Violence, Fear and the Involuntary (Prima Secundae Q.6, aa.5–6)

Orientation #

He opens by recalling the fourth article (last time) — that violence cannot be done to the will — and says the fifth “might seem to contradict” it; the class ends with the replies of a. 6, and he says nothing about next time. The previous class covered aa. 2-4 of q. 6 (the voluntary in brutes, without an act, and violence to the will); the next continues with concupiscence and ignorance and the questions on circumstances.

The class, in order #

1. Prayer and the three teachings (“there’s three teachings right”) #

After the opening prayer he notes a text of Thomas on three teachings in ascending order: man teaches man, the angel teaches us, God teaches us — so the prayer invokes Thomas (a man), the guardian angel (a higher teacher), and God, “the Didaskalos.” A student adds the Blessed Mother; he agrees: one of her titles is “Mother of the Light,” and in his college days “Mother of Wisdom” was invoked at the start of class.

2. Does a. 5 contradict a. 4? (“what you cannot move the will violently”) #

The point: a. 4 said the will cannot be moved violently — almost “a contradiction in words” — so how can violence cause the involuntary?

• He rereads the body of a. 4: the act of the will is “nothing other than a certain inclination proceeding from an inner beginning, knowing”; natural desire is likewise an inclination from an inward beginning, but without knowledge; the violent is from an outside beginning. So coercion is against the very definition of an act of will, as against the definition of a natural motion.
• Thomas’s likeness: a stone can be thrown upward by violence, but that this upward motion be from its natural inclination cannot be — you’d have to change its nature. Likewise a man can be dragged by violence, but that this come from his will is repugnant to the reason of violence, which is to be from outside as the other is from inside.

3. The objections of a. 5 and the untying of knots (“the tying of the knots and the untying”) #

Obj. 1: voluntary and involuntary are said according to the will; violence cannot bear on the will (conclusion of a. 4); therefore violence cannot cause the involuntary. He remarks (from a conversation with Warren) that Latin and French “voluntary” stress the will less than English does — Latin will say the stone vult — so the word is more open to the broad sense.

• Aside on knots: Aristotle divides the plot into the tying and untying of the knot, and says inferior dramatists tie better than they untie — as when a film engrosses you in the knot and disappoints in the resolution. The same is true in philosophy: the average (certainly modern) philosopher ties his own mind and ours in knots he cannot untie; Thomas, Aristotle, Plato can. His earlier knot for the class: “he can’t be God, because he can’t be the son of him whose son he is.” A colleague at a conference drove a man into contradiction; the reply “that’s a contradiction I’ve learned to live with” — “that’s called despair.” Philosophers who deny matter exists then go out to dinner. Chesterton’s Innocent Smith (Manalive) pulls a revolver on the professor who says we should all kill ourselves, and he finds reason to live: “one thing to ask for death, another to see it coming.”
• Obj. 2: the involuntary is with sadness (Damascene; Aristotle, quoting Sophocles); but one sometimes suffers violence without being saddened. He calls it “kind of a strange objection.”
• Obj. 3: what is from the will cannot be involuntary; but some violent things are from the will, as when someone with a heavy body goes up, or flexes his limbs against their natural flexibility.
• Sed contra: Aristotle and Damascene say something is involuntary by violence. “Thomas has got to see a distinction.”

4. Body of a. 5: against nature, against will (“nature is what from within”) #

The point: violence is directly opposed to the voluntary as to the natural, and what is against the will is involuntary as what is against nature is unnatural.

• He stresses it is more clearly opposed to the natural, because “nature” always keeps the idea of something within: the first meaning of nature is birth, and birth comes from within. Art vs. nature: the carpenter’s chair and the woman’s apple pie do not come from within her; the baby she bears does. All the other meanings of nature keep this sense of “within.”
• Violence in things without knowledge does something against nature (the rock thrown up; tying a plant to grow a way it “doesn’t want to go”); in knowing things it does something against the will; hence it causes the involuntary. But, he says, you only see clearly what this means at the reply to the first objection.

5. Reply 1: the will’s own act vs. the commanded act (“commanded by the what will”) #

• Voluntary is said (as above) not only of the act immediately of the will — loving, wanting — but of the act commanded by the will (going through the red light: voluntary).
• Violence cannot act on the immediate act of the will, so it can never make that involuntary; but the commanded act can suffer violence, and as regards it violence makes the involuntary. “So not in the primary act, but in the commanded act.”
• Example: the child who doesn’t want to go to bed, picked up and carried kicking and screaming (like children carried out of church): you haven’t conquered his will, but he is in bed, and he did not go voluntarily. So no contradiction with a. 4.

6. Reply 2: natural and voluntary each said in two ways (“according to a passive beginning”) #

The point: “natural” is said from an active principle (heating is natural to fire) or from a passive principle (a natural aptitude in the subject to receive an action from outside) — the motion of the heavens is natural on the side of the celestial body, though the mover is voluntary. “That’s a fundamental distinction.”

• He explains: they thought the planets were moved by angels/separate substances; the motion is voluntary on the part of the separate substance, natural on the side of matter. Physics II: nature is said of both matter and form, and form is more nature than matter.
• Digression on mutual causes: Thomas on whether the soul receives the Holy Spirit through grace or grace through the Holy Spirit — on the side of the subject (matter), grace disposes to receive the Holy Spirit; on the side of the active principle, the Holy Spirit gives grace; one is before simply, the other in some way. Hail Mary: is the Lord with her because she is full of grace, or full of grace because the Lord is with her? Both true, by different causes (grace disposes her to receive the Holy Spirit as spouse; the Holy Spirit as mover gives the grace). Aristotle’s corollary: two things can be causes of each other in different ways — making money/money, studying/knowing, reproduction/the baby; “I can’t be my father’s father,” but with different kinds of cause it is possible.
• Student: so for the heavenly bodies it isn’t violence, because they’re already inclined to be moved — and being moved is passive, nature as matter. He agrees.
• Student (Father Michael’s earlier example of acts from bad habit): are we “more disposed” so that it’s not violence? He replies: “I thought it’s sort of exactly the opposite” — left there.
• Thomas’s parallel: voluntary in two ways, according to action (wishing to do) and according to passion (wishing to undergo from another). When the action comes from outside but the will to undergo remains in the one undergoing, it is not simply violent, because although the one undergoing confers nothing by acting, he confers something by willing to undergo; so it cannot be called involuntary. Examples: the lady who says “I will marry you” wants him to say something; a student’s example — you are to testify against “Vinny the killer” and know you’ll be killed if you tell the truth; a woman rushes in and epoxies your mouth shut: voluntary, because you wanted it. The child who wants to be picked up and carried: voluntary; the one who doesn’t want to go to bed: involuntary.

7. Reply 3: natural to the animal, violent to the body (“it is not violent simply, but in some respect”) #

Physics VIII: the animal’s motion against the natural inclination of its body, though not natural to the body, is in some way natural to the animal, to whom it is natural to be moved by its appetite. My body is heavier than air, so going uphill is against the nature of my body but not against my nature as a man who can walk uphill and wills to. Hence not violent simply but secundum quid — “I’m doing violence to myself when I get up in the morning, some days more than others.” Flexing members against their natural disposition is violent in some way as regards the member, not simply as regards the man.

8. Article 6: does fear cause the involuntary simpliciter? (“either you become a Mohammedan”) #

Metus he takes as fear. He introduces it with Washington Irving’s History of Mahomet and his Successors: the conquerors, if they liked you, gave three choices — become a Mohammedan, pay tribute to the Caliph, or die; if not, two; sometimes only death. So people became Mohammedans. Father Owen Bennett: “Islam is tyranny tempered by assassination” — “a little sensitive, but true.”

• Obj. 1: violence regards what is contrary to the will in the present, fear regards a future evil repugnant to the will; violence causes the involuntary simply; therefore fear does too (“convert, or get your head chopped off?”).
• Obj. 2: what is such of itself remains such whatever is added (what is hot of itself stays hot), ipsum manente, so long as it is not destroyed; what is done through fear is of itself involuntary; therefore also with fear added.
• Obj. 3: what is such under a condition is such secundum quid, what is such without condition is such simply — as what is necessary from a condition is necessary secundum quid. His gloss: necessity from the end (Aristotle) — eating is not necessary as two must be half of four; hunger strikers don’t eat; it is necessary if you want to live. He says he uses this distinction quite often. Now what is done through fear is involuntary absolutely and voluntary only on condition of avoiding the feared evil; therefore simply involuntary.
• Sed contra: Gregory of Nyssa and the philosopher say things done through fear are more voluntary than involuntary. Giving up the faith to avoid beheading is more voluntary than involuntary.

9. Body of a. 6: voluntary simpliciter, involuntary secundum quid (“if someone rightly considers”) #

• Context of Ethics III: the first part treats the voluntary and choice, the second part the first two virtues, courage and temperance; having defined moral virtue in Book II as a habit with choice, in the mean towards us, determined by right reason, Aristotle needs to treat choice and the voluntary to understand virtue better.
• Aside on names from towns: “Gregory Nyssa” must be named from his town, like Augustine of Hippo (nobody says “Hipponensis”), Francis of Assisi; “Thomas Aquinas” sounds like a name; the Lebanese saint Hardini; Sicilian immigrants took the name of their town.
• Gregory in his book on man: things done through fear are mixed from voluntary and involuntary — in itself not voluntary, but voluntary in this case, to avoid the feared evil. But rightly considered (he links this to “consider more correctly” in the opening prayer), they are more voluntary than involuntary: voluntary simpliciter, involuntary secundum quid.
• Simpliciter/secundum quid illustrated: do you know what you don’t know? Simply unknown, in some way known — he forgets people’s names but knows that he doesn’t know them (“You, Michael… Who is like God?”). Meno’s objection to Socrates: how can we look for what we don’t know? Yet cancer researchers know in some way what they seek (the cause of cancer) without knowing it simply — otherwise we needn’t pay them. This is the second fallacy outside of words in the Sophistical Refutations, “simply and not simply,” simpliciter secundum quid.
• Application: those who apostatised under persecution in the early Church were readmitted, but had to do penance — the Church not saying it was involuntary.
• Thomas’s argument: (1) each thing is said to be simply as it is in act; as it is only in apprehension, not simply. (2) What is done through fear is an act, and acts are in the singular, here and now, under individual conditions. (3) So what is done through fear is voluntary insofar as it is here and now, in this case with the impediment of fear — Aristotle’s stock example, throwing the merchandise into the sea in the tempest (he adds: as in Jonah). Hence simply voluntary: the source is within. Taken outside this case, insofar as it impugns the will, this exists only in consideration; therefore involuntary secundum quid. “Do you want to lose your goods? considered as such, no… given the circumstances, I choose to save my life.”
• His example: you on one edge of a cliff, his pet dog on the other — he saves you, not the dog, though he wants to lose neither; voluntarily, given the circumstances. Student: why more voluntary? Answer: what is here and now is real; the other consideration is only in the mind.
• Student example: the guardian angel — absolutely he does not want you lost, since his will is God’s and God wills all men saved; here and now, given your sins, “he’ll throw you right down”; like the merchant asked while loading vs. in the storm. He adds that Damascene (he thinks) first drew the distinction of God’s antecedent and consequent will: “God wills all men to be saved” is not God’s will simpliciter once circumstances of how the man acted are taken in. “You see how often this simpliciter secundum quid can come up as a fallacy… it’s very common.”

10. Replies of a. 6 (“the will does not consent”) #

• Reply 1: force and fear differ not only as present and future, but in that under force the will does not consent — it is altogether against the motion of the will (the kid carried to bed) — whereas under fear the act becomes voluntary in the circumstances, the will being borne to it not for itself but for another, to repel the feared evil (the sinking boat). It suffices for the voluntary that it be willed on account of another: we will not only ends but what is for an end (loving your neighbour for God’s sake “when he’s robbing me”). Amputation, chemotherapy, soldiers losing legs: nobody wants these in themselves, but to save life. Under force the interior will does nothing; under fear it does something. He notes an English confusion: torture is spoken of as violence, but it is more a question of fear. Hence Gregory of Nyssa’s definition of the violent, to exclude what is done through fear, says not only “whose source is outside” but adds “conferring nothing” — under fear the will of the one fearing confers something (linking back to the definition of the violent given by Aristotle).
• Reply 2: absolute predicates (hot, white) remain with anything added; relative ones vary by comparison — great compared to this is small compared to that. Voluntary is said not only absolutely, on account of itself, but relatively, on account of another; so what is not voluntary compared to one thing becomes voluntary compared to another. Throwing the cargo over: not voluntary absolutely (sales, profits), but compared with the storm threatening life, it is.
• Reply 3: what is done through fear is voluntary without condition, i.e. as done in act; involuntary under the condition that such fear were not pressing. So from that argument one could rather conclude the opposite. Class ends there.

His words #

• “inner beginning” / “inward beginning” — his rendering of the principle from within that defines the act of will and natural inclination [ed.: interior principle].
• “vult” — the Latin “wills,” said even of the stone; the Latin “voluntary” is broader than the English.
• “tying and untying the knot” — Aristotle’s division of the plot, applied to philosophers who create difficulties they cannot resolve.
• “learned to live with a contradiction” — “that’s called despair.”
• nature = birth — the first meaning of nature, from which all others keep the sense of “within.”
• “natural hearing” — his name for the Physics [ed.: Physics].
• “primary act” vs. “commanded act” — the act immediately of the will vs. the act commanded by the will.
• active vs. passive principle — two ways of “natural” (fire heating vs. the heavenly body’s aptitude to be moved).
• “causes of each other, but by different kinds of cause” — Aristotle’s corollary, used for grace and the Holy Spirit.
• ipsum manente — as long as it remains (obj. 2 of a. 6).
• secundum quid / simpliciter — in a respect / simply; “simply and not simply,” the second fallacy outside words.
• necessity from a condition (from the end) — eating is necessary if you want to live.
• “metus” — fear.
• “Gregory Nyssa” — Gregory of Nyssa.
• antecedent vs. consequent will of God — God’s will simpliciter vs. taking circumstances in.
• “conferring nothing” — Gregory’s addition to the definition of the violent to exclude acts done through fear.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 6, a. 5 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1-3); body of a. 4 reread in part.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 6, a. 6 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1-3).

Mentioned

• Thomas on the three teachings (man, angel, God) — no locus given.
• Thomas on whether grace is received through the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit through grace — no locus given.
• Aristotle, Poetics, tying and untying of the plot (inferred).
• Aristotle, Physics II (nature said of matter and form; form more nature); Physics VIII (motion of the animal).
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II (definition of moral virtue) and III (voluntary, choice, courage, temperance).
• Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (fallacy simpliciter/secundum quid).
• Plato, Meno (Meno’s objection to inquiry).
• Gregory of Nyssa, his book on man; John Damascene; Sophocles (via Aristotle).
• Chesterton, Manalive; Washington Irving, Mahomet and His Successors; the book of Jonah; Father Owen Bennett’s saying.

His questions #

• Does the fifth article contradict the fourth, that the will cannot be moved violently? No: violence cannot touch the will’s own act, but makes the commanded act involuntary.
• Is going through the red light voluntary? Yes — the commanded act counts as voluntary.
• Did the child carried kicking and screaming go to bed voluntarily? No; but the child who wants to be carried goes voluntarily.
• Is the Lord with Mary because she is full of grace, or is she full of grace because the Lord is with him — or both? Both, by different kinds of cause.
• Is the man whose mouth is epoxied shut before testifying acting involuntarily? No, voluntary — he wanted it.
• If I give up the faith to avoid beheading, is it more voluntary or involuntary? More voluntary than involuntary (voluntary simpliciter, involuntary secundum quid).
• Do you know what you don’t know? Simply unknown, in some way known — the simpliciter/secundum quid distinction.
• Do cancer researchers know what they’re looking for? In some way (the cause of cancer), not simply.
• Whom do I rescue at the cliff, you or my dog — and voluntarily? You, voluntarily, given the circumstances.
• Why is what is done through fear more voluntary? Because the here and now is what is real; the contrary consideration is only in the mind.