St. Anselm on Sin and Free Will: Part 3

                 Here is the final post in my series of posts on Anselm on sin and free will. For some background from my earlier posts on the topic, see here: 

Part 1 1: http://ffsdffsd.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/st-anselm-on-sin-and-free-will-justice.html

Part 2: http://ffsdffsd.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/anselm-on-sin-and-free-will-part-2.html. 
In the present post, as promised, I complete my discussion of Anselm's two wills insofar as I offer an account of how he might integrate the two and explain how the active cooperation between the wills allows for the possibility of a creature's sinning. I then sketch an objection to Anselm's proposed account. Following this, I see if Anselm has the conceptual resources to mount a successful defense against the objection. 

                 Having concluded that neither of the two wills by itself is sufficient for holding the angel culpable for his actions, Anselm moves to argue that

... if [the angel] neither can nor ought to be happy if he does not will and if his will is not morally good, God must harmonize the two wills in him such that he wills to be happy but wills it justly.[1]

The two wills, in other words, must be combined such that do not impede the essential orientation of the other. So the wills must be integrated, Anselm suggests, in the following way:

Thus, when the moral good is present, his will to be happy is modified so as to eliminate going beyond, without destroying his capacity to go beyond. That is, although by willing to be happy he can surpass the measure, because his will is good he does not want to surpass it, and in this way, having a just will for happiness, he can be and ought to be happy.[2]

There is a certain mean that is determinative of the goods proper to the nature of a rational creature of a specific kind, and, so long as the creature's will does not exceed this mean, it both satisfies the requirements necessary for justice and it is happy to remain in its current state, though it has the capacity to exceed this state if it so chooses.

            Now, given the dispositional account of Anselm's two wills that I have endorsed, how might one interpret Anselm's talk of "surpassing the measure" of justice and remaining "satisfied" with its present attachment to justice? Perhaps the right way to read Anselm is to say that the two dispositions are at variance any time they are directed at distinct objects and in proper harmony or proportion when the objects they desire match up. So, one might imagine that there is a certain person with two wills, inclination X and inclination Y, and there are, in addition, two potential objects of volition A and B. Following this suggestion, one can say that the two wills are at variance any time that X wills A and Y wills B. Conversely, one might say that the two wills are in harmony when X wills A and Y wills A. And if one of the two wills is the disposition for justice, one of the two wills, one can say, is always directed at the same object. So, assuming that Y is the disposition for justice, and B is the object proper for that disposition, Y will always be directed at B.[3]

            I would hesitate to say that this way of representing Anselm's account as the only such account one can give, assuming that the dispositional reading I have given is Anselm's account is right, but it does seem like a coherent way of reading him. Now that such a reading of his account is in place, moreover, one can return to the question posed at the beginning of the essay. The question, one might recall, was whether Anselm's account is sufficient for explaining whether, if God chooses to give an angel the gift of perseverance, and the angel chooses not to receive it, the angel is to blame for its refusing to accept God's gift.

            So, taking my sketch from the last paragraph, one might say that an angel has two wills, a will for rectitude and a will for happiness, and the angel is given two choices. The angel can choose an object X such that choosing X makes the angel happy or the angel can choose an object Y such that choosing Y makes the angel less happy than choosing X but still happy overall. To introduce the necessary complications, one might further stipulate that God commands the angel to choose Y. Now, since the will for rectitude is always directed at choosing rightly, the angel's will for rectitude will be invariably directed at Y. When God creates the angel, since God is perfectly good, God creates the angel's will for happiness in such a state that it is already directed at willing justice, i.e., when it is created it wills Y. As Anselm has said,[4] the angel wills justice and is satisfied or happy in its willing justice, but it still has the power to will to abandon justice, i.e., will X, if it so chooses.  

            However, Anselm's proposal seems to invite an objection. According to what Anselm has said, one can construe his account in the following way: the angel wills justice insofar as it wills happiness in the right proportion, i.e., it wills rectitude because it wills happiness in the right proportion. But it also seems perfectly legitimate to say that the angel wills happiness in the right proportion by willing justice, i.e., it wills happiness in the right proportion because it wills rectitude. But it cannot be both that the angel wills justice because its will for rectitude wills happiness in the right proportion and it wills justice because it wills happiness in the right proportion because it wills rectitude. That would leave the order of explanation between the operations of the will circular. But what principled reason could one have for choosing one option for the order of explanation over another?

Response to the Objection

            One ready response would be to point out that if the model for understanding Anselm's account that I have proposed is correct, there is no need to worry about the possibility of the order of explanation for the will's operation being circular. The reason is that, as I have stipulated, an angel's disposition or inclination for rectitude is such that it is always directed at that which it is appropriate for a creature of its kind to will. Given this stipulation, it will always be true that when a creature wills justly, it wills justly because its will for happiness wills rightly, i.e., with rectitude. That is, since, in each situation in which the two wills can diverge, the angel's will for rectitude is always fixed, mutatis mutandis, on the same object, the only will that can possibly will something besides rectitude is the will for happiness.

            Accepting this solution, however, would require one to accept my interpretation of Anselm's account, and, as I have said, I do not wish to rule out other possible interpretations in an a priori manner. So, with this in mind, one might point out that the materials for a second possible solution to the objection can be found in an earlier part of DCD.  In particular, if one turns to chapter three, one can see that Anselm is attacking the idea that the will to retain a specific good is not always prior to the will to abandon it. The point of his attack is to argue that a fallen angel's (in this case, the Devil's) refusal to accept the gift of perseverance does not necessarily come after its willing not to retain it.[5]

T. He freely abandons the will he had and, just as he accepted having it as long as he had it, so he was able to accept the hanging on to what he abandoned and because he abandoned it he does not accept it. Therefore his not accepting to hang on to what he abandoned is not because God did not give it, but God did not give it because he did not accept it.

S. But is it not clear that he does not will to keep it because he abandoned it, but he abandons it because he does not want to keep it? When something is had, not wanting to keep it precedes abandoning it, and one wills to let something go because he does not want to keep it.[6]

From this and from a larger block quote from Teacher in which Anselm spells out the distinction in greater detail, via an illustrative example of a miser who wills to abandon money for the sake of food, and who thus wills to abandon money prior to his willing not to keep it, Anselm's argument may be reconstructed as follows. First, assume that there is an angel who acts in such a way as to choose happiness beyond the measure that he should. Now:

(1) If an angel acts in such a way as to choose happiness beyond the measure that he should, then he wills that he has happiness beyond the measure that he should.
(2) If he wills that he has happiness beyond the measure that he should, then he wills happiness over justice.
(3) If he wills happiness over justice, then he wills to abandon justice for happiness.
(4) If he wills to abandon justice for happiness, then he wills not to keep justice.
(5) If he wills not to keep justice only if he wills to abandon happiness over justice, then his willing to abandon justice precedes his willing not to keep it.
(6) Therefore, his willing to abandon justice precedes his willing not to keep it.

Now, the first issues of concern are the argument's validity and its truth. With respect to the first concern, the argument seems to me logically valid. As for the second, premise (1) seems obvious; if someone chooses to do an action p, then, necessarily, the person wills that p. Premises (4) - (6) seem to follow from this, moreover, is one grants premises (2) and (3).

            Premise (2) one might try to question, however, on the grounds that simply because one wills that one has happiness beyond the measure that one should, it might also be true that the person wills justice in an equal manner to his willing happiness. But this does not seem right; if one should (in the moral sense of ought) do p, it seems to follow that one acts justly if and only if one does p. But one can get by with a weaker claim that this; for all one needs is that if one should do p, it follows that one wills justly if and only if one wills that p; and this seems obvious. One might try a similar move with respect to premise (3) by claiming that just because one wills happiness over justice, one does not necessarily will to abandon justice over happiness because one might, in this case, will justice and happiness in equal measure. But, once more, this seems false; if one should (in, once more, the moral sense of ought) do p, it follows, necessarily, that one wills justly if and only if one wills that p. And if this is true, willing as one should will is a necessary condition of willing justly; and so it is not even so much as possible that one wills something that entails justice and something that entails not-justice at one and the same time. But once (2) and (3) are granted, I do not see any other (obvious) possibilities for challenging the argument.

            As one probably gathered from the argument itself, the point of introducing the argument was to secure the conclusion:  

(6) Therefore, his willing to abandon justice precedes his willing not to keep it.

For, if one grants (6), one concedes that, in the order of explanation, one can will not to keep some good x by means of one's choosing some other good y. And if this is the case, it follows that one can choose some other good y such that one's choosing y is the reason one chooses not to keep x. So, in other words, if one wills one's happiness such that one wills one's happiness in excess of what one should will, one's willing one's happiness in excess is the reason for or the cause of one's willing in excess of what one should will. And if willing happiness in excess of what one should will is unjust, it clearly follows that one's willing happiness in excess is the cause or reason for one's willing unjustly, which implies that the correct order of explanation is that the angel wills justly because it wills happiness as it should.

Conclusion

            The upshot of this last point is that Anselm has a ready response, irrespective, I think, of any particular interpretation of DCD to the objection that the two wills solution he proposes is blatantly circular. Thus, barring further objections, he seems to have the resources in place to answer the question I raised at the beginning of this essay. That question, one might recall, was whether Anselm can reconcile the claim that creatures receive all that they have from God and also that creatures are blameworthy for their acts. That is, in conclusion, I submit that Anselm has the necessary conceptual resources to argue, with some plausibility, that an angel who refuses to accept God's gift of perseverance is, in fact, morally blameworthy for his refusal to accept God's gift.

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[1] Anselm, pg. 216, ch.14.

[2] Anselm, pgs. 216-217, ch.14.

[3] This raises the question of whether it's possible for a person, due to lack of knowledge, to find himself in a situation such that his will for justice Y is fixed to an object B and he, being just, wills B with his disposition for happiness X, but, in fact, wills mistakenly with X because the true object for justice is A. Does his will, in such a case, still count as just? 

[4] Anselm, pg. 216, ch.14.

[5] In this case, one might have to say that the Devil's refusal to continue to accept perseverance does not necessarily come after its willing not to retain it, as one might wish (as Anselm most likely would) to say that his maintaining justice in the past is due to his (then) acceptance of perseverance.

[6] Anselm, pg. 200, ch.3.