I. Reply to the question
Ordinatio II, d. 41, q. un.
"Can any act of ours be indifferent?"
Concerning distinction 41 I ask whether any act of ours can be indifferent.
Arguments for the negative:
There is nothing intermediate between possession and privation; good and bad are privatively opposed; therefore, etc. The major premise is evident, because as we read in Metaphysics X [1055b1–6], things opposed privatively are opposed as contradictories with respect to that which they are apt to qualify; and according to Metaphysics
IV [1011b23–4], there is no intermediate between contradictories. Therefore, etc.
Furthermore, a habit is generated from acts. Therefore, if there were something intermediate between a good act and a bad act, there would be a habit that would be neither good nor bad.
On the contrary:
Ambrose, in the text: "Your affection gives its name to your act."1 But if no act were intrinsically indifferent, it would not be possible for some feature to make an act good in its own right and some other feature to make it bad.2
I. Reply to the question
One view on this question3 is that no individual act is indifferent, but an act-type
(actus in communi) is indifferent. Look this up in Bonaventure.
But in fact there can be an indifferent individual act, both in terms of moral goodness and badness and in terms of meritorious goodness and demeritorious badness.
1 Ambrose, De officiis I.30.147; Peter Lombard, Sent. II d. 40 c. un. n. 2.
2 Reading non posset ex uno esse bonus per se et ex alio malus (Q) for the edition's non posset ex uno actu esse bonus per se et ex alio malus. Both the quotation from Ambrose and the argument built on it require
Q's reading: it is not that an indifferent act can be made good by one act, bad by another, but that it can be good in virtue of some x or bad in virtue of some y. I use 'feature' as a sufficiently non-committal noun (the Latin has no noun at all, but English requires one).
3 Bonaventure, Sent. II d. 41 a. 1 q. 3 in corp.; Thomas Aquinas, De malo q. 2 a. 5 in corp., Sent. II d. 40 q. 1 a. 5, ST I-II q. 18 a. 9 in corp.
CAN ANY ACT OF OURS BE INDIFFERENT?
In the case of moral goodness and badness, with reference to a natural act, an indifferent act can evidently be found, one that has a determinate species in a genus of nature by reference to all its causes and yet could be indifferent with respect to moral goodness and badness.
7 Proof:
First, according to the Philosopher in Ethics II [1103a31–1103b8], the habit of justice is generated from just acts, though not from acts done justly; such an act is not morally good, because it is not from virtue.
8 A similar case can be made for acts elicited after virtue has been acquired, since it is not evidently necessary that a will that has virtue necessarily always uses it, but only when a passion arises that is so forceful that it would subvert reason unless the will used virtue.
9 And in the case of meritorious goodness and badness, there is evidently something intermediate between a good act and a bad act. For given moral goodness (as discussed in the previous question [d. 40, nn. 8–9]), merit evidently derives from a relation to the appropriate end, and that relation comes about through charity that exists in the agent.
10 Now an act can be referred through charity to the appropriate end in three ways:
(1) actually, as when someone who is actually thinking about the end loves it and wills something for its sake; (2) virtually, as when someone proceeds to a volition of something for the end in virtue of cognition and love of the end—for example, in virtue of cognition and love of God that belongs to the higher part, the lower part considers that such-and-such an act (say, an act of penance) is to be taken on, and then later the person carries out that act by willing it but does not at that time refer the act to the end, since at that time he is not actually cognizing or loving the end;
(3) habitually, as every act that can be referred to the end, coexisting with charity
(which is the principle of referring an act) is said to be referred habitually.
11 There are also three ways in which an act can be said not to be referred: (a) purely negatively, in that it is not referred either actually or virtually;4 (b) privatively, in that it is not apt to be referred—as is the case in venial sin, since although it is compatible with charity, it is not apt to be referred by charity to the end; (c) contrarily, in that it corrupts the principle of referring, namely charity, as mortal sin does.
12 There is no doubt that acts that fall under (b) and (c), namely venial sins and mortal sins, are bad; and there is no doubt that acts falling under (1) are meritorious, and it is quite probable that acts falling under (2) are as well.
4 Q alone reads "virtually" (the edition and the other MSS all have "habitually"), but it is clear from nn.
13–14 that "virtually" is the correct reading. Oddly, in n. 14, where again Q alone reads "virtually," the edition follows Q and notes, "In place of 'virtually' nearly all the codices erroneously read 'habitually.'"