Prima Secundae
51. Summa I-II Q.18 a.5–6: Good and Bad as Differences of Species; the End as Object of the Will
Class of 2012-01-26
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/051-summa-i-ii-q-18-a-5-6-good-and-bad-as-differences-of-species/

[0:00] We're up to Article Five here, in Question Eighteen. To the fifth one goes forward. Thus, it seems that moral acts do not differ in species by good and what bad.

[0:20] For first of all, good and bad in acts is found in a way conform to what things. But in things, good and bad don't diversify species. But the same species as a man, what good and bad, right? Huh?

[0:39] You have different species. a bad man, right, from a good man. Therefore, neither also do good and bad diversify species in our acts. Moreover, bad, since it is a privation, because English word for privation is what lack, yeah. Moreover, since the bad, the bad, since is a privation, is a certain non-being. But non-being cannot be a difference, according to the philosopher in the third book of metaphysics.

[1:24] It's something positive, huh? It's a great difference. Since therefore a difference constitutes the species, huh? Can you add the difference to the genus, huh? Because Porphyry defined difference as what the species has in addition to the genus, huh? Or what separates species under the same genus? It seems that some act, then, for the fact that it is bad, is not constituted in some species, huh? Then you have the species constituted by a a lack, non-being.

[1:57] Nothing would be making it to be of this kind. And thus, good and bad do not diversify the species of human acts. Moreover, of diverse acts and species, there are diverse effects. But the same effect in species can follow from a good act and a bad one, just as a man is generated by adultery and by the matrimonial concubitu. Therefore, good and bad act do not differ any species, huh?

[2:39] There was a guy there in Edmund there in King Lear's right? huh? He's the illegitimate one, huh? And he said, I'm just as good as his brother, How dare they call me this, you know. We're hearing a woman sing sometime on the radio, something like that. Well, in my day, we didn't, you know, she liked that name illegitimate child, right? In my times, we called a love child.

[3:13] Yeah. Yeah. Euphemism, you know. I mean, the Supremes had had a Motown hit called Love Child. So the illegitimate child, you know, since there's more, you know, heat in the in the love child, you know. So you probably get a better product, you know, than you get from this miracle. So great Shakespeare. then. It's a play huh? Moreover, good and bad are said in acts sometimes by circumstances, huh?

[3:59] This has been said, but circumstance, since is an accident, does not give the species to the act, huh? So, accident is distinguished from difference, right? Therefore, human acts are not different species on account of goodness and badness, huh?

[4:20] But against all this, according to the philosopher in the second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? Similar acts render similar what habits, right? But good and bad habits differ in species, as liberality and what? Yeah, extravagance. Therefore, their causes, right, huh? Must differ in species too, right? Therefore, good and bad acts different species, huh? Okay. But how can that stand against more objections? there on the other side, huh?

[4:58] Four to one. The score is four to one right now. Now, what is the master going to say here? I answer. It should be said that every act has its species from its what object, huh? This has been said above. Whence it is necessary that some difference in the object makes the diversity of species in the what acts, huh?

[5:33] Now it should, however, be considered that some difference of object makes a difference of species in what acts, according as they are referred to one active principle that do not make a difference in acts according as they are referred to another active principle. Now, why is this? He says, huh? Because nothing that is per accidens constitutes a species, but only what is per se to itself. Now, some difference of an object can be per se in comparison to one active principle, and per accidens in comparison to another.

[6:24] Just as to know color and sound, per se differ in comparison to the what senses, but not in comparison to the what understanding, which knows both of these. Now,

[6:49] this principle that I give a lot of times that it always belongs to the higher power and the higher science to distinguish between itself and the what lower ones, right? And you can see this in regard to reason and the senses. Can the senses distinguish between reason and the senses?

[7:20] Only reason can do that, right? And when Aristotle is in the second book of the physics, natural philosophy, in second philosophy, right? He distinguishes between second philosophy and third philosophy, which is what mathematics. He doesn't distinguish wisdom from those two, right? When you get to the sixth book of the metaphysics, then he distinguishes between what wisdom or first philosophy and natural philosophy or second philosophy and mathematics or third philosophy.

[8:00] And then, to some people's chagrin, I apply it to philosophy and theology. And does it belong to philosophy to distinguish between philosophy and theology? No, belongs to the higher knowledge and the knowledge which has a more the character wisdom, which is theology. So that's kind of a problem for the modern philosophers because they don't accept theology, and therefore they can't really distinguish between philosophy and theology correctly, and let alone see the order that they should be of the two.

[8:35] So that's a good point, right? That's why I used to always object, you know, to this so-called philosophy religion, that kind of a catch-all phrase, right? It's officially a philosophy course, not a theology course, right? But you're talking about Christianity and Mohammedanism and the rest of them, and it's as if you know the philosopher as philosopher could distinguish between these, right? And he can't do that as philosopher.

[9:06] So, but here you can see how, in a way, reason could distinguish between sight and hearing; these two senses. But could sight do that, or could hearing do that? It's very clear in the beginning, right? Huh, of the higher knowledge, one that is more like wisdom, does the sees the distinctions.

[9:32] Now, all that is is said in general, and now he applies it to the matter at hand. In human acts, good and bad are said by comparison to what reason. That's the key thing to see. And Thomas often quotes Dionysius to this effect, huh? Because, as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter about the divine names, the good of man is. Is to be in accordance with reason,

[10:05] and bad is to be outside of reason. Okay. So when I was teaching students, you know, what is a good human act? What is a bad human act? Right. Well, you could say, in general, that a good human act is a reasonable act, right? And the bad human act is an unreasonable human act, right? It's contrary to reason some way.

[10:36] For each thing, that is good for each thing, right? That belongs to it according to its what form, and bad what is to it outside the order of its form.

[10:54] It is clear, therefore, the difference of good and bad, considered about the object, is compared what per se to reason, to it according as the object is suitable to it, or what not suitable, right?

[11:15] For some acts are called human or moralis doesn't mean necessarily good, right? Not moral as compared to immoral. Yeah, yeah. Morals distinguished from natural, right. According as they are by reason, right? That's its form. Hence, it is manifested good and bad, diversify species and moral acts, for differences that are per se diversify the what species.

[11:56] Now, what about that first objection there, right? But Thomas says, even to some extent, in natural things, even in natural things, good and bad, what is what according to nature, and what against nature, diversify the species of nature. For a dead body and a living body are not in the same what species, huh? Sir, Aristotle is always saying how that the eye of a dead man is an eye, equivocally speaking.

[12:33] And likewise, the good, in so far as it is by reason, and the bad, in so far as it is what besides reason, right? Outside of reason, diversify the species of what? Yeah.

[12:54] Now, the second objection here. What about privation being a what non-being right? Okay. But Thomas is going to point out that the non-being here is something that's attached to some end that is something positive right? But attached to this positive thing is the lack of the order of what reason right? Okay. So I'm drinking too much, huh? I'm really doing something right. I haven't swallowed a lot of this beverage, and so that's not a lack.

[13:36] There's a lack. A lot of beer or wine, whatever it is. And but it lacks the what order, order and measure of reason, right? Okay. So it's not simply that that that this bad act is what lacking reason, right? It's something positive, right? You can hear the googling going down. right? Slurp. But but but this swallowing of this stuff is what without measure, right? Without the measure of reason, huh?

[14:15] Okay. So he says that bad implies a lack, not absolute, right, by itself, but following upon some power, right? But an act is said to be bad in its species, not from this that it has no object at all, right?

[14:40] But because it has an object that is not what suitable or fitting to reason, just as to take things that belong to someone else, right? Whence, in so far as the object is something what positive, huh? Positively. That's to say it's not a non-being, but it's a being, right? It is able to constitute the species of a what bad act, huh? Okay. Now this little

[15:15] thing in my text, he's got a little quote there from Thomas's work, huh? Fact from the Summa Contra Gentiles right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. I'll just read it to you. I'm a translation here. I guess I might in here, but of all moral contrarieties, right? Either both are bad as what prodigality and illiberality, right?

[15:49] Or one is good and the other bad as liberality and illiberality, right? Now, it is therefore a malum morale, moral evil, both the genus and the difference, not according as it is the lack of the good of reason, right, from which it is said to be bad, but from the nature of the action or habit, ordered to some end, which is repugnant to the end of what, reason, huh?

[16:25] Just as a blind man is a what individual man, not in so far as he's blind, but in so far as he's this man, right? And just as irrational is sometimes said to be a difference of animal, right? Divided rational, irrational, not on account of the lack of reason, right? This is what makes him to be a dog or a beast, but for reason of such a nature, to which follows the remotio of reason, right?

[16:58] Okay. So we call the dog or the beast an irrational animal, right? Not that his nature is the lack of reason, but his nature is such that there follows upon having that nature the lack of what reason, right? Okay. So it's something positive, right? That I'm doing, taking your money or something, right? Huh? But it's something bad because it lacks the order and the measure of reason, huh?

[17:31] The act, huh? Okay. If it was just the lack of something, it wouldn't be what a real species, huh? And here's another text here from the sentences. A bad action is specified from its order to a what? finem indebitum, unsuitable, To which is abhishter, mixed up, right? The lack of the debiti finis, right? From which the ratio of bad falls into it, right? Hence it is clear that not only non sola, not only the privation specifies a bad habit and action, but the laying down of an order to an end with the privation of this debitus finis okay?

[18:30] The end that should be debitus finis. Okay. So sometimes Thomas will speak about the more explicit here about the. The equivocation of the word bad, right? Because the first meaning of bad is what a lack, yeah. The non-being is something you're able to have and should have when you should have it, right? Okay. And then the second meaning of bad, he says, is not the lack, but what has the lack, right?

[19:17] So that's not just a non-being, right? And then the third meaning is what produces that what lack, and that's called bad, right? So you put in regard to the second thing, and that's called bad because of the first meaning, right? So you got to keep those meanings kind of what distinct, right? And so you see a bad act; it's not the first meaning of bad; it's not the lack, but it's an act that has a lack.

[19:46] Instead of having a lack, okay? But it's an act of lacks something, right? That it should have, right? It lacks the order or the measure of what reason, right? Okay. Doctors get in trouble, don't they? You know, if they are found out to have had a drink or something like that before, or the airline pilots, you know, you know, we saw them drinking in the in the lounge or something.

[20:15] You know that he he might lose his job, right? So it doesn't mean that airplane pilot can't have a drink, but after the flight, maybe. flying that it influences. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but not before, right? Before and after is the definition of order, right? So a drink before the flight is a drink out of order, out of the orderly reason to say, right? You see, we do this afterwards, right?

[20:48] And yeah, okay, that's clear enough, I guess. Okay. But that's the reason why Augustine will say that sin is nothing, right? Huh? And the man who sins becomes nothing, right? He's kind of in such a little bit exaggerating way of speaking there, huh? Not quite as careful as Thomas would be, right? Because strictly speaking, the bad is not nothing, right? It's not simply non-being, but non-being is subject able to have something and doesn't have what it should have, right?

[21:36] Okay, so Aristotle will distinguish between the opposition of being and non-being, and the opposition of lack and having, right? Okay. So the typical example is, you know, strictly speaking, a stone is not what blind, right? Even though it doesn't see, right? But as a mere negation, it's not a lack, huh? Okay.

[22:00] You know, the English language, of course, which is frequent language for philosophy and thought, but you know, the English word want, huh? Want can mean what desire, right? I want something, right? But desire is for something you don't have, right? So sometimes you say somebody is sadly wanting, the student sometimes, because he or she is lacking something that they should what have, right? Okay. Or we even say, we say, food, you know, not seasoned properly or something, you know, it wants something.

[22:39] You see, the cook or the chef or the the diner will say something. It wants something, right? It got a little bit of this, yes, something, right? But you see the the connection there between want and lack, right? It's very beautiful English language, huh?

[22:58] Okay, now what about this adulterous generation, like in this illegitimate one? That you had the two two sons, Edmund and Edgar, there, right, in King Lear, right? Y'all know that play, I hope. This time I saw it playing the stage. You know, I was as close to the actor as I am to you. You know, I was right up the front there. You know, and the guys, you think you know, my God, don't distract the poor actor, you know?

[23:33] Don't breathe. Yeah. But now the distinction that he made there, the first paragraph of the first part of the corpus, the conjugal act and adultery, right? Huh? According as they are compared to reason, they differ in what species, huh? Because one is reasonable and the other is unreasonable, right? And they have effects differing in what species, right? One of them merits praise and reward, and the other blame and punishment, huh?

[24:13] But according as they are compared to the generating power, huh? They don't differ in what species, right? And thus they have one effect according to species, right? That comes up, you know, this question about adultery. Isn't God cooperating with adultery, right? When He infuses a rational soul into this illegitimate body? And Thomas says, well, He's cooperating with what nature, not the moral act. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

[24:48] Nature is is disposed something, you know, for rational souls, so He does that. You got to see that distinction, right? But I mean, some would say, you know, He can't be doing this because then He's cooperating with the sinner, right? But He's not. He's cooperating with what nature, right? Sunner be down, but yeah, yeah. This is this is the point I think the church always makes about this: why there's certain limits to what we can and can't do, yeah, in these things because of it, because it's a very unlike any other creature.

[25:23] It's a cooperation with the creation of the person, which is something not just man's cause. that just makes us pause Yeah. I don't know What does the word procreation mean? You know, I mean, you're helping, you know. Exactly, because that's that's the distinction. The animals don't procreate; they just reproduce the species. We're creating a new person. What about circumstances, right? Yeah, that's it. We got to be careful with circumstances, right?

[25:52] To the fourth, it should be said that circumstances, quandoque, sometimes is taken. As a what essential difference of the object, but of it according as it's compared to what Reason. reason, right? And then is able to give a species to the what Moral act. moral act, and this is necessary to be

[26:20] whenever the circumstances change the act from goodness to what bad. For circumstances would not make an act bad unless by this they were what, yeah. So it becomes per se, right? Okay. Now I know some people who take their principal meal at noontime. You say it's better. You guys do it too. You have your main. Okay. See now, I take mine in the evening, right?

[26:57] Yeah, yeah. And by some, you know, people, you know, I think Warren Murray's taking his main meal at noontime or. Something like that, and but is that circumstance, the main meal at noontime in the evening? Is that make one of us good and one of us bad?

[27:19] Doesn't seem to be any repugnance to reason there, right? Which time you take your your principal meal, right? Make make one good and one better. Yeah.

[27:31] Now, brother Marcus always had the had the rule about alcohol that you never drink you know alcohol beverages before noon. You always wait until afternoon. You know, that was kind of a good rule, you know. Oh, good. Um, but you read you know, in the English novels and English fiction. You know, they're always drinking small beer for breakfast, right? But I suppose it could the water was no good, right?

[27:55] You know, so it might be opposed to reason for us, but not for the guy who's drinking small beer. Can't can't be poisoned by the water. One man's poison is another man's salvation.

[28:16] Okay, so that's very interesting. Okay. Now we go on. the sixth article right. To the sixth one proceeds thus. It seems that good and bad, that is from the end, do not diversify the species and acts. Why? Well, first of all, because acts have their species from the object, right? We've seen that, right? But the end is something apart from the what notion of the object. Therefore, good and bad, that is from the end, do not diversify the species of the what act.

[29:02] Moreover, that which is per accidens huh does not constitute a species. But it happens to some act that is ordered to what some end, just as someone gives alms, huh, on account of empty glory, huh. Therefore, according to the good and bad which is from the end, the acts are not diversified according to what species, right?

[29:38] So, so I'm teaching for vain glory glory, right? Is that a different act than if I'm teaching for enlightenment students? Moreover, diverse acts according to species are able to be ordered to one end.

[30:02] Just as to the end of empty glory are able to be ordered the acts of diverse virtues and even diverse vices. Therefore, not therefore not good and bad which is taken according to the end would diversify the species of the what act.

[30:24] This seems like the the end is something kind of extrinsic, as you said before, right? So, how can it something outside determine the species of the act, right?

[30:37] But against this is what has been shown above that human acts have their species from the end. Therefore, good and bad that is taken according to the end diversify the species of the acts.

[30:54] Thomas says, "I answer it should be said that some acts are called human in so far as they are what voluntary, right? But in the voluntary act, there is found a twofold act, to wit, the interior act of the will and the what exterior act.

[31:24] And both of these acts have their what? So an object. Now the end is properly the object of the interior act of the what? Will. Will. I

[31:41] said saints talk about purity of intention, right? You know, it's very much tied up with the interior act of the will, right? That's hard to have, right? Purity of intention, huh?

[31:58] That's what one of the saints said that even though a man has two eyes in his head, it's related to his intention. Even though a man has two eyes in his head, he can't look up and down at the same time. So he should have one goal. It's your intention. Okay. For the end is properly the object of the interior act of the will, right? Huh? But that about which is the exterior action is its object, right?

[32:34] Huh? So just therefore, as the exterior act gets its species from the object about which it is, right? So the interior act of the will gets its species from the end, as from its own what? Object. Huh? That's a probably distinction important, right? To get into this reality, right? Huh?

[33:06] Now that which is on the side of the will itself has itself as what formal to that which is on the side of the what exterior act? Why? Because the will uses the members, right, the body, to acting, right, as instruments, right.

[33:30] Nor do these exterior acts have the notion of reality except in so far as they are what voluntary, right? Huh? So someone knocks my arm and it hits you. I mean, it's it's that voluntary, right? Huh?

[33:48] And therefore, human acts, huh? The species of what human acts are formally considered according to the end, materially according to the object of exterior act. Form is more like the species, right? Huh?

[34:11] Whence the philosopher himself says in the fifth book of Nicomachean Ethics that the man who steals in order that he might commit adultery. per se loquendo is more an adulterer than a what thief?

[34:30] That's more formal, right? Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that also the end has the notion of an object, especially of the what interior act of the will, right?

[34:49] And to the second, which is the objection from the what was this per accidens right? To the second, should be said that to be ordered to such an end, although it happens to the exterior act, right? That's where it's kind of per accidens, right? It does not, however, happen to the interior act of the will, and it's that interior act of the will that is compared to the exterior one as the formal to the what material, right?

[35:26] So if I give you something to eat, you know, in order to be admired, and am I being kind to you? Material. Now, what happens when you have many acts differing in species ordered to one end? Well, then there's a diversity of species on the side of the exterior acts, right? But a unity of species on the side of the what interior act, right? So if all these acts, exterior acts, are done out of charity, right?

[36:11] Then there's a unity there, right? But on the part of the interior act, right? Yeah. Yeah. I go to Article Seven here. huh?