VOLUNTARY. – It is the act that proceeds from the will, illumined by the prior knowledge of the intellect (whose principle is within, with the addition of knowledge: *cuius principium est intra cum additione scientiae* [Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, 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 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. Apart from these distinctions, moralists use the terms voluntary, human act, moral, and free as synonyms. In this sense, the coefficients of the voluntary are the same as those of the human act: intellect (awareness, attention, cognition), will (consent, intention), and freedom. The analysis of the voluntary, therefore, is not a duplication of that of the human act, but its necessary development and deepening.
It is easier to grasp the difference between the voluntary, which has no other subjective cause outside the will, and an effect that, though independent in its occurrence from human volition, nonetheless becomes its object (the *voltum*).
I. DIVISIONS
1) Insofar as it is identified with them, the voluntary is susceptible to all the divisions of the human, moral, and free act, and the qualification of voluntary applies to elicited, commanded, and mixed acts, to omissions and their related effects that depend on the will. 2) Necessary and free voluntary (see above). 3) Perfect and imperfect voluntary, primarily in relation to the quantity and quality of awareness, 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, 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*, that is, an act that is qualified as voluntary *simpliciter* and *secundum quid* and involuntary. 5) Positive and negative voluntary, according as it consists in an action or in an omission. 6) Expressed and tacit voluntary, depending on whether the will is manifested in words or other equivalent external signs, or is inferred from the acts and omissions of the subject. To be distinguished from the tacit is the *presumed* voluntary, which indicates a will that does not exist but is presumed from the ordinary manner in which men behave. The meaning and scope of the adage *qui tacet consentire videtur* varies with circumstances. In a favorable matter, one may always infer consent from silence; but in an unfavorable matter, only when the interested party ought and can (morally and physically) express his will. 7) Direct (*in se*) and indirect (*in causa*) voluntary: the former (also called by some *formal*) is represented by the object itself of the will insofar as it is willed, that is, abstracted and distinct from all its objective implications and repercussions; the latter, instead, is to be sought in what is connected with the former both as effect to cause (taken in a broad sense) and as part to whole, etc. The indirect voluntary is therefore *present in intention*, but at the same time it is foreseen as bound to the action or omission that are the direct object of the will. Very probably, to this distinction one may relate that of the voluntary into *explicit* and *implicit*. A voluntary effect only in cause and indirect is sometimes simply called *permitted*. 8) Voluntary *propter se* and *propter aliud*, according as it is willed as an end or as a means to an end. 9) Actual, virtual, habitual, and interpretative voluntary, according to the relationship between the determination of the will (the intention) and its realization. In this sense, the voluntary receives the same divisions as intention (q.v.), which is indeed 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 action is involuntary. More precisely, one speaks of negative or privative involuntary when the will does not posit any act with regard to the thing; of positive involuntary when 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 fully and effectively to the proposed object, or with less determination and greater hesitation.The terminology in the problematics of the voluntary still presents slight variations from author to author. The profusion and subtlety of distinctions are due to the effort to adapt as closely as possible to the disconcerting complexity of reality. Despite their imperfection, such distinctions find continual application in problems of the greatest importance, such as, for example, the intention necessary to confer and receive the Sacraments (q.V. INTENTION), the problem of indirect morality, and of the act with a double effect.
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