Views 235 Altmetric More metrics information Email alerts Article activity alert Advance article alerts New issue alert Consequently, when Aquinas wishes to indicate strict obligation he often uses a special mode of expression to make this idea explicit. supra note 3, at 75, points out that Aquinas will add to the expression law of nature a further worde.g., preceptto express strict obligation. 91, a. It is easy to imagine that to know is to picture an object in ones mind, but this conception of knowledge is false. Self-evidence in fact has two aspects. Now if practical reason is the mind functioning as a principle of action, it is subject to all the conditions necessary for every active principle. One whose practical premise is, Pleasure is to be pursued, might reach the conclusion, Adultery ought to be avoided, without this prohibition becoming a principle of his action. The rule of action binds; therefore, reason binds. This is the first principle of ethical human action as articulated by Saint Thomas Aquinas, who relies on the classical wisdom of Aristotle and represents much of the Catholic tradition ( Summa Theologiae I-II, q. Practical reason prescribes precisely in view of ends. Natural law does not direct man to his supernatural end; in fact, it is precisely because it is inadequate to do so that divine law is needed as a supplement. But if good means that toward which each thing tends by its own intrinsic principle of orientation, then for each active principle the end on account of which it acts also is a good for it, since nothing can act with definite orientation except on account of something toward which, for its part, it tends. By their motion and rest, moved objects participate in the perfection of agents, but a caused order participates in the exemplar of its perfection by form and the consequences of formconsequences such as inclination, reason, and the precepts of practical reason. Odon Lottin, O.S.B., Le droit naturel chez Saint Thomas dAquin et ses prdcesseurs (2nd ed., Bruges, 1931), 79 mentions that the issue of the second article had been posed by Albert the Great (cf. The good which is the end is the principle of moral value, and at least in some respects this principle transcends its consequence, just as. For Aquinas, however, natural law includes counsels as well as precepts. Proverbs 4:15. correct incorrect In the fourth paragraph he is pointing out that the need for practical reason, as an active principle, to think in terms of end implies that its first grasp on its objects will be of them as good, since any objective of action must first be an object of tendency. Aquinas mentions this point in at least two places. 2). [20] Of course, we often mean more than this by good, but any other meaning at least includes this notion. The pursuit of the good which is the end is primary; the doing of the good which is the means is subordinate. Throughout history man has been tempted to suppose that wrong action is wholly outside the field of rational control, that it has no principle in practical reason. (Op. The object of a tendency becomes an objective which is to be imposed by the mind as we try to make the best of what faces us by bringing it into conformity with practical truth. A clearer understanding of the scope of natural law will further unfold the implications of the point treated in the last section; at the same time, it will be a basis for the fourth section. Of themselves, they settle nothing. S.T. Achieving good things is a lifelong pursuit. One of these is that every active principle acts on account of an end. 2, c. Fr. The intelligibility of good is: what each thing tends toward. The primary precept provides a point of view. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. 1. "The good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided" is not very helpful for making actual choices. Copyright 2023 The Witherspoon Institute. b. Desires are to be fulfilled, and pain is to be avoided. Rather, Aquinas proceeds on the supposition that meanings derive from things known and that experienced things themselves contain a certain degree of intelligible necessity.[14]. Hence good human action has intrinsic worth, not merely instrumental value as utilitarianism supposes. As a disregard of the principle of contradiction makes discourse disintegrate into nonsense, so a disregard of the first principle of practical reason would make action dissolve into chaotic behavior. [1] This summary is not intended to reflect the position of any particular author. Nor should it be supposed that the ends transcendence over moral virtue is a peculiarity of the supernatural end. Aquinas recognizes a variety of natural inclinations, including one to act in a rational way. The direction of practical reason presupposes possibilities on which reason can get leverage, and such possibilities arise only in reflection upon experience. It is: Does natural law contain many precepts, or only one? Unlike the issue of the first article, which was a question considered by many previous authors, this second point was not a standard issue. An object of consideration ordinarily belongs to the world of experience, and all the aspects of our knowledge of that object are grounded in that experience. But it is central throughout the whole treatise. None of the inclinations which ground specific precepts of the natural law, not even the precept that action should be reasonable, is a necessary condition for all human action. ODonoghue must read quae as if it refers to primum principium, whereas it can only refer to rationem boni. The, is identical with the first precept mentioned in the next line of text, while the, is not a principle of practical reason but a quasi definition of good, and as such a principle of understanding. On the analogy he is developing, he clearly means that nothing can be understood by practical reason without the intelligibility of good being included in it. Here he says that in a self-evident principle the predicate belongs to the intelligibility of the subject; later he says that good belongs to the intelligibility of end and that end belongs to the intelligibility of good. Mans ability to choose his ultimate end has its metaphysical ground in the spiritual nature of man himself, on the one hand, and in the transcendent aspect that every end, as a participation in divine goodness, necessarily includes, on the other. The end is the first principle in matters of action; reason orders to the end; therefore, reason is the principle of action. He thinks that this is the guiding principle for all our decision making. In defining law, Aquinas first asks whether law is something belonging to reason. Aquinas knew this, and his theory of natural law takes it for granted. c. the philosophy of Epictetus. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided, together with the other self-evident principles of natural law, are not derived from any statements of fact. Within experience we have tendencies which make themselves felt; they point their way toward appropriate objects. He classified rule by a king (monarchy) and the superior few (aristocracy) as "good" governments. Today, he says, we restrict the notion of law to strict obligations. [34] This end, of course, does not depend for realization on human action, much less can it be identified with human action. The good is placed before the will by the determination of the intellects. But in reason itself there is a basic principle, and the first principle of practical reason is the ultimate end. [68] Super Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, bk. Yet even though such judgments originate in first principles, their falsity is not due to the principles so much as to the bad use of the principles. cit. Verse Concepts. The true understanding of the first principle of practical reason suggests on the contrary that the alternative to moral goodness is an arbitrary restriction upon the human goods which can be attained by reasonable direction of life. There is nothing surprising about this conclusion so long as we understand law as intelligence ordering (directing) human action toward an end rather than as a superior ordering (commanding) a subjects performance. The latter ability is evidenced in the first principle of practical reason, and it is the same ability which grounds the ability to choose. b. the view advanced by the Stoics. Of course, if man can know that God will punish him if he does not act in approved ways, then it does follow that an effective threat can be deduced from the facts. 6. Man cannot begin to act as man without law. Of course, I must disagree with Nielsens position that decision makes discourse practical. An intelligibility need not correspond to any part or principle of the object of knowledge, yet an intelligibility is an aspect of the partly known and still further knowable object. [69] The precepts of natural law, at least the first principle of practical reason, must be antecedent to all acts of our will. 3, c. Quasi need not carry the connotation of fiction which it has in our usage; it is appropriate in the theory of natural law where a vocabulary primarily developed for the discussion of theoretical knowledge is being adapted to the knowledge of practical reason.) Purma (18521873), 7: bk. Although arguments based on what the text does not say are dangerous, it is worth noticing that Aquinas does not define law as an imperative for the common good, as he easily could have done if that were his notion, but as an ordinance of reason for the common good etc. [56], The good which is the subject matter of practical reason is an objective possibility, and it could be contemplated. He points out, to begin with, that the first principle of practical reason must be based on the intelligibility of good, by analogy with the primary theoretical principle which is based on the intelligibility of being. 3, ad 2; q. supra note 3. There is a constant tendency to reduce practical truth to the more familiar theoretical truth and to think of underivability as if it were simply a matter of conceptual identity. In the first paragraph Aquinas restates the analogy between precepts of natural law and first principles of theoretical reason. Later Suarez interprets the place of the inclinations in Aquinass theory. Because Aquinas explicitly compares the primary principle of practical reason with the principle of contradiction, it should help us to understand the significance of the relationship between the first principle and other evident principles in practical reason if we ask what importance attaches to the fact that theoretical knowledge is not deduced from the principle of contradiction, which is only the first among many self-evident principles of theoretical knowledge. Laws are formed by practical reason as principles of the actions it guides just as definitions and premises are formed by theoretical reason as principles of the conclusions it reaches. 1, a. Aquinas suggests as a principle: Work in pursuit of the end. Aquinas thinks of law as a set of principles of practical reason related to, Throughout history man has been tempted to suppose that wrong action is wholly outside the field of rational control, that it has no principle in practical reason. Aquinass understanding of the first principle of practical reason avoids the dilemma of these contrary positions. His theory of causality does not preclude an intrinsic relationship between acts and ends. But binding is characteristic of law; therefore, law pertains to reason. [79] S.T. In accordance with this inclination, those things relating to an inclination of this sort fall under natural law. Flannery transposes this demonstration onto ethical terrain. Thus, the predicate belongs to the intelligibility of the subject does not mean that one element of a complex meaning is to be found among others within the complex. The first principle of practical reason is itself formed through reflexive judgment; this precept is an object of the intellects act. supra note 11, at 5052, apparently misled by Maritain, follows this interpretation. A human's practical reason (see [ 1.3.6 ], [ 4.9.9 ]) is responsible for deliberating and freely choosing choices for the human good (or bad). Maritain points out that Aquinas uses the word quasi in referring to the prescriptive conclusions derived from common practical principles. It is the rationalistic assumptions in the back of his mind that make the empiricist try to reduce dispositional properties to predictions about future states. Aquinas assumes no a priori forms of practical reason. Maritain points out that Aquinas uses the word quasi in referring to the prescriptive conclusions derived from common practical principles. And it is with these starting points that Aquinas is concerned at the end of the fifth paragraph. 92, a. Do good, together with Such an action is good, leads deductively to Do that action. If the first principle actually did function in this manner, all other precepts would be conclusions derived from it. Of course, good in the primary precept is not a transcendental expression denoting all things. Indeed, the addition of will to theoretical knowledge cannot make it practical. the primary principle. There his formulation of the principle is specifically moralistic: The upright is to be done and the wrong avoided. From the outset, Aquinas speaks of precepts in the plural. These goods are not primarily works that are to be done. [68] For the will, this natural knowledge is nothing else than the first principles of practical reason. Nevertheless, a theory of natural law, such as I sketched at the beginning of this paper, which omits even to mention final causality, sometimes has been attributed to Aquinas. nonconceptual, nonrational knowledge by inclination or connaturality. Moreover, it is no solution to argue that one can derive the ought of moral judgment from the is of ethical evaluation: This act is virtuous; therefore, it ought to be done. Not even Hume could object to such a deduction. Thus the status Aquinas attributes to the first principle of practical reason is not without significance. Thus the intelligibility includes the meaning with which a word is used, but it also includes whatever increment of meaning the same word would have in the same use if what is denoted by the word were more perfectly known. But his alternative is not the deontologism that assigns to moral value and the perfection of intention the status of absolutes. Only truths of fact are supposed to have any reference to real things, but all truths of fact are thought to be contingent, because it is assumed that all necessity is rational in character. To be practical is natural to human reason. But if good means that toward which each thing tends by its own intrinsic principle of orientation, then for each active principle the end on account of which it acts also is a good for it, since nothing can act with definite orientation except on account of something toward which, for its part, it tends. Assumption of a group of principles inadequate to a problem, failure to observe the facts, or error in reasoning can lead to results within the scope of first principles but not sanctioned by them. 7) First, there is in man an inclination based on the aspect of his nature which he has in common with all substancesthat is, that everything tends according to its own nature to preserve its own being. Thus, the predicate belongs to the intelligibility of the subject does not mean that one element of a complex meaning is to be found among others within the complex. Lottin, for instance, suggests that the first assent to the primary principle is an act of theoretical reason. 101 (1955) (also, p. 107, n. 3), holds that Aquinas means that Good is what all things tend toward is the first principle of practical reason, and so Fr. 2-2, q. Suitability of action is not to a static nature, but to the ends toward which nature inclines. seems to fall into this mistaken interpretation. Practical reason understands its objects in terms of good because, as an active principle, it necessarily acts on account of an end. Although Suarez mentions the inclinations, he does so while referring to Aquinas. This is, one might say, a principle of intelligibility of action (cf. supra note 40), by a full and careful comparison of Aquinass and Suarezs theories of natural law, clarifies the essential point very well, without suggesting that natural law is human legislation, as ODonoghue seems to think. Epicureanism is _____. It is the idea of what should be done to insure the well ordered functioning of whatever community the ruler has care for. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided A perfectly free will is that which is not influenced by alien causes Only categorical imperatives are those which can be universal maxims. The gap between the first principle of practical reason and the other basic principles, indicated by the fact that they too are self-evident, also has significant consequences for the acts of the will which follow the basic principles of practical reason. If practical reason ignored what is given in experience, it would have no power to direct, for what-is-to-be cannot come from nothing. 2, c; Super Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, bk. It is not equivalent, for example, to self-preservation, and it is as much a mistake to identify one particular precept as another with the first principle of practical reason. In neither aspect is the end fundamental. 94, a. 4, c. [64] ODonoghue (op. 1, ad 9. Of course, so far as grammar alone is concerned, the gerundive form can be employed to express an imperative. [58] S.T. [34] Summa contra gentiles 3: chs. supra note 8, at 202205. The objective dimension of the reality of beings that we know in knowing this principle is simply the definiteness that is involved in their very objectivity, a definiteness that makes a demand on the intellect knowing them, the very least demandto think consistently of them.[16]. 11, ad 2: Objectum intellectus practici est bonum ordinabile ad opus, sub ratione veri.. [76] Lottins way of stating the matter is attractive, and he has been followed by others. As I explained above, the primary principle is imposed by reason simply because as an active principle reason must direct according to the essential condition for any active principleit must direct toward an end. Here too Suarez suggests that this principle is just one among many first principles; he juxtaposes it with, As to the end, Suarez completely separates the notion of it from the notion of law. If every active principle acts, Let us imagine a teaspoonful of sugar held over a cup of hot coffee. supra note 3, at 16, n. 1. For example, the proposition. For the notion of judgment forming choice see, For a comparison between judgments of prudence and those of conscience see my paper, , Even those interpreters who usually can be trusted tend to fall into the mistake of considering the first principle of practical reason as if it were fundamentally theoretical. However, since the first principle is Good is to be done and pursued, morally bad acts fall within the order of practical reason, yet the principles of practical reason remain identically the principles of natural law. Primum principium, whereas it can only refer to rationem boni [ 1 ] this summary not... 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