Indeterminism and Freedom of Decision in Aquinas
Throughout his works, Aquinas consistently maintains that human beings have the ability to make free decisions. One question he does not clearly answer, however, is whether a fully deterministic world would rule out the possibility of free decisions. Contemporary philosophers are themselves divided over whether determinism is compatible with free decisions. Many philosophers put forward compatibilist theories of free will. According to a compatibilist account, free decisions are compatible with determinism. Incompatibilist theories, on the other hand, deny that free decisions are compatible with determinism. Incompatibilist theories can themselves be divided into two major categories: hard incompatibilist theories and libertarian theories. The former are incompatibilist theories that deny the existence of free decisions, the latter are incompatibilist theories that affirm the existence of free decisions. Scholars disagree about how Aquinas would stand relative to these categories. No matter how Aquinas is interpreted, his theory must be defended against contemporary objections before it can be declared a tenable position. This dissertation seeks to resolve the interpretational conflict surrounding the question of whether or not Aquinas can be categorized as a compatibilist or an incompatibilist. If this question cannot be answered, our understanding of Aquinas will remain drastically incomplete. I attempt to show that it is possible to discern how Aquinas would answer this question. By investigating various aspects of his account of free decision, I show that the theory Aquinas puts forward is fundamentally libertarian. Having investigated Aquinas's theory in itself, this dissertation turns to a critical analysis of his theory. The analysis focuses on several recent critiques of libertarian theories of free choice, most notably, those put forward by Harry Frankfurt, Peter van Inwagen, and Richard Double. Although there are clearly important differences between many contemporary libertarian theories of free choice and Aquinas's libertarian theory, I contend that there are important similarities as well. Given these similarities, it is worthwhile to ask whether Aquinas's theory can withstand the critiques that have been leveled against contemporary libertarian accounts. I ultimately conclude that Aquinas's theory can withstand the objections considered, although his account cannot ultimately be declared tenable without a defense of his account of the immaterial nature of the intellect and will.
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