Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
idiosyncratic use of the term altruism. And it is because of this that they
have gotten themselves into what many consider to be a Hobbesian
world.
Duns Scotus begins with two distinctions. First is the concept of a
nature: a principle of activity by which an entity acts out or actualizes
its reality. A being's nature is the reason why an entity acts as it does.
Or as he says, “The potency of itself is determined to act, so that so far
as itself is concerned, it cannot fail to act when not impeded from
without.”
47
A nature essentially explains why an entity acts as it does.
A will, on the other hand, “is not of itself so determined, but can
perform either this act or its opposite, or can either act or not act at
all.”
48
Hence, the reason why this act was done as opposed to another
is that the will is the will and can elicit an act in opposite ways. Fol-
lowing Saint Anselm, Duns Scotus distinguishes two movements in the
will as the
affectio commodi
—the inclination to seek what is advanta-
geous or good for one self—and the
affectio justitiae
—the inclination to
seek the good in itself.
Here, I focus on the affectio commodi, the will to do what is to our
advantage, perfection, or welfare. This affection or inclination is a nature
seeking its own fulfillment. For Duns Scotus, this affectio commodi is
not an elicited act. Rather, it is a natural appetite necessarily seeking its
own perfection. As Duns Scotus explains:
That it does so
necessarily
is obvious, because a nature could not remain a nature
without being inclined to its own perfection. Take away this inclination and you
destroy the nature. But this natural appetite is nothing other than an inclination
of this sort to its proper perfection; therefore the will as nature necessarily wills
its perfection, which consists above all in happiness, and it desires such by its
natural appetite.
49
Allan B. Wolter provides an interesting commentary on this concept:
All striving, all activity stems from an imperfection in the agent. As the etymo-
logical derivation of the word itself suggests, nature [from
nasci
, to be born] is
literally what a thing was born to be, or more precisely, born to become, for
nature as an active agent is essentially dynamic in a Faustian sense. It is restless
until it achieves self-perfection. Since what perfects a thing is its good and since
this striving for what is good is a form of love, we could say with Socrates that
all activity is sparked by love.
50
This love, however, is neither objective nor directed to the good of
another, regardless of whether or not this other being might be a kin. It
