2. Against the Reasons for Aquinas’ Opinion

21. Further, the reasons adduced for the opinion are adduced for the opposite:

22. [Against the first reason] - The first [n. 11] is as follows: the will is indeterminate to opposites, not only to opposite objects but to opposite modes of action, namely rightly and not rightly; therefore, it needs something determinative inclining it to right action, and this will be virtue. The consequence is plain: for the only necessity to posit virtues in a power is so that powers able of themselves to act rightly and not rightly may be regulated. The proof of the antecedent is that the will can choose anything shown it in which is shown the idea of its first object; but in eliciting such choices it can act not rightly.

23. Now if you say, ‘it suffices that reason show things rightly, therefore a virtue is not required in the will but in the reason’ - this is false, because then it would be necessary for reason first to err in its showing before the will chooses badly; and so, before the first sin of the will there would be error in the intellect -which is irrational, for then punishment would precede guilt.

24. Further, given that the will could be sufficiently determined by the intellect for right action, it does not follow that no habit will be generated in the intellect whereby it is more determined to right judgment, for insofar as the intellect has an action prior to an act of will it acts merely naturally; and yet there is no denying that in the intellect a habit for right judgment (namely prudence) is generated by repeated acts. Since therefore the will is not of itself a power more determined to one thing than the intellect is, then from acts repeatedly elicited by the will a certain right disposition can be generated in it for similar acts, and that I call a virtue.

25. Further, habits are not only posited so that powers may act rightly through them, but so that they may act with pleasure and promptly [Ethics 2.5.1106a15-17, 1.9.1099a14; Scotus Ord. I d.17 n7]. Now though the will could be determined by reason to choose rightly, yet not to choose with pleasure and promptly without the proper habit. The proof is that if someone first vicious begins newly to be recalled to the opposite, and reason tells him that something opposite to his vice is to be chosen, then although he choose it yet he would not do so with pleasure; for the whole vicious habit is not at once corrupted in the first act, but rather it is then corrupted not at all or only very slightly. Experience makes this plain, because someone newly converted chooses the good with difficulty, and it would be pleasant for him to choose according to his preceding bad custom. Therefore, in order for the will to do with pleasure what is told it by reason, a habit is required in it for eliciting an act conformable to that habit.

26. To the first argument then [n.11] I reply that it proceeds by equivocation over the phrase ‘the good simply’. For this can be understood either as the good simply is contrasted with the apparent good, or as it is contrasted with the good taken in a singular case. If in the first way ‘the good simply’ is not the adequate object of the will, because then the will could not act on the apparent good, for no power can act on that in which is not preserved the idea of its first object - and thus any will of a wayfarer would, by its object, be confirmed or be preserved from being able to sin. In the second way one can admit that the good under the idea of good is the object desired by the will and is the object of its proper cognitive power. But the senses, according to what is commonly said, know the singular and the intellect the universal. Therefore, the sense appetite has for object ‘the good in the now’, as it is a singular good with its individuating conditions. But the will has for object the good as shown to it by the intellect, which is the universal good and is the good simply.

27. As to what the argument adds, that it is enough for reason to show things rightly [n.11], then against this is: ‘that the will cannot do the opposete in the case of the universal and particular: error’ [Articles condemned by Archbishop Tempier in 1277, article 219].a

a.a [Interpolation] Extra ‘On Heretics’ in Gregory Decretals 5 tit.7 ch.9, and in Gratian Decrees p.1 d.15 ch.3 ‘Montanus’.

28. [Against the second reason] - The second reason [n. 12] leads to the opposite conclusion: for the will needs a disposition more in respect of what it has the doing of in its power than in respect of something else. For if it did not have the action in its power, then when and how it does it would not be imputed to it for praise or blame. But because the will has it in its power, it acts in a way deserving of praise or blame; and therefore it needs a principle by which it can act in a way deserving of praise; such a principle is virtue.

29. It also seems surprising that that because of which a man is praised in his acts should exist in him precisely as to that which is common to him and the brutes.

30. Nor is it valid to argue here that ‘a natural agent is determined to its action, so the will is as well, since it is a certain naturally active power’, for everyone removes habits from purely natural agents because these agents are inclined supremely of themselves. But the intellect, which acts more naturally than the will, is not denied to have a habit, for of itself it is not supremely inclined. Nor does the indetermination come from the imperfection of the active power, but from its lack of limitation, which lack is a perfection of the active power. For the other merely natural things are limited to one thing, so that they do not have power for contrary, or at least contradictory, opposites - the will is not thus limited, as was stated in II d.25 nn.37, 93. 93.

31. Also the other argument there adduced [n.12] that ‘virtue inclines by way of nature’ is not valid, because it would prove also against them that charity and hope are not in the will - which is against all the theologians.

32. In answer then to these two proofs [n.12]:

To the first: although the will can of its own freedom determine itself in its action, yet it is receptive of some disposition left behind from the action, a disposition inclining it to similar actions. For the single determination of it does not come through a natural form (of the sort found in fire for fire’s operation), but is from the free action that proceeds from an indeterminate power, and so the power is determinable through a habit.

33. To the second proof [n.12] the answer is plain from what was said in I d.17 nn.32, 40, 69-70 and II d.25 nn.69-74, about how a second cause naturally acting can go along with a prior cause freely acting, and about how an effect is said to be free because of the freedom of the principal cause; but a habit, if it is cause of the substance of an act, is a second cause in respect of the will.

34. [Against the third reason] - The third reason [n.13], about the moderation of the passions, leads to the opposite:

First because there are passions in the will, according to Augustine City of God 14.5-6; and for this reason, if a virtue is to be posited in a power where there is passion and action because of that action and passion, then it follows that, since there are passions in the supreme part of the soul, virtues may be posited there.

35. Second because the moderation of a passion can be understood in two ways: the moderation either of an existing passion or of a future one.

An existing passion can be moderated in two ways: Either by lessening the passion that is naturally introduced by the object in itself, so that the passion is not immoderate in the way the object, left to itself, would naturally cause when delighting the sensitive power. Or by referring the delight to an end agreeable to right reason, to which end it would not be referred by the mere idea of the object of the sensitive appetite.

The moderating too of a future passion can be understood either as a flight from the object that naturally gives immoderate delight, or as a taking up only of objects that naturally give moderate delight; and then the future passion is not in itself moderated, but precaution is taken against the presence of immoderate passion.

36. In whichever of these two ways the moderation of passion be understood, it can belong more to the will than to the sensitive appetite, whether the passion is present, or will be present, in the sensitive appetite.

For as to an existent passion, provided it can be lessened, the will, which acts freely, is able to lessen it more than the sensitive appetite can, which appetite is affected by the object or acts along with it as much as it can. The will can also refer the passion to an end consonant with right reason more than the sensitive appetite can, because the will is the proper appetitive force of the reason, and so it properly directs things to the end that reason shows. For ‘to use’, which is to direct things to the due end, is not an act of the sensitive appetite but of the will, since so to direct things is not admitted properly to belong to the sensitive power the way that the will, the intellect, and reason so direct things.

If passion be understood as what should be guarded against if immoderate, and accepted if moderate, it seems sufficiently plain that the will can have a right act about the future more than the sensitive appetite can, because the cognitive power of the will, which is reason, can deliberate about the future but not so the senses.The fourth reason [n.14] is not brought round to the opposite here, but it is dealt with at large below in nn.46-47, 49-56. ⁶

37. [Conclusion] - It is plain from these reasons, then, which were adduced for the opposite opinion [nn.10-13], how the opposite conclusion can be drawn. First because the will is made right with respect to its proper operation and is not right of itself. Second because it is indeterminate, and is no less determinable than is the intellect, of which habits are not denied. Third because it is of a nature to be properly delighted in its own operation, and so to have a habit by which it may operate delightfully. Fourth because the lead in performing human actions belongs to it, for it is free, and praiseworthy human actions require virtue in the leading agent, for praise is of virtue. Fifth because the will is able to moderate the passions in due manner by a habit more than the sensitive appetite is (if it were to have the passions).