VOLUNTARISM

From the Latin voluntas, meaning will, "voluntarism" is used in two senses in philosophy and theology. For scholastics, the term is applied to any theory that gives prominence to will as opposed to intellect; whereas among modern thinkers, the term designates any theory that explains the universe as emanating ultimately from Will itself. In the former sense, the philosophies of St. augustine, St. anselm of canterbury, william of ockham, and John duns scotus may be styled voluntarist. Among the moderns, the principal voluntarists include Blaise pascal, Immanuel kant, and Arthur schopenhauer.

Patristic and Medieval Voluntarism. Christian thinkers of the patristic and medieval period are usually classified as voluntarists, not because they grant an exclusive primacy to will, since God is also Truth, but because they approach existential truth by a subjective involvement, by choices based upon love.

Augustinian Theory. The philosophy of St. Augustine, for example, is characterized by a burning search for the beatifying Good. For him, the spirit can rest in a saturating joy only if it is free from all doubt and uncertainty. While admitting that the mind attains unchanging and necessary truths, St. Augustine inquires how it would perceive these truths if it were not illumined by God. He holds that, in the order of means, knowledge seems to be first, but its function is only mediative; in the order of the end or perfection, love is primordial. Man does not have to acknowledge the truth passively; such a truth does not beatify; it must be desired, willed, and loved. God is more than an idea, He is a presence; He is more than an imposing need, He is an attracting and exalting love. "God is charity."

Yet nowhere does Augustine subordinate intellect to will. The Neoplatonism that underlies the whole of his philosophical speculation makes such an attitude impossible. Although his doctrine of grace and of providence supposes a definite and characteristic psychology of will, in the metaphysical order Augustine always conceives God as essentially intelligence. God is the "Father of Truth." On this is based a proof of God's existence that occurs several times in his works and is peculiarly Augustinian in tone (Div. daem. 53.2 [Patrologia Latina, ed.J. P. Migne, 271 v., indexes 4 v. (Paris 1878–90) 40:35]; Lib. arb. 2.7–33 [Patrologia Latina 32:1243–63]). God is "the sun of the soul," Himself performing the functions that scholastics ascribed to the intellectus agens (Gen. ad litt. 12.31.59 [Patrologia Latina 34:479]). Faith, too, with St. Augustine as with St. Anselm, involves intelligence. For both, the principle intelligo ut credam is no less true than the principle credo ut intelligam (In psalm. 118.18.3 [Patrologia Latina 37:1552]; Serm. 43.7.9 [Patrologia Latina 38:258]).

Scotus's Voluntarism. The philosophy of John Duns Scotus is more distinctly voluntaristic. On the freedom of the will he is particularly clear and emphatic. He insists that the will itself, and nothing but the will, is the total cause of its volitions. It is not determined by another, but determines itself contingenter, not inevitabiliter, to one of the alternatives that are before it (In 2 sent. 25). This is freedom, an attribute that is essential to all higher forms of will, and consequently is not suspended or annulled in the beatific vision (In 4 sent. 49.4). Because the will holds sway over all other faculties, and again because to it pertains that charity which is the greatest of the virtues, will is a more noble attribute of man than is intelligence. Will supposes intelligence, but the former is posterior generatione, and it is therefore the more perfect (In 4 sent. 49.4).

Modern Theories of Will. Among modern philosophers for whom voluntarism is basic, the general attempt is to approach being, not through thought and necessity, but through will and freedom.

Pascal's Voluntarism. In the 17th century, the voluntaristic Christianity of Blaise Pascal was set in opposition to the rationalistic humanism of René descartes. According to Pascal, the mathematical method is not the only method permitting one to attain the truth; he therefore draws a sharp distinction between the spirit of geometry and the spirit of refinement. The heart has reasons that reason does not know; the heart, rather than reason, experiences God.

For Pascal, if man is to attain belief in God, he must arouse his desire, eliminate the obstacles, and jolt himself from his torpor. The desire for happiness haunts and disturbs man's heart. God is vastly desirable and infinitely lovable; it is tragic not to seek Him.

Kant's Theory. The voluntarism of Immanuel Kant arises from the fact that he perceives only the structural element of intellectual knowledge, without its existential aspect. He explains knowledge by the determinism of the datum and the forms of sensitivity, the categories of the spirit and pure apperception, the term of which is a purely ideal Absolute. From his analysis of knowledge, he concludes that, since understanding has no intuition proper to it, metaphysics lacks ontological import.

Yet one more easily renounces the truth than the good. Despite his agnosticism, Kant seeks, at any price, to maintain the absolute value of the moral act. For this purpose, he separates this act from God, since the mind cannot know His existence with certitude, as well as from interest and sentiment, which would make this value relative. The moral precept is categorical and universal (see categorical imperative). One must perform one's duty, not because it is pleasing or interesting, or because one seeks to attain God, but only because it is a duty. Since the law obliges absolutely, and no one is held to the impossible, Kant concludes that human freedom is apodictically certain.

The ethical formalism of Kantian morality results from a dualism that separates the will from the instincts, goodness from truth, and man from God. This is a nonexistent formalism, since, if the will must take account of universal precepts, it should also be concrete, under the penalty of being whimsical and unreal. It is an idolatrous formalism, since this law must be adored although it arises from human subjectivity and does not beatify. Kant's moralism tolls the knell of morality.

Schopenhauer's Quietism. Arthur Schopenhauer, a disciple of Kant, adopted Kantian agnosticism and accentuated it. Nevertheless, although Kant held that noumena were unknowable, he did not want to eliminate them. How can one explain the presence of noumena in consciousness other than by a faculty concerned with the absolute? According to Schopenhauer, this faculty of the absolute constituting the substance of being is the will. The will is the only substance, the ultimate reality, the sole, indestructible producer of existence. Yet, in man, the will, which is one, infinite, and unchangeable in itself, is individualized and limited by its relation with the body, and misled by knowledge, which deceives it by empty delusions. Because of this fact, man's will-to-live, which is temporal, is illusory, impotent, and forever doomed to misfortune. How can man be freed from misfortune? The philosopher or sage has intuition about the worthlessness of the will-to-live; he is healed from illusion; freed from desire and fear, need and regret. Renouncing the principle of individuation, he identifies himself with that impersonal and cosmic will which constitutes Being. quietism, a radical will ostracizing the world and annihilating the self, is the supreme wisdom. This is a curious metaphysics, since, having exalted the will and isolated knowledge, it states that the will is basically impotent and constrains it not to will any more and to undergo an impersonal Destiny.

Nietzsche and the Will. Schopenhauer said that the will is the substance of being; in order to be, he renounced existence. According to Nietzsche, the mischievous phantasmagoria of the noumena must be renounced; the only existents are the phenomena, the free acts of the will. The act of the will is absolute in itself, not ordered to something beyond it, whether it is a matter of the values claimed by the moralists, the paradise of the Christians, the nirvana of the Buddhists, or the happiness dreamed by Schopenhauer. One must forget to act "for," "for the sake of," or "because." These expressions are sacrilegious, since they divest the will of what belongs to it and make it dependent, whereas it is absolutely good in itself. Centuries of logic, morality, and religion have debased the will, which, of itself, is free and sovereign. There are those who have spoken of necessary truths, necessary laws, absolute certainties, and religious duties. Man subjected himself to these false teachers and became corrupt. He must become free from this subjection. Morality is a crutch for the crippled, religion a hospice for the sick. Superman emancipates himself by an act of revolt, he seeks the death of God. Being completely free, he feels joyful in this act of complete emancipation. This, however, is a purely formal, fictitious, and nonexistent freedom, since, for Nietzsche as for Schopenhauer, the will, lacking all power of accomplishment, remains impotent and is imprisoned in the immutable cycle of the eternal return.

Pragmatism and Value Philosophies. Although voluntaristic, other modern philosophies such as pragmatism and the many philosophies of value are not so negative. William james, basically an empiricist, reacts against positive scientism. One thinks, not for the pleasure of thinking, but to live. Whether scientific or philosophical, every thought arises from a need and corresponds to an interest. Every judgment, then, is an act of faith. A true judgment is specified and determined, not by the nature of the object, but by the finality of the subject. Its criterion, then, is subjective. Thereby James justifies belief in freedom, assuring more than one value for man's action, and belief in God, provided that God gives him help and thereby strengthens him.

The point of departure for Kantian morality is the categorical and universal imperative, which is the source of the identical character in the moral duties imposed upon all men. The point of departure for contemporary moralities is not an a priori reality, namely, law, but the subject who desires, wills, projects, who is situated in such a milieu at such a time, who uses such a resource or suffers such a weakness. Each person's duty must be defined, and the ideal line of his progress must be traced, from the aspect of this concrete situation. Duty is defined, not only by the moral law, but even more so by vocation, that is, the singular call resounding in each conscience and simultaneously taking account of its effective reality and the universal values inciting this call.

For Kant, the aim of the will is the law; for the pragmatist, the will is finalized by values. A value is what is desirable, what makes a thing good, a principle of existentiality. Values are surely multiple: economic and spiritual values, esthetic and moral values, profane and religious values. Is a subordination among these possible? Some place them in a hierarchical order, since some values are relative, others absolute; some are hypothetical, others unconditional. There is an a priori order of the heart as well as an a priori order of reason. At the top of all these values there appears the Value par excellence, a living God, who actualizes and infinitely prolongs human activity. Very often this God is no longer the God of philosophers, but the God of Christians.

Critique. In opposition to the determinism of the intellectualism philosophers, modern voluntarists overemphasize the fact of freedom and analyze it as something intrinsically constituting being. On the basis that man's conduct is not predetermined like that of the animal, they go to the extreme position of holding that man should make himself exist, that, to exist and make the world exist, man must recognize self-imposing subjective attitidues. The pitfalls of intellectualism and voluntarism seem to be present throughout the history of human thought. As two extreme philosophical attitudes, they are oversimplified attempts to arrive at the truth, as well as oversimplified means of combating patent error.

See Also: existentialism; intellectualism; irrationalism; will.

Bibliography: h. j. marrou and a. m. la bonnardiÈre, S. Augustin et l'Augustinisme (Paris 1955). j. laporte, Le Coeur et la raison d'après Pascal (Paris 1950). e. boutroux, La Philosophie de Kant (Paris 1926). j. wahl, Études Kierkegaardiennes (Paris 1938). f. copleston, Arthur Schopenhauer (London 1946). w. a. kaufmann, Nietzsche (Princeton 1950). j. royce, William James and Other Essays (New York 1911). p. ortegat, Religion et Intuition, 2 v. (Gembloux 1948). r. eisler, Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe, 3 v. (4th ed. Berlin 1927–30) 3:429–435. a. colombo, Enciclopedia filosofica, 4 v. (Venice-Rome 1957) 4:1691–94. a. michel, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) 15.2:3301–22.

[p. ortegat/

l. j. walker]