Are there times when the will refuses to act on what the intellect presents as good?

Answer 1

I believe that there is a point of confusion in the question itself. The will cannot "refuse" to act. The very idea of having "will" goes hand-in-hand with the idea that humans have control of it. Now, there are certainly times when human beings set their will to act against things they know "in their head" (or intellectually) to be good or right. However, a person's will can never be said to act without a "want" in the equation.

For example, if one sees that their room is catching on fire his intellect tells him facts such as "there is fire, it is hot, it is dangerous, it can hurt me, I should escape from it" and based on this, he desires or wants to escape, so he does.

He put his will into action because of his desire. No one ever sees his room on fire and thinks "I want to escape" and then walks straight into the flames because his will suddenly "refused" to obey. Indeed, we steer our wills against what we know to be right not because the will chooses for us, but because we are tempted by some kind of desire that we allow the will to point toward, instead of toward what is good.