The multifarious moral object of Thomas Aquinas

Thomist

Volumn 67, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 95-118

  Flannery, Kevin L ^a  

^a PONTIFICIA UNIVERSITÀ GREGORIANA   (Italy)

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EID: 61249389235     PISSN: 00406325     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tho.2003.0039     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. For the way in which, according to Aristotle, immoral acts indicate parts of the soul in conflict with one another, see K. L. Flannery, "The Aristotelian First Principle of Practical Reason," Thomist 59 (1995):441-64.
2. For a fuller treatment of this history, see O. Lottin, "Le problème de la moralité intrinsèque d'Abélard a Saint Thomas d'Aquin," Revue Thomiste 39 (1934): 477-515.
3. "Non enim quae fiunt, sed quo animo fiant pensat Deus, nec in opere sed in intentione meritum operantis vel laus consistit" (D. E. Luscombe, ed. and trans., Peter Abelard's 'Ethics,' Oxford Medieval Texts [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971], 28.9-11).
4. "Opera quippe quae, ut praediximus, eque reprobis ut electis communia sunt, omnia in se indifferentia sunt, nec nisi pro intentione agentis bona vel mala dicenda sunt, non videlicet quia bonum vel malum sit ea fieri, sed quia bene vel male fiunt, hoc est, ea intentione qua convenit fieri, aut minime" (ibid., 44.30-46.1). Luscombe's lengthy footnote 1 at 46 s very useful; see also Lottin, "Le problème de la moralité intrinsèque," 477-78.
5. "Sed Augustinus evidentissime docet in libro 'Contra mendacium' omnes actus secundum intentionem et causam iudicandos bonos vel malos, praeter quosdam qui ita sunt mali ut nunquam possint esse boni, etiam si bonam videantur habere causam" (P. Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 4-5 [3d ed.;
6. Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971-1981], II, d. 40, c. 7).
7. CSEL 41:489
8. they are good sui genere but are evil on account of faithlessness: "To whom they respond saying that such works which come about without charity are called good not because they are good when they so come about (which Augustine clearly teaches above [Super Epistolam ad Galatas, PL 35:2147;
9. CSEL 84:138]), but because they would be good if they came about otherwise: although they are good according to their genus, on account of the affect, they come about as evil" ("Quibus illi respondent dicentes opera bona appellari huiusmodi, quae sine caritate fiunt, non quia bona sint quando sic fiunt: quod supra euidenter docuit Augustinus; sed quia bona essent si aliter fierent; quae etiam sui genere sunt bona, sed ex affectu fiunt mala")
10. At one point Albert mentions what he regards as Peter Lombard's position on the bonum in genere, but it corresponds to nothing that I find in Lombard. Albert writes as follows: "Moreover, the Master, in the Sentences, faced with that opinion which says that all acts are from God, says that all acts are good in genere. Since, therefore, many acts are upon inappropriate matter, an act which is only upon appropriate matter will not be bonum in genere" ("Praeterea, Magister in Sententiis pro opinione ilia quae dicit omnes actus esse a Deo, dicit, quod omnes actus boni sunt in genere. Cum ergo plurimi actus sint super indebitam materiam, non erit bonum in genere actus super debitam materiam tantum") (Albert the Great, De bono, tract. 1, q. 2, a. 4, obj. 9
11. [Sancti Alberti Magni opera omnia, ed. H. Kühle, C. Feckes, B. Geyer, and W. Kübel (Monasterium Westfalorum: Aschendorff, 1951)]). But, as we have seen, on the one accasion where Lombard comes closest to discussing the bonum in genere (or bonum ex genere), he associates it with refreshing the thirsty, which is a classic example of an actus cadens supra materiam debitam. He distinguishes this goodness from the goodness that come from an act's simply being, which is goodness "in essence"
12. Albert is alluding here to the first objection of the article where he discusses the various senses of genus (Albert, De bono, tract 1, q. 2, a. 4, obj. 1). (I speak, as is customary, of the earlier paragraphs in this article as "objections," even though some of them do not strictly speaking pose objections but simply provide information which Albert subsequently comments upon.)
13. see also W. E. May, "Aquinas and Janssens on the Moral Meaning of Human Acts," The Thomist 48 (1984): 566-606;
14. and K. L. Flannery, Acts amid Precepts: The Aristotelian Logical Structure of:Thomas Aquinas's Moral Theory (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), 159-61.
15. See Aristotle, Metaph. IX, 2, 1046b1-15;
16. also Ethica Eudemia II, 10, 1227a26-31.
17. Thomas then attributes this position, with reason, to Aristotle, citing Nicomachaen Ethics IV, 7, 1127a28-30.
18. On the issue of Thomas and lying, see L. Dewan, "Saint Thomas, Lying, and Venial Sin," The Thomist 61 (1997): 279-300., on which I rely heavily in these paragraphs on lying.
19. L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C. Ogden (London, Boston, Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 5.633. Ogden, whose translation I use, emphasizes the first two words, "Where in.. ." [Wo in.. .]; I follow Pears and McGuinness in emphasizing only "in."
20. See K. L. Flannery and P. Moser, "Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention without Paradox," Heythrop Journal 26 (1985): 313-15.
21. "Hier sieht man, dass der Solipsismus, streng durchgeführt, mit dem reinen Realismus zusammenfällt. Das Ich des Solipsismus schrumpft zum ausdehnungslosen Punkt zusammen, und es bleibt the ihm koordinierte Realität" [Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.64].
22. See S. L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 172-76.
23. S.L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action, Ibid.
24. See Flannery, Acts amid Precepts, 203-8, 216, 223-25.