Medieval thinkers rarely employed the term ‘‘weakness of will’’ (infirmitas voluntatis or its cognates). Yet the phenomenon of intentionally acting against one’s better judgment or against one’s resolve, which in contemporary philosophy is called ‘‘weakness of will’’, was the object of lively discussion. Historically, the mid-thirteenth century is a watershed for treatments of weakness of will, for only in 1246/1247 was Aristotle’s discussion of akrasia translated into Latin. The term akrasia was translated as incontinentia (incontinence). Prior to the reception of Aristotle, weakness of will was mainly discussed under two headings: acting against one’s conscience and sinning from weakness.
Earlier medieval thinkers tended to explain weakness of will as a volitional rather than a cognitive deficiency. For Anselm of Canterbury, the weak-willed abandon their initial desire for the upright action: in other words, they did not persistently will (pervelle) what they initially intended. Yet such weakness of will is not due to intellectual failure or impulsive passions, but rather due to a defective and voluntary act of the will. Peter Abelard distinguishes two kinds of weakness of will: on the one hand, the free consent to follow sensory desires rather than the rational will, so that one does not will what one judges best; on the other hand, the abandonment of one’s initial will, so that one does not do what one had intended to do. Bernard of Clairvaux envisages a cognitive dimension in what he explicitly calls ‘‘weakness of will’’ (infirmitas voluntatis). The weak-willed are self-deceived about their order of preferences. While they think they want to avoid sinning, they actually prefer sinning to enduring that which an upright decision would entail. Yet even Bernard explains the failure of the weak-willed in terms of a volitional rather than a cognitive defect (for Anselm, Abelard, and Bernard, see the chapters by Bernd Goebel, Jorn Miiller, and Christian Trottmann in Hoffmann et al 2006; see also Muller 2009:381-495).
Albert the Great is the first Latin author to comment on Aristotle’s treatment of akrasia. Aristotle, sharing the Socratic presupposition that one cannot do evil in full awareness that the action is evil, was more concerned with explaining how akrasia is possible than with its voluntary character. He argues that because of vehement passions, the incontinent fail to apply their general, habitual moral knowledge to the particular situation they are in (Nicomachean Ethics 7.3). Albert and later Christian authors, by contrast, are more concerned with showing that the incontinent freely choose to act incontinently and are fully responsible for their action. According to Aristotle, choice is the result of practical deliberation. Thus, failure to act according to one’s better knowledge means acting against one’s choice. Hence the incontinent do not act from choice. In the Augustinian tradition, of which Albert is an heir, choice may or may not conform with practical reason. Albert explains the phenomenon of akrasia in Aristotelian terms: the incontinent act contrary to their choice, because due to the onslaught of passions, they are momentarily unaware that their particular action conflicts with their general moral beliefs. Yet Albert explains the incontinents’ cognitive failure in Augustinian terms: by their own free will, they allowed themselves to be unaware that their action is not choiceworthy (Saarinen 1994:100-118).
Thomas Aquinas, who was influenced by Albert, and Henry of Ghent, who wrote in the two decades after Aquinas’ death, provide the most elaborate contributions to the medieval debate on weakness of will. They represent two opposite tendencies in discussing weakness of will, owing to their fundamentally different views on the will’s relation to the intellect. For Aquinas, the will’s desires and choices are strictly proportional to the practical judgments of what is worth desiring or choosing. Accordingly, he does not admit ‘‘clear-eyed’’ or “synchronic weakness of will’’: that is, like Aristotle, he denies that at the moment of weak-willed action, the person actually acknowledged the better judgment that he or she generally holds. According to Aquinas, even malice - that is, deliberate evildoing - involves ignorance at some level. This conscious pursuit of
Evil implies “ignorance of choice’’ (ignorantia electionis), which is an ignorance of the fact that whatever good one might expect from the act, this evil act is not to be done (read: it is opposed to true happiness) (Summa theologiae 1a2ae q. 78 a. 1 ad 1 and a. 4 ad 1). Malice characterizes the intemperate, who wrongly consider self-indulgence to be choiceworthy. In contrast, the incontinent correctly believe that self-indulgence should not be pursued. They act incontinently, however, because their vehement passions distract them from dwelling on their moral convictions, drawing their attention toward considerations that speak in favor of the desired act. When tempted, someone who normally admits that adultery is to be avoided is temporarily dominated by the thought that immediate pleasure is worth pursuing. Thus, incontinence is like momentary intemperance. When the passions calm down, the incontinent tend to regret the act, whereas the intemperate, whose disposition is stable, see nothing bad in their action. Aquinas maintains the parallelism of intellect and will in incontinence; in his view, incontinence involves not the refusal of the will to follow a correct practical judgment, but rather a momentarily mistaken practical judgment on the part of the intellect, which presents the action as choiceworthy. Nevertheless, the will is also at fault, because it failed to counteract the effect ofthe passions by directing the attention of reason away from temptation. Like Albert, Thomas blames the incontinent for their momentary lack of acknowledgment that their action is sinful. It is only because of this voluntary cognitive failure that they can act contrary to their better judgment (for concise accounts, see Kent 1989; Bradley 2008; as well as Muller 2005, 2009:512-547).
Henry of Ghent reverses Aquinas’ explanation. Rather than holding that incontinent action presupposes ignorance or unawareness of what is best to do here and now, Henry argues that ignorance follows upon incontinent action. For Henry, the possibility of synchronic weakness of will; is inherent to the will, whether or not passions are involved. But normally, passionate desires have a part in weakness of will; that is, typically, weakness of will takes the form of incontinence. Yet for Henry, the passions or the cognitive deficiency they might cause do not by themselves entail the corruption of the will. The passions that assail the incontinent cause the will to delight in them, and if the will freely consents to the object of delight, it pursues the incontinent action and causes reason erroneously to judge it as good. Over time, repeated evil choices destroy practical knowledge entirely: someone who initially thought that theft is bad comes to think that it is good. Thus, an evil will corrupts reason, rather than vice versa (Hoffmann 2008; Muller 2009:569-617).
While Duns Scotus repeatedly defends the possibility of acting contrary to one’s practical judgment, he shows little interest in the Aristotelian notion of incontinence as passionate weakness of will, as in fact he is generally not very interested in the role of the passions in human agency. He agrees with Henry that the will can depart from reason. But he rejects Henry’s view that an evil will can corrupt the judgment of practical reason, for the activity of practical reason is ultimately rooted in selfevident practical principles. Rather than corrupting reason, the will can either turn it away from a correct practical consideration, or it can command it to find the means to an evil end (see the chapter by Timothy Noone in Hoffmann et al 2006; Muller 2009:636-672). William of Ockham follows Duns Scotus on this point.
These theories leave us in a dilemma. If one considers the will to be capable of willing contrary to practical reason, as the voluntarists do, it is hard to see why someone would will to act contrary to what he or she has subjectively judged to be best (e. g., pursuing pleasure if abstinence is judged best, or avoiding pleasure if selfindulgence is judged best). On the other hand, if one asserts that the will must act in conformity with practical reason, as the intellectualists do, it seems that moral failure has to be traced to cognitive failure, and it appears implausible to fault a person for such failure. In order to avoid both alternatives, John Buridan denies that the will’s desire or choice can be contrary to an unambiguous judgment of reason, but he grants that when the judgment is uncertain, the will can abstain from willing, postponing its decision until the ambiguity is resolved. For Buridan, weakness of will presupposes weak practical judgments, allowing the will to be divided between following what is pleasurable and avoiding what is immoral (Saarinen 1994:166-187).
See also: > Albert the Great > Bernard of Clairvaux > Emotions > Henry of Ghent > John Buridan > Parisian Condemnation of 1277 > Peter Abelard > Thomas Aquinas > Virtue and Vice > Voluntarism and Intellectu-alism > Will > William of Ockham
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