Chapter 10

Will

1102. I have classified instinct as a faculty, but I must point out that instinct is more a mode of action of different faculties than a particular faculty. As I said, instinct is a law which governs the activity of a subject and constitutes the subject. Will is the active part of an intelligent subject and can be defined as 'the power which a subject has to adhere to a known entity.'

1103. This adhesion is brought about by an internal acknowledgement.
But I must explain what I mean by 'willed acknowledgement'. Strictly speaking, acknowledgement supposes prior knowledge, which is on a par, as it were, with acknowledgement. In other words, the object of acknowledgement remains exactly as it is in knowledge. When this happens, willed acknowledgement is true, just and moral. The will, by acknowledging the known entity, does not alter the value of the entity, but restricts its pleasure to what is prescribed by direct knowledge. Sometimes however, instead of simply adhering to the known entity, the will arbitrarily increases or diminishes the degrees of being possessed by the entity. As a result, it values the entity either more or less than it is worth, acknowledging it as something which it is not, rather than as that which it is. The will supposes the entity to be different from that which direct knowledge presents, and in its place substitutes another entity which it invents and creates with its energy of free choice. This is certainly not pure and simple acknowledgement. It is first an invention and fabrication of that which afterwards we want to acknowledge. Strictly speaking, therefore, acknowledgement means an honest, true act of will. When the act is wayward and false, the will first invents and afterwards acknowledges what it has invented. Sometimes however, for the sake of brevity, we use the word 'acknowledgement' to mean the first voluntary activity whether honest or wayward. Pure acknowledgement and false acknowledgement are two ways in which volitive activity manifests itself.

1104. What is this act of will which I call 'acknowledgement', whether honest or false?
It is the pleasure, taken by the intellective subject, in a known entity. This pleasure can be enjoyed by the intelligent subject because the known entity (and therefore every entity) is its proper object, is that which makes it carry out its proper act. The act proper to a subject is that which makes it be what it is. Every subject desires to be, because the act of being proper to a living subject is pleasure itself, the essence of pleasure. Precisely because the intelligent subject tends to be and posits itself (being is its proper good), it uses the same energy by which it is to tend to be as much as it can, to increase its existence, and to enlarge and expand the act of its existence; in other words, it seeks to enjoy the objects of this act, that is, the objects through which it begins its activity, and increases and perfects itself. Every known entity is a good for the knowing subject, and its goodness is in proportion to the degrees of being which the entity has.

However, human beings are not purely intellective subjects; we are also endowed with rational and corporeal sensitivity. Consequently, we do not always act according to the inclination and law of intelligence, but according to the inclination of our animal or rational sensitivity. When the inclination of this double sensitivity prevails over the inclination of pure intelligence, we have no desire to renounce the inclination of intelligence. Instead, we seduce, deceive and persuade ourselves that the good presented by rational or animal feeling is greater than it is, greater than indicated by direct knowledge. So we invent and fabricate the object of our direct knowledge, partly by destroying it or hiding it from ourselves, partly by using our imagination to add and create in it some good which is not there. We all have this faculty for deception and sin, and although not forced or necessitated, we can and sometimes do act in this way. This properly speaking is free will.

Hence, wayward, false acknowledgement depends upon some previous feeling and affection which distracts and seduces the will in its acknowledgement.

1105. But if pure or false acknowledgement is the primal act of the will, are effects in the will restricted to acknowledgement? No, acknowledgement has a real efficacy which brings with it various consequences. These are primarily of two kinds, decrees of the will and affections.(92)

1106. If what the will acknowledges is a good we do not possess, a willed decision follows by which the will resolves to obtain the good and use the means necessary to attain its purpose. For example, a wounded man who wants to be healed acknowledges first that the healing of his wound is a good thing. He then decides to apply the remedy, and as a result of his decision, uses his hands to bandage the wound. The external movement of his hands and body follows upon the decision, which has the power to move the locomotive, animal force.

1107. Sometimes, however, what is acknowledged by the will is already possessed, and the sole question is how to enjoy it more. In this case, the immediate, normal effect of acknowledgement is sensible affection which, moved spontaneously, is simply an increase and perfection of the pleasure already contained in the acknowledgement of the good possessed. These spontaneous effects are followed by corporeal movements which aid the effects and are revealed extrasubjectively to on-lookers. These external gestures and actions naturally reveal the joy, sorrow or other affections conceived internally.

1108. Although acknowledgement of a known good that has become more or less habitual or actual continues instinctively as an affection, the will's decision can intervene to arouse the affection. This can either make the acknowledgement actual or give it greater actuality than it would have through instinct.

1109. Hence, movements in the body can proceed from the will in two ways, by decision and by affection.

1110. We can therefore distinguish three kinds of acts of will:

1. Instinctive acts, that is, spontaneous affections which include both spontaneous acknowledgement as their principle, and consequent movements of the body.

2. Decisions, which determine the acquisition of an unpossessed good and the use of the means for acquiring it, or else determine the acts necessary for increasing the actual enjoyment of some already possessed good. These decrees are normally called 'elicited acts'.

3. Movements of the potencies as a result of decisions. These movements are normally called 'commanded acts'.

1111. Elicited and commanded acts are always assented to by the will; instinctive acts are assented to only when the will, which could prevent them, does not do so. Hence assent always presupposes a decision. However a decision preventing spontaneous acts can be proximate or remote. It is proximate if it expresses a will not to prevent the acts; remote, if it expresses a will not to prevent the cause of the acts, because a person who desires a cause, also desires its effect.

1112. All acts of will are called 'volitions'. Instinctive acts not put in motion by any decision are volitions devoid of choice.
Choice always pertains to the order of decisions; whenever we internally pronounce a decision, we always have the choice of willing or not willing the thing. Sometimes our choice is so free that it is determined not by its objects but by the very energy of the will. In this case we have what is called 'bilateral freedom', which is the freedom necessary for the moral merit proper to human beings in this life. The conditions for the exercise of this bilateral freedom have been discussed in the Anthropology and elsewhere.
I now refer the reader to the synoptic schema of the divisions of the will [p. 167].

Notes

(92) We cannot deny that the Scholastics paid almost exclusive attention to decisions of the will, and consequently to its free operation, which pertains to decrees . Modern philosophy, after falling into sensism, considers exclusively feelings and the affections of the will. Consequently they almost lost sight of decisions of the will and tended to destroy free will. A recent author makes the following observation about an English philosopher who was certainly influential in preparing the way for the Scottish school: 'According to Hutcheson, the question no longer concerns the Scholastics' abstract, synthetical and totally free will, but the active, affective, passionate, industrious and moral part of intelligence; in short, of the essence and rich reserve of human nature' (Qu'est-ce que la phrénologie? , p. 131).