Chapter 9 — Answers to these arguments

These objections, however, are easily solved. For evil and good in morals are said to be specific differences, as the first argument stated, because morality depends on the will: for a thing comes under the head of morals so far as it is voluntary. Now the will’s object is the end and the good. Hence moral matters are specified by their end, even as natural actions are by the form of their active principle (for instance, the action of heating is specified by heat). Since, then, good and evil are predicated in respect of the universal direction to an end, or the privation of that direction, it follows that in morals the first difference is that of good and evil. Now for one genus there must be one first measure, and the measure in morals is reason. Consequently, good and evil in moral matters must depend on the end appointed by reason.

Accordingly, in morals, that which derives its species from an end that is in accord with reason is said to be specifically good, and that which derives its species from an end discordant from reason is said to be specifically bad. And yet this end, though it sets aside the end appointed by reason, is nevertheless some kind of good, such as a pleasurable object of the senses, or something similar. Hence in some animals this end is good, and even in man when it is moderated by reason. Also, it happens that what is evil for one is good for another. Therefore, evil, so far as it is a specific difference in the moral genus, does not denote a thing essentially evil, but something that is good in itself but evil for man, insofar as it removes the order of reason, which is man’s good.

From this it follows that evil and good are contraries insofar as they are applied to the moral genus, and not in their absolute signification as the second objection stated: but evil, as such, is a privation of good.

In the same way we may understand the saying that evil and good, taken in the moral order, are the genera of contraries, on which the third objection was based. For of all moral contraries, either both are evil (as prodigality and stinginess), or one is good and the other evil (as liberality and stinginess). Hence moral evil is both a genus and a difference, not through being the privation of a good appointed by reason (from which it is called evil), but through the nature of the action or habit that is directed to an end incompatible with the right end appointed by reason. Thus a blind man is a human individual not as being blind, but as being this particular man, and irrational is a difference of animal not through the privation of reason, but on account of this particular nature to which privation of reason is consequent.

It may also be said that Aristotle asserts evil and good to be genera not in his own opinion, since he does not number them among the ten first genera in each of which some contrariety is found, but according to the opinion of Pythagoras, who affirmed that good and evil are supreme genera and first principles. Under each of them he placed ten supreme contraries. Under the good is the definite, the equal, the one, on the right hand, the male, the resting, the straight, the luminous, the square, and lastly the good. Under evil he placed the indefinite, the unequal, the manifold, the left-hand, the female, the moving, the crooked, darkness, the oblong, and lastly the evil. In this way and in several passages of his works on logic, he employs examples according to the opinions of other philosophers, as being probable at the time.

Moreover, this saying contains a certain amount of truth, for it is impossible that a probable statement should be utterly false. Now of all contraries one is perfect, while the other is incomplete, as containing some kind of privation: thus white and hot are perfect, while cold and black are imperfect, as indicating a kind of privation. Since, then, incompleteness and privation are a kind of evil, while every perfection and completeness comes under the head of good, it follows that in contraries, one seems to be comprised under good while the other approaches to the notion of evil. In this way, good and evil seem to be genera of all contraries.

Also in this way it is clear how evil is opposed to good, which was the line taken by the fourth objection. For insofar as form and end, which have the aspect of good and are the true principles of action, involve privation of a contrary form and end, the action that is consequent upon this form and end is ascribed to privation and evil—accidentally, however, since privation as such is not a principle of action. Rightly, therefore, does Dionysius say that evil does not oppose good, except by virtue of a good: and in itself it is powerless and weak, (Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 4.) as not being a principle of action. Evil, however, is said to corrupt good not only as acting by virtue of a good, as explained, but formally by itself, even as blindness is said to corrupt the sight, through being the very corruption of sight. In the same way whiteness is said to color the wall, because it is itself the color of the wall.

A thing is said to be a greater or lesser evil by reason of its distance from the good. For thus it is that things which imply privation admit of degrees, as inequality and unlikeness; thus to be more unequal is to be more distant from equality, and to be more unlike is to go further from likeness. Hence that which is more deprived of good is said to be more evil, as being more distant from good. But privations are subject to increase not as having a kind of essence like qualities and forms, as the fifth argument presumed, but through the increase of the cause of privation. Hence air is darker according as the light is impeded by the interposition of more obstacles, for thus it is further removed from a participation of light.

Evil is also said to be in the world not as though it had an essence, or were some thing, as the sixth argument supposed, but insofar as a thing is said to be evil with evil, even as blindness and privation of any kind is said to exist because an animal is blind with blindness. For being is predicated in two ways, as the Philosopher teaches. (Metaphysics 4.7.) First, as indicating the essence of a thing, and thus it is divided into the ten categories: in this way no privation can be called a being. Second, as denoting a truth of composition: in this way evil and privation are called a being insofar as a thing is said to be deprived by a privation.