INTELLECT, WILL and FREEDOM

Intellect- the ability to learn and reason; the capacity for knowledge and understanding. Will - capacity to choose  among alternative courses of action and to act on the choice made

Assimilation - act of becoming part of something Assimilation - act of becoming part of something. - the integration of new knowledge or information with what is already known. The adequate assimilation of values depends above all on the intellect and the will.

Truth is the nourishment of the mind; goodness, that of the will Truth is the nourishment of the mind; goodness, that of the will. Truth – the thing that corresponds to fact or reality. Goodness – the quality of being good Good – having the appropriate qualities to be something

the mind as an instrument for pursuing and reaching the truth Truth is the value that the mind looks for. The everyday existence of the individual depends on a grasp of many elementary physical and experiential truths (an electric cable can take a person's life). We are used to applying a "true or false" criterion as a means of testing or improving people's knowledge of mathematics, physics, geography, history, civics, etc.

People, especially young people, do not normally know these truths by instinct, and so need to be taught. Since values are our focal point of interest, we hold that the mind should be formed so that it is an effective faculty for discovering genuine or true values:

Formation of the will; choosing the goodness of a value The function of the intellect is to allow us to discover the truth: the real essence of things and ideas.             Acting calls for choosing. Our decisions tend to correspond even more to subjective and interested motivations.

we normally choose on the basis not merely of the truth ascertained, but as much, or perhaps even more, of the goodness seen in the object proposed for a possible choice. The election or final choice depends on the will, whose tendency is to adhere to what presents itself as good.

In human choice the action of the will is of course not by any means just of attraction or acceptance. It is also of rejection. - it may also be so in the much more important sense that the will can quite deliberately reject a possible choice, even though the person is strongly attracted towards it.

However, the matter becomes complicated if the mind is slow to recognize the truth. And goes astray in its reasoning and takes to be true what is in fact false, or right what is in fact wrong.

These errors of the mind have an effect on the will. A likely consequence is that the will is mistakenly drawn to prefer some inferior good or value to one that is greater. Moreover, even though the mind may be quite clear and certain in its judgment of what is a true and right value, the will can nevertheless choose

in contradiction to the mind in contradiction to the mind. In other words, the will can take over or "hijack" the mind somewhere along the process of discerning what is true and good. This shows the complexity of the human operation.

Interrelation between mind and will It is often maintained that the mind plays the principal role in the elective process. Each human decision is after all to be attributed ultimately not to the faculties - intellect or will - but to the person who thinks and wants.

The mind influences the will; but the opposite is also true. And perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the decisive role which the will can play in the evaluations made by the intellect.

Freedom - is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. - is the power to achieve, choose, or become in the absence of constraints or obstacles.

LAWLESS FREEDOM? Man has the right to be free, and this is a natural right. Yet, since rights derive from nature and are dependent on nature, the right to be free can only be exercised in accordance with his nature.

            If man does not know his own nature - what sort of being he is - and does not respect it, he may forfeit his human rights: the fundamental right to be human, the even more fundamental right to be alive. The recognition of freedom lies with the mind; the grasping of it, with the will. The truth will make me free - if I choose to accept it. But I may know the truth and choose not to accept it. Then I am not made free. I make myself unfree.

Freedom is for choosing The better the object of choice, the more it is worth choosing, and the more one's choice is worth sticking to.

A basic law of freedom is: worthwhile choices should be stuck to A basic law of freedom is: worthwhile choices should be stuck to. A person is not free if he lacks sticking power, if he is not master enough of self to keep going when the going, though worthwhile, is difficult. His changing - his going back on his choices - is a proof not so much of freedom as of weakness.

Freedom, law and restraint             To place the essence of freedom in the absence of limitation or restraint is to fall into a false idea of freedom, at least as applied to man in his present condition. Freedom must be seen in function of nature, and man's nature is constitutionally subject to many limitations.

- Law always involves a restraint: the necessary restraint in order precisely to preserve freedom for myself and for others.             -In relation to others, law seeks to restrain me from actions that imply a violation of their fundamental freedom to develop their human life.

- The freedom of each one of us is indeed meant to be conditioned or restrained by the freedom of others.             Freedom is not the freedom to do what one likes; it is the freedom to do good.