Prima Secundae
Lecture 45: Intention, Choice, and the Acts of Will

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To second, it should be said that of one motion, there can be, from one side, right, many limits, if one is ordered to the other, right? But two terms to each other, not ordered, right, is not possible, right, to be of one motion, right? But nevertheless, it should be considered that that which is not one secundum rem, right, is able to be taken as one secundum rationum. For intention is a motion of the will already, what, ordered to something in reason, as has been said. And therefore, those things which are many, secundum rem, can be taken as one term of intention, insofar as they are one secundum, what, rationum, right? Or because some two things run together to, what, integrating something one, as, what, hot and cold, measured well together, right, run together for, what, health. Or that some two under one common thing are contained, as either to be intended, as the acquisition of wine, no review in there, Thomas. And a, what, vestment, right, is contained under, what, filthy lucre, as under a certain, what, thing that is common, right? Whence, nothing prevents the one who intends to make money, that he, the same thing, intends these two things, right? So you, you get in the car, and you get out of the car, and you go to work, all that's to make money. Yeah, yeah, but a whole bunch of things you want the money for, you better use it for. Now, can one understand many things, he says, well, insofar as they are in some way, what, one. So if you look at Aristotle there, you'd say, you know, can you understand what a dog is, and what a cat is, by one act? No reason? Can you understand, or animal, by one act, right? But if you're understanding what a dog is, and what a cat is, it's going to be two different acts. Understanding what a dog is, is not understanding what a cat is. Let me see what a cat is, and what, but now, if I go to the second active reason, I say a dog is not a cat, then dog and cat are being understood together, right? If you didn't understand the subject and the predicate, or whatever it is, at the same time, right, you wouldn't understand any statement, right? So, if I can understand a dog is not a cat, then I can understand, to some extent, dog and cat together, right? Square is not a circle. It's just its priority in the second act, right? But I made them in some way, what, one, right, huh? Or when you compare two things, right? You're comparing Sophocles and Aeschylus, or Sophocles and Erypides, right? Or Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, or something like that, you know? Then you're, in a sense, knowing two things at once, right? Or you're comparing two students, right, together, right, huh? You know? You've got to read through these essays there of the great school kids, you know, for the award for their best essay, you know, on abortion, or, you know, you know, so. And we'll just have to read them. I'll ask other people to read them, you know. See if you agree about who's going to go on. It's kind of hard to judge between these little one-page essays. But in a sense, you're considering both at the same time, right, huh? Kind of hard to do, though. Close your mind. So we'll take a little break now before we do Article 4. The fourth one proceeds thus, it seems that there is not one and the same motion, the intention of the end, right, and the will of that which is to the end, right? For Augustine says in the 11th book of the Trinity, that the will of what, seeing the window, is it, has as an end the vision of the, what, window, and other is the will, what, of seeing through the window those going by, but this pertains to intention that I wish to see those passing by through the window, right, huh? But this is the, what, will of that which is towards the end, that I wish to see the window, therefore other is the motion of the will, which is the intention of the end, and other the will of that which is towards the end, huh? Moreover, acts are distinguished by their objects, but the end and that which is towards the end are diverse objects, huh? That seems to be the division he gave right back in question 8, right, in the premium, huh? And therefore other is the motion of the will, which is the intention of the end, and the will which is towards the end, huh? It's like the distinction there between the acts of the will towards the end and choice, which is of the means, right? But the will, more or the third objection, the will is of that which is towards the end, the will which is, that which is towards the end is called electio, huh? Which is choice, again, we're election, right? Right, but the election or choice and intention are not the same, therefore there's not the same motion which is the intention of the end with the will of that which is towards the end, huh? But against this is of what is towards the end as itself to the end as a middle to its, what? End or limit. But the same motion is the one which, what, through the middle, right, passes over to the end in natural things, huh? Therefore also will be in voluntary things the same motion which is the intention of the end and the will of that which is, what, towards the end, huh? Now, Thomas says, I answer, it should be said that the motion of the will in the end and in that which is towards the end can be considered in two ways. In one way, according as the will is born towards both, absolutely and, what, by itself, right? That's simply, there are two, what, motions of the will in both, right? In another way, it can be considered according as the will is, what, carried towards that which is towards the end on account of the end, right? And thus there is one and the same in subject, the motion of the will tending towards the end and in that which is towards the end, huh? I'm tending towards the means as a way of getting to the end, right? So it's part of my intending the end, huh? For when I say I will or wish medicine and account of health, I do not designate except one motion of the will. I think he's going to make this comparison to the reasons he often does, right? The reason for which is because the end is the reason for willing the means, right? And those things which are for the end. But the same act falls upon the object and upon the reason of the object. Just as there's the same vision of color and, what, light which makes the color so many visible. And then there's comparison. And this is like what takes place in the case of the understanding. Because if absolutely the premise or the principle and the conclusion are considered, diverse is the consideration of both, right? Thomas will say that, you know, in the word discourse, right? You're running from the beginning to the conclusion, right? Okay, so you're not in both at the same time, right? But when you see the conclusion as following from the premises, then it seems to be one of the same act, right? So if absolutely one considers the conclusion, right, and the premise, there's a different act. But in this, that one ascends to the conclusion on account of the beginnings, right, there is one act of the understanding only, right? It's more like the act that God would have, right? You see that difference, right? You can write that, yeah. To first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine speaks of the vision of the window and the vision of those passing through the window, according as the will in both is what? More than absolutely, right? To second, it should be said that the end, insofar as it is a certain thing, is another object of the will than that which is what? Towards the end, right? So the means and the end are not the same object, right? But insofar as the reason for willing the means, now which is towards the end, there is one and the same what? Object, right? To the third, it should be said that the motion, which is one in what? Subject, can differ by reason according to the beginning and the end. As going up and what? Coming down. It's a famous example of Aristotle. He used to explain the terms of enacting upon and undergoing through. And thus, therefore, insofar as the motion of the will is born towards that which is for the end, insofar as it is what? Ordered to the end, there is what? Choice. But the motion of the will which is born towards the, or carried towards the end, according as it is acquired through those things which are for the end, is called what? Intention. A sign of which is that the intention of the end can be, even not yet determined, those things which are what? For the end. Of which there is election. So we already intend this end, but we don't yet know the means for it, right? But when we intend the means as a way of getting to the end, then it's one what? One motion of the will. One act, yeah. A lot of times when you're reading, you know, Thomas expounding the text of Aristotle, you know, he kind of tells us what he's trying to conclude, right? And then first he's going to take out some things necessary for drawing this conclusion, right? So you kind of see the end conclusion by itself, right? Absolutely. And what you're going to use to do it. And then later on you see how this premise here does really imply this conclusion, right? So you see the conclusion as following from the premises, then you've got to see it and the premises at the same time on the same act, right? So when you intend the means as a way of getting to the end, then you must be intending the end at the same time that you're... I suppose, you know, when men deliberate, you know, and some guy says, well, this is the way to get there, and you've got another way of getting there, and trying to decide what's your way or, you know? We're not, you know, intending what you propose or what you propose yet as a way of getting there, right? But then, I mean, I think about, you know, which is probably a better way of getting there, your way or his way, you know? And if I say it's his way, right, and then... Choose. Yeah, but then I'm starting to, what, not just consider your end your means by itself, but as the way I intend to get to that end, right? Okay, be careful. Kind of a subtle difference there, right? But he makes the same comparison to what you have in the case of the mind. Aristotle makes that thing so apportionate. The end is to what is for the sake of the end, like the premises are to the conclusion, right? And so sometimes you see one as implying the other, right, necessarily. And in the case, you kind of consider them separately, right? Okay, that's a hard distinction to see, though, I suppose. Okay. But intention belongs to the brute animals. To the fifth, then, one perceives us. It seems that brute animals do intend the end. For nature, in those things which lack knowledge, it more is distant from rational nature than the sensitive nature, the nature that has sensation. Which is in the brute animals, right? But nature intends the end also in those things which lack knowledge, as is proven in the second book of the physics. Therefore, much more do the brute animals intend the end. Moreover, as intention is, what, of the end, so is fruition of the end, right? To have an axe. But fruition belongs to the brute animals, as has been said, right? Therefore, intention, huh? Like in Tabitha, they're enjoying my steak, but not intended, right? Moreover, it belongs to the one who intends the end. It belongs to that one to intend the end, whose doing is an account of an end. For to intend is nothing other than to tend towards something. But brute animals act for some end, right? For the animal is moved either to acquiring food or something else, right? Mm-hmm. Therefore, brute animals intend the end, huh? So I mentioned I had two cats there, you know, that Tabitha meant she had her breakfast. You want to go outside that way and head down a few doors with a vacant lot there, you know, kind of wooded lot, you know, to begin her hunting of the day. My Muppet wanted to jump up in the ledge in front of the window there and watch the world go by, right? So they had to do it. It's fun to watch the two of them, you know, because they always get fed at the same time, you know, and they go up the stairs and go to their dishes, you know, upstairs and downstairs. And after that, they eat there. One wants to go there, one wants to go there. So it's kind of funny. It's like our two cats, yeah, one lamb is all day and one hunts. Yeah. All day and all night, you know. But against this, the intention of the end implies the ordering of something in the end, right? And that's an act of what? Reason, huh? Looking before and after. Since, therefore, the good animals don't have reason, it seems that they don't, what? Tend the end, huh? Thomas, again, is going to make a little distinction here. The answer, it should be said, as has been said above, that to intend is to tend towards another, right? Which is both of the mover and the, what? Moved, right? According, therefore, as, what? That is said to intend an end that is moved to the end by another. Thus nature is said to intend an end. That's probably, you know, that people don't see that distinction. Nature acting for an end, right? As it were, moved towards its end by God as the arrow by the... Archer. Archer, yeah. And in this way, also, brood animals intend the end insofar as they are moved by a natural instinct to, what? Something, huh? In another way, to intend the end is of the, what? One moving insofar as he orders his motion, the motion of something, either of himself or of another, right? To an end. But it's a reason only to do that, huh? So see how important Shakespeare's definition. A reason is there, right? He defines it by order, right? Whence in this way the brutes do not intend the end, which is properly and chiefly to intend, as has been said, right? So they intend the end in the sense that they are moved by another, right? Who intends in the full sense, right? The end. It's funny, you know, I hear these huge flocks of birds flying over and they make as much noise. I first, when I heard it, I said, is that the dogs, you know? The son's a dog and they would start barking, you know? Another dog down the way does barking and fighting, you know, every dog and they would bark, you know? And it kind of sounded like barking, you know? And I went off to the back there and I went by the whole flock of them, you know? And they make a sound like a dog barking. It's kind of deceptive, right? But they are being moved towards something, right? But more by natural instinct, right? Than by ordering this themselves. It's really one of the most fascinating things, though, to read about birds and how they migrate and they come back to the same spot and they go little miles and miles, you know? They just have a flock operating in unison, almost as if they had radio communication. Yeah. Yeah. The one goes to the front and the other one fall back, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one goes to the front sometimes and they keep on doing that, you know? It's kind of amazing to read about these birds. Now, the first objections from what did Aristotle mean when he argued in physics there, right? To the first effort should be said that that argument proceeds according as to intend is of that which is moved to an end, right? I used to always insist to the students there, you know, look at the text of Aristotle. One of the things he talks about, the bees doing these intelligent things, right? Or the other insects. And Aristotle says, so clearly there's action for an end to appear in these insects, right? That people wonder whether they have a mind, huh? See, that's what Aristotle says. He doesn't say that they have a mind. He says people, what? Well, wonder whether they have a mind as if they see that action for an end does require a mind somewhere, right? But he's not asserting that they themselves have a mind, right? And then later on, he would argue that they don't have a mind, right? But they're a product of mind, huh? It used to be, you know, in Fagra, there was the insect that would paralyze its victim, right? And then it would dig a hole big enough to contain the victim, right? And then they would grab it by its antennas and drop it down into the hole. And then it would deposit its eggs upon it, right? And then cover it up, I guess. And then when the little ones hatched, right, they had this fresh food supply, right? So that's very intelligent because if it had killed the victim, right, it would die and corrupt and be unsuitable food for the young when they were born, shall we say. But if he didn't, actually what he'd do is he'd squeeze the head of the victim, right? And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And enough to put it in a coma, you might say, right? So it's still alive, but not so much that you killed it, right? And so Faber tried to grab that same insect and press the head just the right amount. He's always killing it rather than, you know? So it's like it had a doctor's hand, you know, that was very adept at these things. It just didn't have pressure, you know, to leave it in a kind of coma, but not enough to, what, kill it, right? And so you say, well, now, does this insect have a mind, right? Because it's very intelligent, right? But then Faber noticed that it dragged his victim to the thing that always grabbed him by the antenna, right? So one time he was over there measuring the size of the grave, shall we say. He cut off the antenna, right? But came back and then finally went back and filled up the hole without the victim, right? Well, now, if you're intelligent enough to figure out that you have to squeeze the head so much, so much, so you can figure out there's another way to place it, to drag the victim from the antenna, but it's like it's programmed to do that, right? And so you can kind of see that it doesn't really have a mind, right? But that's kind of a beautiful experiment that he has, huh? I used to say, you know, even the cavemen, right? You know, they're supposed to, you know, knock the woman on the head and drag her back her hair, right? Now, if the hair came out, you know, I could drag her back her leg or an arm. You know, even the cavemen, dumb as he might have been, you know, and developed, you know, to do this, right? But this dumb insect couldn't, you know, you know, even though he could, you know, squeeze the head better than Faber could do, right? You know, just the right amount. He couldn't figure out the other way to take part of the body to grab the victim by, right? So he might conclude, well, then, this is intelligent, what he does, right? But it's not that intelligence is his own, right? But he's the something of another art put into things, right? Provide they are moved to their end. So they tend to end as being moved towards an end, right? That's kind of beautiful what Aristotle sees there, right? When he's first showing that they're moved towards an end, even though he doesn't say that they do or do not have a mind, right? So I'd say to the students, you know, you've got to see what Aristotle is doing there. He's not reasoning, right, from their having a mind or not having a mind, right? He's reasoning what they do that seems intelligent, right? And that means one to say, well, then, to one, do they have a mind, right? But whether they have a mind or a product of mind is something that requires further investigation, right? They're still being moved towards an end, right? Whether by their own mind or by the mind of the superior one, right? He kind of used to speak, you know, this kind of second definition of nature, right? The first definition of nature is a beginning and cause of motion and rest, and that which it is, first as such, not by happening. But then later on, he gives the idea that nature is something of an art, right? Put into things, huh? So he says, if you could take the art of building a ship and put it into the woods so it built itself up into a ship, you have something like nature, right, huh? Nature is something of an art, huh? Not the human art. The art of the divine art, huh? And things, huh? That's why, like you're saying, in the parts of animals that we talk about, you know, one likes to study the animals to see something of a superior mind, huh? And I was kind of thinking of that text, the rest of it, because I know it from the parts of animals, but Thomas was giving us the first reason why we consider the effects of God and not just God alone, right? So we could admire the divine, what, and consider the divine wisdom in making these things, huh? The rest of us already, you know, delighting in admiring and considering that the wisdom of the one who was designing these things, huh? It's beautiful. Yeah, really, you know, Monsanto's can't quite sit down and admire these things in the same way, you know, that they, the way of thinking. But sometimes, you know, there were people who didn't misunderstand what Aristotle was arguing there, right, in the second book. He talked to, he talked to the most bothered, you know, and they, and they'll say, they'll deny that nature makes eyes for the sake of seeing, right? Mm-hmm. They won't deny that you can see with your eyes. Mm-hmm. But they deny that nature makes eyes for the sake of seeing, right? Mm-hmm. And ears for the sake of hearing, and, you know, teeth for the sake of biting and chewing, and so on. Well, it's just kind of obvious to it, any simple folk, you know, that nature's making these things, right? Mm-hmm. Whether it has the mind to make them, or it's a product or something, it has a mind, right? Mm-hmm. But there. What evidence do the moderns then use to back up this perspective? They don't. It's kind of interesting, you know. Who's that? There's some big scientist there. I have to ask Warren again who it was, you know, but, you know, that they reject this, you know, argument because it's going to lead to God. Right. And, you know, it's kind of showing that you're not in good faith, if I say, right? Mm-hmm. That the, what Aristotle is doing is really just studying nature, and it kind of leads to these conclusions, right? Mm-hmm. But when they see that seeing these things is going to lead to this conclusion, then they say they don't see it, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not very scientific. Yeah. And it's kind of strange, you know. Yeah. Now, sometimes, you know, you get some of the great physicists and so on, chemists, you know, and they'll say that the biologists are, you know, they'll say they're kind of crazy, you know. And they don't do these things, you know. You know, Heisenberg, you know, because he grew up with quantum physics and so on, and Bohr. And one of the things that it bore, you know, to apply the quantum to the atom was the stability of the atom, right? And you just saw the atom as being kind of a miniature solar system. It was kind of the original model of the atom. And, well, if the solar system was coming into contact with other solar systems all the time, there'd be no regularity in the paths of the planets, huh? So, these atoms are always in contact with each other, there's no regularity at all. And so, just from mere, you know, chemical principles, you can't understand the stability of the atom. And then when they went to biology, you know, how do you explain the stability of the dog or the cat or, you know, the animal? Just from the point of view of physics and chemistry, it's highly, highly improbable, right? That there'd be this stability and the growth of the plants and so on, the animals. Kind of funny to ask people, you know? To put something diabolical, you know, to speak to God. You see, Sierre Stahl is not reasoning that the animals are a product of the divine mind, therefore they act for an end. He's recognized that they're acting for an end, and therefore either they have a mind or they're a product of mind. If they don't have a mind, they must be a product of mind. And so he's kind of being led to God that way, you know? In just kind of a natural way, huh? But the moderns are kind of, you know, putting the character for the horse, huh? Because you're saying, you know, well, it can't be a guy. It's unscientific. They talk about God. Therefore nature can't be acting for an end, right? You know? To deny, in a sense, what we see, you know? Beautiful story about a young man who was about 15 or 16, and he was sort of Palestinian or some Eastern Christian monk, I think. And his bishop sent him to study for the priesthood, but since there was problems at the time, he sent him to France or Paris. So he has his serbona, whatever that is, you know? He gets, you know, he's from a village on his civil faith. He's in this series. So he says, he's reflecting on, you know, Sayesta write this one page, this paper on how modern man should view God. Yeah. I think. I think. I think. You should be more concerned about how God views modern man. So he writes this paper and he gets it back. It's totally illogical, you know, he gets to teach it, the professor just blasts him. They call it Kidman, yeah. So I guess you answer the objections, right? I'm praying. I'm praying. The second should be said that fruition does not imply the ordering of something to something as intention does, but an absolute what? Rest in the end. That's more appropriate for the animal, right? Rest in the nice, warm place under the stove here. To the third, it should be said that brute animals are moved to an end, not, as it were, considering that through their emotion they're able to achieve the end, huh? Which is probably the one intending. But what? By concubiscence, huh? By desire. Desire by desire for a, what? End by natural instinct, right? They're moved to an end, as it were, moved by another. Just as other things which are moved, what? Naturally, huh? That's why the animals are kind of, you know, they're kind of, if they could figure out towards an end, they could, you know, pick up a book and start reading it and so on, you know? Try some other thing, you know, than just what they do all the time, right? I'm going to go to the Board of Trustees tonight, they're a trivium school there. They're ready. They're meeting at 7 o'clock, so I've got to take off a little bit earlier today. And, you know, I can take a fight up there. Get to Lancaster there. So you're, uh... So we're going away. I told Father Michael there before, but I get first arrived, but we're going down to visit the grandchildren, you know, all 17...