Biomedical Engineering Reference
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or the seeking of its own good
only.
For Duns Scotus, then, when a free
agent acts according to nature to realize itself or seek its own good, it
paradoxically acts
unnaturally
since to seek what is “
bonum in se
is not
to seek something that 'realizes the potential of a rational nature.' It is
somehow to transcend 'the natural' and thus to have a mode of opera-
tion that sets the rational agent apart from all other agencies.”
58
This understanding of will grounds, for Duns Scotus, the possibility
of our being able to transcend our own self-interest or self-benefit (what
sociobiologists call genetic selfishness)—a topic to be addressed later.
Duns Scotus also proposes a view of freedom that is not limited to the
choice of alternatives or freely elicited acts. Rather, in keeping with his
mentors Saints Augustine and Anselm, Duns Scotus views freedom as “a
positive bias or inclination to love things objectively or as right reason
dictates.”
59
The proper focus of freedom, and by implication moral
analysis, is not the individual act of choosing but the inclination as a
whole. And such an inclination focuses on fidelity to the good in itself,
not the specific act of choosing that good or the necessary appreciation
of what is good for the fulfillment of the nature of the agent. Here, Duns
Scotus follows the older Catholic tradition of Anselm when he says,
“Whoever has what is appropriate and advantageous in such a way that
it cannot be lost is freer than he who has this in such a way that it can
be lost.”
60
From a psychological point of view, Duns Scotus argues that
our awareness of the limitation of any particular act of will means that
we experience freedom as choice. That is, we are aware that we could
have chosen otherwise and that such a choice would have given a
different degree of perfection. Thus, “choice is simply basic freedom in
inferior conditions”—that is, human finitude.
61
When we will or make
a choice, our will is never fully actual or fully expressed, for it is con-
tingent—we can in fact choose this or that option. Yet for all that, we
can approach our perfection through our steadfastness or constancy in
cleaving to the object of our love. “The perfection of freedom connotes
a perseverance and stability in the will's adherence to the good,” com-
ments William Frank.
62
Duns Scotus presents both a critical and a positive perspective on
freedom that is of particular importance. He discounts the significance
of choice, understood as any particular choice or any choice considered
as an isolated event. To say this, of course, flies totally in the face of
