9. The nature of moral goodness
Moral Goodness
PART III: MORAL GOODNESS
9. The nature of moral goodness In the selection "What sort of thing is moral goodness?" Scotus comes closest to giving us a definition, describing moral goodness as a kind of moral beauty or comeliness. In terms of the Aristotelian categories, he refers to it here and in the second selection as an "accident," and among the "accidents," it is not something absolute, like quantity or quality, but rather falls into the category of "relation." Like beauty, it "is not some absolute quality," but rather a harmonious interrelationship of many items (the faculty of the will, the object it seeks, the conditions under which it does so, etc.). All these give the act a certain beauty or decor, as it were, when viewed in the light of right reason. Thus moral goodness represents an agreement of the act in question with the dictates of right reason, and it indicates the act is in harmony with all that it should have. So much for the nature of moral goodness.
Scotus, however, is concerned with the problem of its causality. For the dist. 17 of the Ordinatio I, where this item occurs, has to do with the theological habit or virtue of charity, why it is needed, the role it plays, and how it is increased. Habits and actions or acts, according to Aristotle, are absolute accidents in the category of "quality." The specific angle Scotus is interested in here is the question of whether virtue functions as an active cause (principium proprium) of moral goodness. If moral goodness is formally not something absolute but something relative, then it does not have a proper cause or principle in the way substance or an absolute accident has, but given the existence of the related terms, the relation follows of necessity. And so he writes: "This goodness, like any other relation, does not have an active principle all its own-especially since this respect follows from the nature of the related terms once they are given."
If a habit or virtue plays any causal role, then, it will be with regard to the substance of the act, and once that is given, it will bear a certain relationship to other given items. Nevertheless, since conformity of the act to right reason, expressed in the form of a prudential judgment, is an essential aspect of moral goodness, the presence of prudence as dictating the action in question does function as a "secondary sort of cause" or quasi-reason why an act is said to be morally good or why we call the habit generated by the repetition of such an act a moral virtue.
The original Latin source is from the Vatican ed. V, pp. 163-69.