Prima Secundae
Lecture 31: The Voluntary in Animals and Acts of Omission

Transcript
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So, let's look at Article 2 here now, and this is going to clear up this confusion we have here about the animals, right? Whether the voluntary is found in the, what, the brute animals. Shakespeare has a pun there in Julius Caesar about, I don't know, Hamlet I think it is, about Brutus, right, killing the brute part of him, you know, and so on. Now, the second one proceeds thus, it seems that the, what, voluntary is not in brute animals. Well, now, it seems like Tom's going to take the other side, right? Because he always, or usually. He's so confused. I mean, in the previous article, did he say, and therefore, man alone is voluntary? No, he says maxima, right, huh? He made a sacred book's maxima voluntarium invading to, right? Mm-hmm. But it's not as if he was excluding it entirely, you know, well, let's see, you know, if we're interpreting that correctly, huh, because we could be mistaken, you know. For the voluntary is said from the will, right? It's like the word, huh, voluntarium, huh? But the will, voluntariums, since it is in reason, as Aristotle says in the third book about the soul, right, cannot be in the brute animals, right? Therefore, neither can the voluntary be found in them, okay? Moreover, according to this, human acts are voluntary, or by this, that human acts are voluntary, man is said to be the lord, right, of his own, what, acts, huh? But brute animals don't have dominion over their own act, right? For they do not so much act as are actively, as Damascene says, right? Therefore, in brute animals, there's not the, what, voluntary. More of it, Damascene says that praise and, what, blame follow upon voluntary acts, but to the acts of the good animals is not owed either, what, praise or blame. He's a bad dog. So can you class blame? So can you blame the cat for eating the mouse? Therefore, in them, there is not the, what, voluntary, huh? But against this is what the philosopher says now, huh? In the third book of the Ethics, that's where he takes up the voluntary. That boys and, what, brute animals, boys who don't have the use of reason yet, there's much to speak of, but even brute animals who don't have reason, they communicata, huh? They share, you might say, the, what? The voluntary. And the same says the same two other guys that are being associated with Aristotle. Both Damascene and Gregory, huh? I rarely disagree with Damascene, and Thomas rarely disagree with Damascene. And he has great respect for Gregory's, and he's got a great deal of authority. Great deal of authority, yeah. So, now, I answer it should be said, huh? As has been said, that for the definition or notion of the voluntary, it's required that the beginning of the act be, what? Within, the source of the act be within, with some knowledge of the end, huh? Does that mean that he's not going to allow the trees to share in the voluntary? Because they don't really know, you know? They end it anyway, do they? I know. Yeah, or if he asks them, they never answer. I have this thing going with the grandchildren, you know, when I talk to one of the trees. And he's even got a name, Dendron, huh? That's the Greek word for a tree. We had a lot of fun with that, you know. Talk to him at 2 a.m. in the morning, you know. Then he goes back and, well, he might be a lot of fun with that. They kind of knew I'm kidding them. My brother used to talk to the guy in the sewer. I answer it should be said, that it has been said, huh? To the notion of the voluntary is required that the beginning of the act, right? The source of it be within, but with some knowledge of the, what? In. But there is already two-fold knowledge of the end. Perfect and what? Imperfect, huh? But a perfect knowledge of the end is when not only is grass the thing which is the end, but also is known the, what? The notion of the end. That's kind of what we were saying before, isn't it, huh? But the animal doesn't know the food under the aspect of an end, right? But he does know the end in some way, right? And the proportion, right? The ratio of that which is ordered to the end, right? Towards that thing, right? And such knowledge of the end belongs only to the reasonable nature, huh? I'm trying to get reasonable back into the use of rationality, right? Reasonable is too much limited to being reasonable, you know, in one sense. So you call man a, you know, they say man is the rational animal, right? If you say man is a reasonable animal, people say, well, that's not true. Especially if you live in Washington, D.C. Yeah. Man is a rational animal that gets angry when caught up on to live in accordance with the dictates of reason. The imperfect knowledge of the end, right, is that which consists in only the, what, apprehension of the end, right? Without knowing those two things, the definition of what an end is, right, huh? And the proportion, or ratio, or relation, or order of the act to the end, huh? So when you study the four kinds of causes, you learn the ratio of end, right? Well, more specifically, right, that for the sake of which, right? So the animal knows in some way the food that he's looking for, that the animal he's looking for, right? But as you know it under the definition of that for the sake of which he's acting. And he wouldn't always act in the same way. And the relation of the thing, the order. And such a knowledge of the end, this imperfect one, is found in the brute animalism through sense and natural, what, estimation, huh? The instinct, we say sometimes. Now, the perfect knowledge of the end, huh? It follows upon that, the voluntary, according to its, what, perfect or complete reason. In so far as the end being, what, grasped, someone is able, deliberating about the end, and those things which are for the end, to be moved in the end, or not to be moved towards it, right? But the imperfect knowledge of the end, there falls upon that, the voluntary, in an imperfect way. Insofar as the one grasping the end does not to the break, right? But is immediately moved, what? In it, then. Whence only to the reasonable nature belongs a voluntary in its perfect, what? Meaning. But in its imperfect meaning, it belongs also to the, what? Root animals. But it doesn't extend it to them, then, in trees, huh? They don't really have knowledge. So is the animal then more alive than the tree? Because you think of something being alive that moves itself, right? Well, does the animal move itself more than the tree does? Because all emotions are sick as some end, but the tree doesn't know the end, right? Why, the animal in some imperfect way knows the end, right? But maybe man himself is even more alive, right, than the dog or the cat, huh? Because he knows the end under the, well, definition of the end, right? He knows the relational order of the act to the end, huh? So he's more alive, huh? I've always wanted to be more alive than the dog or the cat. But you always think of the cat or the dog as being more alive than the tree, huh? Or the bush or something, huh? I used to watch the snow peas, you know, the way they entangle them, you know, so they can climb up a trellis or something, right? Or a shoe. Yeah, yeah. It's really action for an end you see there, right? Yeah. But they don't know what they're acting for, right? It's marvelous the way they do, huh? Yeah. They act for that, in to get the sun, right? Magnificent. Innocent vegetable snow peas. They have a lot of them, right? I noticed, you know, when you try to harvest them, you know, they kind of disguise themselves to the green, you know. Yeah. They say, oh, more down here, you know, more here. What wonderful little things. The poor guy said, there's not the question why, there's but to do and die. I'll put it on the level of time. Definition snow peas, yeah. There's not the question why. Now, what about this first thing from the word, right, huh? To the first therefore it should be said that voluntas, I suppose the word, names the what, reasonable desire, huh? I know it's the word petty tomb, it means originally what, desire, but then it names the faculty, the power, right, of desiring, huh? Because that's more, what, known, huh? What does the great Shakespeare say? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs. So desire is more like motion than, say, love or joy, right? And so you name even these, you know, epithubia and the irascible appetite, right? By the emotion, it's more like emotion, right? And so, and it eventually names the whole power, right? Even though desire is not the only act. So he says the word voluntas, that means a name now, name is the rational, the reasonable desire, right, or power desire. And therefore it's not able to be in those things which lack reason, right, huh? But voluntarium, huh? Is said denominatively, right, from the will, right? Aristotle, remember that? Getting the categories talking about denomination, huh? And it can be drawn to those things in which there is some, what, partaking of the will, right? According to some, what, coming together, or some agreement, right, to the will, right? Some legacy story. And in this way, the voluntary is attributed to the, what, brood animals, huh? Insofar as through some knowledge, they are moved to the end, huh? Okay. Thomas doesn't deny the origin of the word voluntary from will, right, huh? But there's some, what, partaking of the will of the animals, huh? Just as Aristotle would say that the animals partake in a way of prudence or foresight, huh? When the birds fly south, you know, when the winter comes, right? They partake of... Squirrels. Yeah. Yeah. The people go to Florida in the winter, they call them snowbirds. Snowbirds. Yeah, yeah. Nice one down there, I know. Yeah, so there's some partaking of foresight, I guess, in the birds, right? Going south, huh? Okay, that makes sense. Now, to the second, it should be said, from this it happens that man is the lord of his own act, that he has deliberation about his acts, huh? From this, that reason deliberating has itself to, what? Opposites. Then the will can go, and he decides to do it or not to do it, huh? And in this way, the voluntary is not in prudence, not in that perfect way, huh? And that's kind of like when Aristotle talks about dialectic and say that it's reasoning, dialectical reasoning is reasoning from probable opinions, even to contradictory conclusions. It's possible for reason to go one way or the other, right? I guess that's the reason why we can be redeemed in the way the angels cannot, right? Because we have to deliberate in the way the angels don't have to be. They have a full knowledge of what they're doing, as Gabriel and Michael and Raphael tell you, right? But, uh... So in that sense, you think there's no history of being sort of human in the way that you do this, and I don't want to think about how I'm going to react to that, and it's kind like the unfolding of history is... It's a blitzkrieg for them. Lightning, something. It's over like that, you know. Something can be said for that, you know, can ignore it, but otherwise, you make the right choice. And the those who referred their glorious nature back to God were saved, and the those who rested in it, right, in their own self-sufficiency, so to speak, right, were lost. I remember Paul VI there talking about the devil there after the Vatican II, you know, and all this disorder was coming in, you know, and the devil was there. But then how inscrutable is this evil, right, huh? What was I reading? I guess I was reading the Gospel of John, was it? One of those references where Christ's saying, you know, he was going to betray me, you know, and he sits in more than one place, you know, but even, you know, well before the time, so to speak. And it's been such a strange thing that he would choose, you know? Yeah. This man that he knew was going to betray him, right, huh? I mean, it seems like you can give more reason in terms of example for us, right, you know, that even in the church, right, there are people who, you know, bishops even, you know, priests and as well as laymen who turned to evil, right? Well, Paul got in a lot of trouble because he once said about there being other Judases in the church, he got a lot of trouble, man. Oh, yeah. Oh, dear. Judas Priest. He, he, he, he, he, he, he. He, he, he, he. He, he, he, he, he. What about praise and blame, right, where they follow upon the voluntary act according to the, what, perfect meaning of the voluntary, right, which is not found in the brutes according to spite your objection, right? You don't have to worry. You can trade these animals to some extent. You can't trust them completely. You can't trust us completely. Somebody sent me some information about this new discovery and the intelligence of monkeys and how you show them a computer screen with a bunch of numbers on it, and they're just scattered around, one through eight or one through ten or something, and then you just make them into boxes and the monkey will tap them on the screen in the order that they will be replaced. And, whereas people look at them and the numbers appear and they go, ah, they get it all right. The monkeys will do it right every time, every time. And every time they get it right, they get a peanut or something. I don't remember. I remember reading about a psychologist who decided to raise the monkey or what it was with his kids, you know, and so on. And I guess the monkey, you know, is much more dexterous at first, huh, and ahead of him. But you get the language and then he starts to slow down. Art class, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess one psychologist had a monkey or what it was that would, you know, he just smelled like a man, right? And he could go on the bus, you know, or a streetcar where it was, and drop the coin or something, you know, and bring a newspaper with him, right? And, of course, he sat down in the seat of his car, you know. And, but they couldn't quite, you know, insult him. And all of a sudden, he took that trumpet of his car. He kind of gave away a little bit, you know. In the 70s, they had a commercial for Quaker State Oil showing a chimpanzee changing the oil in the car. Yeah. You know, the green is the most important thing. But no, if you couldn't change your oil, it would probably be dubbed in this monkey. Grease monkey, yeah. Grease monkey. Monkey writes a computer program for people to do tricks on it. Then I'll... Take a little break now. Let's go back to Article 3 here. Whether the voluntary can be without any act. Interesting. To the third one goes forward thus. It seems that the voluntary cannot be without an act. For the voluntary is said what is from the what? The will, right? But nothing can be from the will except through some act. At least an act of the will itself, right? Therefore the voluntary cannot be without an act. That seems to be so right, you know? You have to do violence to your mind. You see how you see these objections. I was reading some of these objections there, you know. About the Trinity there in the sentences this morning. The objection says the Father is more powerful than the Son. Of course he's not. But he can generate his Son and the Son cannot generate his Son, right? That sounds pretty convincing. He's like, I was going to get out of this, you know. It's beautiful the way you're doing it. I was going and reading it over several times. Isn't that somebody said, somebody told us that's what Voltaire used to do? To the clergy that humiliate them? Yeah. To take objection from the Soma, throw them at the clergy. They'd stumble. They would not answer. Yeah. They'd just mock them. Of course, he wasn't interested in the answer, but... Yeah, right, right. That's what I was told. Make them mockery and make fools out of the clergy. Moreover, just as through the act of the will, someone is said to it. To will. So, seizing the act of the will, he is said not to will, right? But not to will is to cause the, what? Involuntary, right? Which is opposed to the voluntary. Therefore, the voluntary cannot be the act of the will seizing, right? That's the involuntary, right? Moreover, knowledge is of the, what? Meaning of the voluntary. It's of the very nature of the voluntary. But knowledge is through some, what? Act. So, you can't be a volunteer without knowledge. Knowledge is itself an act. Therefore, the voluntary is not able to be without some act. But against all this, that of which we are the lords is said to be voluntary. But we are the, what? Lords, both of doing and not doing, of willing and what? Not willing. Therefore, just as to do and to will is voluntary, so also do not do and not will is voluntary, right? So, don't go to church on Sunday, you know? That's voluntary, right? Not doing that. Do you not do? Well, that was a popular song on the radio, my radio passed from 20, 30 years ago, where the singer said something about it. And if you choose not to decide, you have still made a choice. Thomas says, I answer, it should be said, that the voluntary has said what is, what? From the will. Seems like he's agreeing with the objections, right? But something is said to be from something in two ways. Oh, distinction, huh? Yeah, distinction, overlooked. I was thinking of that, you know, while we use the expression to overlook a distinction, right? And the contrast between the word overlooked and to understand, right? Because understand comes from under and over. So, I mean, Sunday's overlooked is not taking the negative sense, and that can overlook a situation or something like that, right? But a lot of times we'll say when you don't see some distinction, you're overlooked. An important distinction, you're not overlooked. Yeah, it seems to overlook seems to be the opposite of look over something. When you look over this, that means you're going to pay attention to it, but you overlook it, meaning you didn't pay attention to it. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of curious. But I was thinking of the contrast there between over and under, right, in order to understand the distinction, right? And to overlook a distinction, right? Well, then there's an overview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say so, Episcopus means, right? Yeah, yeah, overlook. So, in one way, directly, right, what proceeds from something insofar as it is what? Acting as heeding from me. He, in another way, indirectly, from this, that it does not act, just as the submersion of the boat, right, is said to be from the, what? The helmet. The pilot, yeah. Insofar as he desists from, what? Coming here. That's interesting. It goes back to Aristotle, right? Because when he's giving the corollary slide upon the kinds of causes and so on, right, he says the, what, a thing is a cause of opposites by its presence and by its, what, absence, right? That's kind of touching upon this distinction, right? And then he takes the example of the man who's the gubernator, right? Okay. But it should be known that not always that which follows to the defect or the lack of an action, right, is reduced as in a cause in the one acting, right? From the fact that he does not act, not every time is he held responsible, right? But only then when he is able and not to act, okay? So, you know, the example I used to always give in classes is that an Aristotle's corollary, right? They say, you know, the man who's on guard duty, right, and if he stays awake and sees the enemy approaching and alerts the camp, he's the cause of the, what, safety of the camp, right, but he decides to take a snooze or go see his girlfriend or go get a beer or something, right? And the enemy sneaks up and takes the camp and he's court-martialed as being responsible for the surprise, you know? So it's by not doing what he should be doing, right? What he is, what, potest, right, and David, huh? What he is able and what? Yeah, yeah, and if the enemy was invisible, then it's only his fault, you see? But if they're visible, not spirits and so on, and he's on guard duty, right? And there's somebody else who's not on guard duty at night and he sleeps and he doesn't, but alert the camp, but he's not totally responsible, right? Even though he could have, but he was not, yeah, he wasn't on guard duty, yeah. So if the gubernator was not able to direct the ship, right, or he was not, what, committed to him, huh, the governing of the ship, they would not be imputed to him the subversion of the, what, ship, right? That happens through his absence, right, huh, okay? Because, therefore, the will, in willing and acting, is able to, what, impede this which is to not will and not act, and sometimes he act, huh, that which is, what, to not will and to not act is imputed to him as from him existing, right? Okay, and thus the voluntary can be without an act, huh, sometimes without an exterior act with an interior act, right, just as when he does not will to, what, when he wills not to act, sometimes without even the, what, yeah, when he does not what will, right, huh? So, to the first effort should be said that the voluntary said not only what proceeds from the will directly as from, what, doing it, but also from it indirectly as from it, what, not acting, when it's able to act and should act, right? So, is the kid responsible for the house not being cleaned or something? Yeah, but he was able to clean his room, right? And he should have, right? But he just didn't, yeah? I was reading there a few days ago. A man has one son to go out, and he says, yep, yep, Dad. He doesn't go out. Alvin says no, and he doesn't go out. So, now what about the second objection here, right? The second should be said that to not will is said in two ways. In one way, when it's taken in the strength of one, what, word, according as it is the, what, negative of this verb, what, nolo, right? As when I say nolo legere, senses this, I wish not to read, right? So also, this, to not wish to, what, read, signifies to wish not to read. And thus, to not will causes the, what? In another way, it's taken in the strength of a, what, speech. And then it does not, what? Affirm the act of will. And the, to not will of this kind, does not, what? Yeah. It was just the reverse, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, let's say there's a problem in the text there. It's faithfully reproduced in more than one edition. Yes, he means, you know, that if I don't want to read it, you force me to read, then it's not voluntary, right? You want to read this? No, I don't want to read it. That's an act of my will, right? Yeah. But is that involuntary? But I don't see, he's thinking about the fact that if I say, you read, you don't want to read it, and yet you read, then it's a threat. You're not doing it willingly, you'd say, right? Yeah. You're doing it unwillingly. I'm sort of minimally doing it willingly. I mean, yeah, in some way. You say, it's like they say about the souls of purgatory, do they really want to be there? Well, a little bit. I mean, they want to be there because they need to be there, but they can't get out of there as soon as possible. Yeah. Sort of like the martyrs, you know. That's the least kind of involuntary. Well, let's look at that text as it is, and sometime when you're wiser, we'll move in a little more. To the third should be said, in that way is required for the voluntary an act of knowledge, just as an act of the will, that to let it be in the power of someone to consider and to, what, will and to act, right? And then just as, what, to not will and to not act when it was time is voluntary, so also to what? Not but consider, right? Okay, so when someone doesn't, you know, they say if you don't study the church laws or something of that sort, right, or they're teaching the church about royalty, right? It's voluntary, right? You're not considering, right? It's a cult, right? Yeah. Even the statement owed me, you know, why I didn't see the speed sign or something. Too bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the other thing? Ignorance of the law is no excuse. No excuse, yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if you want to think that completely universal, but, I mean, you know, even if it's a lot you should know, right, huh? I didn't know that a red light meant you're supposed to stop. How they would take that in the court, huh? Yeah. The comedian said, that's a great line for somebody else being examined for murder. Yeah. He'd just say, I forgot it was against the law. I'm so sorry.