Section 7: Obstacles to Voluntary Action

To be free, an action must proceed (1) from internal inclination, without constraint; (2) from a full knowledge of the end intended, and (3) from indifference of the will.¹

¹ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 6, art. 5 sqq., qu. 76 sq.

An action that is performed without constraint is called spontaneous. Obstacles to spontaneity are: 1. VIOLENCE. —By violence (vis, violentia, coactio) is meant the state of being driven by some external force which the agent is unable to resist. Since the will itself cannot be subjected to violence, its interior acts (actus eliciti s. interiores) are never forced. The only acts that can be affected by force are those mediate acts known as imperati.² Acts performed under absolute compulsion, the subject resisting internally, are involuntary (actus simpliciter involuntarii). When the compulsion is not absolute, the acts performed under it are more or less voluntary, according to the degree of resistance offered.³

² Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 6, art. 4: "An act of the will is twofold: one is immediately its own, as elicited by it, namely to will; the other is an act commanded by the will and exercised through another power, such as walking and speaking. These are commanded by the will but exercised through a motive power. Therefore, with respect to acts commanded by the will, the will can suffer violence insofar as the exterior members can be prevented by violence from executing its command. But with respect to the will's own proper act, violence cannot be inflicted upon it. The reason is that an act of the will is nothing other than a certain inclination proceeding from an interior knowing principle, just as natural appetite is a certain inclination from an interior principle but without knowledge. What is coerced or violent, however, is from an exterior principle. Hence it is contrary to the nature of an act of the will itself that it be coerced or violent, just as it is contrary to the nature of a natural inclination or of the motion of a stone that it be borne upward. For a stone can be carried upward by violence, but it cannot be that this violent motion comes from its natural inclination. Similarly, a man can be dragged by violence, but that this should be from his will is contrary to the nature of violence." —Cfr. St. Anselm, De Lib. Arbitr., c. 5: "A man cannot will unwillingly, because he cannot will while unwilling to will." (Migne, P. L., CLVIII, 496). God can ex nolente facere volentem per gratiam efficacem (St. Alphonsus, De Act. Human., n. 19), and, by His omnipotence, cause the human will to act or abstain from acting; but He cannot properly speaking compel it, because He cannot cause it to will and not to will the same thing at one and the same time. —Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 10, art. 4: "It does not belong to divine providence to corrupt the nature of things, but to preserve it." —IDEM, De Veritate qu. 22, art. 8: "God can change the will by necessity, yet He cannot coerce it."

³ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 6, art. 5. —That internal compulsion (necessitas) destroys the freedom of the will has been indirectly defined by the Church. Cfr. Prop. Damnat. Baii, prop. 46: "Voluntariness does not belong to the nature and definition of sin." Prop. 67: "Man sins, even damnably, in that which he does necessarily." —Prop. Damnat. Jansenii, prop. 3: "For meriting and demeriting in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man; freedom from coercion suffices." —Prop. Damnat. ab Alexandro VIII. (7 Dec., 1690), prop. 1: "In the state of fallen nature, for formal sin and demerit that freedom suffices by which the act was voluntary and free in its cause—original sin and the will of Adam sinning." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1046, 1067, 1094, 1291). —Cfr. Th. Müncker, Der psychische Zwang in seinen Beziehungen zu Moral und Pastoral, Düsseldorf 1922.

2. IGNORANCE. —When a man has no knowledge of the end intended, he is said to be ignorant. Moral ignorance may therefore be defined as a lack of that knowledge which a person ought to have in order to perform the duties of his office or vocation. It is impossible to will a thing that lies outside the scope of one's knowledge.⁴ If a man unknowingly directs his action towards such an object, that action is in so far forth involuntary (involuntarium).⁵

⁴ "Quod latet, ignotum est," "Ignoti nulla cupido," are Scholastic axioms.

⁵ Cfr. St. Augustine, De Lib. Arbitr., III, c. 19, n. 53: "It is not charged to you as a fault that you are unwillingly ignorant, but that you neglect to seek what you do not know." (Migne, P. L., XXXII, 1297).—Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 76, art. 2-3.

Ignorance may be culpable or inculpable (culpabilis s. inculpabilis), vincible or invincible (vincibilis s. invincibilis).

Invincible ignorance is that which cannot be overcome by the use of ordinary intelligence. It involves no moral responsibility.

Vincible ignorance, on the other hand, —the kind that can be dispelled by the use of ordinary intelligence, —may, in certain circumstances, diminish moral responsibility, but never entirely abolishes it; for whatever is done in a state of vincible ignorance, is willed at least indirectly, and to that extent is voluntary.

Ignorance due to gross negligence is called crass or supine (ignorantia crassa); when means are used to foster it, it is called affected (ignorantia affectata). Both crass and affected ignorance are sinful.⁶

⁶ Cfr. Job XXI, 14; John IX, 41; XV, 22.

3. FEAR. —Fear (metus) is a disturbed condition of the mind caused by real or imaginary danger. Fear does not always destroy free-will, but generally diminishes accountability.⁷

⁷ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 6, art. 6; qu. 41-44; St. Alphonsus, De Act. Human., n. 20—22.

Fear is grave or slight (metus gravis s. levis) according to the nature of the danger by which it is caused. As fear, generally speaking, does not exercise compulsion, the actions which it inspires are voluntary, though the degree of their imputability varies in proportion to the disturbance excited in the mind. Both canon and civil law regard acts inspired by grave and unjust fear as void.⁸ If serious evil or danger suddenly overwhelms a man, so as to deprive him momentarily of the use of reason, the acts he performs in that state are involuntary; in other words, a man may sometimes be so disturbed by fear that free-will is suspended.

⁸ Cfr. J. Laurentius, S.J., Instit. Iuris Eccl., Freiburg 1903, pp. 458 sqq.; E. Taunton, The Law of the Church, London 1906, p. 345.

4. CONCUPISCENCE. —Concupiscence (concupiscentia), in the general sense of the term, is any movement of the sensitive appetite towards its proper object.⁹ More particularly, it is that inordinate inclination to evil which is in human nature since the fall of Adam and Eve.¹⁰

⁹ Cfr. Catechismus Romanus, P. III, c. 10, qu. 5: "It must be known that concupiscence is a certain agitation and force of the mind by which men, impelled, seek pleasant things that they do not have."

¹⁰ St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 30, art. 1-3: "Concupiscence is the appetite for a delightful good ... according to sense, ... the sensitive appetite, a passion of the sensitive appetite." Cfr. qu. 77, art. 1 and 7. —St. Alphonsus, De Act. Human., n. 23-25; Pohle-Preuss, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, 2nd ed., St. Louis 1916, pp. 203, 217, 245, 261 sqq., 283 sqq.

Concupiscence may precede or follow the action of the will. In the former case it is called antecedent; in the latter, consequent.

Antecedent concupiscence (concupiscentia antecedens) is involuntary when it completely impedes the use of reason, and in that case there is no accountability. Men are often "blinded by passion." When the use of reason is not entirely suspended, the guilt of an evil act may be greatly diminished by passion.¹¹ Thus, to kill a man in a rage is less criminal than to murder him in cold blood.

¹¹ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 77, art. 7: "Sometimes passion is so great that it entirely takes away the use of reason, as is evident in those who become insane through love or anger; and then, if such passion was voluntary from the beginning, the act is imputed as sin because it is voluntary in its cause. ... But if the cause was not voluntary but natural, as when someone through illness or some similar cause falls into such a passion as entirely takes away the use of reason, the act is rendered wholly involuntary and consequently is entirely excused from sin. Sometimes, however, passion is not so great that it entirely interrupts the use of reason; and then reason can exclude the passion by turning to other thoughts, or prevent it from obtaining its effect, because the members are not applied to action except by consent of reason. Hence such passion does not entirely excuse from sin." (Cfr. qu. 10, art. 3; qu. 73, art. 6).

Consequent concupiscence (concupiscentia consequens) may to some extent obscure the light of reason, but as a rule increases the malice of evil acts ¹² because it is either deliberately excited by the will or, at any rate, willed in its cause.¹³

¹² St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 6, art. 7: "Concupiscence does not cause involuntariness, but rather makes something voluntary. For something is called voluntary because the will is borne toward it; through concupiscence the will is inclined to will what it desires, and therefore concupiscence tends more to make something voluntary than involuntary." —Qu. 77, art. 1: "A passion of the sensitive appetite cannot directly draw or move the will, but it can do so indirectly, and in two ways: first, by a certain distraction ... and secondly, on the part of the will's object, which is the good apprehended by reason."

¹³ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 77, art. 6: "Consequent passion does not diminish sin, but rather increases it, or more properly is a sign of its magnitude insofar as it shows the intensity of the will toward the sinful act. And so it is true that the greater the lust or concupiscence with which someone sins, the more he sins." —IDEM, De Veritate, qu. 26, art. 7: "Consequent passion itself in the lower appetite is a sign that the movement of the will is intense. For in a passible nature the will cannot be strongly moved toward something without some passion following in the lower part. Hence Augustine says that while we bear the infirmity of this life, if we have no passions, we do not live rightly." —The passage of St. Augustine here referred to by the Angelic Doctor is De Civitate Dei, XIV, c. 9, n. 4 (Migne, P. L., XLI, 451).

READINGS. —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 6, qu. 76 sq. —V. Cathrein, S.J., Moralphilosophie, Vol. I, 4th ed., Freiburg 1904, pp. 73 sqq. —A. Huber, Die Hemmnisse der Willensfreiheit, pp. 48 sqq. —Ballerini-Palmieri, Opus Theol. Mor., Vol. I, tr. 1, c. 3-6. —Th. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 30 sqq.—M. Cronin, The Science of Ethics, Vol. I, pp. 41 sqq. —A. Sweens, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, 2nd ed., Haaren 1910, pp. 59 sqq. —F. P. Kenrick, Theologia Moralis, Vol. I, pp. 7 sqq. —W. McDonald, The Principles of Moral Science, Dublin 1904, pp. 177 sqq., 184 sqq. —A. Vermeersch, S.J., Theol. Mor., Vol. I, Bruges 1922, pp. 69 sqq., 77 sqq., 81 sqq.