Aquinas on Use and Command: Whether Use Comes Before Choice, Whether Command Belongs to Reason, and Whether Animals Command (ST I-II Q.16 a.3–4, Q.17 a.1–3)

Orientation #

“We’re up to Article Three there, I guess, of Question Sixteen … we’re still talking about usus.” He notes the division reached so far: the acts of the will regarding the end and regarding what is towards the end have been done; now the acts commanded by the will. He closes with “we should take a little break after that.” The previous class did consent and use (q. 15–16, early articles); the next continues q. 17 (a. 4 onward).

The class, in order #

1. q. 16 a. 3: use of the last end? (“use always is of that which is towards the end”) #

The point: properly, use is only of what is towards the end; the last end is enjoyed, not used.

• Objections as read: (1) Augustine, De Trinitate X: everyone who enjoys uses; but one enjoys the last end, so uses it (“there’s ambiguity there, the word ‘use’”). (2) To use is to take something into the power of the will; nothing is more taken up by the will than the last end. (3) Hilary, De Trinitate II: eternity in the Father, species (beauty) in the Image (the Son), use in the Gift (the Holy Spirit); the Holy Spirit is God, the last end. Sed contra: Augustine, Eighty-three Questions: no one rightly uses God, but enjoys him.
• Body, as he gives it: use implies applying something to something; what is applied to another has the ratio of what is towards an end; therefore use is always of what is towards the end — which is why things suitable to the end are called useful, and usefulness is sometimes called use. Then the distinction: last end simply vs. toward someone (quoad hunc). The end is said sometimes of the thing itself, sometimes of its attainment/possession: the avaricious man’s end is either money or the possession of money. Simply, the thing is the last end (possession of money is not good except for the good money is); but as regards this man, attaining money is the end, since he seeks money only to have it. So simply and properly he enjoys money (he constitutes his last end in it); insofar as he refers it to possession he is said to use it. “So that’s the equivocation there.”
• Applied to God: “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” — seeking God so that the heart may rest in him. Student: is God the end, or seeing/loving God? Answer: simply God is the end; in some way the end is eternal life, “to know Him whom He sent,” the sight of His glory (Thomas’s prayer, “blessed”).
• Replies: (1) Augustine speaks of use communiter, not properly, as it implies the order of the end to the enjoyment of the end. (2) The end is taken into the power of the will that the will may rest in it, so rest in the end (enjoyment) is thus called a use of the end; what is towards the end is taken up not only for its own use but in order to another thing, in which the will will rest. (3) Hilary takes use for rest in the last end, in the way one is said, communiter loquendo, to use the end in order to obtain it — “strangely speaking, but we do speak that way”; Augustine, De Trinitate VI, calls that love, pleasure, beatitude “use.”
• Asides: Thomas seems to quote Hilary most after Augustine on the Trinity; Hilary of Poitiers’ feast next week; St Paul the First Hermit today; “hermits” as cookies his wife made (ginger).

2. q. 16 a. 4: use before choice? (“use follows election or choice”) #

The point: use follows choice, as the second relation of the will to the willed; but the will’s use of reason can precede choice.

• Objections: (1) After choice nothing follows but execution; use, being of the will, precedes execution (which belongs to another faculty), so “the only place for it is before choice.” (2) The absolute is before the relative, so the less relative before the more; choice implies two relations (of the chosen to the end, and to that in preference to which it is chosen), use only one (to the end). Aside on “absolute”: Thomas’s usage from the division of the categories, quantity and quality vs. relation; “absolute” said “to oneself” is a funny way of speaking. “Whoever thinks up these objections should be shot” — “I don’t know who’s smarter, the guy who thought up the objection or the guy that answered.” (3) The will uses other powers by moving them; it moves itself, so uses itself by applying itself to act — and it does this when it consents; consent precedes choice. Sed contra: Damascene — after choice the will makes impetus to operation, and afterwards uses.
• Body: the will has a twofold relation to the willed. (i) As the willed is in some way in the one willing, by a proportion or order to the thing willed — an act that remains in the doer (whence things naturally proportioned to an end are said to desire it naturally); this is having the end imperfectly. (ii) Since everything imperfect tends to its perfection, natural and voluntary desire tend to have the end really, perfectly. The willed is both the end and what is towards the end; the last act of the first relation regarding what is towards the end is choice (there the proportion is complete: the will fully wills what is towards the end); use pertains to the second relation, tending to obtain the thing. So use follows choice — if use is taken as the will’s use of the executive power by moving it. But since the will also moves and uses reason, one can take use of what is towards the end as it is in reason’s consideration referring it to the end, and so use precedes choice.
• Replies: (1) The motion by which the will moves to carrying out precedes the execution but follows choice; use is a middle between choice and execution. (2) What is relative by its very nature is after the absolute; but that to which relations are attributed need not be posterior. He draws the Categories distinction: relativa secundum dici (said of another, but fundamentally not relative — knowledge is a quality with a relation “of something” falling on it; love likewise, though “never does he speak of love of something”) vs. relativa secundum esse (whose whole being is to be towards another: double is nothing by itself, “how much is double? four or six or ten”). Why Aristotle, listing substance, quantity, quality, relation, then treats relation before quality: because Plato defined the relative as what is said to be of or towards another, which would include knowledge; the distinction is needed first. Thomas adds: immo, the more a cause is prior, the more relations it has to more effects, and is still before — as power is defined as a beginning, by the relation following on it. “That’s a subtle distinction there.” (3) Choice precedes use of the same thing; nothing prevents the use of one thing preceding the choice of another. Since the acts of the will reflect on themselves, in every act of the will one can take consent, choice and use: the will consents to choose, consents to consent, uses itself to consent — and these acts are always ordered to what is before.
• Exchange: “What comes first, the premise or the conclusion?” Student: a conclusion can be used as a premise. Answer: then not as a conclusion; as conclusion it is after its premises, though a series runs premises–conclusion–premise. Likewise genus and species: quadrilateral (genus) before square; but rectilineal plane figure, a species of plane figure, is before the genus quadrilateral — not as species. What is defined is always a species (by genus and difference); a genus is defined only as species of a higher genus; the highest genus, having no genus, cannot strictly be defined.
• Aside: the Cajetan story — after his defence they carried him on their shoulders to the beer instead of him inviting them; “one of these guys brought back” would give a modern philosopher a rough time.

3. q. 17 prologue: the acts commanded by the will (“nine things are asked”) #

Now the acts commanded by the will (imperium, “emperor, the one who commands, you’d better obey”). He reads the nine: (1) whether to command is an act of will or reason — “seems kind of ambiguous”; (2) whether it belongs to brute animals (Shakespeare’s man obeying the dog on a chain); (3) the order of command to use (“oh heck … not completely free of that”); (4) whether command and the commanded act are one or diverse; (5) whether the will’s act is commanded — “we’re commanded to love God, our neighbour, our enemy,” John’s “new commandment” that is also old; (6) reason’s act; (7) the sense appetite, the emotions — “command you to be angry, afraid, sad, to love me”; (8) the vegetative soul — “grow”; (9) the exterior members — “command my arm, my leg.” He says “question 18” [ed.: verified as q. 17].

4. q. 17 a. 1: is command an act of reason or of will? (“to command is an act of reason”) #

The point: command is essentially an act of reason, presupposing an act of the will in whose power reason moves.

• Objections: (1) To command is to move; Avicenna’s fourfold mover — perfecting, disposing, commanding, counselling; but to the will pertains moving all the powers. (2) As being commanded belongs to the subject, commanding belongs to what is most free (free man commands slave); the root of liberty is the will. Aside: “Am I free to think two is half of five?” — Aristotle speaks of being coerced by the truth, sometimes against your will. (3) Act follows at once on command, but not on reason’s judgement: “not the one who judges something to be done at once does it” — “not now yet,” as Augustine says. Sed contra: Gregory and the Philosopher — the desiring power obeys reason, so reason commands (“that’s why I mentioned ‘command, woman’”).
• Body: (i) acts of will and reason can cause each other — reason is about willing, the will wills to reason; so an act of will is preceded by reason and conversely; (ii) since the power of the prior act remains in the following, there are acts of the will with something of reason remaining in them (as said of use and choice — “the will chooses because reason has seen why this is better than that”) and e converso. (iii) Command is essentially of reason, because the one commanding orders the one commanded to do something by intimating/denuntiando (he rejects “denouncing”; class settles on “declaring”); ordering by intimation is of reason (reason: the ability to look before and after). Reason intimates in two ways: absolutely, expressed in the indicative mode, “this is to be done by you”; or by moving to it, expressed in the imperative mode, “do this.” (iv) The first mover in the powers of the soul to the exercise of an act is the will; the second mover moves only in the power of the first; so reason’s moving by command is from the will’s power. Conclusion: command is an act of reason presupposing an act of the will.
• Replies: (1) Command is not moving in just any way but with a certain intimation (informing), involving ordering, proper to reason. (2) The root of liberty is the will as subject, reason as cause — hence liberum arbitrium, arbitrium meaning judgement: free judgement from reason. Reason has universality in judging, knowing good in general; nothing in this life cannot be considered as good or bad — anything you do prevents something else, so is secundum quid bad, and even murdering an annoying person can be considered good (“get rid of annoyance in your life”) — so the will can move freely because reason has diverse conceptions of the good; that is why the other animals have no liberty, no free judgement. (3) The argument concludes only that command is not an act of reason absolutely, but with a motion moved by the will.
• Aside: New Year resolution; Latin pax vobiscum / “and with your spirit.”

5. q. 17 a. 2: does command belong to brute animals? (“in them there’s impetus, but not command”) #

The point: brutes have mover and moved, impetus from instinct, but no command, since command is ordering, an act of reason.

• Objections: (1) Avicenna: the commanding power of motion is the appetitive, the executing power is in muscles and nerves; both in brutes. (He: “it’s not simply an act of appetite, is it? Involves reason.”) (2) A slave is what is commanded; body is to soul as slave to master (Politics I); brutes have soul and body. (3) Through command a man makes impetus to a work; impetus is in brutes (Damascene). Sed contra: from a. 1, command is of reason; brutes lack reason.
• Body: to command is nothing other than to order something to doing something with a certain intimative motion; to order is of reason (“see how good it is to know Shakespeare’s definition of reason”); so impossible in brutes. He notes body and sed contra are almost the same, the body only more explicit.
• Replies: (1) The desiring power is said to command insofar as it moves reason commanding — in men only; in brutes the appetite commands only if “command” is taken broadly for the mover. “When I get up in the morning I command my body to get up … the brute animals don’t command themselves to get up.” (2) In brutes the body has whence it obeys, but the soul has not whence it commands, since it has not whence it orders; so only mover and moved: the dog moves himself to get up, doesn’t command himself. (3) Impetus differs: in men through the ordering of reason, so it has the notion of command; in brutes through the instinct of nature — when the suitable or unsuitable is apprehended, at once moved to pursuit or flight; they are ordered by another to act, do not order themselves. Student: that explains migrations — “if all the conditions are right, they just go.” “That’s what Bob [ASR; likely Fabre, prev. lecture] discovered so many times.”
• Asides: you obey your cat more than your dog; the dog is more forgiving. Which birds winter here: Canada geese (a flock over a Boston park), robins, blue jays, chickadees, nuthatches, crows, ravens, starlings (“rats with wings”); ravens fed Elijah and St Benedict. Father John Murray: tracked migrating birds stop at the same tree, same branch every year over a thousand miles; the cardinal in the bush by the house; birds hatched in the back corner return to nest.

6. q. 17 a. 3: does use precede command? (“it is manifest that command is before use”) #

The point: use of the executive power follows command; use of reason (referring the means to the end) precedes choice and so command; the acts reflect on each other.

• Objections: (1) Command presupposes an act of the will; use is an act of the will; so use precedes. (2) Command is among things ordered to an end; use is of what is towards the end (“more formal, that argument”). (3) Every act of a power moved by the will is a use; command is an act of reason moved by the will; so command is a use; the common is before the proper. Sed contra: Damascene — impetus to operation precedes use, and impetus comes through command.
• Body: “let’s see if we can sort out this mess” — “the mind would be left in a mess without Thomas.” Use of what is towards the end, as in reason referring it to the end, precedes choice (a. 4), so much more precedes command. But use of what is towards the end as subject to the executive power follows command, since the use of the user is joined with the act of what he uses (one does not use the stick before in some way acting through the stick), whereas command is not together with the act commanded but naturally before it, and sometimes before in time. He notes: still, in some way there is a use before command, the use of reason.
• Replies: (1) Not every act of the will precedes command: choice precedes, use follows. Order: determination of counsel (a judgement of reason) → the will chooses → reason commands that through which the chosen is done → the will begins to use, following out the command — the will of another when one commands another, one’s own when one commands oneself (“going to be hard to get out of bed tomorrow … a nervous breakdown for you, Emperor”). (2) As acts are before powers, so objects before acts (as in the De anima [ed.: he says “the dynamis”]: powers known through acts, acts through objects); the object of use is what is towards the end; so from command’s being towards the end it should rather be concluded that command is before use than after. (3) The will’s act using reason for commanding precedes command; so this use of the will precedes some command of reason, since the acts reflect on each other.

His words #

• usus / uti — use; applying something to something; always of what is towards the end
• useful — what is suited to the end; usefulness sometimes called use
• enjoy (frui) — rest of the will in the end
• last end simply vs. toward someone — the thing itself vs. the attaining/possession of it
• communiter / commonly speaking vs. properly — Augustine’s and Hilary’s “use” of the end
• absolute — Thomas’s word for substance, quantity, quality as against “towards something,” relation
• relativa secundum dici vs. secundum esse — said of another (knowledge, a quality) vs. whose whole being is towards another (double, half)
• twofold relation of the will to the willed — the willed in the willer by proportion; tending to have it really
• imperium — command; “emperor”
• intimation / intimativa / nuntiare / denuntiando — declaring, informing; not “denouncing”
• indicative vs. imperative mode — “this is to be done by you” vs. “do this”
• liberum arbitrium — free judgement; will as subject, reason as cause
• impetus — in men through reason (command); in brutes through instinct of nature
• mover and moved — what brutes have instead of command and commanded
• instinct of nature — at once moved to pursuit or flight on apprehending the suitable or unsuitable

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II q. 16 a. 3 and a. 4 (whole articles)
• ST I-II q. 17 prologue (nine questions)
• ST I-II q. 17 a. 1, a. 2, a. 3 (whole articles)

Mentioned

• Augustine, De Trinitate X, VI; Eighty-three Questions; “Thou hast made us for thyself” (Confessions, inferred); “not now yet”
• Hilary, De Trinitate II (as cited)
• John Damascene (sed contra of q. 16 a. 4, q. 17 a. 2, a. 3)
• Avicenna, fourfold mover
• Gregory [ed.: of Nyssa/Nemesius, inferred] and the Philosopher: appetite obeys reason
• Aristotle, Categories, chapter on relation; Politics I; the De anima on powers, acts, objects (inferred from “the dynamis”)
• Plato’s definition of the relative
• Shakespeare’s definition of reason (“look before and after”); the man obeying the dog
• John’s Gospel/Epistle: new and old commandment

His questions #

• Is God the end, or is seeing (loving) God the end? Simply, God is the end; in some way, eternal life, the sight of his glory.
• What comes first, the premise or the conclusion? As conclusion, after its premises; a conclusion used as premise is not then as conclusion.
• Which comes before, the genus or the species? Genus before its species (quadrilateral, square); a higher species (plane figure) before a lower genus, but not as species; what is defined is always a species; the highest genus cannot be defined.
• Am I free to think that two is half of five? No — one is coerced by the truth, sometimes against one’s will.
• How do you translate nuntiare / intimativa? Declaring, intimation, informing — not “denouncing.”
• If command is an act of reason, how can it be in the beast? It cannot; in brutes there is only mover and moved, impetus by instinct.
• Does the dog command himself to get up? No, he moves himself; a man commands his body to get up.
• Is there still some use before command? Yes, the will’s use of reason referring the means to the end; use of the executive power follows command.