Glossary
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Action: activity. There are two basic kinds of activity. One kind, transitive activity, is efficient causality, that is, action that produces an effect in something else. The second kind, immanent action, perfects only the being that acts. Immanent action produces effects in living finite beings. Plants have the immanent activities of nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Animals have, in addition, the immanent activities of sense perception and sense appetites. Human beings have, in addition, the immanent activities of intellection and willing. See Cause.
Appetite: the desire or striving of finite beings to actualize potentialities. Nonliving material beings have natural appetites. Plants have, in addition, the vegetative appetites of nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Animals have, in addition, sense appetites. Human beings have, in addition, an intellectual or rational appetite, the will. See Concupiscible, Irascible, Will.
Cause: something that contributes to the being or coming-to-be of something else. The term refers primarily to an efficient cause, that is, a cause that by its activity produces an effect. For example, a builder and those who work under the builder are efficient causes of the house they construct. A final cause is the end for the sake of which an efficient cause acts. For example, a builder builds a house to provide a dwelling suitable for human habitation (objective purpose) and to make money if the house is to be sold (subjective purpose). An exemplary cause is the idea or model of a desired effect in the mind of an intellectual efficient cause that preconceives the effect. For example, a builder preconceives the form of the house the builder intends to build. Efficient, final, and exemplary causes are extrinsic to the effects they produce. In addition, form, which makes an effect to be what it is, and matter, which receives the form, are correlative intrinsic causes. For example, houses are composed of bricks and mortar (the matter), which are given a structure or shape (the form). See End, Form, Intention, Matter.
Charity: the supernatural virtue whereby one is characteristically disposed to love God above all things and to love all other things for his sake. See Virtue.
Concupiscence: the inclinations of human beings’ sense appetites toward actions contrary to the order of reason. The inclinations are not completely subject to reason. Concupiscence is not to be identified with the concupiscible appetites as such. See Concupiscible, Will.
{212} Concupiscible: a sense appetite for something pleasant. Love and hate, desire and aversion, joy and sorrow are movements of concupiscible appetites. See Appetite, Irascible.
Conscience: the dictate of reason that one should or should not do something. See Synderesis.
Emotions: movements of sense appetites. Emotions may be ordinate (in accord with right reason) or inordinate (contrary to right reason). Emotions involve either desire for pleasant things or repugnance regarding difficult things. See Concupiscible, Irascible, Moral Virtues.
End: the object for the sake of which something acts. The end may be intrinsic or extrinsic. The end is intrinsic if it belongs to the nature of an active thing. The end is extrinsic if it is the conscious object of a rational being’s action. See Cause.
Essence: that which makes things what they substantially are. For example, the human essence makes human beings to be what they are as substances, namely, rational animals. When the essence of a being is considered as the ultimate source of the being’s activities and development, it is called the being’s nature. For example, human nature is the ultimate source of specifically human activities (activities of reason and activities according to reason). See Form, Property (2).
Form: that which makes things to be the kind of things they are or to possess additional attributes. For example, the human form makes human beings human, and other forms make them so tall and so heavy. See Essence, Matter.
Genus: see Species.
Habit: the characteristic disposition or inclination to be or to act in a certain way. Habits belong chiefly to the soul, that is, to the intellect or the will. They may be innate or acquired, natural or supernatural, good or bad. For example, the habit of logical argumentation belongs to the intellect; the habit of justice belongs to the will; the habits of the first principles of theoretical and practical reason are innate; the habit of cleanliness is acquired; the habit of courage is natural; the habit of faith is supernatural; the habit of generosity is good; the habit of stinginess is bad. Habits belong secondarily, not chiefly, to the body, as the latter is disposed or made apt to be readily at the service of the soul’s activities. See Virtue.
Intellect: the human faculty of understanding, judging, and reasoning. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, holds that there is an active power of the intellect that moves the passive or potential power of the intellect to {213} understand the essence of material things, to form judgments, and to reason deductively. See Reason.
Intellectual Virtues: virtues consisting of the right characteristic disposition of the intellect toward truth. Theoretical intellectual virtues concern understanding first principles, scientific knowledge, and theoretical wisdom. Practical intellectual virtues concern practical wisdom and skills. See Practical Wisdom, Principle, Science, Theoretical Wisdom.
Intention: striving for things. Human beings, in their specifically human acts, strive for things as their reason understands the things to be good. Irrational animals strive for things as their senses perceive the things to be good. Other material things strive for things as their natures determine them to act. See Appetite, Cause, End.
Irascible: a sense appetite for a useful object that can be attained only with difficulty. The object does not seem pleasant and can be attained only by overcoming opposition. Hope and despair, fear and anger are movements of irascible appetites. See Appetite, Concupiscible.
Justice: the moral virtue consisting of the right characteristic disposition of the will to render to others what is due them. This is the special virtue of justice, and there are two particular kinds. One kind, commutative justice, concerns the duties of individuals and groups to other individuals and groups. The other kind, distributive justice, concerns the duties of the community to insure that individuals and groups receive a share of the community’s goods proportional to the individuals’ and groups’ contributions to the community. But justice in general is moral virtue in general, insofar as all moral virtues can be directed to the common good. Thomas calls such justice legal justice because human laws prescribe the moral virtues expected of citizens. See Moral Virtues, Virtue.
Kingly Wisdom: the archetype of political wisdom in governance. See Political Wisdom, Practical Wisdom.
Law: an order of reason, for the common good, by one with authority, and promulgated. For Thomas Aquinas, the archetypical law is God’s plan for the universe and everything he creates. Aquinas calls this plan the eternal law. Human beings, as rational creatures, can understand God’s plan for them and can judge what behavior it requires of them, and they in this way participate in the eternal law. Aquinas calls this participation in the eternal law the natural law. And human beings need to establish laws for their communities. These human laws either adopt conclusions from the general precepts of the natural law (e.g., do not commit murder) or {214} further specify the precepts (e.g., drive on the right side of the road). Aquinas calls those human laws that are proximate conclusions from the general precepts of the natural law the common law of peoples (jus gentium), and he calls those human laws that are more remote conclusions from, or further specifications of, the general precepts civil laws.
Matter: the stuff or subject matter out of which things are constituted. See Cause, Form.
Moral Virtues: virtues consisting of the right characteristic disposition of the will toward requisite ends (for example, just, courageous, moderate deeds). Reason directs moral virtues, theoretical reason by understanding their ends, and practical wisdom by choosing means to those ends. Moral virtues concern the mean between too much and too little. One moral virtue, justice, concerns external things. Other moral virtues concern control of emotions. See Emotions, Justice, Practical Wisdom.
Nature: see Essence.
Political Community: the organized community wherein and whereby human beings are able fully to achieve their proper excellence or well-being. Like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas holds that human beings are by their nature social and political animals. Human beings need to associate with one another for self-defense and economic development, but they also and especially need to associate with one another for their full intellectual and moral development. Only an organized community of a certain size can be self-sufficient to achieve these goals. Political community thus differs from the state, which is the supreme agency responsible for organizing the community, and differs from government, which is the machinery and personnel of the state. Unlike Aristotle, however, Aquinas envisioned a supernatural end for human beings beyond their temporal well-being and, by reason of that supernatural end, the membership of Christians in another, divinely established community, the church. The relation between the natural and the supernatural ends of human beings, and the relation between the two communities promoting those ends, were important concerns of Aquinas. See Polity.
Political Wisdom: the practical intellectual virtue consisting of the right characteristic disposition to reason about matters of governance. Kingly wisdom is the archetype of political wisdom in rulers, and other kinds of rulers share in this wisdom in a lesser way. Citizens or subjects of the rulers have another kind of political wisdom, one that consists of the right characteristic disposition toward rulers’ governance. See Kingly Wisdom, Practical Wisdom.
{215} Polity: the regime or constitution that gives a political community its distinctive form. For Thomas Aquinas, polity also has the meaning of a particular regime or constitution that mixes or combines elements of a rule that is monarchic (rule by one best person), aristocratic (rule by the few best persons), and democratic (rule by the multitude). Such a regime includes only limited popular participation. See Political Community.
Power: the active capacity to perform a certain kind of activity. For example, the intellect and the will are powers of human beings.
Practical Wisdom (Prudence): the intellectual virtue consisting of the right characteristic disposition to reason about what human beings should or should not do. Practical wisdom concerns human action and so differs from theoretical wisdom, which concerns the ultimate causes of things irrespective of related human action. Theoretical reason understands the ends of moral virtues, and practical wisdom chooses the mean to achieve those ends. As the most important natural virtue connected with human action, practical wisdom is sometimes considered as if it were one of the moral virtues. See Habit, Moral Virtues, Political Wisdom, Theoretical Wisdom, Virtue.
Principle: the universal major premise of an argument. Principles presupposing no principle, or at least no principle other than the principle of contradiction, are called first principles. There are theoretical first principles (e.g., everything coming to be has a cause) and practical first principles (e.g., do good, avoid evil, live sociably with others).
Property (1): any kind of material possession.
Property (2): a quality or characteristic that necessarily belongs to something but is neither part of the thing’s essence nor part of the thing’s definition. For example, the ability of human beings to use speech to convey ideas is a characteristic proper to them but not part of their essence or definition (rational animal).
Reason: (1) the process of drawing conclusions from principles; (2) the power to draw conclusions from principles; (3) the power of the intellect in general. In the selections in this work, Thomas Aquinas frequently uses the term in the third sense. See Intellect.
Regime: see Polity.
Science (Aristotelian): knowledge about things through knowledge of their causes. Science studies the efficient, final, material, and formal causes of things. Physical, psychological, and social sciences study the secondary {216} causes of material and human things, and philosophy (metaphysics) studies the first causes of being as such. For Aristotle, philosophy is the highest science. For Thomas Aquinas, theology, the study of God in the light of Christian revelation, is the highest science. See Cause, Intellect, Intellectual Virtues, Theoretical Wisdom.
Slavery: involuntary servitude. In medieval society, war captives became slaves, and their servitude could be terminated only by ransom or treaty. The feudal institutions of serfdom and vassalage were similar to slavery in that serfs, vassals, and their children were bound to certain lifetime duties to their lords and masters. But serfs and vassals, unlike the slaves of ancient Greece and Rome and those of the antebellum American South, had rights that their lords were in theory bound to respect.
Species: the substantial identity of material things insofar as that identity is common to many things. The species concept (e.g., human being) is composed of a genus concept (e.g., animal), which indicates the essence of particular material things in an incompletely determined way, and a specific difference (e.g., rational), which distinguishes different kinds of things of the same genus. The species concept, or definition, thus expresses the whole substance or essence of a particular kind of material thing.
Subject (1): that in which something else inheres. In the strict sense, subjects are the substances underlying accidental characteristics. For example, human beings are the subjects of their powers and acts. In a broader sense, powers can be considered the subjects of the powers’ acts. For example, the intellect is the subject of intellectual acts.
Subject (2): a human being bound to obey another human being. For example, British citizens are British subjects, that is, bound to obey British authorities.
Synderesis: habitual understanding of the first principles governing human action. This is an innate disposition. Human beings are disposed by their rational nature to recognize that they should seek the good proper to their human nature and should avoid things contrary to it. The human good involves preserving one’s life in reasonable ways, mating and raising offspring in reasonable ways, seeking truth, and living cooperatively with others in an organized society. See Habit.
Theoretical Wisdom: the intellectual virtue consisting of the right characteristic disposition to reason about the ultimate causes of things. See Intellectual Virtues, Practical Wisdom, Virtue.
{217} Virtue: human excellence. Virtue is a perduring quality and so a characteristic disposition. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes three kinds of virtue: intellectual, moral, and theological. Intellectual virtues have intellectual activities as their object. Concerning theoretical truth, intellectual virtues comprise understanding first principles, scientific knowledge, and theoretical wisdom. Concerning practical truth, intellectual virtues comprise practical wisdom and skills. Moral virtues consist of characteristic readiness to act in practical matters as practical wisdom dictates. Practical wisdom and moral virtues may be acquired or infused. There are three infused theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. See Charity, Habit, Intellectual Virtues, Moral Virtues, Practical Wisdom, Principle, Science, Theoretical Wisdom.
Will: the human intellectual (rational) appetite, the intellectual faculty of desire. The will necessarily desires the ultimate human perfection, happiness, but freely desires particular goods, since the latter are only partially good.
Wisdom: see Kingly Wisdom, Political Wisdom, Practical Wisdom, Theoretical Wisdom.