Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham

3. The Stages of the Act

109 3 The Stages of the Act Thomas, Scotus, and Ockham’s views of the relationship between practical reason and the will in the production of an act are partially expressed in their descriptions of an act’s stages. They each follow a basically Aristotelian structure according to which human acts have three major components: willing the end, deliberating concerning the means, and choosing Nevertheless, they find these three components to be insufficient for fully elaborating an act’s structure. In particular, Thomas adds several stages to Aristotle’s account, in part by drawing on the language of his contemporaries, translations of Greek Fathers, and Augustine. In contrast, Scotus accepts the Aristotelian paradigm for only certain instances. He distinguishes between two meanings of the word choice; only one clearly corresponds to Aristotle’s description . Nevertheless, even though he elaborates a further kind of choice, he does not introduce many new acts to his description of those choices that fall under the basic Aristotelian account. Ockham’s description of the act in large part resembles Scotus’s account of cases that follow the Aristotelian paradigm, although he more carefully distinguishes between deliberation and that intellectual act that accompanies choice. 110 The Stages of the Act The Aristotelian Background The key text for Aristotle’s discussion of human action consists of the first four chapters of Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics. His focus is on choice (prohairesis), which is the act that belongs to virtuous or vicious habits. He divides the whole human act into three component acts, namely (1) will or wish (boulesis), (2) deliberation (bouleusis), and (3) choice (prohairesis). For Aristotle, will or wish (boulesis) in this context names an act that is distinct from choice and does not indicate a faculty. Medieval translators used the Latin word voluntas to translate Aristotle’s boulesis.1 One problem with this translation is that the word voluntas carried with it many theoretical associations. Medieval thinkers thought that will or wish (boulesis/voluntas) and choice (prohairesis/electio) are acts that belong to one faculty, namely the will (voluntas), for which there was no Greek word in Aristotle’s time. It is unclear whether Aristotle himself thinks or needs to think that there is a distinct rational appetite, but medievals believe that he did.2 Medieval philosophers distinguish between the use of “will” to translate Aristotle’s “boulesis” and its use as naming a potency. For instance, Thomas writes that “the Philosopher speaks of the will [voluntas ] insofar as it properly names the simple act of the will: but not insofar as it names a power.”3 Sometimes medieval philosophers use the term “simple willing” (simplex velle) to indicate this act. The historical background and context greatly influenced this interpretation of Aristotle’s action theory. For instance, Augustine’s discussions of the will and free choice were well known. According 1. For the Latin text, see Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, Textus Recognitus, trans. Robert Grosseteste, ed. René Antonin Gauthier, Aristoteles Latinus, 26.1–3, fasc. 4 (Leiden: Brill; Bruxelles: De Brouwer, 1973), 410–18. 2. See T. H. Irwin, “Who Discovered the Will,” Ethics, Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992): 453–73; Idem, Development of Ethics, 1.173–75, 441–42. For an account that stresses the difference between Aristotle and Thomas, see Kahn, “Discovering the Will,” 239–45. 3. “Philosophus loquitur de voluntate, secundum quod proprie nominat simplicem actum voluntatis: non autem secundum quod nominat potentiam”; Thomas, S.T., I-II, q. 8, art. 2, ad 2. Cf. Idem, S.T., I, q. 83, art. 4. 111 The Stages of the Act to Sarah Byers, Augustine most often used “voluntas” to indicate the Stoic impulse for motion (horme), and especially the impulse of rational beings.4 She states that Augustine’s “arbitrium” is used for the Stoics’ assent. This Stoic assent resembles Aristotelian choice insofar as it is the source of moral responsibility and present in only rational acts, but it does not require deliberation. Byers remarks that Augustine also uses the word “voluntas” for the psychological faculty to which this assent belongs.5 This use of “voluntas” for designating at least some sort of psychological faculty became widespread. Although her description of the Stoic influence may not describe exhaustively the source of Augustine’s understanding of “voluntas,” it seems clear that Augustine’s moral psychology does not have direct roots in Aristotle.6 By the time of Thomas Aquinas’s writing, the...