Prima Secundae
88. Good and Bad Pleasures, Whether All Pleasure Is Good, and the Best Pleasure: Seeing God (I-II q.34 aa.1-3)
Class of 2012-10-25
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/088-good-and-bad-pleasures-whether-all-pleasure-is-good-and-the/

[0:00] I answer. It should be said that as is said in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, that some lay down all pleasures to be what bad.

[0:14] The reason for which would seem to have been because they brought their attention only to what sensible pleasures and bodily pleasures, right, which are more what manifest, huh?

[0:31] So what does the common man think? Does the common citizen think? You know, when they think of the word pleasure, right? I think it's something sensible and bodily, right?

[0:49] For also in other things, right, the old philosophers, right, the antique philosophers, did not what distinguish the understandable things from sensible things, huh? But they thought that all bodily pleasures, huh?

[1:16] They thought they should all be said what to be bad. To be bad. So that thus men who are prone to immoderate pleasures, right, would be withdrawn from the what pleasures, right? So they could arrive at the middle that is virtue, right? The middle of virtue.

[1:42] So you know the you know in the ethics you have example you know the piece of metal is bent and you want to what straighten out like that and then you got to bend it in the opposite direction but even you got to go a little bit beyond there in order for it to straighten out right okay

[2:01] and who's saying that the example with priests or people in the in the monastery and so on the austerities are a bit what puritanical right huh in the beginning right huh but maybe that's necessary because you have to bend a bit in the opposite direction in order to what straighten out yeah yeah when you get to be you know John Paul II you can sit down drink the priest's wine with the priest right you know and make their own wine right you could sit down and talk about those things and sip some wine with them you know because he's he's now in the mean right but maybe before you had to be a little bit puritanical

[2:42] but there's no certain danger in saying that all what pleasures are bad yeah but this existimatio this estimate okay we're an estimate for that but this thinking was not what suitable because no one can live without some sensible and bodily what pleasure

[3:10] and therefore it those who teach that all pleasures are bad right are found what except some pleasures right that seems to be enjoying his meal or something more men would be what

[3:27] proclives that would be disposed that disposed for pleasures by the example of them because actions speak louder than words right and and admitting the teaching of the words right

[3:46] well that's kind of a common thing you know examples move us more than the words right who are you moving that's what I often will do with somebody who's interested in the faith and not Catholic or something I often propose them examples of saints not just for the example of virtue kind of try to get them with the you don't think that John Paul II was stupid do you no well he believes all these things and then they can admire his virtue in his life and I think well maybe there's something more to this because he was such an admirable man yeah I don't think it was dumb you know yeah so and then the example of the martyrs most of all because they lay

[4:25] down their life for this for the truth of these things that's kind of that's a way I think that's sometimes more effective for some people yeah yeah.

[4:37] Yeah. So Thomas is the principal there in the doings in the what passions, human, in which what experience plurimum valet. Most of all is value. Examples move more than what words. I suppose it did say in the Gospels there they begin to do and teach something like that. It gives that order of doing first. It's kind of the same order of the Last Supper too. He did, and then he taught them about washing.

[5:25] I actually take the the three parts of the Last Supper there as kind of what parents have to do. You just have to give the good example, right? To your children, then you have to instruct them with words, and finally have to pray for them that the example and the words will bear fruit. You know, and

[5:52] I mean the people, you know, that, that we know, get to know, who you know daily math. You know, some of them have, you know, very nice stories with their children, but some of them have had problems with their children. You know, and even they seem to be good people, but so, so you give them the example, and you give them the words, and then you pray.

[6:10] Yeah. But you need all three of those things, and kind of that order, right? That's that's the thing is that you can't control them. You only influence them. You can't control them.

[6:26] The kids had some candy. I still always say, "No, can't have any piece." So they're a little reluctant, you know. Give one, you know. And but if you do that regularly, you know, then when they get some candy, the automatic would offer it to you, you know. And so they got kind of a good example of sharing their candy.

[6:52] Okay. It should be said, therefore, that some pleasures are good and some are what bad. For pleasure is the rest of the sensitive appetite or power, rather, in some good loved, right, and following upon some what operations, in doing, right.

[7:33] Whence the reason of this can be taken in two ways, twofold. In one, on the side or on part of the good in which one rests being pleased, right. Now, good and bad in moral matters is said according as it what is suitable or fits with reason, or it is discordant from it, right.

[8:05] Just as in natural things, something is said to be natural from this that it belongs to what, or it fits nature, right, agrees with nature. But unnatural in so far as it is what.

[8:21] Yeah. Noise, huh? You see, you know, this discord reminds me of what Socrates says in the Phaedo there. where, he says that philosophy is the highest kind of music. And he means you know the art of harmony, right? Okay. So that if your emotions and your will are in harmony with reason, then there's a kind of music in your soul. But if your emotions or your will are not in harmony with reason, then you have noise in your soul, right?

[9:04] But it's kind of beautiful the way he says it, right? Um, but you know, actually, it's two kinds of philosophy: looking philosophy, which in Greek is called theoretical philosophy, theoretical and speculative, but the English word is looking, looking philosophy, and then you know, active philosophy, practical philosophy, and looking philosophy is looking or seeking the harmony of truth

[9:37] and avoiding the contradictions, right, that people have in their thoughts. But practical philosophy is aiming at first the harmony of emotion and will with reason, and then later on the harmony of you know husband and wife and parent and child and so on, the harmony of the citizens, right? So it's compared to the musician, right? Who knows how to get the instruments in harmony, symphony, right? So the city should be like a symphony, right, where the instruments and the sounds harmonize one with another.

[10:14] Well, this word here, discordant, it's reminded because chord is kind of I mean, we're saying music, right? don't we Chords? discordant. huh? Okay. C. S. Lewis say heaven. I mean, hell is a kingdom of noise. You know, just things are not. It's going to be you know this noise in your soul, but also the noise between you and everyone else, right? You know, Al Faris said he's ultra.

[10:46] You know, sorry, I describe doesn't describe hell, you know. Just therefore, as in natural things, there is a certain natural rest, which is in that which is suitable to the nature, as when the heavy thing rests down below, right? And a certain rest that is unnatural, which is in that which is repugnant nature, as when the heavy rests up above. So it is also in moral matters that there is a certain good pleasure, according as the what?

[11:34] The higher appetite, being the willings, or the inferior, being the emotions, rests in that which what? Reason. That's the reason. And some bad from this that rests in that which is in discord, huh? From reason and from the law of God.

[12:00] That's something Newman talks about when if somebody's in error about something, meaning not respecting the practice or anything. I'll give you an absurd example: scrambled egg. Eating scrambled eggs is a mortal sin. Well, he's in error about it, but if his conscience tells him that, and he goes and eats scrambled eggs, he commits a sin. Not because scrambled eggs are bad, but because he's not harmonizing with what his conscience tells him.

[12:30] So he says, if somebody's determined to do what's pleasing to God, and he's in error about what's pleasing to God, like belonging to the Catholic Church, or something But he says he's he's nevertheless he's he calls it he's prejudiced in favor of the truth because he wants to do what's pleasing to God. So he's willing to listen to his conscience. As soon as he discovers the truth, he'll say, oh, that's what I want to do.

[12:52] He'll change because he's he's accustomed to wanting to do what his conscience tells him. So that's kind of what this is. Even if he's in error, he wants to be harmonized with reason, conscience, and the law.

[13:08] Now, the man who sees pleasure as such as being good, right? Huh? You know, he might you might admit that it's bad to want to see, let's say, torture people, right? Huh? Okay.

[13:22] Um, because that causes pain. I guess you know, pain's bad, right? Pleasure's good, right? Huh? But to enjoy torturing people, right? Well, that is a pleasure for some people, right? And therefore, it's good for them at least, right? You see,

[13:44] but which unites us more to something: wanting it or taking pleasure in it? Taking pleasure. Yeah. So, if wanting to torture people is bad, because the object is obviously bad, right? Huh? Well, then taking pleasure in it is even worse because you're even more joined to this what bad thing, right? You know.

[14:20] So it's good to do that. Another reason can be taken on the side of the operations, of which some are good and some are what bad, huh?

[14:42] This is what I was saying here, that two operations are more what affines, right? They're more what the same sort of thing, almost, right? Pleasures which are joined to them than of desires, right? Which in time what precede them, right?

[15:07] Whence the desires of good operations are good of what bad things what are bad, right? multo magis is much more like I was saying. The pleasures of good operations are good, and that of bad ones are what.

[15:36] So if I want to help those in need, that's good, right? huh? I take pleasure in doing good. That's even better. But if I want to torture people, that's bad. When I enjoy doing it, I'm even worse than I was when I wanted to do it, right? Yeah. Because sometimes a person might want to hit somebody, but then they don't really enjoy hitting them, you know. They feel kind of sorry that they don't, you know, or they they.

[16:08] Sometimes want to say something nasty to somebody, and then then you don't say it, but other times you actually say it, then you wish you hadn't done it, right? Yeah, I remember seeing an interview with a fella who brutally tortured and murdered somebody, and he, I mean, the man was he's either possessed by the devil or he's just out of his mind. And he was kind of recounting what he did, and you could see the pleasure he's taking just in remembering it.

[16:32] Yeah. It just totally, totally diabolic just to watch. Yeah. yeah. This is horrible. Yeah, if I was the guy behind the camera, I'd be in another room or something, you know.

[16:51] Now, the first objection here, of course, is somewhat like the one we saw before in the previous article, right? Mm-hmm. To the first, therefore, it should be said, as has been said above, um, that the pleasures which are about the very act of reason itself do not impede reason, right? Nor do they corrupt, what? Foresight, right? But extraneous pleasures, right, can do this, of which are the bodily pleasures, right?

[17:23] Which impede the use of reason, huh? As had been said above, both through the what? Contrariety of appetite, which rests in that which is repugnant to what? Reason.

[17:40] And from this, pleasure has that it is be something morally what? Bad, huh? Or according to the, what? Bounding of reason. That was another reason he gives, he gave, right? Third reason he gave, I think. as in the conjugal, what? Union. Union, the pleasure, right? Mm-hmm. That although in that which is, what, suitable to reason, nevertheless it impedes the, what? Use. Use of reason on account of the bodily change joined with it, right?

[18:17] Uh, but from this there does not follow what? Moral Badness. E- badness. Just neither is sleep, which bounds, or binds up the use of reason, huh? Ties it up, right? It's moral, it's not morally bad, right? No, thank God he's lost to sleep. He's not lost to sleep. We're not allowed to sleep. anymore. God help me, how many times I got to confess that? Every day. Because I have a hard time sleeping now in my age.

[18:48] you know, I don't sleep too well. Yeah. It's amazing, when. You see the little grandchildren there. It's completely out of it, you know. Abandon, you know, to sleep. Father Abbott says when when his one of his brothers was newly married, and he had a whole bunch of kids. Yeah. he took them up to show them in the room. There's a whole bunch of them. Yeah. And turns on the light, and Father Abbott says, he says, "Oh, they're not going to wake up.

[19:17] They don't. They don't wake up. Nothing. Nothing wakes them up when they're sleeping Some of us still like that They're lucky Okay. We see, nevertheless, that this what binding of reason, right, from the pleasure in the conjugal acts, although it does not have what moral badness, right, because it is not a mortal sin nor even a venial sin, right. Nevertheless, it arises from certain moral what evil, to wit, from the sin of the first what parent.

[19:58] Parent. For this would not be so in the state of innocence, as is clear from those things which are said in the prima pars, right. So towards the end of prima pars is a discussion of what the status was or the condition was of Adam and Eve before the fall.

[20:18] And so when they covered themselves after the fall, right, that's because their emotions no longer subject to reason, right. I had to do this newspaper and, figured evidence for you know, you know, scientific probability.

[20:38] Thomas would say, you know, he talks about in the Summa Contra Gentiles You know, you can. something's gone wrong with the human race. I mean, the way we go and shoot and kill each other, you know, and so on. Yeah. All these other horrible things you're doing. There's something wrong. That's what somebody was saying. This is last year or something. But there's there's more murders in a weekend in Chicago than a whole month in Iraq.

[21:05] But we'll just stay with it. Away from Chicago. Now, what about the temperate man? Right. Well, the temperate man does not flee all pleasures, right? But those are excessive, right? And they are not suitable to what reason, right? So he can listen to music of Mozart, right? Thank God.

[21:35] That's that's what Oscar was saying in the essay there towards an evaluation of music, right? The music of Mozart, the music of the Baroque, right, is distinguishing the music of the Romantic period, right? It represents the what emotions, moves the emotions in a state in harmony with what reason, right? And you know the emotions are subject to reason, there, right? But that's the one thing the Romantics, Romantics will not allow the emotions to be subject to reason, right?

[22:09] Well, Tchaikovsky, you know, Tchaikovsky went out into the middle of the river there, you know, to drown himself, you know, couldn't quite get the courage to drown himself. That's Romantic, right? Yeah. But he used to listen to Mozart, right? Because you know it relieved him from the excess of his own passions, right? And there is some interesting little, you know, between him and some lady, you know, saying, you know, well, how come you like to listen to Mozart, you know?

[22:36] Well, because he kind of saved him from himself, right? Get these terrible emotions, huh? And you know he wrote the Mozartiana, you know, and, you know to honor Mozart, you know, he takes Mozart's melodies and kind of plays with them, you know. But it's kind of interesting to hear him do this, but

[22:56] he realized something terribly wrong, you know, even in Russia at the time, you know, and didn't know uh, but Mozart had this temperate, you know, music, you know, Mozart never goes to any excess, you know.

[23:23] That boys and beasts pursue pleasures, right? Ah, does not show them to be universally what bad. Okay, because in them there is a natural appetite from God, huh? Who moves them to that which is what? Yeah.

[23:54] Now what about this objection here from the art here? To the third, should be said that not that art is not of every good, but of what? Exterior things we made. Yeah.

[24:11] So art is right reason about making. Making means it's a product; there is something outside of us. But prudence and virtue are about the operations and the passions which are in us now, rather than in the wood or in some exterior matter, huh?

[24:31] So they pertain more to prudence and virtue than to art. Yet nevertheless, some art is what Factiva delectationis, huh? To which the what? Pulmentaria was that the uh somebody mixes herbs or something? Yeah something, to do with food, I think. Pigmentaria is a coloring. Yeah, as is said in the seventh book of the Ethics, I was talking about uh, cosmetics or not, huh? Mm hmm Pigmentaria might be more cosmetics, huh?

[25:02] Maybe. But pulmentaria is more the food, right? So the cook is trying to make the food taste good, right? Huh? Taste to please the person who eats it, right? And and I always tell the girls, cosmetics comes the Greek word cosmos, you know, which means, yeah, from the universe, right? I mean, the word cosmos was given the universe because it's a beautiful ordered whole, right? That's why you have cosmetics to a beautiful ordered whole, you know.

[25:36] Somebody suggested that another way to understand cosmos, I might say, from maybe from a more Christian perspective, would be that since God didn't have to make it, He only made it in a certain way to please to please Himself or to please us. Then in that sense, it's normal, not something necessary. Thomas following Aristotle would say that the the best thing after God, much after God, but the best thing after God is the order of the universe.

[26:07] Sapientis est ordinare So a little break here now before I go on. to. Goes forward thus, it seems that all pleasure is good. Ah, now this is what I like to hear. Yeah, you're going to be disappointed later on.

[26:29] For as has been said in the first, good is divided into three, right? Division Aristotle gives to the what? The honest, the honorable, right? The useful and the what? Pleasant, right? But everything honorable is what? Good, huh? And likewise, everything useful is good, huh? Therefore, also every pleasure is good, huh? Good enough. Yeah, that's enough. huh? I want to hear this.

[27:08] Moreover, that is per se good and good in itself, huh? Through itself, huh? Good as such, that is not sought in account of something other, right? As is said in the first of Ethics end. But pleasure is not sought for the sake of something else, for it's ridiculous, laughable, that it seems to ask somebody, why does he want to be pleased, right?

[27:37] Therefore, pleasure is a per se good, right? But what is per se said of something is universally said of it, huh? Therefore, every pleasure is good, huh? So you see, it belongs to a triangle as such to have its interior angles equal to right angles. So every triangle is going to have it. It belongs to per se, right? But doesn't belong to triangle per se to be green.

[28:04] So although some triangle might happen to be green, right? You don't, you know, conclude from that that all triangles will be green, right? It doesn't belong to triangle per se, right? And so, you know, when you take up the nature of science or reasoned-out knowledge, there you talk about premises that are per se, conclusions that are per se, right? And only those can be known necessarily, right?

[28:29] Whether a triangle is green or not is a matter more of sensation than of reason, right? There's no connection to the nature of what a triangle is and green, right? At least as far as I know. But there is a connection between what a triangle is and that it has interior angles equal to right angles, or a connection necessarily between two and half a four, right?

[28:55] So, pluck the concern. Moreover, that which is desired by all seems to be a per se good, for the good is what all want. Everyone wants pleasure, right?

[29:16] But all want some pleasure, right? Even boys and bees. Therefore, pleasure is as such good. As such good, sometimes you translate it differently. Say right. Therefore, every pleasure is good. If we stop here, this is what Saint Alphonsus would call willful inadvertence.

[29:43] Don't finish the question. I'm convinced. But against this is what is said about some in Proverbs chapter two, who rejoice when they do bad, right, and exult in the worst things.

[30:00] Pretty strong thing. I answer should be said just as some of the Stoics, right? He gives a reference in my book down here to where Augustine talks about the Stoics. Right, you know, they lay down that all pleasures are bad, right? So the Epicureans laid down that pleasure, as such, to be good, right? And consequently, all pleasures to be good, right? So

[30:36] they'd be saying, you know, that the pleasure of torturing somebody as pleasure is good, right? Because all pleasure is such as good. But notice here you get these two articles, right? One is taking the position of the what? Or excuse me, the Stoics. Stoics, that all pleasure is bad, and now that all pleasure is good, yet you know, where Aristotle is in between those two extremes, right?

[31:02] But this is a common thing that is said: is the nature of those being mistaken, right? Those hurried to go to what extremes? Okay. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, right? Thomas often comes down and he talks about, say, the Trinity, right? Huh? Or even about incarnation, because there are those who say that as you have three persons, you have three what? Natures, three gods, right?

[31:33] Or someone says that as you have one nature there, you have one person. Really, it's just different names, the same person. Those are two what? Extremes, right? In the same way with the with but just the reverse, huh? With with the Son, right? Incarnation because there's two natures, there's two persons there, right? Or because there's one person, there's monophysites, right? There's one nature there, right? Huh? So these are two, but the virtue, I mean the truth, rather lies in the middle between these two, right?

[32:05] Huh? So there's three persons, but one nature, or two natures in one person, right? But Notice, the extremes can't really explain each other, right? If there's really only one person and one nature in God, then why would anybody think there's three persons and three natures? If there really were three person, three natures, why would anybody think there's one person, one nature, right? But if there's three persons in one nature, you can say, well, I can see then why some people think there's three natures that seem to fit with there being three persons.

[32:44] And what? If there's really only one nature, you can see why somebody thinks only one person there, right? See, because there's some part of the truth, right? See, but if one of these extreme positions is true, then the opposite extreme is entirely false, and there's no reason for anybody to think that at all, right? See, so if there's somebody who thinks this is probable, right? There must be in the probable some part of the truth, right?

[33:16] But if one of these extreme positions was the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, then the opposite extreme position would be what? Wholly what? Yeah, have no basis at all, right? So if every pleasure is in fact bad, why should anybody think that all pleasures are good, right? You know, and if all pleasures are good, why should anybody think that? Bad, yeah. There's no, you know, there'd be no part of the truth in the opposite position, right?

[33:50] But if some pleasures are good and some are bad, whatever the reason for this being, right? Then you can see how somebody might, you know, think that they're all good or they're all bad because he at least has hit upon a part of the truth, right? There's some truth in what he's saying, right? But if one of those positions are correct, then the other position is what?

[34:10] Not probable, it's no part of the truth, you know. There's no reason anybody would ever think that, but some people here are dedicated to those positions.

[34:24] That's very interesting. Some of the Stoics, right, laid down that all pleasures to be bad. So, the Epicureans laid pleasure according to itself or as such to be good, right? And consequently, that all pleasures are what? Good, huh?

[34:45] Who seem to have been deceived from this, right? That they do not distinguish between that which is what good simply and that which is good as regards this one, huh? Okay. This talking about the fallacy is simply and second good, perhaps. For that is simply good, which is as such good, right, huh? But it can happen that that which is not, as such, good to be good for this man, right, in two ways.

[35:22] In one way, because it is suitable to him according to the disposition in which he now is, which nevertheless is not a natural disposition, right? Just as to the leper is good sometimes to eat something. What? Yeah, I don't know. We got this idea. Yeah. This example, but anyway. Which is not what simply suitable to the complexion of man, right? Okay. I mean, you know, when they when they give this treatment, people who got cancer, right?

[35:55] You know, that's everything does a job on your body. Those, um, but you see, it's good for him, right? But it's not because of his bad condition with the cancer. It might slow the growth of the cancer. You know, people who are being, you know, treated this way. You know, they're shrinking the stuff. I guess I don't know. But but they they you know, they're exhausted. From the thing, and you know they they uh, Yeah Yeah not that nice to undergo, right?

[36:24] Okay. But you might say it's good for them, right? To have this treatment, huh? They can another way because that which is not what suitable Suitable is estimated. Not the best word to be used because a word "estimate" has kind of changed its meaning, right? But I think "estimate" has got the idea of something that's not altogether what certain certain, yeah. Yeah, you estimate how fast he was going, or you estimate how how much this much this weighs, you know, or something, right?

[37:00] Weighs you know. Yeah, but esteem not so much the word. Estimate has got something of the idea of what it means, but not exactly. You could say maybe

[37:19] supposed. Yeah. And because pleasure is the rest of the what desiring power in the good, if that is good simply in which the appetite is resting, right? It will be what simply pleasure. It'll be pleasure simply and simply what Good. Good, huh? If, however, it is not good simply, but as regards what this one, then it is neither pleasure what simply nor to this one. Nor is it simpliciter good, but either a good in some way, secundum quid, or just an apparent good.

[38:10] Okay, so the apparent good corresponds to the what is estimater convenience, right? And the bonum secundum quid, which is according to your bad what. Yeah, yeah, I got cancer, so it's good for me to get these chemotherapy, chemotherapy, which is Devastating. yeah, yeah, yeah. In some way, some way, it's good for me, right?

[38:38] That's that's a qualific, right? It's good to I didn't go there, huh? You know, in some sense, yeah, but not simply, you know. Okay.

[39:02] So the apparent bonum there might not be good at all, then, huh? Okay. Rock and roll music, these people they they follow these bands you know around the country. Some of them do you know hear about them you know movies you know crazy you know crazy. Damn it! I told you I was looking in the package store there. I see the guys coming. You know, Grateful Dead.

[39:37] Well, of course, I don't keep up with these things. I didn't know there was a name of a band that was called Grateful Dead. I just saw people you know appearing in the coming in with this Grateful Dead, and I used to think to myself, "gee, what a sick thing to walk around with you know like I'd be grateful if I was dead or something. What kind of sick?

[39:53] Put me out of my misery, you know. Yeah, you know, saying and then the day they found there's a there's a band called Grateful Dead. If I any heard that or ran across that, and and these guys who liked that band, rejoiced the name Deadheads. Deadheads. yeah.

[40:18] Strange world. I give a little talk there where I use a quote from de Maupassant. you know, he talks about the obligation in in democracy to love the ugly, right?

[40:34] Well, that's what I told a musical composer that we used to know, and when he came here, some of his music was sort of typically modern and wasn't very beautiful. Yeah, I didn't tell him that exactly, but but I meant I was talking about the beautiful being objective. It's not just something subjective experience. And I said it's obvious that it's something objective because so many modern artists studiously avoid it.

[40:59] Yeah, he just laughed and they thought it was hilarious. So yeah, because they just go right around it. It's like it must be something that you could spot. Yeah, something objective. Yeah, see it because they're not innovating. They're not. They're not producing.

[41:18] Okay, now it's interesting. This this reply to the first objection here is very interesting. To the first, therefore, it should be said that honestum, the honorable, that the good, which is according to reason, right, and even useful are said secundum rationem. Interesting, he says that because I suppose useful is something reason orders right to something, and therefore nothing is honestum vel utile that is not what good, but the the pleasant is said according to the appetite.

[41:55] It's getting curious. Let me sit there, which sometimes tends in that which is not suitable to reason, and therefore not everything delightful is good by what moral goodness, which is observed according to what reason. honestum sometimes is, they I think I've heard it referred to as it's like the moral good or something. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of when you say that about utile you got to be kind of careful what you say about utile right there, you know, because maybe he means, but it's useful for the honestum, you know.

[42:34] But if you say, you know, guns useful for robbing the bank, right? It's good for him to have a gun, you know. Your car is useful for getting home, but if you are drunk, but we shouldn't give you the keys to your car, right? See your friends don't let friends drive. What they say on even on the TV, yeah, friends don't let friends drive drunk, you know.

[43:08] To the second should be said that therefore pleasure is not sought for the sake of something else because it is rest in the end, right?

[43:18] But the end can be what good or bad, right? Although never does an end is it an end except according as it is what good Good, quad hum, right? But that could be an apparent good, huh? Thus also it is in the case of what pleasure, Pleasure.

[43:58] Now he says to third should be said that in this way all desire pleasure as the good, since pleasure is the rest of the appetite of the good. But just as it happens that not every good that is desired is what as such and truly good, so not every pleasure is per se truly good.

[44:30] It's bad to want something bad. It's even worse to delight in something bad. So if I shouldn't want to tell you off, I shouldn't enjoy telling you off.

[44:53] If I shouldn't want to hit you, I shouldn't enjoy hitting you. Can you tamper the article? Whether some pleasure is optimum, huh? To the third one proceeds thus: it seems that no pleasure is the best, right?

[45:25] For no generation is the best thing, right? For generation cannot be the last end, but pleasure follows upon generation That was some of the ideas you had in Plato, remember? Um, for from this that something is constituted in its own nature, it what is pleased, huh? Returning to your natural state, this pleasure.

[45:57] And therefore, no pleasure can be what? Best, best, yeah. Because Thomas is going to say that not all pleasures are tied up with generation, right? But they're tied up with what? Some with operations, which are these perfect acts, right? Okay.

[46:20] So understanding and hearing the music of Mozart, right, are perfect acts, right? Not the commotion of generation. You're fine in Shakespeare talking about a character returning to his natural state, right? He has a sonnet to

[46:45] him, being true to himself, right? Same pleasure, that. I think that's maybe I'm mistaken, but I know there's something like that that's in Saint Anthony's Life of Saint Anthony. It's common among some of the Eastern Fathers when they refer to the redemption. They don't speak of so much as redemption as restoring nature as it was meant to be. Yeah. So we're getting back to our natural state.

[47:20] Yeah. Well, one way you can understand this: this is above all to thine own self be true, right? Huh? So when you realize you haven't been true to yourself, you have to start regretting, you know, and pain and considering the fact that I haven't been true to myself, you know, and then you want to get back and be true to yourself, right? And then it's pleasure, right?

[47:39] But Thomas says not always in this kind of generation, returning to yourself, that you have pleasure, right? You have pleasure in these operations that are not a becoming, but but more like being, right?

[47:58] So understanding and sensing are more like being than becoming, huh? I don't know about your dinner. It's more like, more like coming up. Yeah, becoming satisfied, huh?

[48:24] Moreover, that which is best, by nothing added, can come about what better, can become better. But pleasure, added to something, right? But pleasure, something added becomes better, right?

[48:47] For better is pleasure with virtue than without, but virtue, right? Therefore, pleasure is not what optimum, huh? Moreover, that which is best is universally good. It's like we speak about God, right? Okay, universally perfect, huh? Just as existing good to itself, right? For what is per se is before more potent than that which is per accidens. So that's a very important before and after to see, right?

[49:25] per se is before the per accidens and the per se is before the per aliud, right? To another, but pleasure is not universally good, as has been said, and therefore pleasure is not the best thing.

[49:47] But against this, beatitude is the best thing, huh? That's the perfect good of the rational creature, beatitude, huh? Okay. The Greek word is makarios, Now, what was I looking? I was looking up in the in the dictionary. I mean, in the gospel there, and where I come up about there was a quote Thomas said from the scripture there about beatitude. I forget where it was now. By some, what the Greek word was, you know, something in the Greek text, and there was makarios, you know, which Aristotle uses

[50:25] sometimes. It's the word that's used in the beatitudes, and I think it's the beginning of Psalm one. The Greek word is makarios, aner blessed, blessed, be the man. It seems to be translated by Beatitudes, you know, Makarios is beatus, right? And in English, we say it's was the blessed, right?

[50:54] See, Aristotle uses the word eudamonia there, you know. In the Poetics, uses the word. You know, eutychia huh? Just like our word happiness, right? Because I'm happy. But in the ethics, he uses the word, but eudaimonia you've got a good demon, huh? A different way to understand that word, right? It could refer to, you know, the help of a superior being, right, huh? Or sometimes, you know, the soul.

[51:20] But we call it daemon, right? You got a good soul. But beatitude especially signifies. But beatitude up against this is that beatitude is the best thing, right? Since it is the end of human life, huh? Well, the end is always better than what is for the sake of the end, right? So beatitude must be the best. if It's the end of human life. But beatitude is not without what pleasure, for it is said in Psalm 15, he will fill you, right, with joy with his own what face, yeah, seeing him face to face.

[52:06] Pleasures at your right hand, you know. I suppose that's. Usque in finem, huh? Forever, right? Usque in finem. Okay, And it should be said that Plato did not lay down that all pleasures are bad, as the Stoics, right? Nor all to be good, as the what Epicureans, huh?

[52:42] But some to be good and some to be bad. Well, I'm glad Plato said that. But nevertheless, that none is the sumum bonum, right? Or the optimum, the best, right?

[52:56] But so far as can be understood from his reasons, he what failed in two things, right? In one, because since he saw sensible pleasures and bodily ones to consist in a certain motion and generation, huh? Aristotle gives an example of the of the glutton. You know, when he like a get your aff, you know, all things, he could feel the food going down and stuff. Well, that's kind of motion and a generation, right?

[53:32] How can this be the sumum bonum, you know? So he saw that what sensible pleasures and bodily ones consist in a certain motion and generation, right? Pouring the liquid down your throat or your stuff in your face, this and that, right?

[53:51] Just as is clear in the filling up of food and things of this sort, right, huh? So he what estimated, right? He guessed in a sense, right? That all pleasures what follow generation motion. Well, these things are imperfect, that. Becoming and motion.

[54:12] Whence, since generation, motion are imperfect acts. It would follow that pleasure does not have the character of motion. The what? Character of motion. Yeah, yeah. I heard the same translate ratio. I remember for the only one there from Paris. You know. Now, how do you translate this ratio? You know, somebody asked that in class. You know, when you begin, you know.

[54:43] So you could say you always have the sense of a notion, right, and then the aspect of ultimate perfection. But this is manifestly, this manifestly appears false in intellectual pleasures, right? For one, not only delights in the generation of science, as when he what. Learns or what? Or Wonders. Wonders, yes

[55:11] As has been said above, but also in contemplating, according to knowledge he is now what acquired. So I think of one of these theorems of Euclid. Oh, beautiful! We'd like to think about it again, you know.

[55:31] Delicious. Yeah. In another way, because he said that that was what. optimum illud, That is best, which is simpliciter, the sumum bonum, right? Huh? Which is the the good that is what abstract and not what partaken of. Huh? So he spoke of the good itself. It's kind of you know bonitas, it's the bonitas, right? Okay, just as we as God Himself is the what sumum bonum, right?

[56:18] But we always speak of what is best now in what human things, huh? Okay. Which is not the best simpliciter Okay. But what is best in each thing is its last end, right?

[56:41] But the end, as has been said above, is said in two ways. In one way, the thing itself and the what use of the thing has the end of the avaricious man is either what money we can say or the possession of money, right? Huh. Okay.

[57:05] And according to this, we can say the last end of man can be said to be either God Himself, right? Who is the sumum bonum suppliciter, right? Or the what enjoyment of Him, right? Which implies a certain pleasure in the last end, huh? And in this way, some pleasure of man can be said to be the best among what human goods, huh? So I think he's referring now to the pleasure of seeing God as He is face to face, right?

[57:40] Okay. You will fill me with what laetitia cum vultu tuo right? Face to face, okay. So it's not the same as face to face with little grandchildren. They'll have my summum bonum, right? Seeing the face of God, huh? Face to face.

[58:07] Okay. Now to the first one, huh? It's based on Plato's position that pleasure seems to be tied up with generation. I don't know why he's tied up with that, but he was. That not every pleasure follows what generation, but some pleasures follow operationes perfectas, right? as has been said, and therefore nothing prevents some pleasure from being the what? Being the best, right? Although not everyone is such, right?

[58:38] Okay. So it's going to be the what? The operation which has what the best maybe object for its end or for its object as the best thing for its object, right? Seeing God as He is.

[58:54] Then doesn't Augustine begin the Confessions there? He says too late have I come to know the ancient beauty. You know, what beautiful is that which pleases when seen, right? So if God is is beauty itself, huh? He's most beautiful, then the seeing of God must what be most pleasant, right? And therefore, human pleasures, or at least you could say, right, among all the pleasures of man, the most pleasant of all would be what to see God as He is, right?

[59:23] That would be the the optima pleasure, right, huh? Okay. It's not the summum bonum simpliciter, which is God Himself, right? But among all pleasures, the pleasure of seeing God is the greatest pleasure there is, the greatest light there is. The attitude is gaudium de veritate, right? But the lux vera, the true light. sapientiae plena. Yeah, yeah, right. Now about

[59:55] the second one here, right? That argument proceeds about the best simplicity, right? Through the partaking of which all things are good, huh? Whence, from the addition of nothing, does it ever become what better? So in God is right. Can't improve God at all. He's incapable of improvement, huh? He's going to be stuck at this. He's stuck in this category. Yeah. That's true I mean But there's no way to improve.

[1:00:31] But in other goods, it is universally true that each good, from the addition of another, becomes what better. So God can't be improved. What? God can't be improved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I suppose the saints in heaven, one can be more their body, their face can be more beautiful than another one, right? You know. There's no hope of improvement. Although it can be said that pleasure is not something extraneous in the operation of virtue, but something what following upon it, right?

[1:01:06] As is said in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics by the philosopher Aristotle, pagan philosopher. Now, the third should be said: pleasure does not have to be the best from this that it is pleasure, but from this that it is a perfect rest in the best thing. Hence, it is not necessary that every pleasure be the what the best thing, right? Because not as pleasure, right? Or even what good?

[1:01:45] Every pleasure is good. Pleasure of torturing you, right? Pleasure of asking for their what sense of before one sense of before before another sense of before. That's torture. That pleasure doing that, right? I enjoy it.

[1:02:08] Once it is not necessary that every pleasure be best or even what good, just as some knowledge, some reason, knowledge is best, but not all, right? Okay. Aristotle argues that the what wisdom is the best knowledge, right? And wisdom, he says, is what it's a knowledge of God in two senses, right? It's a knowledge where what is known is God Himself, right? And it's a knowledge which either God alone has, he says, or which God alone has perfectly or fully, right?

[1:02:52] So that's why I say if Aristotle could partake of the divine wisdom, right, as we do in this life by faith, right, then he would see this as even more wisdom than what first philosophy, right?

[1:03:16] You know when Thomas says that in theology we consider God first, right, and then other things insofar as God is the beginning and the end of them, right. Well, because we're what imitating God's own way of knowing, huh? Because God knows primarily Himself, right? He knows other things by knowing Himself, right? Why in philosophy we don't what

[1:03:48] have that likeness to God's knowledge, right? We know God from His effects, right? So Aristotle spends you know the first ten books or so studying the effects, right? It's not until the twelfth book of Wisdom that he reasons out about God, right? So he's the last thing that Aristotle considers, right? Fitting into his book, right? Huh? But God, in senses, the first thing you know we consider in theology and other things in comparison to God, right?

[1:04:23] So we imitate God's great knowing. So Thomas points out there in the beginning of the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles and he's going to go from God to talk about creation and creatures, right? That the order in philosophy is the contrary of the order in what theology, right? Where God is the last thing considered in sense in philosophy, and the first thing considered in what theology, yeah.

[1:04:52] That's why it's kind of you know out of order, you know, when they had the you know the you know the professor of philosophy they're always getting these free copies of Introductions to Philosophy and so on. Usually they're kind of a series of readings, right? But they always have to meet there about the existence of God, right? Well, that's not really where you should be beginning philosophy by questioning whether God exists or not, right?

[1:05:18] Because that's not what comes first for a reason, huh? You better just start with Mother Earth, you know. You don't get involved with those feminists, but yeah, yeah. I mean, Mother Earth is kind of what the poets said first, right? You know, then the first philosophers said, "No, it's water, not Earth." But Mother Earth is not a bad place to begin, right? Huh? Of course, in English, you know, we get the English word for causes kind of ground grounds for divorce, right?

[1:05:53] Legally, cause for divorce, right? Huh? And that's why you know the English word for knowing the cause, you know, to understand, right? The ground, to know the ground, huh? So

[1:06:09] Mother Earth fits that pretty well, right? That's kind of where you naturally begin, right? And ground seems it seems more natural to call Mother Earth ground, the ground of things, and to say God is the ground of things, although you could extend the word, right? Then. That's it's going on in the the so have to stop now, or is it? Yes, I think so. We seem to get through the third article.

[1:06:38] We get the fourth article. Well, next time since we're going to cover sadness, might as well start off with pleasure before we get to sadness. How sad! How sad! I don't want to hear about this.