Article 1
Are virtues habits?
Reasons
to think they are not, but are acts instead.
1. In his Retractions, Augustine says that
virtue is the good use of free choice.
But the use of free choice is an act.
Therefore, virtue is an act.
2. People are owed reward only on account
of their acts. But [a reward] is owed to
every virtuous person, since, after all, whoever dies
in a state of charity attains happiness.
Therefore, virtue is meritorious.
Since anything meritorious is an act, virtue is an act.
3. The more God-like something in us is,
the better it is. But we are especially
like God insofar as we are acting, because God is pure activity. Therefore, the best things in us are
acts. But virtues are the greatest goods
in us, as Augustine says in his book On Free Choice. Therefore, virtues
are acts.
4. The perfection [we can attain on our
earthly] journey is parallel to the perfection of the blessed in the heavenly
homeland. But the perfection [we find in
that] homeland is an act: happiness.
Therefore, the perfection [we attain on our earthly] journey— virtue— is
also an act.
5. Those things that are classified in
the same genus and mutually exclude one another are contraries. But because an act of sin is opposed to
virtue, it excludes it. Therefore virtue
is in the genus of act.
6. In On the Heavens I, the
Philosopher says that virtue is a power’s utmost. Since a power’s utmost is an act, so is
virtue.
7. The rational part [of the soul] is
more excellent and more perfect than the sensory part. But the sensory power performs its activity
without any mediating habit or quality.
Therefore, there is no need to posit in the intellective part any habits
by whose mediation the intellective part might perform a perfect activity.
8. The Philosopher says in Physics
VII that virtue is a disposition of something perfected to what is best. But since what’s best is an act, and since a
disposition belongs to the same genus as what it disposes to, it follows that
virtue is an act.
9. In On the Customs of the Catholic
Church, Augustine says that virtue is the ordering of love. But, as Augustine says in The City of God
XIX, an ordering consists in a disposition of equal and unequal things,
assigning to each its [proper] place.
Therefore, virtue is a disposition, not a habit.
10.
A habit is a quality that is difficult to change. But virtue is easy to
change, since a single act of mortal sin causes its loss.
11. If we need certain habits—the sort
that are virtues--we need them either for natural activities or for meritorious
activities, which are, so to speak, supernatural. However, we don’t need them for natural
activities, because if any nature can perform its activity without a habit —if
even sensible and insensible natures can do this, then we have all the more
reason to think the rational nature will be able to do it. Likewise, we don’t
need them for meritorious activities because God performs these in us,
“who acts in us to will and to accomplish, because of his good will”
(Philippians
12. Everything that acts through a form,
always acts as that form necessitates.
For instance, what is hot always acts by heating. Therefore, if some habitual form, called a
virtue, is in the mind, then it will turn out that anyone with a virtue
necessarily acts as the virtue demands.
But this is false; for if it were true, every virtuous person would be
confirmed [in virtue]. Therefore,
virtues are not habits.
13. Habits are in powers to make their
activity easier. But clearly, we don’t
need anything to make our acts of virtue easier [to perform]. For acts of virtue consist principally in
choice and volition; and nothing is easier [to perform] than [an act] that
consists in a volition. Therefore,
virtues are not habits.
14. An effect cannot be more excellent
than its cause. But if virtue is a
habit, then [a habit] will be the cause of an act, which is more excellent than
a habit. Therefore, it appears incorrect
to say that virtue is a habit.
15. The mean and the extremes belong to
the same genus. But moral virtue is a
mean between [extreme] passions, and passions belong to the genus of act. Therefore, [virtue is an act].
Opposing Considerations:
1.
According to Augustine, virtue is a good quality of the mind. However, virtue cannot be in any of the
species of quality except the first: habit.
Therefore, virtues are habits.
2. The Philosopher says in Ethics
II that virtue is a habit of choosing, seated in the mind.
3. Those who are
asleep [still] have virtue, because virtues are lost only through mortal
sin. But there are no virtuous acts in
sleepers, because they do not have the use of free choice. Therefore, virtues are not acts.
Reply:
“Virtue,” from the very sense of the
word, designates what completes a power.
That’s why virtue is also called strength, since a thing can achieve its
proper impulse or movement when its power has been made complete. For “virtue,” as the very word implies,
refers to a power’s perfection.
Accordingly, the Philosopher says in On the Heavens I that virtue
is the utmost of a power in a thing.
However, power is said to be directed to act. Therefore, we see what completes a power when
the power undertakes perfect activity.
Furthermore, because whatever is active has activity as its end (since
everything, according to the Philosopher in On the Heavens I, is for the sake of
its activity as its proximate end), each thing is good to the extent that it is
fully directed to its end. That’s why
virtue makes its possessors good and their activity good too, as Ethics
II states. What’s more, this line [of
argument] also makes it clear that virtue is the disposition of something
perfected to what is best, as Physics VII states [Metaph.:Phys.].
All these [considerations] apply to
whatever virtue you please: a horse’s virtue is what makes it and its activity
good—and the same is true for the virtue of a stone, or a human being, or
anything else.
However, the way a power combines [with a
virtue] varies in keeping with the sort of power it is. For one sort of power is only active (1),
another is only acted on and moved (2), and a third sort acts and is acted on
(3).
(1) A power that is only active does not
need anything introduced into it to give rise to its acts. That’s why the virtue of such a power is just
the power itself. Examples of this sort
of power include the divine power, the agent intellect, and natural
powers. Hence, the virtues of these
powers are not habits of any kind, but these very powers [which are already]
complete in themselves.
(2) On the other hand, those powers that
are only acted upon are powers that do not act unless they are moved by
others. Their acting or not acting is
not up to them; instead, they act through the impulse of the power moving
them. The sensory powers, considered in themselves, are of this kind, which is why the Philosopher
says in Ethics III that they are not the source of any acts. These powers are perfected for performing
their acts by the introduction of something else— something that is in them not
in the persistent way forms are in their subjects, but merely in the way an
undergoing is. (The species in the eye’s
pupil is an example of this.) For this
reason, the virtues of these powers are not habits either. Instead, they are the powers themselves
insofar as they are actually undergoing something due to the causes acting on
them.
(3) The powers that are both active and
acted upon are those that are moved by what acts on them in such a way that
their movers do not determine them to a single [course of action]. Instead, their acting [or not acting] is up
to them. To this group belong powers
that are rational, [at least] in some measure.
These powers are rendered complete for acting by the introduction of
something that is in them not merely the way an undergoing is in a subject, but
the way a form is: stable and persistent.
Even so, the result is not that these forms necessarily compel the power
to one [course of action], because if they did, the power would not be in
control of its acts. The virtues of
these powers are neither the powers themselves, nor undergoings
(as with the sensory powers), nor qualities that act necessarily, like the
qualities of natural things. Instead,
they are habits, through which one can act when one wills to, as the
Commentator says in [his long commentary on] On the Soul III.
Moreover, Augustine says in On the Good of Marriage that habit is that by which
one acts, at the right time.
So, it is clear from these remarks that
the virtues [we are concerned with] are habits, and it’s also clear how habits,
[which constitute the first species of quality], differ from the second and
third species. It’s readily apparent how
they differ from the fourth species, shape: shape, as such, does not imply a
directedness to act.
On the basis of these [considerations], I
can also show that we need virtuous habits for three reasons.
First, for uniformity
in our activity. After all, what depends on
activity alone changes easily if it has not been stabilized by a habitual
inclination.
Second, we need them to perform a perfect
act readily. That’s because, unless a habit in some way inclines the rational
power to one [sort of activity], then whenever we have to perform an activity,
we must always make an inquiry about the activity first. We have a clear example of this in the case
of someone who hasn’t yet acquired the [relevant] habit of knowledge but wants
to reflect, and in the case of someone who lacks the
[relevant] habit of virtue, but wants to act as virtue demands. For this reason, the Philosopher says in Ethics
V that swift
actions are done from habit.
Third, we need virtuous habits to bring
our perfect activity to fulfillment pleasurably. Habit is responsible for this. Because it has the mode of a nature, it makes
the activity proper to it natural, so to speak, and therefore pleasurable,
since appropriateness causes pleasure.
Accordingly, the Philosopher, in Ethics II, holds that pleasure
in one’s activity is a sign of one’s habit.
Responses to the initial arguments:
1. Like power, virtue can also be
understood in two ways. In one way,
materially, as when we call what we are capable of, our power. It is in this way that Augustine defines
virtue as the good use of free choice.
In the other way, essentially, and in this way, neither a power nor a
virtue is an act.
2. “Meriting” has two senses. (1) In its strict sense, it just means
performing some action on the basis of which one justly acquires a reward for
oneself. (2) In its looser sense, any
condition that makes a human being worthy in any way is called “merit.” For instance, we might say that Priam’s appearance merited a kingdom because it was worthy
of a kingdom.
Therefore, since reward is owed to merit,
it is owed in a way even to a habitual quality by which someone is made
eligible for reward. And in this way a
reward is owed to baptized infants. [A
reward] is also owed to actual merit, and then it is owed not to virtue itself,
but to its act. Still, it’s in a way
because of actual merit that [baptized] infants are rewarded too, since the
sacrament [of baptism], through which they are born to a new life, gains its
effectiveness through Christ’s merit.
3. Augustine says that virtues are the
greatest goods of their kinds, not the greatest goods absolutely
speaking (just as we say fire is the most refined of bodies). Therefore we cannot conclude that there is
nothing in us better than the virtues.
We can conclude [only] that they are among those thing
that are the greatest goods of their kind.
4. Just as in [this] life there is a
habitual perfection, which is virtue, and an actual perfection, which is
virtue’s act, the same is true in our heavenly homeland. There, happiness is actual perfection,
arising from a habit brought to perfection.
Accordingly, the Philosopher also says in Ethics I that happiness
is an activity in accordance with perfected virtue.
5. An act of vice
precludes an act of virtue directly, the way one contrary precludes
another. In contrast, it destroys a habit
of virtue coincidentally, insofar as it separates a person from God, the cause
of infused virtue. Accordingly, Isaiah
says: “your sins divided you from your
God” (Isaiah 59:2). This also explains why the acquired virtues are not
destroyed by a single vicious act.
6. We can understand the Philosopher’s
definition in two ways: materially or essentially. If we understand it materially, we are taking
“virtue” to mean what a virtue is capable of, which is the utmost among those
things a power is capable of. Take, for
instance, the virtue of someone who can carry a hundred pounds. This virtue is in him insofar as he is
capable of carrying a hundred pounds, not insofar as he is capable of carrying
sixty. Alternatively, if we understand
it essentially, virtue is called the utmost of a power because it designates
what completes the power, whether what completes it is something other than the
power or not
7. As I’ve pointed out, the account of the sensory and the intellective
powers are not parallel.
8. That by which something is changed to
achieve x , is called a disposition to x. True, the terminus of a change is sometimes
in the same genus as the change. For
instance, alteration—a kind of change—is a quality, and so a disposition to
this terminus always belongs to the same genus as the terminus. Sometimes, however, change and its terminus
belong to different genera, as when the terminus of an alteration is a
substantial form. So, a disposition does
not always belong to the same genus as that to which it is a disposition. For instance, heat [which is a quality] is a
disposition to the substantial form of fire.
9. “Disposition” is used in three ways: (1) to mean the disposition through which
matter is disposed to receiving form (in this sense, heat is a disposition to
[receiving] the form of fire). (2) to mean the disposition though which an agent is disposed to
acting (in this sense swiftness is a disposition for running). (3) to mean the
ordering of various things to one another.
And it is in that way that Augustine uses “disposition.” But [it’s only when “disposition” is used] in
the first sense that disposition is divided in opposition to habit. In the second sense, virtue is itself a
disposition.
10. Nothing is so stable that it would
not of itself immediately cease to exist if its cause were absent. Therefore, we should not be surprised if one
loses infused virtue once mortal sin breaks one’s connection to God. Nor is this incompatible with virtue’s
enduring character, which is intelligible only on the condition that virtue’s
cause persists.
11. We need a habit for each sort of
activity. The three reasons given above
explain why we need one for natural activities.
However, we need a habit for meritorious activity for yet another
reason: to raise our natural power to that which is above nature—[which is
done] through an infused habit. Nor is
this need removed by the fact that God acts in us, because he acts in us in
such a way that we are also acting. And
so we need a habit to enable us to act sufficiently well.
12. Every form is received in its subject
in keeping with the character of the receiver.
But it is a characteristic property of a rational power that it is
capable of opposed alternatives and that it has control over its own acts. Therefore, it’s never the case that a
habitual form compels a rational power to act in keeping with that form. Rather, a rational power is able to act or
not act.
13. Those acts that consist in choice
alone are easy to perform in some way or other.
But it is not easy to perform them as they should be performed, that is,
readily, resolutely, and with pleasure.
That’s why we need habits of virtue for this.
14. Every animal or human motion that
starts afresh comes from some moved mover, and depends on there being some
prior act. And so a habit does not
elicit an act from itself unless it is being moved by some agent.
15. Virtue is a mean between [contrary]
passions, not in the sense that it is itself a mean passion, but because its
action brings about the mean between passions.
Article 2
Did Augustine define virtue
accurately?
Augustine’s definition: “Virtue is a good
quality of the mind, by which one lives rightly, which no one
uses badly, which God actualizes in us without us.”
Reasons to think it is inaccurate:
1. Virtue is a certain
goodness. So, if it is itself
good, it is so either through its own goodness or through another’s. In the second case, we would have an infinite
regress. In the first case, virtue would
be the primary goodness, because only the primary goodness is good through
itself.
2. What is common to every being should
not be included the definition of any one of them. But goodness, which is convertible with
being, is common to every being.
Therefore, “good” should not be included in the definition of
virtue.
3. Goodness plays the same role in the
case of natural things that it does in the case of moral [acts and habits]. But, since good and bad do not differentiate
species among natural things, we should not include “good” in virtue’s
definition as the specific differentia of virtue itself.
4. The account of a genus does not
include any of its differentiae. However,
the account of quality includes “good,” just as it also includes “being.” Therefore, it should not be added to the
definition of virtue so that it reads: “virtue is a good quality of the
mind.”
5. Goodness and badness are
opposites. But badness does not
constitute any species, since it is a privation. Therefore, neither does goodness, and so we
should not include “good” in the definition of virtue as its constitutive
differentia.
6. Since goodness is in more things than
quality is, goodness cannot differentiate one quality from another. Therefore, we should not use “good” in
virtue’s definition as the differentia of quality or of virtue.
7. Nothing is made out of two
actualities. But “good” implies an
actuality, and so does “quality.”
Therefore, it’s a mistake to say that virtue is a “good quality.”
8. What is predicated [of a thing]
abstractly is not predicated [of it] concretely. For instance, whiteness is a color, but it is
not colored. Since goodness is
predicated of virtue abstractly, it is not predicated of it concretely. So, it’s not right to say “virtue is a good
quality.”
9. No differentia is predicated
abstractly of a species. That’s why
Avicenna notes that the human being is not rationality, but rational. Since virtue is a goodness,
goodness is not the differentia of virtue.
It’s not correct to say, then, that “virtue is a good quality.”
10. Since what is morally bad is the same
as vice, what is morally good is the same as virtue. Therefore, “good” should not be included in
the definition of virtue. If it were,
[this would be a case of] a thing defining itself.
11. While mind has to do with the
intellect, virtue has to do with emotions and desires. It is wrong, then, to say that virtue is “a
good quality of the mind.”
12. According to Augustine, “mind” refers
to the soul’s higher part. However,
since some virtues are in the soul’s lower powers, it’s inaccurate to include
“good quality of the mind” in virtue’s definition.
13. “Subject of virtue” refers to a
power, not an essence. But “mind” seems
to refer to the soul’s essence, since Augustine says that intelligence,
memory and will are all in the mind. Therefore, “mind” should not be included
in the definition of virtue.
14. The characteristic property of a
species should not be included in its genus’s definition. Since rightness is the characteristic
property of justice, [a species of virtue], rightness should not be included in
the definition of virtue so as to say [that virtue is] “a good quality of the
mind by which one lives rightly.”
15. For living things, existing is
living. However, virtue does not perfect
us for existing, but for acting. It is
incorrect to say, then, that by virtue “one lives rightly.”
16.
Whoever is proud of something uses it badly. Since there are people who are proud of their
virtues, some people use virtue badly.
17. In On Free choice of the Will,
Augustine says that only the greatest goods cannot be used badly. However, virtue is not one of these
goods. The greatest goods are the ones
we desire for their own sake, but that isn’t true of virtue . We desire virtue for the sake of something other
than virtue, since we desire it for the sake of happiness. Accordingly, “which no one uses badly” is
wrongly included [in the definition of virtue].
18. A thing is generated, nourished and
grows from the same [source]. But virtue
is nourished and grows by our own acts, since a decrease in cupidity is an
increase in charity. Therefore, virtue is generated by our acts. The clause “which God actualizes in us without
us,” then, is wrongly included in the definition.
19. We count what removes an impediment
as a mover and a cause. Since free
choice in a way removes impediments to virtue, it is in a way virtue’s
cause. Therefore, the claim that God
actualizes virtue without us is wrongly included in the definition.
20. Augustine says “he that created you
without you will not justify you without you.”
Therefore, [the clause “that God actualizes in us without us,” is
wrongly included in the definition].
21. It’s obvious
that this definition applies to grace.
Since grace and virtue are not one and the same
thing, the definition does not define virtue correctly.
As I have said [in a.1 Reply], virtue
perfects a power for producing a perfect act.
Moreover, because a perfect act is the end of the power or the agent
[producing it], virtue makes both the power and the agent good, as I noted
earlier. Accordingly, the definition of
virtue includes something about the act’s perfection, and something about the
perfection of the power or agent.
Two things are required for an act’s
perfection: (1) the act must be right,
and (2) the habit [from which it springs] must be incapable of being the source
of a contrary act. That’s because a
source of [both] good and bad acts cannot, in its own nature, be a perfect
source of a good act. Because
a habit is a power’s perfection, [if one’s act is to be perfect], the habit
must be the source of a good act in such a way that it cannot be the source of
a bad one. That’s why the
Philosopher says in Ethics VI that opinion, which can be true or false,
is not a virtue; whereas knowledge, which we have only of true things, is a
virtue. The first [requirement for a
perfect act] is captured by the clause “by which one lives rightly,” and the
second by the clause “which no one uses badly.”
Virtue also makes its subject good. In connection with this function, we
must consider three things: (1) The subject itself.
This is specified by the expression “of the mind,” since human virtue
can be only in what belongs to a human being as such. (2) The intellect’s perfection is
designated by [Augustine’s] inclusion of “good,” since something is called good because of its directedness to its end. (3)
Finally, “quality” designates the way it inheres in its subject,
because virtues are not in their subject the way passions are, but the way
habits are, as I pointed out above.
All these elements apply to moral,
intellectual and theological virtues, regardless of whether the virtues are
acquired or infused. But the clause
Augustine adds [to these]—“which God actualizes in us without us”—applies only
to infused virtues.
Responses to the initial arguments:
1. Just as accidents are called beings
not because they subsist, but because by them something is [in a certain
respect], so virtue is called good not because it is itself
good, but because through it something is good.
So, it’s not necessary that virtue be good through another
goodness, as if it were informed by another goodness.
2.
It is not the goodness that is convertible with being that is included
here in the definition of virtue, but rather the goodness that is specific to
moral acts.
3. Actions are differentiated on the
basis of the agent’s form ([as we see,] for instance, [with] heating and
cooling). Now, goodness and badness are
like the will’s form and object, since what is active always impresses its form
on what is passive, and the mover on what it moves. That’s why moral acts, whose source is the
will, are differentiated into species on the basis of goodness and
badness. On the other hand, the source
of natural activities is the form and not the end. That explains why, among natural things,
species are not differentiated on the basis of goodness and badness, though
among moral [acts and habits] they are.
4. Moral goodness is not included
in the concept of quality, so the argument is irrelevant.
5. Badness does not constitute a species
in virtue of being a privation, but in virtue of what underlies the privation,
since that is incompatible with the character of goodness. This explains how [badness] can constitute a
species.
6. This objection assumes [“goodness” has
the sense of] “natural goodness rather than the sense of “moral goodness”—the sense found in
the definition of virtue.
7. “Goodness” [in Augustine’s definition]
does not imply any goodness other than virtue itself. This is clear from what I’ve said [in the
response to the first argument], since virtue is essentially a quality. It’s clear, then, that “good” and “quality”
do not refer to different actualities, but to one and the same.
8. This [argument] does not work in the
case of transcendentals, which encompass every being;
after all, essence is a being, goodness is good, and oneness is one, though we
cannot say on the same pattern that whiteness is white. Here is the reason: whatever the intellect
can grasp, it must grasp as falling under the character of being and,
consequently, under the character of good and of one. That’s why the intellect can grasp essence,
and goodness, and oneness only under the character of good, of one, and of being. It’s for this reason that we can say that
goodness is good, and oneness is one.
[The manuscripts
do not contain any responses by Aquinas to initial arguments 9-21.]
Article 3
Can a power of the soul be
a subject of virtue?
Reasons to think that it cannot:
1. According to Augustine, virtue is that
by which one lives rightly. But living
is due to the soul’s essence, not any of its powers. Therefore, no power of the soul is a subject
of virtue.
2. Graced existence is more excellent
than [mere] natural existence. But
natural existence stems from the soul’s essence, which is more excellent than
its powers, since it is their source.
Therefore, graced existence, which stems from the virtues, does not stem
from [the soul’s] powers, and so no power is a subject of virtue.
3. An accident cannot be a subject [of
accidents]. But a power of the soul is a
kind of accident, for natural power and natural incapacity are classified in
the second species of quality. Therefore, a power of the soul cannot be a subject
of virtue.
4. If one power of the soul is a subject
of virtue, then any of them can be.
That’s because vices, which are directed against virtues, can beset any
of the soul’s powers. But not just any
of the soul’s powers can be a subject of virtue, as I will make clear
below. Therefore, no power of the soul
can be a subject of virtue.
5. If we consider the natures of other
agents, we find their active principles (e.g., heat and cold) are not subjects
of accidents. But the soul’s powers are
active principles, since they are sources of the soul’s activities; and so they
can’t be subjects of other accidents.
6. The soul is the subject of its
power. So, if, the soul’s power is the
subject of another accident, then by parity of reasoning, that accident will be
the subject of yet another accident, and so on to infinity. Since this is absurd, the power of the soul
is not a subject of virtue.
7. In Book I of the Posterior
Analytics, Aristotle says that no quality has a quality. But a power of the soul is a quality
belonging to the second species of quality, and virtue is a quality belonging
to the first species. Therefore, no power of the soul can be a subject of
virtue.
1. The source of an action belongs to the
same subject the action belongs to.
Since actions stemming from virtues belong to the soul’s powers, so do
the virtues.
2. The Philosopher says in Ethics
I that the intellectual virtues are rational essentially, whereas the moral
virtues are rational by participation.
But “rational essentially” and “rational by participation” describe
certain powers of the soul [namely reason and the appetites]. Therefore, the soul’s powers are subjects of
virtues.
Reply:
There are three ways a subject can be
related to its accident:
1. As its
sustainer: For an accident does not subsist through itself; rather, its subject
sustains it.
2. As a
potentiality to an actuality: For a subject underlies an accident as a
potentiality for what is active. (That’s
why an accident is also called a form.)
3. As a cause to
its effect: For principles of a subject are essential principles of its
accident. [subiecta:subiecti]
One accident cannot be the subject of
another in the first way. The reason is
that no accident subsists through itself, and so no accident can serve as
another’s sustainer (unless we were to say that one accident is another’s
sustainer insofar as it is sustained by its subject).
However, in the second and third ways,
one accident can be related to another in the manner of a subject. After all, there are accidents that are in
potentiality to others: Transparency is in potentiality to light, and a surface
is in potentiality to color. Moreover,
one accident can be another’s cause: Moisture causes flavor, for instance. Indeed, we say one accident is another’s
subject in this manner—not because one accident can sustain another, but
because a subject can receive one accident through another’s mediation.
We say that a power of the soul is a subject of a
habit in this manner too. That’s because
a habit is related to a power of the soul as an actuality to a
potentiality: The power is indeterminate
in its own nature, and through a habit it is determined to this or that. Moreover, acquired habits are caused through
the principles of the soul’s powers.
In reply, then, [the soul’s] powers are
subjects of virtues in this sense: A virtue is in the soul through a power’s
mediation.
1. “Live” as it’s used in the definition
of virtue refers to action, as I said above [in the Reply of Article 2].
2. Spiritual existence stems from grace,
not from the virtues: Grace is the source of our existing spiritually, while
virtue is the source of our acting spiritually.
3. A power is a subject [of accidents]
not through itself, but only insofar as the soul sustains it.
4. We are now discussing human
virtues. Accordingly, powers that can’t
be human powers in any way—those that reason’s command does not at all
extend to, such as the powers of the vegetative soul—can’t be subjects of
virtue. However, any assault that arises
from these powers occurs through the mediation of the sensory appetite, and
reason’s command does extend to that appetite. As a result, the sensory appetite can be
called human and can be a subject of human virtue.
5. Among the soul’s powers only the agent
intellect and the powers of the vegetative soul are active, and these are not
subjects of any habits. The soul’s other
powers are passive. Even so, they are sources of the soul’s actions insofar as
their active [counterparts] move them.
6. There is no need to go on to infinity,
because we will reach some accident that is not in potentiality with respect to
another accident
7. When it’s said that no quality has a
quality, what’s meant is that a quality is not through itself the subject of
another quality. But this is not what’s
meant in the claim under discussion [in this article], as I noted above [in the
Reply].
Article 4
Can the irascible and
concupiscible appetites be subjects of virtue?
Reasons
to think that they cannot:
1. Contraries naturally come to be in the
same thing. But virtue’s contrary is
mortal sin, and mortal sin cannot be in the sensory appetite, which is divided
into the irascible and concupiscible appetites.
Therefore, the irascible and concupiscible appetites cannot be subjects
of virtue.
2. A habit and its act belong to the same
power. However, as the Philosopher says
in his Ethics,
the principal act of virtue is choice.
Since the irascible and concupiscible appetites cannot perform an act of
choice, they cannot be subject of virtuous habits either.
3. Nothing corruptible is a subject of
something everlasting. (With this
principle, Augustine proves that the soul is everlasting, since the soul is a
subject of truth, which is everlasting. But
the irascible and concupiscible appetites, like the other sensory powers, do
not persist once the body is gone (as some thinkers find apparent). On the other hand, the virtues do remain: For
as Wisdom (I:15) says, justice is everlasting and
immortal, and by parity of reasoning, we can say the same about all the
virtues. Therefore, the irascible and
concupiscible appetites cannot be subjects of virtues.
4. The irascible and concupiscible
appetites are powers of bodily organs.
So, if there
are virtues in these powers, they will be in bodily organs too, so that the
imagination will be able to grasp them.
And in that case they will not be perceptible only by the mind, as
Augustine says justice is: It is a rectitude
perceptible only by the mind.
5. But someone objected: The irascible and concupiscible appetites can
be subjects of virtue insofar as they participate in reason in some way.
An opposing argument: We say that the
irascible and concupiscible appetites participate in reason insofar as reason
directs them. But reason’s direction
cannot sustain a virtue, since it is not itself something that subsists. Therefore, the irascible and concupiscible
appetites cannot be subjects of virtue, not even insofar as they participate in
reason.
6. Just as the irascible and concupiscible
powers, which belong to the sensory appetite, obey reason, so do the sensory
cognitive powers. But since there can’t be virtue in any sensory cognitive
power, there can’t be any in the irascible and concupiscible powers either.
7. If the irascible and concupiscible
appetites could participate in reason’s direction, we could curtail the
rebellion against reason lodged by the sensory appetite, which contains the
irascible and concupiscible appetites.
Now, this rebellion is not infinite.
After all, the sensory appetite is a finite power, and a finite power’s
activity can’t be infinite. We could,
then, entirely quash this rebellion. The
reason is that every finite thing is completely exhausted when bits of it are
removed repeatedly, as the Philosopher makes clear in Physics I. This is how we could fully cure the sensory
appetite in this life—but it is impossible to cure it fully!
8. But someone objected: God, who infuses
virtue, could eradicate this rebellion completely. It is because of us that it is not
completely eradicated.
An opposing argument: Human beings are
what they are insofar as they are rational.
After all, it’s on this basis that they are classified in their
species. So, the more something in us is
subject to reason, the more suitable it is to human nature. But if the rebellion under discussion could
be completely quashed, the lower powers would be maximally subject to
reason—and this would be maximally suitable to human nature. So there is no impediment on our part to the
complete quashing of that rebellion.
9. For one’s state to have the nature of
a virtue, it is not enough to avoid sin.
After all, as Psalms 33:15 says, the perfection
of justice consists in this: “Forsake evil and do good.” But hating what is bad characterizes the
irascible appetite, as On Spirit and Soul says, and so there cannot be
virtue in the irascible appetite at any rate.
10.
It says in the same book that the desire for virtues is in reason, while
the hatred of vices is in the irascible appetite. But virtue and the desire for virtue are in
the same subject, since each thing desires its own perfection. Therefore, every virtue is in reason and not
in the irascible or concupiscible appetite.
11. There cannot be in any power a habit
that is only acted on and does not act, because a habit is that by which one
acts when one wants, as the Commentator says in [his long commentary ] on On the Soul
Book III. But the irascible and
the concupiscible appetites are acted upon and do not act, because sense does
not have control over any of its acts, as Ethics III says. Therefore, there cannot be virtuous habits in
the irascible or concupiscible appetites.
12. A passion’s own, characteristic
subject is commensurate with that subject’s own, characteristic passion. But virtue is commensurate with reason, not
with the irascible and concupiscible appetites, which we share with non-human
animals. Therefore, virtue is in human
beings alone, just as reason is. So,
every virtue is in reason, with none in the concupiscible and irascible
appetites.
13. The Gloss says about Romans 7
“The Law is good which, while it prohibits concupiscence, prohibits every
evil.” Therefore, all vices belong to
the concupiscible appetite, whose act is concupiscence. Since virtues and vices belong to the same
subject, virtues belong not to the irascible, but to the concupiscible appetite
at any rate.
Opposing Considerations:.
1. The Philosopher says that temperance
and courage belong to the soul’s irrational parts. But these parts—the sensory appetite—are the
irascible and concupiscible appetites, as he maintains in On the Soul
III. There can, then, be virtues in the
irascible and concupiscible appetites.
2. A venial sin is a disposition to a
mortal sin. Moreover, a
perfection is in the same subject as the disposition toward it. So, since venial sins are in the irascible
and concupiscible appetites (for the first [prius:primus]
stirrings of sin—[which is merely venial sin]—is an act of the sensory
appetite, as the Gloss on Romans 8 makes clear), mortal sin can be found
there as well—and therefore so can virtue, which is the contrary of mortal
sin.
3. The mean and the extremes belong to
the same subject. But some virtues are a
mean between contrary passions: For instance courage is a mean between fear and
boldness, and temperance between an excess and a deficiency in desires for
pleasures. So, since these sorts of
passions are in the irascible and concupiscible appetites, it’s clear that
virtue can be in them too.
Reply:
Everyone agrees on one part of the answer
to this question, while their views on another part are incompatible with each
other. Everyone concedes that some
virtues are in the irascible and concupiscible appetites (for instance, temperance
in the concupiscible and courage in the irascible). But then differences arise about this claim.
Some thinkers find that there are two
distinct sets of irascible and concupiscible appetites: one in the higher part
of the soul, and the other in the lower part.
For they say that the irascible and concupiscible appetites in the
soul’s higher part can be subjects of virtue because these powers belong to the
rational nature, while that’s not true of the irascible and concupiscible
powers in the soul’s lower part, since they belong to the sensory and animal
nature. However, I have already
discussed this in a different investigation (namely, whether we can find in the
higher part of the soul two distinct powers, one of which is an irascible
appetite and the other a concupiscible, strictly speaking).
At any rate, whatever anyone might say
about this issue, we must maintain that there are virtues in the
irascible and concupiscible appetites that are in the soul’s lower part, as the
Philosopher says in Ethics III, and others say as well. The following
will make this evident.
Since “virtue” refers to what completes a
power, as I have said above, and since a power is disposed to an act, we must
locate human virtue in those powers that can be sources of a human act. But not just any act in a human being or
exercised by a human being is called a human act, since plants, non-human
animals, and human beings are all alike in performing certain sorts of
acts. Rather, human acts are those acts specially characteristic of human beings. Now, human beings have control over their
acts, and this control, among other things, is a special characteristic of
theirs that applies to their acts.
Therefore, any acts over which human beings have control are human acts,
strictly speaking, while those over which they lack control are not, even if
they occur in human beings (for instance, digesting, growing,
etc.). So there can be human virtue in
something that is the source of this sort of act—an act over which one has
control.
However, we need to be aware of this: It
is the case that acts of this sort come from a threefold source: (1) The primary mover and commander, through which human beings
have control over their acts. This is
reason or will. (2) A moved mover—the
sensory appetite—which is also moved by the higher appetite insofar as it obeys
it, and then in turn moves one’s external members by its command. (3) What is moved only: one’s external members.
Although both the external members and
the lower appetite are moved by the higher part of the soul, they are moved in
different ways. An external member obeys
the higher part’s command, and does so blindly and without any resistance, in
keeping with the order of nature, as long as there is no impediment. The hand and the foot provide clear
examples. On the other hand, the lower
appetite has its own inclination arising from its own nature, and this explains
why it does not obey the higher appetite blindly, but sometimes resists. Accordingly, Aristotle says in Politics
I that the soul governs the body by a despotic reign, as a master governs a
slave who does not have the resources to resist the master’s command in any
way. On the other hand, reason governs
the lower parts of the soul by a royal and political reign, the way kings and
leaders of cities govern free persons, who have the right and the resources to
oppose, in some respects, the commands of the king or leader.
Therefore, to perform a perfect human
act, we need nothing in our external members beyond their natural disposition,
by which they are naturally suited to be moved by reason. However, we do need something in our lower
appetite, which can oppose reason, if it is to perform the activity reason
commands without
opposition. For if the immediate source of the activity is imperfect, the
activity must be imperfect, however perfect its higher source may be. So, if the lower appetite were not perfectly
disposed to following reason’s command, the activity, whose proximate source is
the lower appetite, would not be perfectly good, since some opposition from the
sensory appetite would accompany it.
Because of this, the lower appetite would feel a
certain sadness, since the higher appetite would have moved it
violently. This is what happens in
people with strong desires they do not follow because reason forbids it. Therefore, when someone’s activity must
concern matters that are the objects of the sensory appetite, in order for the
activity to be good, there needs to be a disposition, or perfection, in the
sensory appetite to enable it to submit to reason easily. We call this sort of
disposition a virtue.
Therefore, when a virtue concerns those
things that belong to the irascible power, strictly speaking, then this sort of
virtue is also said to be in the irascible power as its subject. This is the case with courage, which is
concerned with fear and daring, magnanimity, which is concerned with hope for
things difficult to attain, and gentleness, which is concerned with anger. Furthermore, when a virtue concerns those things
that belong to the concupiscible power, strictly speaking, then it is said to
be in the concupiscible power as its subject.
This is the case with chastity, which concerns sexual pleasures, and
sobriety and abstinence, which concern the pleasures of food and drink.
Responses to the initial arguments:
1. We can conceive of virtues and mortal
sins in two ways: as acts or habits. If
we take the irascible and concupiscible appetites’ actions by themselves, they
are not mortal sins. However, they can
cooperate in an act of mortal sin, when they aim at what is contrary to the
divine law, and reason causes these appetites’ actions or [just] consents to
them. Likewise, the acts of these
appetites cannot be acts of virtue when they are considered by themselves, but
only when they cooperate [with reason] in order to carry out its command. So, the acts of mortal sin and of virtue do
belong, in a way, to the irascible and concupiscible appetites. That’s why the habits of both [mortal sin and
virtue] can also be in these appetites.
At any rate, this is in fact the case:
Just as an act of virtue consists in the irascible and concupiscible appetites’
following reason, an act of sin consists in reason’s being drawn to follow the
irascible and concupiscible appetites’ inclination. That’s why sin tends to be attributed more
often to reason as its proximate cause; and the same line of argument explains
why the virtues of the irascible and concupiscible appetites tend to be
attributed more often to reason as their proximate cause.
2.
As I have already noted [in the response to 1], an act of virtue cannot
be an act of the irascible or concupiscible appetite alone, without [any
contribution from] reason. In fact, an
act of virtue consists more fundamentally in something that reason contributes,
namely, choice. That’s because as with
any activity, the agent’s action is more fundamental than the patient’s
passion, and reason commands the irascible and concupiscible appetites [to
elicit their passions]. Accordingly, we
say that virtue is in the irascible or concupiscible appetites not because they
accomplish the whole act of virtue, or even its more fundamental part, but
because the ultimate completion of goodness is conferred on an act of virtue
through a virtuous habit: The irascible and concupiscible appetites follow
reason’s direction without difficulty.
3. Even if we suppose that the irascible
and the concupiscible appetites do not remain in the separated soul as actual
powers, they do remain there the way things exist in their roots. That’s because the soul’s essence is the root
of its powers. Likewise, the virtues
attributed to the irascible and concupiscible appetites remain in reason as in
their root, since reason is the root of all virtues, as I will show later.
4.
We find a gradation among forms. There are some forms and powers completely
immersed in matter, and every activity of theirs is material. The elements’ forms are a clear example. On the other hand, the intellect is
completely free from matter, and so its activity takes place without the body’s
participation. But the irascible and
concupiscible appetites lie midway between [these other two]. They do use a bodily organ; the bodily change
accompanying their acts shows this. On
the other hand, they are in a way elevated above matter. What shows this is that [reason’s] command
moves them, and they obey reason. And that’s
how virtue can be in these powers, namely, insofar as they are elevated above
matter and obey reason.
5. It’s true that reason’s direction,
which the irascible and concupiscible appetites participate in, is not
something subsistent, and cannot through itself be a subject [of
accidents]. Nevertheless, it can
be the reason why a thing is a subject [of accidents].
6.
The sensory cognitive powers are naturally prior to reason, since reason
receives [data] from them. In contrast,
the [sensory] appetites naturally follow reason’s direction, since a lower
appetite naturally obeys a higher one.
The two cases, then, are not parallel.
7. Virtue cannot entirely quash the irascible
and concupiscible appetites’ rebellion against reason. After all, inclined by their very natures to
what sense determines to be good, these appetites are sometimes at odds with
reason. On the other hand, divine power can
entirely quash this rebellion—it is powerful enough even to change the natures
of things. Still, virtue can curtail
this rebellion, insofar as the appetites under discussion grow accustomed to
being subject to reason. When this
happens, they have the character of virtue from an external source: from
reason’s control over them. From
themselves, however, they retain something of their own characteristic
movements, which are sometimes contrary to reason.
8. Sometimes, the source of activity in
human beings is something belonging to reason.
Nevertheless, for the completeness of human nature, not just reason, but
also the lower powers, and even the body itself, are needed. Therefore, if human nature is left on its
own, the result is that something in the lower powers will rebel against
reason, as long as the
soul’s lower powers have movements of their own. However, things are different in the state of
innocence and in the state of glory, when reason receives from its union with
God the strength to hold the lower powers completely under its sway.
9. “Hating what is bad,” understood as
[characterizing] the irascible appetite, implies not only turning away from
what is bad, but also a movement of the irascible appetite to destroying what is bad (as when someone not
only avoids what is bad, but is also moved to extirpating bad things through
punishment). But [destroying something
bad] is doing something good. In any
case, although this way of hating what is bad is characteristic of the
irascible and concupiscible appetites, hating is not their only act: For to be
roused to the pursuit of a good that’s difficult [to attain] is also
characteristic of the irascible appetite, whose passions include not only anger
and daring, but also hope.
10. We should take this claim in an
extended sense, not literally. After
all, each power of the soul has a desire for its own good; and so the irascible
appetite does too: It desires victory, just as the concupiscible appetite
desires pleasure. However, because the
concupiscible appetite is attracted to what is good for the whole animal
simply, that is, absolutely speaking, every desire for the good is attributed
to it.
11. It’s true
that, considered as they are in themselves, the irascible and concupiscible
appetites do not act but are only acted upon.
However, in human beings, these powers participate in reason to some
extent; and insofar as they do, they also act in a way, and are not in every
respect acted on. That’s why the
Philosopher also says, in the Politics,
that reason’s reign over these powers is political, since powers such as
these are to some extent capable of their own movement, in which case they are
not entirely subjugated to reason. On
the other hand, the soul’s reign over the body is not royal but despotic,
because in their movements, the bodily members are blindly obedient to the
soul.
12. It’s true
that non-human animals have the irascible and concupiscible appetites, but in
them, these powers have no participation in reason; and that’s why they cannot
have any moral virtues.
13. All evils can be traced to
concupiscence as their first root, but not as their proximate source. That’s because all passions arise from the
irascible and concupiscible appetites (as I showed when I was discussing the
soul’s passions), and the perverting of reason and will most often occurs
because of the passions.
Alternatively, we can say that the Gloss
means by “concupiscence” not just that which is uniquely characteristic of the
concupiscible appetite, but that which is common to the whole appetitive power,
in every unit of which we find concupiscence for something. In regard to this concupiscence there can be
sin, and one cannot sin except by seeking or having concupiscence for
something.
Article 5
Is the will a subject of
virtue?
Reasons
to think that it is
1.
Commanders need a greater perfection if they are to command rightly than
those who carry out their commands, if they are to execute them rightly. That’s because the one who carries out
commands is given direction by the commander.
But, in a virtuous act, the will has the role of commander, while the
irascible and concupiscible appetites have the role of obeying and carrying out
the act. Therefore, since virtue is in
the irascible and concupiscible appetites as its subjects, it appears there is
a far more compelling reason to think there should be virtue in the will.
2. But someone might object: The will’s
natural inclination to the good is enough for its rectitude. After all, we
naturally desire the end, and so the will does not need the further addition of
a virtuous habit to make it upright.
An opposing argument: The will desires not just the ultimate end,
but other ends as well, and it is in regard to its desire for these other ends
that the will can be disposed either rightly or not. After all, good people set good ends for
themselves, while bad people set bad ones, as Ethics III says: “The way
the end appears to one depends on the sort of person one is.” Therefore, for the will to be upright, it
must have in it a virtuous habit perfecting it.
3. Even in the cognitive part of the soul
there is a sort of natural apprehension: an apprehension of first
principles. Nevertheless, we also have
an intellectual virtue concerning this apprehension: the virtue of understanding,
which is a habit regarding principles.
Therefore, there should also be in the will a virtue regarding that
which the will naturally inclines to.
4. Just as some moral virtues, like
temperance and courage, concern passions, there are others, like justice, that concern actions. [Of the soul’s three appetitive powers,] it’s
the will that acts without passion, while the irascible and concupiscible
appetites act from passion. Therefore,
just as one sort of virtue is in the irascible and concupiscible appetites,
another sort is in the will.
5. In Ethics IV, the Philosopher
says love or friendship is a result of passion.
However, friendship is a result of choice. Moreover [the sort of] love [one has for a
friend] (dilectio), a love that is without passion, is an
act of the will. Therefore, since
friendship either is a virtue, or does not exist without virtue, as Ethics
VIII says, it appears the will is a subject of virtue. [Footnote needed on dilectio.]
6. As the Apostle shows in I Corinthians
13, charity is the most important of the virtues. But only the will is capable of being the
subject of charity. The lower,
concupiscible appetite, whose range of objects includes only sensible goods,
can’t be its subject. Therefore, the
will is a subject of virtue.
7. According to Augustine, we are united
to God very directly by our will. Since
it’s virtue that unites us to God, it appears that virtue is in the will as its
subject.
8. According to Hugh of St. Victor,
happiness is in the will. But virtues
are dispositions to happiness.
Therefore, since a disposition and the perfection it inclines to belong
to the same subject, it appears that virtue is in the will as its subject.
9. According to Augustine the will is
that by which one sins or lives rightly. But uprightness of life is due to virtue,
which is why Augustine says that virtue is a good quality of the mind by which
one lives rightly. Therefore, there can
be virtue in the will.
10. Contraries are such that they
naturally come to be in the same subject.
But sin is the contrary of virtue, and since every sin is in the will,
as Augustine says, it appears that virtue is too.
11. Human virtue must be in that part of
the soul that is characteristic of humans.
But just as reason is characteristic of humans, so is the will, since it
is much closer to reason than the irascible and concupiscible appetites are.
Therefore, since the irascible and concupiscible appetites are subjects of
virtues, there appear to be much stronger [reasons to think] the will is a
subject of virtue.
Opposing Considerations:
1. Every virtue is either intellectual or
moral as the Philosopher makes clear at the end of Ethics I. Moral virtue is in, as its subject, [the part
of the soul] that is not essentially rational but rational by
participation. On the other hand, the
subject of intellectual virtue is [the part of the soul] that is essentially
rational. We cannot classify the will in
either part. It is, to begin with, not a
cognitive power that belongs to the part of the soul that’s essentially rational. But neither does it belong to the soul’s
irrational part, which belongs to the rational part by participation. It appears, therefore, that the will can in
no way be a subject of virtue.
2. There should not be several virtues
directed to the same act. However, that
would be the consequence if the will were a subject of virtue. [The preceding article] has shown that there
are virtues in the irascible and concupiscible appetites; and since the will is
involved in some way with the acts of these virtues, there would have to be
some virtues in the will directed to these acts. We should not contend, then, that the will is
a subject of virtue.
Reply:
Through a virtuous habit, the power that
is its subject acquires a perfection for performing
its act. That’s why a power does not
need a virtuous habit [to do] something it extends to by its very nature.
Virtue directs the soul’s powers to the
good: Virtue is what makes its possessors good and makes their activity good
too. However, what virtue does for the soul’s other powers, the will [already] has by its very
nature as the power of will, since its object is the good. Accordingly, the will inclines to the good in
the way that the concupiscible appetite inclines to the pleasurable and the
sense of hearing is directed to sound.
Thus the will does not need a virtuous habit to incline it to the good
correlative to it, since it inclines to this good by its very nature as the
power [of will]. However, it does need a
virtuous habit for those goods that exceeds the good this power, [the power of
will], is correlated with.
Now, each thing’s appetite tends to that
thing’s own, characteristic good. So,
when the will tends to a good that exceeds the good correlated with it, this
can happen in two ways: (1) in respect of the human species, and (2) in respect
of the individual human being.
In the first case, the will must be
raised to a good that surpasses the boundaries of the human good. (By “human” I mean that which a human being
is capable of through natural powers.)
But the good surpassing the human good is the divine good. Charity, and likewise hope,
raise the human will to this.
In the second case, someone seeks [to
achieve] what is good for another, but the will does not tend beyond the
boundaries of the human good. It’s in
this way that justice perfects the will, along with all the virtues tending to
another, such as generosity and other virtues like it. After all, justice is another’s good, as the
Philosopher says in Ethics V.
Accordingly, two virtues are in the will
as their subject: charity and justice.
An indication of this is that these two virtues do not concern the
passions, as temperance and courage do, even though they belong to the soul’s
appetitive part. It’s clear, then, that
they are not in the sensory appetite, where the passions are, but in the
rational appetite—the will— in which there are no passions, since every passion
is in the sensory part of the soul, as Physics VII proves. For the same reason, the virtues that do
concern the passions (as courage concerns fear and daring,
and temperance concerns desires) must be in the sensory appetite. Moreover, if there is a need for any virtue
in the will, it is not on account of these passions. That’s because, in the case of these
passions, the good is what is in keeping with reason, and the will is naturally
inclined to this by its very nature as the power of will, since this is the
will’s own characteristic object.
Responses to the initial arguments:
1. In order to issue a command, the will
needs only reason’s judgment. That’s
because the will naturally desires what reason finds good, just as the
concupiscible appetite naturally desires what the senses find pleasurable.
2.
The will has a natural inclination not just to the ultimate end, but
also to the good that reason shows it.
That’s because the will’s object is what one understands to be
good. The will is naturally directed to
this object, as any power is directed to its object, since this is its own,
characteristic good, as I have said.
Even so, one does commit sins with regard to this object insofar as
passion interferes with reason’s judgment.
3.
Apprehension occurs through a species, and our power of intellect
cannot, on its own, apprehend anything unless it receives species from sensible
things. Therefore, even for things we
apprehend naturally, we need a habit, and this habit also has its origin in a
way from the senses, as the final chapter of the Posterior Analytics says. But the will does not need any
species in order to will, and so the two cases are not alike.
4. The virtues that concern the passions
are in the lower appetite, and the higher appetite needs no further virtue in
connection with them, for the reason already given.
5-7. Strictly
speaking, friendship is not a virtue, but a consequence of virtue. After all, it follows from the very fact that
one is virtuous that one loves those who are like oneself. The same is not true
of charity, which it is a kind of friendship with God that raises human beings
beyond the limits of their nature.
That’s why the will is the subject of charity, as I have said.
This response makes it easy to see how to
answer the objections raised in the sixth and seventh initial arguments, since
the virtue that unites the will to God is charity.
8. Certain things required for happiness
are dispositions to it. For
example, the acts of the moral virtues are required to remove impediments to
happiness, in particular, the restlessness of mind that comes from passions and
external disturbances.
However, there is an activity that, when
it is complete, constitutes the very essence of happiness: the activity
of reason or of intellect. After all,
contemplative happiness just is the perfect contemplation of the highest truth,
while active happiness is an act of prudence, by which one governs oneself and
others.
Moreover, there is something further that
is related to happiness as perfecting it, and that is delight, which
perfects happiness as a glow perfects youth (as Aristotle says in Ethics
X). This delight is an act of the will.
If we are speaking about the heavenly happiness promised to the saints,
then it is charity that perfects the will, directing it to this delight. However, if we are speaking about the
contemplative happiness that the philosophers discussed, then the will’s
natural desire directs it to this sort of delight. It’s clear, then, that not all virtues need
to be in the will.
9. [It’s true that] one lives rightly and
sins by the will because the will commands all acts of virtue and vice,
but not because the will elicits all these acts. That’s why the will doesn’t need to be the
immediate subject of every virtue.
10. Every sin is in the will in the way a
thing is in its cause, since every sin occurs through the will’s consent. However, not every sin has to be in the will
in the sense that the will is its subject.
Instead, just as gluttony and lust are in the concupiscible appetite,
pride is in the irascible.
11. Because of its close relationship
with reason, it is the case that the will, by its very nature, is in accord
with reason, and so to achieve this accord, it does not need the further
addition of a virtuous habit, the way the lower irascible and concupiscible
powers do.
Responses to the Opposing Considerations:
1. Charity and hope, which are in
the will, are not included in the division the Philosopher makes. For they belong to a further genus of virtue:
They are called “theological virtues.”
On the other hand, justice, [which is also in the will], is included
among the moral virtues. That’s because
the will, like the other appetites, does participate in reason insofar as
reason directs it. After all, even
though the will has the intellective part’s nature—the same nature reason
has—it still does not reach the point that it is the power of reason itself.
2. For reasons already given, there is no
need for virtue in the will concerned with the things for which one has virtue
in the irascible and concupiscible appetites.
Article
6
Is
there virtue in the practical intellect as its subject?
Reasons
to think there is not:
1. According to the Philosopher in Ethics
II, knowledge is of little or no value for virtue. He is referring there to practical
knowledge. This is clear from what he
adds—namely, that the many don’t do what they know [they should]—since knowledge
directed to activity belongs to the practical intellect. Therefore, the practical intellect won’t be
able to serve as a subject of virtue.
2. People cannot act rightly without
virtue, but they can act rightly without the perfection of their
practical intellects since someone else can inform them about what they should
do. Therefore, the perfection of the practical intellect is not a virtue.
3. The more one diverges from virtue, the
more one sins. However, diverging from
the perfection of the practical intellect makes a sin less serious, since
ignorance excuses [an agent], partly or even wholly. Therefore, the perfection of the practical
intellect can’t be a virtue.
4. According to
5. The good and the true are formally
differentiated from each other in keeping with the [different] character each
has. But habits are diversified when
their objects are formally different.
Therefore, since virtue’s object is the good, while the practical
intellect’s perfection is the true (albeit directed to activity), it appears that the practical intellect’s perfection is
not a virtue.
6. According to the Philosopher in Ethics
II, virtue is a voluntary habit. However,
the practical intellect’s habits are different from those in the will or
appetitive part, and so they are not virtues.
The practical intellect, then, cannot be a subject of virtue.
Opposing Considerations:
1. Prudence is classified as one of the
four principal virtues, even though its subject is the practical
intellect. Therefore, the practical
intellect can be a subject of virtue.
2. A virtue is human if its subject is a
human power. But the practical intellect
is a power more properly human than the irascible and concupiscible appetites,
since what is essentially F is more properly F than what is F by
participation. [footnote
needed] Therefore, the practical intellect can be a subject of human virtue.
3. Whenever one thing is for the sake of
another, what applies to it also applies—and more so—to what it is for the sake
of. Virtue in the affective part of the
soul is for the sake of reason. After
all, we invest the affective part with virtue so that it will obey reason. Therefore, we have even stronger reasons to
think there should be virtue in the practical reason.
Reply:
We draw this distinction between natural
and rational powers: A natural power is determined to one object, while a
rational power is indifferently disposed to many. Moreover, when an animal or rational appetite
inclines to its corresponding object, this must be in virtue of some prior
grasp [of the object], for inclining to an end without any prior apprehension
is characteristic of natural appetite (for instance, heavy objects
incline to the earth’s center). However,
because the animal and rational appetite’s object must be an apprehended good,
the appetite can have a natural inclination [toward it] and the
cognitive power can have a natural judgment [concerning it] when the good
[for members of a species] is uniform.
This is what happens in non-human
animals. Since they have a weak active
principle that extends to just a few things, they are capable of few
activities; and that is why there is a uniform good for all members of the same
species. Accordingly, they have an
inclination to it through natural appetite, and through their cognitive power
they have a natural judgment about this, their own good, which is uniform
[among members of their species]. It is
thanks to such natural judgments and appetites that all swallows build their
nests in a uniform way, and all spiders weave their webs in a uniform way (and
we can make this sort of observation about any other kind of non-human animal).
Human beings, in contrast, are capable of
multiple and diverse activities, because of the excellence of their active
principle, the soul. The human soul’s
power in a way extends to an infinite number of things. Therefore, a natural appetite for the good,
or a natural judgment [about it] would not be enough to ensure our acting
rightly unless it were more fully determined and perfected.
True, a human being does incline
by a natural appetite to his or her own good.
Still, since the good for human beings takes a wide variety of forms and
consists in many things, one couldn’t have a natural appetite for one’s own
good when that good is determinate in the light of all the conditions required
to make it one’s own good, since this [good] varies widely depending on the
different circumstances of persons, times, places etc.
And, for the same reason, one could not
have a natural judgment about one’s own good. This type of judgment is uniform and
insufficient for pursuing a good of this sort.
That’s why each human being has had to use reason, whose function it is
to draw connections among diverse things, to judge what his or her own good is,
to discover that good, which, insofar as it is to be pursued here and now, is
made determinate in the light of all circumstances. Without a habit to perfect it, reason can do
this about as well as it can form judgments about a conclusion of some
contemplative science when it does not have the relevant habit of knowledge—and
it can do this only imperfectly and with difficulty. Therefore, just as a habit of science must
perfect contemplative reason if it is to judge rightly about what is knowable
in that science, a habit must also perfect practical reason if it is to judge
rightly about the human good in each case when one is to act. We call this virtue “prudence,” and its
subject is practical reason.
Prudence also perfects all the moral
virtues in the appetitive part. Every
one of these virtues produces an inclination in the appetite to some kind of
human good. For instance, justice
produces an inclination to the good of equality in things relevant to common
life, temperance to the good of restraint in one’s sensual desires, and so on
for each virtue. However, each of these
goods can be brought about in various ways—and not in the same way in all
cases. Therefore, to establish the right
mode, human beings need prudence of judgment.
Thus rightness and the fullness of goodness in all the other virtues
come from prudence, which is why the Philosopher says that the mean in moral
virtue is determined in accordance with right reason. Because all appetitive habits obtain the
character of virtue from this rightness and fullness of goodness, prudence is a
cause of all the virtues of the appetitive part, which are called moral insofar
as they are virtues. It’s for this reason
that Gregory says in Morals on the Book of Job XXII that the other
virtues can be virtues only if they do prudently what they strive after.
Responses to the initial arguments:
1. In this passage, the Philosopher is
referring to practical knowledge. Still,
there is more to prudence than practical knowledge. For practical knowledge includes universal
judgments about what one should do (for instance, fornication is bad, one
should not steal, etc...). Still, even
though someone has this knowledge, it is possible for reason’s judgment to face
interference in connection with a particular act, with the result that reason
does not judge rightly. That’s
why practical knowledge is said to be of little value for virtue: Because even
when people have it, they can sin against virtue.
In contrast, prudence’s role is to judge
rightly about particular acts insofar as one should perform them now. Any sin corrupts this judgment. Therefore, as long as one has prudence, one
does not sin. That’s why prudence contributes
not a little, but a great deal to virtue.
In fact, it is a cause of virtue itself, as I have noted [in the Reply].
2. One person can take general advice
from another about what to do. However,
only the rectitude that prudence affords enables one to sustain one’s judgment
rightly throughout the act itself, against [the influence of
] all passions. Without this,
there can be no virtue.
3. The kind of ignorance that is opposed
to prudence is “ignorance of choice.”
It’s in this sense that every evil person is ignorant. Ignorance of choice is caused when the
appetite’s inclination interferes with reason’s judgment. This does not excuse sin—it is a
sin. On the other hand, the kind of
ignorance that is opposed to practical knowledge does excuse one from sin or
lessen the sin’s seriousness.
4. We should take
5. What’s good and what’s true are the
objects of two parts of the soul: the
intellective and the appetitive. These
two parts are such that each acts with regard to the other’s act. For instance, the will wills the intellect to
understand, and the intellect understands that the will wills.
Therefore, these two, the good and the
true, mutually include each another.
That’s because what’s good is a certain truth, insofar as the intellect
grasps it—that is, insofar as the intellect understands that the will wills a
good, or even insofar as it understands that something is good. Likewise, what’s true is itself also a
certain good: a good of the intellect that also falls under the will [as an
object], insofar as someone wants to understand what’s true. In any case, the truth of the practical
intellect is a good that is also a goal of action, for a good moves the
appetite only on the condition that one apprehends it. Therefore, there’s no reason why there can’t
be virtue in the practical intellect.
6. In Book II of the Ethics, the
Philosopher is defining [only] moral virtue (since he offers his account
of intellectual virtue in Book VI of the Ethics); and the virtue in the
practical intellect is intellectual, not moral, for the Philosopher classifies
even prudence as an intellectual virtue, as Ethics II makes clear.
Article
7
Is
there virtue in the contemplative intellect?
Reasons to think there is not
1. Every virtue is directed
to acting, since virtue is what renders one's activities good. However, the contemplative intellect is not
directed to acting, for it doesn't say anything about what to emulate and what
to shun, as On the Soul III makes clear.
Therefore, there cannot be virtue in the contemplative intellect.
2. As Ethics II
states, virtue is what makes its possessor good. But the habits of the contemplative intellect
do not do this. After all, people are
not called good just because they have knowledge. The habits of the contemplative intellect,
then, are not virtues.
3. The habit of knowledge
that perfects the contemplative intellect in a pre-eminent way. However, knowledge is not a virtue, which is
clear from the fact that we divide knowledge in opposition to the virtues [in
our classificatory scheme]. For we note
that the first species of quality is divided into disposition and habit, and
habit is [in turn] predicated of [footnote here: "= divided into"]
knowledge and virtue. Therefore
there is no virtue in the contemplative intellect.
4. Every virtue is directed
to happiness, which is virtue's end; so every virtue is directed to
something. But the contemplative
intellect isn't directed to anything.
After all, we pursue the contemplative sciences for their own sake and
not for their usefulness, as Metaphysics I states. So, there cannot be virtue in the
contemplative intellect.
5. An act of virtue is
meritorious, but an act of understanding is not sufficient for merit. Rather, "They sin who know what is good
yet do not do it" (James
Opposing Considerations
1. Faith is in the
contemplative intellect, since its object is the primary truth. But faith is a virtue, and so the
contemplative intellect can be the subject of a virtue.
2. The true and the good are
equally noble. The reason is that they
encompass each other, since what's true is a certain good, and what's good is a
certain truth; and each of these--truth and goodness--is common to every being. Consequently, if there can be virtue in the
will, whose object is what's good, there can also be virtue in the
contemplative intellect, whose object is what's true.
Reply
Virtue is ascribed to any
thing on account of a relation of the thing to the good because, as the
Philosopher says, a thing's virtue is what makes its possessor good, and makes
its characteristic activity good too.
For instance, a horse's virtue is what makes it good and makes it walk
and bear a rider well--which is a horse's characteristic activity. We see from this that some habit will have
the character of virtue because it is directed to a good.
But this can be the case in
two ways:
1. Formally, when a habit is directed to a good under its
character as good.
2. Materially, when it is directed to something that is good,
but not under its character as good.
Only the appetitive part [of the soul]
has as its object a good under its character as good; for good is what all
things seek. Therefore, those habits in
the appetitive part or dependent on it are directed formally to something good. That's why they have the character of virtue
most fully. In contrast, the habits
neither in nor dependent upon the appetitive part can be directed materially to
something good, but they cannot be directed formally to a good--to a good under
its character as good. That's why they can
be called virtues in a way, but not as strictly speaking as habits of the first
sort.
Next, we must note that the
intellect, whether contemplative or practical can be perfected by a habit in
two ways:
1. Absolutely and it itself, insofar as it precedes--that
is, moves--the will.
2. Insofar as it follows the will--that is, elicits its own act
at [the will's] command.
[It can be perfected in these two ways]
because, as has been said, these two powers, namely, intellect and
will--encompass each other.
Therefore, those habits which
are in [adding in] the contemplative or practical intellect in the first
way can be called virtues in a way, but not in the full sense. It's in this first way that understanding,
knowledge, and wisdom are in the contemplative intellect, while craft is in the
practical intellect. The reason [habits
such as these are not virtues in the full sense] is that people are said to
have understanding or knowledge insofar as their intellects have been perfected
for knowing the truth, which is the intellect's good. And while the truth can be willed (since a
person can will to understand the truth), it is not because of any such willing that the
habits under discussion reach their perfection.
That's because having knowledge does not make one willing to consider
the truth; it just makes one able to do so.
Therefore, even the consideration of truth counts as knowledge
not because it is willed, but because it extends directly to its object. It is likewise with craft in the practical
intellect. So, craft does not perfect
artisans by making them appropriately willing to exercise their skill, but only
by making them knowing and able to do so.
On the other hand, a habit
that is in the contemplative or practical intellect due to the intellect's following
the will more truly has the character of virtue because it gives a person not
just the knowledge and the ability to act rightly, but also the volition. Faith and prudence exemplify this, but in
different ways.
Faith perfects the
contemplative intellect because the will issues it commands. This is obvious from the act of faith: People
assent through intellect to what surpasses human reason only because they will
to. As Augustine says, only someone who
wills to believe can do so. Faith is in
the contemplative intellect because it is subject to the will's command, just
as temperance is in the concupiscible appetite because it is subject to
reason's command. What can we gather
from this? In the case of believing,
the will issues the intellect commands not just about the execution of its act,
but also about the determination of the object [of belief]. That's because the intellect, as a result of
the will's command, assents to a determinate object of belief, just as through
temperance the concupiscible appetite aims at the determinate mean it gets from
reason.
In contrast, prudence is in
the practical intellect or reason, as I have said, but not in such a way
that the will determines its object, but only its end. Prudence figures out its own object: Presupposing as its
end the good intended by the will, prudence figures out the ways to realize and
preserve this good.
From what I have said, it is
clear that the habits in the intellect are related to the will in different
ways. Some do not depend on the will at
all, except as concerns their use, and even this
accidentally, since the use of this sort of habit (like knowledge, wisdom, and
craft) does not depend on the will in the same way as the aformentioned
habits [of faith and prudence]. These
habits bring us to the perfection not of wanting appropriately to use
them, but only of being able to use them. However, there is an intellectual habit that
depends on the will as the source of its first principle, since in practical
matters the end is a first principle.
It's prudence that is related to the will in this way. There is yet another habit that takes even
the determination of its object from the will.
This is the case with faith.
Although all these habits can
be called virtues in a way, the last two have the character of virtue more
fully and more strictly speaking.
However, they are not on that account finer or more perfect habits.
Responses to the initial
arguments
1. A habit of the
contemplative intellect is directed to its characteristic act--the
consideration of truth--which it renders perfect. It is not directed to any external act
as its end but has its end in its own characteristic act. In contrast, the practical intellect is
directed to another, external act as its end.
For the consideration of things to be done or made is relevant to the
practical intellect only on account of doing or making.
So, a habit of the contemplative intellect renders its act good
in a finer way than a habit of the practical intellect. That's because habits of the contemplative
intellect make their acts good as ends, while habits of the practical intellect
make their acts good as means. However,
when a habit of the practical intellect is directed to good under its character
as good (insofar as it is subject to the will), it has the character of virtue
more strictly speaking.
2. A person is called good,
absolutely speaking, not when one of his or her parts is good, but when he or
she is good as a whole; and this is due to the will's goodness, since
the will commands the acts of all the human powers (because any of a power's
acts is that power's good). So, only a
person with a good will is called good absolutely. In contrast, a person with goodness in some
power, but without a good will underlying, is called good insofar as he or she
has good sight or hearing, or hears or sees well.
Clearly, then, we don't call
people good absolutely just because they are knowledgeable. In this case, we say that they are good
intellectually or that they think well.
It is the same with crafts and other habits like these.
3. Knowledge is divided in
opposition to moral virtue, and nevertheless it is itself an intellectual
virtue. We can also reply that it is
divided in opposition to virtue most strictly speaking, since knowledge is not
a virtue in this way, as I said above [in the Reply].
4. The contemplative
intellect is not directed to anything outside itself, but it is directed to its
characteristic act as its end. Now,
ultimate happiness--the contemplative happiness [of the next life]--consists in
an act of the contemplative intellect.
Therefore, its acts are closer to ultimate happiness than the acts [habitus> actus]
of the practical intellect in the sense that they resemble it more. Even so, the acts [habitus> actus] of
the practical intellect are presumably closer in the sense that they prepare us
or enable us to merit [ultimate happiness].
5. A person can merit by an
act of knowledge or a similar habit as long as the will commands the act. Without the will, there is no merit. Nevertheless, knowledge does not perfect the
intellect for this [end], as I have said [in the Reply]. That's because having knowledge does not make
us appropriately willing to reflect; it only makes us quite able to
reflect. That's why a bad will is not
opposed to knowledge or craft, as it is to prudence, or faith, or
temperance. Accordingly, the Philosopher
says that those who sin voluntarily in performing acts are less prudent, but it
is the reverse in the case of knowledge and craft. After all, it's the grammarian who makes a
grammatical error involuntarily who is clearly the less knowledgeable
grammarian.
Article
8
Are
virtues in us naturally?
Reasons to think that they
are
1. Damascene says in The
Orthodox Faith III: "The virtues are natural, and they are naturally
and equally in us [all]."
2. The Gloss on
Matthew
3. Romans
4. Anthony says in a sermon
to the monks: "If the will has changed its nature, there is
depravity. If its condition is
preserved, and there is virtue."
Furthermore, in the same sermon he says that people need only their
natural endowments. But this wouldn't be
true if the virtues weren't natural. Therefore
they are natural.
5.
6. To perform a work of virtue, all that is required is the capacity to do good, the
will to do good, and knowledge of good.
But the idea of good is in us by nature, as Augustine says in On Free
Choice of the Will II. Furthermore,
the will to do good is naturally in us, as Augustine
says in his Literal Commentary on Genesis. Finally, the capacity to do good is naturally in people because the will has control
over its own activity. Therefore, nature
is sufficient for [performing] a work of virtue. So, virtue is natural to human beings, [at
least] in its starting points.
7. But someone might object:
Virtue is natural to human beings in its starting points, but its perfection
does not come from nature.
But Damascene offers this
consideration to the contrary in [The Orthodox Faith] Book III: "If we remain in what is according to
nature, we are in a state of virtue; but if we turn from what is according to
nature, from virtue, we come to what is outside nature, and we are in a state
of wickedness." It is clear from
this [passage] that our turning away from wickedness is in us by nature. Since this [turning away] is a feature of
perfect virtue, even the perfection of virtue is naturally in us.
8. [A second consideration to
the contrary:] Since virtue is a form, it is simple
and lacks parts. Accordingly, if it is
from nature in one of its respects, it is obviously from nature in every
respect.
9. Human beings are nobler
and more perfect than other, irrational, creatures. But nature provides sufficiently what these
other creatures need for their perfection.
Since the virtues are among a human being's perfections, it appears,
then, that nature instills [……??]
10. But someone might object:
This cannot be right, because a human being's perfection consists in many and
diverse things, while nature is directed to one thing.
An argument to the contrary:
The inclination of a virtue is also to one thing, just as the inclination of a
nature is. For, as
11. Virtue consists in a
mean. Now, a mean is a single
determinate thing. Therefore, nothing
bars our having a natural inclination to what is virtuous.
12. Sin is the privation of
mode, species, and order. But sin is the
privation of virtue. Therefore, virtue
consists in mode, species, and order.
Yet these are things natural to a human being. Therefore virtue is natural to a human being.
13. In the soul, the
appetitive part parallels the cognitive part.
But in the cognitive part there is a natural habit: the understanding of
first principles. Therefore the
appetitive and affective part, which is the subject of virtue, also has a
natural habit; and so it appears that some virtue is natural.
14. That
is natural whose source is internal. For
instance, it is natural to fire to rise, because the source of this movement is
in the thing that moves. But the source
of virtue is in human beings. Therefore
virtue is natural to human beings.
15. If the seed something
comes from is natural, then it too is natural.
But the seed virtue comes from is natural. After all, as a certain gloss on Hebrews 1
says, God willed to seed every soul with the beginnings of wisdom and
understanding. Therefore it appears that
the virtues are natural.
16. Contraries belong to the
same genus. But wickedness is the
contrary of virtue, and it is natural.
For Wisdom
17. It is natural that lower
powers should be subject
to reason. After all, as
the Philosopher says in On the Soul III, the higher appetite, which is
reason's appetite, moves the lower, which belongs to the sensitive part, as the
higher [heavenly] sphere moves the lower.
Therefore virtues of this sort are natural.
18. For a change to be
natural, all that is required is that the internal passive source
[of the change] have a natural aptitude [for that change]. After all, the generation of simple bodies is
called natural for this reason (since the active source of their generation is
external). So is the motion of the
heavenly bodies (since the active source of their motion is not nature, but
intellect). But there is a natural
aptitude for virtue in human beings.
After all, as the Philosopher says in Ethics II, "We are
naturally constituted to acquire the virtues, but we are perfected through
habituation." Therefore it appears
that virtue is natural.
19. What is in a person from
birth is natural. But according to the
Philosopher in Ethics VI, some people seem to be brave and temperate and
disposed as the other virtues require right from birth. Moreover, Job 31:18 says: "From my
infancy, compassion grew up with me and came out with me from my mother's
womb." Therefore virtues are
natural to human beings.
20. Nature does not fail in
necessary matters. But human beings must
have virtues to reach the end they are naturally directed to: happiness, which
is an activity of complete virtue.
Therefore human beings have virtues naturally.
Considerations to the
contrary
1. Natural endowments are not
lost through sin. That's why Dionysius
says that the demons have retained their natural gifts. But the virtues are lost through sin, and so
they are not natural.
2. We neither gain nor lose
what is in us naturally and what we get from nature by growing accustomed or
unaccustomed [to them]. However, in the
area of virtue, we can gain and lose by growing accustomed or
unaccustomed. Therefore, virtues are not
natural.
3. What is in us naturally is
in all people universally. However,
virtues are not in all universally, since some people have vices contrary to
virtues.
4. We neither merit nor
demerit through natural things because they are not up to us [adding non]. But we
merit through virtues, just as we demerit through vices. Therefore virtues and vices are not natural.
Reply
People's disagreement about
the way we attain virtues and knowledge mirrors their disagreement about the
production of natural forms.
There have been some who
maintained that [natural] forms preexisted in matter actually, although in a
hidden way, and that a natural agent brought them from
latency into the open. This was the view
of Anaxagoras, who maintained that all things were in all things. As a result, anything could be generated from
anything.
In contrast, others have
claimed that forms are totally from an external source (either from
participation in Ideas, as Plato held, or from the Agent Intellect, as Avicenna
held) and that natural agents merely dispose matter to the form. [footnote needed]
Third is Aristotle's middle
way, which holds that forms preexist in the potentiality of matter, but an
external natural agent brings them into actuality.
Some thinkers have spoken
likewise about virtues and knowledge too, saying that they are in us by nature,
and that study merely takes away the obstacles to them. Plato seems to have held this. He maintained that knowledge and the virtues
are caused in us through participation in separated Forms, but that union with
the body hinders the soul from using them.
We must remove this obstacle through study in the fields of knowledge
and exercise of the virtues.
However, others have said
that knowledge and the virtues are in us from the outpouring of the Agent
Intellect. [The function of] study and
exercise of the virtues [is to] dispose us to receive its influence.
The third view lies between
these: Knowledge and virtue are in us naturally insofar as we have the aptitude
for them; their completion is not in us naturally. This [middle] view is better, because just as
[the corresponding middle view] regarding natural forms does not take away any
power that natural forms have, so [this middle view] regarding the acquisition
of knowledge and virtue through study and practice preserves the [causal]
efficacy of these efforts. [Note: To
make sense of this sentence, we must read derogat
as derogatur or virtus
as virtutem.]
We must keep in mind, however,
that there are two ways an aptitude for a perfection and form can be in a
subject: (1) because of a passive potentiality only (for instance, in
the matter of air there is an aptitude for the form of fire); or (2) because of
a passive and an active potentiality together (for instance, in a curable body
there is an aptitude for health because it is receptive of health). It's in this second way that a natural
aptitude for virtue is in human beings.
That's due in part to the nature of our species, since the aptitude for
virtue is common to all human beings, and in part to the individual's nature,
insofar as some people are apter for virtue than
others.
To make this clear, we must
recognize that there can be three subjects of virtue in a person, as is clear
from what I've already said: intellect, will, and the lower appetite, which is
divided into the concupiscible and irascible.
For each of these, we must find some way of taking into consideration
both the ability to receive virtue and the active source of virtue.
It is clear that the soul's
intellective part contains the possible intellect, which is in potentiality to
all intelligible things. Intellectual
virtue consists in the apprehension of these intelligibles. It's also clear that the intellective part
contains the agent intellect, by whose light these potentially intelligible
things become actually intelligible.
Among these intelligible things, there are certain ones that people come
to know right from the outset without intellectual endeavor and inquiry. Into this class fall first principles, and
not just principles in speculative fields (for instance, "Every whole is
greater than its parts," and other [principles] like this), but also those
in practical matters (for instance, "Bad is to be avoided," and other
principles like this). Now, these
naturally known principles are the source [or: origin] of all subsequent
apprehension, whether practical or speculative, which we acquire through
intellectual endeavor.
Likewise it is clear that
there is a natural active principle for the will, too. That's because the will is naturally inclined
to the ultimate end, and the end in practical matters has the character of a
natural principle. Therefore, the will's
inclination is an active principle in respect of every disposition acquired
through the exercise [of our powers] in the soul's affective part. Moreover, it is clear that the will itself,
insofar as it is a power indifferently disposed to alternative ways of
achieving the end, is able to receive a habitual inclination to these or those
alternative ways.
Finally, the irascible and
concupiscible appetites are naturally obedient to reason and so are naturally
receptive of virtue. Their virtue comes
to perfection in them insofar as they are disposed to pursuing the good of
reason.
All the aforementioned
starting points of the virtues result from the nature of the human species and
so are common to all people.
However, there is one kind of starting point of virtue that results from
the nature of the individual, insofar as a person is inclined to the act of
some virtue on the basis of natural make-up or influence from the heavenly
bodies. While this inclination is a sort
of starting point of virtue, it is not a perfect virtue, because that requires
reason's government. That's why the
definition of virtue includes the clause that virtue disposes one to choose the
mean according to right reason. After
all, anyone who followed an inclination like this without reason's
discrimination would frequently sin.
Just as this last starting
point of virtue does not have the character of perfect virtue without reason's
contribution, neither do any of the starting points discussed earlier. That's because it is through reason's investigation
that we come to specifics on the basis of general principles. It is also through the functioning of reason
that a person is led from the desire for the ultimate end to the means suited
to that end. Finally, by commanding
them, reason makes the concupiscible and irascible appetites subject to
itself. Accordingly, it's clear that
reason's contribution is needed to bring a virtue to completion, whether the
virtue is in the intellect or in the will, or in the irascible or concupiscible
appetites.
This is the completion of virtue:
that the starting point of virtue in the soul's higher part is directed to the
virtue of the lower part, just as we are rendered apt for virtue in the will
through both the starting point of virtue that is in the will and the starting
point of virtue that is in the intellect.
However, we are rendered apt for virtue in the irascible and
concupiscible appetites through both the starting point of virtue in those
appetites and the starting point in the higher powers, but not the
reverse. Accordingly, it is also clear
that reason, which is higher [than the other powers], works for the completion
of every virtue.
Now, the operative principle reason
is divided in opposition to the operative principle nature, as Physics
II makes clear, because a rational power is disposed to alternatives, while a
nature is directed to one thing. For
this reason, it is clear that a virtue's perfection is not from nature, but
from reason.
Responses to the Initial
Arguments
1. Virtues are called natural
not with regard to their perfection, but with regard to their natural starting
points, which are in human beings.
And this serves as a reply to
the second, third, fourth, and fifth objections as well.
6. The capacity to do good is
in us naturally and unconditionally because [our soul's] powers are natural,
but the will [to do good] and knowledge [of good] are in us naturally in a
certain respect: as a certain general
starting point. Still, this is not
enough for virtue. For good activity,
which is virtue's effect, a person must readily and unfailingly attain the good
in most cases. One cannot do this
without the habit of virtue.
Analogously, it is clear that people know in general how to make an artifact
(for instance, to construct an argument or to make a cut, etc.) but they must
have the craft to do it readily and without mistake. It is the same in the case of virtue.
7. That a person turn from
evil is, in a way, from nature; but to do so readily and unfailingly requires a
virtuous habit.
8. We don't say that virtue
is partly from nature because one part of it is from nature and another part is
not, but because it is from nature in an imperfect mode of being: [We have] the
potentiality, and the aptitude [for it].
9. God is perfect in goodness
through himself and so needs nothing to attain
goodness. Those substances that are
close to God and more elevated [than the others] need few things from him to attain the
perfection of goodness. But human
beings, who are farther away from God, need many things to attain perfect goodness. This is because they are capable of
happiness, while those creatures incapable of happiness need fewer things than
human beings. Hence, human beings are
nobler than [these lower animals] even though humans need more things, just as
a person who can achieve robust health through lots of exercise is better
disposed than another [….??]
10. A person can have a
natural inclination to the [activities] associated with a single
virtue. However, a person cannot have a
natural inclination to the [activities] associated with all the virtues,
because a natural disposition that inclines to one virtue, inclines to the
contrary of another virtue (for instance, someone who is naturally disposed to
courage, which consists in pursuing difficult things, is less well disposed to
gentleness, which consists in checking the passions of the irascible
appetite). That's why, as we see,
animals that are naturally inclined to the act of some virtue are inclined to a
vice contrary to another virtue. For
instance, the lion, which is naturally bold, is also naturally cruel.
This sort of natural
inclination to one virtue or another is enough for the other animals, which
cannot attain the complete good through virtue, but attain a limited good of
some kind or other. In contrast, human
beings are naturally suited to achieve the complete good through virtue, and so
they need to have an inclination to all acts of the virtues. Because they cannot get this from nature, it
must be the case that they got it through reason, in which the seeds of all the
virtues exist.
11. The mean of virtue is not
fixed by nature, the way the earth's center is, to which heavy things
tend. Instead, it must be the case that
the mean of virtue is determined according to right reason, as Ethics II
says. After all, what is well balanced
for one person is too little or too much for another.
12. Mode, species, and order
constitute every good, as Augustine says in On the Nature of Good. That's why the mode, species, and order in
which the good of a nature consists are naturally present in human
beings, and sin does not deprive us of them.
However, sin is called the privation of mode, species, and order insofar
as the good of virtue consists in these.
13. Unlike the possible
intellect, the will does not proceed to its act through any species informing
it, so the will has no need of a natural habit directed to a natural object of
desire--especially because the intellect's natural habit moves the will, since
the will's object is the understood good.
14. Although the source of
virtue--reason--is inside a person, this source does not act in the mode of a
nature, and so what comes from reason is not called natural.
This serves as a reply to objection 15.
16. Their wickedness was
natural insofar as it had become habitual, since custom is a second
nature. And we were naturally children
of wrath on account of original sin, which is a sin belonging to our nature.
17. It is natural that the
lower powers should be subjectable to reason, but not
that they should be subject to reason through a habit.
18. We call a change natural
because of the changeable thing's natural aptitude on this condition: when what
effects the change directs the changeable thing to one [end] in a fixed way, in
the mode of a nature.
19. The natural inclination
to virtue, through which [some people] are brave and temperate right after
birth, is not enough for perfect virtue, as I have said.
20. Nature does not fail
human beings when it comes to necessities.
For while it does not give them everything they need, it still [does not
fail them because it] gives them the resources for attaining everything they
need through reason and the things subject to reason.
Article
9
Do
we acquire virtues though acts?
Reasons to Think We Do Not
1. Augustine says that virtue is "a
good quality of the mind, by which we live rightly, which no one
uses badly, which God actualizes in us without us." However, what our own acts bring about, God
does not actualize in us, and so our acts do not cause virtue.
2. [Commenting on the Apostle's remark
that "Everything that is not grounded in faith is sin,"] Augustine
says: "The life of all unbelievers is sin, and without the highest good,
nothing is good. Where apprehension of
the truth is lacking, there is mock virtue, even in the best
character." We gather from this
that there cannot be virtue without faith.
Furthermore, the source of faith is not our works, but grace, as
Ephesians 2:8 makes clear: "You have been saved by grace through faith and
not by yourselves. Let no one boast, for
it is a gift of God." Therefore,
virtue cannot be caused by our acts.
3. Bernard says that people strive for
virtue in vain, unless they believe they must hope for it from the Lord. What we hope to attain from God is not caused
by our acts, and so virtue is not caused by our acts.
4. Continence is less than virtue, as the
Philosopher makes clear in Ethics VII.
But we have continence only by divine gift. As Wisdom says, "I know that I cannot be
continent unless God gives it."
Therefore, we cannot acquire virtues by our acts either, but only
through God's gift.
5. Augustine says that we cannot avoid
sin without grace. But we avoid sin
through virtue, since we cannot be both virtuous and vicious at the same
time. Therefore, there cannot be virtue
without grace, and so we cannot acquire it through acts.
6. We attain happiness through virtue,
for happiness is virtue's reward, as the Philosopher says in Ethics
I. Therefore, if we acquire virtue by
our acts, we can arrive at eternal life, which is our ultimate happiness, by
our acts, without grace. This is opposed
to what the Apostle says in Romans 6:23: "The grace of God is eternal
life."
7. Virtue is counted among the greatest
goods, according to Augustine in On Free Choice of the Will, because no
one uses it badly. But the greatest
goods are from God, according to James 1:17: "Each of the best gifts, and
each perfect gift, is from above, descending from the Father of lights." It appears, then, that virtue is in us only
by God's gift.
8. As Augustine says in On Free Choice
of the Will, nothing can form itself.
Since virtue is a
form belonging to the soul, one cannot cause virtue in oneself by
one's own acts.
9. Just as the intellect is at the outset
in essential potentiality to knowledge, the affective power is in essential
potentiality to virtue. But since the
intellect is in essential potentiality, it needs an external mover--a
teacher--to be brought to the actuality of knowledge, so that it actually
acquires knowledge. Likewise, then, one
needs an external agent to acquire virtue, and one's own acts are not enough
for this.
10. Acquisition occurs through
reception. However, action does not
occur through reception, but rather through the action's issuing or proceeding
from the agent. Therefore, we do not
acquire virtue in ourselves by performing an action.
11. Suppose we acquire virtue through our
acts. We would then acquire it either
through one act or through many. But we
do not acquire it through one, because a person does not become resolute
through a single act. Likewise, we do
not acquire virtue through many acts either.
That's because many acts cannot together produce an effect when they do
not take place simultaneously.
Therefore, it appears that our acts in no way cause virtue in us.
12. Avicenna says that virtue is a power,
essentially attributed to things, for performing their activities. But a thing's act does not cause something
essentially attributed to it. Therefore,
virtue is not caused by an act of its possessor.
13. Suppose our acts cause virtue. In that case, either virtuous acts or vicious acts are its
cause. But vicious acts don't cause it,
because they destroy virtue.
Virtuous acts don't cause it either, because they presuppose
virtue. In no way, then, do our acts
cause us to have virtue.
14. But we must consider this objection:
Virtue is caused by acts that are imperfectly virtuous.
An
opposing consideration: Nothing acts in a way that surpasses its own
species. Therefore, if the acts
preceding virtue are imperfect, they evidently cannot cause perfect virtue.
15. Virtue is the utmost extent of a
power, as On the Heavens I says. Since a power is natural, so is virtue. Therefore it is not acquired through acts.
16. As Ethics II says, virtue is
what makes its possessor good. But human
beings are good in virtue of their nature.
Therefore, their virtue is natural to them and not acquired through
acts.
17. What's more, we do not acquire a new
habit from the frequent repetition of a natural act.
18. All things have their being from
their form. But the form of the virtues
is grace, for without grace the virtues are said to be unformed. Therefore, virtues come from grace and not
from our acts.
19. According to the Apostle,
"virtue is perfected in weakness" (2 Cor.
12:9). But weakness is a passion, not an
action; and so passion and not our acts causes virtue.
20. Since virtue is a quality, a change
in virtue is clearly an alteration, for alteration is change [that takes place]
in [the category of] quality. But
alteration, an undergoing, is found only in the sensory part of the soul, as
the Philosopher makes clear in Physics VII. Therefore, if our acts cause virtue through
some passion and alteration, then virtue is in the soul's sensory part. This is opposed to the view of Augustine, who
says that virtue is a good quality of the mind.
21. Through virtue, one has right choice
of the end, as Ethics X says. But
having right choice of the end does not appear to be in our power. That's because the way the end appears to a
person depends on what that person is like, as Ethics III says. Moreover, we come to be [what we are like]
through our natural make-up or through the heavenly body's influence. Therefore, it is not in our power to acquire
virtues, and so our acts do not cause them.
22. We neither gain nor lose what is
natural by growing accustomed or unaccustomed to it. But there are people who have natural
inclinations to certain vices, just as they have natural inclinations to
virtues, too. Therefore, inclinations of
these sorts cannot be removed by growing accustomed through acts. However, while [these vicious inclinations]
remain, we cannot have virtues.
Therefore, we cannot acquire virtues through acts.
Considerations to the Contrary
1. Dionysius says that good is stronger
than bad. But bad acts cause vicious
habits in us. Therefore, good acts cause
virtuous habits in us.
2. According to the Philosopher in Ethics
II, activities cause us to be resolute.
But we are resolute through virtue.
Therefore, our acts cause virtue in us.
3. Generations and destructions are
caused by contraries. Since bad acts
destroy virtue, good acts generate it.
Reply
Virtue
is a power's utmost limit, which it extends to in order to perform its
activity, which is to make [its possessor's] activity good. Clearly, then, each thing's virtue is that
through which it produces good activity.
Now, each thing is for the sake of its activity; what's more, each thing
is good insofar as it is well disposed to its end. We must conclude, then, that each thing is
good, and acts well, through its own virtue.
Next,
the good characteristic of one sort of thing is different from the good
characteristic of a different sort.
That's because the perfections for different sorts of perfectible things
are different. Therefore, a human
being's good, too, is different from a horse's or a stone's good [aliud> aliquid]. Moreover, there are various ways of
understanding the good of human beings themselves, depending on the perspective
from which they are viewed. After all,
the good of a human being as a human being is different from the good of a
human being as a citizen.
The
reason [these two goods differ] is as follows.
The good of a human being as a human being is that one's reason be
perfected in the apprehension of truth and that one's lower appetites be
regulated as reason's rule requires; for it is being rational that makes humans
human. However, the good of a human
being as a citizen is that one be directed as the city requires as regards all
[its] people. Accordingly, the
Philosopher says in Politics III that the virtue that makes one a good
human being is not the same as the virtue that makes one a good citizen.
However,
human beings are not just citizens of the earthly city. They have a share in the heavenly city of
Jerusalem, whose ruler is the Lord and whose citizens are the angels and all
the saints, whether they reign in glory and rest in the heavenly homeland or
are still travelers on earth, according to the Apostle's claim in Ephesians
2:19: "You are fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God's
household," etc. But human nature
is not enough to enable us to have a share in this city. Rather, God's grace elevates us to this. That's because we plainly cannot acquire through
our natural endowments the virtues of human beings as sharers in this
city. So, our acts do not cause these
virtues. They are infused in us through
divine favor.
However,
the virtues of human beings as such, or as sharers in the earthly city, do not
surpass the capacity of human nature.
So, human beings can acquire them through their natural endowments by
their own acts. This is clear from what
follows.
If one has a natural aptitude for some perfection, and if this
aptitude is due to a passive principle only, one can acquire it--but not
by one's own act. One can acquire
it by the action of an external natural agent, the way air receives light from
the sun. In contrast, if one has a
natural aptitude for some perfection due to both an active and a passive
principle, in that case one can attain it by one's own act. It's in this way that a sick person's body
has a natural aptitude for health. And
because the subject is naturally receptive of health because of the active
natural power to heal that's in it, a sick person is sometimes cured without
the action of an external agent.
I
showed in the previous question, [a.1 Reply], that human beings' natural
aptitude for virtue is due to active and passive principles. This is apparent from the ordered
relationship the soul's powers bear to each other. For in the intellective part there is a
principle that stands as passive: the possible intellect, which the agent
intellect brings to its perfection.
Next, the actualized intellect moves the will, for the understood [intellectus> intellectum]
good is the end that moves the appetite.
Moreover, once reason moves it, the will is naturally apt to move the
sensitive appetite--the irascible and concupiscible powers, which are naturally
subject to reason. Therefore, it is also
clear that any virtue that makes a human being's activity good has its own
actuality in that person who can bring that virtue to actuality by his or her
own action. [This is the case] whether
[the virtue is] in the intellect, or in the will, or in the irascible and
concupiscible powers.
However,
the virtues in the intellective part are brought to actuality in a different
way from the virtues in the appetitive part.
For the action of the intellect (and of any cognitive
power) occurs through its being made in a way like what is apprehensible. Therefore, the intellective part acquires an
intellectual virtue through the agent intellect's making species understood in
it, either actually or habitually [footnote here on species]. In contrast, the action of an appetitive
virtue consists in one thing, as its form demands. As long as this form remains, an inclination
such as this cannot be eliminated and a contrary inclination cannot be
introduced. This is why natural things
do not become an inclination to what is desirable. So, to acquire virtue, the appetitive part
must be given an inclination to something determinate.
Next,
we must keep in mind that a natural thing's inclination results from its
form. Therefore, it is an inclination to
accustomed or unaccustomed to anything.
After all, however many times someone tosses a rock upwards,
it never grows accustomed to going up, but is continuously inclined to a
downward movement. However, things
indifferently disposed to alternatives do not have a form by which they incline
in a determinate way to a single object.
Instead, the mover corresponding to each determines it to a single
thing. It is precisely because it is determined
to an object that it becomes disposed to that same object to a degree; and when
the mover corresponding to it inclines it to an object over and over, this
mover determines it to that same object and ingrains a determinate inclination
in it. As a result, this disposition,
once implanted, is a form tending to a single thing in the mode of a nature, so
to speak. That is why we call a habit a
second nature.
Accordingly,
because the appetitive power is indifferently disposed to alternatives, it
tends to one of them only insofar as reason determines it to that one. Therefore, when reason repeatedly inclines an
appetitive power to one certain thing, a disposition is ingrained in that
power. Through this disposition, the
appetite is inclined to one thing: the thing it has grown accustomed to. A disposition ingrained in this way is a
habit of virtue.
So,
considered accurately, a virtue of the appetitive part is just a disposition or
form that reason has stamped and impressed on the appetitive power. For this reason, no matter how strong the
appetitive power's disposition for some object is, it can have the character of
virtue only if it bears reason's mark.
That's why the definition of virtue makes reference to reason: The
Philosopher says in Ethics II that virtue is a habit of choosing, seated
in the mind, its character determined as the prudent person would determine
it.
Responses to the initial arguments
1. Augustine is speaking about virtues
insofar as they are directed to eternal happiness.
This
serves as a response to the second, third, and fourth initial arguments as well.
5. Acquired virtue causes one to avoid
sin for the most part, but not in every case.
After all, even things that happen naturally come to pass [only] for the
most part. And it does not follow from
this that someone can be virtuous and vicious simultaneously. That's because a single act of a power does
not take away either a habit of vice or a habit of acquired virtue. Moreover, one cannot avoid every sin through
the acquired virtues because one cannot avoid through them the sin of unbelief
and other sins opposed to the infused virtues.
6. Through the acquired virtues we do not
attain the happiness of heaven, but a kind of happiness that we are naturally
apt to acquire through our natural endowments in this life. [We gain this sort of happiness] through the
activity of complete virtue, which Aristotle discusses in Ethics X.
[Metaphy. >
Ethicorum]
7. Acquired virtue is not one of the
greatest goods absolutely speaking, but one of the greatest in the class
[genus] of human goods. On the other
hand, infused virtue is one of the greatest goods absolutely speaking because
through it we are directed to the highest good, which is God.
8. A thing cannot form itself insofar as
it is one and the same thing. But when
there is in a single thing an active principle and a different, passive
principle, it can form itself through its parts. More precisely, one part of it forms, and the
other is formed, just as when something moves itself, one of its parts moves
and the other is moved, as Physics 8 says. It is the same with the generation of virtue,
as I have shown.
9. We acquire knowledge in the intellect
not only by discovering it but also through teaching, which comes from
others. Likewise, correction and
training, which come from others, help us to acquire virtue. The more we are disposed to virtue of our own
accord, the less we need correction and training, just as the sharper our
natural intellectual talent, the less we need others to teach us.
10. Active and passive powers work
together to bring about a person's action.
Insofar as one's powers are active, [an action] issues from them and
nothing is received in them.
Nevertheless, it's characteristic of the passive powers, as such, to
acquire something through reception.
That's why we do not acquire any habits through action in a power that
is purely active, such as the agent intellect.
11. The more efficacious an agent's
action, the more quickly it introduces a form.
For this reason, in the realm of intellectual activities, we see that a
single demonstration, which is efficacious, causes knowledge in us. However, a single dialectical syllogism does
not cause belief in us, even though belief falls short of knowledge. Instead, many are needed, due to their
weakness.
Accordingly,
in the realm of practical activities too, a single act is not enough to cause
virtue. Instead, many are needed. The reason is that the soul's activities [in
this realm] are not efficacious, as they are in the case of demonstrations,
because practical activities are contingent and [merely] probable.
Even
if the many [acts necessary to cause virtue] do not occur simultaneously, they
can still cause a virtuous habit because the first act produces a disposition,
the second, finding the matter disposed to this extent, disposes it further,
and the third still further. In this
way, the final act, acting in virtue of all the previous acts, completes the
generation of the virtue, the way many drops hollow out a rock.
12. Avicenna means to define natural
virtue, which results from the form that is an essential principle. Hence that definition is not relevant.
13. Virtue is generated by acts that are
virtuous in one way and not virtuous in another way. For acts preceding [the generation of] virtue
are virtuous with respect to what is done (insofar as a person does, for
instance, brave and just things) but not with respect to the way they
are done. This is because before
acquiring the habit of virtue, a person does not perform works of virtue in the
same way the virtuous person does: readily and without hesitation, with
pleasure and without distress.
14. Reason is more excellent than the
virtue generated in the soul's appetitive part.
That's because this sort of virtue is just a certain participation in
reason. Therefore, an act that precedes
virtue can cause virtue insofar as it comes from reason,
the source of whatever perfection is in it.
For the imperfection it has lies in the appetitive power: No habit has
yet been caused in it through which one might readily and pleasurably pursue what
issues from the command of reason.
15. Virtue is called the utmost extent of
a power because it inclines a power to what it can do at its utmost, not
because it is in every case something that belongs to a power's essence.
16. In virtue of their natures, human
beings are good in a certain respect, but not good absolutely. A thing must be perfect in all respects in
order to be good absolutely. For
example, for a thing to be beautiful, there cannot be
ugliness or unsightliness in any of its parts.
Now, a person is called good absolutely and in all respects from the
fact that he or she has a good will, because it is through willing that one
uses all one's other powers.
Consequently, a good will makes a person good absolutely. And that's why the virtue of the appetitive
part, through which the will is made good, is what makes its possessor good
absolutely.
17. Insofar as they result from natural
reason, acts preceding virtue can be called natural in the sense in
which what is natural is divided in opposition to what is acquired. However, they cannot be called natural in the
sense in which what is natural is divided in opposition to what is from
reason. But it is in this sense that we
say we do not grow accustomed or unaccustomed to natural things.
18. Grace is called the form of infused
virtue. However, the implication is not
that grace gives it the being characteristic of its species. Rather, grace is called infused virtue's form
because, in a way, virtue's act is informed through grace. Therefore, the infusion of grace is not
required for political virtue.
19. Virtue is perfected in weakness not
because weakness causes virtue, but because it provides the occasion for a
certain virtue: humility. Moreover, it
is the matter of a certain virtue--patience--and even of charity, insofar as
people remedy their neighbors' weakness.
Also, it is naturally a sign of virtue: When the body is relatively
weak, the more the soul moves it to an act of virtue, the more virtuous the
soul is shown to be.
20. Strictly speaking, a thing is not
said to undergo alteration when it reaches its characteristic perfection. So, since virtue is the perfection
characteristic of human beings, we are not said to undergo alteration when we acquire
virtue (except, perhaps, coincidentally, insofar as a change of the soul's
sensitive part, where our passions are located, is connected with virtue).
21. We can say what people are like on
the basis of (a) a quality in the soul's intellective part. In that case, we do not say what they are
like on the basis of their body's natural make-up or on the basis of the
heavenly body's influence, since the intellective part is independent of each
and every body. We can also say what
people are like on the basis of (b) a disposition in the soul's sensitive
part. This can come from the
body's natural make-up or from the heavenly body's influence. Even so, this part of the soul naturally
obeys reason, and so [the disposition] can be lessened or even entirely removed
through habituation.
22. The response to the 22nd initial argument is clear from the response to the 21st. It's because of the second sort of disposition, the sort in the soul's sensitive part, that some people are said to have a natural inclination to vice or virtue, etc. [And so these dispositions can be lessened or removed through habituation.]