13. Anselm does not explicitly speak of participation in the Monologion;
Anselm on ethics
that of plants. Even here, however, degrees of being are best thought of quantitatively rather than qualitatively. Thus, a human has "more being" qua human than a plant qua plant because members of the kind human being possess quantitatively more capacities than members of the kind plant: they possess all the capacities associated with plants
(such as the capacity for nutrition, growth, and reproduction) as well as several others (such as the capacity for rational thought and volition).
The same is also said to be true of God relative to the members of all other kinds (including plant and human being) – though this leads to familiar puzzles about how God can be said to possess the capacities associated with material beings, puzzles which the medievals attempt to solve by appealing to the notion of eminent possession. See, e.g.,
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a, 4,2.
12.
See Nicomachean Ethics 1.
13.
Anselm does not explicitly speak of participation in the Monologion; nor does he explicitly refer to goodness and justice there as Platonic
Forms or standards. Nonetheless, it is natural to assume that he is following Augustine in this regard, who does explicitly talk in this way
(e.g. in De Libero Arbitrio 2), especially since Anselm does invoke such notions in other works (see, e.g., De Ver. 2 for an explicit appeal to participation and De Ver. 13 for his argument that God is the Form in which all true things participate). For discussion of the historical context in which Anselm develops his views about universals, see Yukio
Iwakuma, "The Realism of Anselm and His Contemporaries," in D. E.
Luscombe and G. R. Evans (eds.), Anselm: Aosta, Bec, and Canterbury (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). For discussion of his understanding of universals themselves, see Marilyn McCord Adams, "Was
Anselm a Realist?: The Monologion," Franciscan Studies 32 (1972); Desmond P. Henry, "Was Saint Anselm Really a Realist?," Ratio 5
(1963); and Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (eds.), Anselm of Canterbury, vol. iv: Hermeneutical and Textual Problems in the Complete Treatises of St. Anselm (New York: Mellen Press, 1976).
14.
Anselm's argument in Cur Deus Homo 2.17, that all necessity and possibility are subject to God's will, might be taken to support this conclusion, assuming that some moral truths are necessary (or possible). It is important to recognize, however, that Anselm's concern in this chapter is primarily with the question of whether anything external to God necessitates (in the sense of compels) Him to do the things
He does.
15.
At least bracketing certain considerations having to do with natural law. See, e.g., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a2ae, 94.
16.
See, e.g., De Libero Arbitrio 2.
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