Voluntarism in the depth-psychology corpus is not a unified doctrine but a contested horizon stretching from ancient Greek ethical psychology through Patristic theology into modern clinical theory. The term designates, at its core, the philosophically significant insistence that will — as a faculty irreducible to cognition or passion — is the constitutive ground of moral action, responsibility, and selfhood. The corpus reveals a fundamental historical tension: Greek intellectualism, from Plato through the Stoics, located moral agency in rational cognition (prohairesis, boulēsis), resisting any autonomous concept of will, whereas the Hebraic and Augustinian tradition introduced volition as a distinct, irreducible principle. Dihle’s sustained argument that Seneca’s ‘vague voluntarism’ never crystallized into a clear will-concept before Augustine marks the pivotal scholarly claim. John of Damascus systematizes voluntariness as the condition for praise, blame, and moral accountability. Ricoeur carries the issue into phenomenological action theory, tracking voluntariness through ascription and imputation. Jung, approaching from a different angle, treats the involuntary constellation of psychic contents as a counterweight to ego-voluntarism, challenging the assumption that conscious intention governs psychic process. The clinical literature of motivational interviewing further refracts the problem: autonomous choice is a therapeutic precondition, yet the therapist’s directive role complicates the voluntarist premise. Across these registers, voluntarism names the deep wager — contested by depth psychology — that the self is sovereign over its own acts.
Seneca’s vague voluntarism was never systematized into a clear concept of will, either by himself or by later Roman authors. Roman philosophy… did not develop the distinct notion of will before St. Augustine.
Dihle’s thesis passage: Roman voluntaristic tendencies remained philosophically inchoate until Augustine forged the first rigorous concept of will, marking the decisive break with Greek intellectualism.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982thesis
Voluntariness, then, is assuredly followed by praise or blame, and renders the action pleasurable and desirable to the actor, either for all time or for the moment of its performance.
John of Damascus defines voluntariness as the necessary condition for moral evaluation — praise and blame — thereby grounding ethical accountability in the structure of the will.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
Voluntariness, then, is assuredly followed by praise or blame… Involuntariness, on the other hand, brings merited pity or pardon in its train, and renders the act painful and undesirable to the doer.
This parallel passage in the Exact Exposition restates the same structural definition, establishing voluntariness and involuntariness as the twin axes of Christian moral-theological anthropology.
, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2021thesis
St. Augustine’s doctrine of grace, very much like his Trinitarian theology, can only be properly understood on the basis of the fundamental belief that the direct relation between God and the human soul is prior to and independent of any objectively existing order of being.
Dihle demonstrates that Augustine’s voluntarism — the primacy of the will-relation over cognitive ontology — is what distinguishes his theology irreducibly from Greek intellectualist predecessors including Pelagius.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982thesis
Will as an independent factor in human life as implied in the Biblical tradition does not appear. Gregory does not even use a concept which was first introduced by Tertullian, in order to harmonize the voluntaristic approach of the Bible with the traditional intellectualism of Greek ethical thought.
Dihle identifies Tertullian as the first thinker to consciously bridge Biblical voluntarism with Greek intellectualism, marking the voluntarism/intellectualism tension as the organizing problematic of early Christian ethics.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982thesis
The simultaneous presence of these three components is essential to the Aristotelian interpretation of what today we term ‘ascription.’… Beginning with involuntary actions, characterized by compulsion or ignorance, Aristotle declares: ‘That is compulsory of which the moving principle is outside.’
Ricoeur traces how Aristotle’s analysis of voluntary and involuntary action constitutes the philosophical foundation for modern theories of ascription and moral imputation.
, Oneself as Another, 1992supporting
If the voluntary deserves praise and blame, the involuntary calls for pardon and pity… H. L. A. Hart proposes to interpret propositions in ordinary language of the type ‘he did that,’ along the lines of judicial decisions.
Ricoeur shows how the Aristotelian voluntarism/involuntarism distinction passes directly into legal-philosophical theories of imputation, linking the classical doctrine to contemporary jurisprudence.
, Oneself as Another, 1992supporting
Its dominant voluntaristic connotation can be seen from passages like ench. 8: ‘… limping is a hindrance of the legs, not of the faculty of choice, provided the faculty of choice itself does not admit it.’
Dihle reads Epictetus’s prohairesis as carrying a latent voluntaristic connotation, anticipating — without fully achieving — an autonomous concept of will.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982supporting
He had to attain a precise conception and evaluation of what the persons involved really wished or intended (voluntas). This catalogue was formulated by Quintilian late in the first century A.D.
Dihle locates the emergence of a juridical concept of voluntas in Roman civil law and rhetoric, tracing voluntarism’s entry into technical legal discourse prior to Augustine.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982supporting
The constellation is an automatic process which happens involuntarily and which no one can stop of his own accord.
Jung’s concept of constellation implicitly challenges voluntarism by demonstrating that significant psychic processes are triggered and proceed involuntarily, beyond the reach of conscious will.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting
Only men and angels have been given full freedom of choice, the other beings of creation only to a lesser extent. Hence everyone will be judged by the Creator at the end of the world, but only for actions caused by free decision.
Bar Daisān’s doctrine illustrates an early Christian voluntarist move: grounding eschatological judgment solely in freely willed action, thereby separating moral responsibility from natural determination.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982supporting
The law only punished hurts which are inflicted by a voluntary agent on an involuntary patient… the good or evil disposition of the agent is the principle which characterizes actions; and this is not sufficiently described by the terms voluntary and involuntary.
The Laws passage shows Plato interrogating the boundaries of voluntarism in law, recognizing that intentional disposition exceeds the simple voluntary/involuntary binary.
, Laws, -348supporting
The progress in knowledge that has been inaugurated by the initial act of will, namely the acceptance of God’s mercy and love of one’s neighbor, will also come to its end at that point.
Dihle reads Paul’s soteriology as centering an inaugural volitional act — acceptance of grace — that sets all subsequent moral and cognitive development in motion, a proto-voluntarist structure.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982supporting
The idea of perverted will and of will as ubiquitously present in all decisions… Aristotle gave a strong impetus to the idea of will as a desire, so distinct from reason, but none the less belonging with reason as rational.
Sorabji maps the conceptual genealogy of will from Aristotle onward, identifying the idea of perverted will and the omnipresence of volition in decision as key elements clustering around the emergent voluntarist concept.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000supporting
Even highly extrinsic motivators such as paying people money to abstain from alcohol… assume voluntary participation in the exchange. Offenders can be incarcerated… but behavior change after release is subject to autonomous choice.
Miller’s clinical argument presupposes a practical voluntarism — autonomous choice as the irreducible precondition for any genuine behavior change — establishing the therapeutic stakes of the doctrine.
, Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change, Third Edition, 2013supporting
The three functions of that spiritual substance, that is to say memory, intellect, will, are individually attributed to Father, Logos, Spirit.
Dihle notes how Augustine’s Trinitarian theology structurally elevated will to co-equal rank with memory and intellect, making voluntarism architecturally central to Christian anthropology.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982supporting
We have conceptions of legal responsibility different from any such conception the Greeks had, but that is because we have a different conception of law — not, basically, a different conception of responsibility.
Williams questions whether modern legal voluntarism represents a genuine conceptual advance over Greek thought, suggesting the apparent difference lies in institutional rather than psychological structure.
, Shame and Necessity, 1993aside
The very different attitude to intentions necessarily found in each of these groups makes it imperative to discover which is the more powerful; for this is bound to be the most important clue to the outlook on life as a whole.
Adkins’s analysis of competitive versus cooperative Greek values highlights how the role of intention — a prerequisite for voluntarism — varies systematically across ethical frameworks.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960aside