Prima Secundae
143. Summa I-II Q59 A5 & Q60 A1: Virtue with passion; is there only one moral virtue?
Class of 2013-11-08
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/143-summa-i-ii-q59-a5-q60-a1-virtue-with-passion-is-there-only/

[0:00] To the fifth, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that moral virtue is able to be without what passion, right? Huh? For the more perfect moral virtue is, the more it what overcomes or excels, right? The passions. Therefore, in its what most perfect being, right? It is altogether without passions, right?

[0:29] Okay. Moreover, then each thing is perfect when it is remote from its contrary and from those things which incline to the what contrary. But passions or emotions incline one to sin, which is contrary to virtue, of course. Whence, in Romans chapter seven, they are called the passions of sin, right?

[0:56] The flesh, what? Fights against the spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Flesh is the place where the emotions are, right? As Faustus say, you know, I got more flesh, therefore. I should be. Excused, right, for my life. Therefore, okay, perfect virtue is altogether without passion, right?

[1:35] Moreover, according to what virtue we are conformed to God, right? As Augustine himself says in the book on the morals of the church, right? But God does everything without passion, huh? Without emotion, right?

[1:54] And therefore, the most perfect virtue is without what all passion, right? That's a good objection. That's a good objection. Yeah, there's some truth to that, right? Yeah. But there's some virtues there about passions we saw before.

[2:13] But against this is that no one is just who does not what rejoice in just doing, right? As is said in the first book of the ethics. But joy is a what passion? Therefore, justice is not able to be without passion, and much more the other virtues, right? Those adjoining that's in the will too, right?

[2:42] Thomas often quotes that passage of Aristotle in the seventh book about God's rejoicing, right? But not rejoicing it is. Emotion. Hence, it should be said that if we call passions disordered affections, right? As the what Stoics lay down, then it is manifest that pure virtue is without what passions, right? But if by passions we mean or call all motions of the sense-desiring power, it is clear that moral virtues, that the moral virtues which are about the passion, as about their own matter, are not able to be without what passions.

[3:32] You can't have temperance without what. Yeah, you can't if you have no hunger or thirst, right? You can't have. Yeah. And the reason for this is because, according to this, it would follow that moral virtue makes the sense-desiring power altogether what idle.

[3:59] It does not, however, pertain to what virtue, and that those things which are subject to reason should give up their own what acts, but that they follow the command of reason in doing their what own acts, right?

[4:20] Whence, just as virtue orders the what limbs of the body, right, to suitable exterior acts, right, so it what virtue orders the sense desire to ordered what motions of its own kind, right?

[4:48] But the moral virtues which are not about passions, as their what object, right, but about operations, can be without what passions, right? And a virtue of this sort is justice, which is in the will, right? So that's the reason why, in God, we can speak of what properly, not metaphorically, that God is what just, right?

[5:18] But you couldn't say properly that he's what. Temperate. Yeah, or courageous, right? Okay. You couldn't say metaphorically that he's temperate. Huh? You couldn't even say metaphorically, that he's strong. okay?

[5:37] There's something like this between what God does and what the brave man does, right? But not reading texts between God and what the temperate man does, right? Eating and drinking moderately and so on.

[6:03] Because through these virtues, the will is applied to its own act, which is not a what undergoing, right? But nevertheless, there follows to the act of justice joy, at least a joy that is in the what will. This is the joy that God talks about. It's more joy in heaven, right? Or instead of, what's even the angels, right? They don't have emotions either. They

[6:35] don't, you know, your angels don't get discouraged. Yeah, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't get emotional about about your converting, but it's joy, right, of your conversion. Okay, which is not a passion, and if this joy is multiplied by the perfection of justice, right, there comes about a what overflowing, right? A redundancy, overflowing of joy down to the what sense appetite, right? The famous example that is what Saint Teresa of Avila, you know, coming out of her cell and trying to dance and sing about, yeah, that's overflow, right, into the body, right?

[7:23] Okay, I'm sure there was that too, that when the apostles met the risen Christ, right? There was the body was what the joy in the soul overflowed into the what body, right? Huh? You see that even as a philosophy, you know, if you're trying to understand something, all of a sudden you see it. Ah! Even physically, you feel what better, right? Well, if you can't, if you can't solve it, you can't then then kind of you know the sadness or overflows in the body too, right?

[7:51] Body's tired, huh? According as the lower powers follow the motion of the what higher ones, huh? And thus, through this overflowing, the more the virtue is perfect, then the more it what causes the what passion. That's interesting, right? Because it's an overflow, right? Huh? Notice we've replied on the first objection. To the first, therefore, it should be said that virtue overcomes what disordered passions or emotions, right?

[8:39] But it produces right moderated ones, huh? The second should be said that it's disordered passions that lead one to what sin, right? Huh? Not, over, ones that are what? Right? Yeah, yeah. I'm always struck, you know, by the fact that that tragedy, you know, is defined by Aristotle, defined by Shakespeare in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet, right? It moves us to pity and what fear, right?

[9:18] Huh? But doesn't that emotion of pity, you know, dispose people well to helping others, right? Didn't feel any pity, you know, but but if you have concern about others, then you're going to feel pity, you know, when you hear somebody is dying or sick or some other misfortunes happen to them, right?

[9:40] I mean doesn't tragedy have kind of a civilizing effect upon people too, right? Shakespeare has some interesting things there about it's better to be what how much better it is to be sad or you know to weep at good fortune than to rejoice in bad fortune right

[10:14] some some people when something nice really nice happens to them you know they start to cry you know you know it should be joyful right but kind of overcome it's kind of interesting thing but if you rejoice when bad things happen to people there's something wrong with you definitely understands these things you know I was I was reading my new Hudson edition of Hamlet yesterday a little bit in introductory sections here and so on and he was talking about this famous British actress there in the 19th century Helen Faucet have you ever heard of her and I was on the phone today with Uncle Warren and I said have you ever heard of Helen Faucet I've heard of her but anyway he was quoting something

[11:02] that she had said about these and she played many many Shakespeare roles you know and so on so I guess she started writing letters to her friends talking about how she regarded this or that female character that Shakespeare had and they said this is so good you've got to put this in a book right and so she finally wrote a book you know where she talks about maybe about eight different female characters in Shakespeare Juliet and Desdemona and and so on Imogen and so I'm going to read it now I just started start looking at it but in the beginning there she's saying you know we have an infinite debt to Shakespeare you know because he's represented so well what is most what really pleasing

[11:45] in a woman right what's really most noble and so on woman you know that makes a woman really really good woman a beautiful text infinite debt though you know he said about Shakespeare now he understands woman better than they understand themselves I mean there's there's another book and I forget the name of the author now but but she wrote this book on the female characters of Shakespeare right and I'd I'd seen it quoted in some of these you know 19th century editions and so on You know, it was out at Thomas Aquinas College that they had it in the library you know so I had my brother take it out for me and I went to the thing you know I was there you know

[12:23] but but very you know appreciative these these intelligent woman you know I think this is the same woman who did the thing on the Madonnas too you know she went around Europe and wrote a book on all the different Madonnas you know in Europe but I mean really a good understanding of what is to be feminine you know in a good sense so this this on Faucet seems kind of interesting you know what's the name of the book by her the actress I forget it's called something like something about the characters, the female characters.

[12:55] I forget the exact title of it. Yeah, having the vassal. Yeah, even fiddling around, you can find it. Basically, translation, you know. They have the the book or biography too by her husband, you know.

[13:14] Which is apparently quite a good woman, you know. Very much admired by Queen Victoria, so she dedicated the book to Queen Victoria. But it's good to see these very perspicacious, women of this sort. You know, appreciating, you know, Shakespeare's representation of the woman. Interesting.

[13:42] Okay. Okay. So that's one more objection. right To the third should be said that the good in each thing is considered according to the condition of its what nature, Nature, right? In God and in the angels, there is no what sense-desiring power because there is no body there, right? Just as there is in man no the sense-desiring power. and therefore the good operation of God and the angel is omnino, altogether without what passion.

[14:40] He's not an emotional guy. Just as is without what body, right? But the good operation of man is with what? Yeah, just as it is with the ministering of the what? Yeah, service of the body. Yeah.

[15:06] So Thomas something says about certain thinkers they forget they're men. Angelism. Yeah. yeah. Can I have it with moments, too? Yeah. Okay, we've, got time for one more? So we're going to question sixty now, which is the the distinction of moral virtues to each other, right? Then we're not to consider about the distinction of moral virtues to each other, and about this five things are asked. I didn't know that.

[15:45] First, whether there is only one moral virtue. Strange to have such an article, huh? Second, whether the moral virtues which are about operation are distinguished from those which are about what? Passions.

[16:06] Third, whether about operation there is only one moral virtue, right? Fourth, whether about diverse passions there are diverse moral virtues, right? So courage is about what? Fear and boldness, right? And temperance is about what?

[16:33] Yeah, pleasure. And mildness is about anger, right? So there's going to be that. And five, whether moral virtues are distinguished according to the diverse objects of the what? Passions, right?

[16:52] Well, first, whether there's only one moral virtue, because there's only one moral virtue, you don't have any distinction to be made, right? So this is kind of fundamental question, right? Huh? Right. To the first Response one goes thus. It seems that there's only one moral virtue. Who would think that?

[17:15] For just as in the moral virtues, direction pertains to what? Reason. Which is the what? Reason, which is the subject of the intellectual virtues, right? So also inclination pertains to the desiring power, which is the subject of the moral virtues. But there is one intellectual virtue directing in all the what? Moral acts. To wit, foresight, right? Therefore, there's only one moral virtue inclining in all moral acts, right?

[17:54] I think I mentioned before how in the dialogue called the Protagoras, right? Socrates asked Protagoras, "Are are the cardinal virtues that we call them, right? Piety, he adds to the ones we have. Five, are the names of the same thing or names of different things, right? " And Protagoras says the names are different things, right? Then Socrates starts to argue that they're all what? Yeah, yeah. And the most interesting argument is the argument that I mentioned I think last time.

[18:26] He argues that temperance and wisdom, practical wisdom, are the same thing, right? He does so because I think there's only one what? Opposite, right? There's only one opposite of white, which is black, right? One opposite of virtue, which is vice, right? And what's the opposite of wisdom? What's foolishness, right? But what's the opposite of what? Temperance? Well, it's foolish, right? You know, it's the man who drinks too much, and the man, who says, woman, makes a fool of himself, you know.

[19:05] And so it seems that foolishness is opposed to temperance, and opposed to wisdom. They've got to be opposed to one. So it's got to be the same thing, right?

[19:19] Of course, you know, there's some similarity there between wisdom and modesty, right? Yeah, well, I mean, Shakespeare says modest wisdom plucks me from over credulous haste there in Macbeth, right? Modest wisdom, right?

[19:40] I was looking at the Merchant of Venice there, and the guy who makes the wrong guess, you know, there's which chest contains the picture of Portia, right there. There's a little scroll in there you know, put you in your place, right? If you had been wise as bold, right?

[20:03] Of course, there's a beautiful text from Dionysius the Areopagite that Thomas comments on, that the source of error is bold imagination, right? So boldness there, you might say, is what's opposed, right? Why Socrates has this fear of being thought to know, the fear that he might think he knows what he doesn't know, right? He's very concerned about that, right? And my friend Warren Murray said, the Monsignor Dionne, his predominant passion is fear, right?

[20:35] It's from that fear of being mistaken, right? You know, he's very careful, right? You know, if you present some new hatched idea, you know, his first reaction is to reject it, you know, and you've got to really defend it, right, to get anywhere, right? So you might say, well, you know, fear makes you what? Caution. Yeah, fear of the Lord is the beginning of what? Wisdom. Yeah, yeah.

[21:03] So you make you might try to make a case. You know, these have the same thing, you know. So this is an interesting argument. Why should there be one one virtue and reason concerned with moral matters, right? And not also one in this desire and.

[21:26] Moreover, habits are not distinguished according to material objects, but according to their what? The formal reasons of the objects, right? But the formal ratio of good to which moral virtue is ordered is one, to wit, the mode of what? Reason, right?

[21:47] And as Dionysius says, to be reasonable, that's what's to be good is to be reasonable, right? For man, that's what it means. One thing, right? Therefore, there it seems that there's only one moral virtue. Moreover, moral things receive their what species from the end, as has been said above. But the end of all the moral virtues, the common, is one, to wit, what? Like Augustine was saying, you know, the art of

[22:21] being happy, right? Okay. But the proper and near ones infinite, but there are not an infinity of moral virtues. Therefore, it seems there should be one only, right?

[22:39] Thomas says what? Virtue is the road to wisdom, right? I mean, to happiness, right? Vice is the road to what? Yeah, yeah. It should just be one there, right? One that directs us to happiness.

[22:54] But against this is that one habit is not able to be in diverse powers. See, I've been said above. But the subject of the what moral virtues is the desiring part of the soul, which is distinguished by diverse powers, right? The will, the irascible appetite, and the concupiscible appetite. Therefore, there cannot be just one moral virtue, right? There be at least three. More. I answer: It should be said that as has been said above, moral virtues are certain habits of the desiring part of the soul.

[23:42] But habits differ in species according to the special differences of their what objects. Now, the species of what a desirable object, just as of anything, is to be noted according to a specific form, which is from the what agent.

[24:08] Now it should be considered that the matter of the one undergoing, right, suffering, has itself to the agent in two ways. For sometimes it receives the form of the agent according to the same what notion, right? Insofar as it is found in the agent, just as in all what univocal agents, right? So if I produce a a man, right, huh? I'm the univocal what agent, right? He's a man in the same sense that I am a what man, right?

[24:47] But if I produce, say, what cake, cake is not a man, right? It might be not cake, but it might be a steak or something. Okay.

[25:03] Sometimes the matter receives a form from the agent, not according to the same what definition you might say, right? Insofar as it is in the agent, as just in what generators that are not univocal, as the animals generated by the what sun. What's too long that example there?

[25:32] By mean is Shakespeare, a tragedy and a comedy. huh? Is Shakespeare a tragedy and a comedy. We produced a tragedy and a comedy, right? And then the forms received in matter from the same agent are not of one what species, right? So I mentioned that you know I put Shakespeare's plays into four what kinds, right? The tragedies, comedies, and in between those the two kinds of romances, right?

[26:03] He has six romances that you might call the mercy and forgiveness romances, and six of them that are the what love and friendship romances, yeah. But he's Shakespeare is a what equivocal cause of those four, right? That is to say that they don't have the same definition as Shakespeare, right? They're not four poets or four men, right? Okay.

[26:32] And then he says, huh? The forms received in matter by the same or from the same agent are not of one what species of one kind, but they are diversified according to the diverse proportion of matter for receiving the what inflow of the what agent, right? Okay.

[27:10] You see the superiority of Mozart to the Baroque composers there, right? huh? You know, they they write a piece for one group of instruments that can be easily transposed to other instruments, right? And was very commonly done, right? Mozart adapts himself to what the clarinet and the piano, each one of them, you know, in the way that really fits that instrument, right? Now it's perfectly done. Mozart, absolute music.

[27:38] So then the forms received in matter from the same agent, right, are not of one species, but are diversified according to the diverse proportion of matter for receiving the influx of the what agent, right? Just as we see that from one action of the sun, it's the old somewhat questionable thing, are generated by putrefaction, animals are diverse species, right, according to the diverse proportion of what matter, Matter, right?

[28:11] But is the cook going to ask act on different things in the same way, huh? The mix. is going to be according to the matter.

[28:27] Now it is manifest that in moral matters, reason is as the one commanding and what moving, right? But the desiring power is as the one commanded and what and moved, huh?

[28:46] But the appetite, the desiring power, does not receive the what impression of reason, as it were, what univocally, right? Because it does not become rational essentially, right? So it's not the man generating a man, right?

[29:12] But by partaking, as is said in the first book of the Ethics, right? Whence the desirables, according to the motion of reason, are constituted in diverse what species, according as they have themselves diversely to what reason, right? And thus it follows that moral virtues are diverse in species or kind, and not one what only, right? It's kind of interesting if you compare,

[29:46] let's say, reason there to the irascible appetite, right, and the concupiscible appetite, right. Now Aristotle brings out that moral virtue is between two extremes, right? So temperance is between what? Intemperance, which is excess, right? And what, for want of a name, we'll call puritanism or something of that sort, right? Okay. And courage is in between what?

[30:17] What's called cowardice and then foolhardiness, the word, right? Okay. Now Aristotle points out that although it's in between two extremes, that doesn't mean it's equidistant between the two, right?

[30:33] And which is closer to courage, cowardice or foolhardiness? Yeah, yeah. But notice how it's named foolhardiness, right? That the foolhardy man seems to be more a fool than the coward, huh? Coward knows enough to get out of it, right? He seems to be using his reason, right? You see, while the foolhardy man seems to be without reason, right? Okay, his name from fool, right? But now, which seems to be more foolish, the puritan or the what?

[31:11] Intemperate man. Intemperate man, yeah. So I've seen this, you know, in relatives, you know, where the husband has a certain tendency at wedding receptions to drink too much and so on. And I remember this one woman, you know, she's terribly afraid her husband's going to drink too much, and he starts to drink too much. So yeah, yeah. So

[31:37] so which is closer, to the temperate man, the intemperate man, or the puritan? Puritan seems to be closer, right? Okay. So the foolish man is more what? Like the courageous man, but the foolish man in the temperance. You can see how the matter is different, right? It's kind of interesting.

[32:09] Fear. We all think of fear making people what? More thoughtful, right? You know, they say when you run in a political campaign, you got to run scared, right? But when you go into a big game with, you know, if you fear you could lose, you know, you better be more careful when you're planning something, right? What was Falstaff said? Discretion is a better part of valor. Great source, like Falstaff.

[32:48] Yeah, yeah. It's just the cowardice with discretion, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said, right, that the object of reason is the true, right? But there is the same reason of the true in all moral things, which are contingent things that are what doable, right?

[33:22] Whence there is only one virtue directing in them to it, foresight, huh? But the object of the desiring power is the desirable good, of which there is a diverse reason according to the diverse relation to what reason directing. them. You can see that in a sense, and use the word fool over here, right? I mentioned before how the word fond

[33:52] means fool foolish, right? And we're accustomed, you know, to see the guys fond of the girl, right? And forget that first meant you're being a little bit foolish over this girl, right?

[34:11] So that's kind of interesting, though, right? But when you say foolish, you're talking about the relation to to reason, right? You know. And of course, they say it's different in the case of what the irascible and concupiscible, right? What seems to be more foolish, right? And and the courageous man is closer to the foolhardy man. See, where the where the tempered man is closer to the Puritan, right?

[34:45] The man doesn't drink at all, you know. Seems to be more temperate than the man who drinks to excess, obviously, right? So I'm going to say, "Scripture vita magnificata cor hominis." Yeah. To the second, should be said that that is what formal that that which is formal is one in genus, in account of the unity of the what agent, but diversified in species, in account of the diverse habitudes or relations of the ones receiving, right?

[35:29] You know, I classify Shakespeare's tragedies there. You know, and I start off and I say, "Well, there's ten tragedies, right? " But there's three I call them the Northern European tragedies, right? One is set in Denmark, it's Hamlet. One in ancient England, there is King Lear, and then Scotland, Macbeth, right? I call them the Northern European tragedies, right? And then you have the what the Southern Italian tragedies.

[35:58] Or the love tragedies, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello, right? Well, see Hamlet and King Lear and Macbeth, right, are not really what love tragedies, right, in the way that Romeo and Juliet is. But you kind of, you know, you think of the South as being more the passionate lover, you know, and so you see how you kind of, it's reason, you know, tends to look for a different location to make the love tragedies and northern European tragedies, huh?

[36:35] You know, the German critics don't call. You know, I don't like this way of speaking, but they call Hamlet in a tragedy of thought, you know. But it's sort of different from Romeo and Juliet or or poor Othello, you know. In some ways, Othello is the most tragic of Shakespeare's tragedies, right? You know, in the way I'm saying necessarily the best one of them, but but most tragic, you know, like Aristotle says, you know, Euripides is the most tragic of the poets, you know, but it doesn't mean he's as good as as Sophocles.

[37:05] Sophocles is the greatest of Greek tragedies, you know. But see how Shakespeare since adapts himself to the to the matter, right? Okay. To the third, it should be said that moralia, right, do not have their species from the last end, but from the what? Okay. Yeah, so it's not one moral virtue, you know. This is the moral virtue whose whose object is what happiness, you know. But okay,

[37:58] but from the proximate end, right? Which, although infinite, what in number, not infinite in what species, right? Huh? Let's go see that there. So I guess you got to stop right now.