12. Does the end alone justify actions?
Moral Goodness 5 I yet it need not be an act motivated expressly by the love of God or neighbor, as Scotus conceives of such supernatural love. Normally, since one is either in a state of grace or in a state of sin, however,
Scotus seems to think that sanctifying grace, if it is present, would tend to incline one to act in accord with it, and in such a case the act would be meritorious as well as morally good from a natural standpoint. But if one performs an act that from a natural viewpoint is against right reason and hence is morally bad, it would also be clearly demeritorious as well, for the prior malice (generic badness) implies moral badness, and moral badness implies demerit, though the converse implication does not obtain. If an act is bad in the second way, then, it is a sinful act, as well; but if an act is performed by one not in the state of grace and hence is not meritorious, and yet is the sort of act that is morally good in the second way, such an act would be neither good nor bad in the third way., Therefore, it would be neutral so far as goodness or badness are contraries of the third type, but it would not be neutral, speaking of the second type.
The Latin source is taken from a corrected text of the Ordinatio II, dist. 7, supplied to the author by the courtesy of the Scotistic Commission some years ago. It may not be identical in every respect with what is eventually published in the Vatican edition, volume VIII.
12. Does the end alone justify actions?
In dist. 40 of Bk. II of the Ordinatio, Scotus raises the question of whether the end or purpose which motivates an act alone suffices to make it morally good, and again he repeats what he said in selections 9 and 10, that all the circumstances must be in accord with right reason.
Those authorities quoted to show that the end alone suffices to make an act morally good can be explained if we take them to refer not simply to morally good in the first or second degrees referred to above, but to the third type of moral goodness, namely, that deserving of merit and supernatural reward.
In this selection, however, we notice Scotus distinguishing a twofold sense of natural goodness. One is what we may call "ontological" in the sense that it is "coextensive with being." This seems to be identical with the natural goodness referred to at the beginning of selection I I. The other meaning of "natural goodness" is "that which is opposed to evil" and seems to refer to the "secondary goodness," rather than the "primary" or "essential goodness," mentioned in selection I o. Such secondary or accidental goodness can also characterize an action as well as a body. If we consider all of the selections where
Scotus uses the term "natural goodness," we seem to have at least