Soul+(Faculties+of)

Faculties of the Human Soul

The faculties of the human soul offer a comprehensive way of understanding human nature and the human individual. The faculries of the soul are the appetities, the will, and the intellect.

The **Appetites** (1763-1775) refers to the automatic and uncritical attraction to what appears good or the repulsion from what appears evil. Appetites signal the need for a good. External things activate appetites. This is a two-step process: 1) Apprehension causing an involuntary tension that either attracts or repels. 2) This provokes an action to obtain or avoid. The Appetites have been associated with the flesh or the guts but are now known to be in the older more reptilian-like part of the brain. They seem focused in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This area is a pleasure center in the brain. The goods sought can categorize appetites. **Higher Appetites** refer to attraction to spiritual or formal goods //holiness, justice, and friendship. //**Lower Appetites** refer to attractions to physical or material goods //food////, sleep.// Human nature inclines us to certain goods according to St. Thomas Aquinas. When we attain these goods in some measure we experience happiness. They are the basis for natural law. 1) Pursue what is good. 2) Preserve the self. 3) Pre serve the human species. 4) Live in a community. 5) Know and choose.

An **Emotion** is a surge of energy through the appetites that can inflame the will and override the intellect. When we are emotional, our capacity to reason can be impeded. **Concupiscible Emotions** are emotions that surge apart from an act of the will, but then my impact the will. We may never be able to fully master these emotions. This fact is called **concupiscence** refers to the struggle within the self, caused by the alienation of the original sin that makes controlling the impulse emotions so difficult. Irascible Emotions are emotions that surge because of an act of the Will and then can be used to temper the appetites. The ** Will ** (1731-1738) refers to the ability to act on our own initiative; the freedom to choose even in opposition to ones own nature. The will permits us to pursue what we value even if what we value is not good and to avoid what we disvalue even if what we disvalue is good. The will has been associated with the heart. In fact, the will is located in the frontal lobes of the brain. Some areas of the frontal lobes are part of the dopamine circuit that connects the appetites with the will. The frontal lobe also houses the executive cognitive system that is involved in moral reasoning. The Will follows the Intellect. It is the supreme intellectual appetite of human beings because it prompts us in response to our appetites. Through the Will, we seek goods as perceived by the Intellect. ==== Individuals are actualized by their traits revealing them as persons. **Personhood** describes the individual in the context of internal traits and external conditions. Our identity is that part of our personhood known to others. Original sin has knocked our nature and our personhood out of sync with each other. **Impeded Will** refers to acts we take without consent because we are out of sync. ==== ====   **  Character** refers to who we are as a result of our deliberated free will acts. **Executive Will** refers to the choice we freely and deliberately make that establishes the realm for our conduct called character. **Simple Will** refers to acts we take within the confines of our character. Deliberation requires a developed intellect. Before the development of the Intellect, we cannot form our character. Since the intellect develops over a lifetime, we can form character over a lifetime. When we freely responding to Grace we form our conscience so that our character fits the overlap of our human nature and our personhood. ====

====The **Intellect** (1701-1715) refers to our capacity to know and understand. Aristotle described the activity of the intellect in three acts. The First Act of the Intellect is the act of simple apprehension whereby we identify objects and define them //Robin, Dog, Mammal//. The Second Act of the Intellect is act of composing and dividing leading to propositions that evaluate objects. //All dogs are mammals. No robins are mammals. //The Third Act of the Intellect is reasoning, which is the process of sequencing proposition in order to draw out new truths. This offers us the capacity to deliberate and contemplate. //No robins are mammals. All dogs are mammals. No dogs are robins.// Deliberate means to apply principles to a set of material facts. Contemplation means to reason in terms of causes. This is the definition of wisdom. ====

==== Aristotle described the Intellectual Process. It begins when the external senses gather sensations. The internal senses deal with the sensations. Central Sense processes the sensation into a precept. The percept can be stored in the memory as an image. The imagination can act on the percepts considering possibilities that are not now the case. The Intellect through its three acts illuminates the percepts and then abstracts from the percepts to create concepts. The capacity to make concepts gives us the property of panoramic reasoning. **Skill Thinking** means that we have the capacity to perform tasks //Trim a tree.// **Panoramic reasoning** refers to the capacity to take the mental step back and understand the bigger picture or think panoramically //See the forest not the trees//. So far as we can tell, only human beings can reason panoramically. A panoramic intellect makes language natural. Language is a system of communication using words that represent sensations, percepts or concepts expressed through signs or sounds. It allows us to create categories so that we can understand things more completely. We can conceive of the abstract. We can transcend the limits of the physical universe and so contemplate the Divine. ====

This Venn diagram pictures the faculties of the rational soul illustrating how they interact. Each of the circles represents one of the faculties. The intellect: gives us the capacity to **Reason** meaning that we can be sensible, balanced, fair, and logical. The Will permits us to assert ourselves meaning that we can be confident, decisive, and perhaps even bold. Appetite means that we experience emotions. Balance means a state of soul and mind experienced as harmony, stability, and completeness. All of the great religious and philosophical traditions teach that happiness is most readily found in a balanced soul and life. Balance is found in virtuous living. 