Human agency and weakness of will: A neo-Thomist discussion

Abstract

Contemporary neo-Thomist writers offer an alternative to reductionist accounts of human agency. I argue that to do so plausibly they will have to show (a) their accounts do not entail a simple dualism of reason over desire; and (b) how they account for weakness of will. McCabe argues that for living organisms perception is a matter of receiving “intentionally”, allowing for a degree of voluntariness, and that by virtue of the human capacity for language, and insertion into a culture, the human animal can direct itself by means of its grasp of good reasons for action. In partial disagreement, Shutte clarifies the non-material nature of this human capacity as referring to our capacity for self-enactment—which gives rise to, or finds expression in, language and culture. The further problem of weakness of will is explained by Farrer as a question of the quality of one’s willingness, one’s ability to be persuaded—mistakenly thought of as a matter of the correct knowledge of the good taken out of the context of deliberation about action. Furthermore, the logic of growth in the breadth of one’s willingness is unpacked by Shutte by means of the guru-novice model of interpersonal transaction. I conclude that framing our understanding of agency in terms of a philosophical anthropology is eminently reasonable.