Ultimus hominis finis est bonum increatum, scilicet Deus, qui solus sua infinita bonitate potest voluntatem hominis perfecte implere

Preface

It should be prefaced that the following is in no way to be interpreted contrary to the magisterial statement of Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, in which he insists upon the possibility of God creating intellectual natures (humans and angels) without ordering them to the beatific vision. This insistence is important for ensuring our recognition of the gratuity of the supernatural order, a fact so emphasised by, amongst others, P. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. To be sure, as Garrigou himself recognises, an intellectual creature such as man even naturally has a desire to see God face to face in the beatific vision, but, without grace, this desire remains conditional and inefficacious.

At any rate, the will's natural ordering towards universal good means that, implicitly, it calls out for, as it were, at least a natural knowledge and love of God (it might not possibly will these things, but I mean that God, at least naturally obtained, is objectively wherein the will's desire for good is found). The very nature of the will means that it cannot be satisfied with any good other than God. 

(The nature of the intellect means that it only reaches its greatest possible perfection when its object is God directly. And, when the cause of nature is known by the light of natural reason, a natural desire, albeit conditional and inefficacious, is elicited to see the essence of that cause in itself. Hence, the will can only be perfectly or totally satisfied - that is, so satisfied that nothing further is left to be desired or sought after - by God as obtained by a direct intellectual vision of his essence. With supernatural grace, which is at the same time very fitting for God to give but also free and gratuitous for him to choose to give, there is infused supernatural hope, a far loftier desire than the merely conditional and inefficacious natural desire for utterly perfect beatitude. The Beatific Vision is what 'perfect beatitude' consists in. Perfect beatitude is such a perfect good that so totally satisfies the appetite, that there is nothing else to be sought after. It turns out that such a beatitude is proper to the Divinity, and cannot be attained by an intellectual creature's natural powers. An intellectual creatures's level of natural beatitude or, more properly, felicitas is always capable of increase without reaching the immediate vision of the Divine Essence).

The Will's Appetite for Infinite Good

According to St Thomas, beatitudo can defined as "the perfect good of an intellectual nature" (ST Ia Q.26 a.1: Nihil enim aliud sub nomine beatitudinis intelligitur, nisi bonum perfectum intellectualis naturae). Only in God, who possesses total perfection essentially, can there be an entire identification of esse and bonitas. Creatures are good secundum quid by merely existing, since their esse by itself is a certain good thing, but to be good simpliciter, they must acquire some further perfection or act (Ia Q.5 a.1). In physical things, the form perfects the matter as its first act, but the form itself is ordered towards operation as a further perfection. This is also true for angels, in whom there are distinctions between their essence, the actus essendi which actualises that essence, the powers that flows from that essence, and the operation which the angel is ordered towards as the perfection of its nature (Dionysius, Caelest. Hier., cap. XI: caelestes spiritus dividuntur in essentiam, virtutem, et operationem). Like God and angels, humans are intellectual, and like angels and material things, humans are creatures. Therefore, for humans, beatitude is a perfection to be acquired and an end to be obtained.

St Thomas calls beatitude a perfect good which totally satisfies the appetite (Ia IIae Q.2 a.8: Beatitudo enim est bonum perfectum, quod totaliter quietat appetitum). Since beatitude is the perfection of an intellectual nature, we are here dealing with the rational appetite, the will. It is precisely because of the nature of the intellect and will that a being with intellect and will cannot be perfectly satisfied by anything other than God. The intellect presents to the will its fundamental and natural object, which is universal goodness (ibid: Obiectum autem voluntatis...est universale bonum). The will is a power of soul which is defined as being an appetitus for such an object. Because beatitude is a perfect good which totally satisfies the rational appetite, a good would not be beatitude si adhuc restaret aliquid appetendum (ibid). And because the object of the rational appetite is universal goodness, it will not be totally satisfied with a good that falls short of universal goodness (Nihil potest quietare voluntatem hominis nisi bonum universale). Therefore, any good that falls short of universal goodness will not be beatitude. St Thomas then says that the will's desire for bonum universale cannot be satisfied in anything created but only in God, since all creatures have only participated goodness (Quod non invenitur in aliquo creato sed solum in Deo: quia omnis creatura habet bonitatem participatam). As was said above, only God is identical with his own goodness and possesses his entire goodness and perfection essentially. Everything created neither possesses its partial goodness of mere esse simpliciter essentially, nor its complete goodness. Its substantial act of esse is received from an extrinsic cause and its complete good is achieved by further perfection, namely the acquiring of any accidents necessary for its perfect operation, and ultimately by that perfect operation (Ia Q.6 a.3). This means that everything created possesses goodness by participation and not per se. Therefore, no created thing can be that in which is found the unqualified and unlimited goodness that alone can correspond to the will's appetite for universal goodness. The will's appetite for universal goodness is an appetite for goodness itself, which everything created participates in but falls short of. However, God is complete and unlimited goodness itself. As the argument of the Fourth Way goes, the maximum in any genus will be the cause of that genus. So also, the maximum in being and goodness will be the cause of all being and goodness. The maximum of goodness will be that which has goodness per se, which is the ultimate cause of anything which has participated goodness per aliud. Therefore, God is that which can totally satisfy the rational appetite (Ia IIae Q.3 a.1: ultimus hominis finis est bonum increatum, scilicet Deus, qui solus sua infinita bonitate potest voluntatem hominis perfecte implere). The rational appetite is at rest at the attainment of this good, needing nothing else for its contentment: beatitudo perfecta...habet congregationem omnium bonorum per coniunctionem ad universalem fontem totius boni; non quod indigeat singulis particularibus bonis (Ia IIae Q.3 a.3 ad 2).

 

Summary

According to St Thomas Aquinas, man is of such a nature that he has an appetite for an infinite good. This is because he has an intellect that can conceive of universal goodness, and a will whose object is that unrestricted notion of goodness which the intellect presents to it. No finite, restricted, limited good can match up to such an appetite, so as to fully satiate it. Therefore, only the attainment of an infinite good can fully satiate it.

Aristotle's comparison of the 'akratic man' to someone asleep, mad, or drunk

Is Aristotle right to claim that the incontinent person is like someone 'asleep or mad or drunk'? 

The incontinent person (ὁ ἀκρατής) is identified by Aristotle as one who, under the influence of ἐπιθυμία for those pleasures of touch which the licentious person (ὁ ἀκόλαστος) is also concerned with, does those things which the licentious person does, but with the exception that he acts against a rational decision to refrain from such acts. If Aristotle meant to say that the incontinent person is exactly like someone asleep, mad, or drunk he would be wrong. Indeed, it would also be wrong to ignore important differences between those three states among just themselves. Also, if he meant to say that when someone is being incontinent, they are totally deprived of reason, this is inconsistent with what he otherwise says. Furthermore, even people who are drunk or asleep or mad are not always totally deprived of the use of reason, so that, if he meant to imply that, he would be in error as well. As it turns out, and as I hope to argue, Aristotle does not think that these kinds of people (incontinent, drunk, mad, asleep) are always completely deprived of reason. Nor does he mean to exactly equate the state of the incontinent person with those other states. Rather, he means to point to a certain similarity that exists in these states. It seems to me that this similarity has to do with the fact that when someone is mad or dreaming or drunk, their acts are not always (or even ordinarily) the result of the determination of rational πρόαιρεσις for those acts.

When someone is mad, one often acts in a manner Aristotle would regard as involuntary. Incontinent actions, for Aristotle, are, on the other hand, voluntary. Just like the actions of infants and non-rational animals, there is a principle from within which moves the incontinent person to act, and this principle is an elicited appetite for the pleasure grasped. This voluntariness is a lower-level order of voluntariness than that proper to rational agents qua rational. The latter results from an elicited appetite for a good intellectually cognised. There are two such appetitive acts, βούλησις and πρόαιρεσις. Rationally ordered action properly follows πρόαιρεσις. But when Heracles kills his wife and children, neither his rational appetite or sensitive appetites (ἐπιθυμία and θύμος) are directed towards the murder of his wife and children qua such.[1] Such an action is involuntary. His madness did not entail that Heracles could not reason at all. His νοῦς could still consider the universal proposition that Eurystheus and his family were to be killed (which is apt to serve as the major premise in a practical syllogism). It was his sense perception that was deceived. Therefore, he was deceived in the minor premise in the practical syllogism. He thought: “these are Eurystheus and his children.” This was incorrect. It seems that when someone is mad in this sense, then they are actually capable of making a πρόαιρεσις and of acting upon it, but that this πρόαιρεσις does not actually square with the action actually performed, due to illusion. 

However, perhaps Aristotle means madness in another sense. Perhaps he means the sort of madness that renders one deprived of the use of their reason, so that they act entirely according to sense perception, or what their imagination presents and they mistakenly intuit to be sense perception. In this case, the acts will either be involuntary or lower-level voluntary (in the manner of infants and brutes). Yet, even if the latter case, there will still be a difference with the incontinent person’s act. 

Aristotle seems to indicate that the incontinent person’s reason does actually play a role in their act, even if he wants to downplay the role of reason. He legitimately wants to downplay the role of reason because, when he does so, his point is to emphasise that the incontinent person does not follow the conclusion to a rational practical syllogism. However, the incontinent person still grasps a universal premise (an object of the νοῦς) which does serve as a sort of principle of their action. The relevant text for this is Nic. Eth. 7.3, 1146b31-1147a10 and 1147a26-1147b5. Aristotle says that there is a universal premise which, unproblematically, the incontinent person can well hold. He also says that in a way someone can come to be incontinent ὑπὸ λόγου (1147a35-1147b1). Both the universal proposition that forbids the person to taste sweet things and the universal proposition that says that all sweet things are pleasant are the objects of the intellect. In the case of the incontinent act, the ἀκρατής does not use the latter universal proposition to rationally syllogise to a practical conclusion, which is then adhered to by πρόαιρεσις, but this knowledge does function with the non-rational appetite’s desire (ἐπιθυμία) for the sensible pleasure. This is because ἐπιθυμία per se seeks the pleasant as an end (the bonum delectabile in the language of the Scholastics), whereas the rational appetite is per se ordered towards the intelligible good, which it considers beautiful and fitting (τό καλόν; the bonum honestum). Both the rational appetite’s desire for the intelligible good and the sensitive appetite’s desire for the sensibly pleasant have the ability by themselves to move the human being. In the case of the incontinent person, it is the latter that does so. 

Universals cannot move to action. Action concerns particulars and so, if one acts as the result of a rational practical syllogism, the conclusion, which does have the ability to move to action, must concern particulars. The conclusion results from a universal proposition that serves as a major premise and a minor premise which locates the middle term in the particular circumstances. The result is a conclusion which judges that this act is to be done (or avoided). For example, imagine it is Friday. If I have already decided by a prior πρόαιρεσις that all meat is to be avoided on Friday and I also realise that a particular object is meat, the proposition ‘this is meat’ will apply my prior πρόαιρεσις to the particular circumstances, rendering the conclusion: ‘this is to be avoided.’ Because I have already decided by rational choice that meat is to be avoided on Friday and because, as I have said, the rational appetite by itself has the power to move to action, once the minor premise determines the prior decision to the particular circumstances, then I will infallibly act. Or will I? As Aristotle carefully points out, I will infallibly act if nothing prevents me (1147a30-31). 

As has been said, in a practical syllogism, the minor just applies the major, which has already been decided on to the particular circumstances, showing that it applies in this case. This seems a sufficient foundation for the action to go ahead. Intellect and rational appetite will deliberate no longer but will just command the action to be accomplished. Notice though, that there is a gap between the πρόαιρεσις which adheres to the conclusion of the practical syllogism and the actual execution of the action. If I choose to do a certain action, it is plausible that I am frustrated in my choice and so end up not actually acting upon it. Imagine that I deliberate and then choose to reach the top of a hill by the end of the day, but the wind keeps blowing me down the hill every time I try to go up it. What else apart from external force can prevent choice from being acted upon? Because πρόαιρεσις is an act of rational appetite and there is also a sensitive appetite in man, it appears that there is another principle within man that can move him to action (video autem aliam legem in membris meis, as the Apostle says). The passions get in the way of the incontinent man and cloud his judgement. 

How exactly do they cloud his judgement? Aristotle says that there is a distinction between having knowledge in the sense of having it habitually and then actively contemplating that knowledge. He also speaks of a particular proposition which it would be a wonder if the incontinent man contemplated in act while performing the incontinent action. What particular proposition is this? Lorenz argues, rightly to my mind, that this particular proposition is not the minor premise of the syllogism. Rather it is the conclusion of the practical syllogism.[2] It is not ‘this is meat’ or ‘this is sweet’ which would be a marvel for the incontinent person to contemplate in act. Rather, it is the conclusion of the practical syllogism which forbids the action. This is because, if the conclusion were present in mind and the rational appetite properly adhered to it, this would constitute a still active πρόαιρεσις which would cause the agent to not do the act. Alternatively, if the agent changed his mind as it were and his rational appetite firmly and positively repudiated the conclusion, which would entail firmly and positively repudiating the universal premise that served as a ratio for the conclusion, then he would in fact become licentious. If he is to be neither continent nor licentious, then there must be a third option. I suggest that this is a certain neglect and giving way in weakness on the part of the rational appetite, under the sway of ἐπιθυμία. This, it seems, is what Aristotle has in mind when he says that the sensitive appetite can move any part of the soul. By this neglect and giving way, the incontinent man leaves the active contemplation of the conclusion to the practical syllogism, which leaves his sensitive appetite free to move of its own accord to the pleasure it per se seeks.[3]

We can see now in what ways the mad man is different from and similar to the incontinent man. He is not completely similar to the incontinent man, as has been explained. However, there is an important way that they are similar. This is that the mad man (either kind discussed) and the incontinent man do not act upon a rational πρόαιρεσις for the act which they carry out. What about sleeping and drunkenness? 

Drunkenness is similar to madness, in that there are different kinds. There are different levels of drunkenness. It is a spectrum rather than a unified state. If I have simply drunk usque ad hilaritatem, then however jovial or relaxed I may be, I will not be in a state of drunkenness. If I start noticeably losing balance and co-ordination and get into too low a level of risk calculation ability, then I am ‘tipsy’ and have probably drunk too much. But if I start losing the proper use and control of my reason, then I am drunk. This does not mean that I necessarily lose all reason. For example, I may be able to reason insofar as I can abstract and may even be able to deliberate about means to an end. Still, I will clearly lack the virtues of εὐβουλία, σύνεσις, and φρόνησις. I will not be able to deliberate, judge, and prescribe action for myself well, due to how the excessive alcohol has impaired my neuronal circuits.[4]  I may also confuse the uses and purposes of things. However, if I get to a more severe level of drunkenness, I will not even be capable of rational deliberation and practical reasoning (but may still have simple apprehension, the first operation of the intellect). If I get to an even more severe level, I will not be able to use my reason at all, until finally I get to the level where I am knocked out. What kind of drunkenness is Aristotle referring to in the relevant passage? David Charles claims that in the Problems, Aristotle distinguishes between different types of drunkenness. Charles thinks that Aristotle is talking about a lower level of drunkenness when comparing the incontinent person to someone drunk in the Nicomachean Ethics.[5] However, I am not convinced by his argument. The term οἰνωμένοι in Problems 27.4 (948a19;31) seems not even to refer to drunkenness at all but merely to ‘drinking wine.’ Indeed, Aristotle is making a physiological point that identifies courageous people (he does not say merely daring, nor reckless) as people who love wine.[6] However, the term οἰνωμένοι can also be used to refer to those who have become drunk from wine, as it is used in Nicomachean Ethics 7.3. These people can very well be identified with the μεθύοντες in Problems 3.9-35 (872a19-876a29). Indeed, Aristotle does talk about a type of drunkenness which is at a lesser level than that of the μεθύοντες in Problems 3, but these he calls the person who is in this state ὁ ἀκροθώραξ (Problems 3.27, 875a30). ὁ ἀκροθώραξ can judge (κρίνει) but he judges badly (κακῶς κρίνει), whereas ὁ μεθύων cannot judge at all (ibid 875a30-40). I think that, when comparing the incontinent person to someone drunk, he is thinking of someone who is μεθύων, rather than someone who is ἀκροθώραξ, because this accords better with the comparison to the mad person. Aristotle in Problems 3 describes how μεθύοντες are susceptible to visual illusion, such as seeing one thing as many (3.10); and, as was just related, how they cannot judge (by which he presumably means a judgement of the intellect). Each of these traits accords respectively to the two types of mad men referred to above, the one who hallucinates and the one who completely loses reason. Whichever type of mad man Aristotle has in mind in the comparison to the incontinent person, the similarity to the person who is μεθύων seems to be that their actions do not result from a rational choice, a πρόαιρεσις. 

What about sleeping? Clearly, Aristotle does not mean that kind of sleeping that is completely blank without any dreams. Otherwise, the comparison would make no sense. Therefore, he is talking about the person who is dreaming. It is false to say that we cannot reason when we are dreaming. I have abstracted and understood things in dreams. I have even performed syllogisms and mathematical equations in dreams. One time, I tested to see if I was in a dream by pinching myself, because I had heard that you don’t feel it in dreams and I saw something weird in my dream, which seemed off. I didn’t feel the pinch and realised that I was in a dream.[7]  Aristotle, in De Insomniis, a phenomenal text, also recognises that we can in fact reason in dreams and that we do have δόξα about the things which we imagine. What is shut off in dreams is external sense perception. Now, it does appear that we can make πρόαιρεσεις in dreams and, to some extent, are capable of some agency. For example, when I decided to pinch myself. Also, we clearly have agency in lucid dreams (which Aristotle talks about in De Insomniis). But we don’t always have agency and aren’t always completely in control of our dream-selves or what we imagine ourselves to do. Sometimes, we are actually incapable of prior deliberation and found ourselves doing something. Sometimes, we try to run away but are paralysed and cannot move because this dream world of our imagination has, as it were, a will of its own. St Augustine, in Confessions X.30.41, also realises that ratio is not shut down when our eyes shut. However, he also does talk about relief upon waking when we did not really do a sinful thing which nonetheless was somehow done in us (quod tamen in nobis quoquo modo factum esse), which is regrettable (but does not disturb our conscientiae requiem). The relieving peace of conscience upon waking is testimony to the involuntariness of the act. As I said, we are not always in complete control of what we imagine even ourselves doing in a dream. I am often quite a powerful dreamer but, as it happens, lucid dreams and prohairetic acts in dreams are the exception rather than the rule. Usually in dreams, as St Thomas Aquinas says (ST IIa IIae Q.154 a.5), reason is hindered to the extent that it is unable to make free judgements (liberum judicium being a judgement of the intellect which presupposes liberum arbitrium, which is located in the act of the will called electio, which is the Scholastic version of πρόαιρεσεις). In another place (Gen. ad lit. 12.15), St Augustine makes the point that images of the imagination even when we are awake (and even when they involve ourselves) are not always voluntary (and so our in fact involuntary if we reject them) so long as we do not consent to them, but what happens in dreams is that we are incapable (with the exception of some lucid dreams) of distinguishing between the phantasms of our imagination and reality.[8]  Ultimately, what Aristotle realises is that ordinarily the acts in our dreams that we imagine ourselves to be doing are not the result of rational deliberation and a resulting πρόαιρεσις. 

Therefore, what links incontinent acts with acts of someone “asleep or mad or drunk” is that the acts are not the result of πρόαιρεσις. This then, I think, is what Aristotle means by the comparison. He does not mean that they are exactly the same, but only secundum quid, under a certain formality. As I hope I have made clear, there are important differences between these states, but there is this similarity. 

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[1] In Euripides’s version, he thinks that they are Eurystheus and Eurystheus’s children. 

[2] H. Lorenz, “Aristotle’s Analysis of Akratic Action” in Polansky (ed.). Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge, 2014, 256

[3] Here, as it should be clear, I am concentrating on the ‘weak’ sort of incontinent person rather the ‘swift’ or ‘melancholic’ type.

[4] In reality. Of course, Aristotle has alternative explanations. 


[5] D. Charles, "Acrasia: The Rest of the Story?" in G. Pearson and M Pakaluk (eds), Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle (OUP 2011), 190 

[6] Indeed, here he is talking about heat in the lungs, while drunkenness occurs when there is heat in the head, so Aristotle thinks (cf. Problems 3.12).

[7] I have also tried this when awake and found that I was indeed awake.

[8] It is therefore actually possible to feel remorse and consternation at the same time as one finds oneself supposedly committing a wrong act in a dream, though such concurrent remorse is not required for the act to not be the result of πρόαιρεσις. 

 

Free Will in Aristotle?

Aristotle claims that we are responsible for our characters and contributes much towards explaining how this is the case.

Aristotle says that it is necessary for those examining virtue to define the voluntary and involuntary (Nic. Eth. 3.1, 1109b30-34). This is because the voluntary (τὸ ἑκούσιον) in actions and passions gives rise to praise and blame, whereas the involuntary (τὸ ακούσιον) gives rise to sympathetic understanding and sometimes even pity. Since human beings are praised for virtue and blamed for vice, it would seem then that virtue and vice are voluntary. Aristotle defines the involuntary as that which comes about as a result of force or an account of ignorance (1109b35- 1110a1). ‘Force’ here is used in a strong sense. That which is forced is something whose origin (ἀρχὴ) is completely external to the person forced. Aristotle describes this as something “to which the person who is acting or undergoing something contributes nothing” and gives the example of a wind carrying someone off somewhere (1110a1-4). 

What does he mean by ἀρχὴ and what does he mean by contributing nothing? For Aristotle, nature is (in varying senses) a principle of change and rest in all things, and living organisms are (in varying senses) self-movers, at least inasmuch as one part can move another part. However, animals are self-movers in an even stronger sense than plants, and humans in an even stronger sense than other animals. Aristotle says in the De Anima that the soul is a cause and principle in three ways, as formal, final, and also efficient or moving cause (De Anima II.4, 415b8-12), and that, in animals, the soul can initiate motion “through some sort of choice and reasoning”[1] (ibid I.3, 406b24-25). It is properly the initiator of motion (κίνησις) because it itself does not undergo κίνησις. He very strongly rejects the view that the soul is moved in this sense (it cannot undergo locomotion, alteration in quality, or change in size). So, the efficient origin or principle of motion can be found in the animal itself. 

However, the bodies of animals are susceptible to κινήσεις from external movers, such as the wind. However, in the case of the sailors throwing cargo overboard, they themselves are the efficient origin of that action. They themselves choose to execute this action, given the circumstances. Their souls initiate this motion. What is it in the soul that initiates motion? It is clear that some form of knowledge and some form of appetition or desire are involved. It seems to me that what Aristotle means by ‘contributing nothing’ is that the one acting involuntarily does not initiate the action and that his appetite or desire contributes nothing. I say ‘appetite or desire’ because one might very well know what is going on when his hand is forcibly used by somebody else’s hand to strike someone but not desire it at all. But clearly, if he in no way desires the action, it cannot be him who is initiating the action. However, appetition or desire requires some form of cognition. One cannot desire something which one does not know in some way. This is why ignorance can be a cause of involuntariness. If somebody stabs his own son, thinking it to be an enemy, the action of killing his son was not voluntary. Or if someone gives a drink in order to save somebody, but the drink ends up killing them, then he was involuntarily the cause of the drinker’s death (Nic. Eth. 3.1, 1111a11-14). Aristotle says that “what is voluntary would seem to be something whose origin is in the person himself, who knows the particulars that constitute the action” (1111a22-24). An action will originate from an animal insofar as the animal is the efficient cause of its own action because its appetite aims at the action as a good (the final cause), which is presented by a cognitive faculty (whether sensible or rational). Therefore, I would conclude that something is voluntary if it accords with elicited appetition. This also helps us to see why the noble and the pleasant do not force (11110b9-17). The noble and the pleasant are final causes, not efficient causes. They do not push against the appetite that seeks them but are precisely what the appetite that seeks them desires. 

It might be asked whether voluntariness is sufficient for praise and blame. Given the above, even infants and non-rational animals are capable of voluntary action. Do we praise and blame infants and non-rational animals? I sometimes get angry with my dogs and tell them off, and I sometimes praise them when they obey and behave well. Sometimes they are punished for their correction and rewarded to encourage good behaviour. This is to rectify their appetite so that they are obedient and loyal, which is pleasing to me. However, I am aware that the sort of praise and blame due to rational agents are not due to them. My dogs once destroyed somebody’s car in order to get to a rabbit inside the bonnet. This caused frustration, but they were not taken to court, and they were not thought of as wicked and unjust. If a human being had done this, things would have been different. We do not hold non-rational animals as morally responsible for their characters, even though we may be pleased or displeased with these characters. 

Aristotle can help us to explain this. He says that choice (προαίρεσις) is voluntary but is not identical with the voluntary. Rather, the voluntary is wider in scope, “for both children and the other animals share in what is voluntary but not in choice” (3.2, 1111b6-9). Just before this, he says that we should define choice because it “seems to belong very much to virtue and to distinguish people’s characters more than actions do” (1111b5-6). Earlier in the Nicomachean Ethics, he had said that virtue was a habit marked by choice (ἕξις προαιρετική; 2.6, 1106b36). 

He also says many times, such as in 2.1, 2.3, and 3.5, that, while habits do dispose towards certain actions, those habits were originally produced by the very sort of actions which those habits dispose us to repeat. Hence, “by living loosely, people are themselves the causes of their becoming such a sort and of their being unjust and licentious” (3.5, 1114a4-5). As well as committing bad actions, people are also responsible for refraining from good ones which would have prevented culpable ignorance. Thus, as well as punishing those whose ignorance results from a bad action like getting drunk, lawgivers also punish “those who are ignorant of anything in the laws which people ought to know and which it is not difficult to know,” for “whenever people seem to be ignorant through carelessness...they are in control of taking the appropriate care” (1113b30-1114a3). He links explicitly becoming the sort of person we are with choice in 3.2: “it is by choosing the good or bad things that we are of a certain sort, not by opining about them” (1112a1-2). 

When Aristotle says that virtues, vices, acting, and not acting are “up to us” because “where there may be a “no,” there may also be a “yes”” (1113b6-8), what does he mean by this? Is he attributing freedom of action to the human agent? He very clearly is. Consider the comparison he makes to the sick person who ignores his doctor: “At one time, then, it was possible for him not to be sick; but in letting himself go, it is no longer possible” (1114a16-17). If it is possible that he did not get sick, then it is possible that he did not choose to ignore his doctor. Therefore, he was not somehow necessitated to ignore his doctor. If where there is a “no”, there may also be a “yes”, then there really must be a possibility for the agent to choose either. 

If the agent was really necessitated to only choose one option, then Aristotle’s statement is false. In what act can there simultaneously be a possibility for both a “no” and a “yes”? The answer seems to be choice. 

However, many modern scholars have insisted that Aristotle does not believe in free choice between alternatives. For example, Bobzien says that Aristotle’s προαίρεσις “is nothing like an act of deciding or an act of choice between alternatives. Nor is it (or is it issued from) a faculty for causally undetermined choice or decision, or of free will...nor is there any decision- making faculty such as a will in the agent that determines which way the judgment will go.”[2] I firmly disagree with this. In fact, in De Anima 3.9 (432b), Aristotle explicitly says that there is ὄρεξις in all three parts of the soul (nutritive, sensitive, rational). Appetite (ὄρεξις) in the nutritive or vegetative part of the soul would be appetite in a much lower and analogous sense. The plant has a certain form and the immanent actions of the plant tend towards the perfection, preservation, and replication of that form. This directedness is a sort of natural appetite, but it is entirely unconscious. However, in the non-rational animals, there is a level of consciousness. They can receive the forms of things without their matter according to the manner of sense- perception. Therefore, they can have a desire for the things whose forms they receive and, therefore, who they perceive. This is desire or appetite in a stricter sense because it follows from a form of knowledge. Humans, possessors of νοῦς, have a much higher kind of knowledge. They can abstract and understand the essences of things. 

Aristotle indicates in the De Anima passage that there is a form of appetition corresponding to this rational knowledge of man. Now, while in that passage, Aristotle explicitly locates βούλεσις in the rational part of the soul, and, in Nic. Eth. 3.3, he denies that προαίρεσις is βούλεσις, this need not necessarily mean that Aristotle did not see προαίρεσις as being an act of the rational appetite. In fact, in 6.2 (1139b4-5), Aristotle says that choice is either intellect influenced by appetite (ὀρεκτικὸς νοῦς) or appetite influenced by intellect (ὄρεξις διανοητική). The latter description seems to make more sense and that this is the preference of Aristotle himself is indicated by his definition of choice in 3.3 as “deliberative appetite (βουλευτικὴ ὄρεξις) for things that are up to us” (1113a10-11). When he denies that choice is ἐπιθυμία (usually used to mean sensible desire) or θυμος, he does so because these are shared also by οἱ ἀλόγοι (1111b10-13). This shows that Aristotle sees choice is only an act of rational animals capable of using reason. When he denies that προαίρεσις is βούλεσις, he does so on the basis that the latter is about ends, while the former is about means. This does not mean that they are acts of a separate faculty. In fact, he says that they are closely related. Also, the means that can be chosen are limited by the bounds of the ends already willed. Furthermore, it seems what was the object of προαίρεσις can subsequently be the object of βούλεσις in the sense in Nic. Eth. 3.2-4. Some means are desired for other means and not all ends are the final end. 

It is also suitable that choice be for Aristotle an act of the rational appetite rather than reason itself (ie. of the will rather than the intellect) because, as he says when contrasting choice and opinion, the object of opinion is the true and we speak of true and false opinions, whereas the object of choice is the good and we speak of good and bad choices (3.2, 1111b3-4). It is clear by how he contrasts choice and opinion that choice is an act of (rational) appetite rather than the intellect: “we choose to take or to avoid one of these sorts of things, but we opine about what is, or to whom or in what manner it is advantageous, and we really do not opine about taking or avoiding them. Choice is also praised more for being directed at what it ought to...whereas opinion is praised for how true it is.” He explicitly distinguishes choice from even opinions about good and bad things, and he even goes so far as to say that “the same people do not seem both to choose and to opine what is best; rather, some opine what is better, yet, on account of their vice, they choose what they ought not” (1112a8-11). 

We praise and blame an agent with reason and rational appetite in a very different way from any analogous way of praising and blaming anything else. This is because, while even non- rational animals are the origin of their acts, they act according to their natural instinct and learned behaviour, neither of which they are morally responsible for. They are not responsible for the latter because they are not capable of rational choice, which, in humans, determines their virtues and vices, and because, without reason, one cannot have a grasp of the intelligible καλόν or intelligible shamefulness. For example, if one willingly departs from the noble in order to pursue a pleasure of the senses, one is susceptible to a much more serious kind of blame. Humans are not merely determined by natural instinct because we have a rational appetite which is only necessitated towards its general object, the intelligible good, and the complete good as final end (the broadest meaning of εὐδαιμονία). That Aristotle would not see it as otherwise necessitated is evidenced by Metaphysics θ.2, which treats of rational potencies, which are capacities for contraries. The rational appetite is not determined to either contrary nor moved of necessity, as irrational potencies are. Aristotle explains this on the basis that, in intellectual knowledge, the same λόγος makes clear both the positive thing and its lack. Although Aristotle’s foundations of the understanding of the rational appetite are not as developed or emphasised as they are by St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, in their treatments of the liberum arbitrium voluntatis, Aristotle presents us a sound basis by which we can praise and blame human beings as being morally responsible for their acts and habits. 

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[1] διὰ προαιρέσεώς τινος καὶ νοήσεως. It can be noted that he often uses words that more properly refer to rational human beings but can be used analogously in reference to non-rational animals. Other examples include φρόνιμος and διάνοια. 

[2] S. Bobzien, “Choice and Moral Responsibility (NE iii 1-5)” in Polansky (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge, 2014, 94 

 

Is ‘Based’ an Aristotelian Virtue?

Like all words frequently used on the internet, the term ‘based’ is frequently misused. But as for the proper use of the term ‘based’ - that is, when used by men of refinement and nuance - the term really does seem to be a mere recollection of the Aristotelian virtue of μεγαλοψυχία ie. greatness of soul or magnanimity.

Observe Aristotle on the Magnanimous Man:

“he therefore to whom even honour is a small thing will be indifferent to other things as well...

haughty towards men of position and fortune, but courteous towards those of moderate station...

He will not compete for the common objects of ambition...will be idle and slow to act, except when pursuing some high honour or achievement...will not engage in many undertakings, but only in such as are important and distinguished. 

He must be open both in love and in hate...care more for the truth than for what people will think...does not bear a grudge...is no gossip...is not given to speaking evil, even of his enemies, except when he deliberately intends to give offence...

Other traits generally attributed to the great-souled man are a slow gait, a deep voice, and a deliberate utterance; to speak in shrill tones and walk fast denotes an excitable and nervous temperament, which does not belong to one who cares for few things and thinks nothing great.”

Nic. Eth. IV.III

Whether Incontinence is a Sin

Incontinence / lack of self restraint is different from intemperance / licentiousness. The intemperate or licentious man is habitually disposed to seeking after excessive pleasures (to do with taste and touch). He decides that he should seek after pleasures that are in fact shameful and does so without regret. The incontinent man, however, realises that he shouldn’t seek such pleasures but he is overcome by his passions in the moment and does so anyway. 

The question arises whether the incontinent man sins. Although, intemperance is a worse sin, St Thomas affirms that he does (IIa IIae Q.156 a.2).

One objection has to do with power over one’s actions.

Objection 1. It would seem that incontinence is not a sin. For as Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. iii, 18): "No man sins in what he cannot avoid." Now no man can by himself avoid incontinence, according to Wisdom 8:21, "I know [Vulgate: 'knew'] that I could not . . . be continent, except God gave it." Therefore incontinence is not a sin.

Another has to do with the involvement of reason in sin.

Objection 2. Further, apparently every sin originates in the reason. But the judgment of reason is overcome in the incontinent man. Therefore incontinence is not a sin.

Reading Aristotle’s account of continence and incontinence (Nic. Eth. VII), where he explains what I described above, one might come away thinking these objections have merit. However, St Thomas replies decisively to these important objections.

Reply to Objection 1. Man can avoid sin and do good, yet not without God's help, according to John 15:5: "Without Me you can do nothing." Wherefore the fact that man needs God's help in order to be continent, does not show incontinence to be no sin, for, as stated in Ethic. iii, 3, "what we can do by means of a friend we do, in a way, ourselves."

Reply to Objection 2. The judgment of reason is overcome in the incontinent man not necessarily, for then he would commit no sin, but through a certain negligence on account of his not standing firm in resisting the passion by holding to the judgment formed by his reason.

Further to the the reply to the second objection, we can add a saying of St Augustine, quoted by the Council of Trent: “God never commands the impossible, but, in commanding, He warns us to do what we are able and to ask Him for help to do that which we cannot” (Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 11 (Denzinger, no. 804), from St. Augustine, De natura et gratia, chap. 41, no. 50.) This also reminds us what Jesus Christ said to St Paul: sufficit tibi gratia mea. “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9). And again St Paul (1 Corinthians 10:13) says “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able: but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.”

Furthermore, while the sin of the incontinent man is not as bad as the sin of the licentious man, that does not mean that it is venial, while that of the licentious man is mortal. In fact, the sin of the incontinent man or a sin of frailty can be mortal. While antecedent passion diminishes culpability, it does not destroy it (and on the contrary, consequent passion proper to the licentious man augments culpability). One can fully consent to the passion where one was free to utilise means that would have impeded it before giving into the passion. Garrigou-Lagrange explains in the Three Ages of the Interior Life:

“... But we must distinguish here the so-called antecedent passion, which precedes the consent of the will, and that called consequent, which follows it. Antecedent passion diminishes culpability, for it diminishes the liberty of judgment and of voluntary choice; it is particularly apparent in very impressionable people. On the contrary, consequent or voluntary passion does not lessen the gravity of sin, but augments it; or rather it is a sign that the sin is more voluntary, since the will itself arouses this inordinate movement of passion, as happens in a man who wishes to become angry the better to manifest his ill will. Just as a good consequent passion, such as Christ’s holy anger when He was driving the merchants from the Temple, increases the merit, so an evil consequent passion augments the demerit.

The sin of frailty, of which we are speaking here, is that in which the will yields to the impulse of an antecedent passion; and thereby the gravity of the sin is lessened. This does not mean, however, that it is never a mortal sin. It is truly mortal when the matter is grievous, and the sinner yields to passion with advertence and full consent. This is the case of homicide committed under the impulse of anger.

A person can resist, especially at the beginning, the inordinate movement of passion. If he does not resist it at the beginning as he ought, if he does not pray as he ought to obtain the help of God, passion is no longer simply antecedent, it becomes voluntary.

The sin of frailty, even when serious and mortal, is more pardonable than another, but here “pardonable” is by no means a synonym for “venial” in the current meaning of this word.

Even pious people ought to be attentive to this point for they may have unrepressed movements of jealousy which may lead them to grave faults: for example, to serious rash judgments and to words and exterior acts which are the cause of profound breaches, contrary both to justice and to charity.

It would be a gross error to think that only the sin of malice can be mortal because it alone implies the sufficient advertence, the full consent, together with the serious matter, necessary for the sin which gives death to the soul and renders it worthy of eternal death. Such an error would result from a badly formed conscience, and would contribute to increase this deformity. Let us remember that we can easily resist the beginning of the inordinate movement of passion, and that it is a duty for us to do so and also to pray for help, according to the words of St. Augustine, quoted by the Council of Trent:“God never commands the impossible, but, in commanding, He warns us to do what we are able and to ask Him for help to do that which we cannot.”

Let us add to this description of Garrigou-Lagrange what Our Lord Jesus Christ says about the efficacy of prayer in Luke Chapter 11: 

And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?