Treatise on Human Acts (part 1)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~67,600 words · 321 passages
Cite this work
- APAThomas Aquinas. (n.d.). Treatise on Human Acts (part 1). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/treatise-on-human-acts-part-1
- MLAThomas Aquinas. Treatise on Human Acts (part 1). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/treatise-on-human-acts-part-1.
- ChicagoThomas Aquinas. Treatise on Human Acts (part 1). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/treatise-on-human-acts-part-1.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The treatise on human acts: what makes an action voluntary, and what makes it good or bad.
Context and history
Here is the analysis of will, intention, choice and ignorance that founded Western action theory. The distinction between the object, the circumstances and the end of an act is still taught. A note on the edition: **this is a part of the Summa theologiae**, not an independent work. The title is the English editor's, who published the treatises separately. For citation, the Summa with its question and article number.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Reply Obj. 1: The involuntary is opposed to the voluntary. Now it has been said (A. 4) that not only the act, which proceeds immediately from the will, is called voluntary, but also the act commanded by the will. Consequently, as to the act which proceeds immediately from the will, violence cannot be done to the will, as stated above (A. 4): wherefore violence cannot make that act involuntary. But as to the commanded act, the will can suffer violence: and consequently in this respect violence causes involuntariness. Reply Obj. 2: As that is said to be natural, which is according to the inclination of nature; so that is said to be voluntary, which is according to the inclination of the will. Now a thing is said to be natural in two ways. First, because it is from nature as from an active principle: thus it is natural for fire to produce heat. Secondly, according to a passive principle; because, to wit, there is in nature an inclination to receive an action from an extrinsic principle: thus the movement of the heavens is said to be natural, by reason of the natural aptitude in a heavenly body to receive such movement; although the cause of that movement is a voluntary agent. In like manner an act is said to be voluntary in two ways. First, in regard to action, for instance, when one wishes to be passive to another. Hence when action is brought to bear on something, by an extrinsic agent, as long as the will to suffer that action remains in the passive subject, there is not violence simply: for although the patient does nothing by way of action, he does something by being willing to suffer. Consequently this cannot be called involuntary.