Chapter 7
The Nature Of Bilateral Freedom
606. Having distinguished the various kinds of freedom, we must now examine
more carefully what we have called `bilateral freedom' in so far as it is the
source of merit. We begin by clarifying its nature.
What we have said elsewhere is already sufficient to show that the nature of
this kind of freedom does not consist in acting without a reason (which would
make the action irrational). Rather, several reasons or motives for action are
present in our spirit, and it is within our power to make one prevail over the
others and thus become the motive determining our will to act (cf. 581, 582).(265) The different reasons for
willing and acting present to our spirit do not contain in themselves a cause
sufficiently capable of necessitating action. On the contrary, it is the
spontaneity of the will which adds what is lacking to one or other of the
different reasons in order to make the reason a determining cause of the will
itself. Fr. Ercolano Oberrach's ingenious definition, `the power to supply what
is lacking to the motivating reason' refers, therefore, to spontaneity rather
than liberty.
607. For greater clarity, we must first distinguish reason from impulse. The word `reason' simply means an idea according to which we are able to conclude that to will or do a given thing is good or bad. `Impulse' indicates a real cause, not a mere idea, which stimulates and attempts to put will and act in motion efficaciously.
608. It is clear that the will can never be inclined and moved necessarily when reasons rather than impulses are in question, unless the will puts itself in motion, as it were, through its own spontaneity. The same cannot be said when we are dealing with real, effective impulses.
609. We shall speak later about impulses and their degree of efficacy in
moving the will one way or another. For the moment, we intend to describe only
the way in which the will determines itself when there is no impulse
necessarily determining it.
Let us begin by considering the nature of spontaneity. This is a way of acting
common both to the will and to animal instinct, as we have seen. We shall first
consider it in instinct.
The spontaneity of instinct differs from the mobility present in brute matter in which the movement communicated corresponds exactly to the thrust impressed upon it. Here the cause or moving force and the effect or quantity of movement together form a perfect equation. The same equality is not present between these two things in the case of the spontaneity of the animal instinct. A very light movement imparted to certain parts of the living body propagates and enlarges itself: the external cause of the movement is small, but the quantity of movement is great. The little force or cause of movement applied to the living body does not, properly speaking, produce solely the material movement proper to it. Simultaneously, it arouses and draws to action another cause of movement which, once stimulated, itself adds a certain quantity of movement to that produced by the material cause. In this way, what was originally a little movement now becomes much bigger. The movement of the living animal is, therefore, the product of two causes: a preceding cause which is then accompanied by another cause. These causes are: 1. a material force, which simultaneously causes movement and excites spontaneity; 2. spontaneity, which in turn causes further movement that extends and continues the movement already present. Here there is no question of will, and even less of freedom.
610. In the human being two new causes, will and freedom, are to be added, as we have said. The human being, as soon as he acts as a result of knowing some good, performs an act of will. In this definition of willed act, there is no distinction between the case in which the will is determined as a result of some impulse, and that in which the hesitant will determines itself. These two cases, however, are very different. If the will is determined in its operation by some impulse, the force acting in it is wholly similar, as far as its mode of action is concerned, to the spontaneity of the animal instinct. What happens is that a suitable impulse, which we suppose to be applied to the will, acts in the will but not in the way that brute force acts upon anything material by communicating movement equal to the impulse but nothing more; the impulse acts by awakening and arousing the energy of the will itself, and thus drawing a new cause into act, just as a new principle of movement is actuated in the animal instinct as a result of a material impulse. But if the impulse applied to the will is not sufficient to determine it - and this is the case when the will's spontaneity is not excited sufficiently to produce the full effect and overcome the obstacles before it - it is clear that the will either remains inactive, or determines itself to act. If it does determine itself, a fourth force comes into play from the subject's own resources. This force, added by the subject, tips the balance by determining the mode of activity. And this force is properly speaking freedom. Two forces therefore can be distinguished in the will: spontaneity and freedom.
611. Spontaneity cannot be the subject of violence, but it can be necessitated. It has its own laws, and is aroused in correspondence with the stimuli or impulses given to the will. Freedom, however, is a thrust or power of the subject which has no constant, determined relationship with the stimuli or impulses given to the will. On the contrary, it disturbs the stimuli which oppose it, sustains the weak against the strong, and determines the hesitant subject to a decision. Its opposites are both violence and necessity, to neither of which it can be subject.
Notes
(265) See PE, 171-176, 181.