 John Duns Scotus regarded the taxonomies based on the notion of arduousness as artificial and criticized the influential Avicennian idea that there are “intentions” in things which can be grasped by an estimative power and then move the motive power. He argued that representations of a certain kind cause learned or instinctual behavioral changes in some animals and others in others, this being a matter of law-like fact. A sheep naturally flees from a wolf which it perceives, not its inner hostility recognized by the inner sense as in Avicenna; it even flees from a peaceful sheep which looks like a wolf (Ordinatio I.3.1.1–2, p. 43–44; III.15, 42–43, p. 495–496; III.34, 35–38, p. 193–196; cf. Perler 2012). The influential part of Scotus’s approach to emotions was his systematic discussion of the Franciscan position of postulating the passions of the will, which appears in the discussion of the emotions of Christ. This was also where Scotus developed his theory of emotions. According to Scotus, when one is aware of the actuality of what was desired or its contrary, “there follows a passion of the will, joy or distress, which is caused by the object present in this way”. These passions are not directly caused by free will (Ordinatio III.15, 48, p. 498). Even though joy or distress are acts of the will in the sense of being actual states of the intellectual moving power, they are passions in the sense of having an external efficient cause and not being free acts of the will. This corresponds to the traditional view of emotions as passive reactions. 