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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Yves R. Simon was a French-born philosopher who studied with Jacques Maritain, came to America just before the Second World War, taught at the University of Notre Dame and then at the University of Chicago. He died in 1961. Perhaps his best known work is the Philosophy of Democratic Government, published in 1951 and still in print.
This is an edited translation by Peter Wolff of the last chapter of Traité du libre arbitre published in 1951 in Liege. A new edition of this volume has just been released (1989) by Éditions Universitaires, Fribourg. This article is one of a series of continuing Yves R. Simon publications sponsored by the Yves R. Simon Institute under the general editorship of Anthony O. Simon.
1. Cf. Baudelaire, , Les paradis artificiels, Oeuvres completes (Paris: Louis Conard, 1928), 2: 76.Google Scholar
2. Let us recall the metaphysical division of good into the autonomous good (bonum honestum), the agreeable good, and the useful good; only the useful good has the character of a means. The agreeable good is an end, even though in a less fundamental sense than the autonomous good; it is subordinate to the autonomous good but in the line of efficient causality, not in the line of final causality, as an effect is subordinate to its (efficient) cause, not as a means is subordinate to its end. Summa Theologiae, Part I–II, Question 2, Article 6, Reply to Objection 1.
3. Summa Theologiae, I–II,Google Scholar Q. 16, A. 4.
4. Cajetan, , In Summa Theologiae, I,Google Scholar Q. 82, A. 2
5. Do these expressions risk evoking images of utilitarianism in man's relation to God and of a supreme egotism in the very act by which man receives his salvation? Let it suffice to recall that the final happiness of man is an act of loving contemplation (Summa Theologiae, I–II,Google Scholar QQ. 1–5). This act is, in its innermost nature, generosity, gift of self, loss of self in God, glorifying of God.
6. Summa Theologiae, I,Google Scholar Q. 62, A. 8, Reply to Objection 3. The body of the article demonstrates that the angels, truly happy, cannot sin. The objection maintains that without the ability to choose between good and evil they would have a diminished freedom. Here is the reply: “Free will finds itself, in respect to means which lead to the end, in the same relation as the intellect in respect to conclusions. It is clear that it belongs to the perfection of the intellect that it can come to different conclusions from given principles. But it would be a defect of the intellect, if it reached a conclusion by setting aside the order of principles. In the same way, free will can choose various means, as long as they are directed to the end, and this reveals the perfection of freedom. But if it makes a choice without taking account of the order of the end, it sins and that represents a failing for its freedom. That is why the freedom of the angels who cannot sin is superior to freedom in us who can sin.”
7. Du Régime temporel et de la Liberté, premiere partie: Une philosophic de la liberté, 2nd ed. (Paris: Desclee De Brouwer, 1933).Google Scholar The problem of how the free will functions in the state of sinlessness has not been of much concern to philosophers. Since the question makes sense only for those who admit the reality of free will, let us say that most of these latter content themselves with remarks of Ernest Naville: “In one sense, man is free only in doing good, since the good is the expression of the legitimate law of his will, the freedom of his nature; but in order that the good be achieved voluntarily, it is necessary that man possess free choice, and the possibility of evil is inherent in free will, which would disappear if that possibility disappeared” (Le libre arbitre. Etude philosophique, 2nd. ed. (Bade, Geneva, Paris, 1898), p. 92.Google Scholar) Theologians, on the other hand, have studied this subject profoundly, in relation to divine freedom, the freedom of angels, the freedom of souls in the state of happiness, and the freedom of those singular human beings who have been liberated here on earth from all possibility of sin, namely, Christ and his mother. See in particular the study of John of Saint Thomas concerning the vision of God as the cause of sinlessness among the elect (Cursus theol. I–II,Google Scholar d. 2, a. 5; Vives, 5, 247 s.) and his study (ibid., III, d. 17, a. 4j Vives, 572 s.) as well as that of Billuart (Summa s. Thomae, III,Google Scholar d. 18, a. 4) about how the human will of Christ follows orders.