Aquinas on Mixed Actions

Abstract

Little attention has recently been paid to Aquinas's analyses of mixed actions, which constitute a significant sort of border line cases between the voluntary and the involuntary. A textual inconsistency can be found in Aquinas's accounts in different contexts: actions like throwing cargos overbroad are "involuntary without qualification" (involuntarum simpliciter) as well as "voluntary without qualification" (voluntarium simpliciter). This paper focuses on Aquinas's analysis of oaths under compulsion and compulsory consent in marriage, where he first introduced the topic of mixed actions. By examining the moral obligations relating to these actions, it argues that Aquinas is reluctant to identify these actions as fully voluntary in terms of the will's absolute controls over one's moral activities, because this would make some agents in his scenarios either to be stuck in moral dilemmas or to be blamed for actions out of insuperable fear. The unrealistic conception of the will's power presents a more formidable challenge than the textual discrepancy to the plausibility of a Thomistic theory of voluntariness and moral agency.