Abstract

This paper argues that according to Aquinas, the appetites require habits in order to function in order to complete the natural intentional structure of the appetite. In order to move the agent to act, the appetites must incline towards some specific good identified through sensory perception or reason. But human appetites, in contrast to the passions of non-rational animals, do not spontaneously incline towards particular objects. They must be shaped through processes of rationally governed formation, including in the case of the will processes of practical induction, in order to incline towards specific objects in the needed way.