VOLUNTEER. - It is the act that proceeds from the will enlightened by the prior knowledge of the intellect (cuius principium est intra cum additione scientiae [Sum. Theol., 1st-2nd, q. 6, a. 1]).
Every human act is also voluntary. According to some (the Thomists), every human act is also moral; according to others (the Scotists), there are human acts (indifferent ones) that are not moral. Every free act is also voluntary; but there are voluntary acts, such as, for example, the love of the good in general on earth and of God in heaven, that are not free. Therefore the free act has a smaller extension than the voluntary. Apart from these distinctions, moralists use the terms voluntary, human act, moral and free as synonyms. In this acceptation the coefficients of the voluntary are the same as those of the human act: intelligence (advertence, attention, cognition), will (consent, intention) and freedom. The analysis of the voluntary, therefore, is not a duplicate of that of the human act, but a necessary development and deepening of it.
It is easier to grasp the difference between the voluntary, which has no other subjective cause outside the will, and an effect that, independent in its occurring from the human will, nonetheless becomes its object (the volitum).
I. DIVISION
1) As regards the part that is identified with them, the voluntary act is susceptible of all the divisions of the human, moral and free act, and the qualification of voluntary falls upon elicited, commanded and mixed acts, upon omissions and the related effects that trace back to the will. 2) Necessary and free voluntary act (v. above). 3) Perfect and imperfect voluntary act, principally in relation to the quantity and quality of advertence, which can be total or partial, clear or confused, and secondarily in relation to consent, which can be more or less deliberate and conscious. 4) Absolute (simpliciter) and relative (secundum quid) voluntary act, according as the act is willed in all its aspects or is in part willed and in part not willed. The act placed in these latter circumstances gives rise to the so-called mixed voluntary act, that is, to an act that is qualified as simpliciter voluntary and secundum quid involuntary. 5) Positive and negative voluntary act, according as it consists in an action or in an omission. 6) Expressed and tacit voluntary act, according as the willing is manifested in words and other equivalent external signs, or is inferred from the acts and omissions of the subject. Not to be confused with the tacit is the presumed voluntary act, which indicates a willing that is not there, but is presumed from the ordinary way in which men behave. The sense and the scope of the adage qui tacet consentire videtur varies with the circumstances. In a favorable matter one can always conclude from silence to consent; but in an unfavorable matter, only in the case that the person concerned must and can (morally and physically) express his own willing. 7) Direct (or in itself) and indirect (or in cause) voluntary act: the first (called by some also formal) is represented by the very object of the willing insofar as it is willed, that is, abstracted and distinguished from all its implications and reflections of an objective character: the second, instead, is to be sought in what is connected with the first either as effect to cause (taken in a broad sense), or as part to whole, etc. The indirect voluntary act therefore is praeter intentionem, but at the same time it is foreseen as linked to the action or omission that are the direct object of the willing. Very probably to this distinction one can approximate that of the explicit and implicit voluntary act. An effect voluntary only in cause and indirect is sometimes called simply permitted. 8) Propter se and propter aliud voluntary act, according as it is willed as an end or as a means to an end. 9) Actual, virtual, habitual and interpretative voluntary act, according to the relation that obtains between the determination of the will (the intention) and its realization. In this sense the voluntary act receives the same divisions as intention (v.), which is precisely actual, virtual, habitual and interpretative.
II. INVOLUNTARY
Correlative to the voluntary is the involuntary, that is, the act that does not proceed from the will. In a broad sense, everything that does not attain the full humanity of acting is involuntary. In a more precise sense, one speaks of the negative or privative involuntary when the will posits no act with regard to the thing; of the positive involuntary, in the case where the will posits an act of aversion. The negative or privative involuntary is also called non-voluntary. The involuntary, finally, is called perfect or imperfect, according as the will opposes itself fully and, as far as is in its power, effectively to the object proposed, or with less decision and greater hesitation.
The terminology in the problematic of the voluntary still presents slight variations from author to author. The profusion and subtlety of the distinctions is due to the effort to adapt as much as possible to the bewildering complexity of the real. Even in their imperfection, such distinctions find continual application in problems of the greatest importance, such as, for example, the intention necessary for conferring and receiving the Sacraments (v. INTENZIONE), the problem of indirect morality, of the act with double effect.