2. The will as a rational faculty
The WiU and Intellect
even more directly connected with praxis or practice than is ethics as a moral science. This comes to the fore in connection with an objection based on the apparent claim of the Nicomachean Ethics VI, chs. 4 and 5, that "prudence" is neither an art nor a science, since by definition it is
"a habit involving true reasoning that enables one to act well." As it stands, Scotus says, this "definition" needs to be glossed, since it would also apply to any form of moral philosophy or ethical knowledge, whether this be a knowledge of primary moral principles or knowledge of the conclusions that follow therefrom.
In later selections (22 to 24) we shall have more to say about the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, and in what portion of the soul Scotus believes them to be located. For the present it suffices to note that virtues (or vices) are referred to as "habits" and, like the respective acts which produce them, fall under the first subdivision of the Aristotelian category of "quality." Habits differ from acts, however, in that, like a "second nature," they are relatively permanent and, once acquired, difficult to overcome or remove. We should also keep in mind that since acquired habits, at least, are the result of some naturally prior act, it is not surprising that terms like
"prudent," "just," "temperate," etc., may refer indiscriminately to either the act or the habit.
The fact that prudence is related to praxis more directly than are dictates of ethics as a moral science recalls another point that will be discussed later, in selection 8, namely, the distinction made by the scholastics between the intellect as "conscience" and the intellect as "synderesis," the former being an intellectual judgment about the goodness or badness of a concrete, individual action to be performed or omitted here and now, whereas the judgment of the intellect qua synderesis will always be of a general or universal nature. Needless to say, a logical gap exists between the dictates of synderesis and those of conscience. Prudence, as we shall see, enables one to bridge that gap, and that is why Scotus can argue here that prudence is more directly related to praxis than is any scientific ethical conclusion, and hence a person may possess moral science without having the virtue of prudence, and one who has always acted prudently may very well have acquired through experience the virtue of prudence, without being able to justify his behavior in concrete situations in terms of some broader or more universal moral principle.
2. The will as a rational faculty The second selection is taken from Scotus' questions on Aristotle's
Metaphysics (a work entitled in the Wadding reprint edition of Scotus'
Introduction Opera omnia, tom. VII, Quaestiones subtilissimae super libros Meta~ physicae Anstotelis). These "questions" may have been discussed as a scholastic exercise in a local Franciscan convent with various students playing the role of opponents and respondents and Scotus the role of a regent master. According to the best manuscripts this work ends with the fifteen questions on Bk. IX, devoted to unraveling the linguistic ambiguities in the Aristotelian notions of "act" and "potency." Hence, the present question would in all probability seem to represent the very last item of this collection. In Ordinatio I, dist. 8, n. 25 (Vatican ed. IV, p. 294), Scotus expresses the benign attitude he has in inter~ preting the Philosopher, a courtesy he extends to another favorite thinker, Avicenna. "Regarding the mind of these philosophers, Aris~ totle and Avicenna, I do not wish to attribute to them anything more absurd than they may actually have said or which necessarily follows from what they did say, and from their remarks I wish to take the most reasonable interpretation I am able to give them." Perhaps nowhere is the application of this principle better illustrated than in this fifteenth and last question on the Metaphysics. There he defends Aristotle's dis~ tinction between rational and nonrational faculties, but shows that it leads to the curious conclusion, noticed also by Henry of Ghent, that the will, rather than the intellect per se, is the only rational faculty man possesses. Despite its intricacy this interesting question deserves to be quoted in its entirety. For the Latin original I have used the Wadding reprint text (VII, pp. 606-17) modified somewhat on the basis of an early fourteenth~century manuscript (Ballio! College,
Oxford, 234, ff. 132rh-34Vb).
In reading this question, we should keep in mind that in the preced~ ing q. 14 (Can something be moved by itself?) Scotus has effectively challenged the so~called metaphysical principle "Whatever is moved is moved by another," commonly attributed to Aristotle and defended so emphatically by Scotus' contemporary Godfrey of Fontaines. Among other instances of "self~movement" Scotus singles out the human will's ability to determine itself. As an active potency, the will is formally distinct from, but really identical with, the soul substance, and is ei~ ther the exclusive or at least the principal efficient cause of its own volition. This volition in tum, like the act of intellection, is an imma~ nent action that falls under the Aristotelian category of quality, and resides in the soul as subject. When the will makes a positive decision, and thus elicits a voluntary act of either nolition or volition, there~ fore, it is determining itself, and hence one can correctly say the soul
"moves itself" from a state of indeterminacy to a positive state or deci~ sion. Not only does Scotus believe the will has this power of self~