Analiza i Egzystencja


ISSN: 1734-9923    eISSN: 2300-7621    OAI    DOI: 10.18276/aie.2026.75-05
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Issue archive / 75 (2026)
Roger Roseth in Conversation with Richard FitzRalph on the Cause of Volitions

Authors: Monika Michałowska
Uniwersytet Medyczny w Łodzi
Keywords: Cognition Ethics Free Will Fourteenth-Century Ethics Natural Philosophy Oxford Calculators
Whole issue publication date:2026
Page range:23 (87-109)
Cited-by (Crossref) ?:

Additional information

Monika Michałowska is professor at the Medical University of Łódź, Poland. Her research focuses on late medieval ethics and theology, especially at Oxford in the fourteenth century. She has critically edited Richard Kilvington’s Quaestiones super libros Ethicorum (Brill, 2016) and Quaestiones super libros Sententiarum (Brill, 2021; 2023). Recently, she has published a critical edition of Richard FitzRalph’s Lectura in Sententias (with M.W. Dunne; Brill, 2025) and co-authored a book on late medieval concepts of the will, Safeguarding Free Will: William Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Richard Kilvington on the Will (with R. Fedriga; Księgarnia Akademicka, 2022). She also co-edited a collected volume on Calculating Ethics in the Fourteenth Century (with E. A. Lukács; Brill, 2024).

Abstract

The first half of the fourteenth century was the golden age of voluntarist debates at Oxford, which thrived as a remarkable shift occurred in both the methodology of ethical argumentation and its focal themes. Triggered by advancements in natural philosophy and propounded by the Oxford Calculators, the new approaches in ethics made it possible to craft novel and original arguments and argumentation tactics. This paper traces one aspect of the will debate, focusing on Roger Roseth’s views on free will, which drew substantially on the voluntarist thought of Richard FitzRalph. Although FitzRalph was undoubtedly one of Roseth’s most significant influences, Roseth did not blindly follow his fellow Oxonian’s reasoning, but instead critically reassessed his arguments on the cause of volitions for safeguarding the freedom of the will.
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