A Consideration of Aristotelian Causation and Human Choice

© 2003 Clifton D. Healy

Introduction

            One of the vexing questions of philosophy is the nature of free will.  There is a deep intuition we have, indeed, a pervasive experience, that we are the authors of our actions and are in ultimate ways responsible for them.  Yet, when we reflect on the nature of the universe we inhabit, we come to realize that the relationship of cause and effect is similarly a pervasive human experience.  Indeed, there appears to be no phenomenon called “choice” involved in any of the processes we can observe in the natural world.  Non-living rocks move because something else has caused them to move, and their movement apparently is not something about which the rocks have a choice.  Even animals, though in some ways appearing to have choice-like behaviors rather more plausibly are acting in terms of physiological cause and effect, natural instinct as it were, genetically hardwired into them.  Only humans, so far as we can tell, exhibit behaviors which we presume to be free.

            But a look at the human being himself, reveals similar situatedness in cause and effect relationships.  While there are many human acts which are said to arise from choice, most of the activity of the human body takes place outside the realm of conscious volition.  How is it, then, that a human can be both situated in cause and effect chains, yet believe himself also to be--and really to be--free with respect to certain of his actions?  How is it that a naturalistic conception of reality can yield a cogent account of human behavior that is not wholly determined by antecedent causes?

            One thinker who can assist in answering these questions is Aristotle.  This may seem somewhat surprising, so let it be said from the outset that Aristotle is not a naturalist, or at least not a naturalist in the sense in which we currently understand the term.  Aristotle was certainly concerned with the physical world, having written a healthy number of works not only on the physical world but on many of the life forms which inhabit our planet.  But Aristotle had deep metaphysical convictions as well.  His thinking on motion, for example, was not concerned with simple natural forces and angles, but more primarily with the metaphysics of change.

            But precisely because Aristotle is not a committed naturalist (in twenty-first century mode) he can augment and critique naturalist assumptions regarding free will and causation.  And in fact, my use of Aristotle will be manifest in two stages.  First I will look at Aristotle’s theory of causation, which will necessitate an explanation of his teleological understanding of nature, and how his explanation of chance and fortune may provide some indication how a will may be free naturally.  (I also will need to briefly touch on the plausibility of Aristotle’s teleological understanding of nature by noting the recent development within the biological sciences of the theory of intelligent design.)  Finally, I will look at Aristotle’s understanding of motion in the soul as being a combination of desire in concert with intellect, and how it is that a soul is a cause of self-motion.  Having moved through these stages of Aristotle’s thought, keeping always in reference the limitations of present-day understandings of naturalism, I intend to show that even in a naturalistic conception of the world, it is proper and truthful to claim that humans have freedom of choice^[1] with regard to their actions.

Causation in Aristotle

            The Physics is chiefly concerned with the proper understanding of motion.  Aristotle understands motion in terms of place, growth or shrinkage, and alteration.^[2]  And nature itself is “a certain source and cause of being moved and of coming to rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not incidentally.”^[3]  Furthermore, nature is also to be understood as that which a thing may have.  This is a thing’s “thinghood” or nature.^[4]  But this ontological understanding is not a static one.  Aristotle’s natural world is a world of motion.  Therefore, Aristotle will have to delve more fully into why it is that things are the way that they are.

            Aristotle’s account of the causes in Physics Book II delineate a thing’s material, formal, motive and final explanations.  For Aristotle the causes answer the question why something is as it is.  The “why” of the bronze statue can be explained in terms of its material, bronze; its form, a man or that depiction which the sculptor intends; its motive,^[5]  or that which sets its being in motion, as in, for example, the sculptor; and its end, as memorial or object of worship, or some similar end.  It is the final (or teleological) cause which is the most complete understanding of causation, most fully answering the question of “Why?”, for it not only discloses the end for which a thing is, but what it is in that end.  He notes that “nature is an end and a that-for-the-sake-of-which.  (For of those things of which there is an end, if the motion is continuous, the end is both the last stage and that for the sake of which . . .).”^[6]

            Aristotle separates out the material cause as that which is natural, and the other three causes, as those which are articulated in speech: “In one way, then, nature is spoken of thus, as the first material underlying each of the things that have in themselves a source of motion and change, but in another way the form, or the look that is disclosed in speech.”^[7]  Indeed, Aristotle notes that three of the causes (formal, motive and final) are those that “often . . . turn back into one, for the what-it-is [form] and that for the sake of which [final] are one, and that whence the motion first is [motive], is the same in form with these . . . .”^[8]    This twofold understanding of nature^[9], however, should not be construed as some sort of dualistic metaphysics.

            Aristotle understands nature as the combination of the material (which is a thing in potency [dynamis]), and the form (which is a thing being-at-work^[10] [energeia]).  This twofold understanding of nature is essential to Aristotle’s thought.  In contradistinction with general present-day naturalism, a thing’s true being is not its material cause.  Although the material is that which underlies a things motion from potency to being-at-work, and which provides the real connection of the two states of a thing’s being (in potency and at-work), the cause of the thing’s being is properly that which draws it in a continuous motion from potency to being-at-work.^[11]

            The formal causes (comprised of the formal-final-motive causes) are causes found at-work in the material cause, but not sensibly so.  These three causes are intelligible, but nonetheless natural.  In fact, he writes, “this form or look is nature more than the material is.  For each thing is meant when it is fully at work, more than when it is potentially.”^[12]  These causes give the truth of the being of things: “In things that come from art . . . we make the material for the sake of the work, but in natural things it is in being from the beginning.”^[13]  Indeed, he writes in the Metaphysics, “But what it primarily is for something to be does not contain material, for it is a being-at-work-staying-itself.”^[14]  Given what he says of these three causes, Aristotle incontrovertibly has a teleological understanding of the natural world.

            This teleological understanding assumes an intelligence, or divine knower^[15], the thought of which is at the same time the object of that thought.

But what is desired and what is thought cause motion in that way: not being in motion, they cause motion.  But the primary instances of these are the same things, for what is yearned for is what seems beautiful, while what is wished for primarily is what is beautiful; but we desire something because of the way it seems, rather than it’s [sic] seeming so because we desire it, for the act of thinking is the beginning.  But the power of thinking is set in motion by the action of the thing thought, and what is thought in its own right belongs to an array of affirmative objects of which thinghood is primary, and of this the primary kind is that which is simple and at work.^[16]

Aristotle reinforces this later when he writes, “But by partaking in what it thinks, the intellect thinks itself, for it becomes what it thinks by touching and contemplating it, so that the intellect and what it thinks are the same thing.  For what is receptive of the intelligible and of thinghood is the intellect, and it is at work when it has them. . . .”^[17] 

            Aristotle continues later, “But what it primarily is for something to be does not contain material, for it is a being-at-work-staying-itself.  Therefore the first motionless being that causes motion is one both in articulation and in number . . . .”^[18]  Of course, with regard to this basic ontological reality, if the thinghood of things is primarily thought, there are, Aristotle acknowledges, three impasses.^[19]  First, if primary intellect thinks nothing, it would be like someone sleeping, his intellect not active; but this begs the question for why there is the need of an intellect at all.^[20]  Secondly, if the divine intellect does think, yet is controlled by the thing it thinks, then intellect is not the most primary reality.  If material things determine the forms, instead of vice versa, then the material, natural world is primary.  But whence, then, intellect?^[21]  And if no intellect, then how would one determine differentiation or the forms?  Finally, if the material and the knowing of it are fundamentally different, then what, indeed, is the connection between the thing thought and the knowledge of it?^[22]  Is it not the case, then, Aristotle asks rhetorically, that

in some cases the knowledge is the thing it is concerned with, so that in the case of the kinds of knowing that make something, the thinghood without the material and what it is for something to be, or in the case of the contemplative kinds of knowing, the articulation, is both the thing the knowledge is concerned with and the activity of thinking it?  So since what is thought and what is thinking are not different with as many things as have no material, they will be the same, and the act of thinking will be one with what is thought.^[23]

So if intellect is the most basic reality of the natural world, “what it thinks is itself . . . and its thinking is a thinking of thinking.”^[24]  In short we have an intelligible world, teleologically ordered to divine intellect.^[25]

            It must be said that naturalists do not, in general, find much validity in Aristotle’s teleological conception of nature.  But in the last decade a movement among scientists to assert intelligent design as an explanation of the natural world has come to the critical attention of the scientific community, if not necessarily its general acceptance.  I can only briefly summarize the general theory of these advocates of intelligent design^[26], since I lack the technical competence to evaluate their claims.  But essentially these scientists appeal to the facts of scientific inquiry: that the natural world as we know it is irreducibly complex.  This is especially the case in the biological sciences.  Animal character traits, particularly physiological adaptations for survival, are never simple accretions over time of advantageous mutations, but are always a complex of developments, no one of which could have developed in isolation from the others without endangering the survival of the individual member and the whole of the species as well.  That is to say, the whole of the survival trait complex would have had to have developed at one and the same time if the animal was to have survived.  This irreducible complexity, so the proponents claim, is prima facie evidence of intelligent design.

            It should also be stressed, that advocates of intelligent design do not offer a metaphysic of any designer, whether conceived of in personal or nonpersonal terms.  Rather, the theory offers reliable tests to determine when and where intelligent design is evident.  For example, the functionality of the human eye, so advocates of intelligent design assert, is nearly incontrovertible evidence of design.  The mathematical odds of its arising by chance are so astronomical as to be nil.  Another caveat of intelligent design theory is that not everything is evidently designed; that there are instances of lack of design in the natural world.  Evidences of these events can be seen in the mechanism of mutation, which is almost always fatal, or does not persist through reproduction.  Mutation is almost universally disordered.^[27]  So, in purely scientifically observational terms, the evidence, intelligent design theorists claim, point to a universe that is designed, or ordered, within irreducibly complex relationships of biological cause and effect.  However, they do not claim to be able to articulate the nature of this intelligent design per se (only its effects) nor do they claim that intelligent design is a totalizing view that eliminates non-designed events.

            So, though not viewed with favor in the scientific community, at least at present, it is nonetheless the case that one can plausibly argue, from the facts of the naturalist assumptions about the world, for an Aristotelian teleological understanding of the natural world.^[28]  Given this Aristotelian understanding, then, it is appropriate to explore how a teleological understanding of intelligent causation might help ground a conception of free will not divorced from naturalist assumptions.^[29]

            Having laid the foundation of Aristotelian causation and the place of the divine intellect, it is reasonable to continue my examination with Aristotle’s understanding of chance, fortune and necessity.  We have already seen that all material causes owe their thinghood to formal causation, primarily final causation which forms the material cause.  However, not all causes can be reduced to the four primary causes previously mentioned.  Aristotle acknowledges other forms of causation, particularly chance and fortune.^[30]  But the differences between these causes and the four primary causes are that these causes are subordinated to and depend upon the final cause, or, speaking of necessity, they depend upon the material cause.

            First, Aristotle notes that “of things that happen, some happen for the sake of something, and some not . . . so that it is clear that even among things apart from what is necessary or for the most part, there are some to which it is possible that being for the sake of something belongs.  And for the sake of something are as many things as are brought about from thinking or from nature.”^[31]  In other words, of the things brought about for the sake of something, either through intellect or nature, there are some things that happen apart from necessary-or-for-the-most-part causation.  These are incidental causes.  And Aristotle gives examples of what those sorts of incidental causes are.  The house is caused by the builder’s art, but it just so happens that the builder is a flute-player.  Or one comes and collects money, although one came originally to see a friend.  Or a tripod fell by chance, though it stood there to be sat upon, it did not fall to be sat upon.  Or a horse was saved by his coming, though he did not come in order to be saved.^[32]  In these cases, the causes of the end results are incidental.  It is chance that the house was built by a flute-player, because the house’s building cannot simply be attributed to the flute-player but must be attributed primarily to the house builder.  It is chance that one collected money from a friend, for it cannot be said that going to see one’s friend always or for the most part ends in the collection of money.  It is chance that the tripod fell, and that the horse was saved.  Aristotle uses the term “chance” to refer to these events generally, but he does make a distinction:

Both, then, are causes, incidental ones as was said, both fortune and chance, among those things which admit of coming into being neither simply nor for the most part, belonging in turn to those which could come about for the sake of something.  They differ because chance is more extensive, for everything from fortune is from chance, but not everything from it is from fortune.  For fortune and what comes from fortune are present to beings to whom being fortunate, or generally, action, might belong.^[33]

Chance and fortune are, to Aristotle, the same thing but in different relation to human beings.  Fortune is chance related to human beings, while chance is generally causation of that which is end-directed but incidental.

            Necessity, however, is primarily concerned with material causation.  Aristotle understands nature to be for the sake of something,^[34] and things in nature happen always or for the most part.^[35]  Aristotle considers the natural order coming about by chance an impasse.  He asks rhetorically, “[W]hat prevents the parts in something that is by nature from being the same way, say the teeth growing with the front ones sharp out of necessity, suitable for tearing, but the molars flat and useful for grinding the food, although not happening for the sake of this, but just falling together?”^[36]  Aristotle begins his answer by noting that, even if this advantageous situation happens by chance, “Anything that is not like this has perished and still perishes, just as Empedocles says of man-headed offspring of cattle.”^[37]  He goes on to assert that “The account, then, by means of which one might come to an impasse, is this one or any other that might be of this kind; but it is impossible for things to be this way.  For these things and all thing that are by nature come about as they do either always or for the most part, but none of the things from fortune or chance do.”^[38]  In other words, by very definition, chance cannot regularly cause material things to be as they are, and those things that do arise from chance perish.

            It should also be noted that Aristotle leaves room for the misordering of nature.  “But if there are some things according to art in which what is done correctly is for the sake of something, but in the ones that miss the mark what is done for the sake of something that is attempted but missed, it is the same among natural things, and monsters are failures of that for the sake of which they are.”^[39]  Nature does not always and perfectly achieve its end.  Some natural beings are misformed.  Necessity is not absolute, but is always or for the most part.  As he writes, “Accordingly, in the way that one performs an action, so also are things by nature, and as things are by nature, so does one perform each action unless something interferes.”^[40]  One may well argue that what frequently interferes with natural causes is chance (though not fortune, since fortune is related to the good ends of human beings).

            Aristotle comments further about necessity and human actions in De Interpretatione.^[41]  Speaking of the logical understanding of necessity, and its implications, he writes:

But what if this [understanding of things necessarily being the case] is impossible?  For we see that what will be has an origin both in deliberation and in action, and that, in general, in things that are not always actual there is the possibility of being and of not being; there both possibilities are open, both being and not being, and consequently, both coming to be and not coming to be.  Many things are obviously like this. . . . Therefore, not everything is or happens of necessity: some things happen as chance has it, and of the affirmation and the negation neither is true rather than the other; with other things it is one rather than the other and as a rule, but still it is possible for the other to happen instead.

            What is, necessarily is, when it is; and what is not, necessarily is not, when it is not.  But not everything that is, necessarily is; and not everything that is not, necessarily is not.  For to say that everything that is, is of necessity, when it is, is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity.  Similarly with what it not, and will be or will not be; but one cannot divide and say that one or the other is necessary.  I mean, for example: it is necessary for there to be or not be a sea-battle tomorrow; but it is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one not to take place--though it is necessary for one to take place or not to take place. (19a7-33)

In other words, one cannot say of an event or complex of events that the exact event or event-complex necessarily was the case.  It is illogical to do so.  One can only say that it was necessary that an event/event-complex was or was not.  Things that are may well be by chance, apart from necessity; and similarly, it may be only by chance that things are not.  The only logically necessary ordering is that something either be or not be, if in fact it is or is not.  Here Aristotle affirms, from the standpoint of logical possibility that due to the nature of chance, again, in teleological terms, it cannot be the case that coming deliberated action events are or are not necessarily the case.  They may well be “for the most part.”  There may well be regularity to their cause and effect relationships.  But it need not be absolutely (or unconditionally) so.

Soul Motion in Aristotle

            I have looked at Aristotle’s understanding of causation, noting that reality is both material and form, nature and intellect, though primarily form and intellect.  I have examined Aristotle’s understanding of chance and necessity.  It remains now to examine Aristotle’s understanding of human actions in terms of soul and body.  I will first tie Aristotle’s understanding of the human as an ensouled body to Aristotle’s hylomorphic conception of reality, and then examine how the soul is its own source of motion.  I will then tie Aristotle’s understanding of human acts to this understanding of ensouled bodily motion.

1          It has been noted in the Metaphysics, that reality is bringing from potency into being-at-work the material thing in terms of its form.  Aristotle writes

Now since some things are separate while others are not separate, the former are independent things.  And it is on account of this that all things have the same causes, because without independent things [forms and, to a lesser degree, primary material], attributes and motions are not possible.  So then these causes will be, presumably, soul and body, or intellect, desire, and body.  And in yet another way, the sources of things are the same by analogy, namely being-at-work [energeia] and potency [dynamis], though these are both different and present in different ways in different things.^[42] (Emphasis mine)

In other words, the primary sources of all things are the “this” of a thing that is first at-work and with it something else that is in potency.^[43]  For human beings, then, the primary source of being is the soul with the body.  Aristotle writes that “it is necessary that the soul has its thinghood as the form of a natural body having life as a potency.”^[44] Furthermore, “since what is ensouled is made of both [body and soul, material and form], it is not the body that is the being-at-work-staying- itself of the soul, but the soul is the being-at-work-staying-itself of some body.”^[45]  In light of this, the appropriate way to think of the relation of the soul to the body is that “the soul neither has being without a body, nor is any sort of body . . . .”^[46]  Within this conception of the soul and body, Aristotle avoids substance dualism, because the material being (in potency) of the body is subordinated to the primary being (at-work) of the soul.  Aristotle avoids simple materialism by his hylomorphic understanding of the ensouled body.  Nor is the soul a simple expression of functionalism,^[47] but is, rather, a combination of three formal causes; it is that from which motion in the body is (motive), that for the sake of which a body is (final), and the thinghood of ensouled bodies (formal).^[48]

            Of all the potencies of the soul, the primary one, that which distinguishes the human soul as such, is the potency of thinking.^[49]  But if the thinking which the soul does is similar to the potency of perception (and Aristotle will posit that it is), then thinking “must be without attributes but receptive of the form and in potency not to be the form but to be such as it is . . . .”^[50]  Indeed, in terms of the human soul, the “intellect has no nature at all other than this, that it is a potency.  Therefore the aspect of the soul that is called intellect (and I mean by intellect that by which the soul thinks things through and conceives that something is the case) is not actively any of the things that are until it thinks.”^[51]   This is precisely why the soul is distinguishable, and not mixed with, the body.  Otherwise, it would take on the material characteristics of that which it perceived and would make thought apart from the present perceptive moment impossible; and indeed, the intellective potency of the soul would be simply another bodily organ.^[52]  Instead, “it is well said that the soul is a place of [non-material] forms, except that this is not the whole soul but the thinking soul, and it is not the forms in its [the intellective soul’s] being-at-work-staying-itself, but in potency.”^[53]

            It is precisely this understanding of the intellective soul as the place of all forms in potency, that one can say that intellect pervades all human experience, as intellect similarly pervades all reality generally.  The intellect is the things it thinks, at least in potency, though it is not the things it thinks until it thinks them.^[54]  In terms of non-material things, the intellect is what it thinks when it thinks the things it thinks.  But in material terms, the intellect is not the material thing but is the intelligible thing present in the material in potency.^[55]  Indeed, the relation of the intellective soul to the thing it thinks (or the intelligible thing it thinks in material potencies), is so important to Aristotle’s conception of the soul, that he will say twice, in exactly the same terms, “Knowledge, in its being-at-work, is the same as the thing it knows . . . .”^[56]  In fact, Aristotle sums up, “[L]et us say again that the soul is in a certain way all beings, for beings are either perceptible or intelligible, while knowledge in a certain way is the things it knows, and perception is the things it perceives . . . .”^[57]

            It has been necessary to distinguish the act of perception from the perceptible thing and the act of thinking from the intelligible form so that the understanding of motion in the soul will not be confused with material causation, but will be understood in terms of formal causes.  In terms of the soul and its motion, Aristotle says that “two things cause motion, desire and/or intellect . . .”^[58]  But this intellect is not the contemplative thinking that Aristotle has noted before (i. e., the thinking that when it thinks is the thing it thinks).  Rather, this intellect is “intellect that reasons for the sake of something and is concerned with action, which differs from the contemplative intellect by its end.”^[59]  So what causes motion in the soul is the potency of desire (or appetite), but not apart from intellect.^[60]

            The motion in the soul can be distinguished in three ways: that which causes the motion, that by which it causes the motion, and the thing moved.  The thing which causes the motion is itself either in motion or motionless.  In terms of that which causes motion, the motionless cause is the good (apparent or real) sought by the intellect, and that which is in motion is the desiring part of the soul.  The thing moved is the body (in human terms).  And the instrument by which the in-motion or motionless cause moves the body is something like a hinge joining body and soul, a place that is both a beginning and an end, though this is by way of analogy and not necessarily a reality to be sought in material terms.  That hinge is imagination [phantasia], in which is the potency of desire; and this can be either rational or sensory.^[61]

            In terms of human actions, then, those actions in which the cause of the motion is the good (apparent or real), the desire which causes the soul’s motion is rational.  But it need not be the case that appetitive desires are necessarily irrational.  Aristotle discusses the motion of the soul in terms of choice in the Nicomachean Ethics (hereinafter simply Ethics).  In terms of pure contemplation, “truth and falsity mark it as working well or badly, since this is the work of the whole thinking activity . . . .”^[62]  But in terms of thinking that relates to action, “what marks it as working well is truth that stands in agreement with right desire.”^[63]

            For Aristotle, then, the source of human action is choice (thinking rightly about the proper act in accordance with the proper desire).  He writes, “The source of action, then, is choice--the origin of motion rather than the cause for the sake of which it takes place--while the source of choice is desire combined with a rational understanding which is for the sake of something.  Hence there is no choice without intellect and thinking . . . .”^[64]  And in fact, thinking itself is not the cause of motion, but rather thinking “for the sake of something” and which pertains to action does in fact cause motion.^[65]  In particular, choice “is involved with reason and thinking things through”^[66] and is thus more than simple willing.^[67]  Indeed, what makes an act involuntary is the presence of an external force (or coercion) and ignorance of the particulars of an act.^[68]  Conversely, a voluntary act is “one of which the source is in oneself; when one knows the particular circumstances in which the action takes place.”^[69]  It is in light of these considerations, then, that Aristotle posits that “choice is either intellect fused with desire of desire fused with thinking, and such a source is a human being.”^[70]

            In consideration of the above, then, it can be said the human action is free of material antecedent determining causes in that the source of motion is the soul, which is the non-material form of the body.  And although many human actions--those which do not relate to pure contemplation simply--arise from sensible desires, these desires are ordered by the soul such that a person has free choice as to which course of action he or she may take.  And although one may speak of necessity in material terms--in a human body whose olfactory senses are working properly the presence of an odor necessarily acts upon those senses--and even speak, in a limited way, of necessity in terms of the soul--the proper perception of the odor by the perceptive faculty of the soul will entail that the soul takes on the form of the perceptible odor, it is not the case that one may logically necessitate that the rational human being will determinately act in one or another way in response to the natural processes of sensory object and perception.  One is as free to order one’s actions in terms of the good as one is to order one’s actions in terms of the bad.

            Now it is appropriate to consider the relation of the intellective soul with that of the divine intellect.  If it is the case that there is, properly speaking, no object of thought for the divine intellect, but the thinking and the reality of the thing thought are the same thing, then is it the case that the human soul, insofar as it is the place of forms, bringing into being-at-work the potency of the forms it thinks as it thinks them, only properly thinks if its thought is ordered to that of the divine intellect?  And if so, does this make human thought absolutely determined by the antecedent cause of the divine intellect?^[71]  It seems clearly the case that the answer is in the negative.  Ends are not always realized, so it is the case that human thought may err.  Or, even if human thought properly deliberates about the course of a particular act, it is not the case that a human will necessarily act in the proper way.^[72]  It is the case, that humans can and do substitute human desire for rational thought about an act, and reason according to the apparent good, though that reasoning is flawed.

            Furthermore, though the unmoved mover is a necessary deduction Aristotle comes to, it is not the case that this motionless origin of motion absolutely and antecedently determines each event.  Chance and fortune, though ordered to ends, do not bring from potency to being-at-work a determinate state of affairs; or rather, the state of affairs that is brought from potency to being-at-work is incidental to the end or ends of which that state of affairs is the result.  And incidental causes according to Aristotle, are not, properly speaking, determinative.  That is to say, the person’s seeing a friend was not determined by his collecting money, though his collecting money was determined by his seeing a friend.  The monetary collection was incidental to the actual state of affairs, though the seeing of the friend was not.  And the seeing of the friend most plausibly was set in motion by the choice (desire ordered to the ends determined by the intellect) the person made.

Conclusion

            It has been my task to argue for the freedom of human actions from absolute determining antecedent causes, in naturalist terms.  To do so I have utilized the Aristotelian understanding of nature as material and form, with the primary source of its being as form.  Since primary reality, in nature, is form, this means that for Aristotle primary reality is intellect.  Though this seems implausible on strictly materialist considerations, I have argued by way of analogy that the present-day movement of scientific inquiry in terms of intelligent design--itself an inquiry predicated on naturalist assumptions--is an opening through which the plausibility of Aristotelian understanding of causation may gain a foothold in naturalist considerations.  It may seem problematic that I have tied my argument to a method of scientific inquiry that is not generally well-regarded.  But it has not been my task to dismantle modern scientific inquiry to provide for a realistic conception of free will.  Rather it has been my task to show how an Aristotelian understanding of nature and human will is a fruitful enterprise in terms of the possibility of free will.  It seems to me that the utilization of the general arguments of intelligent design is helpful to this end, and helpful precisely because it is a present-day example of the use of naturalist assumptions to posit something like Aristotelian teleology.

            Given this Aristotelian understanding of causation, as applied to the human soul, I have explicated Aristotle’s understanding of the human being as an ensouled body, in which the source of motion for human action is desire ordered to intellect.  Since the proper understanding for Aristotle of free choice is that in which the source of motion arises from within the agent, I have concluded, then, that, in Aristotelian naturalist terms, human will is free.

Bibliography of Works Cited

Aristotle, Aristotle’s On the Soul and On Memory and Recollection, tr. Joe Sachs, Sante Fe: Green Lion Press, 2000.

________. Aristotle’s Physics: A Guided Study, tr. Joe Sachs, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

________. De Interpretatione, tr. J. L. Akrill, in Jonathon Barnes, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. I, Princeton University Press, 1984/rev. 1995; pp. 25-38.

________. Nicomachean Ethics, tr. Joe Sachs, Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2002.

Dembski, William A. And Kushiner, James M., eds., Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2001.

© 2003 Clifton D. Healy

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