SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS THEORY OF ACTION: THE PROBLEM OF VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY AND THE QUESTION OF MIXED ACTIONS

Abstract

This article has as its aim to research on the Thomistic concepts of voluntary (voluntarium), involuntary (involuntarium) and mixed actions, with the purpose of putting into question the debate around this last category of actions. Building up the definitions of being voluntary or involuntary, Saint Thomas Aquinas works on the Aristotelian definitions adding the aspect of existing a will oriented by reason, keeping an intellectualist background in the actions. For Aquinas, in order that an action be voluntary many causes come together, although the will must be its principle. On the contrary, there is the concept of being involuntary, that is defined just by those acts done by ignorance or violence (physical coercion). Here it is possible to realize the difference between both definitions, which will become more visible when we elaborate the Thomistic understanding around the mixed actions. The mixed actions put together aspects of the voluntary and involuntary ones in one action, which can be characterized more as voluntary if the will is taken as the principle of the human acting. Nonetheless, as we will show, Thomas Aquinas works with two concepts of mixed actions, one in his Commentary to the Nicomachean Ethics, and the other in his Summa Theologiae. Therefore, we will take as primary bibliography the Thomistic works and, as an interpretative support, the most recent works by the experts.