ARTICLE XV

In the Fifteenth Article We Ask: Is CHOICE AN ACT OF THE WILL?

Difficulties:

It seems that it is not, but rather of reason, for

1. Ignorance is not found in the will but in reason. But the perversity of a choice is a sort of ignorance. Hence also "every evil person is said to be ignorant" with the ignorance of choice, as is explained in the Ethics. Choice, then, pertains to reason.

2. Not only do inquiry and argumentation belong to reason but also conclusion. But a choice is, as it were, the conclusion of a deliberation, as is made clear in the Ethics. Since deliberation belongs to reason, choice will therefore also belong to reason.

3. According to the Philosopher the chief characteristic of moral virtue consists in choice. But, as he himself says, in the moral virtues the part of prudence is the most important factor, adding the last formal determinant to the essential nature of virtue. Choice therefore pertains to prudence. But prudence is in reason, and so choice also is.

4. Choice implies a certain discrimination. But to discriminate is a function of reason. Therefore to choose also is.

To the Contrary:

1'. To choose is, when two things are proposed, to want one in preference to the other, as Damascene explains. But to want is an act of the will, not of reason. Then so is to choose.

2'. The Philosopher says that choice is the desire of what has been previously deliberated. But desire is a function of the will, not of reason. Then so is choice.

REPLY:

Choice contains something of the will and something of reason. But the Philosopher seems to leave in doubt whether it is properly an act of the will or of reason, when he says that choice is an act either of the intellective appetite (that is, of appetite as subordinated to the intellect) or of the appetitive intellect (that is, of the intellect in subordination to appetite). The first, that it is an act of the will in subordination to reason, is the truer.

That it is directly an act of the will is clear from two considerations: (1) From the formality of its object. The proper object of choice is the means to an end, and this belongs to the formality of good, which is the object of the will. For both the end, such as the honorable or the pleasurable, and the means, namely, the useful, are called good. (2) From the formality of the act itself. Choice is the final acceptance of something to be carried out. This is not the business of reason but of will; for, however much reason puts one ahead of the other, there is not yet the acceptance of one in preference to the other as something to be done until the will inclines to the one rather than to the other. The will does not of necessity follow reason. Choice is nevertheless not an act of the will taken absolutely but in its relation to reason, because there appears in choice what is proper to reason: the comparing of one with the other or the putting of one before the other. This is, of course, found in the act of the will from the influence of reason: reason proposes something to the will, not as useful simply, but as the more useful to an end.

It is accordingly clear that the act of the will is to will, to choose, and to intend. It is to will in so far as reason proposes to the will something good absolutely, whether it is something to be chosen for itself, as an end, or because of something else, as a means. In either case we are said to will it. In so far as reason proposes to the will a good as the more useful to an end, the act is to choose. It is to intend in so far as reason proposes to the will a good as an end to be attained through a means.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Ignorance is attributed to choice on the basis of the part played in it by reason.

2. The conclusion of a practical inquiry is of two kinds. One is in reason, and this is decision, the judgment about what has been deliberated upon. The other is in the will, and this is choice. It is called a conclusion by a sort of simile, because in speculative matters the discourse finally comes to rest in the conclusion, and in matters of operation it comes to rest in the doing.

3. Choice is said to be the principal element in moral virtue both from the point of view of the role of reason in it, and from that of the role of the will. Both are necessary for the essential character of moral virtue. Choice is called the principal element with reference to external acts. It is accordingly not necessary that choice be entirely an act of prudence, but it shares in the characteristics of prudence as it does in those of reason.

4. Discrimination is found in choice in accordance with what belongs to reason, whose distinctive characteristic the will follows in choosing, as has been said.