VOLONTARIO. – It is the act that proceeds from the will enlightened by the intellect’s prior knowledge (cuius principium est intra cum additione scientiae [Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ª, 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 (the 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 narrower extension than the voluntary act. Apart from these distinctions, moralists use the terms voluntary, human act, moral act, and free act as synonyms. In this sense, the components of the voluntary act are the same as those of the human act: intelligence (awareness, attention, cognition), will (consent, intention), and freedom. The analysis of the voluntary act, therefore, is not a duplicate of that of the human act, but its necessary development and deepening.
It is easier to grasp the difference between the voluntary act, which has no subjective cause other than the will, and an effect which, although independent of human willing in its occurrence, nevertheless becomes its object (the volitum).
I. DIVISION
1) Insofar as it is identified with them, the V. is susceptible to all the divisions of the human, moral, and free act, and the qualification of V. applies to elicited, commanded, and mixed acts, to omissions, and to the related effects attributable to the will. 2) Necessary and free V. (v. above). 3) Perfect and imperfect v., principally in relation to the quantity and quality of awareness, which may be total or partial, clear or confused,and secondarily in relation to consent, which may be more or less deliberate and conscious. 4) Absolute (simpliciter) and relative (secundum quid) v., according as the act is willed in all its aspects or is partly willed and partly unwilled. An act performed in the latter circumstances gives rise to the so-called mixed v., that is, to an act qualified as V. simpliciter and secundum quid involuntary. 5) Positive and negative v., according as it consists in an action or an omission. 6) Express and tacit v., according as the will is manifested in words and other equivalent external signs, or is inferred from the subject’s acts and omissions. The tacit is not to be confused with the presumed v., which indicates a will that is not present but is presumed from the ordinary manner in which people behave. The meaning and scope of the maxim qui tacet consentire videtur vary with the circumstances. In favorable matters, one may always infer consent from silence; but in unfavorable matters, only when the person concerned ought and is able (morally and physically) to express his will. 7) Direct (or in se) and indirect (or in causa) v.: the former (also called formal by some) is represented by the very object of the will insofar as it is willed, that is, abstracted and distinguished from all its objective implications and consequences; the latter, instead, is to be sought in what is connected with the former either as effect to cause (with the latter understood broadly), or as part to whole, etc. The indirect v. is therefore praeter intentionem, but at the same time is foreseen as connected with the action or omission that is the direct object of the will. Very probably, the distinction between explicit and implicit v. may be related to this distinction. A voluntary effect only in causa and indirectly is sometimes simply called permitted. 8) Propter se and propter aliud v., according as it is willed as an end or as a means to an end. 9) Actual, virtual, habitual, and interpretive v., according to the relationship between the determination of the will (the intention) and its realization. In this sense, the V. receives the same divisions as the intention (v.), which is precisely actual, virtual, habitual, and interpretive.
II. INVOLUNTARIO
Correlative to the v. is the involuntary, that is, the act that does not proceed from the will. In the broad sense, everything that does not attain the full humanity of action is involuntary. In the more precise sense, one speaks of negative or privative involuntary action when the will places no act with respect to the thing; of positive involuntary action when the will places an act of aversion. Negative or privative involuntary action is also called non-voluntary. Finally, the involuntary is called perfect or imperfect, according as the will fully and effectively, insofar as it is capable of doing so, opposes the proposed object, or does so with less determination and greater hesitation.Terminology in the problematic of the v. still presents slight variations from one author to another. The profusion and subtlety of the distinctions are due to the effort to accommodate, as far as possible, the bewildering complexity of reality. Despite 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, and that of the act with a double effect.