Section I. On the Voluntary

I. Notion of the voluntary. The voluntary is that which proceeds in any way whatsoever from the will, whether it is the actuation of the will itself, as the willing of drunkenness; or the actuation of another faculty from the command of the will, as drunkenness committed. Moreover, an effect following from an action or omission is usually called voluntary when it could and ought to have been foreseen, as pollution following from drunkenness and foreseen.

Since the will is a rational appetite, it cannot act except from a prior cognition of reason or intellect. Besides, for the sake of completeness and clarity, note:

1. The voluntary differs:

a) From the willed, insofar as the willed extends more widely than the voluntary. For the willed is the object of the will, or that toward which the will is borne, whether it depends on the will and is voluntary, or does not depend on it, as, for example, excellent weather, which is willed by farmers but is nevertheless not voluntary.

b) From the violent, which is from a principle extrinsic to the will, while the will resists or at least contributes nothing, as motion inflicted on someone by an external cause.

c) From the spontaneous, which proceeds from the sensitive appetite, from sensitive cognition, as the anger of a beast.

d) From the natural, which proceeds from an intrinsic principle without cognition, as a vegetative act (cf. St. Alphonsus, V, nn. VI-VIII).

2. Since the voluntary, as we have said, requires prior knowledge, it extends only to things known. Hence, in order that "some action be called wholly voluntary, it is necessary that it be known according to all its parts and circumstances. If any one of these is unknown, the action is not called voluntary with respect to that unknown circumstance. Thus, one who approaches a woman whom he does not know to be married does not commit the sin of adultery, but of simple fornication, since he is involuntary with respect to the circumstance of marriage, which he does not know" (St. Alphonsus, V, VIII).

3. The involuntary is opposed to the voluntary. It is taken in two senses, negatively and positively. Taken negatively, it is the same as the merely non-voluntary, or signifies that which the will neither positively wills nor positively does not will. Taken positively, that is called involuntary which the will by a positive act does not will or turns away from (St. Alphonsus, V, XIII).

II. Division of the voluntary. The voluntary is distinguished:

1. Into elicited and commanded (n. 17).

2. Into perfect and imperfect, according as cognition and deliberation, and therefore the consent of the will, are sufficiently perfect or only half-full. Imperfectly voluntary are the acts of one half-mad, half-asleep, half-drunk, or otherwise distracted (St. Alphonsus, V, 3).

3. Into pure and mixed, or voluntary in a qualified sense, according as the will chooses something without, or with, some rational or deliberate repugnance. Thus the throwing overboard of merchandise, lest a ship sink, is voluntary in a qualified sense. From what has been said, it is plain that the voluntary in a qualified sense can be perfectly voluntary (St. Alphonsus, V, IX).¹

4. Into express and tacit, according as it is signified by words or equivalent signs, or can only be gathered from some act or omission.

5. Into explicit and implicit, according as something is willed distinctly or according to its proper concept, or is contained in another thing explicitly willed, as if one about to baptize says or at least confusedly thinks: I wish to do what Christ instituted, or what the Church intends in these things.

6. Into actual, virtual, habitual, and interpretative, as was said concerning intention (n. 14), and as is usefully applied to the voluntary. The actual is that which depends on the will actually influencing, or that which is elicited or commanded by the will under attention of mind. The virtual is that which depends on a will that has been had and is influencing only virtually, or that which is done by force of a past act, as if a priest wills to celebrate Mass and by force of that will celebrates, without attending to the things which he performs.² The habitual is that which depends on a will that has been had and not retracted, but nevertheless is not virtually influencing, although, since it has not been retracted, it morally perseveres. Thus the reception of Extreme Unction is habitually voluntary for a dying person deprived of the senses, who previously wished to receive that sacrament and did not retract that will. The interpretative is taken in different senses. Some, by the name of interpretative voluntary, understand the implicit voluntary; thus according to some, one who has willed or wills the means of salvation has implicitly willed or wills Baptism. Others call that interpretatively voluntary which the will neither actually wills nor has willed, but nevertheless would will if it thought about it (St. Alphonsus, VI, 15).

7. Into the directly voluntary, or voluntary in itself, and the indirectly voluntary, or voluntary in another, or in the cause. The direct is that which is intended in itself, whether as an end or for its own sake, or as a means. Hence, if someone makes himself drunk in order to suffer pollution, both the drunkenness and the pollution are directly voluntary: the former is intended as a means, the latter as an end. As is plain from the example given, even an effect can be directly voluntary. The indirectly voluntary is usually said to be that which is not intended in itself, yet is foreseen as going to follow from another thing, whether from an action or from an omission, and is permitted when someone can and ought to avoid the action or omission so that the effect may be avoided. Thus if someone makes himself drunk, with pollution foreseen but not intended, the pollution is indirectly voluntary (St. Alphonsus, V, IX, 3). Others call what follows from an action that should be avoided voluntary in the cause, and what arises from an omission that should be avoided indirectly voluntary (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 6, a. 3; q. 77, a. 7).

Objection. What is foreseen as going to follow from an action cannot be said to be permitted.

Response. I deny the assertion, because nothing prevents the will from being borne toward the cause, for example toward horseback riding, but not toward the effect, for example toward the pollution going to follow (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 7). It is rightly said, however, that what follows from an action is not merely permitted, because someone at least in some way cooperates toward it. But this must also be said of that which follows from an omission, if the omission, for example neglect of a precept, exercises a moral influence, for example, on the sin of one's neighbor.

¹ Others, however, take the said words in another sense.

² There are some who explain the virtual voluntary in another way, so that it is nothing other than the actual unconscious. Thus, for example, Lugo (De sacramentis in genere, disputation 8, section 5, and De poenitentia, disputation 7, number 40) teaches that that by which the will previously conceived perseveres in the virtual will is "the very act of the will, now confused and imperceptible, which almost escapes our attention and of which we cannot give an account." We freely concede indeed that the intention which is called virtual is often in fact such as Lugo describes it, namely properly actual, but unconsciously. Yet psychological consciousness seems to testify that there is also another merely virtual volition, which does not in fact include an act, but is merely the effect of that action previously willed.