Dynamic Structure of the Object Common to Cognition and Will
Our analyses seek to uncover deeper and deeper layers of the reality that is the action, while we continue to trace the primitive experience that allows us to distinguish between acting and happening in man. By asserting that the ability to respond to presented values is the characteristic trait of the will, which shapes the form of the process of acting, we uncover a new layer of our inquiry. It allows us to investigate the nature and conditions of the person which allow him to respond to the will. For in fact this responsiveness flows from the promptings of the intellectual sphere of the human person; it is in speech, implying thought, that we may see the first symptom of man's ability to respond either to values on the one hand or to the promptings of will on the other. The assertion that the active, dynamic ability to respond to values is a characteristic of the will, however, refers not only to a certain analogy between will and thought but also to the nature itself of the will. In
traditional philosophy, from the great thinkers of the Middle Ages up to and including Leibniz, this nature of the will was conceived as the appetitus rationalis. This
conception, which because of its conciseness and precision has become almost classical, allows us indeed to grasp that relation between will and cognition which has never ceased to be one of the most fascinating questions of philosophy and psychology.
It is expressed in the traditional view that nothing may become the object of will unless it is already known. The question still remains as to what is the common dynamic structure of the object as already known and as again object of the will.47 We will attempt to disclose this common dynamic structure on our own account in order to see how much a clarification of the relation between cognition and will contributes to the overall vision of man, of the person, and at the same time how deeply it is itself rooted in this vision. In attempting to elucidate this relation we find all those traces of interpretative integration and disintegration which ultimately must lead us to experience as the prime source of our knowledge of man. This is the reason why in our study we had first to conceive of experience as the source of cognition and knowledge and only then to consider the way of exploiting it for explanatory purposes. For experience and understanding together constitute a whole, and interpretation is interchangeable with comprehending.
The Will's Reference to Truth as the Inner Principle of Decision
The remarkable feature in the interpretation of acting, of the action, that we are presenting in this study is that the person is already presumed in it; to unveil step by
step the reality of action we have simultaneously to uncover the deeper layers of the person. The person's dynamic activation is, on the one hand, the primordial
experiential fact and, on the other, the final theme and objective of interpretation, which we are gradually approaching. Can this theme be fully explored, and is this final objective attainable? Or is our investigation only a series of successive approximations leading progressively to a better, more complete unfolding of our object, which is the acting person, and at the same time confirming the assertion that the person as such in his complete nature is rationally ungraspable,
inexpressible? This last assertion paraphrases the classical definition, individuum est ineffabile; but as the person is an individual, though also more than an individual, the paraphrase seems permissible. At any rate, the assertion will be confirmed by our analysis, even though in our study we are considering the person as such and not just some concrete individual, a person-individual, hoping to bring to light this approach as self-justified.
Having made these general remarks, which have reference to the introductory considerations and principles already outlined in Chapter 1, we have to go back to our analysis at the point where we left it. The assertion of the specific nature of the will connected with the ability to decide and to choose allows us in turn to disclose another significant trait in the dynamism of the will: the reference to "truth." The reference to truth forms an intrinsic part of the very nature of a decision and is in a special manner manifest in choice. The essential condition of choice and of the ability to make a choice as such, seems to lie in the specific reference of will to truth, the reference that permeates the intentionality of willing and constitutes what is somehow the inner principle of volition. To "choose" does not mean to turn toward one value and away from others (this would be a purely "material" notion of choice).
It does mean to make a decision, according to the principle of truth, upon selecting between possible objects that have been presented to the will. It would be
impossible to understand choice without referring the dynamism proper to the will to truth as the principle of willing. This principle is, as we will see, intrinsic to the will itself, and at the same time constitutes the essence of choice. It is, also, by the same token, the essence of decision, and this includes also decisions with univocal motivations when only the so-called simple act of will is involved.
If striving for intentional objects according to the principle of the recognition of their validity as cognized were not to form part of the dynamic essence of the will, then it would be impossible to understand either choice or decision with all their dynamic originality. The hypothesis that the reference to truth has an entirely external origin, that it derives merely either from cognition - from a knowledge of the objects of choice - or simply from volition, is insufficient for the satisfactory interpretation of the relation between knowledge of the object of will and the act of will. Since it is owing to the knowledge of objects that the reference to truth is actualized, their knowledge is a necessary condition of choice and decision making; but the reference to truth, with all the originality proper to choice and decision making, is itself derived from the will and belongs to the will's own dynamism. The dynamism of will is not in itself cognitive; "to will" never means "to cognize or to know." It refers in a specific manner, however, and is internally dependent on, the recognition of truth. This is precisely the reason why it is accessible to cognition and specifically consistent with cognition. This in turn also explains the fact that in choosing and deciding, the will - and thus of course the person -responds to motives instead of being in one way or another only determined by them. The ability to respond is manifested by the "free will" conceived in the broad sense. From the above it seems evident that this
response presupposes a reference to truth and not only a reference to the objects which elicit it.
The Will's Dependence on Truth and Independence of Objects
We have mentioned in our argument the will's "reference to truth" and also its accommodation to truth. These expressions adequately render the state of affairs that we are considering: for in the inner dynamism of will we discover a relation to truth that goes deeper and is different from the relation to the objects of volition.
The relation to truth is not restricted to the structure of volition as an intentional act;
nevertheless, it plays a decisive role in this act as proceeding from its anchorage in the person. In its element of choice and decision, every volition manifests its specific dependence on the person from whom it flows, a dependence that may be called the
"surrender to truth." The exact meaning of this expression has to be fully explained.
At any rate, it is the essential surrender of will to truth that seems finally to account for the person's transcendence in action, ultimately for his ascendancy to his own dynamism.
We said earlier that it is the transcendence that we owe to self-determination, that is, in the final analysis to the free will. The person "transcends" his actions because he is free and only so far as he is free. Freedom in its fundamental sense is
equivalent to self-reliance. Freedom in the expanded sense is the acting person's intentional flexibility and partial independence with respect to the possible objects of volition, insofar as man is determined neither by the objects themselves nor by their presentation. His independence in the intentional sphere is to be explained by this inner reference to truth and dependence on truth inherent in the will. It is this dependence that makes will independent of objects and their presentation, and grants the person that ascendancy over his own dynamism which we have here described as the transcendence in action (as vertical transcendence). The person becomes independent of the objects of his own acting through the moment of truth, which is contained in every authentic choice of decision-making. 48
The Moment of Truth and the Moral Value of Actions
Let us stress once again the need to examine more precisely the "moment of truth."
But first it is perhaps worth noting that this moment, which belongs to the will, is to be distinguished from the truthfulness of the particular choices and decisions that may be actually made. At the beginning of this study we mentioned the integral experience of man, in particular, his moral experience, and this point brings us back to it again. First, there is the painfully evident fact that not all of the particular choices or decisions of the human will are correct. Too often man seeks and chooses what is not good for him. Such a choice or decision is not just an error, because errors stem from the mind and not from the will. Choices and decisions, which take as their object what is not a "real good" -especially when contrary to what has been recognized as a real good - lead to the experience of "guilt," or "sin." But it is the reality of guilt - of sin or moral evil - known from the moral experience that brings to light explicitly the fact that the reference to truth and the inner dependence on truth is rooted in the human will.49
If choice and decision were to be without their inherent moment of truth, if they were to be performed apart from that specific reference to truth, moral conduct most characteristic for the man-person would become incomprehensible. For it refers
essentially to the opposition between what is morally good to what is morally bad.
This opposition not only presupposes the will's specific relation to truth - insofar as will's intentionality is concerned - but also raises this relation to the role of the principle of decision, choice, and action. Briefly speaking, in the opposition between the good and the bad which direct moral conduct there is presupposed that in human acting the willing of any object occurs according to the principle of the truth about the good represented by these objects.
8. THE COGNITIVE EXPERIENCE OF VALUES AS THE CONDITION OF CHOICE