II. Replies to the preliminary arguments
ORDINATIO II, D. , Q. UN.
bad. When just some of them are taken away, the nature is bad, but not altogether so, as is true also of beauty and ugliness in a body. Now a natural act is apt to be suitable to its efficient cause, its object, its end, and its form. It is therefore naturally good when it has all the suitable features that are apt to concur in its being.
As to the second, I say that the moral goodness of an act is from the aggregation of all the features that are suitable to the act, not absolutely, in virtue of its nature, but according to right reason. Therefore, since right reason dictates that a determinate object, a determinate mode, and the other circumstances must be suitable to the act, complete goodness does not come from the end alone.
In fact, the first aspect of its goodness is from the act's suitability to its efficient cause.
It is in virtue of its efficient cause—because it is elicited freely—that an act is called
"moral." This is common to good and bad acts: indeed, no act deserves either praise or reproach unless it is from the will. The second condition is from the object. If the object is suitable, the act is generically good. This generic goodness is indifferent with respect to further goodnesses, which are derived from the special circumstances, just as a genus is indifferent with respect to a number of differences.
After the object, the first circumstance is the end. Nor does the end suffice without the other circumstances, such as the circumstance of the form (say, that the act is performed in the requisite manner, which pertains to the fourth circumstance). Then come the more extrinsic circumstances, namely the when and where.
It is therefore evident that solely the goodness of the end, even as intended in accordance with right reason, is not sufficient for the goodness of the act; rather, the other circumstances are required, in the aforesaid order, if the act is to be good.
II. Replies to the preliminary arguments
The reply to the argument from Augustine [n. 2] is evident from the passage cited from him in support of the opposite view [n. 5]. Even if the end is a more important condition pertaining to the goodness of the act, it is nevertheless not sufficient, speaking unqualifiedly.4 As for meritorious goodness, which adds something over and above moral goodness, it does come principally from the end, since (presupposing complete moral goodness) meritorious goodness is added in virtue of the requisite relation of the act to the end, which requisite relation comes about insofar as the act is elicited by charity. In this way one can interpret the authorities as teaching that meritorious goodness is from the end.
4 Reading non tamen est sufficiens simpliciter loquendo. De bonitate meriti (VYOQ, with Q adding
Etiam before de). The edition has non tamen est sufficiens; et simpliciter loquendo de bonitate meriti.
IS EVERY ACT GOOD IN VIRTUE OF ITS END?
13 To the second argument [n. 2] I say that the efficient cause of an act of understanding—that which is on the part of an act of understanding—acts naturally and cannot act in different ways with respect to the same object.5 Therefore, it always acts correctly. But the will does not always act conformably to its object, since it is a free cause, not a natural cause. Therefore, when there is correctness in an act of understanding on the part of the principle that moves the intellect, the whole act is correct; but that is not the case in an act of will [when there is goodness] on the part of the end [that moves the will].
14 As to the third argument [n. 4], I say that this one goodness integrates in itself all the perfections that are suitable to the act, and that it is not a unitary thing, just as beauty in a body is not a unitary thing.
5 Y omits the material between the dashes; Q reads "that which is on the part of the intellect or a habit of the intellect."