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1. How Consent Could be Coerced
22. About the first I say that coercion does not properly happen to a man in any human act; for it is a contradiction that the will is simply coerced to an act of willing; because, since from Ethics 3.1.1110b15-17 “the violent is that whose principle is outside, the passive thing contributing no force to it,” understand this to be ‘contributing no force’, that is, ‘contributing no violence’ - not by way of negation but by way of contrariety, that is, ‘not contributing violence to the contrary’. This is to say, ‘the violent is what is totally from a principle outside and is against the inclination of the passive thing’; and an act of will cannot in this way be in the will, because then he who does not will would will, which manifestly includes a contradiction.
23. However, what has a will can be coerced to some passive suffering (as that it remain here bound), or to some instrumental action, which however is not its own action (for example if he strike someone with my hand, because he could do that with a bronze hand).
24. But to an elicited or commanded action of the will, which alone is properly a human action, a man cannot be compelled save in a certain respect, namely by fear of a greater evil than that act is. And this coercion can exist in a virtuous man, namely when he knows - not by a slight guess or suspicion but with certitude (at least a certitude sufficient in the case of human acts) - that an evil is to be inflicted on him that is more unacceptable to him and more to be avoided than eliciting the act that displeases him. And it can well be that it is more unacceptable to him according to right reason, as death or undergoing imprisonment or captivity, and as major mutilation or disgrace or the like evils.
25. Since, therefore, he is lord of his will, he can also will something that he would otherwise not will, and command an act otherwise refused, before he incur those evils -and this according to right reason; hence such fear is said to happen to a man of constancy. But no fear can, according to right reason, bring anyone to mortal sin, because there cannot be a greater evil that threatens than mortal sin, because no penalty, mere penalty, is worse than mortal sin.
26. Now as to venial sin let it here be a matter of doubt. But about it elsewhere.78