Introduction: From natural law to virtue
Introduction heavily on all the others; to talk in anything like sufficient detail about any one of them requires one to talk about all of them. Since the doctrines of natural law and virtue have been regarded as particularly remote from each other, I can best make my case for the systematic unity of Aquinas's moral theory, and illustrate the place of virtue within it, by beginning from the theory of natural law and showing how it leads inevitably to the discussion of virtue.
From natural law to virtue A good place to start is with the first appearance of what will become a standing analogy in the so-called Treatise on Law: the analogy between the functioning of speculative reason (the sort of thinking that aims simply at knowing the truth) and the functioning of practical reason (the sort of thinking that aims at making or doing something). Aquinas writes:
Nowinspeculativereason,whatcomesfirstisthedefinition,thenthe proposition, and then the syllogism or argument. And since practical reasonalsomakesuseofasyllogismofsortshavingtodowithpossible actions . . . we need to find something in practical reason that bears to actions the same relation that the proposition in speculative reason bears to conclusions. Such universal propositions of practical reason ordered to actions have the character of law.
(ST aae .ad ) We can think of Aquinas as setting forth an analogy with all the points of comparison filled in but one:
Speculative reason Practical reason Starts from propositions (aka first ? principles) Proceeds by way of theoretical practical argument/syllogism Until it reaches a conclusion a particular act argument/syllogism His proposal is that we give the name 'natural law' to those universal principlesinpracticalreasonthatfunctioninawayanalogoustoprinciples in speculative reason. xi
Introduction Now Aquinas does not think that anyone who engages in speculative reasoning is actually thinking about first principles in every single argument she makes; in fact, unless she is a philosopher, she may well never think about first principles. Nevertheless, those principles are operative in her reasoning, even though they may not be actively before her mind.
When someone has a bit of knowledge in this way, Aquinas says that she has that knowledge 'dispositionally' (habitualiter). The disposition of the speculative intellect in virtue of which it grasps first principles is called intellectus. Since there are analogous principles – the natural law – operative in practical thinking, even if the thinker is not at the moment attending to them (or indeed has never attended to them), we can expect that there is an analogous disposition in the practical intellect. That disposition is called synderesis. Synderesis 'is the disposition containing the precepts of the natural law, which are the first principles of human acts'
(aae .ad ).
Aquinas continues his development of the analogy by noting that in the speculativerealmthereisoneprinciplethatisabsolutelyfirst:theprinciple of non-contradiction. In the practical realm the analogous principle is that 'goodistobedoneandpursued,andevilistobeavoided'(aae.).Both first principles are indemonstrable: that is, they cannot be proved. But they are not the only indemonstrable principles in their respective realms.
Principles in the speculative realm are all indemonstrable; even though some of them are of less generality than others, they do not depend on others in the sense of being deducible from them. For example, the principle that the whole is greater than the (proper) part is – in a sense that turns out to be very difficult to pin down – of less generality than the law of noncontradiction,butitcannotbededucedfromthelawofnon-contradiction.
We find the same sort of relationship among principles in the practical realm. The most general principles are hierarchically ordered, but they are not deduced from the very first principle or from each other.
As I have said, the first precept of the natural law is that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. The most general precepts of the natural law will be more substantive principles that point out specific goods that are to be pursued. Aquinas identifies these goods by appealingtoageneralmetaphysicaltheoryofgoodnessandaphilosophical
In fact, being indemonstrable is part of the definition of 'principle'. Keep in mind that the Latin word for 'principle' is principium, a beginning or starting point. Principles are the starting points of arguments, not conclusions of arguments. xii
Introduction anthropology that goes hand in hand with that theory. According to the general metaphysical theory of goodness, a thing is good to the extent to which it lives up to the standards of its specific nature. Like any good
Aristotelian, Aquinas holds that there are internal dynamisms in every substance that are naturally directed towards the specific perfections of that substance. Those internal dynamisms are called 'appetite' or 'desire'.
Here we have the fundamental sense in which Aquinas believes that 'all things seek the good': there is in all things a desire for their proper specific perfection, and that perfection is what it is for those things to be good.
In the case of human beings, that specific perfection is complicated.
Aquinas tells us in aae .that it involves three broad types of good, hierarchically arranged. As it is for every creature, it is a good for us to maintain ourselves in existence. As it is for every animal, it is a good for us to reproduce ourselves and to care for our offspring. But for us alone among all animals it is also a good to exercise the powers of rational thought, and (consequently) to live in society and to know God.
These three goods are not three independent, coordinate goods. They are arranged both hierarchically, so that our unique good is the best of these three goods, and inclusively, so that our unique good subsumes the other two without superseding them.
In keeping with the general Aristotelian view about desires, Aquinas must then posit desires corresponding to each of these goods. The two lower-levelgoodsareaimedatbythesensorydesire,whichhastwoaspects: the aspect that desires what is pleasant and what is conducive to survival and reproduction, and shuns the opposite of these (the sensual part); and the aspect that fights against threats to what is desirable (the aggressive part). The highest good is aimed at by the intellectual desire or will, which is a natural inclination to choose what reason takes to be good.
Both the hierarchy and the inclusiveness of which I have spoken are important for Aquinas's conception of the human good. The hierarchy is important because it tells us that the good of the human being is, in a sense, rational activity itself. The inclusiveness is important because it tells us that the specifically human rational activity that constitutes our good is not theoretical but practical reasoning. It is reasoning about how
Note, then, that 'desire' (appetitus) has a broader extension in Aquinas's philosophy than in our ordinary usage of the term. We would not ordinarily speak of plants, for example, as having desires; buttheydohaveappetitus,sincetheyhaveinternaldynamismsbywhichtheytendtowardsachieving their characteristic good. xiii