Prima Secundae
140. Aquinas on Virtue I (ST I-II q.58 a.3–4): Intellectual vs. Moral Virtue, and Why Moral Virtue Needs Prudence
Class of 2013-10-31
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[0:00] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you have written. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:36] To the third, then, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that human virtue, right? I know he says humana virtus, right? Is not sufficiently, not completely divided by moral virtue and intellectual virtue.

[1:00] The first objection is that prudence or foresight seems to be something in the middle between moral virtue and intellectual virtue. For it is numbered with the intellectual virtues in the sixth book of ethics. That's the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which is devoted to the virtues of reason, right? And also, by everybody, is commonly numbered among the four what cardinal virtues, which are moral, as will be clear below, right?

[1:35] It seems to be something in between these two, right? To get it divided into three instead of two, right? Therefore, not sufficiently is virtue divided by intellectual and moral, as to what the immediate ones in which you

[1:53] divided them. Moreover, continence and persevering, right, and also patience are not numbered among what intellectual virtues. Nor also are they moral virtues because they do not hold the middle in what passions, right? So the common man is a man who's got this urge to pursue the woman or go to some excess in the sensual pleasures, and he's struggling, you know, and he has to jump into the bush or something, you know, you know.

[2:32] But he does. He doesn't have the the mean that is virtue, right? Okay. What is what is rich in Venice there? Huh? It's no mean happiness to be constituted in the mean. You know, it's a beautiful you know pun on the word mean there. You know, but well, Shakespeare understands these things, huh? Well, this person is not in the mean, right? He's got this great struggle and perseverance or patience.

[2:59] You got this sadness, you know, you're really struggling, right? Okay. Therefore, one does not sufficiently divide virtue into intellectual and moral. Right? There is no place for these things, right? Okay. Now, the third objection, right? The reason why I emphasize it, he's saying virtus humana, right? Moreover, faith, hope, and charity are certain virtues, but they are not what intellectual virtues. For these only are the five, right?

[3:39] The the five: science, sapientia, intellectus. Those are the theoretical virtues, right? And prudence and art. Right. Those are the five that Aristotle distinguishes. Nor are they also moral virtues because they're not about what the passions or the emotions about which most of all is moral virtue, right? The first two virtues you take up among moral virtues are courage, which is about you know fear and so on, and then you have what temperance, right?

[4:13] These are about passions, emotions. Therefore, virtue is not sufficiently divided by intellectual and what moral. I think when Thomas takes up the question of faith, hope, and charity virtues, he'll say, "Well, virtues are either moral, intellectual, but this is neither. Therefore, they're not virtues, right? Here he's arguing the other way around, right? Yeah. Okay. But against all this is what somebody called the philosopher, right? Says in the second book of the ethics, twofold is virtue: this intellectual, that moral.

[4:55] Right. My rich, my brother Richard, and his and his his cousin Donald—they were both philosophy majors, right? Same age, same year. And they give my uncle Jim, you know, the Nicomachean Ethics to read, right? Different kind of college, right? But it made sense to him, right? You know, because Uncle Jim had had joined, you know, the U. S. Army in the First World War. He falsified his age; he was like seventeen or something, you know.

[5:20] And then he never got married. So in the Second World War, he said, "Oh, I should volunteer." He said, "Why should a married man go?" You know, you know, children. So he volunteered again. So he had some some virtues, you know, and and so

[5:38] so you can understand to some extent the Nicomachean Ethics, right? We're kind of reading that, you know, in high school, you know, impressed with it.

[5:51] Okay. Now, what does the master say? I answer: It should be said that human virtue is a habit, right? Perfecting man to doing what well for doing well. But the beginning of human acts in man is only twofold, to wit, the understanding or the reason, as you can call it, and the appetitive power.

[6:25] Someone translated appetite there, but the appetitive power, right? For these are the two things that are movers in man, as is said in the third book on the soul. Right? Aristotle takes up the what living powers, the vegetative powers first, right? And then he takes up the what sense powers. Then he takes up the intellectual powers, and last of all the moving powers, right? Because they presuppose either sense or understanding and the desiring powers, right?

[7:02] These are desiring powers with the moving powers, right? Whence every human virtue necessarily is perfective of one of these two beginnings, right? If therefore, if it is perfective of either the speculative intellect or of the practical, which differ what not as two different powers, but they differ by their what End, right? To the good act of man, it will be an intellectual virtue, right? It's perfecting either looking reason or doing reason, as I call them, right?

[7:44] To the great scandal, one uses the word theoretical or speculative. I use the Greek word or Latin word, huh? Even practical is really kind of a Greek word or Latin word. Okay. If, however, it is perfective of the appetitive part, and that means both the what the will and the irascible and gives what emotional appetites, sense appetites, it will be what a moral virtue, right? Whence it remains that every human virtue is either intellectual or what moral.

[8:26] So let's see, as I would tell my students, that's known as a universal affirmative statement. Every human virtue, every human virtue without exception, right, is either one of those two, right? That's division into two.

[8:48] Now, what about the objection here from foresight, right, or prudence, which is sometimes put with the moral virtues, as when we talk about the cardinal virtues in the *Protagoras*, there where Socrates talks about the virtues. He has the four cardinal virtues plus piety. It's kind of interesting, huh? He's more pious than we are. Cardinal virtues, and he asks Protagoras, "Are these five names of the same thing, or the names of different things, like the nose and the ear?"

[9:19] And you know, and Protagoras says, "Well, they're names of different parts, you know, different things." When Socrates starts to reason of all things that they're really the same thing, right? And it's kind of beautiful the way he reasons, huh?

[9:39] But he takes the idea, you know, that the he's showing that foresight and temperance are the same thing, right? He says he induces, you know, that the thing is only one opposite, right? And then the opposite of wisdom and the temperance is the same. But you can see that in Shakespeare, right now. When you call somebody fond, right now, that means foolish, right? You know. So if you're fond of a girl, you're making a fool of yourself of this girl.

[10:12] That's what it means, right? And so he'll say somewhere else, he'll say you're being stupid. You're being fond. I mean, it doesn't do the girl. I mean, you know, it means foolish. Well, foolish is the opposite of wisdom, and it's opposite of temperance, right? You know, I mean, if a person gets drunk he, acts like a fool, right? So the intemperance is a kind of folly or, foolishness.

[10:35] So if that's the opposite of temperance, and it's also the opposite, obviously, of wisdom, they must be the same thing, right? But that's Socrates' mistake, in there, of course. But interestingly, he argues, right?

[10:53] Okay. But Thomas sees here what fundamental thing for the mind, which is to see what distinction, right? Distinction is more basic than division, and division than definition, right? A definition, in a way, is what involves a division, right? The species into its genus and differences, right? And a division is what distinction of the parts of some whole, right? So distinction is kind of the fundamental thing for the mind, right?

[11:24] And that's why we, in Shakespeare, defines reason as looking before and after. Before and after presupposes distinction, right? You don't say division or definition, but it does presuppose distinction. So Thomas sees a great distinction here. Prudence, secundum essentiam suam, according to its very nature or essence, right, is a virtue of what? A reason, an intellectual virtue. But according to the matter, right, it comes together with the moral virtues.

[11:56] For his right reason about things to be done, right? Okay. Right reason about how much I should drink or eat, right? How angry I should be or not. Maybe I shouldn't be angry at all. Maybe I should be a little bit angry. Maybe I should be very angry. You know. So okay. And according to this, it is numbered with the moral virtues, right? So that distinction is not too hard to see, but but a clear, clear mind he has, huh?

[12:26] If he gave the average guy that objection, I mean, he'd be all over the place, right? He wouldn't see that that distinction that that illuminates the thing.

[12:38] Now the second objection, now. To second, it should be said that continence and perseverance are not perfections, right? Of the sense-desiring power. The not perfections are the irascible appetite or the concupiscible appetite, as we say.

[13:06] Which is clear from this fact that in the one whose continent, the one who perseveres, there excel disordered what passions, which would not be the case if the sense-desiring power had been perfected by some habit conforming it to what reason.

[13:34] But continence or perseverance is a perfection of the rational part, right? Which holds itself, right? Contains itself, you might say, as the word continence there, containing yourself, right? Control yourself, right? Get hold of yourself. Get hold of yourself, we say, right? But you need to get hold of yourself because you know you have this excessive passion, right? What's murdering you, right? What can control yourself, right? Okay.

[14:20] Lest it be what deduced, right? Led into, right? Yeah. But nevertheless, it falls short of the definition of virtue, right? The notion of virtue, because the intellectual virtue, which makes reason have itself well about moral matters, presupposes the right desire of the what? End. Yeah. So that it might rightly have itself about the beginnings, which are the ends, right? From which it what reasons, right? And this is lacking in the contented man, the persevering man.

[15:04] The one is too aroused, essentially, you might say, right? The other is too too depressed or too sad or too you know miserable, right? Much ado about nothing much to do about nothing, you know, where the the accused falsely the daughter, the only daughter, you know, of being you know involved with another man, you know, the man she's about to marry, you know, and the father, you know, is telling him to calm down.

[15:34] He says, "Let someone else have exactly the same thing happen to me. It's my only child," and goes on. He says, "But then you know, no, no, no, any different from a a beast." And then he complains about the philosopher. He said, Oh Never could a philosopher, you know, you know, put up with a toothache, you know. Isn't there a passage where Augustine complains about a tooth It must be in *confessions*, I guess?

[15:56] I think so, yeah, Yeah, okay. It gives him a lot of discomfort, you know. It's kind of a beautiful thing where people, you know, a, person who's not feeling these things, right? Not in the situation, he can. You say, "Calm down, get control yourself," you know, and this makes you more angry, right?

[16:19] I'm not yelling. Tell me the story, you know, of a clerk there. I know in the bank or I mean in the post office, something like that. But all these people coming with complaints, you know, and he's handling very calmly, you know, and so on. And this guy finally got the. You saw patient the guy was, you know, with all these complaints, and so he said to compliment the guy on his patience and the guy's book.

[16:46] He had a quarter. He had a quarter. So you can't really have a virtue in the what intellectual part with respect to human action if your appetite is not what well disposed, because then you don't have what the starting point, right? Which is the end, right? For your deliberation, right?

[17:29] So my experience of a drunk is, you know, they they don't really deny the principle, the abstract principle that one should drink moderately, right? What they deny is that they've had too much. But everybody else can see that they've had too much, right? But they can't judge, you know. Charlie used to work with in the package store. He'd say, "The moment you start to drink, he says, you lose your ability to judge how much is too much, right?"

[17:55] Okay. Nor he says is that able to be perfect doing or operation which goes forward from two powers, right? Unless both powers are perfected by a what suitable habit. Just as it is not followed a perfect action of some agent through a tool if the tool is not well what disposed, right? No matter how the principal agent is what perfect, right? But this person who is continent or persevering despite this what excess of his emotion, right?

[18:33] He's not perfect in both what powers, right? Okay. Whence is the sense-desiring power which the rational part moves is not perfect, right? No matter how perfect the rational part is, the action following will not be what perfect. Perfect, huh? Don't they say about Saint Jerome he had kind of a temper, right? Okay. Whence neither will the beginning of action be a virtue, right? So Thomas is solving this by saying what?

[19:11] continence and perseverance don't belong to a third category of what virtue because they don't belong with either the moral virtue or the virtues of reason. But they're not virtues. Period. See, in account of this, continence from pleasures, right, and perseverance from what? Sadness. Sadness, right, are not virtues but something less than a virtue, as the philosopher says in the seventh book of the ethics. Right. In the seventh book of the ethics, he's already talked about what the moral virtues in books two through five, and then the five virtues of reason in book six.

[19:52] Right. What does he do in book seven? Right. He talks about those things that what are either above or below human virtue. Right, and these things are below, right? They don't quite measure up. He talks about heroic virtue, you know, and which is kind of quasi semi divine thing, right? Thomas refers to that text when he talks about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, right? Kind of heroic virtue, right?

[20:18] Where a hero in Greek fiction would be what a man who had a human mother or father, and then the other part of it was divine, right? So Achilles was a hero, right? Because his mother was a goddess, right? His father was a human mortal. Some are the reverse, right? Some have, a, you know, God for a father, and so on. so they have something. high. So Aristotle is talking about something that falls out, right?

[20:43] You know, he talks about bestiality. This is a vice that is below human vice, right? It's not even a vice; it's something even worse than that, right? And he also talks about something that might be above human virtue, and so

[21:03] that's what's in the seventh book afterwards. Then the eighth and ninth books, he talks about friendship, right? And now he can come back in the tenth book and complete the consideration of happiness and whatever it is, fully.

[21:18] Now the last objection, that's why I was emphasizing the word human virtue, right? Thomas is asking whether intellectual and moral sufficiently divide human virtue, right? To the third, it should be said that faith, hope, and charity are supra above human virtues, right? For they are virtues of man, insofar as he is made a partaker of divine grace, and therefore the divine nature in a sense, right?

[21:50] So as I mentioned, he'll argue the other way around with these questions of the faith, hope, and charity of virtues They say, well, virtues are either moral or intellectual, so he's neither one, so Aristotle doesn't talk about those, so they can't be virtues, right? Now four and five, notice huh. Four is saying whether moral virtue can be without intellectual virtue, and then five would be the reverse. Can intellectual virtue be without what?

[22:25] Moral virtue, right? To the fourth, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that moral virtue is able to be without intellectual virtue. For moral virtue, as Tully says, right, is a virtue in the mode of nature, right, in agreement with what? Reason, huh?

[22:58] But nature, although it consents to some superior reason moving, right, it however is not necessary that that what reason be joined to nature in the same thing, right? So Aristotle, in the biological works, he admires the the mind, right, that design these

[23:22] structure these animals, right? But that mind is not possessed by those animals, right? I'm always amazed when I read about you know these migrations of the birds, you know, and so on. They seem to be able to go great distances and find their way. You know, We don't have a map and get lost or something, you know. And I guess through the years when they studied these, some birds depends on the bird and on many things, I guess, but I don't know.

[23:51] But some some kinds of birds when they migrate, they make the same. They stop in the same places every year. They stop in the same tree, even on the same branch. Some particular bird will always go to that particular branch in that tree every time they migrate. Go figure that one out.

[24:19] Therefore, it's able to be. Therefore, in man, a moral virtue in modum naturae, right? That's what he's emphasizing there, huh? Inclining one to agreeing with reason, although the reason of that man is not itself perfect through what? Intellectual virtue. Yeah. Okay.

[24:41] Moreover, through intellectual virtue, man what achieves? The perfect use of reason. Perfect use of reason, yeah. But sometimes it happens that some in some things, right, the use of reason is not very vigorous, right? But they are nevertheless what virtuous and acceptable to God, right? And therefore, it seems that, moral, virtue can be without intellectual virtue, right? I was reading Thomas's commentary there in the eighth psalm, you know, and he says, you know, how God is the end there, the reason, and so on.

[25:25] And he says, some men, of course, depart from this, right? But the only ones that adhere to it are, he says, there are two: the wise and the simple, right? Well, of course, what he means by simple doesn't mean the simpletons, right? But he means those who are what pure of heart, in a sense, that goes. Simple in the good sense, right? Shakespeare in the sonnet there complains about simple truth, miscalled simplicity.

[25:56] And but there, the simple there seem to not have the vigorous use of reason, right? But they still they have sense. Yeah, yeah. That's what Chesterton says. You don't have to be intelligent to be an intellectual. Gregory, I mean, intellectual is a pejorative word. You know, I mean, I never call myself an intellectual. I would never say that. No, I might say I try to use my reason, but I wouldn't.

[26:32] But it is curious, I mean, how the intellectuals, I mean, in the academy, there, they got crazier opinions than the man in the street does, you know. They can't. The man in the street can hardly believe that they think the they do.

[26:49] Moreover, moral virtue makes a what inclination to do well. But some have a natural inclination to doing well, right? Even without the judgment of reason, some people are mild, right? By nature, right? Or temperate, right? It's kind of interesting to see that you know people you know who don't eat or drink too much, right? You know, they seem to have a natural temperance, right? Well, then can't you have moral virtue without?

[27:21] Therefore, moral virtues are able to be without intellect. So, seems to be some truth to these objections, right? But against this is what Gregory says. Now he's quoting the philosopher, and he's quoting Gregory in the twenty-second book of the Morality, right? Thomas makes a lot of use of Gregory there in the De Malo, talk about the seven capital vices.

[27:52] That the other virtues, unless those things they desire, they do what in a prudent way, right? Are in no way able to be what Virtues. virtues, huh? But prudence is a for intellectual virtue, as has been said above. Therefore, moral virtues are not able to be without what intellectual. Well, I assume the Thomas is going to say, you know, that you can't have moral virtue perfectly without the virtue of reason, right?

[28:21] But I think there is some truth in the objections, right? I answer: It should be said that moral virtue is able to be without some virtues of reason, right?

[28:38] Just as without wisdom, science, and what art, it doesn't say intellectuals because that you naturally have, right? But is not able to be without what Intellectual. I suppose that's understanding? Yeah, fundamental things, yeah, and and prudence, he says, right?

[29:05] Now, without prudence, there cannot be moral virtue, because moral virtue is a habit with what choice? That is one making for a good choice.

[29:20] But in order that a choice be good, two things are required: one is that there be a suitable intention of the end, and this comes about through moral virtue, right? Which inclines the desiring power to a good that is in agreement with reason, which is a suitable what end? But secondly, that man rightly takes those things which are towards the what end, and

[29:52] this cannot be except by reason taking counsel rightly, right, and judging right, rightly, and what commanding? Yeah, the three acts, right? Which belongs to prudence. especially the third one, right? And to the virtues annexed to it, attached to it, we're talking about euboulia the gnome and synesis. You can stand those, words huh We have the words to finish. Whence moral virtue without prudence is not able to be, right?

[30:35] And consequently, not without what understanding? Yeah, for through understanding are known. I call it natural understanding. Are known the principles or beginnings naturally known, right? Both in speculative matters and in what doing? Huh? Whence, just as right reason in speculative matters, in so far as it proceeds from principles naturally known, presupposes the understanding of beginnings. So also, Prudence, presupposes that right? And I understand the natural law, which is right reason about things to be what done, huh?

[31:19] Okay. How's he answer these objections? Because they all seem to have a little bit of truth in them, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the inclination of nature in things lacking reason, right, is without what choice? Yeah, he emphasizes the word choice there, right? And therefore, such an inclination does not require, of necessity, what reason, right? But the inclination of moral virtue is with choice, huh?

[31:51] That's a key thing for him, right? So Aristotle talks about choice where in the third book. But in the second book, he defines the moral virtue as a habit with choice, right? Sometimes I translate that like that, or sometimes a habit of choice. Choosing right, choosing what is in the middle towards us has determined the right reason, and that's in the definition of it, right?

[32:20] So that's the key thing here, choice, huh? People talking about choice now. That's sick. Yeah. They are masters of deceit. That's all. They're masters of these word crafters. Who is it? Masters, all the, all the political mumbo jumbo, all the word crafters out there. If you ask,

[32:48] are you in favor of chopping up babies in the mother's womb? Well, that's a choice. That's that's what you're choosing, yeah. But no, insofar as you don't inform women about what the thing is, she make a reasonable choice. You know, kind of difficult for her to make. Yeah. Just a bunch of you know something they tell her.

[33:22] Now, to the second should be said that in the virtuous person it is not necessary that the use of reason be vigorous, huh? What's the word for vigour out there? Be strong, I guess.

[33:41] Full use of reason. Be strong, vigorous, thrive, flourish, bloom, blossom, be active, be effective, so. Be vigorous, huh? Flourishing as regards all things, right? But only as regards those things which should be done by virtue, right, huh? And thus the use of reason is vigorous in all that are what? Virtue. Virtue.

[34:04] Whence also those who seem to be simplices right? The word simplices, right? In that they lack what worldly astuteness, huh? Slyness, yeah, or something. like that. Are able to be what prudent, right, huh? According to that of Matthew ten sixteen, be prudent as serpents, and simple as what? Doves. Doves, huh? Yeah, I don't know if it's not the word simple that St. Paul uses, but when he speaks of being children in terms of sin, but not in sense, yeah, knowledge.

[34:37] I mean, meaning, I think sense there being a basic kind of knowledge that is required just to be virtuous. That's my understanding. Maybe when we use that word, he's got sense. We say that. Good sense. I know we've talked about that good sense. Okay.

[35:00] Now, what about the natural inclination? To the third, then it ought to be said that the natural inclination to the good of virtue is a certain what beginning of virtue, huh? But is not, however, a what perfect virtue. For this inclination, the stronger it is, the more what dangerous in a way it is, right? Unless right reason be joined, through which there comes about a right choice of those things which what, Along to the right end.

[35:32] yeah, just as the what running horse, yeah, if it be blind, the more strongly it impinges and hinges itself, right? The more strongly it runs, right? And therefore, although moral virtue is not ratio recta, as Socrates said, right, that was a mistake too.

[35:54] Not only, however, is it according to right reason, right? Insofar as it inclines to that which is according to right reason, as the Platonists lay down, but also necessary that it be with right reason, as Aristotle says in the sixth book of the Ethics, right? See, prefers Aristotle to both Socrates and Plato, right?

[36:20] You know, you read the story that Aristotle's supposed to set up a monument, monument, you say to Plato, you know, the first man to show both by word by his example, right, that the virtuous life is a happy life. What what a what a praise of Plato, you know. He showed his way he acted right. What was a good life, you know? And they also showed by argument and by word, right, that this was a good life, you know.

[36:55] Some men have done one, but not the other, right? And and vice versa, right? Some was a good life that couldn't be defended, right? He gives

[37:09] a good example, but he also, you know, showed by reason that this was the way to live. That's what Father Benigar, who's a Franciscan theologian back early twentieth century, wrote a book on spiritual theology. He's talking about humility. He says, "Well, if it's true that the author of the Imitation of Christ says it's better to be able to practice humility than define it, he says, 'Well, if that's considered one extreme, the other is to be able to define it but not practice it.

[37:41] Well the virtue lies in between: it to be able to practice it and define it. ' Yeah, it's the same idea. You know, you see this sometimes in the soldier. You know, it's a very young soldier. You know, they're kind of foolhardy in a sense, right? And then, as they get older, they, you know, they're really courageous in the full sense, right? Because you know, take unnecessary risks.

[38:14] Yeah, the famous thing, I guess, Washington's supposed to. Using first those first battles during the French Indian Wars, you know, and he talked about the brawls whizzing by, you know, and how exciting it was, you know. Okay, because they asked me to be a life, you know. Did you actually say that? Well, maybe I did. He said, but I was young then. He said.

[38:38] Who Who is the one who said? I heard this not too long ago, and I don't know who said it. It's a simple, simple expression. When I was young and foolish, I was young and foolish.

[38:51] But didn't was it? Who was it? Was it? Was it? Benedict? There's so many people, you know. Did they get into the religious life and they would go to certain excess, right? In penance. Carry of ours. Yeah, and then hurt their their physical health, right? And that's not prudent, you'd say, right? You know. So, but you have to, you know, preach strong inclination to discipline yourself, right?

[39:15] But just carry of ours admitted that later, and as Lexy did, hinder himself. Some of us still have the problem. Yeah. Yeah, we don't. We don't have that excessive inclination

[39:57] to penance. Well, there's the best example. There's a woman too, you know, who you know trying to lose weight or really, really, you know, going to excess, you know, and this. Some of them realize they've gone to excess, you know.

[40:04] I was talking to one of my girl students one time, you know, very good, very good, very good student. But no, she didn't eat lunch, you know. So I said, "You say you need lunch. " Oh, I said that's not unusual for a girl not to eat lunch. That's not unusual. Unusual for girls not a lot of girls to eat lunch. It's better to find the mean.

[40:26] Better to find the mean in between the extremes. It's not all or nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Start off. So. So, moreover, virtue cannot be without what intellectual virtue, without foresight and what understanding understanding. It can be without wisdom and science and art right? So, can be without three of the five, but not without the other two. Now he's asking the reverse question, right?