Summa I-II Q.13 Art. 3-6: Choice Is of Means, of Human Acts, of Possible Things, and Is Free

Orientation #

He does not say anything about last time or next time. The previous class covered q. 13 aa. 1–2 (choice as act of will/reason; not in brutes), and the next moves to q. 14 on counsel.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3, objections: can one choose one’s end? (“choice is not only of those things which are for the end”) #

The point: the objections press that choice can be of the end itself.

• Obj. 1: Aristotle in Ethics VI says virtue makes right choice; he notes that Aristotle puts choice into the definition of moral virtue (a habit, with choice, in the middle towards us, determined by right reason). Example: temperance chooses to eat and drink moderately. But what comes about for the sake of something belongs to another power; that for the sake of which is an end; so choice is of the end. He says this “may come clear at the end.”
• Obj. 2: choice implies placing one thing before another; one can prefer among diverse ends as among means; so choice can be of ends.
• His own added evidence: in the Metaphysics Aristotle compares the wise man with the dialectician (differs by power: certainty vs. probability) and with the sophist (differs by choice of life). So Aristotle “seems to be saying you can choose your end.” And people commonly say we choose what we aim at in life—to be the wealthiest man in the world, the best at this or that. “We’ll see what Thomas says.”
• Sed contra: Ethics III—voluntas wills the end, choice is of what is towards the end.

2. Article 3, body: end as premise, choice as conclusion (“choice follows upon a what? sententia”) #

The point: choice is of the conclusion of the operative syllogism, and the end stands as premise, so the end as such is not chosen—but the same thing can be end in one order and means in another.

1. Choice follows a sententia (judgment), which is like the conclusion of an operative syllogism. (Aside: the Sentences of Peter Lombard were the sentences of the Fathers.)
2. “The famous proportion”: the end in things to be done is as the principle or premise, not as conclusion (Physics II). So the end as such does not fall under choice.
3. The distinction: as in speculative matters what is the beginning of one demonstration or science can be the conclusion of another, yet the very first beginnings cannot be conclusions of anything (examples: all right angles are equal; if equals are taken from equals the results are equal—these are not conclusions), so what is an end in one doing can be ordered to another as to an end, and in that way falls under choice.
4. Example: for the doctor, health is the end, so it does not fall under his choice; he supposes it as a beginning. But health of the body is ordered to the good of the soul; so for one who has care of the soul it can fall under choice to be sick—“when I am weak, then I am powerful” (the Apostle).
5. Conclusion: the last end in no way comes under choice. His summary: the same statement can be premise or conclusion; the same thing can be end of some things and means of others; “that’s not hard to see.” But insofar as it is an end it is not the object of choice; it is always as a means to a further end that it can be chosen.

3. Parallel distinctions: species, father, premise (“what is defined is always a species”) #

The point: the same “as such / not as such” distinction appears elsewhere.

• Thomas says what is defined is always a species. Objection: Euclid defines quadrilateral, which is a genus of square, oblong, etc. Answer: it is defined insofar as it is a species of a higher genus, not insofar as it is a genus; eventually you reach the categories, which cannot be defined in any way.
• Can the father be generated? Not as father. (And there may be a father, like Adam, who is not generated but created.)
• Is the premise proved? Yes, but not as premise—insofar as it is itself a conclusion.
• His own case: he “chose to be a philosopher,” and being a philosopher is his end in life; but he chose it because he thought it would lead to happiness. He did not think he could be happy as a politician (“nobody thinks”), businessman, lawyer or doctor. So he did not choose to be happy; he chose being a philosopher insofar as it is a means to happiness, and does things (went to Laval) for its sake.
• Aside: one of his grandchildren is named Sophia, so as a philosopher he is a “lover of Sophia”—playing on the equivocation.

4. Article 3, replies (“virtue is the road to what? Happiness”) #

• Ad 1: the proper ends of the virtues are ordered to beatitude as to a last end, and in this way there can be choice of them. Thomas sometimes says virtue is the road to happiness, vice the road to misery: if you want to be miserable you choose the vices, but you cannot choose beatitude. Does a man choose between happiness and misery? “Probably the existentialist would think he could.” A student: the existentialist would always choose to be miserable—because it would be more noble.
• Ad 2: the last end is one only, beatitude; wherever there are many ends, there can be choice among them according as they are ordered to a further end.
• Aside: a priest in Kansas (from Wisconsin, a Green Bay Packers fan) joked that the Sadducees, not believing in the resurrection, were “sad, you see.”

5. Article 4: choice is only of human acts (“it is necessary that some human action intervene”) #

The point: whatever is chosen, as end or means, is either an action or a thing that requires an action, so choice is always of human acts.

• Objections: (1) what is for the end includes not only acts but tools (Physics II)—as when someone said “they chose medicine,” and that’s not a human act; (2) action is distinguished from contemplation, but there is choice in contemplation, one opinion being chosen over another (he flags the equivocation: as when “we choose Homer” the poet); (3) men are chosen for secular or ecclesiastical offices by those who do nothing with reference to them—as in electing a president.
• Sed contra (Ethics III): no one chooses except what he estimates can come about through himself.
• Body: as intention is of the end, choice is of what is for the end. The end is either an action or a thing; when a thing, some human action must intervene—either man makes the thing which is the end (the physician makes health, so making health is called his end), or he uses or enjoys it (the avaricious man’s end is money, its possession). Likewise for what is for the end: either an action, or a thing reached or used by an action. So choice is always of human acts.
• Ad 1: tools are ordered to the end insofar as man uses them. Do I choose the medicine or choose to take it? “I choose to take the medicine”—a human act.
• Ad 2: in contemplation itself there is an act of understanding assenting to this opinion or that; it is exterior action that is divided against contemplation. “Be careful about that Thomasian reply”—he would be cautious about saying you “choose” the affirmation or the negation; that is the “philosophical menu” way introduction-to-philosophy courses teach (here is Aristotle, here is Descartes, the student picks his meal—“we’ll choose Descartes, on a card”).
• Ad 3: the man who chooses a bishop or a prince of the city chooses to name him for that dignity; otherwise, if there were no action toward constituting him, there would be no choice. Whenever something is chosen before another, some operation of the chooser is joined to it: if I choose steak over salmon, I want to eat the steak.
• Aside on “physician”: the word comes from nature; when a doctor gets involved in abortion and other unnatural things, is he a physician anymore? Father Owen Bennett insisted on “physician” rather than “doctor,” since a doctor is a teacher, and the medical man may or may not teach.

6. Article 5: choice is only of the possible (“choice is not except of things possible”) #

The point: since choice refers to our actions, and what we do is possible for us, choice is only of possible things—though one may choose what merely appears possible.

• Objections: (1) choice is an act of the will, but the will is of impossible things (Ethics III); (2) it makes no difference to choice whether a thing is impossible simply or impossible to the chooser, and we often choose what we cannot perfect; (3) no one attempts anything except by choosing, and Blessed Benedict says that if the prelate commands something impossible it must be tried—“proof from the pudding.” His example: a Mother Superior tells a Sister she will teach calculus; it might be impossible for the Sister to teach it, “but it’s possible for me to learn it.”
• Sed contra (Ethics III): choice is not of the impossible.
• Body: (a) our choices always refer to our actions, and what is done by us is possible for us. “So simple”—De Koninck used to say we have to get back to the simple understanding of Thomas. (b) The reason for choosing is that it leads to the end, and through the impossible one cannot reach the end; a sign: when in taking counsel men arrive at something impossible for them, they cease, as unable to proceed further (the mice deciding “we’re going to hang a bell on the cat”—who is going to do that?). (c) From the proportion: what is for the end is to the end as conclusion to premise; an impossible conclusion does not follow from possible premises, so the end cannot be possible unless the means are; and no one is moved to the impossible, so no one tends to an end except through what appears possible to that end.
• Ad 1: voluntas is in between the understanding and the exterior operation: understanding proposes the object, will causes the exterior action. The beginning of the will’s motion is on the side of understanding, which grasps something as good in general; its termination or perfection is according to its order to operation. (Motion of the will is from the soul to the thing; knowing is from the thing to the soul.) So the complete will is only of the possible good; the incomplete will is of the impossible, which some call wishing—one wishes something “if it were possible.” A man wishes to marry some woman if it were possible; does he choose to? No. If he chooses, he will have her; if he only wishes, not by choice. Choice names an act of will already determined to what is to be begun by this person, so only of the possible.
• Ad 2: the object of the will is a good as grasped; so as sometimes the will is of what is grasped as good but not truly good, sometimes there is choice of what is apprehended as possible to the chooser but is not. “I’m going to be on the Olympic team this year—it seems possible to me.”
• Ad 3 (Benedict): whether a thing is possible is not for the subordinate to define by his own judgment, but in each thing to stand with the judgment of the superior—“not to question why, but to do and die.”

7. Article 6: man does not choose of necessity (“man does not of necessity choose”) #

The point: because reason can apprehend not-willing as good, and every particular good under some defect, choice is free; only beatitude is willed of necessity.

• Objections: (1) the end is to things choosable as premises to conclusions (Ethics VII), and conclusions follow of necessity. He adds: “likeness is a cause of deception”—as in the argument about God: by knowing himself he knows other things, by loving himself he loves other things, therefore as he necessarily knows others he necessarily loves them; the mind is deceived because it does not see a distinction (“distinction, the life of reason”). (2) Choice follows the judgment of reason, and reason sometimes judges of necessity from necessary premises. (3) Between two wholly equal things man is not moved more to one than the other—the starving man with equally desirable food at equal distances; Plato’s reason for the earth resting in the middle (On the Universe II [ed.: De Caelo]). Much less can he choose what he takes as less; so if one appears more eminent he must choose it; and every choice is of what seems better; so every choice is of necessity. “I’m not convinced now”—you had to choose to be monks? I had to choose to be a philosopher, “just couldn’t resist”? Aside: a man without the mind for philosophy who is convinced it is the best thing seems to be making a foolish choice “of necessity.”
• Sed contra: choice is the act of a rational power, which is towards opposites.
• Body: what is possible not to be is not necessary to be; so what one can not-choose one does not choose of necessity. The reason: a twofold power in man—to will and not will, to act and not act; and to will this or that, do this or that. Grounded in reason: the will can tend to whatever reason apprehends as good, and reason can apprehend as good not only willing or doing but also not willing and not doing; and in any particular good one can consider both a reason of good and a defect of good (which has the notion of bad), so each can be apprehended as choosable or refusable. His gloss: this is like the fallacy of simply and not simply—nothing in this world is so good that doing it does not prevent doing some other good, so anything can be considered as bad in some way; “shows you the kind of freedom there.” Only the perfect good, beatitude, cannot be grasped under the notion of evil or defect; so man necessarily wills beatitude and cannot will to be miserable or wretched. Choice, being of particular goods and not of the end, is free.
• Ad 1: not always does the conclusion follow of necessity from the premises—only when the premises cannot be true if the conclusion is not. Likewise not everything for the end is such that without it the end cannot be had, or if it is, not always. Example: “I can’t be happy without reading Homer tonight”—no; “throw another book in there.” Aside: he tries to hold himself to one book a day; he was counting how many sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux he could get through in a day.
• Ad 2: the judgment of reason about things to be done is about contingents, which can be done by us; in these the conclusions follow not by absolute necessity but by conditional necessity—“if he runs, he moves.” He finds the way Thomas expresses this “kind of odd.”
• Ad 3: nothing prevents two things equal under one consideration from differing by some other condition through which one is more eminent, so the will is more moved to it. How do you choose between two equals—toss a coin? Something affects you: buying a book, he checks all the pages are there, nothing broken. A student: two packages at the grocery store exactly equal—then it’s not really a choice. Everybody reaches to the back for the milk: truly or falsely you judge it superior (fresher)—if it’s a good store; a bad store keeps putting the new ones in front and the old rot in the back.

His words #

• sententia: the judgment on which choice follows; conclusion of the operative syllogism (aside: Lombard’s Sentences).
• “the famous proportion”: end is to means as premise is to conclusion.
• voluntas: the will (of the end, in Ethics III; “in between the understanding and the exterior operation”).
• election / choice: his renderings of electio, used interchangeably.
• “physician”: from nature; preferred by Owen Bennett to “doctor” (teacher).
• “philosophical menu”: his name for teaching by offering opinions to be chosen.
• complete vs. incomplete will: will of the possible vs. “wishing” of the impossible.
• “distinction, the life of reason”; “likeness is a cause of deception”.
• “fallacy of simply and not simply”: any particular good can be viewed as bad in some respect.
• necessity by condition: “if he runs, he moves.”

Texts #

Read in class:

• Thomas, ST I-II q. 13 a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas, ST I-II q. 13 a. 4 (whole article)
• Thomas, ST I-II q. 13 a. 5 (whole article)
• Thomas, ST I-II q. 13 a. 6 (whole article)

Mentioned:

• Aristotle, Ethics VI (virtue makes right choice; definition of moral virtue), Ethics III (will of the end, choice of means; will of impossibles; choice not of impossibles; no one chooses what he cannot bring about), Ethics VII (end as premise)
• Aristotle, Physics II (end as principle; tools as for the end)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics (wise man vs. dialectician and sophist; no locus given)
• Aristotle, On the Universe II [ed.: De Caelo] (Plato on the earth at rest)
• Euclid (definition of quadrilateral)
• Rule of Blessed Benedict (obeying an impossible command; he “thinks it was Benedict”)
• Peter Lombard, Sentences (aside)
• St Paul, “when I am weak, then I am powerful” (as quoted by Thomas)
• Bernard of Clairvaux, sermons (aside)

His questions #

• Does Aristotle’s “choice of life” mean you can choose your end? Only as ordered to a further end; the last end (beatitude) is never chosen.
• Can the father be generated? Is the premise proved? Not as father; not as premise—only insofar as it is itself a conclusion.
• Did I choose to be a philosopher as my end? I chose it as a means to happiness; I did not choose to be happy.
• Does a man choose between happiness and misery? No; the existentialist might think so (a student: he’d always choose misery, as nobler).
• Do I choose the medicine, or choose to take the medicine? To take it—a human act.
• Does a man who wishes to marry a woman when it’s impossible choose to marry her? No; that is wishing, incomplete will, not choice.
• Did you have to choose to be monks? Did I have to choose to be a philosopher? No—choice is of a rational power towards opposites; not of necessity.
• How do you choose between two exactly equal things? Something affects you so one appears more eminent (milk from the back); a student suggests that if truly equal it is not really a choice.