Lecture 13 — Refutation of the Opinion That We Have No Faculty Cognoscitive of Good

Someone may say that every man desires what appears good to him, for we are not in command of our imagination, but according to the character of each man, so does the end seem to him. [515]

Since, therefore, everyone is in some measure the cause of his habits, he is to some extent the cause of the manner in which his imagination reacts. [517]

Perhaps no one is himself the cause of the evil he does, but each acts because of ignorance of the end under the impression that something very good will follow by means of his action. It ensues, then, that the end is not an object desired by a man’s free will, but must be innate, as though a man had some sight to judge correctly and to desire what is really good. He is well-born who has this good judgment from birth. For, he will possess the greatest and best of gifts, one that can never be received or learned from others, but kept just as nature gave it, and to be well and nobly endowed with this will be a perfect and true and propitious heritage. [521]

If this is true, how is virtue more voluntary than vice? For both alike—the good and the wicked—the end appears and is fixed by nature or howsoever it may be. In referring everything else to this end, men do whatever they do. Whether the end, then, whatever it may be, does not so present itself by nature, but also depends on him, or whether the end is natural and the good man using the means is voluntarily virtuous, in either case virtue as well as vice will be voluntary. For, volition exists in the evil man also, since it influences him both in his actions and in his view of the end. If, then, as is affirmed, virtues are voluntary (for indeed we ourselves are partly responsible for the way our habits dispose us, and by living in a certain way, we fix our end accordingly), it follows that vices also are voluntary, because a similar reason is present. [524]

We have discussed virtues in general and the outline of their genus. We have shown that each is a mean and a habit. We have explained that habits produce the same actions by which the habits themselves are caused. We have said that habits are in our power and voluntary, that they follow right reason, and that voluntary operations are otherwise than habits because we have control over our operations from the beginning to the end when we know the particular circumstances. We are masters only of the beginning of our habits, but the individual steps by which they grow are not known to us, as in sicknesses. But because it was in our power to act or not to act in this way, the habits are called voluntary. [526]

Taking up again the consideration of virtues, we will discuss what each virtue is, with what matter it deals, and in what way it operates. At the same time, we will clearly see also how many virtues there are. First, we will treat the virtue of fortitude. [527]

515. Someone may say that every man. After the Philosopher has overthrown the fundamental principle of those who hold that vice is not voluntary on the part of the disposition inclining the appetitive faculty, he here excludes another fundamental principle on the part of the cognoscitive power.

On this point, he does two things.

First, he explains this fundamental principle.

Second, at since, therefore (1114b1; [517]), he rejects it.

In regard to the first, we must consider that good, precisely as it is perceived, moves the desire. As the natural desire or inclination follows the form naturally inherent, so the animal desire follows the perceived form. In order, then, that a thing be desired, it is first required that it be perceived as good. Hence, everyone desires what appears good to him.

516. Therefore, someone can say it is not in our power that this thing should seem or appear good to us. The reason is that we are not in command of our imagination, that is, over the way things appear or seem to us. But, in accord with the disposition of a man, so does his end seem to him, that is, such as a thing seems to a person, it must be desired as good and an end. A thing is agreeable to each according to its proper form: fire tends upward, and things of earth tend to the center. So, also, we see that, among the animals, each one strives after something as good and an end according to its own natural disposition. Hence, different animals have different activities and operations, although all animals of one species have similar movements and operations. But in the human species, individuals are found having different movements and operations; therefore, some were of the opinion that this arises from a difference in natural disposition that makes one thing seem good to one man and something else to another, and thus the procedure is not subject to man’s control or power.

517. Then, at since, therefore (1114b1), he excludes the aforementioned principle and, concerning it, he does three things.

First, he gives the reason repudiating these allegations [517].

Second, at perhaps no one (1114b3; [521]), he adds an answer that seems to counter this.

Third, at if this is true (1114b12; [524]), he disproves the counterargument.

On the first point, we must consider that a thing can appear good to someone in two ways.

518. In one way, in general, it is so by a kind of speculative consideration. Such a judgment about good follows not any particular disposition, but the universal power of reason syllogizing about actions, as it does in the case of natural things. Since practicable things are contingent, reason is not forced to assent to this or that as it does when demonstration occurs. But man has the power to give assent to one or the other part of a contradiction, as happens in all practicable things, especially when we have under consideration many objects, any one of which can be judged good.

519. In the other way, a thing can appear good to someone by a practical knowledge, as it were, by reason of a comparison with what is to be done. The Philosopher here speaks of this type of judgment that can be made in two ways about some good. In one way, a thing may appear good to someone absolutely and in itself. This seems to be a good in conformity with the nature of the end. In the other way, a thing may appear to someone not absolutely in itself, but judged by present considerations.

520. The appetitive faculty is inclined to an object on two accounts: one by reason of a passion of the soul, the other by reason of habit. Under the impulse of passion, it happens that a thing is judged good as it is at present. Thus, to one who is afraid of drowning, it appears good at the moment to throw his merchandise overboard; as does fornication to one filled with lust. But the judgment by which a man accounts a thing good in itself and absolutely arises from the inclination of habit. This we will discuss now. He, therefore, says that, since a man in some measure is the cause of his own evil habit by reason of his continual sinning—as has been pointed out [509–12], it follows that he himself is also the cause of the imaginative reaction that follows such a habit, that is, of the appearance by which this thing seems to be good in itself.

521. Next, at perhaps no one (1114b3), he gives the counterargument of the adversary against the point that has just been made [518–20]. He says that perhaps someone will maintain that nobody is himself the cause of his own evil acts, but each individual does evil because of ignorance of the end, inasmuch as he thinks that something very good is to follow from what he does wrongly. That a person desires a proper end does not arise from his own free will, but must belong to him from birth. Just as a man has from birth the external sight by which he correctly distinguishes colors, so also he should from birth have a well-disposed internal vision by which he may judge well and desire what is really good. Thus, he must be said to be of good birth in whom the previously mentioned judgment has been implanted from birth. When a man innately has in good and perfect fashion what is greatest and best for him, this is a perfect and truly good birth. For man cannot gain this through the help or guidance of another. Rather, it is proper for him to possess it in the manner that nature has endowed him with it. Therefore, that a man should have this from birth renders his birth doubly praiseworthy: in one way through the excellence of the good, in the other because of the impossibility of otherwise acquiring it.

522. We must consider that this seems to be the opinion of certain mathematicians who hold that man is disposed at his birth by the power of the heavenly bodies to do this or that. This opinion is attributed by Aristotle in his work De anima (De anima 3.3.426a21–427b26; see Aquinas, In III de an., lect. 4, nn. 616–23.) to those who did not hold the distinction between sense and intellect. If anyone should say (as in fact it is said there in De anima), that the human will is impelled by the father of men and gods—that is, the heavens or the sun—it will follow that the will (and the reason, in which the will resides) is something corporeal, as the senses are. It is not possible that what is in itself incorporeal should be moved by a body. Thus, the will and intellect will contain a bodily organ and they will differ in no way from the senses and the sensitive appetitive faculty. Therefore he draws a comparison between the sense of sight and the intellectual vision by which we judge a thing.

523. It must be said, then, that the heavenly bodies can cause in the human body a disposition inclining the sensitive appetitive faculty, the motion of which is a passion of the soul. Hence, by reason of the influence of the heavenly bodies, a man does not have the inclination to judge that a thing is good absolutely and in itself (as through the habit of choice in virtue and vice), but to judge that a thing is good as it is at the moment, for example, in accordance with passion. The same observation must be made about the inclination that occurs from bodily temperament. In the present context, however, there is no question of a judgment by which we judge something good in accordance with passion, for the will is able to reject this—as was said [516], but of a judgment by which we judge that something is good by means of habit. Therefore, this answer does not destroy the reason of Aristotle.

524. At if this is (1114b12), he rejects this answer on the basis of the presuppositions of the adversary who took for granted that virtue is a voluntary thing but denied this of vice. Then, returning to his earlier discussion [516], which he had interrupted, he says that, if this is true—namely, that the desire of the end exists in man by nature—there is no greater reason why virtue more than vice is voluntary. Reasoning in a similar fashion, we say that for both alike—that is, for the virtuous and the vicious man—the goal must be innate no matter in what way it may seem to be perceived and actually desired. Although virtuous and vicious operation is concerned not only with the end but also with the means to the end, nevertheless men act by referring the remaining things (that is, means to the end) to an end not from nature, but howsoever it seems to them.

525. Therefore, it should be said either that the end for every man does not seem to be such by nature, but that it is relative to each man as it is in his power to cling to such or such an end, or that the end is natural and, by working on the means, man becomes voluntarily virtuous. Then virtue nonetheless will be voluntary. The same is true about vice, because what is for the sake of the end in operations is attributable to the vicious man no less than to the virtuous, just as they are alike in regard to the end—as has been pointed out before [358–62]. Therefore, if virtues are voluntary because of the fact that we are the causes of the habits by which we are disposed to fix an end of such a kind, it follows that vices also are voluntary, because a similar reason holds for one as well as the other.

526. Then, at we have discussed (1114b26), he sums up in conclusion the material previously discussed [524–5].

First, he shows what has already been said about virtues;

second, what remains to be treated.

He states first that virtues in general have been treated and that their genus has been clearly manifested in type, that is, according to their general characteristics. Then it has been said [324–31] what the mean is (this belongs to the proximate genus) and what the habits are (this belongs to the remote genus under which the vices are also contained). It has been affirmed also [255–79] that habits produce the same actions by which the habits themselves were caused. It has been stated too [496–525] that habits are in our power, that they follow right reason, and that voluntary operations are otherwise than habits because we have control over operations from the beginning to the end, provided we know the particular circumstances. Although we do have control of habits from the beginning, afterward, when we are inattentive, something is added in the generation of habits by means of particular operations. Thus, it happens in sicknesses brought on by voluntary actions, as has been noted [513]. But because it was in our power from the beginning to act or not to act in this way, the habits themselves are called voluntary.

527. Next, at taking up again (1115a4), he shows what remains to be treated. He says we must take up again the consideration of the virtues in order to determine what each virtue is, its subject matter, and its mode of operation. Thus, we will clearly see also how many virtues there are. First, we will treat the virtue of fortitude.