Are the Cardinal Virtues Distinct? Political, Purging, Purged-Soul and Exemplar Virtues (Q. 61, aa. 4-5), with a Coda on Summa Contra Gentiles III, ch. 64

Orientation #

He opens “Look here, at Article 4 here now” and closes “So the theological virtues next time, huh? 62 here.” The previous class worked through the earlier articles of q. 61 on why the virtues are called cardinal and their number; the next takes up q. 62 on the theological virtues.

The class, in order #

1. Article 4, the objections: the Socratic side (“reminding me of the Protagoras”) #

The point: the objections argue that the four cardinal virtues are not distinct from one another, and he flags this as the position Socrates argues in the Protagoras: there are “two ways you can take them”, as really distinct virtues (which Plato defends) or, Socrates’ way, as conditions of any virtue.

• Obj. 1 (Gregory, Moralia 22): prudence is not true prudence unless just, temperate, brave; fortitude is not integral unless prudent, temperate, just. But “diverse species of the same genus do not denominate one another”; so they are not distinct. Aside: Shakespeare’s characters sometimes say it is your fear that is taking counsel, as if the prudent were cowardly.
• Obj. 2 (Ambrose, De officiis 1; the transcript hesitates “Augustine or Ambrose”): what belongs to temperance is attributed to fortitude: it is called fortitude when one conquers himself and is not made soft or bent by illicit things; temperance observes mode and order in all that is to be done or said. His example: a young person who remains temperate is seen as strong, as having courage.
• Obj. 3 (Aristotle, Ethics 2): virtue requires (i) knowing, (ii) choosing, (iii) acting firmly and immovably. Knowing pertains to prudence, “right reason about things to be done”; choosing, “not from passion but from choice”, to temperance or rather justice; acting for the fittingness of the act, which contains rectitude, to justice; firmness and immobility to fortitude. Aside: Socrates, a very brave man as a soldier. So each is general to all virtues.
• Sed contra (Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae): virtue is quadripartite, divided by the various affections of love, and he lists the four. “We can argue both sides because there’s some probability in both sides… or some part of the truth in both sides.”

2. The body: two ways of taking the four (“taken in two ways by diverse people”) #

The point: whether they are distinct depends on whether one takes them as general conditions of the soul or as habits determined to special matters.

1. First way (general conditions found in all virtues): prudence = a rightness of discretion in any matter; justice = a rightness of soul by which one does what one ought in any matter; temperance = a disposition imposing a mode on passions or operations; fortitude = a disposition making the soul firm in what accords with reason against impetuses of passion or labours of operation.
2. So taken, temperance, justice and fortitude do not imply diverse habits, because any moral virtue, from being a habit, has firmness (fortitude): his aside, “that’s a distinction between a habit and a disposition, right, in the categories”; from being a virtue, is ordered to the good, implying what is right and owed (justice); from being a moral virtue partaking of reason, has the mode of reason and does not extend itself beyond it (temperance). “One and the same virtue is a habit and is a virtue and is moral.”
3. Only discretion, attributed to prudence, is distinguished from the other three, because prudence is “of reason itself by essence”, whereas the other three partake of reason by application to passions or operations. So on this way prudence is one distinct virtue and the other three are not distinct from each other (“one and three”).
4. Second way, and better (“melius”): take the four as determined to special matters, each to one matter in which chiefly one of the general conditions is praised, from which the virtue takes its name. Then they are manifestly diverse habits, distinguished (answer elicited from the class) according to a diversity of objects.

3. The replies: overflow and appropriation (“who can do what is more difficult”) #

The point: the apparent mutual naming of the virtues is explained by “redundancy” (overflow) or by taking them as general conditions.

• Ad 1: Gregory speaks the first way. Prudence overflows into the others insofar as they are directed by it: “we have a reasonable love and a reasonable fear and a reasonable choice and so on.” Each other virtue overflows into the rest by the principle that whoever can do the more difficult can do the less difficult: one who restrains desires for pleasures of touch (most difficult) is more able to restrain audacity in dangers of death (“won’t be foolhardy”), so fortitude is called temperate; one firm against the dangers of death is more able to hold firm against the impetus of pleasures, so temperance is called strong. Tully, De officiis 1: it is not consistent that a man unbroken by fear be vanquished by cupidity, unconquered by torture yet conquered by lust.
• Ad 2: answered thereby; temperance observes a mode in all things and courage keeps the soul unbent against all illicit pleasures, either as general conditions or by the “foresaid redundancy… overflowing.”
• Ad 3: Aristotle’s four general conditions are not proper to the four virtues but can be appropriated to them, “just like appropriation” in the Trinity: is the Holy Spirit alone love, the Son alone wise? Rather, “May God the Father strengthen you, may God the Son enlighten you, may the Holy Spirit fill you with His love.”

4. Article 5, the objections: “what the heck is this?” (“exemplar virtues, virtues of the purged soul”) #

The point: the objections attack Macrobius’s fourfold division of the cardinal virtues into exemplar, of the purged soul, purging, and political.

• Obj. 1: Macrobius (Dream of Scipio 1): exemplar virtues are in the divine mind; but Aristotle, Ethics 10, says it is ridiculous to attribute justice, fortitude, temperance to God. So no exemplar virtues.
• Obj. 2: virtues of the purged soul are without passions (Macrobius: its temperance does not repress earthly cupidities but wholly forgets them; its fortitude ignores passions rather than conquering them), “almost the Stoic sense”; but it was said above these virtues cannot be without passions. “So now getting back to the Stoic business.”
• Obj. 3: purging virtues are of those who by flight from human things insert themselves only into divine things; but this seems vicious: Tully (De officiis 1) says those who despise the commands and rules that many admire should be given over to vice; “doesn’t do his civic duties.” Aside: the way one distinguishes Proverbs from Ecclesiastes: in Proverbs you use the goods of this world moderately and reasonably; in Ecclesiastes (“vanity of vanities”) you have contempt for them because of their insignificance compared to higher things.
• Obj. 4: political virtues are those by which good men counsel the republic and keep cities safe; but only legal justice is ordered to the common good, since law is defined by the common good (Ethics 5); so the others should not be called political.
• Sed contra: Macrobius: Plotinus, “with Plato the prince” among philosophers, says there are four genera of virtues: political, purging, of the purged soul, exemplar. Aside: “Thomas quotes Plotinus in this place after me”; “Thomas makes use of that to distinguish these books” [unclear in recording].

5. The body: exemplar virtues in God (“the exemplar of human virtue pre-exist in God”) #

The point: God, whom the soul must follow to live well, contains the exemplar of human virtue as He contains the reasons of all things.

1. Augustine (De moribus ecclesiae): the soul must follow something in order that virtue be born in it, and this is God; “be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
2. So the exemplar of human virtue pre-exists in God; considered “exemplariter in Deo” the virtues are exemplar virtues, an “extrinsic form” after which other things are modelled. Aside: last night with his students in Physics 2, Aristotle’s second cause is eidos, species, and then paradigm, “just like the exemplar”; his old classroom joke, how many kinds of causes has God? “Two and a half”: formal cause in a sense, but extrinsic form.
3. In God: the divine mind is prudence; temperance is the conversion of the divine intention to Himself (as in us the concupiscible is conformed to reason); fortitude is His immutability; justice is the observance of the eternal law in His works, as Plotinus says.

• His comment: more properly, God has foresight (a more universal one than ours) and justice; but since there are no emotions in God, He has the idea of fortitude and temperance but not those virtues properly. He thinks Thomas says fortitude can be said metaphorically of God, temperance “not even metaphorically” (is God chaste, sober? no likeness for a metaphor). This is why in the Secunda Secundae Thomas treats prudence first, then justice, then fortitude and temperance, the first two being found more in God; Aristotle does the reverse (fortitude and temperance first, justice last): “difference in the order of ethics and moral theology.”

6. The body continued: political, purging, purged (“man is a political animal”) #

The point: the same virtues are named by degree, from the human condition up to the divine likeness.

• Political virtues: since man is by nature a political animal (Aristotle, Politics), the virtues as they exist in man according to his natural condition, in carrying on human things rightly; “up to this point, we have spoken about these virtues” in this mode.
• But man should draw himself to divine things as far as possible: Aristotle in Ethics 10 disagrees with those who say that being men we should think human things; scripture commends it, Matthew 5, “be perfect even as your heavenly Father.” So there must be middle virtues between the political (human) and the exemplar (divine), distinguished by the diversity of motion and its term.
• Purging virtues, of those tending towards divine likeness: prudence directs all the soul’s thinking to God alone by contemplation of divine things; temperance leaves aside bodily use insofar as nature allows; fortitude does not fear withdrawal from the body and access to higher things; justice, the whole soul consents to the way proposed.
• Virtues of the purged soul, of those now attaining the divine likeness: prudence looks only upon divine things; temperance knows no earthly desires; fortitude ignores passions; justice is joined with the divine mind by a perpetual covenant (“treaty”), imitating Him. These are the virtues of the blessed, or of the most perfect in this life.
• Student exchange: the declaration of “heroic virtue” in canonisation is something like this. He agrees: “it’s not like they’re distinct species of virtues, but their virtues live in a higher degree”, and if you have one at that degree you should have them all at that degree.

7. The replies: the philosopher, the Stoics, the practical man (“our practical man is a little bit disturbed”) #

• Ad 1: Aristotle speaks of the virtues as about human things (justice about buying and selling, fortitude about fears, temperance about pleasures), and so attributed to God they are ridiculous.
• Ad 2: human virtues are about passions, those of men living in this world; virtues of those seeking full beatitude are without passions. Plotinus: the passions “soften” the political virtues (reduce them to a middle), the purging ones take them away, in the purged soul they are forgotten, in the exemplars one cannot name them. Or he speaks of passions as signifying disordered emotions: “they’re all suspicious of those Stoics”, but “there’s an element of truth in this distinction.”
• Ad 3: to desert human things where necessity is laid down is vicious; otherwise virtuous. Tully premises that it may be conceded to those of excellent genius who give themselves to doctrine, or who through weakness or another grave cause withdraw, to leave administration to others. Augustine, City of God 19: holy leisure (otium) seeks the charity of truth; just business accepts the necessity of charity; if no one imposes the burden (sarcina), one may give oneself to truth, but if imposed one must take it on. Thomas is talking of religious orders, where someone may have to do practical things to support the others. Asides: Thomas always refused to be made bishop; Albert the Great was made bishop and retired as soon as he could; Gregory always wanted back to the monastery, and when he doubted his salvation they made him bishop, then pope.
• Ad 4: legal justice regards the common good directly, but by command draws all the other virtues to it (Ethics 5, where a whole book is devoted to justice: commutative, distributive, legal; law is “an ordering of reason for the common good”). The others are called political as in service to the common good; and the political virtues do well not only towards the community but towards its parts: the household, or a singular person. “Well, that’s quite a thing, this cardinal virtues.”

8. Closing: SCG III chapter 64, Macbeth, blackened reputations (“What’s the significance of number 64?”) #

• In Summa Contra Gentiles III the first part (God the end of the universe, especially of rational creatures) ends at ch. 63 (“how the vision satisfies all our desires… beautiful”); the second part, on divine providence, begins at ch. 64. He plays with the number: 64 is both square (8 × 8) and cube (4 × 4 × 4); the class tries whether it is the first such (27, 9, 8 fail). Thomas says a square or cube number keeps the meaning of the number squared or cubed, so 64 carries what he attributes to two and three. Likewise the perfection of God begins at ch. 28 of SCG I, 28 being the second perfect number after six. “I play these numbers because I want to remember where the things happen.” Aside: the “sixty-four dollar question” on the radio in his childhood.
• Rereading Macbeth: the historical Macbeth was a good king, blackened because he interrupted the line of Scottish kings; likewise some defend Richard III against Shakespeare’s monster (even Thomas More, who lived in the house, thought him so), and a historian argues the Borgia pope Alexander VI suffered propaganda (“the National Enquirer of those days”) because he was Spanish.

His words #

• foresight; his rendering throughout for prudentia [ed.: prudence]
• “general conditions of the human soul”; the first way of taking the four, found in every virtue
• habit vs. disposition; the categories distinction, cited to explain why every habit has firmness
• “melius”, better; the second way, virtues determined to special matters
• overflow, “redundancy”; his rendering of redundantia, one virtue denominating another
• appropriation; general conditions “appropriated” to the four, as attributes to the Trinity
• exemplar virtues, “exemplariter in Deo”; extrinsic form after which things are modelled
• eidos, species, paradigm; Aristotle’s formal cause in Physics 2
• political animal; Aristotle’s statement, ground of “political” virtues
• purging virtues; “the purifying virtues”, of those tending to divine likeness
• virtues of the purged soul; of those attaining the likeness, the blessed or most perfect
• “soften”; Plotinus on the passions and political virtues, reduced to a middle
• otium, holy idleness; sarcina, the burden (Augustine)
• legal justice; its object the common good; law “an ordering of reason for the common good”
• square number, cube number, perfect number; his mnemonic for chapters of SCG

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 61, a. 4 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 61, a. 5 (whole article)

Mentioned

• Plato, Protagoras (Socrates on the unity of the virtues)
• Gregory, Moralia, book 22
• Ambrose, De officiis, book 1
• Aristotle, Ethics, book 2 (three conditions of virtue); book 5 (justice, law); book 10 (God and the virtues; striving for divine things)
• Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae; City of God, book 19
• Cicero (Tully), De officiis, book 1
• Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, book 1 (Plotinus’s four genera)
• Aristotle, Physics, book 2; Politics
• Matthew 5:48
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II (order of the cardinal virtues); Summa Contra Gentiles I ch. 28, III chs. 63-64
• Proverbs, Ecclesiastes; Shakespeare, Macbeth, Richard III

His questions #

• Are the four cardinal virtues distinct from each other, or general conditions of any virtue? Both, depending on the way taken; as determined to special matters they are distinct habits.
• Taken as general conditions, which of the four is distinct from the rest? Only prudence, being of reason by essence; the other three partake of reason.
• Distinguished according to a diversity of what? Objects.
• Is the Holy Spirit alone love, the Son alone wise? No; these are appropriated, as Aristotle’s conditions are appropriated to the four virtues.
• How many kinds of causes has God? “Two and a half”: the exemplar is formal cause in a sense, but extrinsic.
• Which cardinal virtues are in God properly? Prudence and justice; fortitude only metaphorically, temperance not even metaphorically.
• Are the four genera of Macrobius distinct species of virtue? No; the same virtues at a higher degree, and one at that degree implies all.
• When is it vicious to desert human things? When necessity is laid down; otherwise virtuous.
• Is 64 the first number both square and cube? Left open (the class could not settle it).