Whether Choice Is an Act of Will or of Reason?
Objection 1: It would seem that choice is an act, not of will but of
reason. For choice implies comparison, whereby one is given preference
to another. But to compare is an act of reason. Therefore choice is an
act of reason.
Obj. 2: Further, it is for the same faculty to form a syllogism, and
to draw the conclusion. But, in practical matters, it is the reason
that forms syllogisms. Since therefore choice is a kind of conclusion
in practical matters, as stated in _Ethic._ vii, 3, it seems that it
is an act of reason.
Obj. 3: Further, ignorance does not belong to the will but to the
cognitive power. Now there is an "ignorance of choice," as is stated
in _Ethic._ iii, 1. Therefore it seems that choice does not belong to
the will but to the reason.
_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 3) that choice
is "the desire of things in our power." But desire is an act of will.
Therefore choice is too.
_I answer that,_ The word choice implies something belonging to the
reason or intellect, and something belonging to the will: for the
Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 2) that choice is either "intellect
influenced by appetite or appetite influenced by intellect." Now
whenever two things concur to make one, one of them is formal in
regard to the other. Hence Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom.
xxxiii.] says that choice "is neither desire only, nor counsel only,
but a combination of the two. For just as we say that an animal is
composed of soul and body, and that it is neither a mere body, nor a
mere soul, but both; so is it with choice."
Now we must observe, as regards the acts of the soul, that an act
belonging essentially to some power or habit, receives a form or
species from a higher power or habit, according as an inferior is
ordained by a superior: for if a man were to perform an act of
fortitude for the love of God, that act is materially an act of
fortitude, but formally, an act of charity. Now it is evident that, in
a sense, reason precedes the will and ordains its act: in so far as
the will tends to its object, according to the order of reason, since
the apprehensive power presents the object to the appetite.
Accordingly, that act whereby the will tends to something proposed to
it as being good, through being ordained to the end by the reason, is
materially an act of the will, but formally an act of the reason. Now
in such like matters the substance of the act is as the matter in
comparison to the order imposed by the higher power. Wherefore choice
is substantially not an act of the reason but of the will: for choice
is accomplished in a certain movement of the soul towards the good
which is chosen. Consequently it is evidently an act of the appetitive
power.
Reply Obj. 1: Choice implies a previous comparison; not that it
consists in the comparison itself.
Reply Obj. 2: It is quite true that it is for the reason to draw the
conclusion of a practical syllogism; and it is called "a decision" or
"judgment," to be followed by "choice." And for this reason the
conclusion seems to belong to the act of choice, as to that which
results from it.
Reply Obj. 3: In speaking "of ignorance of choice," we do not mean
that choice is a sort of knowledge, but that there is ignorance of
what ought to be chosen.
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