4. Coercion And Free Will
Coercion and Free Will lSI missed-which is explained in this way. An agent with many different operations and actions, if it acts upon one and the same object, acts more vigorously and perfectly than if it is engaged at the same time with many diverse things (for unified power is stronger and more perfect). Therefore, if the soul with all its potencies concentrates on the same thing, it acts more forcefully and perfectly than if its diverse potencies were concerned with different things. And hence, if the will turns towards the same thing as the intellect, it confirms the intellect in its action. And this argument gives us the reason why this is so. The fact that it is so, however, is certainly evident from experience, as anyone can discover for himself.
Furthermore, a lesser agent acts more perfectly when a higher agent concurs with it, even though the latter's action is not necessarily required. But the will with respect to the intellect is the superior agent, although it is not necessarily required for the action of the intellect; ergo, ...
I say, therefore, that for one intellection that exists perfectly in the intellect, many confused and imperfect intellections can also be there, unless one is so perfect and actual that it suffers no other to coexist with it. Hence, by means of these confused and imperfect intellections present there, the will-according to the second proposition-can take complacency in anyone of them, even though that intellection was not known actually as a [distinct] object, and-according to the third proposition-by taking pleasure in one, the will confirms and intends that intellection. Hence, that which was imperfect and disregarded becomes perfect and intense through this complacency, and thus the will can command thought and turn the intellect towards it.
But by not willing some other intellection or taking no pleasure in it, that intellection diminishes in intensity and ceases to exist. Thus the will is said to avert the intellect from that intellection, just as the visual power, without moving and remaining within the same cone of vision, can focus on another point which it envisioned only imperfectly before, unless perhaps the earlier vision was so perfect that it allowed no other to be seen with it.
4. COERCION AND FREE WILL
(Ordinatio IV, dist. 29) How can consent be forced?
I say that where man is concerned, no human act, properly speaking, can be coerced, for it is a contradiction for the will to be simply forced to will. According to Bk. III of the Ethics, "Violence occurs
The Will and Intellect where the moving principle is outside and the person himself contributes nothing [as if he were carried along with the wind or by men who overpowered himJ." Understand "the person himself contributes nothing" not simply in a negative sense, but contrariwise, that is to say, the action suffered, to which he contributes nothing, runs counter to his own inclination. Now, willing cannot exist in the will in such fashion, for then one wills who refrains from willing, which is clearly a contradiction.
Nevertheless, a voluntary agent can be forced to suffer something (for instance to remain here if tied) or perform some purely instrumental action (for example, someone striking my hand could make it fly in the air).
But only in a qualified sense can the will be forced to elicit or command an act (the only sort of act that is properly human), namely, through fear of an evil worse than the act in question. Even a virtuous man is subject to such coercion if he not merely suspects or rashly judges, but knows with such certainty as suffices, at least, for a human act, that the alternative evil is even less desirable and more to be shunned than the displeasing action before him. And right reason may well indicate that there are indeed worse evils for him, such as death, imprisonment or captivity, serious mutilation, and the like. Being master of his own will, then, he can choose something he would not otherwise will, or command some action he would not otherwise want performed, before he incurs such an evil, and all this according to right reason. Therefore, such fear may well befall a man of solid character. But no fear can lead one into mortal sin according to right reason, since no threat of evil is greater than that of a sin of this sort, for no mere pain is worse than that of mortal sin.