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The Weak Will as Cause in Acts of the Incontinent: A Response to Bonnie Kent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Daniel Lendman Open the ORCID record for Daniel Lendman [Opens in a new window]
Daniel Lendman*
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Ave Maria Univeristy
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dlendman@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article has three parts. The first two explore contemporary philosopher Bonnie Kent's important contributions to the role of the weakness of the will in actions of the morally incontinent in Thomas Aquinas treatment of human action. While Kent's treatment gives many important insights, nevertheless, she fails to recognize that the weakness of the will does in fact have role in the actions of the morally incontinent. Kent is correct that, for Aquinas, the passions cause the incontinent act to act as such. She fails, however, to recognize that the role of the passions does not exclude the weakness of the will as a cause, and even a principal cause. The third part takes up the criticisms of Gary Watson to which Kent's remarks were meant as a reply and shows that even with the causative role of the weak will, Aquinas' account does not fall prey to Watson's criticisms.

Keywords

AkrasiaIncontinentEthicsMoralityThomas AquinasWillWeak Will

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 101 , Issue 1095 , September 2020 , pp. 505 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Incontinent is typically how the term akrasia is typically rendered. Aristotle, , The Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Apostle, Hippocrates G. (Grinnell, IA: The Peripatetic Press, 1984), Bk. VIIGoogle Scholar.

2 Habit, in this case, means habitus.

3 Kent, Bonnie, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXV, no. 1 (July 2007): pp. 70–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Kent, 72; Watson, Gary, “Skepticisim about Weakness of Will,” The Philosophical Review 86, no. 3 (July 1977): pp. 316–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 71.

6 Kent, p. 72.

7 Kent, p. 73.

8 Summa Theologiae (ST), I-II, Q. 77.

9 Watson, Gary, “Skepticisim about Weakness of Will,” The Philosophical Review 86, no. 3 (July 1977): pp. 316–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Davidson, Donald, “How Is Weakness of the Will Possible,” in Moral Concepts, ed. Feinberg, Joel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 106Google Scholar. Curiously, as will be shown, Aquinas’ position is strikingly close to Davidson's. For an interesting response to Davidson from a Cartesian perspective cf. Tenenbaum, Sergio, “The Judgement of a Weak Will,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LIX, no. 4 (December 1999): pp. 875–911CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ultimately, Tenebaum's appeal to our common experience of being weak-willed supports the conclusions of this essay, even as his analysis is in tension in many other ways.

11 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 70.

12 Kent, p. 70.

13 Kent, p. 71.

14 Kent, p. 72.

15 Kent, p. 78, fn. 20.

16 Cf. Cessario, Romanus, The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), Ch. 2.Google Scholar; Cf. also, Pinckaers, Servais, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Noble, Mary Thomas Sr. (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), p. 225Google Scholar.

17 Cf., Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, p. 225.

18 Cf. ST I-IIae, Q. 77, a. 3.

19 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 75.

20 Kent, p. 74.

21 Kent, p. 76.

22 Q. ST II-IIae, Q. 155.

23 Ibid.

24 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 76.

25 Aquinas, ST Q. 156, a. 3.

26 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 77.

27 Though, as I will show below, Aquinas contradicts the claim explicitly.

28 Bourke's treatment of habitus as a kind of mean between potency and act is helpful, here. Bourke, Vernon J., “The Role of Habitus in the Thomistic Metaphysics of Potency and Act,” in Essays in Thomism, ed. Brennan, Robert E. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1942), pp. 101–9Google Scholar.

29 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 78.

30 Kent, p. 77.

31 ST, Q. 77, a. 3.

32 In general, I strongly agree with Long's teleological understanding of human action. Long, Steven A., Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act, Rev. edition, Introductions to Catholic Doctrine (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2015)Google Scholar.

33 ST I Q. 80, a. 2, c, I-IIae Q. 8, a. 1, c.

34 ST Q. 12, a. 1, ad 4.

35 ST I-IIae Q. 9, a. 1, c.

36 ST I-IIae Q. 12 a. 1, c. This is also called the interior act of the will. Cf. ST I-IIae Q.18, 6 c.

37 ST I-IIae Q. 13, a. 1 c.

38 It is important to note that Aquinas adopts an Aristotelian anthropology where the human soul has, as it were, three parts, the rational, sensitive or appetitive, and the vegetative. The rational part has both a speculative and practical aspect. The “speculative intellect” has as its object universal truths, whereas the practical intellect deals with those things that pertain to the here and now. Knowing, in the strict sense, is said only of the speculative intellect. The practical intellect is only able to make judgments. The habit of making good judgments is the virtue of prudence.

39 This object is clearly “something to be done.”

40 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 77.

41 ST, Q. 155, a. 3, ad. 2.

42 I acknowledge that Kent's paper is not in regard to infused or theological virtues. I bring in charity only as an example for clarity of the necessity of virtue for humans to obtain their proper end.

43 ST Q. 56, a. 4.

44 ST, Q. 56, a. 6.

45 ST, II-IIae Q. 163, a. 1.

46 Ibid., Q. 162, a. 3, c.

47 Ibid., Q. 163, a. 1.

48 Ibid., Q. 164, a. 1.

49 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 82.

50 ST I-IIae, Q. 2, a. 8.

51 ST I, Q. 12 and I-IIae, Q. 2, a. 8.

52 Watson, “Skepticisim about Weakness of Will,” July 1977, p. 338.

53 Watson, p. 339.

54 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 88.

55 Kent, p. 88.

56 Ibid. Although it must be admitted that Kent's article ends rather strangely. She seems to so greatly qualify her remarks that one wonders what the point was of her exegesis of Thomas' work, above.

57 ST I-IIae Q. 77, a. 6, c.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid., a. 7, c.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid.

64 Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” p. 90.