5. The will and its inclinations
The Will and Its Inclinations
4. Coercion and free will Some philosophers interpret free will as freedom from external coercion and nevertheless maintain a certain causal determinism rules even the human will, in terms of its natural dispositions, habits of mind, etc. They assert that freedom and necessity are not incompatible notions. While this may be true in the case of God's inner love life, and for very special and sophisticated reasons Scotus discusses in Bk. I, dist. 39, he is equally firm in asserting that even God could not violate the will or force its consent, for the simple reason that this is a contradiction in terms (Ord. II, dist. 37, q. 2: "Voluntatem violentari includit contradictionem"; Codex A, I36vb). In the present selection, he mentions this fact in passing, and then goes on to explain how and why psychological pressure can be brought to bear on persons so that they are forced to make certain choices they would not otherwise make, and do so even according to right reason.
The original text is taken from Ord. IV, dist. 29, where Scotus is concerned to explain in what sense one can speak of forced consent and why it does not suffice to contract a valid marriage.
PART II: THE WILL AND ITS INCLINATIONS
5. The will and its inclinations Following St. Anselm of Canterbury Scotus accepts the fact that the will has a twofold inclination or bias, one described by Aristotle and Plato before him as "natural" in the sense that it inclines one to seek whatever perfects the nature of the agent, either as concretized in this individual or as conserving the species to which it belongs. This inclination towards self-perfection or self-actualization Anselm refers to as an "affection for the advantageous," or affectio commodi. In virtue of this natural inclination, will can be called an "intellective" or "rational appetite," i.e., an appetite guided in its quest for self-perfection by intellect and reason. As Scotus notes in the subsequent selection about natural will and natural volition, this inclination is not an elicited act, but a tendency or bias to act in a particular way when the will freely elicits some act.
Every elicited act of the will is free in the sense of its being an act of self-determination elicited contingently and not deterministically, as the preceding selection indicated. However, there is a prior sort of "liberty" or "innate freedom" possessed by the will, a liberty that frees it from the need to seek self-perfection as its primary goal, or as a supreme value. It consists in free will's congenital inclination towards
Introduction the good in accord with its intrinsic worth or value rather than in terms of how it may perfect self or nature. Anselm calls this higher inclination the will's "affection for justice," or affectio iustitiae. In virtue of this "innate justice," as Scotus calls it, the will is able to love
God for his own sake as a supreme value. But it also inclines the will to love other lesser goods "honestly" or in accord with right reason, namely, in terms of their intrinsic worth rather than in terms of how they perfect one's individual person or nature.
According to an interesting text found among the Reportata examinata, or "examined reports," of Scotus' lectures, the first or natural inclination only gives the will its generic perfection as a rational appetite or "nature," but the second represents its specific difference as "will" or an active potency that is free to determine itself in an objective way towards good (Reportata parisiensia II, dist. 6, q. 2, n. 9; Wadding reprint ed. XXII, p. 621).
In another sense, however, the will with its affection for justice can be called "natural," namely, where this term is contrasted with the supernatural order of grace or charity (see, for example, the next selection on natural will and natural volition). For Scotus, in contrast to many of his contemporaries, believed that man by reason of his natural powers could love God above self or any other created good, and that this capacity was not something he possessed only in virtue of some special grace or the infused theological virtue of charity. In this he seems to have gone further, perhaps, than Anselm himself. Pierre
Rousselot, in his historical study of this "problem of love" (Rousselot, 1908), calls the Aristotelian or Platonic theory of love "physical" (in the sense that it tends to perfect one's nature or physis) and contrasts it with its polar opposite, the "ecstatic theory" characteristic of the mystics, who in their love for God at least tend to forget self completely.
Scotus adopts a mediating position between the two theories in that he recognizes that both tendencies or inclinations of the will are Godgiven and lead to him in different ways. Where the affection for justice inclines us to love God for the beautiful and good being he is in himself, the affection for the advantageous inclines us to seek him as our greatest good, because by union with him through knowledge and love, our nature as "capax Dei" is perfected in the highest way. Hence the inclination for the advantageous does not need to be eradicated as something bad, but rather controlled or moderated lest it lead to excess. He will point this out in some detail in the selection on the sin of Lucifer (selection 29). Here he is more concerned with how the supernatural or theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity build on or perfect nature, for the question from which this item is taken asks: Is