De Anima (On the Soul)
122. Aquinas on Sense Desire and the Will (ST I, Q.80, A.2): Two Powers, the 'Moved Mover', Universal and Particular in Action, and Temptation
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[0:00] Moreover, just as under the what grasping or knowing power is ordered the desiring power as a lower power, right? Because it's moved right by the apprehension. So also is the what power to move around from one place to another, huh? But there is not two different powers to move around, right, in man. There's not another power, in other words, in, man, following upon intellect, other than what you find in the other animals, following upon what sense.

[0:38] Therefore, for a like reason. Neither is there a what, desiring power. That's what he's saying here, right? Huh? If the distinction between the senses and the reason, right,

[0:54] were to make the powers that they move, right, or direct, then the desiring power is two in kind, right? Well, then since they also, you might say, move or direct the my walking and my running and so on, right? Then my ability to move my body ought to be what twofold too, right? I have a ability to move my body following upon sensation, another ability to move my body following upon understanding, and nobody thinks that, huh?

[1:29] Is it? So why should I have one ability to desire following upon sensation and another ability to desire following upon understanding, right? See, I don't have this in the case of the moving power. It's a very interesting objection too, huh? You wonder how Thomas sits up at night thinking about these things. I was first teaching at St. Mary's and I, had a good student, you know, and he came in with a real nice objection every day almost, huh?

[1:56] Oh, really? Because I never heard them, you know, he called these objections anyway, you know, so I'd always answer it clearly and calmly, you know, and said to me one time after the course, you know, I always thought I'd have you the next day, you know, but you always got an answer, you know, so I heard all the objections there, Thomas, you know. But he's often reminded of trying to think of, oh, yeah, he'd be thought of some real, real objections.

[2:15] I never got an answer there. We don't realize how common these objections are if you've read the read the best office, you know. Did you ever get him interested in reading, Thomas? I don't know what happened to him.

[2:31] Okay, but against all this is what the philosopher now. I guess that's a what? Antonomasia. Antonomasia for Aristotle, right? But against this is what the philosopher that the philosopher distinguishes a twofold desire, right, or ability to desire, in the third book about the soul, and he also says Aristotle that the superior desire moves the what lower, or it should move the lower, right? Okay.

[3:04] He says, "I answer. It ought to be said that is necessary to say that the understandable desire, or the desire following upon understanding, is another power of the soul from that following upon sensation. " Now, what's the reason he gives? Well, it's that the desiring power is a potencia passiva, right? A power that is what moved by its object, right? Rather than a power that what acts upon or moves its object, huh?

[3:44] Okay. So in that sense, it's like the what the the senses, right, which are moved by their object, huh? Rather than like the digestive power which acts upon its object.

[4:04] But notice, it's a passive power which is apt to be moved by the what grasping power, right, huh? Because that fits into what we saw in the previous article, because that's the reason why this is a separate genus of power, right? That it's a desire following upon what some kind of knowing or apprehension. So is it accidental then to the to these desiring powers sensing or understanding?

[4:37] Well, if there was no knowledge, right, there would be none of these powers, would there? There'd be only that natural desire, that only that natural tendency. The reason why this is a different, a unique genus of powers of the soul is that there's an inclination, a tendency following upon every form, and these things have forms in a way that the non-knowing things don't, right? So it is essential the knowing, isn't it, to this kind of tendency or desire?

[5:16] You know, I'm sorry, I I'm trying to follow what you're saying. I just can't. You say it a different way, doctor. Well, I'm saying referring back to the previous article, you know, where the question was why are you making a separate kind of power of the soul, the power to desire, right, huh? The power to to in other words, tend towards something, right? Right. When everything in the world tends towards something, right?

[5:47] Okay. And every power, every other power of the soul tends towards something, right, huh? Yes, towards something. Yeah, yeah. Well, everything tends towards something by reason of its natural form, right? By reason of its form, therefore. But these knowing things have forms that the non-knowing things don't have at all. Right. And so it's because you are a knowing thing. It's because you have forms that non-knowing things don't have.

[6:23] That you have inclinations that non-knowing things don't have, right? Okay. So is it really accidental knowing to this kind of desire? Well, it can't be accidental to it if you wouldn't even have that desire without that knowing, huh? It's because you have that kind of know, because you have knowing, because you have that kind of form that you have an inclination that non-knowing things don't have, right?

[6:55] Okay. So it's not accidental to you that you are moved by an object that is known in some way. Okay, not accidental to me. It's not accidental to this kind of desire, right? That is unique to the knowing thing. You see, why is it unique to the knowing thing? Because it's a desire that follows upon some kind of knowing, huh? So if you have two kinds of knowing, sensing and understanding, right?

[7:23] And this is a desire that follows upon something as known, then you're going to have two different kinds of what ability to desire corresponding to those two different kinds of what knowing, huh?

[7:45] Okay. And therefore, you could say, not the object really of the sense desire is the good as known by the senses, but the object of the will is the good as known by reason or by the understanding. Okay. Hmm. That's why sense desire really is tied up with what is pleasing to the senses, huh? Because the senses don't know good except as agreeable, you know, to the to the to the senses themselves.

[8:25] Yeah. So they have you know more limited, you might say, knowledge of the good, huh? But reason knows good not only as agreeable to the intellect, but as being the end or purpose, as being useful, right, or being the common good or something else, right? Okay.

[8:53] So he's saying that the desiring ability or the power to desire is a passive power ability which is apt to be moved by what has been apprehended or is known in some way. Whence, and Aristotle says two words there, appetibile apprehensum apprehensum, the what known desirable, right? Okay. Or the desirable as known, okay, is a what non-moved mover, as Aristotle says in the third book on the soul.

[9:33] But desire is a moved. Mover, huh? I just just bring that out in in love and friendship there, because I I start with these texts from the poets and from the theologians and so on. I had a whole bunch of texts readings where they seem to be saying that love is giving. Okay. And of course, give and you are active, right? Yes. Okay. And then I had a whole series of readings where they say that the lover is undergoing, he's suffering.

[10:09] And I had a number of ones where they speak of the wound of love. I took them from romantic love, where you have, you know, Romeo saying he just such scars and everything, and the invisible wounds that love makes. And I took the ones from Teresa of Avila and Teresa de Jesus, where they received an increase of this divine love under the likeness of being wounded by the angel, right?

[10:32] And when I say, well, which is it? You know, is the heart active? Or is it passive, right? See, because there's reason to think both, huh? See, and I said, you know, the common way of speaking, you know, where if you go to a party, say, and you see somebody, and somebody makes an impression upon you, we say that's kind of a common way of speaking, huh? Well, they're having made an impression upon you means that you begin to like them, huh?

[11:08] But impression means that they have their good qualities have impressed upon your heart in some way, right? So that makes you think that your heart is what? Is it upon? Is acting upon, huh? But then the next, the other meetings where we see Thomas, and others speak about giving your heart, right? And and even Juliet saying, "I gave my love give more love, right? " And Thomas explained how the Holy Spirit is called the gift of God because love is the first gift, right?

[11:38] And so on. Well, which is it? And then they have text from Thomas, not from here, but from the Commentary on the Sentences. but he's quoting the same passage of Aristotle that the good apprehended is an unmoved mover, but desire is a moved mover, right? Yeah. Well, in the moved mover, I say, is it active or passive?

[12:02] Well, insofar as it's the moved mover is moved, it's passive, right? Insofar as it's a mover, it's what? It has another aspect, right? See, see, and I'll say up the other the chalk things like that, you know. I have one in the middle there, and it's moving one because it's being moved, right? I said, which is more fundamental, though? The moved mover is it? Is it being moved because it's a mover, or is it a mover because it's being moved?

[12:31] It's a mover because it's being moved. Yeah, so it's more fundamental that you are being moved when you love desire, right? Nevertheless, there is something active there because you are a moved mover. Sure. This is a very famous text, there, right? The good known in some way, right? The good apprehended in some way, right? Is a what? Non-moved mover, huh? But desire, appetite, is a moved mover.

[13:10] Okay, and this is said both in the third book about the soul and the twelfth book of what? Wisdom, right, huh? Because it's important that God is is the first cause, not only in the sense of the maker or mover, the first maker mover, but he's the first what? Desirable, the first good.

[13:33] Otherwise, he wouldn't be altogether the first cause, would he? See, if God, in other words, is making for the sake of something other than Himself, then that, in some sense, would be the unmoved mover, wouldn't it? He'd be no way a moved mover, huh?

[13:53] Now that's playing out to them, but God's love for us can't be the sort; it's He's the unmoved mover. So God's love is only a giving, in no way is He being moved by us, huh? I say now, the goodness of the creature is in no way a cause of God's loving him, but God's loving is a cause the good of the creature. We're in the reverse data, where the goodness of something moves us to what to love it, right?

[14:25] Okay, but the goodness of something doesn't move us to love it until, in some way, what know it, right? So if I'd never known licorice, I'd never known wine or whatever it might be, right? I would never been moved to to what desire it, right?

[14:52] Is that why they say it's more the essence of love to give because God? Yeah, I was quoting that too. You know, it's more divine to give than to receive, right? And of course, God's love is only a giving, right? Huh? Okay, but in you know, I'm not going to teach a lot of friendship right now, you know. But a number of things you can say about this, right?

[15:16] See, God's love is only a giving, right? But our love is what more a what being moved, right? Okay, but if you compare, you know, the will with the emotions,

[15:34] the emotions is more being moved. The will is more what free, we're able to give. Therefore, huh? Okay, but there's another way that you might call all loving as giving, and that's because the good is in things, huh? I left my heart in San Francisco, right? See, I gave my heart to you, right? I say, and since I gave my heart to San Francisco, if I left my heart in San Francisco, haven't I?

[16:04] Right, you know, that's what our Lord says, right? Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be, right? Yeah. So there's a way in which all loving is a giving, because love or desire is going out to the thing loved or desired, huh?

[16:25] See, that's why you know saying before, you know, the lover can be said to have lost his heart. Yeah, but the knower shouldn't be lost his mind. Okay.

[16:43] And if if the knower was to lose his mind, he wouldn't have any more knowledge. of it. see. But if the lover did not in some way lose his heart, maybe he doesn't love. Mm-hmm. You see.

[16:58] Now God is also moved by Himself when He apprehends Himself. That moves Him to love too. And when He apprehends Himself, yeah, but but that's only in our way of understanding, right? Because there is no distinction God between His knowledge and His love, huh? Right. See, but in us there is a real distinction between our knowledge and our love. So so, that's just a distinction of reason, but it's it's a real distinction in us between knowing and loving, huh?

[17:25] Okay. Okay. Okay. So, I'll come back to that, but let's kind of go through the body of it. Once the desirable apprehended, right? The desirable is known, right? Is a non-moved mover, but desire is a moved mover, as I said in the third book about the soul and the twelfth book of metaphysics. But passive things, undergoing things, right, and mobile things, are distinguished according to the distinction of what acts upon them and what moves them.

[18:09] Because it's necessary for the mover to be proportioned to the what movable, right? And what acts upon something to what undergoes the active to the passive. Just like my kicking you is what Proportion to your being kicked, right?

[18:28] Right, My punching you, proportion to your being punched, right? And like everything passive, huh? And the passive power itself has its very definition from the order that it has to its what. Active, huh? Are you kickable? Mm-hmm. See, but you're kickable because you're able to be kicked. Mm-hmm. By the active one, right? Mm-hmm. You see, but the very nature of of the passive, right, to be defined in reference to the act for which it is passive.

[19:19] Since, therefore, what is apprehended by the understanding was apprehended by the sense of another kind. Consequently, the desire that follows upon understanding, the intellecting intellectual desire, is a different power. appetitive ability from the one that follows upon what the senses, huh?

[19:46] I used to be helped a little. You look at objections here, huh? Because the first objection, now which is maybe the closest to resolving, huh? Thomas I think has ordered these objections in a certain way. That you want to see one and solve one for another one, right? The first objection, if you go back to that, was saying that isn't. that if something is sensed or understood accidental to its being desirable, right?

[20:16] Thomas says it doesn't simply happen to the desirable to be apprehended by the sense or the understanding, but it belongs to it what per se, huh? For the desirable does not move desire except in so far as it is what grasped in some way, right? So it belongs to it as such, right, to its object as such, And that really in a sense follows from what we see in the previous article, right?

[20:49] There would even be this ability to desire without knowing, right? Whence differences of the what known are per se differences of the desirable, whence the desiring powers are distinguished according to difference of the things what grasped as according to their what own objects, huh? Now, incidentally, when Thomas gets into talking about love, there and you talk about the causes of love, right? And the first cause of love is the good, right?

[21:28] And that's a cause of love because it's the object of love, huh? And this is a what power that is moved by its object, huh? But then he gets to the second article and says, knowing knowledge is a cause of love, right? And he says knowledge is a cause of love for the same reason that the good is, that as it sits on the side of the very object of the thing, huh?

[21:50] Because the object is the good as what known, huh? Okay. But think of that in the light of the previous article, right? Which is ordered before this, right? The previous article was about objecting, you know, to there being an ability to desire other than the natural ability of things to desire, right? Or was objecting that there was not an ability to desire other than the inclination of each part of the soul, right?

[22:40] Meaning all the other parts of the soul, I should say, for their own act, their own object, right? Right. Okay. And the reason why there is this special kind of power of the soul is because there's always an inclination following upon a form, right? And these things that know have forms in a way that things that don't know don't have, right? Therefore, they have an inclination, right?

[23:09] A tendency, a desire that's not found in the things that don't know, right? So there wouldn't be this whole genus, right? That's being subdivided, right? Into these two here, sense desire and rational desire. There wouldn't be this whole genus at all without there being knowing, right? So it's not accidentally saying to this kind of desire that it has a a relevance or it's relevant to a relative to knowledge in some way, huh?

[23:45] Because that's the reason why you have this kind of desire at all, and so a distinction of these two kinds of desire, these two kinds of knowing, is relevant to seeing that there's two different kinds of what ability to desire.

[24:11] Now let's go to the second objection, which is saying, hey, but the object is in things, and in things you only have the singular. So what is this thing doing, right? Okay.

[24:24] Now Thomas says to the second, it should be said that the intellectual desire, although it is born towards things that are outside the soul, and these are singular, right? Born towards the.

[24:42] Nevertheless, huh? It is born towards them by what? Some universal reason, right? As when it desires something because it is what. Good. Right. So remember, we had that same kind of distinction there in the previous article. Remember, we're saying why distinguish between the desiring power and the knowing power? Because it's the same thing that's known that is desired, right? But it's not an object of both in the same way, is it?

[25:17] Right. Okay. Just like I was saying, you know, why why distinguish between touch and sight? But they both know shape. And sometimes my sense of sight and my sense of touch are the same. Sense. Because they both know same thing. Is that true? No. It's the same thing to to see the shape of the table and to feel the shape of the table. The sensing the feeling must be the same thing because you have the same object there.

[25:48] See, well, you can see a difference, huh? Yeah. That even though in a way they're knowing the same thing, namely the shape, right? The one is knowing the shape through color. And the other is knowing it through hardness, right? I can use just my hand, right? And something gets way here, okay? Okay, that's the reason why he said he said that there's a difference between the desiring powers and the knowing powers, huh?

[26:16] Mm-hmm. For a similar reason, huh? Well, now he's saying the same thing that even if, huh, I desire the same thing by sense desire and by intellectual desire, right? Right. I might desire it by sense desire because it's agreeable to my senses, right? Right. But my reason would see it in the light of something more universal. Yeah. So. Okay, and I remember reading Saint Francis de Sales there, you know, and he says.

[26:44] A tough man, you know, Saint Francis de Sales in some ways, very you know, gentle in other ways, but he's talking about. When you sit down to eat, he says you shouldn't just be following your, you know, your sense urging to eat, right? And say, "Well, Lord, I'm going to eat now because you made me such as I need food, right? And it's part of your plan that I should eat, right?

[27:11] You want me to maintain my my health and so on, you know. And so, in a sense, his will is dominating even his sense desire there, isn't it? See, so he's desiring to eat this food, right? Because this is the will of God that he eat some food, huh?

[27:29] You see that? See, now you might also have some bodily urge to eat that food, right? See, see, and so I can be a little more like an animal, right, and just eat my food because I'm hungry, right? You see, I can say, "Why am I eating this food? " You know, think about it, but you know, you know, God has given me what a body, right?

[28:07] And a body that's dependent upon food, right? He's given me the means of what gathering this food, of eating it, and so on, right? Huh? Does he want me to preserve my life? Huh? God's pro-life, I think. Right? See, once you eat this, right? See, now I'm almost what I'm glorifying God by eating this food, huh? And not just satisfying my bodily urge, huh?

[28:39] So even though eating the food is the object of my hunger, right? The food's object of my hunger, my sense desire, right? See, but but but notice what might happen sometimes too. I mean, it might happen at some time that, like, if you're sick or something, right? You don't have the desire to eat. See, and

[29:05] I always take the example in class, don't you know, where your mother or somebody says as a child, "Now, I know you don't feel like eating, but you got to eat something because you're going to get weak if you don't, right? " You see, I think your mother or somebody said to you some time, right? And so now you see a reason to eat, even though you don't have that hunger for it.

[29:26] See, I know myself sometimes. I never have a tremendous appetite for breakfast. Some people do, you know. My son marching it up, you know, get two pans out, you know, so I need two pans for it one for the eggs, one for the the bacon or the or the ham or something. And I said. Well, I see you do the bacon and ham there, and then you take it out and you put the egg in there.

[29:48] I don't like the color but he said, I've got two pans. Well, usually I don't have bacon or eggs or ham or sausage, you know. Remember, Mark, about this house he often has sausage with the the breakfast there, you know, and I like it. Or my sister, or my daughter's always has it too, you know. But I just tend to, you know, have maybe a piece of toast, two pieces of toast, you know, a little piece of toast, right, and an orange or something like that, and because I suppose I don't, you know, need an act of a life.

[30:17] so don't need a big huge meal. You know, I'm not going to have to work, you know, and just like that. But know sometimes you know, but I don't really have that idea. I don't have a desire to eat more than that really in the morning, you know. But know sometimes I realize I'm going to be, you know, doing some prolonged things that morning. I'm going to be away, and I'm not going to be eating for a while.

[30:35] And I say, and I see the my reason tells me I should really eat some more than this, you know, because I know I'm going to get. weaker And lose my concentration or something later on, right? And then I'm eating food not because of this hunger desire to eat, but because I I realize I need to you know to maintain my strength and to do my duty as I see it that day or something, right?

[31:03] So really, it's not an object of my two kinds of desire in the same way, is it? And and and sometimes you know now you know you're supposed to have a lot of vegetables, a lot of this, a lot of that, you know. And so you might not have much appetite for this particular food, probably appetite, right? But your reason says you need some of this because of this, you know.

[31:34] See what I mean? See. But just say, for example, in France, the sales even you might have hunger, you can you can still you know

[31:46] desire this in a in a way that's wholly what result of your thinking about why you should eat this, huh? See that? That's one way that you see that they've been different. So even though I understand it, huh? Now, go on to what he says here, huh? That the the intellectual desire, although it is born towards the things which are singular outside the soul, right? Nevertheless, it is born towards them according to some what universal reason, huh?

[32:27] Just as when it desires something because it is good, huh? And he's very interesting example from the philosopher. Once the philosopher says in his rhetoric that hate, right, is able to be about something what universal, huh? Yeah. As we have in hate the whole genus of thieves, right? Okay. See now you know you read the newspapers nowadays because you guys don't do, but but you get all these terrorists running around, right?

[33:01] And people blowing themselves up and blowing other people up, you know. See. So you realize that a terrorist is rather disagreeable people to have around. In kind of a universal way, you you you have a distaste for these sort of people, right? Sure. And so it's not just that this terrorist here and now is is hurting your senses, but

[33:28] you see him as coming under this genus, this universal thing of what a terrorist is, right? See people around blowing themselves up, blowing other people up. Then you hate the whole genus of what, terrorists, right? Okay.

[33:46] Now another way you can distinguish them is that through the intellectual desire, we are able to desire what, immaterial goods, like truth, for example, or wisdom, right? Which sense does not what, grasp, right? As the sciences and the virtues and other things of this sort, don't. Okay. And and God Himself, you could add, right? Okay.

[34:18] Because the senses don't know God as such, do they? See how how do the senses know the good only as what, as being agreeable to the what, senses, therefore as pleasure, and they know the bad only as what pain, right? But we know good and bad in a much more universal way than that.

[35:00] So what Thomas is doing in there, right? He's saying there are some things that we desire by the will, by the intellectual desire, that we can't be desired by the emotions, and emotional. Why? Because these are not known by the senses. Okay. But even those things that might be known by the senses in some way, right?

[35:26] We can desire them by intellectual desire for a reason that is what universal, huh? Okay. So notice by my emotions can I dislike all terrorists? Well, my senses don't even know what terrorist is in general. It just you know, you know, it's like it's like you know, they say if you mistreat an animal that they kind of are afraid of you or they're angry, you know, they'll put up a fight, right?

[36:02] Huh? You know, if you, you know, it's a common observation, right? Let's say if you're mean or cruel to an animal, right? Then when that animal sees you coming, they get out of the way or else they, you're a shepherd, They do something, right? Huh? See, that was but it's because you have what hurt them, huh? Pain them, right? Huh? See. Yeah. But does the animal hate cruelty in general?

[36:28] See. Now we might, huh? Say that we don't like cruel people, right? Yeah. See, we don't like people who go around torturing people, that sort of thing, right? We don't like torturers. I mean, the whole class of them, right? Like, like he says about the thieves here in the example of Aristotle, right? Yeah. And so, when I recognize an individual as a torturer, right, I see him as something bad under something universal, don't I?

[37:03] He's a torturer, right? That's right. Or he's a terrorist, right? Huh? Mm-hmm. They catch somebody as a terrorist, you know. We read about in the paper all the time these days, right? They're always catching some some terrorists, right? Okay. When you say, well, I see that as as good, right? Because you see the terrorist is bad, right? But you're seeing him under under something universal. Mm-hmm. See, that's more subtle to see that difference, huh?

[37:29] But then there are other things that even the singular, the senses can't what know, like God Himself, right? See. And so, but the understanding knows in some way.

[37:51] I always joke, you know, about when I was in college there, and he had this little Polish philosopher there, right? Yeah. And kind of into symbolic logic and all that nonsense. And I used to give him kind of rough time in class there, you know, with my syllogisms, huh? Mm-hmm. And one day he's kind of frustrated with me in the own class, so he says, "Mr. Berkowitz he says, "Do you have an emotional attachment to the syllogism?"

[38:15] I just laughed. I said, "I can have an emotional attachment to a girl," but I certainly couldn't have an emotional attachment to a syllogism. But my reason recognizes syllogism as an argument in which conclusion follows necessarily. And if my reason recognizes it's a good argument, and if you can, you know, use a syllogism against somebody, that's the strongest argument you can use. See? But do my senses perceive?

[38:40] You know, is the syllogism somehow attractive to my senses? No, no. And now notice they had meter in the words you're using, right? Sure. That could have certain appeal to the senses, maybe, huh? You know, meter has a thing, rhythm, huh? Mm-hmm. See. But syllogism has no. You know, senses don't really know that at all.

[39:15] I see. In in Greek and in Latin, we have more words to name the different loves, huh? Mm-hmm. But say, like in in in Latin, amor names more of the the sense love, huh? Mm-hmm. The love that is an emotion, huh? Mm-hmm. You can kind of see it in English where amor gives us the word amorous or something of that sort, yeah. Now the Greek word corresponding to amor is eros, huh?

[39:42] It's even more sensual, you might say, huh? And in English we use the word erotic or something of that sort. But then you have another word in Latin, like you'll meet in Thomas's treatise on love, for the love of the will, and the Latin word is dilectio. And we dated to the Latin word for what choice, Electio, right? Now in English we don't have a name for each of these loves, huh?

[40:13] So I translate them by a phrase. I'll translate amor by what sense love, right? That kind of hyphenate or something like that. Now translate dilectio by chosen love, huh? The choice involves what the use of reason, huh? Comparing things, huh?

[40:40] Now you see. They don't use the word eros so much in the name of the philosopher. They use the word philia, right, which is more for a more chosen love, huh? But the uh Aristotle says that the the philosopher and the sophists differ by their choice of life, huh? The philosopher, you give him a man of choice. You can either be wise or appear wise, and you can be wise and not appear wise, or you can appear wise and not be wise.

[41:13] What do you choose? The philosopher chooses to be wise, even if he doesn't appear wise. The sophist chooses to appear wise, even if he's not wise. So they differ by their choice of life, he says.

[41:32] So that the love of wisdom is a what chosen love, huh? The other three Greek words would be chosen loves, right? I say I use this passage from from Hamlet there when Hamlet is talking about why he took Horatio as a friend, right?

[42:00] You know those words I got quoted them before. Says since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, her election has sealed thee for herself. Election is another word for choice, right? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, but when is the soul mistress of her choice? That depends upon certain development of reason, right? So that you can, you know, distinguish men, right, and compare them, right?

[42:35] Of course, he goes on. He says, "Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could have men distinguish, her election has sealed thee for herself. For thou hast been as one in suffering all that suffers nothing, right? A man that fortune's buffets and rewards is tamed with equal thanks. And blessed are they whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, they're not a pipe for fortune to pay, but stop she pleases.

[43:00] Give me that man that is not passion's slave, right? And I'll wear him in my heart's core right Ay in my heart? of heart, right? So, now it's you can distinguish by reason between this man who is not the slave of passion, right, and most men who are the slave of some passion.

[43:23] So the irascible man is the slave of his anger, right? The coward is the slave of his fear. The lustful man is, you know, slave of his lust, huh? And the drunken is a slave of his passion for drink, and so on, right? So that that's the example of a chosen love, right? Hamlet's love of Horatio, right? Is a what chosen love, yeah? And of course, the word for friendship there in Greek is philia, right?

[43:53] It's not eros, huh? And so we distinguish between those two. They have other words in Greek too: agape and storge. You know that. C S Lewis talks about in that book the four loves, huh? But it's it's built around four words in Greek, right? Eros, which is this very sense love, almost sensual love, and philia, which is very often friendship, right? And agape, which is used for charity, and storge, which is kind of used for the natural affection we have for our children and that sort of thing.

[44:32] But in English, we don't have the same wealth of what words, huh? And so we use love for romantic love. We use love for what God sometimes does, see. But in the Greek text, maybe they would use not eros, but they'd have the word agape, huh? You see? Now the third objection was saying, "What about the power to move around? " That's directed by knowledge too, and it's therefore under knowledge, just as desire is moved by knowledge.

[45:18] So why isn't there two powers down there, right? Well, to the third, it should be said that, as is said in the third book about the soul, the universal opinion doesn't move except through the what particular, right? Yeah, I don't understand. See, well, if my opinion is that I should eat food, right, huh? Right. Unless I'm going to sense some food, I'm not going to what sit down eat, am I?

[45:54] Okay. So, or if I say, you know, that I should pay my debts, right? See, unless I recognize that I owe you something, right? It's not going to lead to any action, is it? Because the action is something singular. Okay.

[46:20] Recognize that a a man should honor his father and mother, right? Huh? Right. Am I going to honor anybody? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you said. I say, if if I think universally, right, honor your father and mother, a man should honor his father and mother. Right. Am I going to honor anybody?

[46:46] See, I have to recognize you as my mother or father, right? All right. See, and then I think you ought to honor one should honor his father, mother. It's universal. Then recognizing you as my father or my mother, then I'm going to show honor to you. Sure. Okay. Okay.

[47:07] Let's see how they try to wrap these obvious degrees. Have you hugged your kid today? Oh, okay. So there's a universal thing there, right? You should show affection for your children. Mm-hmm. That's true. Universal, isn't it? Right. Okay.

[47:24] I'm making any trouble just going hugging anybody, right? Mm-hmm. Just recognizing this is my daughter now, you know, or my son or something, right? Huh? Then I can hug them or something, right? Mm-hmm. Do you see that? See. So. Okay. Now.

[47:50] Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I would say a man should drink, right? Right. Okay. I'm not going to drink anything unless I recognize some individual thing to drink, right? So it's going to the universal doesn't move me unless it's applied to the what singular, right? Okay. Okay. All right. It's not like you go directly, therefore, from the universal to moving to this place or that place, right?

[48:23] The universal through the what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. That comes out in a very vivid form in ethics, right? When they talk about a man being tempted, right? Huh? And you have two universals, right? One is that adultery is is is bad, okay. Ah, this is adultery. This woman, right? Therefore, I shouldn't do it. Okay. Um, pleasure should be pursued. This is pleasant, therefore, right? Okay.

[49:01] In other words, I'm putting the singular under the wrong universal, you might say, in this one case, right? Mm-hmm. But when Aristotle is describing the man who is what being tempted, right? His mind is actually what? Ah, I'm talking about a man who's being tempted, not a man who's simply, you know, bad, right? Mm-hmm. He's going back before. Between those two, this is pleasant, or this is ah, and this is adultery, you know, or adultery's wrong, right?

[49:31] See, but but if he chooses to do it, you know, he gets into it. He's getting into it, thinking it's pleasant, right? Okay. You see, but but both universals in his head, he doesn't apply the one he should, right? And therefore, doesn't end up in the right what action, right? Huh? Right. Okay. Now that's how we make all our decisions, isn't it? We go through this process.

[50:04] Well, yeah, yeah. You know, you know, people talk about if you give money, you know, to to this charity or that charity, right? They'll put you on their mailing list. Maybe somebody else's mailing list, right? So you get these requests, right? You can't possibly give to all of them, right? Huh? You see. Mm-hmm. So you see, you may have in in the idea in general that you should give, you know, to worthwhile causes and so on.

[50:28] Right. But there's more worthwhile causes than than you could you know give to, right? Huh. Mm-hmm. So somehow one of these worthwhile causes in particular has to come under the universal before you actually. what. write a check out to them, right? Sure. See, Mm hmm sometimes I wait to the end of the month, you know, I get the paycheck, and then I say, then I open them all, you know, and I say, well, I give it to this people this month, or I give to that, you know, or something, you know.

[50:54] But I have to tie up with the particular, right? Okay. You don't give money to needy in general, but to this person here needing this for, you know. Is it? Okay. Okay, thank you. But in the case of what, of desire, reason can move desire directly without the what, sense, huh?

[51:23] But as I said in the third book about the soul, the universal opinion doesn't move except by means of the particular, right? Okay. And similarly, the higher what desire moves the what lower, right?

[51:41] And therefore, there is not another motive power following what the understanding and sense. You follow what he's saying there? Huh? Not until I apprehend this individual glass of water, right? I think I'm going to drink some of this now. Hmm. Well, Doctor Berko, I want the first part. Universal opinion does not move except by means of a particular opinion. Yeah, yeah. So what you do is something singular, isn't it?

[52:23] Yeah. I don't drink water in general. I drink this glass of water right here. Okay. And my wife has always told me how many glasses of water you're supposed to drink a day, or something. I guess I'm drinking enough, right? Okay. But that universal opinion about drinking water is good to you to drink some water for your bodily well-being, right? Huh? I have to recognize this as a individual glass of water before that universal opinion is going to move me to what actually drink some water.

[53:02] Well, okay. See, but how? But what you just described, Doctor Berko, sounds a lot like a higher appetite moves by means of the lower. No, it it it it moves you to do something by the lower one as the middle, right? Because it's going to involve the the body, right? Huh?

[53:35] So we really have to look at. Our reasoning process that goes into our actions to see if we are really choosing the best options. Yeah, yeah. But Aristotle, you know, it's kind of the paradox there with Socrates and Aristotle, because Socrates is saying doing bad is always a result of ignorance, huh? See, and you've got to be kind of careful about that, right? Yeah. See. Does the man who commits adultery is he ignorant of the fact that adultery is wrong?

[54:15] See, or is he at the moment when he actually moves to this act? Right. Is he not putting this act under that universal opinion? See. Or is he, put another way, not applying the universal opinion to this particular act? You see. See, at the moment he actually moves to that act, he's not what applying the universal opinion to that act, huh? Okay. Well, we all do that, huh?

[54:53] We all do that at times, don't we? Yes. See. Something we know universally, we don't apply where we should apply it, huh? See, I don't mean just in moral matters, you know, in other matters too, right? Yes. I believe Saint Thomas says, especially with lust, that we don't tend to. Yeah, yeah. See, because the strong emotions there, right? Yeah. Okay. And

[55:31] that's why you know people in their dreams are less responsible what they do in a dream, right? Then when they're awake, huh? That's a good thing. Because they're less able to to apply the universal to the singular, right? Yeah. Okay. So

[56:00] the whole you know analysis of what people are going on under temptation, right? Huh. The famous the Rape of Lucrece, you know that famous poem of Shakespeare's, the Rape of Lucrece. Monsignor Dionne used to think that was a very good representation of what temptation is, huh? You see, and the man knows he shouldn't be doing what he's doing, right? You know. And he's not even violating the woman, but he's you know the wife of his friend, and so on, right?

[56:32] Huh. And it leads to his banishment eventually from Rome, huh? Hmm. But when he commits this crime, he's not applying the what? What do you know, son? See,

[56:50] you may have been a second before thinking about it, huh? See, the actual moment he says this is to be done, he's applying something, you know, or he's not he's not waiting for full consideration, right? See, He's, not applying all he knows, huh? He knows something besides that the pleasant is desirable, right? Right. But he's not looking at the whole picture anymore, right? He's just considering this aspect of it.

[57:20] Yeah. That's why his his free judgments, we say, right? Because you can apply all kinds of what universals, huh? You know, procrastination, you know, and so on. No.

[57:37] I saw a bumper sticker the other day. You know, I haven't begun to procrastinate. Oh man, that's good. But I mean, you know how yourself you can find all kinds of reasons not to do something you don't want to do, right? You know, and so you can have all kinds of reasons for not doing what you should do. Yeah. And you can you can come up with all kinds of reasons for doing what you shouldn't do either, right?

[58:08] Yeah. And and especially, you know, if you proceed without waiting for a full consideration, right, of the matter, huh? Yeah. So in that sense, that's why we have free judgment. You see. Hmm. Why the animals don't really have free judgment because they're kind of determined by nature to judge in a certain way, given the circumstances, huh? Even given the same circumstances, we can apply all kinds of universals and partial things, right?

[58:49] Yeah. And so we can do something if we see as being good in any way, or we can avoid something if we see it as bad in any way, right? Yeah.

[59:09] Can we quickly go back to what the objection was that we were answering? I am trying to connect that again. What the third objection here? You mean? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the third objection is pointing out now. So, the third objection is based upon a likeness, right? That just as the ability to desire comes under the knowing powers, huh? And is moved and directed by them in some way, right?

[59:36] So also the ability to the animal has to go from one place to another, right? Of course, in a sense, it comes under his knowing powers too, right? And is in some way moved or directed by that, right? Yeah. Okay. Now you see that likeness and no difference, right? Yeah. You say, well, why isn't there? If there's two abilities to desire coming, corresponding to the two knowing powers, which they come under, right?

[1:00:03] Why shouldn't there also be two abilities to move from one place to another, corresponding to these two knowing powers? Because they also come under them, right? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. But Thomas is saying that

[1:00:19] it comes down to an action. Action is always something singular, right? Mm-hmm. And so you have to apply the universal to some singular. Mm-hmm. And therefore, the universal moves us to action only through the what singular. Mm-hmm. And I can, I can. Think and talk about honor your father and mother all day long, right? And never honor my father and mother that day, right? See.

[1:00:54] But if I recognize that this man here and now before me, right, is my father, right, and he has nothing to sit on, I should give him a chair or something, right? Give him my chair or fetch a chair for him, right? See. Then I'm going to run and get a chair for him, right? Because he's my father and he has nothing to sit on.

[1:01:17] You see that? See. Or if I if I'm a man who thinks you should pay your debts, as I said, right? And all of a sudden you come up and I realize, oh, that's the guy who's twenty dollars due. Okay, well I get twenty dollars today, so not starving, so I guess I'll pay him the 20 I owe him. You see? So it's not as if the will might

[1:01:51] the reason immediately, right, and not through the singular is going to move you to what do something, right? But I might say you know that knowledge of a better thing is better knowledge, and therefore knowledge of the best thing is the best knowledge. God is the best thing. Therefore knowledge of, God is the best. thing. I think I'll study about God today. See. Now, really, have my senses entered into that though?

[1:02:38] No, not really. No. See. Yeah. I can have the desire, right? Huh? Okay. But I'm going to do it through a book, right? I don't have universal book. I have this individual book in my my desk or someplace, right? See.

[1:03:01] So I recognize that book, and then I go get that book, right? So the action always comes down to the action is singular, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[1:03:16] So sometimes we're going to have solutions that are universal, but then the action always come down to a particular singular... Yeah, it's coming. You're talking about an outward action like that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, in philosophy, you might reason from universals, you know, under all universal conclusion, right? Like you do in geometry, huh? Yes. All right angles, you know, mean all all every triangle is interior to right angles.

[1:03:43] It's universal truth, right? But so you talk about action. You are talking about in this objection here, right? Talking about moving your body from one place to another, right? But now you are down with the singular, aren't you? Not moving the human body from one place to another. Am I? I am moving my body from one place to another, right?

[1:04:34] As they say, a sign that there is an application is, you know, there's the whole moral dilemma, right, where people don't apply something they know, right? A lot of times when they're correcting a young person or something like that, you know, we interrogate them, you know, and they'll admit they know the universal. See, then why'd you do that? See, well, they didn't do it applying the universal to that moment that they did it,

[1:05:07] but their emotions or their passions or something else is involved. You can start strong, you know. I mean, I've had smokers now say to me, "You know, never start." So since the guy is is kind of admitting that it's bad for him, right? But

[1:05:46] Aristotle makes a famous comparison there in the Nicomachean Ethics between a man who goes to the medical doctor to get medical advice, huh, and then he doesn't apply it to his own life, right? And a man who goes and hears lectures in ethics and then doesn't apply it to his life. And he says, "The one man's a useless hearer of what medical advice, huh?

[1:06:12] Why ask the doctor what you should be eating? You are not going to act upon what he says, right? You see. " So why does Aristotle say that he doesn't? Well, as I say, it's it's he makes a very strong statement in the ethics there that for virtue to know is little or nothing. Right, it's

[1:06:44] that for virtue to know, I mean, for moral virtue, I think to know is little or nothing, right? To know is little or nothing. Yeah, you know, you have to be accustomed to these things, huh? Ah, see, what we call moral virtue, ethical virtue, actually, the word "moral ethos comes in the Greek Latin words for custom, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, so you have to be accustomed to these things, and therefore, Aristotle insists that you have to be, you know, if a person's been brought up well, it's very hard for them to what.

[1:07:21] Virtue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The thing becomes habitual, right? Very hard for them to what? Not change. Yeah. Because habit is like a second nature, right? It seems natural. Uh

[1:07:44] huh. And and that's what the spiritual life, in theory, about a lot in trying to build up these virtues, develop the. Yeah, I mean, comes in some sense from repeated acts of moral virtues, do huh? Mm-hmm.

[1:08:04] So, which your parents, in a sense, are starting you out in that. Mm. So my grandmother or my aunt gives me a box of candy, and my inclination is to what stuff myself, right? Yeah. Your mother says, "Well, no, that's not for today. Let's put it away. Have another piece tomorrow, or something like that, right? " So she's trying to custom me to what eating candy in somewhat moderation, right?

[1:08:33] Okay. Mm-hmm. See how did somebody like you know? I guess people like Saint Francis de Sales. They had a they're irascible by, you know, birth, right? And they they became very mild and gentle men, right? Huh. Patient men, huh? But they had to what

[1:09:13] repeatedly, right? Control that that rising anger, huh? Yeah. King Lear actually calls hysteria. Mm-hmm. Who calls it that. King Lear, right? Mother, passion, hysteria. Yeah. I read one time that Saint Francis de Sales was too soft on a person, or came off as too soft. He didn't correct someone strongly enough. Yeah. I didn't think he used mine to kill himself or something, or something, or something.