John J. Ming

“ The resultant state of the will is indifference, in which it has the power to determine itself to either alternative. Hence, whenever there is deliberation in the understanding, there is freedom in the will, and the consequent act is free; vice versa, whenever an act proceeds from the will without deliberation, it is not free, but necessary. Wherefore, as deliberate and free actions, so indeliberate and necessary actions are identical. The free act of the will thus analysed is evidently the act proper to man as a rational agent. For it is man who is its determining cause ”

“ Ignorance, as far as it goes, renders an act involuntary, since what is unknown cannot be willed; passions intensify the inclination of the will, and thus increase voluntariness, but lessen deliberation and consequently also freedom.
Properties.—Human acts are imputable to man so as to involve his responsibility, for the very reason that he puts them forth deliberatively and with self-determination. They are, moreover, not subject to physical laws which necessitate the agent, but to a law which lays the will under obligation without interfering with his freedom of choice. ”

“ He adds, however, in explanation, that the will must act according to unchangeable laws, as else it would be an absurdity. Free acts thus characterised are termed human by these determinists, because they proceed from man's reason and personality. But plainly they are not human in the scholastic acceptation, nor in the full and proper sense. They are not such, because they are not under the dominion of man. True freedom, which makes man master of his actions, must be conceived as immunity from all necessitation to act. ”

“ Instead of indeterminism, determinism is now most widely accepted. According to the latter, every act of the will is of necessity determined by the character of the agent and the motives which render the action desirable. ”

“ The will, he maintains, is a causality proper to rational beings, and freedom is its endowment enabling it to act without being determined from without, just as natural necessity is the need proper to irrational creatures of being determined to action by external influence. ”

“ He is the master of the former, while the latter are not under his dominion and cannot be withheld by him. These, therefore, are properly styled acts of man, because elicited, but not determined, by him. The human act admits of increment and decrement. ”

“ Besides, they are moral. For a moral act is one that is freely elicited with the knowledge of its conformity with or difformity from, the law of practical reason proximately and the law of God ultimately. ”

“ According to them it involves immunity from extrinsic, but not from intrinsic, necessitation. Human acts, therefore, as also imputability and responsibility, are not the same thing in the old and in the new schools. ”