On the Virtues in General: Article 6: Whether virtue is found in practical intelligence as its possessor
On the Virtues in General virtues. For the will, like the other desires, shares in reason insofar as it is directed by reason. For although the will, like reason, belongs to the intelligentpartofthesoul,itdoesnotbelongtothecapacityofreasonitself.
() There is no need to have virtue in the will for the reasons for which it is found in the aggressive and sensual parts, for the reasons now given.
Article : Whether virtue is found in practical intelligence as its possessor Objections It seems that it is not, because:
() Aristotle says [NE .., b] that knowledge gives little or no support to virtue. He is speaking there about practical knowledge. That is evident from the fact that he goes on to say that many people do not put into practice such knowledge as they possess; for the knowledge that is ordered towards action belongs to the practical intelligence. Therefore practical intelligence cannot possess virtue.
() Without virtue, no one can act as he should. But someone can act as he should without having a perfected practical intelligence, because he can be instructed by someone else about what to do. Therefore practical intelligence is not perfected by a virtue.
() The more one abandons virtue, the more one sins. But abandoning perfected practical intelligence reduces sin, since ignorance excuses sin either partly or wholly. Therefore practical intelligence is not perfected by a virtue.
() According to Cicero [Inv .] virtue acts in the same way as nature.
But the way that nature acts is opposed to the way that reason, or practical intelligence, acts. This is clear from Aristotle [Phys ., a], where he makes a division between agents that act by nature and those that act according to purpose. Therefore virtue does not seem to exist in the practical intelligence.
() Good and true are formally different insofar as each has its own distinctive character. However, dispositions differ from one another when there is a difference of form in their objects. Therefore since virtue has as its object what is good, while it is truth that perfects the practical intelligence, albeit truth directed towards action, it seems that practical intelligence is not perfected by a virtue.
Article () According to Aristotle [NE .., a] a virtue is a voluntary disposition. However, the dispositions of practical intelligence differ from those that belong to the will or to the desiring part of the soul. Therefore the dispositions which are in the practical intelligence are not virtues.
That is why the practical intelligence cannot possess virtue.
But on the other hand () Practical wisdom is given as one of the four principal virtues, yet it is possessed by practical intelligence. Therefore practical intelligence can possess virtue.
() Human virtue is possessed by human capacities. But practical intelligence is a human capacity to a greater extent than the aggressive and sensual parts: for something that is x in its essence is more x than something that is x only by participation. Therefore practical intelligence can possess human virtue.
() When A is x because of B, B is also more x than A. But the virtues in the feeling parts of the soul are there because of reason; for virtue is placed in the power of feeling precisely so that the latter will obey reason. Therefore virtue ought to be found more strongly in the practical intelligence.
My reply We must say that:
(i) the difference between natural and rational virtues is that natural virtues aim at one thing, but rational virtues are related to many things;
(ii) both rational and animal desires ought to incline towards whatever each finds desirable, through a pre-existing recognition of it, while it is the mark of natural desires to incline towards their goal without any preexisting understanding, in the way that a heavy object inclines towards the centre of the earth.
Since, then, both rational and animal desires should aim at something that they recognise as good, in cases where that good is also unchanging, the inclination of the desire can also be natural, as can the judgement made by thinking; this is what happens in animals without speech. For they engage in a limited number of activities, because of the weakness of their active principle, which can only cope with a small number of things.
On the Virtues in General As a result, all the members of a single species have the same good. That is why their desire gives them a natural inclination towards it, and their powers of thought a natural judgement concerning their own particular good, which is the same for all. And because of this natural judgement and natural desire, every swallow alike makes a nest and every spider alike makes a web. One can ponder the same phenomenon in all animals that lack speech.
Human beings, however, engage in many diverse activities. This is because of the excellence of their active principle, i.e. their soul, which has the power to embrace, to some degree, an infinite number of things.
That is why neither a natural desire for the good nor natural judgement would on its own be enough for a human being to act rightly. These need to be given a more precise determination, and brought to completion.
Human beings do indeed incline towards seeking their own distinctive good through their natural desires. However, this good comes in many varieties, and what is good for human beings comprises many different things. Therefore there could not be a natural desire in human beings for a determinate good that suited all the conditions needed for something to be good for them. For this good comes in so many varieties, depending on the different situations of individuals and time and place and so on.
The same reasoning applies to natural judgement, which is uniform, and is therefore not adequate for seeking the sort of good under consideration.
All this explains why human beings need reason, which is capable of comparing different things, to discover and discern their own distinctive good, determined in the light of all relevant circumstances, as it should be sought at this time and in this place. Reason is capable of doing this even without acquiring a disposition to complete it in this respect; similarly in theoretical matters reason can, without having acquired knowledge as a disposition, make a judgement about a conclusion from some branch of knowledge.
This, however, can be done only incompletely and with difficulty.
Consequently, just as theoretical reason ought to be made complete by acquiring the disposition of knowledge, for the purpose of making correct judgements about the knowable elements of a branch of knowledge, similarly, practical reason ought to be made complete by a certain disposition that enables it to make correct judgements about the human good in particular contexts of action.
Article This virtue is known as practical wisdom, and it is possessed by the practical reason. It brings to completion all the moral virtues, which are found in the desiring part. Each of these virtues makes the relevant desire incline towards a specific class of human good. For example, justice makes it inclinetowardsthegoodthatisequalityinthingsthatarepartofourshared life, while temperateness makes it incline towards the good of restraining oneself from the objects of sensual desire, and so on with each virtue.
Each of these things can be done in many ways, and are not done in the same way in all circumstances. That is why one needs practical wisdom in one'sjudgementtodeterminethecorrectway.Thatishowcorrectnessand fullgoodnessinalltheothervirtuesdependuponpracticalwisdom.Hence
Aristotle says [NE .., a] that the mid-point in moral virtue is determined by reference to right reason. Now since all the dispositions of the desire acquire the character of virtue from this correctness and full goodness, it follows that practical wisdom is the cause of all the virtues of the desiring part, which are called 'moral' insofar as they are practically wise. Therefore Gregory says [MorJob ..] that the other virtues do not deserve the name of virtue unless they lead to wise action regarding the particular goods that each one seeks.
Replies to objections () Aristotle is speaking there about practical knowledge. But practical wisdom means more than practical knowledge. Practical knowledge comprises general judgement of what should be done, for example that fornication is bad, that theft should be avoided, and so on. Even if this exists, it can happen that the judgement of reason about a particular act is blocked, so that one does not judge rightly. Therefore practical knowledge is said to give little support to virtue because even where it exists, someone might sin against virtue.
It is the job of practical wisdom, on the other hand, to judge correctly about particular things that are to be done, at the moment when they need to be done. This judgement is spoiled by any sort of sin. Therefore while practical wisdom is present, a person does not sin; that is why it contributes not a little, but greatly, to virtue. Indeed, it actually causes virtue, as I have said.
() One person can receive from another advice in general about what to do. However, only the correctness provided by practical wisdom can
On the Virtues in General enable one to stick to one's judgements in the right way, for a particular action, in the face of all the emotions. That is why this cannot happen without virtue.
() (i) The ignorance that is contrasted with practical wisdom is ignorance in choice: every bad person is ignorant in this respect. This stems from the fact that the judgement of reason is blocked by the inclination of one's desire. This does not excuse a sin; rather it constitutes one. (ii) The ignorance that is contrasted with practical knowledge, however, excuses or reduces the degree of sin.
() Cicero's words should be taken to refer to the inclination of a desire that is drawn towards some general good, for example, acting bravely, and so on. But if this is not controlled by the judgement of reason, an inclination of this sort would often lead us to our downfall, and the more forceful the inclination, the truer that would be. That is why Aristotle gave us [NE .., b] the example of a blind man who, the faster he runs, the more he hurts himself when he bangs into a wall.
() Two parts of the soul have as their object what is good and true, i.e. the desiring and the intelligent parts. These two are so disposed that each of them is active in respect of the other's action: the will wants the intelligence to understand something and the intelligence understands that the will wants something.
In this way these two, what is good and what is true, are included in each other. (i) The good is something true, insofar as it is grasped by the intelligence: that is, insofar as the intelligence understands that the will wants the good, or even insofar as it understands that something is good.
(ii) Similarly, the true itself is also a kind of good for the intellect, and it also falls under the will, insofar as human beings want to understand what is true.
Now the good of the practical intelligence is no less something true just because it is an end of activity. For good does not move the desire unless it is recognised as such. Therefore nothing prevents there being virtue in the practical intelligence.
() Aristotle is defining moral virtue in Ethics . He describes intellectual virtue in Ethics [–, b–b]. For the virtue that exists in the practical intelligence is not moral, but intellectual: Aristotle includes practical wisdom in the intellectual virtues, as is clear from Ethics [.., b].