CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

Man (2): Morality and Society Aquinas' moral theory is to be found mainly in the two divisions of the second part of the Summa theologica and in the third book of the Summa contra Gentiles, though moral questions are also treated or touched on in some of the Quaestiones disputatae (in the De virtutibus in communi, for example) and the Quodlibeta. His commentary on Aristotle's Ethics is certainly of value for ascertaining his own ideas; but the main purpose of the work is obviously to explain the teaching of the Greek philosopher. If therefore we are looking for Aquinas' own ideas about human moral conduct, we have to turn chiefly to two works one of which was explicitly designed as a systematic treatise on theology while the other, as we saw earlier, cannot be called a purely philosophical work with regard either to its purpose or to

its content.

To say this is not to suggest that Aquinas has no moral philosophy or that he forgets his own distinction between philosophy and theology based on Christian revelation.

When discussing sins and vices he remarks that 'the theologian considers sin principally as an offence against God, whereas the moral philosopher considers it as being contrary to reason' (ST., la, Uae, 71, 6, ad 5). He does not say that there are morally bad acts which are not offences against God or that there are offences against God which are not contrary to right reason. What he says is that the theologian and the moral philosopher consider morally bad acts from rather different points of view or under different aspects. No doubt when he mentions the 'moral philosopher'

I use the phrase 'purely philosophical' in the sense indicated by Aquinas' own distinction between philosophy and dogmatic theology.

AQUINAS he is thinking chiefly, though not exclusively, of Aristotle; but his words show that he was well aware when he was talking specifically as a Christian theologian. He did not, however, attempt to work out a moral philosophy in complete abstraction from Christian doctrines. Indeed, it would be absurd to expect him to have done so in either of the Summas. For in the Summa theologica he was writing for students of theology, while in the Summa contra Gentiles one of his aims was to show how the Christian religion, though it is not deducible from philosophical truths, not only harmonizes with the latter but completes them, as it were, and sheds a fresh light upon them. Aquinas was perfectly well aware that a Greek philosopher like Aristotle was capable of distinguishing between morally good and morally bad actions, and he himself adopted a great deal of the Aristotelian ethical analysis. But he was also convinced that without revelation we can have only an imperfect and inadequate knowledge of the purpose of human life and of man's supreme good.

It is only natural that when he is discussing man's final end he starts with the Aristotelian conception of 'happiness' and ends with the Christian doctrine of the beatific vision of God in heaven and that when he is discussing the virtues he completes his treatment of them by talking about the 'theological virtues' of faith, hope and charity.

In the following pages, therefore, I shall not attempt to prescind altogether from Christian doctrines; for to do this would be to give an unreal impression of Aquinas' thought.

He was a theologian-philosopher of the thirteenth century, not the holder of a chair of moral philosophy in a modern

British university who might think it his business to avoid presupposing the truth of his private religious beliefs. On the other hand, I do not want to give the impression that Aquinas made no distinction between what can be known about human life and destiny by a non-Christian philosopher and what cannot be known apart from revelation. For this was not in fact the case. But Aquinas certainly believed in the harmonious relation between all truths, however

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attained, and he wished to exhibit and illustrate this harmony.

In the last chapter we saw that Aquinas distinguished between 'human acts' (actus humani) and 'acts of a man' (actus hominis). It is only the former, namely free acts proceeding from the will in view of an end apprehended by the reason, which fall within the moral sphere and are morally good or bad. A purely reflex act, for example, is not a 'human act' in Aquinas' technical use of the term. For though it is the act of a human being, in the sense that is performed by a human being, it does not proceed from him considered precisely as a rational free being. And acts of this kind do not fall within the moral sphere. 'Moral acts and human acts are the same' (ST., la, Uae, 1,3).

A modern reader might be inclined to understand the word 'act' in this connexion as meaning an action which can in principle be observed by other people, the action, for example, of giving money to a needy person or the action of stealing jewellery. So it may be as well to remark at once that Aquinas makes a distinction between the 'interior act' and the 'exterior act'. Obviously, if we are talking about human acts in the technical sense, there cannot be an exterior act without an interior act; for a human act is defined with reference to the will. In every human act the will is directed towards an end apprehended by the reason. Therefore in every human act there must be an interior act of the will. But there can be an interior act without what would ordinarily be reckoned as the corresponding exterior act. A man might, for instance, make up his mind to steal a watch, though he never actually does so, perhaps because a good opportunity for doing so does not occur. When therefore

Aquinas talks about morally good and morally bad acts he refers primarily to interior acts. If, however, the interior act issues in an exterior act or is considered as doing so, the word 'act' signifies the total complex unless some qualification or the context shows that the word is being used in a more restricted sense.

AQUINAS Now, as we saw in the last chapter, Aquinas maintains that in every human act the will is directed towards an end, towards something apprehended as or thought to be good, that is, something which is known or thought to perfect in some way the subject who desires and chooses. And in accordance with his finalistic conception of nature Aquinas goes on to argue that the human will is necessarily set towards the final or ultimate good of man as such, and that it is under the impulse of this dynamic and innate orientation of the will that we make our particular choices. And the question arises what is the good of man as such, the object which alone can satisfy completely man's desire and striving. What is the object, the possession of which perfects man in the highest and completest way and by doing so confers happiness in the psychological sense?

It may be objected, of course, that the question assumes illegitimately that there is such an object. But Aquinas maintained that we would desire nothing at all, were there not an ultimate or supreme good for man, since all particular ends or goods are desired and sought after as means to the attainment of the ultimate or final end. It might indeed still be objected that even if we grant the existence of a natural desire for a complete and all-satisfying good, it does not necessarily follow that the desire is capable of fulfilment.

But it must be remembered that Aquinas presupposes the existence of a God who has created things with innate tendencies towards the development of their own real potentialities. He presupposes, as proved elsewhere, that human nature has been created by a personal God who would not have created it with an unavoidable impulse towards a nonexistent good or a good incapable of being attained.

The question, what is the supreme good or final end of man, is a real question in view of the empirical fact that different people have different ideas of what this good is.

Every human being strives after the actualization of his potentialities, after the possession of a good which will satisfy the will, after 'happiness'; but it does not follow that all agree about the nature of this good. 'All desire the final

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end, because all desire their perfection, which is what the final end signifies. But they do not all agree about the concrete nature of the final end' (ST., la, Ilae, i, 17). By saying that all desire their perfection Aquinas does not mean that all human beings make a point of striving after moral perfection, which would be patently false; he means that all tend towards the actualization of the potentialities of their natures, even though they may never make use of terms like

'supreme good' or 'final end'. For him all created things tend towards the actualization of their potentialities; human beings do so not only instinctively but also by means of intellect and will. But since there is neither an innate idea nor an intuition of the supreme good in the concrete, people's ideas of what constitutes the supreme good or final end can be, and indeed are, different. Very often we can tell what this idea is only by observing a man's actions and seeing by the way in which he organizes his life what is his guiding purpose or operative ideal. One man may devote himself to obtaining the greatest possible amount of sensual pleasure, another to the pursuit of power, another to the attainment of knowledge, and so on. Aquinas would not see any difficulty against his theory in modern psychological investigations which show that the ideal or end which a man professes to follow is by no means always coincident with his operative ideal, that is, with the end in view of which he actually organizes his life. But since he believed that in spite of all differences between individuals there is such a thing as human nature, the question, what is the objective supreme good or final end of man as such, was for him a real question.

Aquinas proceeds to consider the claims of various goods 1 Sense-pleasure, for example, cannot be man's supreme good because it perfects to be the ultimate good of man as such. the body only : it actualizes the potentialities of, and satisfies only a part of the human being. Moreover, sense-pleasure can be enjoyed by animals as well as by human beings, and it is the good for man as such, as a 'rational animal', 1.

Cf. ST., la, Uae, 2,

f.; C.G., 3. 27 f.

AQUINAS that we are looking for. Again, power cannot be man's supreme good. For it would be absurd to speak of the supreme good as capable of abuse and of lending itself to the fulfilment of evil or unworthy purposes; and it is clear that power can be used to serve either good or bad purposes.

Nor can scientific or speculative knowledge constitute man's supreme good or final end. The pursuit and attainment of scientific knowledge may satisfy this or that exceptional individual in the sense that it is what he desires and that to which he sacrifices the development of other sides of his nature; but it cannot achieve the objective perfecting of the whole personality. Not even the metaphysical knowledge of God can do this. Indeed, it is deficient even on the level of knowledge. For by philosophical reflection we come to know rather what God is not than what He is. Even the knowledge which we can have of God by faith falls short of the knowledge which alone can satisfy the human mind.

To find the ultimate good or final end of man we have to turn to the supernatural vision of God which is attainable only in the next life.

It may appear that Aquinas here falls victim to his intellectualist tendencies and that he makes knowledge the ultimate good of man. And it is certainly true that he finds the essence of beatitude* in the intuitive knowledge or vision of God. But this does not mean that he excludes love, for example. According to him, the complete satisfaction of the will and of other elements in the human personality are part of 'happiness' in the wide sense, but this satisfaction follows from the vision of God; and it is therefore in the intellectual vision of God that he finds the formal essence of beatitudo.

However, though he lays most emphasis on the intuitive vision of God he is thinking in terms of the Christian doctrine of the risen and transfigured human personality in its completeness. Nor does he forget the Christian doctrine of the communion of saints.

Beatitudo can mean, therefore, either God Himself or man's possession of God, according as one is thinking of the object, the possession of which confers happiness, or of

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man's possession of this object. For Aquinas it is this possession of God which actualizes man's potentialities in the highest possible degree and in the completest manner. But since he was convinced that this possession is impossible without supernatural grace, that it transcends the natural powers of man and that without revelation we cannot know that it is attainable and constitutes the actual final end of man, the conclusion inevitably suggests itself that the moral philosopher in a narrow sense cannot be sure what man's supreme good or final end really is. And this conclusion would obviously create considerable difficulties in a teleological ethic in which the concept of a final end plays such an important part.

For human acts are declared to be morally good or bad in so far as they are or are not compatible with the attainment of this end.

Aquinas, however, did not think that without revelation it is impossible to have any knowledge of the good for man.

Even if a philosopher knows nothing about the beatific vision of God, he is perfectly capable of seeing that some acts conduce to man's perfection, to the development and perfecting of his nature as man, and that others are incompatible with it. Hence he did not say that Aristotle in his teaching about the good for man was simply wrong or that he was a benighted pagan who could know nothing of morality.

Aristotle, he said, was concerned with that imperfect and temporal happiness which man can attain in this life by his own efforts. In his admiration for Aristotle and in his desire to show that the general lines of the latter's philosophy were not incompatible with Christianity he may have tended to play down those aspects of Aristotelianism which seemed in the eyes of some critics to stamp it as a closed and purely naturalistic system. But Aquinas was convinced that Aristotle's outlook on the world and on human life was incomplete and inadequate rather than simply wrong or untrue. Grace perfects nature but does not annul it : revelation sheds further light, but it does not cancel out the truths attainable by purely philosophic reflection.

AQUINAS However great may be the differences between Aristotle's and Aquinas' conceptions of man's final end or ultimate good, it is clear that both men developed teleological theories of ethics, the idea of the good being paramount. For both of them human acts derive their moral quality from their relation to man's final end.

According to Aquinas, every concrete human act is either morally good or morally bad. But the term 'human act' must be taken in his technical sense, and the word 'concrete' is important. For if we consider human acts purely in the abstract some of these can be morally indifferent. Going out into the garden, for instance, can be called morally indifferent if it is considered purely in the abstract. But a concrete or individual human act is either morally good or morally bad, since it is either compatible or incompatible with the attainment of man's supreme good or final end.

If we consider the act of going out into the garden purely in the abstract, we are not in a position to call it either morally good or morally bad: we cannot do this until we come to talk of a concrete or individual act of going out into the garden, an act informed by a certain purpose and characterized by certain circumstances. 'Any individual act has some circumstance by which it is drawn into the class either of good or bad acts, at least in virtue of the intention

But if an act is not deliberate .

. (such as stroking the beard or moving a hand or foot), it is not properly speaking a human or moral act.

. And so it will be indifferent, that is, outside the class of moral acts' (ST., la, Ilae, 18, 9).

The phrase 'informed by a certain purpose' has just been used. And it is important to understand the importance attached by Aquinas to intention. When he considers the interior act and the exterior act as component parts of a single whole, he likes to apply an analogy taken from the hylomorphic theory. Thus he compares the interior act with 'form' and the exterior act with 'matter'. Now intention belongs to the interior act. And it informs the whole act, in the sense that absence of a good intention and presence of a bad intention vitiates the whole act and renders it morally

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bad. If a materially good act is done with a bad intention the total human act, consisting of both elements, is rendered morally bad.

'For instance, we say that to give alms for the sake of vainglory is bad' (S.T., la, Uae, 20,

1). The action of giving alms is materially good, but the bad intention gives a 'form' to the individual human act of almsgiving which renders it morally bad. And, in general, in order that a human act should be morally good, a number of factors have to be present; and the absence of any one of them, of a right intention for instance, is sufficient to prevent our calling it good in an unqualified manner.

It does not follow, however, that for Aquinas intention is everything. 'Goodness of the will, proceeding from intention directed to an end, is not sufficient to make an exterior act good' (ST., la, Uae, 20, 2). For, as Augustine says, there are some things which cannot be justified by any alleged good intention (ibid.; sed contra). The fact that a bad intention vitiates a human act, even though the external complement of the interior act is materially good, does not justify the view that a materially bad act is turned into a good act by the presence of a praiseworthy intention. For a human act, considered as a whole, to be morally bad, the absence of one single requisite factor is sufficient. But for a human act to be good without qualification the presence of one single requisite factor, like a good intention, is not sufficient.

If I steal money from a man in order to give it in alms to someone else, my action is not justified by my good intention.

It is therefore not possible to father on Aquinas the view that the end justifies the means in the popular understanding of this proposition. When he says that human acts derive their moral quality from their relation to man's final end or supreme good, he does not mean that one is justified in doing anything at all provided that one has a certain intention. In order that a human act in the full sense should be morally good it must be compatible both 'formally' and 'materially' with the attainment of the final end. What is done, as well as the intention with which the act is performed and the way in which it is performed, must be com-

AQUINAS patible with attainment of the final end. Aquinas does not mean, of course, that an act cannot be morally good unless there is an explicit and actual reference to the final end or supreme good of man. If a man performs an act of kindness he may not consciously advert to anything else but the other person's needs and his own ability to meet that need.

But his act is either compatible or incompatible with the attainment of the good for man : it must have some relation to it. And according to Aquinas it is from this relation that it ultimately derives its moral quality.

Every concrete or individual human act, therefore, must be either morally good or morally bad. But it does not necessarily follow that because a human act is morally good it is also morally obligatory. An act is morally obligatory only when not to do it or to do something else would be morally bad.

If, for example, I see a child fall into a river and start to drown and I am the only person who can save it, to walk away and leave the child to die because it would be an inconvenience to me to get my clothes wet would be a morally bad action.

I am under a moral obligation to perform the one action which, we will suppose, is capable of saving the child. But it sometimes happens that one is under moral oblieation to choose among several possible lines of action without being morally obliged to choose this or that particular line of action. Suppose, for example, that a man has to support a family by adopting a profession and that he can do so by becoming either a porter or a postman. To choose one or other profession would be, in the circumstances imagined, a moral obligation; but the man would not be under a moral obligation to become a porter rather than a postman or a postman rather than a porter. Morally obligatory acts are thus a subdivision of morally good acts.

In Aquinas' ethical theory the concept of the good remains paramount.

Although it means anticipating what will be said later in connexion with Aquinas' idea of the moral law, one can put the matter in this way. Reason sees that some acts are necessary for the attainment of the good for man. According to

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Aquinas reason sees, for example, that it is necessary to take reasonable means to preserve one's life. Reason therefore orders the taking of food (we are talking about normal circumstances, of course). But this does not mean that one is under a moral obligation to eat beef rather than mutton or either of them rather than fish. Any one of these actions is morally good in so far as it conduces to the attainment of the end; but we cannot say of any particular one of them that it is morally obligatory unless some special circumstances intervene which make it so.

There are, of course, obvious objections to this sort of theory. People, it may be said, do not really argue in this way. There are indeed cases of moral perplexity when one has to reflect and take time to decide what is the right thing to do; but even then ordinary people do not refer to any 'final end' or 'supreme good'. In any case we generally see immediately what is the right thing to do; we feel that this is what we ought to do in the circumstances. Furthermore, we feel that certain actions ought never to be performed, whatever the consequences may be. To treat people, for example, in the way in which political prisoners were treated at Dachau or at Auschwitz is simply wrong in itself : it is not wrong because it is incompatible with some end beyond itself. An analysis of moral obligation in terms of means and end is incompatible with the moral consciousness.

It is true that our natural reaction to reading a description of the tortures inflicted on political prisoners at Dachau is to say that such actions are wrong and that they cannot be justified by any appeal to consequences like increase of scientific knowledge. We feel immediately a repugnance to such actions, and we may very likely go on to say that a man who does not see immediately that they are wrong is deficient in moral sense. But Aquinas did not deny that we can be aware of the wrongness of some actions without having to go through an explicit process of argumentation.

He certainly did not think that there is adequate ground for saying that all human beings see intuitively the Tightness of

AQUINAS all those actions which are right and the wrongness of all those actions which are wrong. This is a point to which I shall return later. But at the same time he did not think that when the ordinary man judges that an act is wrong this judgement must be the result of his having asked himself whether the act is compatible with the attainment of the supreme good for man and of his having come to the conclusion that it is not compatible. Since man has an innate tendency to perfection, that is, to the development of his potentialities as a rational being, it is only natural that many men should see in a quasi-instinctive manner that to treat other human beings as people were often treated in the Nazi concentration camps is an offence against human personality and that it expresses and promotes the degradation of the agent. The acts are wrong in themselves, in the sense that they cannot be excused by political expediency or by desire for increasing scientific knowledge; but it does not follow that there is no reason why they are wrong. We ought to distinguish, Aquinas might say, between the way in which a person comes to believe or to recognize that an act is wrong and the objective reason why the act is wrong.

In whatever way or ways people come to recognize the wrongness of wrong acts, the acts have this in common, that they are wrong and ought not to be performed. And it is only natural for a philosopher to inquire whether what they have in common, namely wrongness, is an unanalysable quality which we can recognize but about which nothing more can be said or whether it is a characteristic which can be analysed.

Aquinas' analysis of good and bad, right and wrong, in terms of means and end can be misunderstood if we fail to distinguish the various senses in which we can speak of means and end. If an artist paints a picture, the brushes can be called means or instruments in the production of the picture, but they do not form part of it. On the other hand, the lines which the artist traces on the canvas and the patches of colour which he successively applies form part of the picture itself. They can be called 'means' in some 2IO

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sense; but the end, namely the picture, is not something entirely beyond them or external to them.

It is, however, external to the artist. But in the teleological ethic of Aristotle morally obligatory acts are not means to an end which is simply external to these acts, since they are already a partial fulfilment of it; nor is the end something external to the agent. If we take the word beatitudo in the sense in which Aquinas sometimes uses it, namely as signifying the object the possession of which confers happiness, the end is certainly 'external' to the human agent; but if the word is taken in the other sense in which he uses it, namely as signifying the activity by which the object is possessed, the final end is not external to the human agent.

Aquinas followed Aristotle in holding that the final end of man consists in activity, and activity is obviously not external to the agent in the sense that a picture is external to the artist.

It may be said that for Aquinas the whole world, including human beings with their potentialities and activities, exists for the glory of God, so that human moral conduct is necessarily subordinated to an end outside itself. Good acts and obligatory acts have value only through their relation to an extrinsic end. But the perfecting of creatures, the development of their natures, is for Aquinas the glorification of God. We cannot justifiably make a dichotomy between human moral conduct on the one hand and the glory of God on the other, as though this were some tertium quid apart from both God and man. God is glorified by the highest possible development of man's potentialities as a rational being, and every moral act of man has therefore an intrinsic value. But this is not to say that they have value purely atomistically, so to speak; they have intrinsic value within the total context of man's movement towards his final end, which is in concrete fact, though not by a necessity of nature, the supernatural possession of the infinite good.

The foregoing remarks do not amount, of course, to a proper discussion of the controversy between the upholders and the critics of teleological ethics. Nor do they constitute a proof of the truth of Aquinas' position. Their purpose is

AQUINAS simply to show how a problem arises in connexion with his ethical theory and at the same time to suggest some considerations which may help towards the understanding of the theory. Further light will, I hope, be shed by the outline which will be given later of his theory of the natural moral law.

As we have seen, Aquinas emphasized the place and function of reason in moral conduct. He shared with Aristotle the view that it is the possession of reason which distinguishes man from the animals, to whom he is in many ways similar.

It is reason which enables him to act deliberately in view of a consciously apprehended end and raises him above the level of purely instinctive behaviour.

Now, every normal human being acts deliberately in view of consciously apprehended ends. And in this sense every normal human being acts, at least sometimes, rationally.

And to act for an end is to act for a good. But it does not follow that the good which a man chooses for the attainment of which he takes particular means is necessarily compatible with the objective good for man. There is therefore room for the concept of 'right reason', reason directing man's acts to the attainment of the objective good for man.

Beth the burglar and the seducer can be said to be acting 'rationally' if they take the appropriate means to the fulfilment of their respective purposes. But since neither burglary nor seduction is compatible with the attainment of the objective good for man, the activities of the burglar and the seducer are not in accordance with 'right reason'.

If it is said that moral conduct is rational conduct, what is meant is that it is conduct in accordance with right reason, reason apprehending the objective good for man and dictating the means to its attainment.

But though Aquinas laid emphasis on man's possession of reason he did not look on man as being either in fact or in ideal a kind of disembodied intellect. And though he emphasized the function of reason in moral conduct he was

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not insensible to the place of emotion and passion in human 1 he says, are common to human beings and life. The passions, to animals, and if they are considered simply in themselves they do not enter the moral order; that is to say, one cannot properly talk about them as being either morally good or morally bad. It is only when they are considered in relation to the human reason and will that we can speak of them as good or bad in a moral sense. When they are in accordance with right reason and subject to its control they are good, when they are allowed to obscure reason and to lead us into acts, not necessarily external acts/ which are contrary to right reason, they are bad. But it is false to say that man would be better off without any passions or emotions; for without them man would not be man. We have no right to say that all passions are evil.

When treating of this matter Aquinas alludes to the dispute between the Stoics and the Peripatetics or Aristotelians.

'The Stoics said that all passions are evil, whereas the Peripatetics said that moderated passions are good'

(S.T. f la, Ilae, 24, 2). And he makes the following characteristic comment. 'Although as far as words go the difference between them seems to be considerable, in actual fact there is no difference, or at any rate very little, if, that is to say, one bears in mind what each party meant'

(ibid.). For the Stoics, according to Aquinas, meant by 'passions' the motions of the sensitive appetite unregulated by reason, and in condemning all passions as evil they were really condemning what the Peripatetics also condemned, namely unhealthy upsurges of emotion, unregulated by reason and tending to lead man into acts contrary to right reason. And Aquinas goes on to say that if one understands the word 'passion' in the sense given it by the Stoics, it is true to say with them that the presence of passion or emotion diminishes the moral value of an act. But if one does not under1.

In the ordinary language of today the word 'passion' generally signifies an emotion unregulated by reason, as in the sentence 'She flew into a passion.' But Aquinas uses the word in a neutral sense, to mean emotions and affects.

AQUINAS stand the word in this restricted sense, the statement that the moral goodness of an act is necessarily impaired by the presence of passion or emotion is false. Indeed, 'it pertains to the perfection of moral goodness that a man should be moved towards the good not only by his will but also by his sensitive appetite'

(S.T., la, Ilae, 24, 3). Aquinas was well aware, of course, that the doing of one's duty may be some times extremely unpleasant; and he was also aware that the strength of the moral character is tested in precisely these situations. But his ideal of the completely integrated human being did not permit him to share the view, not infrequently ascribed to Kant, that it is in itself better to do one's duty without or even contrary to inclination than to do it with inclination. Needless to say, Aquinas thought that it is better to do an act of kindness even though it goes against the grain than not to do it. And he would doubtless take a poor view of doing acts of kindness simply and solely to obtain a pleasurable feeling from doing them. But he also thought that it is in itself better to do acts of kindness with pleasure than to do them with set teeth, as it were. Ideally, the whole man should be attracted by the good.

One of the main factors in human moral activity is thus the passions or emotions. The whole moral life is founded on the will's movement towards the good, and particular emotions can greatly help or hinder moral choice and action. Another influential factor is habit. Aquinas recognized, of course, the presence of innate 'habits' in the sense of innate bodily dispositions which incline us to act in one way rather than another. But in his technical use of the word he meant by 'habit' an acquired habit, acquired, that is to say, by acts, rather than innate bodily predispositions. Acquired habits, or simply habits, are for him qualities which in accordance with his distinction between different faculties or powers he describes as qualities of the latter. Thus there can be habits not only in the powers of the sensitive part of man but even in his intellectual faculties. These habits are caused by acts,

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though we obviously cannot say how many acts are required to form a habit. Generally speaking, repeated acts of the same nature are required, though 'it is possible for bodily habits to be caused by one act, if the agent is powerful enough, as when a strong medicine immediately causes health' (ST., la, llae, 51, 3). And habits dispose a man to act readily and easily in certain ways.

The word 'habit', however, is a neutral word from the ethical point of view; for there can be both good and bad habits. Good operative habits are called by Aquinas Virtues' and bad operative habits Vices'. But he was not content with this distinction, and he followed Aristotle in distinguishing between the moral virtues, which incline a man's sensitive appetite to act in accordance with right reason, and the intellectual virtues, which perfect a man's rational powers.

We can have certain intellectual virtues without possessing the moral virtues.

It is possible, for example, to be a competent metaphysician or pure mathematician without being a moral man in the colloquial sense of the term. And it is obviously possible to have the habit of self-control with regard to the passions of anger or lust without being a metaphysician or a mathematician. But it is not possible to have the moral virtues without the intellectual virtue of 'prudence' which inclines us to choose the right means to the attainment of the objective good or to have prudence with1 We cannot therefore dissociate altoout the moral virtues. gether the moral from the intellectual virtues.

Aquinas writes at length about the virtues, and I do not propose to follow him into his analysis of them. A great deal of what he has to say on the subject is taken from Aristotle, though he was also influenced, of course, by the Christian

Fathers who had themselves been influenced by Cicero and 1.

It is possible, of course, to have prudence without the moral virtues if the word is used in a neutral sense, to cover, for example, the forethought of the skilful thief and his power of choosing apt means to secure the attainment of his purpose. But Aquinas is thinking of the habit of choosing the objectively good means to the objectively good end for man.

AQUINAS by the Stoics. But it was not merely the example of Aristotle and of other writers on moral topics that led him to treat so extensively of the virtues. For he was convinced that 'we need virtuous habits on three counts'

(De virtutibus in communi, i), namely that we may be able to act uniformly, readily, and pleasurably in accordance with right reason.

Man perfects himself and develops towards the attainment of the objective good in and through activity; and habits are one of the most important influential factors in activity.

Without virtuous operative habits a man will not be able to act in accordance with right reason in the way in which he should be able to act, namely in a quasi-spontaneous manner.

It is true that 'some are disposed by their bodily constitution to chastity or to gentleness or to something of this kind'

(ST., la, Ilae, 51, 1); but none the less human beings are in a state of potentiality in regard to moral and immoral activity, and it is through the acquisition of good operative habits or virtues that they acquire a relative, though not absolute, stability in acting morally.

It is clear that for Aquinas there is an ideal type of man, an ideal of human development and integration, a notion which has been flatly rejected by, for example, existentialists like M. Sartre. And the possession of the natural virtues, moral and intellectual, belongs to this ideal type. But the concrete ideal for man is not for Aquinas simply the ideal of the fully-developed natural man. For under the action of divine grace man can rise to the life of supernatural union of God. And for this higher sphere of life he needs the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity. 'Faith, hope and charity transcend the human virtues, for they are virtues of a man in so far as he is made a sharer in divine grace' (ST., la, Ilae,

58, 3, ad 3). While building, therefore, on a largely Aristotelian foundation, which represents what we may call the 'humanistic' element in his ideal for man, Aquinas proceeds to discuss the theological virtues, which are not acquired in the same way as the natural virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. However much he may have borrowed from

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Aristotle and other ancient writers, his complete picture of the fully-developed human being is very different from that which we find in the Nicomachean Ethics.

It may appear all the more surprising that Aquinas adopted the Aristotelian analysis of virtue as a 'mean'. That Aristotle propounded this theory is easily intelligible by anyone who knows the history of Greek medical theory and of its influence on ethical thought. But that a Christian theologian should adopt it may seem strange. In what sense can St Francis of Assisi, for instance, be called an example of 'the mean'?

For Aquinas, as for Aristotle, a virtue like courage is concerned with passions or emotions, and it inclines a man to act in such a way that he avoids the extremes represented by two contrary passions. The courageous man is not carried away by fear, as is the coward; nor on the other hand does he go to the extreme of foolhardiness and rashness. Courage can thus be said to be a 'mean' between cowardice and rashness, in the sense that it reduces passion to the rule of reason and inclines a man in his actions to steer his way easily and readily between extremes. 'According to its substance', to use Aquinas' terminology, courage combines the foresight of the coward with the boldness of the rash or foolhardy man, and it is thus a mean. But if it is looked at from the point of view of excellence, it is an extreme. To fall into excess or defect is relatively easy: to follow the path marked out by right reason is not so easy. There is only one such path; and though it lies between the pitfalls of excess and defect and is thus a middle way, it is an extreme when regarded from the valuational point of view.

This Aristotelian doctrine of the mean was doubtless congenial to Aquinas' temperament. He was not an admirer of fanaticism or of rigorous Puritanism any more than he was of moral slovenliness. At the same time he evidently felt that there was some difficulty at least in reconciling it with Christian ideals; for he himself raises the question whether giving away all one's goods and following a life of poverty does not constitute an excess (S.T., la, Uae, 64, 1, obj.

3).

AQUINAS His answer is more or less to the effect that such actions would constitute an excess if they were done out of superstition or out of a desire to make a name for oneself, but that if they are performed in response to the invitation of Christ they are in accordance with reason and cannot be called excessive. The doctrine of the mean does not refer to a mathematical middle-point like the middle-point in a finite line, which can be calculated mathematically. That which is in accordance with right reason is the mean in the sense intended by the doctrine

: it does not signify a middle-point between two extremes which can be calculated arithmetically. At the same time, however, Aquinas recognized that there can be such a thing as heroic virtue which can scarcely be fitted into the doctrine of the mean without stretching the latter to breaking-point. Thus in his commentary on the fifth chapter of St Matthew's Gospel he remarks that 'when a brave man fears what should be feared he is virtuous, and not to fear would be vicious. But when, trusting in divine help, he fears nothing in the world, that is superhuman. And virtues of this kind are called divine.' And when treating of the theological virtues he admits that from one point of view the doctrine of the mean cannot be applied to them.

If we are talking about the virtue of love considered in itself, it is not possible to love God too much; there can be no question of an excess, though there can be defect. But he goes on to say that if we are considering man's condition and the ways in which he should manifest love for God, we can talk about a 'mean' even in this connexion. He evidently felt that the doctrine of the mean had a certain universal application in that it represented respect for the rule of right reason and for the proportion and measure demanded by right reason; but at the same time he saw that its literal application was restricted to cases where it made sense to speak of possible excess and defect.

It may be that his Aristotelianism led him to apply the doctrine so widely that the use of the 'mean' in some of its applications was forced and artificial.

But I do not think that his use of the doctrine was simply due to a determination to follow Aristotle. For it represents,

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as I have said, his own dislike of one-sided exaggerations and his own respect for the rule of reason.

In the foregoing sections we have considered Aquinas' idea of man as drawn by an innate impulse of the will towards the good. And mention has been made of 'right reason', that is, of course, reason considered as directing man's acts to the attainment of his objective good or end. But little has been said about obligation and the concept of the moral law.

And I wish to deal now with these topics. Discussion of them should also help to throw some light on what has gone before.

When he turns to the subject of law Aquinas begins, as is his custom, with some general remarks. Law in general, he says, is a measure or rule of human acts, a measure or rule conceived by reason and promulgated with a view to the common good. And he defines law as 'an ordinance of reason made for the common good by him who has charge of the community, and promulgated'

(S.T., la, Uae, 90, 4).

This definition obviously suggests the thought of human positive law, the law of the State; and in view of this fact it might seem natural to start with law in this sense and then to go on to the idea of the natural moral law, leaving to the end the problem of the metaphysical foundations, if any, of the moral law. In actual fact, however, Aquinas starts with the idea of the eternal law of God. And I prefer to follow him in his order of treatment rather than to change it. But it may be as well to remark at once that if Aquinas starts with the concept of the eternal law of God this does not mean that for him the moral law depends on God's arbitrary choice. This point will, I hope, be made clear in what follows. The reason why he starts with mention of God is that moral law is for him one of the ways in which creatures are directed towards their several ends. He sees the moral life in the general setting of the providential government of creatures. For him the moral law is not something without any relation to anything other than itself; it is

AQUINAS a special case of the general principle that all finite things move towards their ends by the development of their potentialities.

If Aquinas were writing an ethical treatise today, he might very well start at a different point. But actually he places the moral law in a metaphysical setting from the very beginning, and I propose to adhere to his arrangements of the matter.

Aquinas speaks of God as an artist or an artificer who has an idea of the work to be created or done and of the means to its fulfilment.

God conceives eternally all creatures according to their different kinds : He conceives their ends and the means to the attainment of these ends. And the divine wisdom, considered as moving all things according to their several ends in subordination to the end of the whole created universe, the communication of the divine perfection, is the eternal law. 'Hence the eternal law is nothing else than the plan of the divine wisdom considered as directing all the acts and motions' of creatures (S.T., la, Uae, 93, 1).

But this does not mean that God settles arbitrarily, as it were, the means which will lead to the perfection of creatures. He sees eternally in human nature, for example, the activities which constitute its objective development or unfolding; and though He created man freely He could not both create man and contradict the exigencies of human nature. For the eternal idea of human nature is, for Aquinas, the divine perfection conceived by God as imitable in a certain way in creation. To say, therefore, that God could not conceive human nature and at the same time alter the fundamental ways in which the potentialities of this nature are to be actualized is not to say that His freedom is restricted by an essence existing apart from Himself. Rather it is to say that God, precisely because He is God, cannot act irrationally and contradict Himself.

The eternal law is thus the plan of divine wisdom directing all things to the attainment of their ends. Now, inanimate bodies act in certain ways precisely because they are what they are, and they cannot act otherwise; they cannot perform actions which are contrary to their nature. And

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animals are governed by instinct. *In fine, all creatures below man participate unconsciously in the eternal law, which is reflected in their various natural tendencies, and they do not possess the freedom which is required in order to be able to act in a manner incompatible with this law. But man, as a rational and free being, is capable of acting in ways which are incompatible with the eternal law.

It is therefore essential that he should know the eternal law in so far as it concerns himself. Yet how can he know it? He cannot read, as it were, the mind of God. Is it, then, necessary that God should reveal to him the moral law? Aquinas answers that this is not necessary in the strict sense of the word. For although man cannot read off, as it were, the eternal law in God's mind, he can discern the fundamental tendencies and needs of his nature, and by reflecting on them he can come to a knowledge of the natural moral law. Every man possesses the natural inclinations to the development of his potentialities and the attainment of the good for man. Every man possesses also the light of reason whereby he can reflect on these fundamental inclinations of his nature and promulgate to himself the natural moral law, which is the totality of the universal precepts or dictates of right reason concerning the good which is to be pursued and the evil which is to be shunned. By the light of his own reason, therefore, man can arrive at some knowledge of the natural law.

And since this law is a participation in or reflection of the eternal law in so far as the latter concerns human beings and their free acts, man is not left in ignorance of the eternal law which is the ultimate rule of all conduct. The natural law is nothing else but a participation of the eternal law in a rational creature' (ST., la, Uae, 91,2).

It is sufficiently obvious that the term 'natural law* does not bear the same sense here that is borne by the term 'law of nature' when the law of gravitation, for example, is spoken of as a law of nature or as a natural law. Irrational things do indeed reflect the eternal lawin their activitiesand behaviour; but if we talk about them as obeying a natural law the word 'law', insists Aquinas, is used analogically. For

AQUINAS law is defined as an ordinance of reason, and irrational creatures, being irrational, cannot recognize and promulgate to themselves any natural law. Human beings, however, can do so. And the term 'natural law* is applicable in the strict sense, not to the natural tendencies and inclinations of man on which his reason reflects, but to the precepts which his reason enunciates as a result of this reflection.

For Aquinas, therefore, it is the human reason which is the proximate or immediate promulgator of the natural moral law. This law is not without a relation to something above itself; for it is, as we have seen, the reflection of or a participation in the eternal law. But inasmuch as it is immediately promulgated by the human reason we can speak of a certain autonomy of the practical reason. This does not mean that man can alter the natural moral law which is founded on his nature. But it means that the human being does not receive the moral law simply as an imposition from above : he recognizes or can recognize its inherent rationality and binding force, and he promulgates it to himself. This is one reason why in outlining Aquinas' ethical theory one could start with the concept of the natural moral law, though I have preferred to begin, as he began, with its eternal and transcendent foundation, the eternal law of God.

According to Aquinas 'the primary precept of the law is that good should be done and pursued and evil avoided; and on this are founded all the other precepts of the law of nature' (ST., la, Uae, 94, 2). But the precept that good should be done and evil avoided, the truth of which is said by Aquinas to be known intuitively, obviously tells us very little about human conduct : we want to know what 'good' and 'evil' mean in the concrete. And as it is the good for man which is under consideration Aquinas proceeds to give content to the term by examining the fundamental natural tendencies or inclinations of man. For an inclination or tendency is directed towards an object as good, and a natural tendency or inclination, arising from the fact that a thing is a being of this or that particular kind (a sensitive thing, for example, or a rational being), is directed towards an object

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or end as a natural good of that thing. Hence by examining man's nature and natural inclinations one can discern the good for man in the natural order.

The order of the precepts of the law of nature follows the order of natural inclinations.

First, there is present in man an inclination towards the good considered in relation to his nature in so far as this nature is shared by all other substances. For every substance tends to conserve its existence according to its own kind. And as a consequence of this inclination those actions by which a man's life is conserved and death avoided belong to the natural law'

(S.T., \a, Uae, 94, 2). Together with all other substances man has a natural tendency to preserve his being, and reason reflecting on this tendency as present in man promulgates the precept that life is to be preserved. 'Secondly, there is present in man an inclination according to his nature in so far as it is shared by other animals'

(ibid.). This naturally implanted inclination, shared in a measure by all things which enjoy sensitive life, is an inclination to propagate the species and bring up offspring. And reason reflecting on this natural inclination promulgates the precept that the species is to be propagated and children educated. 'Thirdly, there is present in man an inclination to his good as a rational being. Thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society' (ibid.). Reason, reflecting on man's nature as that of a rational being, promulgates the precept that he should seek truth and avoid ignorance, especially about those things knowledge of which is necessary for the right ordering of his life, and that he should live in society with other men.

In view of the fact that Aquinas not only accepted the institution of clerical celibacy and the ideals of the religious life but was himself a Dominican, it may appear odd that according to him there is a fundamental precept of the natural moral law to the effect that the human species should be propagated. His answer to a comment like this is as follows :

'The natural precept about taking nourishment must necessarily be fulfilled by every individual; for

AQUINAS otherwise he could not be preserved. But the precept about generation bears on the human community, which ought not only to be multiplied corporeally but also to make spiritual progress. And so sufficient provision is made if some only attend to generation, while others give themselves to the contemplation of divine things for the enrichment and salvation of the whole human race. Similarly, in the case of an army some guard the camp, others bear the standards, and others fight. All these things ought to be done, but they cannot all be done by one man' (ST., la, Ilae, 152, 2, ad

1).

And it is no more incumbent on married people to have as many children as possible, regardless of circumstances, than it is for a man to eat as much as possible. It is reason reflecting on human nature that is the guide to conduct, not reason working in pure abstraction. And reason sees the irrationality not only of racial suicide, which would contradict a natural impulse implanted by God, but also of the statement that every human being is bound to marry and have children. The precept about the propagation of the human race is vague, Aquinas might say, in the sense that we cannot deduce from it that a particular individual is bound to marry and have children; but it is not so vague that it says nothing at all. We can deduce from it, for instance, that anyone who agreed to or promoted a policy of racial suicide would be acting wrongly. However, the conception of a law which obliges people in general but nobody in particular obviously presents some difficulty.

Before we proceed any further it may be as well to make the following remarks. Aquinas thought of man as tending naturally and inevitably towards his perfection, towards the actualization of his potentialities as man, towards his final end or good. And he thought of the practical reason

! as discerning the acts necessary to the attainment of this end and 1. The practical reason and the speculative reason are not different powers' (ST., la, 79,

1 1). The latter is reason as concerned simply with the knowledge and consideration of truth, while the former is reason as concerned with the application of what it apprehends either in moral conduct or in artistic or technical production.

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as ordering them while forbidding their contraries. In this sense, obligation is imposed by the practical reason, binding the free will to perform the acts necessary for the attainment of the final end or good for man and to abstain from the acts which are incompatible with its attainment. The moral imperative is not, therefore, a problematical hypothetical imperative, to use Kantian terminology. It does not say, 'If you want to attain this end (to become a competent carpenter or a successful burglar), you must take these means.' It is not a technological imperative or an imperative of skill. The moral imperative says, 'You necessarily seek this end because you are what you are, a human being; therefore you ought to do this and not to do that.' In this sense the imperative is unconditional and absolute. Kant would call it an assertoric hypothetical imperative, and he considered that this imperative was not equivalent to the categorical imperative recognized by the moral consciousness. But Aquinas was obviously convinced that though the moral imperative is in a real sense unconditional and absolute a rational analysis and account of obligation can be given which shows the part it plays in human life and in the general scheme of things. According to him, all seek 'happiness' in an indeterminate sense. And the moral imperative directs the taking of the means to this end. But among the means are the discovery of what 'happiness' signifies in the concrete and the conscious willing of it as thus concretely conceived.

We have so far three primary precepts of the natural law, relating to man considered on the biological, animal or sensitive, and rational levels. And Aquinas thought that reason reflecting on human nature as manifested in experience can discover less general and more particular precepts.

For example, he thought that from the second precept, relating to the propagation of the species and the education of children, one can derive the law of monogamy, on the ground, among others, that this is required for the proper care and upbringing of the children (G.C., 3, 124). The natural moral law in its totality therefore consists of a mul-

AQUINAS tiplicity of precepts of varying degrees of generality. But at the same time all these precepts are virtually contained in the fundamental precept that good is to be pursued and evil

avoided.

The foregoing outline of Aquinas' theory of the natural moral law gives rise to a number of questions.

I can comment, however, only very briefly on a few selected questions. And I begin with the one which is perhaps most likely to present itself to the reader's mind.

Aquinas believed that actions which are contrary to the natural moral law are not wrong simply because God prohibits them; they are prohibited by God because they are wrong. Suicide is wrong and eating meat on Friday when one is bound by the ecclesiastical law of abstinence is also wrong. But while there is nothing wrong in itself in eating meat on Friday, so that to do so is wrong only when and because it is forbidden, suicide is contrary to the natural moral law and so is wrong in itself. Ecclesiastical precepts like the law of abstinence on Fridays can be suspended or changed, but the natural moral law is unalterable.

It is true that Aquinas distinguishes between primary and secondary precepts, derived from the first, and says that the last can be 'changed' for special reasons in a few particular cases.

But what he means is that in some particular cases the circumstances of an act may be such that it no longer falls under the class of actions prohibited by the precept. For instance, we can say in general that if someone entrusts his property to us for safe keeping and asks for it back we ought to return it. But no sensible man would say that if someone entrusts us with a knife or a revolver and asks for it back when he is in a state of homicidal mania we are obliged to return it. In its general form, however, the precept remains i. The two parts of this precept have to be taken together. As we saw earlier, Aquinas held that we are morally obliged to perform not all possible good acts but only those the omission of which would be evil.

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valid. And we can say with truth that Aquinas believed in a set of unalterable moral precepts.

The question arises, however, whether this theory is compatible with the empirical fact that different people and different social groups have held divergent moral convictions. Do not the empirical facts suggest that the moral law is not unalterable but changeable ? Or, to use the value-language, do not the empirical facts suggest that values are historically relative and that there are no universal and absolute values ? Believing in a human nature which is constant Aquinas was led to postulate an unchangeable moral law; but some of the precepts which he regarded as forming part of its content have not been regarded by many people in the past and are not now regarded by many people as moral precepts at all.

Is it not reasonable to conclude that Aquinas simply canonized, as it were, the moral convictions and standards of his time or at least of the society to which he belonged ?

This is a far-reaching problem, and I must content myself with making the following relevant point, namely that differences in moral convictions do not by themselves constitute a disproof of the theory that there is an unchangeable moral law. For there might be an unchangeable moral law and at the same time varying degrees of insight into the content of this law, these differences being explicable in terms of the influence of a variety of empirical factors. To use the value-language, there might be objective and absolute values and at the same time different degrees of insight into these values.

I do not mean to imply either that the existence of an unchanging moral law was for Aquinas an uncertain hypothesis or that the explicability of differences in moral conviction on the theory that there is such a law proves of itself that the theory is true. My point is that differences of opinion about moral precepts and moral values do not constitute a proof of the relativist position. And this point is one that should be taken into consideration in any discussion of the problem.

Aquinas himself was not ignorant of the fact that different

AQUINAS groups have held different moral convictions. According to him all men are aware of the most fundamental principles in their most general form. All men would agree that in some sense good is to be pursued and evil avoided.

If a man denies this principle he is probably denying not the principle itself but that what another man or a given society calls good is good. But when we come to less general and more particular conclusions, derived from the fundamental principles, ignorance is certainly possible.

'In the case of some the reason is blinded by passion or by bad habits or by physical conditions. For example, according to Julius Caesar robbery used not to be considered wrong among the Germans, although it is expressly against the natural law' (S.T., la, Uae, 94, 4). A fortiori there can be differences of opinion about the application of precepts to particular cases. Conscience may be erroneous, whether through our own fault or through some cause for which we are not responsible.

And if our conscience tells us that we ought to perform a particular act, it is our moral duty to perform it.

'Every conscience, whether it is right or wrong, whether it concerns things evil in themselves or things morally indifferent, obliges us to act in such a way that he who acts against his conscience sins' (Quodlibetum, 3, 27). This does not mean that there is no such thing as right reason and no such thing as an objectively correct moral conscience; but ignorance and mistakes are possible in moral matters, and the nearer we come to particulars the greater is the field for error.

But though the reader may be prepared to admit that differences in moral convictions do not by themselves alone constitute a disproof of Aquinas' theory of an unalterable moral law, he may easily feel that the latter's whole approach to the subject of moral precepts is extremely artificial and excessively rationalistic.

For Aquinas talks as though people derive or deduce less general from more general moral precepts and then proceed to apply these pre1. Aquinas called the habitual knowledge of the primary moral principles synderesis and the act of applying moral principles to particular actions conscientia (cf. ST., la, 79, 12-13).

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cepts to particular actions. But surely, it may be said, this picture does not represent the facts. Moral precepts seem to be ultimately reducible to the expression of feelings of approval or disapproval of certain actions or of certain types of action. True, we do enunciate general moral precepts; and moral philosophers have not unnaturally tried to rationalize their own moral convictions or those of the group or society to which they belonged. But feeling comes first : it is the whole basis of ethics.

It may indeed appear that ethical disputes can be settled by rational argument, and in a certain sense they can sometimes be so settled. For example, if two men can agree on a definition of murder they can discuss in a rational manner whether the action of killing someone who is dying from a painful and incurable disease falls under the definition or not. Each man points out to the other features of the action in question which he thinks that the other has overlooked, and it is at any rate possible that in the end one will succeed in convincing the other. But rational argument is possible only when there is already a certain measure of moral agreement.

Is it not a notorious fact that if two people disagree about fundamental moral issues or defend sharply opposed sets of values, neither can be convinced simply by the arguments advanced by the other? They will either agree to differ or they will end in anger and even abuse. Moreover, the function of any arguments which may be advanced by one of them seems to be that of facilitating a change of feeling or of emotional attitude. And perhaps the same can be said of discussions concerning the moral quality of particular actions or types of action when these discussions cannot be reduced to a quasi-logical problem of classification.

If two men discuss the question whether so-called 'mercy killing' is right or wrong, the one maintaining that it is right, the other that it is wrong, the function of drawing attention to aspects of the action which the one man believes to have been overlooked by the other seems to be that of facilitating a change of emotive reaction in the other. The one man desires to substitute in the other man a feeling of approval for a feeling of

AQUINAS disapproval or vice versa, as the case may be; and the arguments and appeals to reason which are employed are techniques used to facilitate this change of emotive response. In fine, morality is 'more properly felt than judged of, to use

Hume's words {Treatise, 3, 1, 2).

It can hardly be denied that Aquinas' language sometimes seems to imply an extremely rationalistic interpretation of the way in which people form their moral judgements. But we have to look at what he means by the statements which he makes. He compares, for example, the precept that good is to be pursued and evil avoided with the proposition that the whole is greater than any one of its parts. And while he thought that this proposition is known to all human beings once they have had experience of material things he did not mean to say that every human being explicitly enunciates it to himself in so many words, even though he would certainly assent to it if it were proposed to him.

'In the cognitive powers there can be inchoate habits.

. And the understanding of (first) principles is termed a natural habit.

For it is owing to the very nature of the intellectual soul that once a man knows what is a whole and what is a part he knows that every whole is greater than any one of its parts, though he cannot know what is a whole and what is a part except through ideas derived from images' (S.T., \a, Wae, 51,

1).

Directly a human being has experience of material wholes he recognizes immediately the relation between whole and part, and that he knows this can be seen by the fact that he never assumes that any part is greater than the whole of which it is a part. But it does not necessarily follow that he ever says to himself in so many words that a whole is greater than any one of its parts. Similarly, a human being obtains the idea of good, of a thing considered as perfecting or as satisfying his nature in some way, only through experience of actual objects of desire and sources of satisfaction. But because of his innate inclination to the good in this sense he immediately apprehends it as something to be pursued, while he apprehends evil, considered as that which is opposed to his nature and natural inclinations, as something

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to be avoided. The fact that he does apprehend the good or the perfection as something to be pursued and the evil, that which is opposed to or thwarts his natural inclinations, as something to be shunned and avoided is shown by the whole of his conduct. For every human being naturally shuns whatever appears to him as opposed to his nature. But it does not necessarily follow that he ever explicitly enunciates to himself the proposition that good is to be pursued and evil avoided. One may be tempted to say that all this belongs to the instinctive level and the level of feeling rather than the level of rational apprehension. But Aquinas would doubtless comment that a man does not shun death, for example, simply in the same way that an animal can be said to do so. For he shuns it not only instinctively but because and in so far as he apprehends it with his reason as destructive of his nature. And since he shuns it and avoids it as evil, knowledge that evil is to be shunned and avoided is implicitly presupposed. Though we could have no idea of evil except through experience of things opposed to our natural inclinations, apprehension of the principle that evil is to be avoided is logically presupposed by recognition of the fact that this particular thing is to be avoided because it is evil.

As regards deduction, Aquinas did not think that we can deduce the proposition that to have sexual intercourse with someone else's wife

is wrong from the precept that good is to be pursued and evil avoided simply by contemplating, as it were, this latter precept. We can no more do this than we can deduce from the principle of non-contradiction the proposition that a thing which is white all over cannot at the same time be red all over. We obtain our ideas of whiteness and redness from other sources than an analysis of the principle of non-contradiction. At the same time we reject the proposition that a thing can be simultaneously white all i.

I avoid the word 'adultery' here because this word, though it can be used in a purely technical or legal sense, may suggest from the start the idea of wrongness. And to say that a wrong action is wrong is to utter a tautology.

AQUINAS over and red all over precisely because it involves a contradiction. Similarly, we do not obtain our ideas of other people and of wives and of sexual intercourse simply by analysing the precept that good is to be pursued and evil avoided. But once we have obtained those ideas we reject, if we do reject, the proposition that it is right to have sexual intercourse with someone else's wife because we apprehend actions of this sort as being evil. The word 'deduction', therefore, can be very misleading; and what Aquinas actually says is that other precepts of the natural law are 'founded on' or 'based on' the precept that good is to be done and evil avoided. The concrete good for man can be known only by reflection on human nature as known in experience.

It has been said above that we reject, 'if we do reject', the proposition that it is right to have sexual intercourse with someone else's wife because we apprehend actions of this sort as being evil. As we have seen, Aquinas thought that the nearer we come to particulars the more possible becomes ignorance or error concerning the objective good for man, and so concerning the particular precepts of the natural moral law. But some particular types of action are practically always apprehended as evil, as opposed in some way or other to human nature. For example, even at the lowest level of civilization some acts will be immediately

'felt' to be destructive of social cohesion in the group and so opposed to human nature considered under its social aspect. And they will awaken disapprobation in a quasi-instinctive manner.

I have put the word 'felt' in inverted commas and I have spoken of a 'quasi-instinctive' manner because

I think that while Aquinas might agree that the term 'feel' has a use in drawing attention to the difference between, say, a primitive man's apprehension of an act as evil and a moral philosopher's reflective appreciation of its moral quality he would still maintain that the primitive man mentally apprehends the act as evil and that the term 'feel' is inappropriate in so far as it suggests the absence of any mental activity.

One can put the matter in this way perhaps. Aquinas thought that all men share some very vague ideas about the

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good for man, precisely because they are men and possess certain natural tendencies and inclinations in common. For instance, men see that knowledge of the truths required for life should be sought for. And if one wishes to draw attention to the immediacy of the perception one might perhaps say that they 'feel' this. But Aquinas would doubtless insist that mental activity is involved and that some word like 'apprehend' or 'understand' is more appropriate.

But when it comes to apprehending what are the truths necessary for life and, in general, to determining in a concrete way what is the good for man and to forming moral judgements which are less general than what Aquinas calls the primary principles of the natural law in their widest form, there is room for prolonged reflection and discussion.

There is room also for the intervention of a variety of factors other than rational reflection, which can exercise an important influence in the formation of a man's moral outlook and set of determinate values. And these factors can be internal, physiological and psychological, as well as external, like upbringing and social environment.

Finally, when there is question of applying principles to individual cases, of deciding whether a given action belongs to this class or that class, and is right or wrong, Aquinas recognizes (cf. his commentary on the Ethics, 2, c. 2, lectio

2) that though the moral philosopher can provide some help, by drawing attention, for example, to different features of the action, he cannot settle a person's perplexity by a process of sheer logical deduction. Ultimately a man has to make his own decision. And Aquinas observes that a man's actual decision may be perfectly correct even though the abstract problem has not been satisfactorily settled. Perhaps we might say that in such cases the man 'feels' that the action is right or wrong, as the case may be, in order to emphasize the difference between the immediacy of the judgement and a piece of logical or mathematical deduction.

But Aquinas would doubtless say that the virtue of 'prudence' often enables a man to discern the objective moral quality of an action even when he is unable to give ade-

AQUINAS quate reasons, which would satisfy a moral philosopher, for saying that the action is right or wrong. An action is right or wrong for Aquinas in virtue of its relation to the good for man, and this relation is discerned by the mind, even though the immediacy of the discerning may be such as to incline one to use the word 'feeling'. And the (or at least a) fundamental difference between Aquinas' theory and a purely emotive moral theory is that the former asserts an objective and determinable relationship in virtue of which actions are good or bad, right or wrong, whereas the latter does not.

In this section I have mentioned ideas suggested by the relativist and emotive theories of ethics. My purpose in doing so, however, was clarificatory rather than polemical, and to avoid misunderstanding I want to explain this point.

It was not my intention to 'expound' these theories; and therefore I have carefully avoided mentioning the name of any philosopher save that of Hume, who was mentioned as the author of a proposition which it is usual to quote on these occasions. Nor was it my intention to refute the theories by means of Aquinas' philosophy. My purpose was simply that of using some ideas suggested by these theories to clarify the latter's position. The chief plank on which the relativistic theory of morals rests is probably the empirical fact that different people have held divergent views about moral matters. And as facts are facts whatever conclusions may be drawn from them, it is important to ask whether Aquinas had any idea of these facts and whether his ethical theory is capable of accounting for them or of allowing for them. Similarly, in the moral life of ordinary people deduction, as this is understood in logic and mathematics, does not seem to play any very conspicuous role, whereas something that might plausibly be described as 'feeling' appears to be an important factor.

It is therefore a pertinent question to ask whether Aquinas thought that everyone forms his or her moral convictions by a process of logical deduction and whether his theory can account for the factor of immediacy in our moral and valuational judge-

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ments.

In other words, my purpose was simply that of making a brief contribution to the clarification of Aquinas' position with the aid of ideas suggested by later ethical theories.

As far as the most general precepts of the natural moral law are concerned, they are known by all, if, that is to say, they are considered simply as general universal truths.

But 'reason may be hindered by concupiscence or by some other passion from applying a general principle to the case of some particular action' (ST., la, Ilae, 94, 6). And the binding force of 'secondary' or more particular precepts may be unknown, even in their universal form, by some men or groups of men 'either on account of false beliefs or because of evil customs and corrupt habits, as when robberies, or even sins against nature, were not considered by some to be sinful'

(ibid.). Aquinas argues, therefore, that it was desirable, or even in some sense morally necessary, that God should reveal even those moral precepts the binding force of which is capable of being discovered by the human reason. For many people are led more by sense than by reason, and even when rational reflection is at work it does not work in a vacuum. The philosopher is not a disembodied mind but a man with prejudices and passions of his own which can influence his intellectual life. And Aquinas believed that a revelation of this kind had been made to the Jews in the Ten Commandments.

We have already seen, however, that for Aquinas, the Christian theologian, man has a supernatural final end or supreme good the attainment of which transcends his natural powers. True, human nature is not destroyed or annulled by the fact that man is called to the beatific vision of God, and so the human mind is not rendered incapable of discovering the natural moral law. But it cannot discover by itself either that man actually has a supernatural destiny or the means appointed by God for its attainment. This knowledge is acquired by revelation, and the latter is there-

AQUINAS fore required not only to make it easier for men in general to know those moral precepts the binding force of which reason is capable of discovering but also to impart to man the knowledge of the supernatural means, like the use of the Sacraments, which God wills him to take in order to receive and grow in supernatural grace. In addition, therefore, to the natural moral law we have the positive divine law. Law in the sense of human positive law, the law of the State, will be considered in the next section, in connexion with political society.

The identification of the good for man with 'happiness' or with self-perfection may easily give the impression that Aquinas' ideal was purely individualistic and even egotistic in an unpleasant sense. Yet he regarded life in society as being prescribed by the natural law. That is to say, he recognized in the human being a natural tendency to live in society with his fellows, not only in the smaller group of the immediate family circle but also in those larger groups which in their developed form are called States or political communities. Social life is thus founded on human nature itself, and the family and the State are both natural communities. Reason, reflecting on man's fundamental inclinations and tendencies, says that these societies ought to be formed, inasmuch as they are necessary for the development of man's potentialities.

'It is natural for man to be a social and political animal, living in community; and this is more true of him than of any other animal, a fact which is shown by his natural necessities' (De regimine principum, i, i). And Aquinas goes on to illustrate his point.

For example, Nature has provided other animals with food, clothing, and means of defence; but man has to procure these things by using his reason, and the individual cannot satisfy all these needs by himself except at a very primitive level. The adequate satisfaction of man's economic and bodily needs requires organized society, and this shows that society is natural to man. Again, man's social nature is

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shown by the development of language. Other animals express feelings by sounds, but man alone seems capable of developing language as an expression of thought and a means of communication. In fine, society is required for the satisfaction of man's bodily and spiritual needs.

It is therefore not a purely artificial construction but a natural institution which follows from man being what he is. And as founded on human nature it is willed by God who created man. This does not mean, of course, that the historical divisions into nations and States are dictated by God. A given

State owes its historical origins to a variety of empirical factors which can be investigated by historians. But that there should be civil or political society or societies is willed by God, as is shown by the fact that He created man who cannot attain his full stature without society.

Furthermore, every society requires direction and government. It is a mistake to think that government exists simply in order to keep the peace and punish evildoers. According to Aquinas, government would be required even if there were no evildoers and even if no one was inclined to break the peace. St Augustine had been inclined to speak as though the State were a result of the Fall of man and as though political authority existed primarily because fallen human beings stand in need of a coercive power to restrain their evil tendencies and to punish crime. But this was not at all

Aquinas' point of view. 'Man is by nature a social animal.

Hence in a state of innocence (if there had been no Fall) men would have lived in society. But a common social life of many individuals could not exist unless there were someone in control to attend to the common good' (ST., la, 96, 4).

One can illustrate the point in the following rather banal fashion. Even if no one was disposed to infringe the traffic regulations, the latter would still be necessary; and so there must be an authority to settle and prescribe them. Government exists primarily to care for the common good. Like society, it is a natural institution, and as a natural institution it is, like society, willed by God.

The different points of view of Augustine and Aquinas

AQUINAS can, of course, be explained historically up to a point. The former, looking back on kingdoms like Assyria and Babylon and their relations with the Jewish people and on the pagan

Roman empire and its relations with Christianity, was inclined to regard the State as a regrettable necessity due to the Fall of man and capable of being redeemed, as it were, only through subordination in some way to the Church.

Aquinas, however, living in the Middle Ages, was used to the idea of the Christian State and to the concept of the division of powers. But we must also bear in mind the influence of Roman legal theory on the medieval political theorists and, so far as Aquinas is concerned, the influence of the Aristotelian theory of man's social nature and of political society.

Given this view of the State, it is obvious that Aquinas could not regard the State as having been absorbed by the Church or as possessing no positive function of its own. The State existed before the Church and, as a natural institution, it co-exists with the Church, exercising its own function.

Aquinas speaks of this function as the promotion of the common good. 'For the good life of the community three things are required.

First, that the community should be established in the unity of peace. Secondly, that the community, united in the bond of peace, should be directed to good action Thirdly, that through the ruler's diligence there should be a sufficient supply of the necessities for a good life' (De regimine principum, i, 15). The government therefore exists to preserve internal peace and to care for the defence of the community, to promote the moral wellbeing of the citizens, so far as this can be done by legislation supported by sanctions, and to ensure them a sufficient supply of material necessities. If, then, we wish to speak of the government and governmental apparatus as 'the State', we must say that for Aquinas the State possesses a positive function. On this point he was at one with Aristotle, and like the latter he speaks of the moral function of the State as promoter of the 'good life'. To represent Aquinas as participating in the political and economic controversies of the

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nineteenth century would be an anachronism. But we can say that the policy of laisser-faire would not be compatible with his view of the purpose and function of political society and government. The task of the State is actively to produce the conditions under which a full human life can be lived.

It would also, of course, constitute an anachronism, were one to depict Aquinas as making pronouncements about twentieth-century totalitarianism. But if one means by the latter term the theory of an absolute State, fountain of morality and sole arbiter of right and wrong, truth and falsity, one must say that totalitarianism is incompatible with Aquinas' political theory. It is true that he sometimes speaks of the individual as a 'part' of the community, considered as a 'whole', and that he draws a comparison between the subordination of a physical member, like an arm, to the whole body and the subordination of an individual citizen to the good of the whole community. But he certainly did not regard the rights of the State over its members as absolute. For one thing, his belief in man's supernatural destiny and in the position of the Church would effectually prevent his accepting the notion of the absolute power of the State. But quite apart from his belief in the divine and independent mission of the Church his theory of legislation would in no way lend itself to employment in a totalitarian political theory. For he regarded the function of human positive law as being primarily to define clearly and support by temporal sanctions the natural law, in all cases at least where this is required by the public good. For example, if we take the precept of the Decalogue 'Thou shalt not kill', its vagueness is obvious. What actions are to be considered

'murder' and what killings are not to be classed as 'murderous' ? One of the functions of human positive law, the law, that is, of the State, is to define such concepts as clearly as possible and to provide those temporal sanctions which are not provided by the natural law. Of course, this does not mean that legislation should be confined to defining prohibitions which can be more or less clearly deduced from the

AQUINAS moral law. But legislation must be compatible with the moral law. Since the function of legislation is to promote the common good, the criterion of goodness and badness in legislation is its relation, as discerned by reason, to that end.

It does not follow that every precept and prohibition of the natural moral law should be embodied in legislation; for there may be cases in which this would not conduce to the public good.

It might do more harm than good. But in no case is the State entitled to pass legislation which runs counter to the natural law. 'Every human law has the nature of law in so far as it is derived from the law of nature. If in any case it is incompatible with the natural law, it will not be law, but a perversion of law' (ST., la, Uae, 95, 2). And Aquinas naturally demanded of Christian rulers that they should respect the divine positive law, interpreted by the Church.

From this view of the relation of human positive law to the natural moral law it naturally follows that just laws are binding in conscience. On the other hand, unjust laws are not binding in conscience. A law is unjust, says Aquinas, if it imposes burdens on the citizens, not for the common good, but to satisfy the cupidity or the ambition of the legislator; if in enacting the law the legislator goes beyond the powers committed to him; or if burdens (taxes, for example) are imposed in an unfair and disproportionate manner. 'Laws of this kind are acts of violence rather than laws .

. they do not bind in conscience unless observance of them is required in order to avoid scandal or public disturbance' (ST., la, Uae, 96, 4). Laws can also be unjust by contravening the divine positive law, 'and laws of this sort ought not to be obeyed'

(ibid.). As for those who persist in enacting unjust laws, they are 'tyrants', and rulers of this kind can legitimately be deposed on the ground that they are guilty of abusing their position and power unless, indeed, there is reason for thinking that rebellion would result in as bad a state of affairs as the one which it was designed to remedy.

The view that it is legitimate to depose tyrants suggests

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that the ruler has a trust to fulfil, and that this can be abused. And this was in fact Aquinas' view. But we cannot justifiably conclude without more ado that he thought of sovereignty, derived like all legitimate authority ultimately from God, as coming to the sovereign via the people. He may, indeed, have held this view. Remarks to the effect that the ruler represents the people (ST., la, llae, 90, 3) or that the prince has legislative power only in so far as he stands in the place of the community (S.T., la, llae, 97, 3, ad 3) seem to suggest that he did. But in the second passage referred to he seems to be speaking of elected governments and not to be making a universal statement. In any case it is difficult to be certain what his view was on this matter; for he does not accord it any clear explicit treatment. What is certain, however, is that though he did not regard any particular form of government as divinely ordained for all men, and though he did not attach primary importance to the form of constitution and government, he gave the palm to a 'mixed' constitution in which the principle of unity, represented by monarchy, is combined with the principle of administration by the best and with some measure of popular control, as, for example, by the people electing certain magistrates. Aquinas thought that monarchy is most conducive to unity and that it is the most 'natural' form of government, possessing analogies with God's rule over creation and with government in communities of insects like bees. But at the same time the constitution should be such that the likelihood of tyrants arising or of rulers acting tyrannically is diminished as far as possible. So we can say, if we like to use modern terms, that Aquinas favoured constitutional monarchy. But the main requirement is that, whatever the form of constitution may be, the ruler or rulers devote themselves to caring for and promoting the objective common good.

The State therefore has a positive function of its own, and Aquinas did not think of it as a department of the Church or of the ruler as a vicar of the Pope. On the other hand, he thought of the Church as an independent society, superior

AQUINAS in dignity to the State, inasmuch as it existed to help man to secure his supernatural and supertemporal end, and of the Pope as subject only to God. But it was not very easy for him to express precisely the relations between the two societies; nor would we expect to find as much consideration given to the subject as was given it in a later historical epoch when the strong and centralized monarchies of Europe had developed. He thought, of course, of the State as dealing with material and temporal affairs, whereas the Church caters for man's supernatural well-being. But he could not say that the State cares for man's natural end and the Church for man's supernatural end, since he believed that man has in fact only one final end and that this is a supernatural end. Hence he stressed the idea of a close alliance between Church and State.

It is the business of the latter, and not of the former, to concern itself with economics, for example; but in its legislation and general conduct the State

(Aquinas is obviously thinking primarily of the Christian State) must facilitate, and not hinder, man's attainment of the end for which he was created. Aquinas was naturally well aware of the frequent disputes which arose in medieval

Christendom between Church and State; but he did not regard the attempt by one society to deny the rights of the other as providing a remedy for the conditions of friction which occurred. Harmonious relations and mutual respect for each other's position and rights were regarded by him as the ideal to be aimed at. The secularist outlook of a Mar1 was, of course, quite foreign to the outlook silius of Padua of the thirteenth-century theologian; but so was any extreme theory of the subordination of State to Church. i.

Marsilius of Padua, who died before 1343, is well known for his work Defensor pads, in which he subordinated the Church to the State. He argued that it is only the law of the State (Aquinas' human positive law) which is law in the strict sense, and he considered that the function of the Church is to serve the State by creating desirable moral and spiritual conditions to facilitate the latter's task.

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