How voluntarism influenced the broader culture of the later Middle Ages

Freedom of will took its modern shape as a philosophical problem at the end of the Middle Ages. It was during this period that philosophers in Europe first began to think of human beings as free in virtue of having a special power of will. That in turn required defining the will as the principal agent within us, capable of turning human behavior in one direction or another. Philosophers such as Peter John Olivi, John Duns Scotus, and William Ockham created, around the turn of the fourteenth century, an entirely new conception of moral agency, centered around the will, which has become known as voluntarism.

This research project seeks to understand how these philosophical ideas made their way into broader European culture, yielding a transformed understanding of human nature and moral agency. The project primarily looks at medieval English literature from the fourteenth century, in the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and the Gawain poet. These authors, in different ways, conceive of human agents as fundamentally moral agents whose behavior is governed by their will. Shedding an older duality that pits reason against emotion, the later Middle Ages gives rise to a conception of human nature that gives the will a mediating role, steering between reason and emotion. On this picture, human beings become identified closely with their wills, and the quality of their wills determines their status as moral agents.

Key Publications

After Certainty: Historical Reflections on Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae 1a 75-89 (Cambridge University Press, 2002).