Thomas Aquinas' Theory of Voluntary Action

Philosophy and Culture 32 (5):133-149 (2005)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Moral science of human behavior on the practice of science. Human behavior is rational and in control will be completed under the act, the object of desire will aim to identify the object of rational truth of good, especially that the will is concerned, the purpose of Thomas Aquinas that it has a natural desire purpose and supernatural purpose, according to this distinction, Aquinas's moral science can clearly be divided into areas of moral philosophy based on reason and faith-based moral theology, and in the most fundamental sense, the latter the former is drifting. Nevertheless, the moral philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is still relatively independent. This article aims to explore the dimensions of moral philosophy from Thomas Aquinas's theory of voluntary behavior. In the view of Thomas Aquinas, voluntary behavior that is ethical behavior, which means that ethical behavior is the behavior of those characteristics of the voluntary will of the premise, the moral will of voluntary default rules. To determine the behavior of the voluntary nature and causes, the paper begins by describing the Thomas Aquinas on human behavior and human behavior are well-known distinction between, a distinction that human behavior is voluntary and based on the will of people rational control of human behavior that is based on the principle originated in the internal actors. Secondly, as the voluntary principle is rooted in the inherent, then, on the contrary, based on the principle that the external force and ignorance of the behavior is involuntary. However, not all forms of force and ignorance, without exception, to produce non-voluntary act, this article analyzes the force and ignorance and the will of the double complex association between the activities and stressed that the will of Thomas Aquinas on the activities of double requirement, in particular, he believes Hajime onset is the inherent nature of the provisions of the will, which is the ethics of Thomas Aquinas on the freedom of the will of the Western theory of the most original contribution. Moral science is a practical science that concerns human action-a kind of action which a human being performs at the mercy of both of the human faculties: will and reason. Human will is directed at the end, for the sake of which action is done , and human reason is directed at the truth of what is good. Thomas holds that the end, for which will desires, can fall into the natural and the supernatural end. According to this division, Thomas's moral science correspondingly is broken up into a based -reason moral philosophy and a based-belief moral theology, with the former eventually and necessarily leading to the latter at the fundamental level. Nonetheless, Thomas's moral philosophy is still able to hold its own up to a relative point. The aim of the present paper is to provide an account of Thomas 'theory of voluntary action from the standpoint of moral philosophy. In Thomas' view, voluntary action is equivalent to moral action. This implies that moral status of action presupposes the voluntary grounded in willing. This is to say that moral imputation involves the voluntary. This paper first brings out Thomas' famous distinction between actions humanae and actiones hominis with a view to ascertaining the nature and source of the voluntary. This distinction shows that actions humanae are based on the internal principle involving reason and will. Since the voluntary is grounded in the internal principle, those actions are, on the contrary, involuntary that are brought on by forced constraint and ignorance as external principles. However, not all such principles can bring about, without exceptions, actions that are involuntary. The paper finally also analyzes the complicated relations of force and ignorance to the two-fold activity of will. And perhaps it is worthy to emphasize that the difference between the elicited act and the commanded act of a will, which Thomas made, and his claim that the former act is the essential determination of the will, are a piece of the most original contribution made by him to the theory of free will in Western ethics

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 92,100

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-02-07

Downloads
0

6 months
0

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references