22. The will as the seat of the moral virtues
The Intellectual and Moral Virtues
In the second article Scotus sets forth in great detail how property, once legitimately acquired, may be transferred to others. Harris gives a brief account of its significance as follows:
Concern for the public welfare is the basis of Scotus' economic doctrines. He regarded private property as a product of positive rather than natural law and insisted that property must not be administered in a way detrimental to the community. He formulated principles for the equitable employment of various commercial contracts, and while he accepted the current concept of a just price he recognized the social importance of a merchant class.
Since Scotus' economic doctrines are of only peripheral interest to the main concern of this book, I have cited only the initial paragraph of this second article.
The text of this selection is from the Ordinatio IV, dist. IS, q. 2; Codex A, f. 233rb-va.
PART VI: THE INTELLECTUAL AND
MORAL VIRTUES
Scotus begins his treatment of the virtues (theological, intellectual, and moral) with dist. 23 ofBk. III and concludes with the question on the connection of the virtues in dist. 36. Because some codices of the Ordinatio end with dist. 14, Balit first believed that this was as far as Scotus had come in his final revision of his commentary on the Sentences, even though the most important Codex A extends to dist. 40.
Lottin was able to prove by a detailed analysis of the various manuscripts of dist. 36 that Codex A was indeed a revision of Scotus' earlier lectures on the question of the connection of the virtues and argued that the Ordinatio III, or final revision of the third book, extends to at least dist. 36. Until the Scotistic Commission, which is still busy with the second book, makes a thorough study of the problem and comes to some definitive conclusion, we may adopt the customary way of referring to the questions in dists. IS to 40 as "supplements" to Ordinatio
III. The question of whether all the precepts of the decalogue pertain to the law of nature (selection 18) fell in this category. What I have translated here is the text of the Wadding edition revised on the basis of Codices A and S. We have done the same for the Latin text of the next three questions.
22. The will as the seat of the moral virtues Against Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics III, ch. 10, II qb23), Aquinas (Summa theologiae IaIIae, q. 56, art. 4), and others who place fortitude and temperance in the irascible and concupiscible sense ap-
Introduction petites, justice in the will, and prudence in the intellect, Scotus argues that not only justice but fortitude and temperance as well are virtues that reside in the will.
Since those who held the opposite view among his contemporaries did so because of what they attributed to Aristotle, Scotus first shows that one can construct arguments for his own position based on what the Philosopher says in the Politics and the Ethics. But the most unequivocal authority for his position is clearly Augustine. In his Morals of the Church, ch. 15, and in Bk. XIV of the City of God, chs. 5 and 6, the saint claims that emotions or passions reside in the higher portion of the soul, specifically in the will, and that the moral virtues are nothing more than "well-ordered love" on the part of the will.
As for philosophical arguments based on reason, Scotus takes the arguments for the opposition and cleverly turns them to his own purposes, concluding that if we consider these arguments which are adduced to support the other opinion, it is clear how they prove the opposite, [first) because the will is not of itself righteous and is able to be rectified as regards that action that is properly its own; [second] because the will is no less undetermined and determinable than is the intellect to which one attributes virtue; [third] because it is also inclined by nature to delight in its own way in that action that is properly its own, and so it ought to have a habit whereby it can act in a way that gives it delight; [fourth] because it is the principal agent in performing actions that are distinctively human, inasmuch as they are free, and because human actions, if they are to be praiseworthy, require in the principal agent a virtue deserving of praise; [fifth] because the will, if it possesses virtues, can more readily moderate the passions in a fitting way than the sense appetite can.
Hence he concludes in answer to the question:
Just as in the intellect, either through its first act or through frequently elicited acts, the habit of prudence is generated, so also with the first correct choice consonant with the dictates of right reason, or through many such correct choices, there is generated in the will a proper virtue which inclines the will to choose rightly. . .
One can concede, however, that if the will by willing can command the sense appetite (by moderating either its passion or the way it goes after or flees from a thing, if this be an act of the sense appetite), it can also leave behind in the sense appetite by such correct commands some habit that inclines that appetite to move more readily towards sensibles in the way the will commands. And this habit that is left there, although it is not properly a virtue, because it is not an elective habit, nor does it incline one to make choices, can in some sense be conceded to be a virtue, since it inclines one to such things as are in accord with right reason.
The Intellectual and Moral Virtues
In answer to an objection that if moral virtues can exist in the higher or more spiritual portion of the soul, then they can also exist in angels which have no sense appetites, Scotus explains in some detail how an angel, if created in a purely natural state, could also have a moral habit, provided it made many correct choices in regard to such passions as are revealed to it by the intellect. And if one is not content with this answer, one could simply deny the parallel between the soul and the angel, and argue in this way. The soul has a sense appetite that is apt by nature to pull it towards what is pleasing to the senses alone, thus making it difficult for the will to tend to any higher or spiritual good in an objective way. Moral virtue, however, is concerned not with just any good, but with such goods as are difficult to obtain.
Another objection, posed by admirers of Aristotle, is that if moral virtue were in the will, then such virtue would be more noble than prudence, and this contradicts the Philosopher. Scotus replies that from a supernatural viewpoint, in the intellect it is faith, not prudence, that is its most perfect virtue, and in the will it is charity, not moral virtue, that is its highest virtue; but even speaking naturally one can admit that if there be an act of the practical intellect and an act of the will in regard to the same object such as a moral good, if both act perfectly, one dictating, the other choosing, then the right choice will be simply more noble than the right dictate, and consequently the habit generated by choices of this sort will be simply more perfect than those produced by correct judgments, which I grant.
As for the Philosopher preferring prudence, I reply that prudence is somehow related to the other virtues, insofar as it and its act preceded the generation of either an act or a habit of moral virtue, and because of this priority a moral act and habit is conformed to it as prior and not vice versa. And such priority according to the Philosopher implies that prudence functions as a rule and a measure, and it is in this that its dignity consists, but not in an unqualified sense.
Still another objection states that if it is only because the sense appetite is moved by the will that a habit or virtue is induced in it, then a moral habit could be induced in any part of the body that is frequently moved voluntarily. Scotus admits that this is in a sense true, for one could induce a habit or quasi-virtue in the body, as is clear from the hand of a writer or painter. If the handiwork is a product of a virtuous action, then one could admit that practice could make one skilled in performing a work of moral virtue.
In a broad sense "virtue" means simply a certain inherent power or