What Makes a Virtue Moral? Moral vs. Intellectual Virtue, Socrates and Augustine (Q58 A1-2)

Orientation #

He opens on the prologue to question 58 (“Then one ought to consider about the moral virtues”) and refers to an earlier remark: “We talked before about the order here.” He ends by asking “should we stop or what is it?” after the reply to the fourth objection of article 2; the remaining articles (3-5) are announced in the prologue but not reached. The previous class treated q. 57 a. 6 on the parts annexed to prudence, and the next continues q. 58 with the division of virtue into intellectual and moral and whether moral virtue can be without intellectual.

The class, in order #

1. Prologue: why the virtues of reason come first (“the reverse of the order”) #

The point: Thomas treats the virtues of reason before the moral virtues, the reverse of the Ethics, and he offers a possible reason.

• In the Nicomachean Ethics, books three through five treat the moral virtues, book six the virtues of reason; Thomas reverses this.
• His suggested reason: the virtues of reason are “more shared by God.” God has understanding, knowledge of things by causes, wisdom, foresight of the whole universe, and “in a spirit way” even art, since he makes the universe. Most moral virtues God does not have: not temperance or mildness (no emotions), not courage in the strict sense (only metaphorically); “only justice, maybe.” So Thomas begins with the ones “more like God.” Mentions that Avicenna said something of the sort; “leave it at that.”
• The three-part order of the treatise: (1) distinction of moral from intellectual virtues (q. 58); (2) their distinction from each other according to their own matter (q. 59, “I guess”); (3) the chief or cardinal virtues from the others (not till q. 61, “I guess”). The third is presupposed to the order of the Secunda Secundae, which does the three theological virtues, then the four cardinal virtues, with other virtues attached to a chief one by likeness: humility, eutrapelia and mildness go under temperance because of a similar mode of proceeding.
• The five articles of q. 58: (1) whether every virtue is moral, which “goes back to that idea” that moral virtue is more fully virtue, since it inclines you to do well as well as giving the ability; (2) whether moral is distinguished from intellectual; (3) whether virtue is sufficiently divided into intellectual and moral, “something in between,” which he does not treat until this point; (4) whether moral virtue can be without intellectual; (5) whether e converso intellectual can be without moral.
• Aside: “What a thorough mind this guy had. Shouldn’t we envy him? One should be thankful for him.” Modern philosophers (Russell named) show “an envy for Aristotle,” rejoicing that his fame has declined; “we’re all equal in stupidity.”
• Aside: De Koninck’s humility in deferring to Monsignor Dionne as “the greatest mind up here”; De Koninck, after teaching the Physics since the 1930s, saying “Isn’t this wonderful? I still see something new”; in Rome Dionne pointed out something De Koninck had not seen. Father Boulay was the third good one.

2. Article 1, objections: every virtue seems moral (“we are able to be accustomed”) #

The point: three objections that every virtue is moral, from the word mos, from choice, and from Cicero’s definition.

1. “Moral” is said from mos, moris, custom; the virtues are so called because produced by custom, repeated acts. But we can be accustomed to the acts of all virtues (“I’m accustomed to doing geometry now”). Hence every virtue is moral.
2. Aristotle, Ethics II: moral virtue is a habit with choice (habitus electivus) existing in the middle towards us, determined by right reason (he supplies the part of the definition Thomas leaves out here). But every virtue seems to be a habit with choice, since we can do the act of any virtue from choice (“I choose to pick up the book… do a couple marvelous theorems”); and every virtue in some way consists in a middle of reason, as will be clear below.
   • Example for “every virtue in a middle,” from Shakespeare: “All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more nor clipped, but so”; Falstaff: those who say more or less than the truth are villains and sons of darkness. Applied to the Trinity: some say three persons and three natures, some one person and one nature, the truth is between. With Christ the reverse: from one person some infer one nature, from two natures some infer two persons; the truth is one person with two natures. “Thomas will explain that.”
   • Example for art: cook the meat too much or too little, too much or too little seasoning. “Everybody remembers the time that Daddy put too much pepper in the soup.”
3. Cicero (“Tully”) in his Rhetoric: virtue is a habit in the manner of nature (“like a second nature”) in agreement with reason, “that’s beautiful.” Since every human virtue is ordered to the good of man, and the good of man is to be according to reason (Dionysius), every virtue is in agreement with reason, hence moral.

• Aside on the teacher Kasurik: “compared to Aristotle, I got the brain of an angor [unclear in recording],” and he meant it; the best philosopher in the graduate school by far.
• Aside: was it Gregory the Great who brought Dionysius back to the West? He thinks so; “leave it.”

3. Sed contra and the meaning of mos (“mos signifies two things”) #

The point: Aristotle denies that wisdom and understanding are moral, and Thomas settles the article by asking quid sit mos.

• Sed contra: in Ethics I, speaking of mores, we do not say someone is sapiens or intelligens but that he is mild or sober; so wisdom and understanding, which are virtues, are not moral; therefore not every virtue is moral. Joke: the seminarian’s grandmother asking whether moral theology is “immoral theology”; “amoral would mean originated without custom.”
• Response: to know what moral virtue is one must consider what mos is. Mos signifies two things:
  • (a) consuetudo, custom: Acts 15:1, “unless you be circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you are not able to be saved” (quoted only as an example of the word; the claim itself “was rejected, thank God”).
  • (b) a natural or quasi-natural inclination to doing something, “like a second nature.” Hence brute animals are said to have mores: 2 Maccabees 11, the enemies roaring “in the way of the lions”; Psalm 67, “who makes them to dwell in the house in one way” (mos), i.e. a common inclination. (He notes he has seen this use “in natural scientists.”)
• In Latin the two are not distinguished as regards the vocal sound; in Greek they are: ethos with the first e long (written with eta) and with it short (epsilon). “You’re finding out every day. This is Thomas.”
• Moral virtue is said from mos in sense (b), natural or quasi-natural inclination, not from custom, though it is acquired by custom. The other sense is propinqua, near, because custom is turned into nature, second nature. Example: “breathing out and breathing in” in the musical, a custom that has become second nature; breathing itself is nature in the first sense.
• Conclusion: inclination to an act properly belongs to the desiring power, whose role is to move all the powers to doing; therefore not every virtue is moral but only that which is in the desiring power.

4. Article 1, replies: custom, choice, nature (“to choose is an act of the desiring part”) #

The point: each objection is turned by the distinction just drawn.

• Reply 1: the objection takes mos as custom. He finds it “kind of funny,” since moral virtue is acquired by repeating acts until one no longer thinks of, say, getting drunk this weekend (“Schmidt just doesn’t do that”); Hamlet telling his mother not to go to bed with the second husband tonight “to make things easier”—the acts must be repeated. In the intellectual virtues one act seems to form you: seeing one demonstration in Euclid, “you’re formed there already.” But Thomas argues chiefly from the other meaning, inclination, since both kinds of virtue come by custom, so that is not how he distinguishes them.
• Reply 2: every act of virtue can be done from choice, but only the virtue in the desiring part makes for right choice, since to choose is an act of the desiring part (said above). Hence the habit of choice, which is a beginning of choice, is only that which perfects the desiring power, though acts of other habits can fall under choice (“I can choose to think about the triangle… about God”). Aside: Thomas’s word dilectio, “chosen love,” and love is in the appetite.
• Reply 3: nature is a beginning of motion (full definition in Physics II, “Natural Hearing”: beginning and cause of motion and of rest in that in which it is first as such and not by accident); but to move things to doing is proper to the desiring power; so to be assimilated to nature in agreement with reason is proper to the virtues in the desiring power.

5. Article 2, objections: moral virtue seems not distinct from intellectual (“virtue is the art of living well”) #

The point: four objections, three from Augustine’s or Socratic-sounding definitions, one from the definition of moral virtue itself.

1. Augustine, City of God: virtue is the art of living well; art is an intellectual virtue. “I knew he’d get in trouble, Augustine… He’s like Pope Francis. He says things that people can twist all around.”
2. Moral virtues are often defined as scientia: perseverance is the science or habit of those things in which one ought or ought not to remain (stubbornness would be the vice); sanctitas is a science making us faithful and observing what is just according to God. Science is intellectual.
3. Augustine, Soliloquies I: virtue is recta et perfecta ratio, which pertains to intellectual virtue (Ethics VI).
4. Nothing is distinguished from what is placed in its definition; intellectual virtue is in the definition of moral virtue (Ethics II: “determined by reason… as the prudent man would determine”), and that right reason pertains to an intellectual virtue (Ethics VI).
   • His illustration of why reason must set the mean: does anger know how much anger to have? His standard argument: if you bump me in the hall by accident, no anger; if a high-school boy knocks my boy down, or does it carelessly, or uses my kids for target practice, anger doubles; if your congressman supports abortion, anger may be the most effective thing. Only reason considers the circumstances.

• Sed contra, Ethics I: virtue is determined according to this difference, some intellectual, some moral; Aristotle gives the division at the end of book I, treats moral virtues in II-V, intellectual in VI. Aside: the Taming of the Shrew describes the Ethics as the part of philosophy treating of “happiness by virtue especially to be achieved”; “Shakespeare knew exactly what the Ethics was doing.”

6. Response: how the other beginnings obey reason (“the soul rules the body by despotic principality”) #

The point: whether a second kind of virtue is needed depends on how the appetite obeys reason.

1. The first beginning of all human works is reason; whatever other beginnings there are obey reason, but in diverse ways.
2. Some obey altogether, without contradiction: the members of the body in their natural state; at reason’s command the hand or foot moves at once (“especially if there’s popcorn at the end of it”). Politics I: the soul rules the body by despotic rule, as a master rules a servant who has no right of contradicting.
3. If all active principles in man obeyed this way, it would suffice that reason be perfect for acting well; virtue would be in reason alone and there would be only intellectual virtue. This was Socrates’ opinion, that all virtues are prudences (Ethics VI), and that a man with knowledge in him cannot sin, every sin being from ignorance.
   • Student exchange: a young Dominican’s article on vocations argues everyone is called to religious life because God wants what is best and religious life is best, so try it and marry if you cannot live it; the student finds this “a little premature” and “doesn’t work.” He grants the author is lamenting endless discernment, but “going about it the wrong way.” Berquist: “It seems to be a very modern problem… the problem is ignorance.”
   • He allows some truth to Socrates: Thomas quotes Aristotle that every man who sins is mistaken, thinking what is bad is good, and Scripture says the same.
4. But it rests on something false: the desiring part obeys reason not omnino ad nutum (“not blindly,” “at a nod or gesture,” he is unsure how to translate) but cum aliqua contradictione, with some resistance. Politics I: reason commands the appetite by political rule, by which one rules the free, who have some right of contradicting; “we call it dialogue today.” Augustine on the Psalm: sometimes understanding precedes and a slow affection or none follows.
5. Insofar as passions or habits in the appetite impede the use of reason in the particular, Socrates is to some extent right: with science present one does not sin, if “science” is extended all the way down to the use of reason in the particular choosable thing. Example: one knows adultery is wrong, but “this woman here now, this is the thing to do”; the mind goes back and forth, could stop and do either. Conclusion: for man to act well, reason must be well disposed by intellectual virtue and the desiring power by moral virtue; as the desiring power is distinguished from reason, so moral virtue from intellectual. As appetite is a beginning of human action insofar as it partakes of reason, so moral habit is a human virtue insofar as conformed to reason, “reasonable habits.”

7. Replies: getting Augustine off the hook (“one way that a word becomes equivocal by reason”) #

The point: Augustine’s “art” is a generalized use, and reason enters the definition of moral virtue by participation.

• Reply 1: Augustine takes art communiter, generally, for any right reason, so that it includes prudence, right reason of things to be done, as art is right reason of things to be made. This is one way a word becomes equivocal by reason: by dropping out part of its meaning, becoming generalized. Example: Aristotle says sensing is undergoing (suffering), keeping “receiving” but dropping “painful or destructive”; applied to understanding, even “body” drops out. So Augustine is “off the hook,” though it is “not the best choice of words.” Hence “virtue is the art of right living” belongs essentially to foresight (prudence), participatively to the other virtues as directed by prudence.
  • Aside: Augustine speaks a little of the Categories but seems not to have known the Nicomachean Ethics or the Physics well; remarkable how far he got; Thomas had both Augustine and Aristotle and the Greek, so he is more careful where Augustine can mislead.
• Reply 2: such definitions, whoever gives them, proceed from the Socratic opinion and are to be expounded as art was; he is not exactly endorsing that way of speaking, since it may mislead.
• Reply 3: the same for recta perfecta ratio: essentially, participatively. He finds it funny that Augustine’s earlier definition (“which no one uses badly”) seems to fit moral virtue only, while this one fits intellectual: “no freedom there in Augustine.”
• Reply 4: right reason according to foresight is in the definition of moral virtue not as part of its essence but as something partaken of in all the moral virtues, since foresight directs them all.
• He stops here: “Now should we stop or what is it? That’s good.”

His words #

• “virtues of reason”: intellectual virtues, treated first as more shared by God
• “foresight”: his rendering of prudentia [ed.: prudence]
• “mos, moris”: custom (consuetudo), or natural / quasi-natural inclination, “second nature”
• “customary virtues”: moral virtues as produced by repeated acts; “could be misunderstood today”
• “ethos with eta / with epsilon”: the Greek distinction of the two senses the Latin lacks
• “desiring power / desiring part”: the appetite, which moves all the powers to doing
• “habitus electivus”: habit with choice
• “dilectio”: “chosen love,” which is in the appetite
• “Natural Hearing” [ed.: Physics]
• “despotic principality / political rule”: how reason rules the body vs. the appetite (Politics I)
• “ad nutum”: at a nod, “not blindly,” “automatically”
• “cum aliqua contradictione”: with some resistance; “we call it dialogue today”
• “equivocal by reason”: a word generalized by dropping part of its meaning (art for any right reason; undergoing for sensing and understanding)
• “essentially / participatively”: how “art of living well” and “right perfect reason” belong to prudence and to the other virtues
• “communiter”: Augustine’s general use of “art”

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 58, prologue and a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 58, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, body, replies) Mentioned
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I (division of virtues; “mild or sober”), II (definition of moral virtue), III-V, VI (Socrates: all virtues prudences; right reason)
• Aristotle, Politics I (despotic and political rule)
• Aristotle, Physics II (definition of nature)
• Augustine, City of God (virtue is the art of living well); Soliloquies I (recta et perfecta ratio); commentary on the Psalm (slow or no affection)
• Cicero, Rhetoric (virtue a habit in the manner of nature in agreement with reason)
• Dionysius (the good of man is to be according to reason)
• Acts 15:1; 2 Maccabees 11; Psalm 67
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 59 and q. 61 (as announced in the prologue); Secunda Secundae order of virtues
• Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew (description of the Ethics); Falstaff and “modest truth” lines (loci not given); Hamlet to his mother
• Avicenna, Gregory the Great, Russell (in passing)

His questions #

• Why does Thomas treat the virtues of reason before the moral virtues, reversing the Ethics? Perhaps because the virtues of reason are more shared by God, who has understanding, science, wisdom, foresight, even art, but no temperance, mildness, or strict courage.
• Why are moral virtues called customary virtues? Because they are produced by custom, repeated acts; but Thomas takes “moral” from mos as inclination, not custom.
• What is mos? Two things: custom (Acts 15:1), and a natural or quasi-natural inclination (the lions of 2 Maccabees, Psalm 67); distinguished in Greek by eta and epsilon, not in Latin.
• To which power does inclination to an act belong? The desiring power, whose part it is to move all the powers to doing; so only its virtue is moral.
• Does anger know how much anger you should have? No; only reason considers the circumstances (the accidental bump vs. the careless or deliberate knock-down).
• If every beginning in man obeyed reason like the hand or foot, what would follow? That perfect reason would suffice, and there would be only intellectual virtue—Socrates’ opinion that all virtues are prudences.
• How does the appetite obey reason? Not ad nutum but with some resistance, by political rule over the free, not despotic rule over a servant.
• Is Socrates right that with knowledge present one does not sin? To some extent, if knowledge is extended down to the use of reason in the particular choosable thing, which passions and habits can impede.
• How does Augustine’s “art of living well” get out of trouble? He takes art generally for any right reason, including prudence—a word made equivocal by reason by dropping part of its meaning.
• How is right reason in the definition of moral virtue? Not as part of its essence but as partaken of, since foresight directs all the moral virtues.