Human Action

Introduction

An action “is something an agent does that was ‘intentional under some description’.” [1]  A specifically human action is one over “which man is a master, which he has the power of doing or not doing as he pleases.” [2]  Throughout the Western philosophical tradition, there have been different hypotheses for the cause of human action.  This can be defined as “an explanation for why the effect [or action] exists in a particular manner or even at all.” [3]  Understanding this is important because much of modern philosophy removes the cause from its rightful place and assigns it to the mind (in a Freudian manner).

The three thinkers examined in this paper were Aristotelian, at least in their foundations.  What, then, does Aristotle have to say about causes?  He recognizes four main types: material, formal, efficient, and final. [4]  These correspond respectively to the matter, form, agency or efficiency, and the end or purpose of whatever is caused. [5]  For example, in the case of an ordinary wooden table, its material cause is the wood, the formal cause is its design, its efficient or agent cause is the way in which it was made, and its final cause is for dining or use as a desk.

In the same way, human actions have causes.  What sets humans apart from the other created bodily beings is the rational soul.  Outside the angelic realms, created living things are said to possess different types of souls.  As explained by Abraham P. Bos:

Aristotle divides the realm of (sublunary) living creatures into three subrealms, plants, animals, and human beings.  To each subrealm he assigns a different soul-principle.  Plants have a vegetative or nutritive soul; animals have a sensitive soul; human beings have a rational soul. [6]

Based on how these words are used, it ought to be simple to deduce further meaning.  According to McInerny, the vegetative soul possesses the powers of nutrition, growth, and reproduction.  The sensitive soul possesses those powers, and additionally sensation, sense appetites, and locomotion.  The rational/intellectual soul possesses all aforementioned powers, as well as the intellect and the will.  One important point must be made: by discussing “three souls” it is not meant that humans have three souls, and animals have two, and so forth.  It means that “a soul of a higher grade subsumes within its single soul the powers which are peculiar to the soul or souls graded below it.” [7]  Or, “…the one soul understands and performs all the operations.” [8] 

Now that this foundation has been laid, it is time to examine three different Western Scholastic thinkers and their understandings of how human action is caused.

Thomas Aquinas
For Aquinas, human acts and their causes all trace back to God’s will and free choices. [9]  By separating the powers of the soul and defining them separately from its essence, “he argues that since all created substances are merely in potency to various acts, there must be some other principle of operation, namely the power, in order to explain the movement from potency to act.” [10]  Fr. Coppens explains that the principle “is that from which a being proceeds or originates in any way”, proceeding from it either logically or physically. [11]  In a separate work, he provides three principles for human acts: “(1) An impulse of the will to good in general; (2) knowledge of a particular good; (3) liberty in the choice of this good.” [12]  In terms of the will itself, “Aquinas argues that choice is a function of the will in light of a judgment by the intellect.” [13]

Aquinas differentiates quite clearly between the two types of human acts: voluntary and involuntary.  Following Damascene, he argues that “‘the voluntary is in act consisting in a rational operation.’   Now such are human acts.  Therefore there is something voluntary in human acts.” [14]  The voluntary nature of the human action necessitates a cause, which for Aquinas are “the human intellect and the will.” [15]  The backbone for this argument is the differentiation of the soul’s powers with its essence. [16]  Aquinas believed that “there is only one substantial form in any substance”. [17]  This explains the unity of the powers of the soul, and how it is different from its essence. 

In regards the freedom of the human will, Aquinas argues that it is “the power to choose among alternatives”. [18]  Against the Scotist position (mentioned below) and the Molinist position, he says that “freedom of the will conceived broadly requires sourcehood but not alternate possibilities”. [19]  This means that we can exercise free will without necessarily needing to make a decision between two or more options.  Free will is its own efficient cause, or its own principle of change. [20]  In terms of the direct causation of human action, this “rests in the mutual interaction between [the] appetite and the intellect”. [21]    

John Duns Scotus

“Scotus argues that if Aquinas is correct, human beings do not act freely.” [22]  This position was developed from William de la Mare’s attempted “correction” of Aquinas, due to a 1277 condemnation of principles mistakenly thought to be his.  Another difficulty arises with the Franciscan methodology itself, as they had a problem with “Thomas’s emphasis on the role of the intellect in human action”. [23]  For Scotus, action seems to be categorized as an “accident”. [24]  This might be due in part to Scotus’ action theory being “largely voluntarist”. [25]  What is voluntarism?  “To be a theological voluntarist with respect to some moral status is to hold that entities have that status in virtue of some act of divine will.” [26]  Regarding the will, Scotus refers to the freedom of the will in three parts:

First, the will is free in regard to contrary acts; it can will or refrain from willing the same objective.  Second, the will is free in regard to contrary objects; it can tend towards opposite objects.  Third, the will is free in regard to contrary effects; it can choose among opposite objectives, and to be able to choose thus is to be able to produce opposite effects. [27]

This is important because it underlines the key Scotist difference.  Osborne writes that Scotus uses the Aristotelian “description of rational potency” to explain this, and probably reached this conclusion to avoid determinism. [28]  Freedom in the human act does not necessarily mean the intellect is free for Scotus, as he argues “that mere intellectual appetite is not enough to guarantee freedom in the sense needed for morality”. [29]  Aquinas and Scotus differ on the exact definition of the freedom of the will.

Leibniz appears to link the Scotists and the Molinists in this manner:

If the Scotists and the Molinists appear to favour vague indifference (appear, I say, for I doubt whether they do so in reality, once they have learnt to know it), the Thomists and the disciples of Augustine are for predetermination. For one must have either the one or the other. Thomas Aquinas is a writer who is accustomed to reason on sound principles, and the subtle Scotus, seeking to contradict him, often obscures matters instead of throwing light upon them. The Thomists as a general rule follow their master, and do not admit that the soul makes its resolve without the existence of some predetermination which contributes thereto. [30]

The determinism here is “the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs”. [31]  This is certainly very close to the Molinist understanding of free will and the possible worlds theory.

Osborne’s summary of Scotist thought is succinct.  “[T]he freedom and the contingency of the human act are entirely rooted in the fact that the will itself is a fully rational potency that can determine itself to opposites.” [32]  While this is a slightly problematic view, it is better than believing that humans have no free will, as everything can now be explained by evolution and “science”. [33] 

William of Ockham

Ockham was a Franciscan like Scotus, and thus bears similarity to his thought.  There are some key differences, though.  “He differs from Scotus first perhaps in his thesis that the real partial efficient cause is not the object but the act of understanding.” [34]  Whether this is a beneficial understanding or not will be explored

Ockham did take his razor and attempt to cut out parts of Scotus’ most wordy arguments, but his own conclusions are problematic from the Thomist perspective.  He disagrees “that the will has an inclination toward its own perfection”, and that “the same act can have both a natural and a free cause”. [35]  He does not believe that the will and the intellect are separate but does allow for separation between the sensitive soul (which has the powers of cognition and appetite [36]) and the rational soul (which has the powers of the vegetative and sensitive souls, with the added intellect and free will [37]). [38]  He does dispense with “species” and “universals” due probably to his razor, but the denial of these leads one to question how human action is caused if there is nothing concrete or real to cause it. [39]  Ockham’s theory is hard to penetrate, but this cursory summation should suffice.

Conclusion

This article examined, in an extremely abbreviated fashion, the Thomist theory of causation of human actions, and contrasted it with those of Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.  It is important to realize that none of these men (nor Aristotle, for that matter) are infallible.  However, both Duns Scotus and Ockham (except for his razor) have receded quite far from the philosophical and theological limelight.  What remains is the colossal intellect and writings of Thomas Aquinas, which “was, more than any other, fully in keeping with the truths that God has revealed”. [40]  From the history of the church, it is quite apparent that no pope has said this about Scotus or Ockham.  Aquinas took the logical and philosophical framework of Aristotle, and applied it to Catholic teachings, thus making the best thinker of the West serve the purpose of the God he reasoned to but did not know how to worship.  Scotus brought the attention of the world to the Immaculate Conception, and Ockham tried to remove unnecessary and verbose language from arguments, but in the name of nominalism more than anything else.

In the end, it should be clear that the Thomist position makes the most sense.  It is the most wholesome understanding of the human action and unites old and new in a interesting combination of philosophy and theology.

References

1) Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), quoted in George Wilson and Samuel Shpall, “Action”, at The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (4 April 2012), at plato.stanford.edu.

2) Charles Coppens, S.J., A Brief Textbook of Moral Philosophy (New York: Schwartz, Kirwin, and Fauss, 1895), at University of Notre Dame, at maritain.nd.edu.

3) Thomas M. Osborne Jr., Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 1.

4) Found in Andrea Falcon, “Aristotle on Causality”, at The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (7 March 2019), at plato.stanford.edu.

5) Steven M. Carr, “Aristotle’s ‘Four Causes’”, at Memorial University (2022), at mun.ca.

6) Abraham P. Bos, “Aristotle on the Differences Between Plants, Animals, and Human Beings and on the Elements as Instruments of the Soul (De Anima 2.4.415b18)”, The Review of Metaphysics 63, no. 4 (2010), 822.

7) D. Q. McInerny, Philosophical Psychology, (Elmhurst Township, PA: Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, 2016), 54.

8) Jonathan Dolhenty, "The Human Soul (Rational Psychology)," at The Self-Educated American (27 September 2011), at selfeducatedamerican.com.

9) Osborne, Human Action, 3.

10) Osborne, Human Action, 5. 

11) Charles Coppens, S.J., A Brief Textbook of Logic and Mental Philosophy (New York: Schwartz, Kirwin, and Fauss, 1891), at University of Notre Dame, at maritain.nd.edu.

12) Coppens, Moral Philosophy, at maritain.nd.edu.

13) Colleen McClusky, “Medieval Theories of Free Will”, at Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at iep.utm.edu.

14) Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 6, a. 1, s.c., at New Advent, at newadvent.org.

15) Osborne, Human Action, 3.

16) Osborne, Human Action, 5, and ST, I, q. 77, art.1, co.

17) Nicholas Kahm, “Aquinas and Aristotelians on Whether the Soul is a Group of Powers”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2017), 116.

18) Tobias Hoffman and Cyrille Michon, “Aquinas on Free Will and Intellectual Determinism”, Philosopher’s Imprint 17, no. 10 (2017), at quod.lib.umich.edu.

19) Hoffman and Michon, “Aquinas on Free Will”, at quod.lib.umich.edu.

20) Osborne, Human Action, 17.

21) Osborne, Human action, 17.

22) McClusky, “Medieval Theories of Free Will”, at iep.utm.edu.

23) Osborne, Human Action, 20.

24)Thomas Williams, “John Duns Scotus”, at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (31 May 2001), at plato.stanford.edu.

25) Jeffrey Hause, “John Duns Scotus”, at Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at iep.utm.edu.

26) Mark Murphy, “Theological Voluntarism”, at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2 July 2002), at plato.stanford.edu.

27) J. R. Cresswell, “Duns Scotus on the Will”, Franciscan Studies 13, no. 2/3 (June-September 1953), 148.

28) Osborne, Human Action, 21.

29) Williams, “Duns Scotus”, at plato.stanford.edu.

30) G. W. Leibniz, Theodicy, trans. E. M. Huggard (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited, 1951), at Project Gutenberg, at gutenberg.org.

31) Bob Doyle, “Pre-determinism”, at The Information Philosopher, at informationphilosopher.com.

32) Osborne, Human Action, 44.

33) See Stephen Cave, “There’s No Such Thing as Free Will”, at The Atlantic (June 2016), at theatlantic.com.

34) Osborne, Human Action, 45.

35) Osborne, Human Action, 45.

36) A. Moreno, OP, and M. Dobbs, OP, “Psychic Powers–The Nature and Powers of Various Souls”, at Thomistic Philosophy, at aquinasonline.com.

37) Moreno and Dobbs, “Psychic Powers”, at aquinasonline.com.

38) Osborne, Human Action, 46.

39) For a further explanation of Ockham and species, see Claude Panaccio, “William of Ockham”, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (16 August 2002), at plato.stanford.edu.

40) John XXIII, “Thomistic Teachings Seen Guide to Salvation and to Unity”, The Catholic Advocate 10, no. 36 (1961), 3.