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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
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.
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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.
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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).
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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.”
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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.