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Objection 1: It would seem that choice is an act, not of will but
of reason. For choice implies comparison, whereby one is given
preference to another. But to compare is an act of reason. Therefore
choice is an act of reason.
Objection 2: Further, it is for the same faculty to form a
syllogism, and to draw the conclusion. But, in practical matters,
it is the reason that forms syllogisms. Since therefore choice is a
kind of conclusion in practical matters, as stated in Ethic. vii,
3, it seems that it is an act of reason.
Objection 3: Further, ignorance does not belong to the will but to
the cognitive power. Now there is an "ignorance of choice," as is
stated in Ethic. iii, 1. Therefore it seems that choice does not
belong to the will but to the reason.
On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 3) that
choice is "the desire of things in our power." But desire is an act
of will. Therefore choice is too.
I answer that, The word choice implies something belonging to the
reason or intellect, and something belonging to the will: for the
Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 2) that choice is either "intellect
influenced by appetite or appetite influenced by intellect." Now
whenever two things concur to make one, one of them is formal in regard
to the other. Hence Gregory of Nyssa [Nemesius, De Nat. Hom.
xxxiii.] says that choice "is neither desire only, nor counsel
only, but a combination of the two. For just as we say that an animal
is composed of soul and body, and that it is neither a mere body, nor
a mere soul, but both; so is it with choice."
Now we must observe, as regards the acts of the soul, that an act
belonging essentially to some power or habit, receives a form or
species from a higher power or habit, according as an inferior is
ordained by a superior: for if a man were to perform an act of
fortitude for the love of God, that act is materially an act of
fortitude, but formally, an act of charity. Now it is evident that,
in a sense, reason precedes the will and ordains its act: in so far as
the will tends to its object, according to the order of reason, since
the apprehensive power presents the object to the appetite.
Accordingly, that act whereby the will tends to something proposed to
it as being good, through being ordained to the end by the reason, is
materially an act of the will, but formally an act of the reason. Now
in such like matters the substance of the act is as the matter in
comparison to the order imposed by the higher power. Wherefore choice
is substantially not an act of the reason but of the will: for choice
is accomplished in a certain movement of the soul towards the good which
is chosen. Consequently it is evidently an act of the appetitive
power.
Reply to Objection 1: Choice implies a previous comparison; not
that it consists in the comparison itself.
Reply to Objection 2: It is quite true that it is for the reason to
draw the conclusion of a practical syllogism; and it is called "a
decision" or "judgment," to be followed by "choice." And for
this reason the conclusion seems to belong to the act of choice, as to
that which results from it.
Reply to Objection 3: In speaking "of ignorance of choice," we
do not mean that choice is a sort of knowledge, but that there is
ignorance of what ought to be chosen.
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