The Roots of Ethical Voluntarism COLLEEN MCCLUSKEY Many (if not all) medieval accounts of action focus upon the interaction between intellect and will in order to explain how human action comes about. What moves the agent to act are certain goals or desires the agent has and her deliberation about what it will take to accomplish those goals or satisfy those desires. Thus, medieval philosophers explain human action by referring to the operations of intellect or reason, which accounts for the deliberative aspect, and the will, which accounts for the desiderative aspect. This is not to say that they ignore other in uences on action, such as passions or emotions. But the basic model of action focuses on the intellect and will. These basic notions also play a role in explaining the freedom of human actions. Medieval philosophers argue that human beings act freely in virtue of a power or powers that they possess. According to these accounts, the fact that a given power performs its activity freely enables the human being to act freely. 1 A human being acts freely in virtue of there being freedom in a given power or powers. Scholars of medieval philosophy have argued that medieval accounts of free action shifted their emphasis during the course of the thirteenth century. Throughout much of the Middle Ages beginning with Augustine in the fth century and continuing into the early thirteenth century, philosophers discussed human freedom under the topic of liberum arbitrium . This term, often translated as “free choice” or “free decision,” refers to the power or powers which enable human beings to act freely. This term is found in a passage in Peter Lombard’s Sentences, in which Lombard 1 What freedom actually amounts to was rather controversial. There were a number of candidates, including Anselm’s famous de nition, “the ability for maintaining uprightness of will for its own sake,” a de nition that in uenced the main focus of this paper, Philip the Chancellor. Other candidates include the ability to do what one wants and the absence of coercion. The Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) was by and large rejected until the later part of the thirteenth century, since medieval philosophers wanted to maintain that God and the saints in heaven act freely even though they are unable to act sinfully. Scotus, however, seems to have thought PAP to be an essential element of freedom. ©Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2001 Vivarium, 39,2 186 colleen mccluskey de nes liberum arbitrium as “a faculty of reason and will.”2 In the rst half of the thirteenth century, Lombard’s de nition provided the starting point for the discussion of human freedom. Philosophers involved in this discussion considered whether liberum arbitrium referred to the intellect, the will, or both, or perhaps to a di Verent power altogether. In the later part of the thirteenth century, the direction of the discussion moved away from the topic of liberum arbitrium and toward the topic of voluntas libera (free will).3 Recent scholars of medieval philosophy take this change in lan- guage as evidence that a new and novel approach to action theory was evolving. Thus, Odon Lottin notes that beginning at mid-century, philoso- phers dropped their preoccupation with the nature of liberum arbitrium and began discussing freedom in the will and reason’s in uence upon the will. 4 He argues that the new concerns rst arose with Bonaventure’s Sentences commentary and Aquinas’s De veritate and continued with the controver- sial work of the masters in the arts faculty at Paris, many of whose posi- tions were ultimately denounced in the 1270 and 1277 condemnations. Vernon Bourke distinguishes between an earlier tradition that he claims began with Alexander of Hales and continued with his student, Bonaventure, and a later movement, which Bourke calls “ethical voluntarism.”5 According to Bourke, the earlier school of thought emphasizes the broadly volitional aspects of human nature. This view acknowledges an appetitive aspect in the mechanics of human action but fails to assert the primacy of the will 2 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae , ed. I. Brady, Grottaferrata 1971-81, Book II, dist. 24, c.3, 452-3: “Liberum arbitrium est facultas rationis et voluntatis, qua bonum eligitur gratia assistente, vel malum eadem desistente.” I leave the term “liberum arbitrium ” untranslated because I believe that there is no non-question-begging way to translate it. The purpose of treatises on liberum arbitrium was at least in part to specify what liberum arbitrium is. Translating the term as “free choice” or “free will” makes it appears as if the question has been decided in favor of the will. Translating it as “free judgment” or “free decision” begs the question in the direction of the intellect, in my view. Therefore, I will leave the term untranslated. For a discussion of liberum arbitrium and the diYculties involved in arriving at a satisfactory translation, see J.B. Korolec, Free will and free choice , in: N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg (eds), The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , Cambridge 1982, 629-41. 3 One can see this trend occurring in the work of Thomas Aquinas. In his relatively early work, De veritate , Aquinas includes a detailed discussion of liberum arbitrium . In Summa theologiae, he mentions liberum arbitrium only brie y, devoting one short question to it in the rst part and, later in the second part, discussing human action almost solely in terms of ratio and voluntas. 4 Odon Lottin, Psychologie et Morale aux XII e et XIII e Siècles, 6 vols, Louvain-Gembloux, 1942-60, vol. 1, 225. 5 Vernon Bourke, History of Ethics , vol. 1, Garden City 1970, 138 and 147..