of these considerations presents an unsolvable problem for the self- motion of the intellect or the will. When we say that the will moves itself, we are not saying that it is the will's mere potential to want a certain thing that moves it to will that certain thing. We are saying that the will itself, as an already active agent, moves itself to will that certain thing. Therefore, it is not in act and in potency in the same respect: voluntas non secundum idem movet et movetur. Unde nec secundum idem est in actu et in potentia. The question then is whether the will is sufficiently active in order to be a proportionate cause of the effect of its willing that certain thing. St Thomas thinks that, when it wills an end, it is a sufficiently active and proportionate cause for it to move itself to will means to that end, just as the intellect, in knowing principles, is a sufficiently active and proportionate cause for it to draw out the conclusions that necessarily follow. Sed inquantum actu vult finem, reducit se de potentia in actum respectu eorum quae sunt ad finem, ut scilicet actu ea velit. This seems to be because the will, in already willing the end, and the intellect, in already knowing the principles, contain the effects they move themselves towards virtually. The will, in willing an end, has the sufficient virtus to move itself to will means towards that end.

How God moves the will as universal mover to its universal object

The will, therefore, can move itself ad exercitium actus to will certain things, but this always presupposes that it already wills a certain end. Aquinas would not call the will a self-mover of its appetition for its necessary and natural object, the bonum in communi, or the bonum under the ratio of final end (felicitas or beatitudo), just as he would not call the natural motion of elementary bodies to their natural places self-motion. Therefore, the primal motion of the will ad exercitium actus is by nature (ST Ia IIae Q.9 a.4: necesse est ponere quod in primum motum voluntatis voluntas prodeat ex instinctu alicuius exterioris moventis). The will moves itself freely in all subsequent acts, sed non potest seipsam movere quantum ad omnia (ibid ad 3). Just as St Thomas would call the generator of an elementary body the motor of that body towards its natural place, by giving it the relevant form, so St Thomas would say that the cause of the nature of the will moves it to its primal natural motion (ibid ad 1: Sicut et primum principium motus naturalis est ab extra, quod scilicet movet naturam; ST Ia IIae Q.9 a.6: motus voluntatis est ab intrinseco, sicut et motus naturalis...naturalis autem motus eius non causatur nisi ab eo quod causat naturam. Unde dicitur in VIII Physic. quod generans movet secundum locum gravia et levia...Voluntatis autem causa nihil aliud esse potest quam Deus). Yet the latter is even more so than the former. The celestial body which is the generator and motor of the elementary body does not need to continually act upon that body. However, God, who is the creator of the human soul, and therefore the will (ibid: voluntas est potentia animae rationalis, quae a solo Deo causatur per creationem), continually conserves the will in existence and continually conserves it as being precisely the thing it is. If this action was taken away, then the will would cease to be the will, and cease all its willing. All the acts of the will rely upon this divine influence, but this does not damage the freedom of the will with regard to the specification of those things which it wills that presuppose its natural orientation to the bonum in commune. As Thomas says in reply to the objection about evil actions of rational agents, God moves the will as universalis motor to its universal and general object, while he leaves it to man's free will to determine whether he will any particular good: Deus movet voluntatem hominis, sicut universalis motor, ad universale obiectum voluntatis, quod est bonum. Et sine hac universali motione homo non potest aliquid velle. Sed homo per rationem determinat se ad volendum hoc vel illud, quod est vere bonum vel apparens bonum (ST Ia IIae Q.9 a.6 ad 3).

Conclusion

The above discussion is important because it shows how St Thomas does not think that the intellect's role or God's role in volition undermine genuine human free will. He is not an intellectual determinist, nor does he subscribe to the view that God infallibly necessitates all human actions. God's primal motion of the will is to its general object, the bonum in communi, and any further operation of the will presupposes this. But, while, to such an extent, this initial motion is a cause of these further operations, it does not necessitate the specification of these further operations, since these are left to the free determination of the will, which can move itself to these subsequent acts.