12 Thomas on the vices

The Horses Inside Us

In his book, The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt asks a provoking question:  Why it sometimes the case that pre-modern psychological advice is better than its modern alternative? He was spurred to ask this because a modern therapy technique called cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT that is based on antique philosophy, mostly but not exclusively Stoicism of the Imperial period, has proven to be much more effective than anything Freud, Adler, Jung, Watson or Frankl have been able to suggest.

Haidt’s answer is, the antique world had better metaphors for how the mind works. He tells a story about a time when, as a child, he was on a horseback tour of the Grand Canyon. At one point on a trail along the face of a cliff such that going off the trail meant death, there was a curve. Haidt on the outside of the trail with another rider beside him. Not wanting to turn his horse for fear of running into another horse, he panicked and froze. For a moment he expected to die. His horse was going to keep going in a straight line and they would both plunge off the cliff. It was like one of those nightmares where you try to run or scream but can’t.

As it happened, the horse simply turned when it reached the curve.

Antique writers, most notably Plato, used horses and the training of horses as a metaphor for how the mind works. On this sort of metaphor there are things that simply act in relatively complex ways because that is their nature. By way of contrast, imagine that, like Hobbes, you believed that the mind operated on mechanical principles. If young Haidt had been riding a bicycle and frozen, he would have died. Again, Freud imagined the mind works on hydraulic principles. He worried that if we keep repressing desires the internal pressures will build up and something will explode. That is still a very popular way of imagining the way the mind works. Unfortunately, behaving as if we need to relieve internal mental pressures tends to have disastrous effects. Likewise, mental models based on computer technology are inadequate. Computers can do some tasks, such as playing chess, better than any human being. But ask a computer to manœuver a robot over rough ground such as a trail on the Grand Canyon and they are pathetic. A colt that trips over its own feet will, by the time it is 6 months old, be able to travel over a rough trail better than any robot made.

When a thinker such as Thomas thinks of the inclinations of things, such as rocks falling or horses running, he has a far more complex series of operations in mind that we do. We are inclined to say that he is “wrong” about these things but that isn’t fair. Some explanations are perfectly adequate for a given set of purposes. It is perfectly adequate to think of this table as solid even though some might insist that we actually “know’ that is is a quivering mass of molecules. But such knowledge is not only useless to a cabinet maker, it would actually be a hindrance to her. Likewise, Haidt is suggesting that when it comes to being happy, the metaphors the antique world used to understand the mind are more useful.

So where, for Thomas, are the horses inside us? He does not think like Plato who, in the Phaedrus, used a metaphor of the soul as a chariot equipped with a charioteer and good and bad horse. He posits no internal theatre available through introspection such as we find in Plato and Freud. Our self awareness is strictly empirical. We figure out what the mind does by observing outward behaviour.
My suggestion regarding Thomas is, although he doesn’t use this language, we might say there are potentially many horses inside us.

If we turn to the Summa, prima secundae Question 50, Article 3 “Whether there can be any habits in the powers of the sensitive parts?” Horses enter into the matter in Objection 2, which reads,
Further, the sensitive parts are common to us and the brutes. But there are not any habits in brutes: for in them there is no will, which is put in the definition of habit, as we have said above (I-II:49:3). Therefore there are no habits in the sensitive powers.

If we try to think of this in terms of the context of the time, one of the reasons this question is going to be relevant is that brutes such as horses can and do perform quite complex series of actions but seem, nevertheless, to be very different from us, a difference of kind and not degree.
In the respondio, Thomas makes a distinction between the ways sensitive powers may act: they can do so according to natural instinct or they can do so according to reason. The reply to objection three that follows consists of three parts:

1. First, the horse’s sensitive powers act according to instinct and not reason. That said, the horse has certain natural dispositions. Jonathan Haidt’s horse had a natural disposition not to die so it turned even though its rider failed to direct it. Now let’s stop a second and underline that: there are complex operations, operations that involve what seem very close to judgments, that will continue to happen even if reason (meaning the rider) does not intervene. 

2. Second, despite this distinction, a human being can train a horse to acquire the ability to do additional, not natural, complex behaviours that we might reasonably compare with what we call habitus in human beings. Consider an example that was not available to Thomas: dressage. In dressage, horses perform complex footsteps that most of us couldn’t do without tripping, and that is with only two feet while the horse does it with four. The rider doesn’t micromanage the horse through these steps. She simply directs the horse when to start and stop. The horse makes all the necessary adjustments to deal with all the unevenness of the terrain it needs to cover.  

3. The third part of the argument I will simply read: “But the habit is incomplete, as to the use of the will, for they have not that power of using or of refraining, which seems to belong to the notion of habit: and therefore, properly speaking, there can be no habits in them.” No horse decides to learn or even to do dressage. Those choices are made for them. But the text here begins by saying, “the habit is incomplete” and that is different from saying, it’s completely unlike a habitus. There is a similarity here that needed to be accounted for. We should also note that Thomas began this reply by saying the horse’s, "sensitive powers act according to instinct and not reason,” while he ends it by saying, “the habit is incomplete, as to the use of the will.” Are we making a distinction according to reason or according to the will? Both these issues will need to be explored a bit. 


“Habitius” and “habit” don’t the same thing. Exercise is a habit. The ability to read Latin or to play the piano would be habitus. Now consider what happens when someone like me who does not have either habitus does. When I try to puzzle out a Latin text, I go through it in a plodding way. Likewise, at the piano I do what musicians call “note-bashing”. That is to say I can read a musical score and hit the notes so as to puzzle out a melody. My wife can play he same passage immediately up to a rate of about seven notes a second getting all the stressed and unstressed notes right.

Now, why doe she have this habitus and I do not? Well, because she decided it was important and worked at acquiring it is part of the answer. Reason and will entered into it. Reason told her that being good at music was a habitus worth developing. A persistence and consistence in practicing got her that habitus. Now, while most of us would agree that musical ability is a good thing, nobody would say it is required of anyone the way the college will certainly insist that I improve my Latin considerably before they give me a degree.

We would say, however, that there are moral habitus that everyone simply by virtue of being a human being should try to develop. If we consider my vice, scandal, Thomas defines it as, "“something less rightly said or done that occasions spiritual downfall.” The implication that I should develop the habitus of doing things more rightly is clear.

That’s interesting for it would seem that avoiding this vice would require not just having a particular habitus but rather a whole range of them. The problem is not, as Plato would have it, that we have contending horses. It seems that there are two stages here. First, our habitus represent a number of different horses that we can train well or not-so-well. And second, that there are habitus that are perfectly acceptable at some times but might be ill chosen at others. Is that right? Well, I hope to figure that out by exam time. And what exactly is the relationship between reason and will? If I have this right, both are always involved in a moral act but there are different ways for either to fail.

11 Thomas on the vices

This week we read Question 15. The vices opposed to knowledge and understanding, from the second part of the second part. It's pretty short so I'll just go through it.

First article

He starts with three very good questions:

1. Blindness of mind is an excuse.
2. Blindness of mind is (can be?) a punishment and punishment is not the same as guilt.
3. We are ultimately responsible for our sins and blindness of mind is not voluntary.

The sed contra is Gregory to the effect that blindness of mind arises from lust.

Knowledge is conceived on analogy with sight. (Deeply empirical). Three types:

The light of natural reason. We can’t lose it but it can be prevented from functioning by “lower powers” not functioning. These seem to be confined to what we would call mental illness.
Then there is what we might call "second nature”, a kind of light added by habit. To lose this is punishment.

My thoughts: It would seem then, that the development of vices is punishment for our sins.

The third principle of intellectual sight is an "intelligible principle through which we perceive things” that we might or might not “attend”. The big challenge for me here is not reading this as Kantian epistemology. For it would ridiculously easy as consequence of doing that is to go ahead and make the pragmatic move and see these things as something we invent and then apply. If we willfully turn away from this principle it is a sin.

[It’s odd that Thomas does not regard his response as dealing adequately with the objections for it is.

Second article

Is dullness of sense different from blindness of mind. [We might understand this on analogy with physical blindness which tends not to be blackness but a sense of sight so impaired that it can be of no or almost no use. And we might, therefore, wonder if there is a distinction in degree rather than of kind here.]

Three questions [it seems important that the objections are very clearly questions here. that is why he can say his respondio that all the objections have been dealt with.]:

1. This is related to the question I ask above. Dullness is opposed to understanding so why aren’t they the same thing?
2. The second also related. “Dullness of sense in respect to understanding” seems to be the same thing as a defect which sounds like blindness.
3. If they differ at all, it is in that blindness can be voluntary whereas dullness of senses is a defect and that would make it not a sin.

Again, the response is very empirical with knowledge being associated with sight. This time, however, as degree is admitted, the argument by analogy depends very much on the answer being psychologically familiar to us. If we didn’t recognize some similar phenomenon to dullness in our experience we would not accept this argument. If I’m blind and someone tells me that there is a famous painting on the wall I pretty much have to take his word for it. If my senses are dull, I know there is a painting there but its greatness might allude me.

This is important for the third paragraph of the respondio begins, “Accordingly dulness of sense in connection with understanding denotes a certain weakness of the mind as to the consideration of spiritual goods.” Strictly speaking, that is a non sequitur. Yes, we can draw an analogy but that doesn’t imply that phenomenon actually exists.

This dullness towards spiritual goods is a sin insofar as it is voluntary. That is to say, insofar as I neglect spiritual goods because I am too focused on carnal goods.

[There is a distinction we find in the patristic writings that I don’t see in Thomas. The patristics will say that the gluttony is limited because no matter how much I like crème brûlée with an espresso and an ice cold grappa my desire for these will eventually get dulled. Lust for money, however, does not have this effect. It is limited. (Aside: sex is interesting in this regard as one can be both a glutton about sex and lustful for it.) The dullness that arises from being sated is very different from what Thomas discusses here but I wonder if it played a part in Gregory’s declaration used in the sed contra.)

[Analogy, perceiving a thing’s essence through a property thereof is analogous to seeing an object clearly at a distance. That makes sense on a certain level. I can tell that car a block away is a vintage Buick Skylark but I can’t tell for certain whether it is a 69 or a 72 at this distance, something I could easily have done in my 20s. But eyesight fails in this regard because it fails to determine certain details whereas understanding perceives essences and here things are reversed. At a distance, I can grasp that it is a Skylark, or to put it in essence language, its Skylarkness, what I am missing is the fine details that would allow me to classify it as a particular model year.]

Third article

Objection one is fascinating. Thomas quotes Augustine from the latter’s Retractationes, correcting his earlier claim that “God Who didst wish none but the clean to know the truth,” by saying, “many, even those who are unclean, know many truths.” Thomas replies to the objection by saying that “the cunclean can know some truths, but their uncleaness is a clog to their knowledge.” It’s worth noting two things: 1) that the comment in the Retractationes is really significant. It puts the later Augustine on the opposite side of a question from what he is usually associated. 2) Thomas gives a reply that doesn’t actually disagree with Augustine. He explains away rather than explaining. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this sort of mild esoteric writing but it is worth noting.

The respondio represents the same sort of challenge as the third type of understanding in article 1. That is to say, there is a danger of projecting modern concepts back into Thomas. The response begins: 

The perfect intellectual operation in man consists in an abstraction from sensible phantasms, wherefore the more a man's intellect is freed from those phantasms, the more thoroughly will it be able to consider things intelligible, and to set in order all things sensible. Thus Anaxagoras stated that the intellect requires to be "detached" in order to command, and that the agent must have power over matter, in order to be able to move it.

At first glance that looks a lot like enlightenment rationalism. How similar is it? I don’t know the answer to that question. I do know that if one were a late 19th or early 20th century Thomist looking to confront rationalists or, for that matter, someone alive right now looking to answer Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, the temptation to enlist Thomas as an even-more-perfect rationalist would be very strong. I suspect, though, that it would be better to try and figure out the context Thomas made the arguments.

In that regard, Anaxagoras is a fascinating authority for Thomas to be citing here.

A big question is what is the difference between an abstraction and a spiritual good? Geometry is chock a block with abstractions but is it the way to virtue? we’d have to concede that mastering Euclid’s elements requires self discipline and that is a virtue, it would not be of much moral use for most people.

My thoughts

The first thing that strikes me is the potential for applying Thomas to modern philosophy. I have in mind something distinct from the Thomists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who treated him as a stick with which to beat modernism. Rather, I wonder about ideas that are congenial to certain current views. I would focus instead on the third principle to the respondio of article 1, which he describes as “an intelligible principle, through which a man understands other things; to which principle a man may attend or not attend.” Now, I know that Thomas would not support post-Kantian ethics and it would be deeply wrong to claim him as an authority. That said, I think there is an opening here for Post-Kantian epistemology, and I have Charles Saunders Pierce in mind here, would argue that something this third principle is all there is. Recent neuroscience suggesting that the brain predicts patterns and corrects according to feedback backs this up.

A big question here will be, “How closely wedded is what Thomas has to say about moral truth to what he has to say about epistemology in general?"

Now, if I might go all theological on you for a moment, there is a big challenge for me here in that John Paul II specifically criticizes pragmatism twice in Veritatus Splendour. He does so on two grounds: 1) That it judges the morality of human acts "without any reference to the man's true ultimate end,” and 2) When he lumps it as a danger to be avoided along with relativism and positivism.

I’m not convinced that the distinction Thomas between lust and gluttony holds up for reasons I won’t go into here. In general, I think gluttony is a minor vice and that over-emphasis on it draws our attention away from the deeper problems and even encourages Jansensim. But I think that lust as Thomas discusses it is a source of vice has considerable promise. I read a few years ago of a study that had been done concerning volunteerism. As you may already know, beginning with my generation, interest in volunteerism has steadily declined, to the point that the only way to get significant numbers of teenagers to volunteer now is to make it an academic requirement. The study had focused on volunteer programs that paired teenagers with seniors so that the young volunteers could help with various tasks that were difficult for seniors to so and to provide companionship. The researchers picked this type of volunteer program to study because those who participated reported the greatest reward. Many said their lives turned around for the better and credited much of their life success to the time they’d spent helping these seniors. There was obviously potential evidence to encourage volunteerism here.

The study when published, though, was decidedly muted. Its main conclusion was that the teens had benefited and benefited into their adult lives because they received advice from these seniors that they would not have been able to accept from their parents, teachers or peers. When I read into the study it rapidly became clear why the conclusions were so muted. The seniors, mostly women, had bluntly told the young volunteers that they should smile more, put more effort into personal grooming, lose weight and generally focus on pleasing other people. Now that advice is politically incorrect. In many cases it is bloody offensive. The boor who tells the woman he is trying to pick up that she should smile more is being vile. And yet, it is actually good advice. There is a wealth of good advice that people spitefully ignore even though they would be better off if they took it. A good friend of mine died a few years ago from complications arising from anorexia. At some level, I think she knew the friends and health professionals telling her that she had a problem were right and yet she was unable to accept it. And she not only killed herself, she also impoverished her life and the lives of people who loved her.

Now, a first reaction might be that what I am describing is the opposite of lust, but I don’t think so. It’s a lust for a certain kind of validation that drives it and I think it explains much of the malaise of modern life.

10 Thomas on the Vices

All sorts of things jumped out at me this time.

Most prominently, Q. 117, Art. 5, Whether liberality is a part of justice?

The problem here is that liberality is an act of generosity, Thomas would say beneficence. The moral issue here concerns the giver alone. When I owe a moral debt, be it money or something else, then there is a moral aspect to my owing it but also a moral aspect in the receiver’s right to get repaid. The moral test of liberality is the way it is dispensed. To do so out of a sense of duty would be morally admirable but it would not be liberality.

It’s the sed contra that seems most interesting to me. Thomas quotes Ambrose, “Justice has to do with the fellowship of mankind. For the notion of fellowship is divided into two parts, justice and beneficence, also called liberality or kind-heartedness.” Therefore liberality pertains to justice.

I’d parse it as follows:

F if J and B.
Therefore, if F then J and B.

That is to say, there is no case where F is true unless both J and B are true.

That’s Ambrose’s argument. What does Thomas add?

He first of all acknowledges that there is something to the objections: liberality is nota species of justice. But it two points where it agrees with justice. 1) It is directed towards others and 2) it is concerned with external things. And he concludes, “… liberality is reckoned by some to be a part of justice, being annexed thereto as to a principal virtue.”

Unfortunately, I am not qualified to comment on the quality of the translation here. If we take the English at face value, however, that is a pretty soft endorsement. It is “reckoned by some”. The thrust seems to be that this is a legitimate but not necessary association.

In passing, I’d note there is a Stoic connection here. The Ambrose quote comes from De Officiis Ministrorum which was modeled on Cicero’s De Officiis a text with strong Stoic foundations. Cicero and Seneca were both held in very high regard from Late Antiquity through to the Renaissance. In any case, Thomas seems to have held Cicero and Seneca in high regard.

The Stoic connections is worth noting for the Stoic concern with justice grows out of self-concern. A very short version would run like this: I am a moral being, it behooves moral beings to have certain attitudes and behaviours and some of these would promote concern and care for the community and justice towards individuals. That view fits with Christian morality and is thus admissible. That acknowledged, there is a tension between it and the far harder example set by Jesus who gave up his life. Thus Thomas leaves open a door to consider the case of the “perfect”.

If I might hammer on the Stoic theme: this seems to me to indicate why we cannot equate the perfect to the notion of the Stoic sage. Both the perfect and the serve as moral exemplars that we should all admire even if it seems unlikely that we shall ever successfully emulate them. The Stoic sage, however, is just the most highly developed case of the sort of judgement and virtue that we are all called to have, Liberality, as described by Thomas, is a virtue fitting for all but there is a higher calling for those who aspire to be perfect. In the Reply to objection 2 of article 1, he writes as follows: "It does not belong to a liberal man so to give away his riches that nothing is left for his own support, nor the wherewithal to perform those acts of virtue whereby happiness is acquired.” He then quotes Aristotle ins support of this, “the liberal man does not neglect his own, wishing thus to be of help to certain people.” Now, that’s fine for Aristotle but there is an obvious Christian counterpoint in Matthew 19: 21, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” A Stoic position could, with some effort, be harmonized with this for the Stoic is supposed to be willing to sacrifice even money necessary for subsistence for the sake of maintaining virtue. An Aristotelian could not.

In order to remain loyal to Aristotle, Thomas opens up a second way. Again quoting De Officiis Ministrorum, Thomas writes, “'Our Lord does not wish a man to pour out his riches all at once, but to dispense them: unless he do as Eliseus did, who slew his oxen and fed the poor, that he might not be bound by any household cares.’ For this belongs to the state of perfection …” It seems that in his comment on the Ambrose quote, Thomas means to indicate that what Eliseus did belongs to the state of perfection whereas the first part of the Ambrose quote describes what we might describe as good enough.

09 Thomas on the vices

Some thoughts on rules

“The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise.” Charles Saunders Peirce

Two of us presented yesterday on the subject of scandal. In the discussion that followed there was some pushback regarding mys use of the word "rules" to describe Thomas's concept of rectitude. I understand the reasons for the resistance and even agree with them. That said, I think a lot hangs on what we mean when we say "rule". I don't mean to argue that Thomas himself would have used the word but rather that using the concepts of rules is a useful way to make sense of what rectitude is.

I raised the issue in regards to two quotes from the second part of the second part of the Summa, Question 43.

Here is the first.

A thing is said to be less right, not because something else surpasses it in rectitude, but because it has some lack of rectitude, either through being evil in itself, such as sin, or through having an appearance of evil.

That is from the reply to Article 1, Objection 2. The question it raises is one of interpretation. Thomas says that there are degrees of rectitude. That seems reasonable. We might say, Terri and Kate are both good singers but that Kate is better.

Does the claim that Kate is a better singer require criteria to be meaningful? We could legitimately say either "no" or "yes".  The consequence of saying no is that there isn't much to discuss. If I say, "yes" then I might point at something like range. I might say, Kate has an effective range of three octaves and a bit. When interpreting this statement the larger context will matter. I might think that Kate does everything else Terri can do just as well but she has the added advantage of also having a greater range. On the other hand, I may mean that even though there are some things Terri can do better than Kate, effective range is such an important quality for a singer to have that it trumps all others. The two statements both refer to a criterion but seem to use them in different ways. The first says that range is a desirable characteristic. The second says not just that it's desirable but carries the implication that a wide range is something a singer should have. (I am speaking in general here. There are cases where it would be reasonable to say a singer must have wide range; that would be the case if she were auditioning for the part of Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte.)

In the Confessions Augustine tells although he liked Faustus he did not find him an especially learned man, "He had read some of Cicero's speeches and a very few books of Seneca." (Book 5, Chapter 6). In her book, Perception, Sensibility and Moral Motivation in Augustine, Sarah Byers argues that this implies that Augustine had read a lot of Seneca, which is undoubtedly true. But we could go farther and conclude that for Augustine a learned man should have read a lot of Seneca.

When we start using "should" regarding a criterion a rule is clearly implied. Does it follow, then, that when we just say that Kate has an added advantage that no rule is applied? How we answer this question is going to depend not just on what we mean by "rule" but also about how we feel about rules.

To return to Thomas, when it comes to determining what is a sin we could use rules. It's not the only way. When I was a little boy my parents used to sometimes say, "You could have done better and you know it." Generally they were right as they knew me quite well. If I know I could have been better morally and failed that might reasonably be imputed to me as a sin. The problem is that others rarely know me well enough to say whether I really did as well as I could. Worse, I certainly don't know myself so well. So I use rules as an analytic tool.

We can miss this because the first time we encounter rules they are rules given to us by someone else. "Always wash four hands before eating!" We're often given an "explanation" of this rule in the form of the benefits of good hygiene but the explanation doesn't really justify the rule. The only justification is that our parents want us to do this and they are our parents so we learn how to act in accord with that rule and others. If I had found a scientific study that cast doubt on the efficacy of hand washing it would not have swayed my parents one bit. And this doesn't change. All through life we are given rules we have to follow whether they make sense to us or not. Most speed limits cannot be justified but I get a ticket if I am caught exceeding them anyway. But not all rules are like that. Indeed, most of the rules our parents give us are good rules.

Furthermore, rules aren't always laws. All laws are rules but not all rules are laws. A law should be clear because a law has to be enforced. It isn't just to have a law so vague that people can never be sure whether they are breaking it or not. A speed limit may be arbitrary but it's pretty easy to figure out what 80 km is and whether or not I am exceeding that speed. Which isn't to say that there aren't unjust laws. Those rules which concern sins are laws but not all moral rules need be laws. To quote from my presentation again,

What does it mean to say something “has some lack of rectitude” while still not having perfect rectitude? Prima facie that is contradictory. I think we could help Thomas out by positing two kinds of rules. There are rules that describe what counts as a sin or what might appear as a sin and there are rules that help us improve our character. If we return to our sprinter, we might say that an example of the first kind of rule is always stay in your lane. Whether she succeeds in that is determined by her not stepping over the line. We might add, don’t even step on the line because that way a judge can’t make a mistake and disqualify you. That would be an example of something analogous to what might have the appearance of sin. “Always do your best” is a rule of the second type.

A rule can be vague and still be a good rule. Always consider the feelings of others is a good rule even though it is pretty vague. We might say it's an aspirational rule. If I want to develop a generous disposition towards others that would be a good rule in the sense that applying it as best as I can will help me to very slowly improve my habits.

Of course, some may not like the word "rules". There are lots of words that can be used to describe regular behavior. Peirce, who I quote at the outset, spoke of habits, dispositions and rules. Thomas speaks or ordered and disordered behavior as well as behavior that has or lacks rectitude. There is no reason to abandon such language. But rules have one singular advantage and that is when it comes time to analyze things. If I want to get from I hurt my friend's feelings because I talked about disease without realizing he has just been diagnosed with cancer I need to say something like either, "It's my fault because I should have known," or "This hard on him but it's not my fault because I could not have known." Both statements imply rules and rules like this are essential when it comes to understanding and improving my character. (Character here meaning just something the sum of my good habits minus my bad, if the reader will be charitable enough to assume that I have more good habits than bad.)




PS: I have not spoken of it here because this post is already too long but there is a long argument about the meaning of specific claims versus generalizations behind this. On the surface, "my shoes are black" looks like the same kind of statement as "all human beings are mortal" but they have very different functions. I can't really test the second. I can say something like, "As far as I know every human being in the past eventually died and I assume all the ones alive now and who will be born in the future will die someday," but I don't actually know this.

08 Thomas on the Vices

In addition to my usual sin of seeing Stoic and libertarian interpretations everywhere I’m going to go all theological on you this week. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m also going to go all analytic on you and allude to very delicate issue in passing. 

In the modern world we don’t automatically assume that pride is a bad thing. In fact, we encourage oppressed people to take pride as a first step towards emancipation. We also typically assume that it is impossible to reconcile traditional morality with this new notion of human dignity. I’m going to outline an argument that suggests that Thomas and Augustine both can be reconciled with our modern notion that pride is a first step to liberty. Perhaps “argument” is overstating: It might be better to say I’m going to list some elements that might go into such an argument if it were to be made.

Question 163, Article 1, Whether pride was the first man’s first sin?

 In Objection one, he raises the possibility that the first sin might have been disobedience, Quoting the letter to the Romans to that effect. The reply to the objection reads:

“Man’s disobedience to the Divine command was not willed by man for his own sake, for this could not happen unless one presuppose inordinateness in his will. It remains therefore that he willed it for the sake of something else. Now the first thing he coveted inordinately was his own excellence; and consequently his disobedience was the result of his pride.”

I’d parse that as follows:

1. The first sin wasn’t committed to satisfy some inordinate need for food, fame or material goods because Adam’s will was well-ordered.
2. “Something else” here must means something that is good in itself.
3. That something else was to be excellent and it is for that reason that he disobeyed.

If we go to the response we get this:

There are many movements towards sin and the character of the sin attaches to that movement in which inordinateness is first found. 

Inordinateness is in the inward movement of the soul before being an outward act of the body.

We get moved towards the end before that which is desired for the sake of the end: I want pleasure before I eat chocolate chip cookies. Now there is nothing wrong with chocolate chip cookies in themselves. There has to be an inordinate end that my appetite was aimed at.

But Adam is not like me: he does not have any inordinate desires towards sensible goods such as pleasure. The fruit did indeed look like it tasted good but that is where the sin lies.

He quotes Augustine from Bk 1 of De civitate dei in support of this.

An Inner Citadel

Now that is interesting that citation comes from a section of Book 1 where Augustine deals with the plight of Roman women who were sexually assaulted during the sack of the city. Now, obviously, this is a very delicate issue. Augustine had previously argued that the barbarians respected the holiness of the Christian Churches by granting sanctuary to those who managed to get to them. But now he must deal with those who did not manage to reach the churches and the most horrific case is those women who were raped. In Roman society these women were doubly assaulted. First there was the actual sexual assault and then there was the shame that went with it. In the Roman world chastity was highly valued (a point much modern writing about the empire tends to mislead us on). A woman was expected to resort to heroic measures to prevent any assault on her chastity and if she was unable to prevent a sexual assault suicide was, while not required, put forward as an ideal response. 

(It's worth noting that both Ambrose and Jerome took views that virginity and not consent was what mattered. A note in my copy of De civitate dei suggest that Augustine does not mention Ambrose out of respect but is clearly refuting him.)

Augustine very decisively says that this view is wrong. He says that if a woman has not inwardly consented to the outward act that was forced on her she remains chaste. In a passing remark, he suggests that remains true even she  took physical pleasure.

It’s worth dwelling on the significance for we need to consider how horrible this pleasure would be. Some of the boys who were victims of sexual assault in the church report that even as they were hating what was happening, even as they were willing that it should stop, their bodies betrayed them by responding. Think how horrible that must be. Where do you find sanctuary when even your own body is not safe? 

There is a clear Stoic element to his discussion. Augustine’s notion of an inward consent is similar to, and probably derived from, the Stoic notion of an inner citadel. A “place” where I can assert my right to resist what is put upon me against my will. This wouldn’t be easy. Indeed, it must take heroic strength and dogged persistence to maintain that inner resolve not to consent when the whole world is against you. It seems reasonable to me that a person or people might see the ability to resist this way as a source of legitimate pride. As Christians we would want to add that we should recognize that God’s help is required but the principle is is established.

Dogs that don’t bark in the night

Thomas’s conclusion here is more humble than we might think. He proceeds by exclusion to reach his conclusion: “It remains therefore that the first inordinateness of the human appetite resulted from his coveting inordinately some spiritual good.” It must be because Adam coveted some spiritual good because it cannot have been for any other reason. We associate this inference with Sherlock Holmes: eliminate all the other factors and the one that remains must be the truth. That’s a valid inference but it still remains possible to question it on another level. If I can bore you with some logic:

It’s possible to have a valid inference that is as wrong as wrong can be. For example: 

Either it is raining or the Queen is Jewish.

It is not raining.

Therefore the Queen is Jewish.

We call the fundamental level, that initial premise, "Either it is raining or the Queen is Jewish,” an interpretation, a model or a structure depending on what school of logic we belong to. The question of whether that is legitimate is not in the province of logic, not the logicians responsibility. And that raises a challenge. Because there are an awful lot of possible interpretations. [Keep in mind what interpretation means here.] It doesn’t follow that because a set of given interpretations have been eliminated that any given alternative is going to do.

Where can we turn for an understanding of obedience as a spiritual discipline opposed to pride?

Medieval heritage

A lecturer I once heard discussing the rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans made the following, I think, astute observation, “The problem was that while individual monks made a vow of poverty, the community as a whole did not.” And that can get to be a problem because a community in which everyone lives in poverty and sacrifices for the greater good is almost certain to begin accumulating wealth. If wealthy people in the community donate land and money to the monasteries in the hope of obtaining blessing from God, substantial wealth and power can result. In the period between the eighth to tenth centuries that did not matter because everybody was poor. Beginning in the tenth century and especially between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries some monasteries became rich and politically powerful. Corruption followed. In addition, this very wealthy church was unable to preach convincingly against movements such as the Albigensians who embraced a strict and inspiring asceticism. One way to understand what Francis and Dominic did was that they reinvented spiritual life to respond to new conditions and one of their chief goals was to focus on obedience in the pursuit of spiritual goods.

In a monastic community, obedience means not only obedience to God but also obedience to the abbot or abbess. Our understanding of pride in this context might include not only pride against God directly but also against the abbot. Is my obedience towards my abbot the same as my obedience towards God?

There is an interesting possibility regarding this question found in scripture. (I borrow heavily from Fr. John Nepil https://catholicstuffpodcast.com/podcast/2013/05/21/obedience.html in the following)

There are a number of Greek terms for obedience in the New Testament. Two have the same prefix “hupo”, whip means under. There is “hupotasso” which means under the order of. To be subordinate. That is therm that is used to describe the obedience Jesus showed to Mary and Joseph in Luke after they find him in the temple. Another term is “hupoakuo”, which means under the hearing of. Akuo is the root of the word acoustic.  Prime example is the Canticle in Philipians 2:

Though he was in the form of God,

Jesus did not regard equality with God

as something to be grasped at.

Rather he emptied himself

and took the form of a slave,

being born in the likeness of men.

He was known to be of human estate,

and it was thus that he humbled himself,

obediently accepting even death,

death on a cross.

Now there is an obvious intuition we might take from this and that is that huputasso is the form of obedience we owe to other human beings and that hupoakuo is the form of obedience we owe to God. (I say intuition rather than conclusion because I know of no way to actually prove this.) Hupotasso requires that I do what is asked of em and it also requires a certain attitude. I must charitably assume that there is some good that can come from my obedience. Hupoakuo requires something even deeper. It requires that I surrender even that inner citadel that I might otherwise reserve. Only God deserves the latter and this has political implications.

07 Thomas on the Vices

The things which come into man's use are external things, and among these honor is the greatest simply, both because it is the most akin to virtue, since it is an attestation to a person's virtue, as stated above (103, 1 and 2); and because it is offered to God and to the best; and again because, in order to obtain honor even as to avoid shame, men set aside all other things. 

That's from Question 129, Article 1 "Whether magnanimity is about honors?" He gives three objections that suggest that it is not. There is, then, something tricky about honor.

If we parse the paragraph above we can draw a number of conclusions about honor.

• It's an external thing.
• Honor is offered to God and to "the best".
• We tend to value honor highly and will set aside other things to get it.

An external thing is something that, if the reader will forgive a little Stoic language, is not up to us. We might make an analogy with health. I want to be healthy and there are things I can do to promote my health and yet I might do everything right and still get cancer or have a heart attack.

"Honor is offered to God" here must mean that it is done not that everyone does. That seems odd. Anyone who recognized God as God would surely give him honor. For Friday Vespers of week 1, we sing a Canticle from Revelations 15 that features these lines:

Who would dare refuse you honor,
or the glory due your name, O LORD?

And yet many do so refuse. In this world, honor does not necessarily go to those who deserve it. If I understand him correctly, that is why Thomas says in his reply to Objection 1 of this article, "Good and evil absolutely considered regard the concupiscible faculty, but in so far as as the aspect of difficulty is added, they belong to the irascible." (That is still going to leave us difficulties with regards to God as it seems odd to say that he faces any degree of difficulty in attaining anything but I'll leave that for now.)

The pursuit of honor and fear of shame is all important to us. We'll put aside other things to get the first and flee the second.

In the Aristotelian schema: every virtue has at least two corresponding vices. One is a deficiency and the other is the lack. The example most often used is courage: a deficiency is courage is cowardice and an excess is foolhardiness. That courage is used most often should be a warning to us here that it may not work out so neatly with every virtue.

One of the excesses that Thomas opposes to magnanimity is ambition.

Now there is a problem with terminology here. The terms we use to describe virtues and vices do not correspond to metaphysical truths waiting to be discovered. They are part of a language that changes according to current use. A while ago a young man I know told me that his girlfriend had dumped him because he wasn't ambitious enough. As he explained it to me, two things became apparent. First, that, even though he is a nice guy, she was absolutely right to have dumped him. Second, that by ambition she meant that he just drifted through life taking it as it comes and didn't strive to improve himself or his place in the world. She, like many people in our culture, uses the word "ambition" more or less the way Thomas uses the word translated as "magnanimity". Magnanimity, meanwhile, has come to mean the sort of person who dismisses a moral debt generously or who picks up the tab after dinner.

When we speak of ambition as a vice, then, we should try to track what Thomas means specifically by this word and not think of all the different ways we use the word today. For Thomas, honor is due for excellence but any excellence in us is a gift from God. Further, this excellence was given us so that we could benefit others. We can be excessive, that is to say "ambitious," in three ways: 1) By desiring honor for forms of excellence that God has not given us; 2) By desiring honor for ourselves "Without referring it to God"; 3) When we seek honor as its own reward rather than as a way to benefit others.

The central issue facing us in this course is: How do these vices incline us to sin? Is it the three excesses themselves that are sins? Or are these attitudes that make us likely to sin? The problem I have here is this: If desiring an honor that is not due to me is a sin, what is ambition? Is it something that lies behind the thing or is it only found in things. By way of analogy, pianissimo means to play very softly but you can never see or hear it by itself. You can hear a particular piece of music played pianissimo but never the thing all by itself much the way you never see red, only red stuff. Is ambition something about the execution of an act that makes it sinful? Or can someone do something in an inordinate way such that it is bad, meaning it could be better, but it doesn't rise to the level of sin?

In closing, a challenge from Jane Austen. (I think Austen is one of the best, if not the best modern writer on virtue.) At the opening of Sense and Sensibility, she tells us that a man who has lost his immediately family invites his nephew and niece along with their three daughters to live with him at his estate. Now, this nephew is also heir to the estate. Austen describes their behaviour towards him as follows:

The constant attention of Mr and Mrs Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added relish to his existence.

Now a qualification is required here. By "constant attention" Austen does not mean "all the time" as we would. For the 18th century, "constant" referred to to virtue "constancy" meaning a quality whereby a person didn't change all the time depending on the situation of the moment. That cleared up, notice that "goodness of heart" makes the attention virtuous even though some of it is unquestionably a matter of interest. It would presumably be vicious if it proceeded only from interest. We might also wonder if attention that sprang only from interest would be constant. I rather suspect it wouldn't but would fluctuate depending on our sense of whether or not this attention was likely to pay off. The important thing, though, is that Austen says that self interest does not necessarily render the attention vicious.

What about seeking honor for myself. Suppose I hope to be a poet and part of the reason I do so is that I hope to get good enough to gain honor from others for doing so. Okay, I apparently have delusions about the respect that poets are likely to get. But is the fact that seeking honor is part of what I do vicious? I don't know that I will be any good at the outset. As Jean-François Revel said, "Il y a très peu de grands poètes, et la plupart des grand poètes ont le plus souvent écrit très peut de poèmes." But does it do harm if a poet sits down to write a poem seeking honor even though it should be obvious to him that this outcome is unlikely? Again, it might if that was the only reason for writing this poem or if he took honor as a matter of entitlement but merely seeking it does not seem fatal. And even to the extent that it is bad it doesn't seem to necessarily lead to sin.

06 Thomas on the Vices

First some unfinished business following from my discussion of Question 53.

A few quotations.

 Thus, by defect of "counsel" to which {euboulia} (deliberating well) corresponds, "precipitation" or "temerity" is a species of imprudence; by defect of "judgment," to which {synesis} (judging well according to common law) and {gnome} (judging well according to general law) refer, there is "thoughtlessness"; while "inconstancy" and "negligence" correspond to the "command" which is the proper act of prudence.  [Response to Article 2: Whether imprudence is a special sin?]

And

And since it can resist the impulse of the passions, if it fail to do this, it is due to its own weakness in not standing to the good purpose it has conceived; hence inconstancy, as to its completion, is due to a defect in the reason. Now just as all rectitude of the practical reason belongs in some degree to prudence, so all lack of that rectitude belongs to imprudence. Consequently inconstancy, as to its completion, belongs to imprudence. And just as precipitation is due to a defect in the act of counsel, and thoughtlessness to a defect in the act of judgment, so inconstancy arises from a defect in the act of command. For a man is stated to be inconstant because his reason fails in commanding what has been counselled and judged.  [Response to Article 5: Whether inconstancy is a vice contained under prudence?]

The thing I am having difficulty grasping is the way Thomas uses the word "command". He says, "reason fails in commanding". How does reason command? This seems more like a function of the will than of reason to me.

This seems particularly pertinent with regard to constancy. I think of the climax of The Philadelphia Story in which George Kittridge suspects  Tracy Samantha Lord of infidelity. Tracy herself, having had too much to drink the night in question, isn't entirely sure what she did and is obviously worried that she might, in fact, have had sex with another man. And yet, Tracy expects that George, a man who claims to love her, should have reserved judgment. That he immediately jumped to suspecting her rather than not judging, thereby failing to remain constant, offends her. When she is later vindicated as regards any affair, she breaks off her engagement with George because of that lack of constancy. It seems to me that she both judged and acted correctly.

Our reason is constantly bombarded with evidence that requires interpretation. We might change our mind as to what to think as regards some particular moral issue several times a day every day. Virtue, it seems to me, that we create some distance between our reason and what we do. I may feel more or less warmly towards my wife at various times but my vows to her require a constancy that derives chiefly from the will. I don't see how a Thomist could deny this. (Which is not to say it cannot be refuted, only that I do not know how it would be done.)

Questions 94, 95 and 96: Superstition

That issue carries on into today's discussion for Thomas has to deal with occult forces that we do not. "Occult" at the simplest level means "hidden". That could have several applications here. The word could simply be used to mean beyond our ability to explain. It could also mean relating to supernatural forces. Finally, it could mean, a kind of power that can become available to us through some special initiation into secret, association,  knowledge or power. It is the last Thomas objects to.

That he does so springs from his physics. You simply cannot explain action at a distance with Aristotelian physics. And yet it exists and Thomas knew it existed. Thus, in the first objection to Question 96, Article 2. "Whether observances directed to the alteration of bodies, as for the purpose of acquiring health or the like, are unlawful?" he writes:

Now in the physical order things have certain occult forces, the reason of which man is unable to assign; for instance that the magnet attracts iron, and many like instances, all of which Augustine enumerates (De Civ. Dei xxi, 5, 7). Therefore it would seem lawful to employ such like forces for the alteration of bodies. 

Before we sneer at Aristotle, we should note that Descartes did no better. His physics requires that things either push other things or that they grab onto them and pull in order for causes to have effects.  Neither, as we might be inclined to think, is the problem solved by Newton for Newton was sufficiently spooked by fear of occult practice that he asserted that action at a distance could only happen in a straight line. That, however, was soon disproved for if we lay a piece of paper over a magnet and sprinkle iron filings on the paper those filings will gather in curved lines. Similar effects can be achieved with electrical charges.

It was a consequence of such anomalies that a lot of superstitious nonsense was promulgated during the Romantic era. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, for example, attributes the power to create life to electricity.

It was really only during the first half of the twentieth century that a credible explanation of these hidden forces was achieved. Meaning that a mathematically predictable regularity between inputs and outcomes was hypothesized and then experimentally validated. That creates a whole new set of problems for philosophers for modern physics largely dispenses with causality in the sense that many philosophers, including Thomas, use the word.

What I note, with regards to these questions, is how incredibly profound and sensible Thomas manages to be despite working under that handicap. He distinguishes between an attempt to use occult forces in terms of predictable causality (which he deems allowable) and the use of what are actually signs in an attempt to gain some sort of power over outcomes in cases where we do not understand the causality (which he deems unlawful). (Thus he would dismiss Frankenstein as foolish superstition for the book does not establish any regular connection between electrical charge and the outcomes but merely speculates that such a thing might exists and jumps from their to a belief that it does,)

He goes so far as to say that there might be circumstances wherein wearing "Divine words" around our neck would be dubious. If I understand him correctly, and I may not, we can distinguish between cases where I use these simply as a sign of faith in the power of God to do things and where I use them in the hopes of attaining some outcome without any faith but merely a hope in hidden powers.

Stoic conceptions of God

When we make such leaps we read what are signs as causes. I can invoke a sign without claiming any causality between my doing that and the outcome. Thomas goes on to imply that what is really going on then is that we are invoking some other power. If, as in the case of sacraments, that other power is God and we do this invoking in a fitting and obedient way, it is permissible. What happens when we do not do these things? Thomas attributes that to some sort of contract with demons.

That intrigues me for we have in these questions a concept that is remarkably close to the Stoic conception of God and the influence of Stoicism on Christianity is the focus of my thesis. The issue comes up in Question 94, Article 1: Whether idolatry is rightly reckoned a species of superstition? Among other things, Thomas discusses the following in his response:

Others again deemed the whole world to be one god, not by reason of its material substance, but by reason of its soul, which they believed to be God, for they held God to be nothing else than a soul governing the world by movement and reason: even as a man is said to be wise in respect not of his body but of his soul. 

If Thomas had stopped there, he would have been describing Stoic theology, which was a part of their physics.  He does not stop there, however, he goes on to describe further steps the Stoics did not take such as "that divine worship ought to be given to the whole world and to all its parts, heaven, air, water, and to all such things". The Stoics reserved their worship for the soul that governed the world.

Before proceeding, an important qualification. The Stoic conception of god cannot be squared with the Christian God. It is simply too narrow and would not, for example, allow for a transcendent God. Neither would it allow for the incarnation. Stoic faith must be deemed heretical for us Christians. 

That said, can it be deemed idolatry or superstitious on the terms Thomas proposes to us here? I'm not sure it can. For the Stoics neither personify their deity nor do they claim to be able to use occult forces associated with that deity to achieve desired ends.

What they did do, and Thomas is aware of this and condemns it, is tolerate and go along with common practice in worship even though it was at odds with their inner belief. Thomas quotes Augustine's disapproval of Seneca's practice in this regard and validates it.

For since outward worship is a sign of the inward worship, just as it is a wicked lie to affirm the contrary of what one holds inwardly of the true faith so too is it a wicked falsehood to pay outward worship to anything counter to the sentiments of one's heart. Wherefore Augustine condemns Seneca (De Civ. Dei vi, 10) in that "his worship of idols was so much the more infamous forasmuch as the things he did dishonestly were so done by him that the people believed him to act honestly." 

I'm not ready to expand on this right now but there seems something profound and good here. 

Added: It seems to me that the sort of objection Thomas might have gone on to raise would have been in regards to whether the Stoics can, in fact, worship their god at all. When Cleanthes, for example, sings praise to Zeus, he doesn't mean "Zeus" as his fellow Greeks meant Zeus. Zeus becomes for him a metaphor for something that is not Zeus. (We could raise the same sort of objection to those who today say they are spiritual but not religious.)

04 Thomas on the vices

Edited and updated 2019/02/14

… it is due to its [Reason’s] own weakness in not standing to the good purpose it has conceived …

For Jane Austen, sincerity is not a virtue. It it is only a simulacrum of a virtue. The real virtue behind sincerity is constancy. By way of example, she tells us the story of John Willoughby who is guilty of inconstancy.

In the story, Willoughby is involved in an intense courtship with Marianne Dashwood. He has not proposed marriage yet but it seems to Marianne that he will. Before she has a chance to find out, Willoughby’s past catches up with him. In the past he seduced the teenage ward of a neighbour and got her pregnant. His aunt, whose fortune he was counting on inheriting, finds out about his behaviour and insists that he do right by the girl. Although this would guarantee his inheritance, it would ruin him socially as this marriage would not be acceptable in the circles he travels in. Instead, he successfully woos a rich heiress, thus freeing himself from dependency on his aunt. Alas, this also necessitates his abruptly breaking off his courtship with Marianne, which has devastating consequences on her.

Marianne is also imprudent. She is constant but she tends to be precipitous. As her sister, Elinor says of her, "what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next—that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.” She spins wildly out of control. During her breakdown, she catches a fever and seems on death’s bed. Willoughby, learning of this, comes rushing to inquire, thereby revealing that he really does love her. This reassurance is important for Marianne (and, oddly enough, for her sister Elinor) for it confirms that her sensibility, what we would call her feelings that Willoughby cared for her, were indeed reliable even if  she did not show much sense in the way she responded. She is able to go on with her life now, understanding that sensibility must be balanced with sense, which is what the ancient Greeks would have called phronesis.

Several philosophers, most famously Alasdair MacIntyre, have identified Jane Austen as perhaps the last great figure in the virtue ethics tradition before the current revival. Let us consider, then, the case of Willoughby’s inconstancy in contrast to the analysis of this state we find in Thomas’s Question 53, article five, Secunda Secundae.

Now it’s interesting that in Austen’s story Willoughby has not made a vow of any sort to Marianne. Would we still say he was inconstant if he had declared his love to her? In the culture of the late 18th century declaring his love would have been a vow to marry. Marianne, we are told, was acting in a way that led others to believe that he had spoken as if he were about to and that the only thing that remained to do was to make it official and public. But what difference would it have made as regards inconstancy? The case would seem even clearer if he had made an offer to marry and then withdrawn it. Both such cases would no doubt be inconstancy on his part but it seems to me that we would be more inclined to condemn him for lying rather than inconstancy if a private promise had been made and then withdrawn. Could we imagine inconstancy to be making private promises to oneself and then failing to live up to them? That is, the sin we would accuse him of is of making an implicit promise and failing to live up to it. But, you may object, even if that is what happens, the vice of inconstancy is something other than breaking promises but rather something that goes on in the background. (If it is, what is the greater fault, the promises that are broken or the vice that makes us tend to break them? We can't say the vice causes us to break them for we can overcome our vices sometimes.)

The difference here, it seems to me, is that breaking a vow or leading someone on are both sins that directly afflict another person. Willoughby’s inconstancy leads him to act badly towards Marianne but his bad behaviour is not the inconstancy itself but rather a product of it; otherwise, why name the vice when you can name a sin? And Marianne is far from faultless herself. If her feelings about how he felt about her had been wrong, and they easily could have been, there would have been no fault at all on his part. The story concerns itself largely with the inner lives of these characters and it is in Willoughby’s inner life that he stands accused of inconstancy and not his outward behaviour, even though that outward behaviour is appalling by other standards.

Turning to Thomas, here is how he explains inconstancy in article 5:

Inconstancy denotes withdrawal from a definite good purpose. Now the origin of this withdrawal is in the appetite, for a man does not withdraw from a previous good purpose, except on account of something being inordinately pleasing to him: nor is this withdrawal completed except through a defect of reason, which is deceived in rejecting what before it had rightly accepted. And since it can resist the impulse of the passions, if it fail to do this, it is due to its own weakness in not standing to the good purpose it has conceived; hence inconstancy, as to its completion, is due to a defect in the reason. Now just as all rectitude of the practical reason belongs in some degree to prudence, so all lack of that rectitude belongs to imprudence. Consequently inconstancy, as to its completion, belongs to imprudence. And just as precipitation is due to a defect in the act of counsel, and thoughtlessness to a defect in the act of judgment, so inconstancy arises from a defect in the act of command. For a man is stated to be inconstant because his reason fails in commanding what has been counselled and judged.

Everything that happens here can be described in the terms Thomas sets out. “Inconstancy demotes withdrawal from a definite good purpose.” Willoughby has withdrawn from proposing marriage. “… man does not withdraw from a previous good purpose, except on account of something being inordinately pleasing to him.” Again, Willoughby is not prevented from marrying Marianne, he withdraws because he finds being wealthy inordinately pleasing. And the mere fact that he can stifle his love for Marianne in order to capture a rich heiress tells us that his reason “can resist the impulse of the passions.” We could say then that "his reason fails in commanding what has been counseled and judged.”

Logically, that seems sound but it doesn’t seem adequate psychologically speaking. For starters, we don’t typically speak of reason failing to do things. Nor, for that matter, do we speak of the will failing to do things. We might say someone didn’t have the rational ability to figure something out or that he didn’t have the will to stick to it. Blame attaches to the person and not their “faculties".

I suspect Thomas talks this way for he sees reason as a defining characteristic of what it is to be human. To fail to be reasonable is to act like an animal and thus to fail to live up to our nature. I haven’t looked up his argument but I suspect it would go something like that. I don’t see anything wrong with that line of thought. That said, to speak of reason as if it had agency strikes me as wrong.

There is also reason and its subject matter. In mathematics there is usually a right answer and only one right answer. Many of life’s moral choices, however, involve choosing an acceptable moral choice from a number of right answers. In a post-Nietzschean world we speak of “values”. Values are not like virtues in that there is less judgment involved. I can choose to value French music of the late Romantic era, Bourbon, Japanese gardens, marriage and Proust. There is a moral component in all these things and yet it is easily imaginable that someone might not value some or all these things and still be a good person. Jesus taught us to love one another but my spouse expects me to love her in an exclusive way. I didn’t have to choose to value her in this special way but, once I did, there is a reasonable moral expectation that I keep it up.

Willoughby's reason didn’t have to counsel and judge that he love Marianne. Yes, choosing her was a good choice but it was far from the only choice. Her sister Elinor would have been a better choice. That said, there is no rational obligation to take the best possible choice. And Willoughby is not a man who suffers from a shortage of people willing to fall in love with him. (There is no point in resisting the plausibility of this: there are people who have the sort of sexual power that Willoughby has and it is only a foolish spite to try to deny this.) No matter how we try to explain this all in terms of reason, the inescapable truth is that voluntarism enters the equation. Willoughby could have reasonably decided that while he might easily fall in love with Marianne, it would be better not to do so.

It seems to me that there were a series of judgments that he might have made about Marianne. He could have decided that she was a lovable person but that judgment does not require any action. His reason might have also told him that it would be good for him to fall in love with her and still not have required action. What is needed from reason is a judgment to the effect that he should fall in love with her so go and do it. But even then, he must assent to that judgment. 

We don’t have to imagine that the decision making process will literally consist in Willoughby literally making those mental judgments. Most people, even people who act prudently, rarely slow down and deliberately go through such a process. At one point in our lives we may have done so but we rely on habits of thought and behaviour on a  day-to-day basis. I think we can say that he made the judgment implicitly and that he implicitly consented to it.

Why do I think we can say such things? Because it is possible to pass moral judgment on Willoughby. That is the uniquely valuable perspective Austen gives us. Willoughby commits no clear sin towards Marianne, all that is exposed is his vice.

03 Thomas on the Vices

If we look at Question 67, article 3 "Whether faith remains after this life", Thomas says that knowledge can be "imperfect" in three respects: "first, on the part of the knowable object; secondly, on the part of the medium; thirdly on the part of the subject."

What does Thomas mean by subject? "Object" seems to be the thing that is potentially knowable. "Medium" Thomas divides into knowing by "demonstrative" or "probable" mediums. By "subject" he appears to mean the knower.

Moving on, Thomas says this:

On the part of the subject the difference of perfect and imperfect knowledge applies to opinion, faith and science. For it is essential to opinion that we assent to one of two opposite assertions with fear of the other, so that our adhesion is not firm: to science it is essential to have firm adhesion with intellectual vision, for science possesses certitude which results from the understanding of principles: while faith holds a middle place, for it surpasses opinion in so far as its adhesion is firm, but falls short of science in so far as it lacks vision.

What he says of opinion is interesting, and psychologically astute in the sense that "fear of the other" is sometimes a key feature of our opinions. That said, it doesn't hold up. Would we say, for example, that old theories about continents being stable were just opinions and that the global plate tectonics theory that is now dominant is not? Once upon a time, most scientists assented to the first and now most (meaning virtually all) assent to global plate tectonics. The temptation is bang the table and say, "We know that global plate tectonics is right!" The problem with saying that, though, is that as recently as the 1950s most scientists would have banged the table and said they knew it was wrong. 

We must grant that Thomas means something different when he uses the word science than we do but his definition is broader rather than narrower so the objection applies. He did not have the historic awareness of physical science that we have. He was, of course, aware that mistakes could be made but the notion of a change of paradigms was not available to him. To charge him with a mistake in this regard would be like criticizing Hannibal for using elephants instead of tanks against the Romans. That said, we do have a greater historical awareness and we cannot make the sort of distinctions Thomas makes between opinion and science above.

For us, what is admirable about science is the lack of adhesion. It is precisely because science is always open to challenge that we are willing to assent. Some opinions, on the other hand, are not falsifiable. Someone can call my opinion that Verdi is greater than Wagner stupid, they can assert that it is contrary to critical consensus but they can't prove it wrong. A musicologist with such an opinion could get hired by a university and, while others might decry this, it would be a very different matter if a physicist who did not believe in gravity was hired by a university.

Consider this example: every morning I get out of my bed and walk across the floor. I don't know that the floor won't collapse. Indeed, I know that floors sometimes do collapse. I don't worry about it though. You might say that I have a firm faith that it will not happen. I don't need to go downstairs and check that the floor joists haven't rotted although I know that can happen.

The same is true if you ask me if I know that evolution is right. I will say that I do because it seems to me that that particular foundation will fall out from under me.

I have beliefs and beliefs have consequences. I tend to call my beliefs "knowledge" when I am more certain about them and opinion when I am less so. Faith is what I assent to firmly, with adhesion, even when I have little grounds to claim certainty. And that, it seems to me, is all we can say.

Thomas on the Vices 02

Of the effects of sin, and, first, of the corruption of the good of nature

This week we read question 85 of the second part of the second part. My comments here will focus in Article 2: Whether the entire good of human nature can be destroyed by sin?

Initially, we might wonder what "entire good of human nature" in that question is supposed to mean. I know what it means if someone says, "Have the entire contents of that milk carton been poured out?" Do we imagine the "entire good of human nature" as something contained in us when we examine this question?

Thomas takes up that challenge. As he notes, we could understand this in two ways. If I keep pouring out milk to fill my glass and my glass contains 200 ml then I will empty the carton by drinking five glasses of milk. Alternatively, we could approach the problem as a species of Zeno's paradox: If I keep taking out half the contents of the carton it will never be empty. (This is not crazy because here is a sense in which there is a very hard to remove adhesion layer of milk on the inner surfaces of the carton that is very hard to remove. I can keep rinsing out the carton, getting more and more but can I get it all?)

Thomas's reply to this is fascinating:

"But this does not apply to the question at issue, since a subsequent sin does not diminish the good of nature less than a previous sin, but perhaps more, if it be a more serious sin."

That's a fascinating response. Our first inclination might be to dismiss it as it is a non sequitur. To use my earlier example, suppose I had a whole bunch of different-sized drinking glasses from 1 ml to 450 ml. The carton would be still be empty, at least according a certain purpose, once the total volume I poured out equaled the total volume that had been in the carton to begin with.

On the other and, he's right. Thinking of "the entire good of human nature" in terms of volume is just wrong. Yes, we use metaphors of volume and weight to speak of matters of good and evil as, for example, when we speak of weighing our sins. No one, however, actually weighs sins. In modern terms, we would say that to speak of "the entire good of human nature" as if he analogy between it and volume corresponded in every way is to make a category mistake.

So Thomas is right to say the concerns raised about diminution of the volume of goodness do not apply even though he does not give a good argument for reaching this conclusion. (A committed Straussian might ask whether he means us to take this argument entirely seriously. I'm not a Straussian myself but I'm open to the possibility that Thomas knew where he wanted to go but didn't know how to get there so he inserted an argument that otherwise would not have satisfied him.)

He then restates matters in different terms. The "goodness of nature" is "the natural inclination to virtue". That inclination is "the middle term between two others". The two others are 1) rational nature and 2) the good of virtue. When the goodness of nature is diminished by sin it is because sin places obstacles between rational nature and the good of virtue it seeks to obtain.

I'm not entirely certain I know what that means. As I read Thomas more more, it becomes clearer that everything in the Summa is connected to everything else. We come at what seems like a separate question here but understanding it correctly requires us to understand a technical vocabulary with is defined and analyzed elsewhere.

When we, as moderns, come to this text, we are looking for information we can apply to problems. But the text requires extensive cross-referencing to fully understand. Can we pull out part, what he says about the vices, and just use it?

For now, I'll just consider an epistemological issue. Thomas is a very much a rationalist. He will, for example, claim

"Sin cannot entirely take away from man the fact that he is a rational being, for then he no longer would be capable of sin." (Article 2)

Reason, as Thomas understands it, seems to require some sort of "union" between the knowing subject and the external object. So, I look at the demi tasse on by desk and I grasp what it is. The fullness of demi-tasseness is understood by my rational soul. Or not. I can be in error. I might think, "Look, someone has put a miniature coffee cup from a child's toy collection on my desk." But to get it right, I must grasp the fullness of what it is to be a demi tasse.

So, Thomas will go on to say that sin can diminish the good of nature but that it cannot entirely remove it because reason cannot be removed. The good of nature consists of two parts: "rational nature", the root, and "the good of virtue" as the end at which it aims. Sin puts obstacles between rational nature and the good of virtue it is aimed at. It does not diminish the rational nature.

Thomas uses a very telling metaphor for this:

"An example of this may be seen in a transparent body, which has an inclination to receive light, from the very fact that it is transparent; yet this inclintion or aptitude is diminished on the part of supervening clouds, although it always remains rooted in the nature of the body."

Okay, but does a transparent body have an inclination to receive light? I don't want to beat up on Thomas by using our more advanced physics against his. What I am trying to get at is the function of the mind. Is it like a clear pane of glass through which we see the world? if we leave aside the infinite regress objection,  glass doesn't seem to contribute anything. Is reason like that? Could it fully grasp the good of virtue so long as there were no obstacles? That makes reason a fairly passive thing.

It seems to me that the visual metaphor for rationality is like the volume metaphor for goodness. It helps us talk about these things but we make a giant mistake if we take the metaphor as a map to the mechanism. Is Thomas making that mistake? I don't know but I do think there is sufficient evidence here to keep that question in mind going forward.

Thomas on the Vices 01

This is the first in a series of posts regarding the way Thomas Aquinas discusses vices. It is related to a course I am taking. If you wish to see all the posts in this series, please click here.

In reading Thomas, I seek to learn from him. In confronting Thomas, we are confronting something monumental, a theology of immense importance.

On the other hand, I could, of course, ignore him. Most Catholics these day do. Kuhn says somewhere that when a new paradigm arises, the people who follow it don’t refute the old paradigm so much as they ignore it. Thomas and Thomism is today, an ignored paradigm because, as I say, most Catholics pay little attention to it. Oddly, then, Thomas Aquinas seems immensely important and yet not at the same time.

In doing this course, I am going to operate on the assumption that Thomas is of immense importance. If we really want to understand our faith and how it got to where it is, some knowledge of Thomas, Bonaventure, Dun Scotus is useful. More than that, though, it seems to that a Catholic theologian must engage with Thomas at least to be able to place their own views in relation to his. 

It seems to me that, at his best, Thomas is a linguistic philosopher. He is very good at getting clear about how we use language and what that implies. For example in the Reply to Objection 3, of Question 49, Article 2 in the First part of the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, Thomas concludes a long discussion of “habit" and “quality” by saying, “From this it is clear that the word “habit” implies a certain lastingness: while the word disposition does not.” This is good and sound conclusion. We will need to specify a bit. I think we may have lost some nuance in translation for the word “disposition” in English does imply a certain lastingness. Otherwise we couldn’t talk about dispositions in the first place. We could say that what Thomas really means is that habits are more deeply rooted than dispositions. 

And here, someone might say, “I want more than that. I want to be able to say, “This is a habit and that is a disposition because they are clear different things!” Behind this is a fear that there is a grey area: things are dispositions up to a certain point but it’s hard to say where the dividing line would be. This is a very old problem in philosophy. 

One famous formulation of the problem goes as follows. If I put a grain of sand on a table and ask you if it is a heap of sand, you will say it is not. If I add one more and ask you if that is enough to make it a heap, you will say that it is not. “Aha," I say, “then adding one grain is not enough to make it a heap.” You agree. I then continue adding one grain at a time until you agree that there is enough sand to constitute a heap. And then I pounce and say, “But where is the dividing line? I’ve been adding one grain at a time and you agreed that adding one grain cannot be the thing that makes this thing a heap.” And yet, it makes sense to speak of some things being heaps of sand and others of being just grains of sand on a table.

Behind this sort of argument is an implicit claim that a vague definition is no definition at all. That is plainly nonsense but why? One answer is because we can talk about heaps of sand and do so in a coherent and consistent way. I like that answer but I rather suspect that Thomas would not and that is why he uses terms such as “quality" and “species of quality”. 

If we jump ahead to Question 51, Article 3, Thomas asks, “Whether a habit can be caused by one act?” It is immediately obvious that we have a problem like the heap of sand. 

The temptation is to say, "It seems clear that one act isn’t enough to cause a habit.” But Jane told me that she is starting a habit of getting up at six in the morning every morning starting tomorrow. Suppose she succeeds. It’s not difficult to imagine, the world is full of people who are capable of such resolve.

But this doesn’t seem enough. We want to say that we are not willing to accept that once is enough to establish a habit. On the other hand, Jane did it. She said she was going to establish a habit and then she did it and she had it right from the beginning. She didn’t fail! And we might ask ourselves why it's important to know what "causes" a habit. Is it going to help us form good habits to get clear on this?

The real point point here, I think, is about the use of the word. When can we say Jane has established her habit? Consider a counter example: we would not say she lost that habit if she failed, after a late night at a party, to get up one morning. No, to use the word, we want to see consistency. But we do not, thereby, come to know the essence of “habit”. We only learn to speak correctly.

If we jump back to Question 49, Article 1, Thomas asks, “Whether habit is a quality?”

Well, the question might be put this way, “Do I have a habit of drinking coffee in the same way that I have height?”

He makes a distinction between qualities and predicaments. Predicament: something that can be predicated. “Michel is wearing a red sweater today.” does not seem to be the same sort of statement as “Michel has a bad habit of putting things off until the last second.” I can just take the sweater off. It takes more effort to change a habit. To change my sweater, I just take it off without, it seems, changing myself. To change my habits seems to require changing me.

But consider this: I have a glass of wine with dinner everyday. One day I read that the studies that convinced me this is healthy were badly done and there is new evidence suggesting it’s bad for me. So I stop drinking. Another person in the same predicament finds it hard. Yet another, can’t do it. We call what I have a practice, what the second person has a habit and what the third has a disease, that is to say an addiction. How do we make this distinction?

We don’t say of a red ball that it “has redness” in ordinary language use. Philosophers say things like this but they are just abusing language when they do so. It tells me nothing at all to say a red ball has redness.

There is a real puzzle here. We don’t talk the same way about these things and that tells us something important about the beliefs we operate on. But does it tell us anything about the things themselves.

Suppose I meet someone who thinks that “that ball has redness” and “that house has a car is parked in front” are equivalent uses of "has". This implies that just as the parked car can be moved, the redness can be taken away from the ball. One response would be to say, well, try it, try to take the redness away from the ball. Now, he might succeed in that. The ball might be painted red and that paint could be removed. But what if the ball is made of some red material? In that case he will fail. Would we, on that basis, say that “redness” was a predicament not a quality? No. The difference between these things is functional. Our language reflects what we can do but also what we do do. We use the term quality when we are operating in a certain way and predicament in another. (It is telling, perhaps, that in English the many uses of predicament have been reduced to only one: to be caught in a dilemma or quandary.)

We are discussing the way we use the word habit and concluding that we use it more like the way we talk about qualities than the way we talk about than things hat we can simply take on or off. But we aren’t pointing at anything about the things themselves, simply about how we talk and behave regarding them. There are cultures that recognized slavery as an evil but took it to be an evil that could not be removed, a quality of human life to be deplored but accepted. This went on for centuries. Does anyone seriously think that all that had to be done was to explain to them that they took as a quality what was only a predicament and the problem of slavery could have been done away with? I suppose there are such people but they seem rather stupid to me. I can’t just tell the person with a bad habit that they can just stop, can I? Well, sometimes this works—Miles Davis just decided to stop using heroin—but usually not.

Moral habits are going to matter to the degree that we can change them."To have" or "to not have" in this context is determined by performance.