Aquinas on the Will and Erring Conscience (ST I-II q.19 aa.5-7): Must We Follow Mistaken Reason, and Does Intention Make the Will Good?

Orientation #

He opens: “I guess you’re up to Article Five” — the class picks up at q. 19 a. 5 and reads aa. 5, 6, 7 straight through, breaking after a. 7 (“take a little break here, then, before we continue”). He does not name last time’s articles. The previous class covered the earlier articles of q. 19 (object, circumstances, reason, eternal law), and the next takes up a. 8 (goodness of will and quantity of intention) and a. 9 (conformity to the divine will).

The class, in order #

1. Article 5, objections and sed contra (“a nice little to think about”) #

The question: whether a will disagreeing with erring reason is bad. He reads the three objections and calls the first “a nice little to think about.”

1. Reason is the rule of the will only insofar as derived from the eternal law; erring reason is not derived from the eternal law; so it is not the rule, so departing from it is not bad.
2. Augustine: a lower power’s precept does not oblige against a higher (the proconsul vs. the emperor); erring reason sometimes proposes what is against God, the highest power; so its dictate does not oblige.
3. Every bad will reduces to some species of malice; a will disagreeing with reason that errs by saying “do not fornicate” — “what evils can reduce that to?” — so it is not bad. Sed contra: conscience is the application of knowledge to an act (first part); knowledge is in reason; so a will against erring reason is against conscience; every such will is bad, Romans 14 (“everything that is not from faith is a sin”, i.e. against conscience). Aside: “Don’t know exactly how I get that out of there, but anyway.”

2. Article 5 corpus: the opinion of “some” and Thomas’s answer (“this is unreasonably said”) #

Point: because conscience is the dictate of reason, “is the will discordant from erring reason bad?” is the same question as “does an erring conscience bind?” The opinion of some: three genera of acts, good in kind, indifferent, bad in kind.

• Reason commanding a per se good or prohibiting a per se bad: no error.
• Reason commanding a per se bad or prohibiting a per se good, or commanding/prohibiting an indifferent thing (raise a straw from the earth — “everybody’s example of this”): error.
• They say erring conscience binds in indifferent things (will against it is bad), but not when it commands per se bads or prohibits per se goods necessary for salvation. Thomas: “this is irrational.” His argument:

1. In indifferent things, the will against erring reason is bad on account of the object, not in its nature but per accidens, as reason grasps it as bad (previous article: the object of the will is what reason proposes).
2. This happens also in per se good and per se bad things: what is good can be taken under the aspect of bad and vice versa, by the way reason grasps it.
3. Examples: abstaining from fornication is good, but the will is carried to it only as proposed by reason; if erring reason proposes it as bad, the will wills something bad per accidens. Likewise believing in Christ, per se good and necessary for salvation.
4. Aristotle, Ethics VII: per se the incontinent man is one who does not follow right reason; per accidens, one who does not follow even false reason. Conclusion, simpliciter: every will disagreeing with reason, right or erring, is always bad. “So does that shock you or scandalize you?” — it is bad because you are not following reason, “just like Aristotle says: the bad for man is to be not in accordance with reason.”

3. Article 5, replies (“you got to wait for the Article Six”) #

• Ad 1: erring reason’s judgment is not derived from God, but it proposes its judgment as true, hence as derived from God, “from whom is all truth.”
• Ad 2: Augustine’s saying holds when it is known that the lower commands against the higher. If one falsely believed the proconsul’s precept was the emperor’s, in condemning it one would condemn the emperor. So if one knows reason dictates against God’s precept, one is not held to follow reason (but then reason is not entirely in error); when erring reason proposes something as God’s precept, condemning reason and condemning God’s precept are the same.
• Discussion: a person “should know” this is against God’s law — that changes things again. “I didn’t know it was against God’s law to murder somebody” — “but you should have known that.” Student: or he thinks what he thinks is what God wants — “like some terrorists.” He defers: “you got to wait for the Article Six here to clear up some of your lurking doubts.”
• Ad 3: reason grasping something as bad always grasps it under some reason for badness (contrary to divine precept, scandal, etc.), and the bad will is reduced to that species.

4. Article 6, the question and objections (“either way, you’re caught”) #

Point: having said the will against erring reason is bad, is the will going along with erring reason good? “You would think that follows.” He notes this is the confessor’s problem, and brings in the Curé d’Ars. Objections:

1. As the discordant will tends to what reason judges bad, so the concordant will tends to what reason judges good; the discordant will even from erring reason is bad; so the concordant one is good.
2. A will agreeing with God’s precept and the eternal law is always good; the eternal law is proposed to us through reason, even erring reason; so agreement with erring reason is good.
3. If both the discordant and the concordant will are bad, every will of one whose reason errs is bad: “either way you’re caught… you closed all doors here for me.” Such a man is perplexed and sins of necessity, which is unfitting. “So you all convinced now? I won’t let you out of the room until you see what the master says.” Asides: the Curé d’Ars’s confessional (a chair and piece of wood for men, a box for women; people came from all over Europe, new railroad tracks); Padre Pio’s long confessions; Fr Baumgartner at St Paul Seminary, whom he would phone for answers, telling Fr Dulac about hearing scrupulous nuns’ confessions.

5. Article 6, sed contra and corpus: does an erring conscience excuse? (“ignorance which is in some way willed”) #

Sed contra: the will of those killing the apostles was bad, yet agreed with their erring reason — John 16:2, everyone who kills you will think he renders service to God. He asks about St Paul before his conversion: was he doing something bad? He acted in ignorance, “there is some reason to have mercy on him,” but Paul does not simply excuse himself. Corpus: as a. 5 was the question whether erring conscience binds, this is whether erring conscience excuses; it depends on what was said above about ignorance.

1. Ignorance sometimes causes the involuntary, sometimes not.
2. Moral good and bad are in the act as voluntary; so ignorance that causes the involuntary takes away moral good and bad, ignorance that does not, does not.
3. Ignorance willed directly or indirectly does not cause the involuntary. Directly voluntary: an act of will is responsible for it. Indirectly: by negligence, not wishing to know what one is held to know.
4. So error of reason or conscience that is voluntary (directly or by neglect, about what one is held to know) does not excuse: the will agreeing with it is bad.
5. Error causing the involuntary — ignorance of some circumstance without negligence — excuses: the will agreeing is not bad. “You can’t know all the circumstances of your acts; that’s why there’s incertitude in these things.” Examples: erring reason saying a man is held to approach another’s wife — bad, ignorance of God’s law which one is held to know; vs. believing a woman lying with him is his own wife and she asks the debt of marriage — excused, ignorance of circumstance. “Kind of a hard case to imagine”: twins who switch dates, though by marriage he should tell his wife; a student offers the veiled women of the Old Testament, Leah and Rachel. Aside: young people who “don’t want to hear” the Church’s teaching on morals are choosing to be ignorant; many in the Church today don’t want to know, and sometimes get no sermon either — “a lot of blame to go around.”

6. Article 6, replies; conscience and the checkbook of goodness (“uno inconvenienti dato”) #

• Ad 1: Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4: good is from an integral cause, bad from singular defects. For the object to be bad it suffices that it is bad in nature or apprehended as bad; for good, both are required. “Which is why it’s a lot harder to do a good act than a bad one.”
• Ad 2: the eternal law cannot err, human reason can; so agreement with human reason is not always agreement with the eternal law.
• Ad 3 (“the famous thing here”): as in syllogisms one unfitting thing given, others follow of necessity (a horse is four-footed, true; man is a horse; so man is four-footed), so in morals. One seeking empty glory sins whether he does or omits what he is held to do (giving alms to be praised); yet he is not perplexed, since he can dismiss his bad intention. Likewise, given an error from non-excusing ignorance, something bad in the will follows, but the man is not perplexed: he can recede from his error, since it is conquerable and voluntary.
• Aside: girls told before abortion it is “just a blob of tissue”; “against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.”
• Student exchange: “Should you ever act against your conscience?” — what if conscience errs by voluntary ignorance? A student: you have to form your conscience before acting on or against it; people in the pews told “it’s your decision to make” — “it’s not your decision in the absolute sense.” Student worries this seems too subjective; he says the objective distinction was made earlier (the object).
• Aside: hence “malum in specie humana ut in pluribus.” Debates at St Mary’s College on government: if most men are bad, spread the evil rather than concentrate it in a Hitler, Stalin, Mao; kingship is best because most like God’s rule (“The Lord is King, in splendor robed”), tyranny worst, the corruption of the best being the worst. Aristotle: virtue is about the good and difficult.

7. Article 7, objections and sed contra (“purity of intention”) #

Whether the will’s goodness depends on the intention of the end (some writers speak of purity of intention).

1. Goodness of will depends on the object alone; in things for an end, object and end intended differ; so not on the end.
2. Willing to keep God’s command is good, but can be referred to a bad end (empty glory, cupidity, obeying God for temporal things).
3. Good and bad diversify the end as they do the will; but badness of will does not depend on a bad end: he who steals to give alms has a bad will though he intends a good end (“I’ve been corrupting my grandchildren with Robin Hood”). So neither does goodness. Sed contra: Augustine, Confessions IX, intention is remunerated by God; what is remunerated is good.

8. Article 7 corpus and first two replies: intention before and after (“as preceding… as coming after”) #

Intention relates to the will in two ways. A. Preceding, as a cause: we will something because of an intended end; the order to the end is a reason for the goodness of the thing willed (fasting for God’s sake). Since goodness of will depends on goodness of what is willed, it depends on the intention. B. Following, coming to a pre-existing will: one wills something, then refers it to God; the goodness of the first will does not depend on the subsequent intention, except as the act of the will is repeated with the following intention. (Student: didn’t that form a habit? He: Thomas doesn’t say habit, though it could result; he speaks of the first choice not given to that end, later ordered.)

• Ad 1: when intention causes the willing, the order to the end is a reason of goodness in the object, so no conflict with “object alone.”
• Ad 2: a will is not good if a bad intention causes it: one giving alms for empty glory wills something good under the aspect of bad, so his will is bad. A subsequent bad intention does not deprave the preceding act, but the following one. His example: desiring wisdom is good; if later I pursue it because people admire me, that becomes empty glory, but the original desire does not cease to be good.
• Asides on empty glory and truth-seeking: De Koninck and a famous philosopher who refused to discuss in private but wanted to before a crowd — is he interested in truth? Socrates and Protagoras: Protagoras wants speeches and an audience, Socrates short questions and answers; when made to answer briefly Protagoras contradicts himself — a lesson in whom to listen to, since the first criterion is fame, then the way one proceeds, then contradiction. His teacher Kasurik got a man to contradict himself: “That’s a contradiction I’ve learned to live with.” Frog’s heart: believe the professor by position, but if the student cut open frogs and the professor took a deck of cards, follow the student.

9. Article 7, reply 3: any defect makes the will bad (“Malum contingit ex singularibus defectibus”) #

Dionysius again: bad from individual defects, good from a whole and integral cause. So whether the will is of something per se bad under the aspect of good, or of something good under the aspect of bad, it is always bad; for a good will it must be of something good and under the aspect of good. “A lot of demand there to be good.”

• Beauty: a nose too long, ears too big, an arm longer — any defect makes ugly; “if Cleopatra’s nose had been a millimeter longer…”
• Checkbook: wrong number, or right numbers added wrong, gives a wrong balance (his mother spending the afternoon making it balance).
• Prior and Posterior Analytics: certain conclusion needs both that it follow necessarily (Prior) and that the premises be necessarily true (Posterior); either defect spoils it. His exam argument: every mother is a woman, no man is a mother, therefore no man is a woman — all three true, but form “every B is A, no C is B” yields nothing (every cat is an animal, no dog is a cat). Students accept it because of the matter; “fiendishly designed.”
• Aside: Thomas thought Dionysius was Paul’s convert at the Areopagus; “now they call him the Pseudo-Areopagite.”

His words #

• erring reason / reason in error — reason making a mistake; the will “in discord from” it.
• conscience — “the application of knowledge to some act”; “in some way the dictate of reason.”
• indifferent things — neither good nor bad in kind; “raise up a straw from the earth.”
• per accidens bad — bad not in its nature but “on account of the way reason has grasped it.”
• incontinent per se / per accidens — not following right reason / not following even false reason (Ethics VII).
• ignorance directly / indirectly voluntary — by an act of will / by negligence, not wishing to know what one is held to know.
• excusing vs. binding conscience — a. 6 vs. a. 5.
• integral cause / singular defects — good from the whole, bad from any defect (Dionysius).
• perplexed — “baffled… no way out”; Thomas denies it.
• uno inconvenienti dato — “one unfitting thing being given,” others follow.
• empty glory — [ed.: vainglory]; seeking praise.
• intention preceding / following (consequent) — causing the willing / added to a pre-existing will.
• malum in specie humana ut in pluribus — evil for the most part in the human race.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 19, a. 5 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 19, a. 6 (whole article)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 19, a. 7 (whole article)
• Romans 14 (“everything that is not from faith is a sin”); John 16:2 (sed contra of a. 6)

Mentioned

• Augustine (proconsul and emperor); Augustine, Confessions IX (intention rewarded)
• Aristotle, Ethics VII (incontinent man); “virtue is about the good and difficult”
• Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4
• Psalm “The Lord is King, in splendor robed”
• Plato, Protagoras
• Aristotle, Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics
• Genesis, Leah and Rachel (student)
• The verified-source list also gives Summa Contra Gentiles IV ch. 15; nothing in the transcript corresponds to it.

His questions #

• Does it shock or scandalize you that a will against erring reason is always bad? It is bad because it does not follow reason, and the bad for man is not to be in accordance with reason.
• Was St Paul, persecuting before his conversion, doing something bad? He acted in ignorance, which is a reason for mercy, but he does not simply excuse himself; the answer is the a. 6 distinction on voluntary ignorance.
• If both the will against and the will with erring reason are bad, is the man perplexed? No: he can recede from his error, since the ignorance is conquerable and voluntary.
• Should you ever act against your conscience? Not as such — but the conscience may err by voluntary ignorance; you have to form it first.
• Why is it harder to do a good act than a bad one? Good needs an integral cause (good object, and apprehended as good); bad follows from any single defect.
• Is my later pursuit of wisdom for admiration bad, and does that make the original desire bad? The subsequent act becomes empty glory; the original desire does not cease to be good.
• Whom do you believe, the biology professor or the student, on the frog’s heart? Position and fame first, but once you see how each arrived at it, follow the better reasons.
• Does “no man is a woman” follow from “every mother is a woman, no man is a mother”? No: the form (every B is A, no C is B) yields nothing, though all three statements are true.