The fourth level is decision. So the four levels are experience, to understand, to judge, to decide. The decision is an "act of willing" (276).
Decision has similarities with judgment since both "select one member of a pair of contradictories; as judgment either affirms or denies, so decision either consents or refuses" (276). In addition, both are concerned with "actuality;" but judgment is concerned "to complete one's knowledge of an actuality that already exists, while decision is concerned to confer actuality upon a course of action that otherwise will not exist" (276). Finally, both judgment and decision are rational, for both intents objects that are "apprehended by insight," and both are the results of reflective reason (276).
However, there is a "radical" difference between judgment and decision. Lonergan writes, "Judgment is an act of rational consciousness, but decision is an act of rational self-consciousness. The rationality of judgment emerges in the unfolding of the detached and disinterested desire to know in the process towards knowledge of the universe of being. But the rationality of decision emerges in the demand of the rationally conscious subject for consistency between his knowing and his deciding and doing" (276-277).
Lonergan states that there is a "succession of enlargements of consciousness," (277). a successions that says what consciousness mean. Dreaming is replaced by waking up. "Intelligent inquiry emerges in waking to compound intelligent and empirical consciousness" (277). Intelligent consciousness is followed by critical, reflexive thinking labelled as rational consciousness. The last level to emerge is the consciousness of deliberation which adds doing to one's knowing, and deciding reasonably.
This demand of adding doing to knowing is not from necessity, but contingency. Lonergan writes, "The rationality that imposes an obligation is not conditioned internally by an act of the will. The rationality that carries out an obligation is conditioned internally by the occurence of a reasonable act of the will. . . . The rational subject as imposing an obligation upon himself is just a knower, and his rationality consists in radically in not allowing other desire to interfere with the unfolding of the detached and disinterested to know. But the rational subject as carrying out an obligation is not just a knower but also a doer, and his rationality consists in not merely in excluding interference with the cognitional process but also in extending the rationality of his knowing into the field of doing" (278).
Rational consciousness changes into rational self-consciousness. Lonergan sates, "But one can be a rational knower without an act of willing, and one cannot be a rational doer without an act of willing" (278). It is the adding of the act of will that moves the subject from knowing to doing.
Lonergan, then, discusses essential and effective freedom. Lonergan distinguishes between the two types of freedom: "Man is free essentially inasmuch as possible courses of action are grasped by practical insight, motivated by reflection, and executed by decision. But man is free effectively to a greater or less extent inasmuch as this dynamic structure is open to grasping, motivating, and executing a broad or a narrow range of otherwise possible courses of action" (279). He gives the example that one may be essential free from smoking, but not effectively.
Effective freedom is based on essential freedom. Life in the world is contingent. Possible courses to take are also contingent. Possible courses of action "grasped by practical insight are merely possible until they are motivated by reflection and executed by decision" (279).
Not only are courses of action contingent, they also "constitute a manifold of alternatives" (279). People are "aware of the alternatives" (280). Next, the "will's decision is not determined by its antecedents" (280). Evidence of man's freedom "lies in the possibility of inconsistency between human knowing and doing" (280). Lonergan states that the act of the will is "not arbitrary. A course of action is intelligent and intelligible if it is grasped by a practical insight" (281).
Lonergan list four conditions of effective freedom: "(1) external circumstance, (2) the subject as sensitive, (3) the subject as intelligent, and (4) the subject as antecedently willing." Lonergan asserts, "Whatever one's external circumstances may be, they offer only a limited range of concretely possible alternatives and only limited resources for bringing about the enlargement of that range" (281). There are also limitations from the subject's "psychoneural state." Even "perfect adjustment" does not "dispense one from the necessity of acquiring sesitive skills and habits" (282). Third, there are limitations of "intellectual development." Lonergan distinguishes between will, willingness, and willing. "Will is the bare capacity to make decisions. Willingness is the state in which persuasion is not needed to bring one to a decision. Willing, finally, is the act of deciding" (282).
Basically, effective freedom requires effort.
Lonergan asserts that moral impotence means that man's freedom is "restricted."
Man's freedom can be limited by bias: individual and group biases.
There is also the problem of the "incapacity for sustained development" (287). There are ups and downs.
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