Here in the present post, I continue my earlier discussion on Anselm' account of sin, and free will, as he expounds on the topic in his dialogue On the Fall of the Devil or, in the Latin, De Casu Diaboli (DCD). As I mentioned in the first post, my continuation of the topic would span over at least one more post, going as far as three. My plan, so I decided, is to do the latter; here, I briefly engage a rival interpretation to the two inclinations reading of DCD, that of Anselm scholar Katherine Rogers, in her monograph Anselm and Freedom, which I would recommend for someone wanting to do further reading on the topic. In my final post, I will apply some final touches to my reading of Anselm, pose an objection against him, and see how well his view can handle it.
As I read Anselm's two wills, one might recall, I recommended that one should interpret them in the sense of the rational mind possessing two wills in the sense of inclinations: an inclination to happiness and an inclination to justice. (For more detail on my reading, see my earlier post, Anselm on Sin and Free Will.) But there is a fairly recent alternative reading to the one I proposed. As this reading goes, one should not view the will for justice (note: not rectitude) as the combination of two inclinations, which, when brought into harmony, permit a rational creature to choose justice on its own initiative. One should rather view it as a second order faculty of
the will by which a rational being evaluates its first order desires and
determines which of those first order desires it wishes to act on. For example,
a long time cigarette smoker will have a strong first order desire to smoke, a
desire that has become engrained from years of habit. It is also possible that,
in the intervening time since he began smoking, the smoker has also developed a
strong desire to stop smoking; in this case, he will have a second first order
desire to not smoke that conflicts with his first order desire to smoke. Now,
with respect to these two first order desires, the smoker also has a second
order desire by which he chooses to identify with one of the two first order
desires such that the first order desire that is the object of his second order
desire, i.e., the one he selects, obtains.[1]
On this reading, there are not two mutually exclusive dispositions of willing
advantage and willing justice, as I have suggested, but rather a number of
competing first order desires, from which a person's dominant second-order
desire decides which of the competing desires will prevail.
I find it doubtful whether Anselm intends his two wills
distinction to be understood in this way, but one important reason for discussing it is that it features prominently in Katherine Rogers's recent
monograph-length study of Anselm's views on free will.[2] Here,
for the sake of brevity, I will focus only on what I regard as the strongest
reason for not adopting Rogers's interpretation: which is, it is difficult to
see how one can make sense of Anselm's proposed thought experiments, in which
God creates an angel with, respectively, only the will for happiness and the
will for rectitude, in light of it. Now, with respect to reading Rogers's proposal in light
of Anselm's first thought experiment, Rogers's suggestion is to interpret Anselm as saying
that God creates the angel with only the desire or will for happiness, i.e., without
the second order desire for justice.
But this introduces a complication; for, given Anselm's stipulation that all things naturally will what is beneficial, irrational animals will, like their rational created counterparts, desire only what is to their advantage. For, if only the will for happiness can (possibly) exist in rational creatures, what reason is there that it should (possibly) only exist in irrational animals as well? Moreover, if justice is simply a second-order will which simply decides which one of one's first-order wills will prevail, why shouldn't rational creatures and irrational creatures share at least some first-order desires? And if they share some first-order desires, it seems they would share, among other things, the desire for happiness, especially given the broad scope Anselm has assigned to it.
But this introduces a complication; for, given Anselm's stipulation that all things naturally will what is beneficial, irrational animals will, like their rational created counterparts, desire only what is to their advantage. For, if only the will for happiness can (possibly) exist in rational creatures, what reason is there that it should (possibly) only exist in irrational animals as well? Moreover, if justice is simply a second-order will which simply decides which one of one's first-order wills will prevail, why shouldn't rational creatures and irrational creatures share at least some first-order desires? And if they share some first-order desires, it seems they would share, among other things, the desire for happiness, especially given the broad scope Anselm has assigned to it.
But, unlike rational creatures, irrational animals tend not to will (in the sense of the will for happiness or advantage) goods in excess of what they immediately need. Since the desire for advantage and the desire for happiness are
the same, moreover, it would simply not be possible for them not to will what is to
their advantage. Moreover, animals, also unlike rational creatures, assuming the
first scenario obtains, also clearly will many things that are not obviously
to their advantage; for example, a mother lion will (often) die defending her
cubs. The natural response Rogers might offer is to say that this is only because, given her
available knowledge and information, saving her cubs seems to the mother
lion the best thing to do, insofar as her personal advantage is
concerned. Now, this response seems adequate so far as Rogers's interpretation
of Anselm's will for happiness is concerned.
The problem is that if Rogers takes this proposed
interpretation, she cannot also say that the second thought experiment gives an accurate
representation of an irrational creature's will (and by extension a rational creature's, since the point of the second-thought experiment is that, without the capacity for justice, rational animals would be exactly like irrational one's insofar as they could not will goods beyond what is proper to their nature), and this would contradict the
view she actually gives.[3] So,
she must abandon either (a) her actual reading of the second thought experiment or (b) the
suggested reading of the first thought experiment that I have provided.
On the second thought experiment, Rogers says that what Anselm means in saying that God only gives the angel the will for justice is simply that God gives it only the will for rectitude. (Here, I take her to mean that God simply gives creatures a will that always aims for the goods appropriate to a creature of its kind.) Now, if she takes (a), she is in the same difficulty as before. However, if she takes (b), she must give an explanation for the first thought experiment for what makes irrational animals different from rational creatures given that the latter always will what is beneficial for them, even beyond what is appropriate for their nature, and the other (irrational creatures) will only what is appropriate for them. One such plausible suggestion is that rational creatures have reason and irrational creatures do not. But, if Rogers gives this response, it will cause difficulties for her explanation of the second thought experiment. Here, Rogers will have to say that neither humans nor animals can exceed the "limits" of their nature, but she cannot use the reply that humans have reason and animals do not to ground the difference between them. The only other serious alternative she has, it seems to me, is to suggest that, in the second case, God implants a will in rational creatures distinct from the will he implants in them in the first case, and this will leads rational creatures to will always what is right.
On the second thought experiment, Rogers says that what Anselm means in saying that God only gives the angel the will for justice is simply that God gives it only the will for rectitude. (Here, I take her to mean that God simply gives creatures a will that always aims for the goods appropriate to a creature of its kind.) Now, if she takes (a), she is in the same difficulty as before. However, if she takes (b), she must give an explanation for the first thought experiment for what makes irrational animals different from rational creatures given that the latter always will what is beneficial for them, even beyond what is appropriate for their nature, and the other (irrational creatures) will only what is appropriate for them. One such plausible suggestion is that rational creatures have reason and irrational creatures do not. But, if Rogers gives this response, it will cause difficulties for her explanation of the second thought experiment. Here, Rogers will have to say that neither humans nor animals can exceed the "limits" of their nature, but she cannot use the reply that humans have reason and animals do not to ground the difference between them. The only other serious alternative she has, it seems to me, is to suggest that, in the second case, God implants a will in rational creatures distinct from the will he implants in them in the first case, and this will leads rational creatures to will always what is right.
But this second alternative is something pretty different, it seems, from
simply giving rational creatures the desire for rectitude. First, it suggests
that there is a will, i.e., the will for happiness, that rational creatures naturally have (in the sense that this is the "default" will for a creature of this kind to have; the will it has without any modification to its will from God). For, in the first scenario but not in the second, God
simply refrained from giving this (new or second not-natural) will to them, whereas, in the second scenario, God
either (c) removes the will that exists in the first case and replaces it with
a new will or (d) he simply gives a new one that "overrides" the old
one. (Moreover, why would the "natural" human will differ so much from the
natural animal will -- so much so that it needs a replacement? Again, that humans have reason is not a satisfactory answer, because it does not adequately explain the second thought experiment. And this also
creates the same difficulty as earlier insofar as Rogers will have problems
giving an account that explains both scenarios adequately.) Second, it raises
the question why God, in the second case, has to add a qualitatively distinct
will, i.e., one that is something other than his simply taking away a creature's will like in the first scenario, from the one he gives them in the first case?
In this connection, one should also note that this qualitatively distinctive will bears a strong resemblance to the disposition of justice that I have been advocating. Like the will for rectitude on my reading, it will necessarily be such that it always wills what is appropriate for a creature of this sort to will. But in this case, one can just say in the first scenario that the rational creature merely lacks the will for rectitude. And if this is conceded, there is no good reason why one should not hold that, in the second scenario, the angel wills rectitude necessarily because it only has the will for rectitude. Thus, I conclude, Rogers's solution is explanatorily adequate to this portion of the textual data (i.e., Anselm's thought experiments) only if she tacitly assumes that there are three dispositions of the will, one for happiness or advantage and two for justice. But in this case, why introduce a second disposition for justice when it has not been shown that the disposition one has (already) tacitly assumed is inadequate? And why posit two dispositions of the same sort instead of just one?
In this connection, one should also note that this qualitatively distinctive will bears a strong resemblance to the disposition of justice that I have been advocating. Like the will for rectitude on my reading, it will necessarily be such that it always wills what is appropriate for a creature of this sort to will. But in this case, one can just say in the first scenario that the rational creature merely lacks the will for rectitude. And if this is conceded, there is no good reason why one should not hold that, in the second scenario, the angel wills rectitude necessarily because it only has the will for rectitude. Thus, I conclude, Rogers's solution is explanatorily adequate to this portion of the textual data (i.e., Anselm's thought experiments) only if she tacitly assumes that there are three dispositions of the will, one for happiness or advantage and two for justice. But in this case, why introduce a second disposition for justice when it has not been shown that the disposition one has (already) tacitly assumed is inadequate? And why posit two dispositions of the same sort instead of just one?
[1] It is at least possible to
construe the examples such that the subject in question has more than one
second order desires, but, for the sake of simplicity, I will restrict the
example and assume that there is only one such desire.
[2] Katherine A. Rogers, Anselm on Freedom. (USA: Oxford
University Press, 2008).
[3] Rogers, 67.
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