Sigmund Freud describes the biological ego, in essence, as the effort to govern action in the sensory context. Man and animal both express this biological effort; man contemplates this effort consciously; and man infers that other humans and animals possess a biological ego as an attribute of their bodies. The formation of an identity, in the context of ego effort, is a separate yet related concern for social science.
Hugh Gibbons, my professor for Legal Philosophy, describes the will of each person using a sentence: I am the cause of desired perceptions. A perception arises in the cognitive context. If the effort to govern action, the biological ego, forms a conscious desire and intention to cause the same or different perception, then this is the experience of human will. So according to Gibbons, in the context of ego psychology, the will is the experience of an intention to change perception and the effectiveness of the effort to change perception.
The will of man or animal is either effective or ineffective in the sensory context. When the will is effective then it also seems to be free of internal and external constraints. When the will is ineffective then something internal or external to the bodyego seems to impede or interfere with the experience and expression of will. Freud argues that the biological inner drives and external reality are independent forces that the ego takes as external from itself.
Prudence is defined as the ability to govern action by the use of reason. I define reason, in this context, as the mature human ability to anticipate the consequences of actions in the sensory context. This is not about scientific cause and effect; although that skill is very helpful; it is about anticipating the actions and reactions of other humans and animals in the context of mutual internal drama. The
According to Hugh Gibbons, the law in the United States is about the experience and expression of human drama with a central value that the will should be used to benefit self and others under rules of law. In this system he says, "The will of each person is worthy of respect."
Another human value competes with the effort to respect the will of each person. Authoritarianism or what I(I call it The Battle for Superego Domination) does not respect the will of each person it. The sadistic superego requires strict adherence to codes of behavior under the cloak of superior authority. Authoritarianism is the sadistic expression of The Will to Power.
The biological ego of humans seems to value prudence in the self and others. An effective ego can desire to benefit or harm others; and we often judge prudence to be an ego that benefits both self and others; we form adverse moral judgments when an ego causes intentional harm to self or others; and there are exceptions to the moral rules of prudent behavior. We label persons who intend harm as mentally ill or criminal or evil, etc.
A rational or irrational action translates into a human moral judgment, passed on the actions of the self or other humans (but not so much passed on the behavior of animals), as to whether the action is based on the ability to anticipate or plan consequences in the human social context or when a human interacts with non-human attributes of reality.