Did Giles of Rome Change His Mind Concerning Will and Intellect? An Inquiry into his interpretation of Moral Responsibility

In Giles of Rome, moral responsibility and human freedom are articulated taking into account the relation of will and intellect. For Giles, this topic appears to be particularly crucial and often recurs in his texts over the course of his career. According to some scholars, reacting to the academic and ecclesiastic circumstances (e.g., his condemnation in 1277 and his rehabilitation in 1285), Giles increasingly favored the autonomy of the will in his ethics. That is to say, taking its starting point from an “intellectualistic interpretation” of the relation of the faculties of the soul, the Augustinian magister changed his mind after his rehabilitation, placing more importance on the volitional faculty. To the contrary, I shall point out that in his ethics certain consistencies can be observed that emerge in all his works. The aim of the article is to investigate whether Giles reconsidered his earlier opinion regarding moral responsibility. Keywords: Will/Intellect; Condemnation of 1277; Human