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Aquinas’ Solution of Aristotle's Incontinent Man and Augustine's Two Wills

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Martina Stepinova OP
Martina Stepinova OP*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, CMTF University of Olomouc, Universitni 22, Olomouc, CZ 771 11
*
E-mail: mrtnst@volny.cz
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Extract

Aquinas’ treatise on conscience was the culmination of a lengthy debate that had been going on for centuries. This debate is today known and carried on under the name “weakness of the will” or akrasia. In my article, I am aiming to demonstrate that this discussion, which started with the Aristotle's problem of incontinent (akratic) man, has been going on through Augustine's problem of “two wills”. I would like to demonstrate that Aquinas links this discussion to his conception of the conscience and synderesis. Despite the fact, that R. Saarinen in his book about “weakness of the will” proves there is no connection between Aristotle's incontinent (akratic) man and Augustine's problem of “two wills”, my aim is to explain that it is Aquinas himself who connects Aristotle's incontinent man with Augustine's “two wills” and that incontinent person is someone who acts against his conscience.

Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 92 , Issue 1039 , May 2011 , pp. 322 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Saarinen, Risto, Weakness of the will in medieval thought : from Augustine to Buridan (Leiden – New York: E. J. Brill, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Thomas Aquinas, QD De veritate q. 17, a. 1.

3 Dihle, Albrecht, The theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1982), pp. 36–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII, 2 (1145 b 21–30).

5 Plato, Euthydemus, 281b.

6 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I, 7 (1097 a 29–b 21).

7 Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics IX, 3 (1249 b 6–23).

8 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII, 2 (1145 b 28).

9 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII, 8 (1151 a 7–10).

10 QD De veritate q. 24, a. 8.

11 Augustine, De libero arbitrio III, 5, 17 (PL 32, 1279).

12 Augustine, De libero arbitrio I, 13, 28 (PL 32, 1236).

13 Ibid., 1, 12, 25, (PL 32, 1234).

14 Ibid., 2, 9, 26, (PL 32, 1255).

15 Ibid., 2, 9, 25, (PL 32, 1254).

16 Stump, Eleonore, ‘Augustine on Free Will’, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Stump, E. and Kretzmann, N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum libri duo 1,1,11 (PL 40,107).

18 Springsted, Eric O., The Act of Faith, Christian Faith and the Moral Self, (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2002), pp. 105Google Scholar.

19 The concept “synderesis” (it would be better to say syneidésis because synderesis had arisen from the wrong transcription) was used for the first time by Jerome (347–419) in his commentary on Ezekiel (Commentaria in Ezechielem prophetam 1,1, c. 1, PL 25,22b). Jerome explained Ezekiel's vision of four animals (human, lion, ox, and eagle) in the manner of Plato as the four powers of the soul: reason, irascibility, concupiscence and conscience, although the conception “conscience” did not play a part in Plato's description of the soul. According to Jerome conscience is a spark of reason called by Greek synderesis. Synderesis is, according to Jerome, the ability of the soul which was not touched by original sin; the soul is able to judge, what is right or wrong, because of conscience; and so the soul is able to direct the person's actions.

20 Doig, James C., Aquinas's Philosophical Commentary on the Ethics: A Historical Perspective, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher, 2001), pp. 166–169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Peter of Poitiers taught in Paris in 1167–1205.

22 James C. Doig, Aquinas's Philosophical Commentary on the Ethics: A Historical Perspective, pp. 162.

23 Bonaventura, ‘Breviloquium 2, c. 11’, S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, sv. 5, Opuscula varia theologica, ed. Collegii, PP. a Bonaventura, S., Quaracchi, (Firenze: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1891), pp. 201–291Google Scholar.

24 Albert the Great, ‘Quaestio de ratione superiori et synderesi, a. 3’, Alberti Magni opera omnia, sv. 25/2, Quaestiones, ed. Friez, A., (W. Kübl a H. Anzulewitz, Münster: Aschendorff, 1993)Google Scholar.

25 Albert the Great, ‘Quaestio de conscientia II, a. 1’, Alberti Magni opera omnia, sv. 25/2, Quaestiones: „Primus ergo actus rationis, qui est accipere particulare sub universali, non est conscientia, sed secundus, qui est decernere aliquid faciendum in particulari propter decretum synderesis in universali.”

26 Peter Lombard, Liber Sententiarum II, d. 24, PL 192, 701–706.

27 Ibid., d. 39, PL 192, 745–747.

28 QD De veritate, q. 15 - q. 17; STh I, q. 79, a. 9, a. 12–13.

29 Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, q. 94, a 2.

30 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Ethicorum, lb. 1, lc. 9.

31 QD De veritate, q. 21, a. 1.

32 QD De veritate, q. 22, a. 12.

33 STh I-II, q. 72, a. 7, ad 2; STh I-II, q. 31 a. 7.

34 QD De veritate, q. 15, a. 2.

35 Ibid., q. 16, a. 2.

36 STh I-II, q. 31, a. 7.

37 STh. I-II, q. 94, a. 4.

38 QD De veritate, q. 17, a. 1: „Nomen enim conscientiae significat applicationem scientiae ad aliquid, unde conscire dicitur quasi simul scire.”

39 Eschmann, Ignacius T., The Ethics of Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Toronto-Ontario-Canada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997), pp. 186–188Google Scholar; Westerman, Pauline, The Disintegration of Natural Law Theory, (Leiden-New York-Köln: E. J. Brill 1998), pp. 29Google Scholar.

40 STh. I-II, q. 58, a. 5; Caldera, Rafael T., Le jugement par inclination chez Saint T. Aquinas, (Paris: Librairie Philosophique, 1980), pp. 65Google Scholar.

41 Sententia libri Ethicorum, lb. 7, lc. 3: „ad hoc enim requiritur quod illa quae homo audit fiant ei quasi connaturalia, propter perfectam impressionem ipsorum intellectui, ad quod homo indiget tempore in quo intellectus per multiplices meditationes firmetur in eo quod accepit.”

42 This is also why the kind of ethic judgment differs from the kind of judgment that would be derived solely from a particular or concrete situation. The judgments of ethic belong to the speculative science while the judgment as to matters of conduct is connaturalis.

43 QD De veritate, q. 17, a. 2, ad 2: „Vel dicendum quod cum dico conscientiam non implico scientiam solummodo stricte acceptam prout est tantum verorum, sed scientiam largo modo acceptam pro quacumque notitia, secundum quod omne quod novimus, communi usu loquendi scire dicimur.”

44 QD De Veritate, q. 17, a. 1, ad 4.

45 Ibid.; Thomas Aquinas, QD De malo, q. 3 a. 9, ad 7.

46 Sententia libri Ethicorum, lb. 7, lc. 3.

47 QD De veritate, q. 17, a. 4.

48 QD De veritate, q. 15, a. 3: „Et inde est quod consensus in actum attribuitur rationi superiori, quae finem ultimum inspicit.”

49 QD De veritate, q. 15, a. 3.

50 QD De veritate, q. 17, a. 4: „Et haec solutio potest accipi ex verbis Philosophi in VII Ethicorum ubi quasi eamdem quaestionem quaerit, utrum scilicet dicendus sit incontinens qui abscedit a ratione recta solum vel qui abscedit etiam a falsa;”.

51 Risto Saarinen, Weakness of the will in medieval thought : from Augustine to Buridan, pp. 119.

52 QD De veritate, q. 17, a. 1, ad 4.

53 QD De veritate, q. 17, a. 1, ad 4.

54 Thomas Aquinas, QD De malo, q. 3 a. 9, ad 7.

55 Thomas Aquinas, QD De malo, q. 3 a. 9.

56 Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals I, 369: „While such a will may not indeed be the sole and complete good, it must, nevertheless, be the highest good and condition of all the rest, even of the desire for happines.”(transl. by James W. Ellington).

57 Serbic Tenenbaum, „The Judgment of a Weak Will”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LIX, No. 4, December 1999.

58 Kirk Robinson, „Reason, Desire, and Weakness of Will”, in: American Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 4, October 1991.

59 Emmanuel Levinas, Totalité et infini: essai sur l’extériorité, I, 1.

60 David Hume, Treatise, II, III, 1.