Aquinas on the Subject of Virtue (ST I-II q.56, aa.4–6): The Emotions, the Interior Senses, and the Will

Orientation #

He refers back to “the example last time” of driving to Quebec and to article 2 (whether one virtue can be in several powers) as ordered before article 4 (prev. lecture). At the end: “now we can go on to the distinction” [unclear in recording], and “no class next week.” The previous class covered q. 56 aa. 1-3, the next q. 57 aa. 1-2.

The class, in order #

1. Article 4, objections and sed contra (“the irascible and the concupiscible are not able to be the subject”) #

The point: four probable arguments that the passions cannot be subjects of human virtue, against Aristotle’s placing courage and temperance there.

1. These powers are common to us and the beasts; virtue is spoken of as proper to man (“human virtue”). Aside: the Greeks (Plato, Aristotle) called them thumos and epithymia; Plato puts courage in thumos, temperance in epithymia.
2. The sense-desiring power uses a bodily organ; the good of virtue is not in the body (Romans 7, “it does not dwell in my flesh”).
3. Augustine (On the Morals of the Church): virtue is in the soul, not the body, since the body is ruled through the soul; the whole is referred to the ruler, as the auriga governs the horses. As the soul rules the body, reason rules the sense appetite; so virtue is only in the rational part. Aside on Socrates’ argument for immortality: if the body (at least the bones, or Egyptian mummies) survives, a fortiori the soul, which rules the body and is more God-like. Aside: auriga means both chariot and charioteer, as Shakespeare’s “battle” means the army itself.
4. The chief act of moral virtue is choice (Aristotle’s definition: a habit with choice, in the mean, determined by right reason); choice is an act of reason, not of the passions (“the cat doesn’t choose to eat the mouse”). He notes article 2 is ordered before this: is there an order among the powers? Sed contra: courage is placed in the irascible, temperance in the concupiscible; Aristotle, Ethics III, says these virtues are of the irrational parts but can partake of reason.

2. Article 4, body: two ways to consider the passions (“habitual conformity of these powers to reason”) #

The point: considered by themselves, as parts of the sense appetite, the passions are not subjects of virtue; considered as apt to obey reason, they are subjects of human virtue, since so they are a beginning of human action. Argument that virtues are needed there:

1. An act going forth from one power as moved by another cannot be perfect unless both are well disposed, as the artist’s act is not suitable unless both the artist and his instrument are well disposed.
2. So the irascible and concupiscible, moved by reason, need a habit perfecting them to act well, habituated to listen to and follow reason.
3. The good disposition of a moved mover is noted by its conformity to its mover; so the virtue in these powers is nothing other than a habitual conformity to reason. Examples: Mozart and the Baroque, emotion moving in harmony with reason, against Truman’s complaint about rock and roll (“there’s no reason”). Plato’s man taming the horse; Washington Irving’s tour of the West, taming wild horses: the first time on such a horse he tries to throw you off, and you must keep coming back, as the emotions try to throw reason off. Aside on the Republic: after Socrates overpowers his opponent in Book I, someone asks at the start of Book II whether he wants to seem to have convinced them or really to have; so Socrates “blows up the soul big” into the city, since the order of parts is easier to see in the city. Distinction (Aristotle): should reason rule the emotions as master rules slave, or as father rules son? He concludes father-son, because the emotions “have something to say”; it is not tyrannical. Boundary: reason ruling my hand meets no resistance; the emotions sometimes resist. Moral virtue, then: a habitual decision to listen to and follow reason; something like a habit exists in the tamed horse and in the child. Thomas compares it (he thinks, of temperance and “childish vice”) to the father’s rule of the child: undisciplined, the child eventually cannot be controlled; give in to the emotions always and they become too powerful to control.

3. Article 4, replies (“by a political principle”) #

Reply 1: the passions secundum se, as parts of the sense appetite, are common to beasts; as rational by participation, obeying reason, they are proper to man and can be subjects of human virtue. Examples: a high-school dance song, “you don’t think I can make a monkey out of you?”, acting without reason is like a beast, no human virtue; vices compared to animals (the irascible man like a dog, Heraclitus: “dogs bark at one they don’t know”; others like pigs). Reply 2: the flesh of itself has no good of virtue but becomes an instrument of virtuous act insofar as reason moves our members to serve justice (discussion of exhibite: “show”, “present”, “put forth”). Likewise the passions of themselves have rather the infection of the fomes (from original sin), but conformed to reason the good of moral virtue is generated in them. Reply 3, “this famous distinction of Aristotle”: the body obeys the soul without contradiction in what it is apt to be moved in; the soul rules the body by a despotic principle (Politics I), as lord over servant, so all bodily motion is referred to the soul and there is no virtue in the body. The passions do not obey reason ad nutum but have their own motions, sometimes repugnant to reason; reason rules them by a political principle, by which the free, who have their own will, are ruled; hence virtues are needed there. Exchange on translating ad nutum: “blindly” in the English text; “nod”, “all at once”; a student cites church law, ad nutum Sanctae Sedis, “as long as we give you the nod, you’re in charge.” Reply 4: in choice there are two things, the intention of the end (moral virtue) and the pre-taking of what is for the end (prudence, Ethics VI); right intention regarding the passions comes from the good disposition of the passions, so moral virtues about passions are in them. Example: temperance disposes me to eat and drink moderately; reason says how much, from circumstances: no cocktail before operating, perhaps one after (unless coffee makes the surgeon’s hand shaky); more on Thanksgiving when Grandma made a pie; the Mass reading (Jeremiah, he thinks): go home, drink sweet wine, rejoice. Asides: tomorrow’s St. Francis hike with hot dogs, and beer goes with hot dogs and mustard, pastrami, pizza.

4. Article 5, objections and sed contra (“in the interior sensitive powers”) #

The point: three arguments that the interior apprehensive senses (imagination, cogitative, memory) can have virtue; he calls the coming distinction “very interesting.”

1. The sense appetite is a subject of virtue insofar as it obeys reason; the interior apprehensive powers obey reason too, operating at its command. Aside on memory: Thomas’s famous memorization skill (which is why some of his quotes are wrong; “Brother Bernard can produce new and improved versions”); De Koninck [ed.: “De Kite” in ASR] remembering the Leonine pages; he himself remembers a position on a page but not which page; computers lose that but allow word search.
2. Likeness of ratios: as the will is impeded or aided through the sense appetite, so reason through these powers; therefore as there are virtues in the sense appetite, so in the apprehensive powers. Examples: doing geometry you must picture the solids (his cardboard model, the kitchen table); a 19th-century Euclid with colored diagrams instead of letters, helping visual memory.
3. Memory is a part of prudence (Tullius, Rhetoric); so virtue can be in the memorative part, and likewise the other interior powers. Aside: memorizing a Shakespeare sonnet or a psalm, one comes to know it better; imagination and memory decline (Albert the Great’s failure of memory late in life). Sed contra: all virtues are intellectual or moral (Ethics II); moral virtues are in the appetitive part, intellectual in the understanding; so none in the interior senses. He stresses: Aristotle divides human virtue into two, virtues of reason itself and moral virtues in appetitive powers sharing in reason; “this guy wants to divide it into three.”

5. Article 5, body: habits but not virtues (“virtue is a perfect habit”) #

The point: Thomas admits habits in the interior grasping powers but denies they are virtues.

1. There are habits in the interior (not exterior) apprehensive powers: Aristotle, De Memoria, one thing after another custom works, which is like a nature; a habit is nothing other than something consuetudinalis, acquired through custom, in the mode of nature (“second nature”); Tully: virtue is a habit in modum naturae in agreement with reason.
2. In man, what is acquired by custom in memory and the other sensitive grasping powers is not a habit per se but something annexed to the habits of the intellectual part.
3. Even so, they cannot be called virtues: virtue is a perfect habit by which one does nothing but the good, so virtue must be in the power consummating the good work; knowledge of the true is not completed in the grasping sense powers, which are preparatory; so the virtues by which the true is known are in the understanding. Aside on “grasping” (his word for apprehensive): a student’s sophism, “a square is an equilateral right-angled quadrilateral; that is a definition; therefore a square is a definition” (left to next time); the definition contains what a square is without the mind becoming a square, “really a beautiful thing.” Discourse borrows the name of the act of the legs; hand and feet are not used to name the act of the will, “obscure thing that will.”

6. Article 5, replies: before and after (“the images have themselves to the understanding soul”) #

The point: the distinction between what is moved (completing the act) and what moves. Reply 1: the sense appetite stands to the will as moved by it, so the appetitive work is completed in the sense appetite, which is therefore a subject of virtue. The interior senses “have themselves more” (magis habent, “don’t be too precise here”) as moving the understanding: images move reason (enlightened by the agent understanding), not completing the act, so no virtue there. Aristotle’s “beautiful proportion” (De Anima III): images are to the understanding soul as colors to sight; the work of knowing ends in the understanding. “Thomas is looking before and after here, and Aristotle before him”: the will comes before the emotions as regards courage and temperance; the images are before reason. Examples: last time’s Quebec drive, the Frenchman roaring past and a stone marking his new car, “but I’m a philosopher, what do I care,” talking to one’s emotions like a child, “take it easy”: the mildness is consummated in the sense appetite. Anger when bumped in the hall: reason considers it unintentional; a high-school kid knocking through everyone may call for some anger; someone using your kids for target practice calls for zeal, enough anger to stop it: anger obeying reason according to circumstances. “Calm down”: the completion of calming down is in the irascible. “You’ve had enough” ice cream: temperance completed there. Reply 2: the same answer. Student (Father Boulay’s point): reason is almost at the mercy of the interior senses; a student could not imagine algebra II and precalculus, “a total disconnect.” Reply 3: memory is a part of prudence not as a subjective part (a species of the genus), as if itself a virtue, but as one of the things required for foresight (an integral part); “we’ll come to that eventually.” Asides: accounting-house colleagues who insult each other in good nature (“count this”); the sisters devouring a two-years-expired frozen ice-cream treat; instructions translated from the Chinese; “remember the Alamo” as part of military groups.

7. Article 6, objections and sed contra (“the will is not a subject of any virtue”) #

1. What belongs to a power from its very notion needs no habit; the will by its notion is in the rational part (De Anima III) and tends to the good according to reason, to which every virtue is ordered (each thing desires its own good; virtue is a habit in the way of nature agreeing with reason, Tully); so no virtue in the will.
2. Every virtue is intellectual or moral (Ethics I and II); intellectual in understanding, moral in the irascible and concupiscible; so none in the will. Aside on Plato: three parts of the soul, wisdom in reason, courage in the irascible, temperance in epithymia, “no place for justice”; so he blows up the city, wisdom in rulers, courage in soldiers, temperance in the hoi polloi, and justice becomes the ordering of the three, not a separate part with its own virtue. “No less a mind than Plato.”
3. All acts to which virtues are ordered are voluntary; if virtue in the will for some, then for all; so either no virtue in other powers, or two virtues ordered to one act, rejected before. Sed contra: greater perfection is required in the mover than the moved; the will moves the irascible and concupiscible; so much more virtue in the will.

8. Article 6, body: when the will needs a virtue (“exceeds the proportion of one willing”) #

1. A habit perfects a power for acting; a power needs a perfecting habit (virtue) where its proper motion does not suffice.
2. The proper ratio of a power is noted from its object; the object of the will is the good of reason proportioned to the will, so for this it needs no virtue.
3. But a good exceeding the proportion of the one willing, either for the whole species (the divine good, transcending human nature) or for the individual (the neighbor’s good), requires virtue.
4. So virtues ordering man’s affections to God or neighbor are in the will as subject: charity and justice. He finds it interesting: one naturally wills one’s own good, not the good that is God (needs charity) nor the good of another. Children want their own good but do not take the other into account: the boy with Johnny’s toy and “that look”; the spoiled kid who takes his ball home when the game goes badly, and his mother throwing the ball back to us and sending him inside; encouraging a child to share candy with a sibling and with daddy, “the child has to be taught.” A student: the commandment of charity is explicit about God and neighbor, not about loving oneself, as if natural. A student: not just education but discipline, a moral dimension; he recalls Nino wondering whether virtue can be taught like mathematics: “no, no.” Asides: in a big family you stuff the candy in your mouth before entering the house; his Twinkie lunches, licking the whole thing before offering; “one of the reasons why I’m in the monastery.”

9. Article 6, replies and close (“except if it is a theological virtue”) #

Reply 1: reason takes the place of virtue for the virtue ordering one to one’s private good (bonum proprium), as temperance and fortitude about the human passions. Reply 2: “contrary to my friend Plato,” rational by participation is not only the irascible and concupiscible but omnino, universally, the appetitive powers (Ethics I), including the will; so a virtue in the will is a moral virtue, unless a theological virtue. Reply 3: some virtues are ordered to the good of moderated passion, proper to this or that man, where the nature of the power suffices; virtue in the will is needed only for virtues ordered to a simply good, God or neighbor. “That’s the end of that”; next the distinction [unclear in recording]; no class next week.

His words #

• irascible / concupiscible: parts of the sense-desiring power; Greek thumos / epithymia
• sense-desiring power [ed.: sensitive appetite]
• probable arguments: what the objections are
• auriga: chariot, also charioteer
• rational by participation: obeying reason, proper to man
• habitual conformity to reason: the virtue in the passions
• moral virtue: a habitual decision to listen to and follow reason
• despotic vs political principle: rule of slave vs rule of the free who have their own will
• ad nutum: “the nod”, “blindly” in the English translation
• fomes: infection from original sin
• exhibite: show, present, put forth (our members to serve justice)
• intention of the end vs pre-taking of what is for the end: moral virtue vs prudence in choice
• grasping powers [ed.: apprehensive]; interior ones: imaginative, cogitative, memory
• consuetudinalis: habit acquired through custom, “second nature”; in modum naturae (Tully)
• annexed: habits of the interior senses attached to intellectual habits, not habits per se
• consummating power: where the good work is completed; where virtue must be
• magis habent: the interior senses “have themselves more” as moving the understanding
• before and after: the will before the passions; images before reason
• subjective part vs integral part: memory as part of prudence
• bonum proprium: one’s private good
• omnino: entirely, universally rational by participation

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II q. 56, a. 4 (objections, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II q. 56, a. 5 (objections, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II q. 56, a. 6 (objections, body, replies)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Ethics III (courage and temperance in irrational parts); VI (intention of end and means); II and I (virtues intellectual or moral; appetitive part rational by participation)
• Aristotle, Politics I (despotic and political rule)
• Aristotle, De Anima III (will in the rational part; images as colors to sight)
• Aristotle, De Memoria (custom like a nature)
• Plato, Republic, Books I-II (soul and city; three parts)
• Augustine, On the Morals of the Church
• Romans 7
• Cicero (Tully), Rhetoric (memory a part of prudence; habit in modum naturae)
• Heraclitus (dogs bark at one they don’t know); Washington Irving, tour of the West; a 19th-century colored Euclid; Jeremiah (Mass reading, he thinks)

His questions #

• Should reason rule the emotions like a master rules a slave, or like a father rules a son? Like a father the son, because the emotions have something to say; not tyrannical.
• So what is moral virtue? A habitual decision to listen to and follow reason.
• How do they translate ad nutum there anyway? “Blindly” in the English text; “the nod”, as in ad nutum Sanctae Sedis.
• A square is a definition; what’s wrong with that? Left open (“next time you tell me”), though the definition contains what a square is without the mind becoming a square.
• Where is the good work consummated, in the sense appetite or in the images? The appetitive act is completed in the sense appetite (so virtue there); knowing is completed in the understanding, the images only move it.
• Why is there no place for justice in Plato’s three parts? He must make justice the ordering of the three together, not a separate part with its own virtue.
• Can virtue be taught like mathematics or geometry? No; it requires discipline, directing the other powers.
• Whose toy is this? Did Johnny say you could take it? The child must be taught to be just toward others.