A sign that intentionality or directedness is the first condition for conformity to practical reason is the expression of imputation: He acted on purpose, intentionally.. He does not notice that Aquinas uses quasi in referring to the principles themselves; they are in ratione naturali quasi per se nota., 1-2, q. The first primary precept is that good is to be pursued and done and evil avoided. From the outset, Aquinas speaks of precepts in the plural. [54] The first principles of practical reason are a source not only for judgments of conscience but even for judgments of prudence; while the former can remain merely speculative and ineffectual, the latter are the very structure of virtuous action.[55]. that the precept of charity is self-evident to human reason, either by nature or by faith, since a. knowledge of God sufficient to form the natural law precept of charity can come from either natural knowledge or divine revelation. Here Aquinas indicates how the complexity of human nature gives rise to a multiplicity of inclinations, and these to a multiplicity of precepts. An object of consideration ordinarily belongs to the world of experience, and all the aspects of our knowledge of that object are grounded in that experience. In that case we simply observe that we have certain tendencies that are more or less satisfied by what we do. In other words, in Suarezs mind Aquinas only meant to say of the inclinations that they are subject to natural law. [78] Stevens, op. The failure to keep this distinction in mind can lead to chaos in normative ethics. The precepts are many because the different inclinations objects, viewed by reason as ends for rationally guided efforts, lead to distinct norms of action. Thus in experience we have a basis upon which reason can form patterns of action that will further or frustrate the inclinations we feel. See Walter Farrell, O.P., The Natural Moral Law according to St. Thomas and Suarez (Ditchling, 1930), 103155. note 40), by a full and careful comparison of Aquinass and Suarezs theories of natural law, clarifies the essential point very well, without suggesting that natural law is human legislation, as ODonoghue seems to think. Nature is not natural law; nature is the given from which man develops and from which arise tendencies of ranks corresponding to its distinct strata. They ignore the peculiar character of practical truth and they employ an inadequate notion of self-evidence. But more important for our present purpose is that this distinction indicates that the good which is to be done and pursued should not be thought of as exclusively the good of moral action. Many other authors could be cited: e.g., Stevens. Romans 16:17. 91. Practical reason does not have its truth by conforming to what it knows, for what practical reason knows does not have the being and the definiteness it would need to be a standard for intelligence. The rule of action binds; therefore, reason binds. The human will naturally is nondetermined precisely to the extent that the precept that good be pursued transcends reasons direction to any of the particular goods that are possible objectives of human action. 94, a. It also is a mistake to suppose that the primary principle is equivalent to the precept, Reason should be followed, as Lottin seems to suggest. The imperative not only provides rational direction for action, but it also contains motive force derived from an antecedent act of the will bearing upon the object of the action. Until the object of practical reason is realized, it exists only in reason and in the action toward it that reason directs. [11] A careful reading of this paragraph also excludes another interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural lawthat proposed by Jacques Maritain. note 18, at 142150, provides a compact and accurate treatment of the true sense of knowledge by connaturality in Aquinas; however, he unfortunately concludes his discussion by suggesting that the alternative to such knowledge is theoretical.) 94, a. [84] G. P. Klubertanz, S.J., The Root of Freedom in St. Thomass Later Works, Gregorianum 42 (1961): 709716, examines how Aquinas relates reason and freedom. It is this later resolution that I am supposing here. [83] The desire for happiness is amply the first principle of practical reason directing human action from within the will informed by reason. cit. Like most later interpreters, Suarez thinks that what is morally good or bad depends simply upon the agreement or disagreement of action with nature, and he holds that the obligation to do the one and to avoid the other arises from an imposition of the will of God. To be practical is natural to human reason. Any other precept will add to this first one; other precepts determine precisely what die direction is and what the starting point must be if that direction is to be followed out. The formula (Ibid. But his alternative is not the deontologism that assigns to moral value and the perfection of intention the status of absolutes. Humans are teleologically inclined to do what is good for us by our nature. Aquinass theological approach to natural law primarily presents it as a participation in the eternal law. Practical reason understands its objects in terms of good because, as an active principle, it necessarily acts on account of an end. An object of consideration ordinarily belongs to the world of experience, and all the aspects of our knowledge of that object are grounded in that experience. He points out, to begin with, that the first principle of practical reason must be based on the intelligibility of good, by analogy with the primary theoretical principle which is based on the intelligibility of being. It is necessary for the active principle to be oriented toward that something or other, whatever it is, if it is going to be brought about. Aquinass understanding of the first principle of practical reason avoids the dilemma of these contrary positions. Moral action, and that upon which it immediately bears, can be directed to ulterior goods, and for this very reason moral action cannot be the absolutely ultimate end. But it is central throughout the whole treatise. He thinks that this is the guiding principle for all our decision making. Our personalities are largely shaped by acculturation in our particular society, but society would never affect us if we had no basic aptitude for living with others. ODonoghue must read quae as if it refers to primum principium, whereas it can only refer to rationem boni. The, is identical with the first precept mentioned in the next line of text, while the, is not a principle of practical reason but a quasi definition of good, and as such a principle of understanding. The practical mind also crosses the bridge of the given, but it bears gifts into the realm of being, for practical knowledge contributes that whose possibility, being opportunity, requires human action for its realization. Why are the principles of practical reason called natural law? But these references should not be given too much weight, since they refer to the article previously cited in which the distinction is made explicitly. The Summa theologiae famously champions the principle that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." There is another principle, however, to which, according to Dougherty, "Aquinas gives the most analysis throughout his writings," namely, the principle that "the commandments of God are to be obeyed" (147-148). supra note 3, at 79. Many proponents and critics of Thomas Aquinass theory of natural law have understood it roughly as follows. 5, c.; In libros Ethicorum Aristotelis, lib. But if these must be distinguished, the end is rather in what is attained than in its attainment. Many other authors could be cited: e.g., Stevens, op. In the first paragraph Aquinas restates the analogy between precepts of natural law and first principles of theoretical reason. The difference between the two points of view is no mystery. The mistaken interpretation offers as a principle: Do good. 4, d. 33, q. It is the mind charting what is to be, not merely recording what already is. 95, a. Precisely the point at issue is this, that from the agreement of actions with human nature or with a decree of the divine will, one cannot derive the prescriptive sentence: They ought to be done.. [56] Even those interpreters who usually can be trusted tend to fall into the mistake of considering the first principle of practical reason as if it were fundamentally theoretical. To the first argument, based on the premises that law itself is a precept and that natural law is one, Aquinas answers that the many precepts of the natural law are unified in relation to the primary principle. [84] Yet mans ability to choose the ultimate concrete end for which he shall act does not arise from any absurdity in human nature and its situation. Good things don't just happen automatically; they are created because the people of God diligently seek what is good. The way to avoid these difficulties is to understand that practical reason really does not know in the same way that theoretical reason knows. The fourth reason is that, in defining his own professional occupation, Thomas adopted the term sapiens or "wise man." . a. The intelligibility of good is: Until the object of practical reason is realized, it exists only in reason and in the action toward it that reason directs. Instead of undertaking a general review of Aquinass entire natural law theory, I shall focus on the first principle of practical reason, which also is the first precept of natural law. Consequently, as Boethius says in his De hebdomadibus,[6] there are certain axioms or propositions which are generally self-evident to everyone. We tend to substitute the more familiar application for the less familiar principle in itself. [65] Moreover, Aquinas simply does not understand the eternal law itself as if it were an imposition of the divine will upon creation;[66] and even if he did understand it in this way, no such imposition would count for human judgment except in virtue of a practical principle to the effect that the divine will deserves to be followed. Perhaps even more surprising is another respect in which the first practical principle as Aquinas sees it has a broader scope than is usually realized. No, practical knowledge refers to a quite different dimension of reality, one which is indeed a possibility through the given, but a possibility which must be realized, if it is to be actual at all, through the minds own direction. The principle is formed because the intellect, assuming the office of active principle, accepts the requirements of that role, and demands of itself that in directing action it must really direct. Moreover, because the end proposed by the utilitarians is only a psychic state and because utilitarians also hold a mechanistic theory of causality, utilitarianism denies that any kind of action is intrinsically good or bad. There is a constant tendency to reduce practical truth to the more familiar theoretical truth and to think of underivability as if it were simply a matter of conceptual identity. No less subversive of human responsibility, which is based on purposiveand, therefore, rationalagency, is the existentialist notion that morally good and morally bad action are equally reasonable, and that a choice of one or the other is equally a matter of arational arbitrariness. Even excellent recent interpreters of Aquinas tend to compensate for the speculative character they attribute to the first principle of practical reason by introducing an act of our will as a factor in our assent to it. 94, a. 3, c; q. For the notion of judgment forming choice see, For a comparison between judgments of prudence and those of conscience see my paper, , Even those interpreters who usually can be trusted tend to fall into the mistake of considering the first principle of practical reason as if it were fundamentally theoretical. This is exactly the mistake Suarez makes when he explains natural law as the natural goodness or badness of actions plus preceptive divine law.[70]. Before intelligence enters, man acts by sense spontaneity and learns by sense experience. Utilitarianism is an inadequate ethical theory partly because it overly restricts natural inclination, for it assumes that mans sole determinate inclination is in regard to pleasure and pain. 1, q. All other precepts of natural law rest upon this. The first principle of morally good action is the principle of all human action, but bad action fulfills the requirement of the first principle less perfectly than good action does. 2, c. The translation is my own; the paragraphing is added. I think he does so simply to clarify the meaning of self-evident, for he wishes to deal with practical principles that are self-evident in the latter, and fuller, of the two possible senses. [9] After giving this response to the issue, Aquinas answers briefly each of the three introductory arguments. The theory of law is permanently in danger of falling into the illusion that practical knowledge is merely theoretical knowledge plus force of will. In issuing this basic prescription, reason assumes its practical function; and by this assumption reason gains a point of view for dealing with experience, a point of view that leads all its further acts in the same line to be preceptive rather than merely speculative. Lottin proposed a theory of the relationship between the primary principle and the self-evident principles founded on it. But our willing of ends requires knowledge of them, and the directive knowledge. Obviously no one could ask it who did not hold that natural law consists of precepts, and even those who took this position would not ask about the unity or multiplicity of precepts unless they saw some significance in responding one way or the other. The good which is the object of pursuit can be the principle of the rational aspects of defective and inadequate efforts, but the good which characterizes morally right acts completely excludes wrong ones. correct incorrect 78, a. My main purpose is not to contribute to the history of natural law, but to clarify Aquinass idea of it for current thinking. This orientation means that at the very beginning an action must have definite direction and that it must imply a definite limit. 45; 3, q. [77] Sertillanges, op. Id. But reason needs starting points. Thus natural law has many precepts which are unified in this, that all of these precepts are ordered to practical reasons achievement of its own end, the direction of action toward end. [73] Bourke does not call Nielsen to task on this point, and in fact (ibid. Why are the principles of practical reason called natural law? The first practical principle is like a basic tool which is inseparable from the job in which the tool is used; it is the implement for making all the other tools to be used on the job, but none of them is equivalent to it, and so the basic tool permeates all the work done in that job.[81]. This principle provides us with an instrument for making another kind of sense of our experience. 4, ad 1. Neuf leons sur les notions premires de la philosophie morale (Paris, 1951), 158160. Before intelligence enters, man acts by sense spontaneity and learns by sense experience. The other misunderstanding is common to mathematically minded rationalists, who project the timelessness and changelessness of formal system onto reality, and to empiricists, who react to rationalism without criticizing its fundamental assumptions. 34. 1, a. mentions that the issue of the second article had been posed by Albert the Great (cf. The first practical principle, as we have seen, requires only that what it directs have intentionality toward an intelligible purpose. The goods in question are objects of mans natural inclinations. Practical reason is the mind working as a principle of action, not simply as a recipient of objective reality. It is important, however, to see the precise manner in which the principle, Good is to be done and pursued, still rules practical reason when it goes astray. In practical knowledge, on the other hand, the knower arrives at the destination first; and what is known will be altered as a result of having been thought about, since the known must conform to the mind of the knower. This participation is necessary precisely insofar as man shares the grand office of providence in directing his own life and that of his fellows. The first precept is that all subsequent direction must be in terms of intelligible goods, i.e., ends toward which reason can direct. Human reason as basis of the goodness and badness of things is faulty, since humans are not perfect. p. 118), but the question was not a commonplace. This principle is not an imperative demanding morally good action, and imperativesor even definite prescriptionscannot be derived from it by deduction. The Latin verb translated as "do" is the verb "facere," which can also be . But it is central throughout the whole treatise. If the first principle of practical reason were. The results are often . This is why I insisted so strongly that the first practical principle is not a theoretical truth. 5 (1960): 118119, in part has recourse to this kind of argument in his response to Nielsen. His position is: we are capable of thinking for ourselves in the practical domain because we naturally form a set of principles that make possible all of our actions. The mistaken interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural law considers natural law precepts to be a set of imperatives. I have just said that oxide belongs to the intelligibility of rust. Not because they are given, but because reasons good, which is intelligible, contains the aspect of end, and the goods to which the inclinations point are prospective ends. Purma (18521873), 7: bk. They are not derived from prior principles. For this reason, too, the natural inclinations are not emphasized by Suarez as they are by Aquinas. For practical reason, to know is to prescribe. 11, ad 2: Objectum intellectus practici est bonum ordinabile ad opus, sub ratione veri.. 2, a. 92, a. As I explained above, the primary principle is imposed by reason simply because as an active principle reason must direct according to the essential condition for any active principleit must direct toward an end. Only truths of fact are supposed to have any reference to real things, but all truths of fact are thought to be contingent, because it is assumed that all necessity is rational in character. Let us imagine a teaspoonful of sugar held over a cup of hot coffee. (Op. His response, justly famous for showing that his approach to law is intellectualistic rather than voluntaristic, may be summarized as follows. The good which is the subject matter of practical reason is an objective possibility, and it could be contemplated. [50] A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., La philosophie morale de Saint Thomas dAquin (Paris, 1946), 109, seems to fall into this mistaken interpretation. The precepts are many because the different inclinations objects, viewed by reason as ends for rationally guided efforts, lead to distinct norms of action. 2 .Aquinas wrote that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." Aquinas stated that reason reveals particular natural laws that are good for humans such as self-preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God. Nor is any operation of our own will presupposed by the first principles of practical reason. Amen. But in reason itself there is a basic principle, and the first principle of practical reason is the ultimate end. In prescribing we must direct, and we cannot reasonably avoid carrying out in reality the intelligibility which reason has conceived. The mistaken interpretation inevitably falls into circularity; Aquinass real position shows where moral reasoning can begin, for it works from transmoral principles of moral action. He considers a whole range of nonpsychic realities to be human goods. The first kind of pleasure is a "moving . An act which falls in neither of these categories is simply of no interest to a legalistic moralist who does not see that moral value and obligation have their source in the end. But the practical mind is unlike the theoretical mind in this way, that the intelligibility and truth of practical knowledge do not attain a dimension of reality already lying beyond the data of experience ready to be grasped through them. The seventh and last paragraph of Aquinass response is very rich and interesting, but the details of its content are outside the scope of this paper. It is necessary for the active principle to be oriented toward that something or other, whatever it is, if it is going to be brought about. These same difficulties underlie Maritains effort to treat the primary precept as a truth necessary by virtue of the predicates inclusion of the intelligibility of the subject rather than the reverse. Therefore this is the primary precept of law: Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. Lottin, for example, balances his notion that we first assent to the primary principle as to a theoretical truth with the notion that we finally assent to it with a consent of the will. Aquinas thinks of law as a set of principles of practical reason related to, Throughout history man has been tempted to suppose that wrong action is wholly outside the field of rational control, that it has no principle in practical reason. 45; 3, q. [23] What is noteworthy here is Aquinass assumption that the first principle of practical reason is the last end. But does not Aquinas imagine the subject as if it were a container full of units of meaning, each unit a predicate? Utilitarianism is an inadequate ethical theory partly because it overly restricts natural inclination, for it assumes that mans sole determinate inclination is in regard to pleasure and pain. Nor does he merely insert another bin between the two, as Kant did when he invented the synthetic a priori. at II.5.12. Second, there is in man an inclination to certain more restricted goods based on the aspect of his nature which he has in common with other animals. As to the end, Suarez completely separates the notion of it from the notion of law. But must every end involve good? Previously, however, he had given the principle in the formulation: Good is to be done and evil avoided. Ibid. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that practical knowledge, because it is prior to its object, is independent of experience. But our willing of ends requires knowledge of them, and the directive knowledge prior to the natural movements of our will is precisely the basic principles of practical reason. Even in theoretical knowledge, actual understanding and truth are not discovered in experience and extracted from it by a simple process of separation. The point has been much debated despite the clarity of Aquinass position that natural law principles are self-evident; Stevens. Reason is doing its own work when it prescribes just as when it affirms or denies. There his formulation of the principle is specifically moralistic: The upright is to be done and the wrong avoided. [65] The point has been much debated despite the clarity of Aquinass position that natural law principles are self-evident; Stevens, op. A useful guide to Aquinass theory of principles is. Once we know that a certain kind of actionfor instance, stealingis bad, we have two premises, Avoid evil and Stealing is evil, from whose conjunction is deduced: Avoid stealing. All specific commandments of natural law are derived in this way.[1]. In one he explains that for practical reason, as for theoretical reason, it is true that false judgments occur. The will necessarily tends to a single ultimate end, but it does not necessarily tend to any definite good as an ultimate end. Not all outcomes are ones we want or enjoy. His position has undergone some development in its various presentations. Answer: The master principle of natural law, wrote Aquinas, was that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." Aquinas stated that reason reveals particular natural laws that are good for humans such as self-preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God. The latter are principles of demonstration in systematic sciences such as geometry. Good in the first principle refers with priority to these underived ends, yet by itself the first principle cannot exclude ends presented in other practical judgments even if their derivation is unsound. Of course, so far as grammar alone is concerned, the gerundive form can be employed to express an imperative. at II.6. Nature is not natural law; nature is the given from which man develops and from which arise tendencies of ranks corresponding to its distinct strata. Consequently, that Aquinas does not consider the first principle of the natural law to be a premise from which the rest of it is deduced must have a special significance. Is the condition of having everything in its proper place in one's character and conduct, including personally possessing all the three other classic virtues in proper measure. And what are the objects of the natural inclinations? Epicureanism is _____. But over and above this objection, he insists that normative discourse, insofar as it is practical, simply cannot be derived from a mere consideration of facts. The important point to grasp from all this is that when Aquinas speaks of self-evident principles of natural law, he does not mean tautologies derived by mere conceptual analysisfor example: Stealing is wrong, where stealing means the unjust taking of anothers property. 4, c. However, a horror of deduction and a tendency to confuse the process of rational derivation with the whole method of geometry has led some Thomistsnotably, Maritainto deny that in the natural law there are rationally deduced conclusions. Prudence is concerned with moral actions which are in fact means to ends, and prudence directs the work of all the moral virtues. We may imagine an intelligibility as an intellect-sized bite of reality, a bite not necessarily completely digested by the mind. But the generalization is illicit, for acting with a purpose in view is only one way, the specifically human way, in which an active principle can have the orientation it needs in order to begin to act. 91, a. Reason is doing its own work when it prescribes just as when it affirms or denies. Imagine that we are playing Cluedo and we are trying to work out the identity of the murderer. 4, a. 5) It follows that the first principle of practical reason, is one founded on the intelligibility of goodthat is: Good is what each thing tends toward. "The good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided" is not very helpful for making actual choices. He does make a distinction: all virtuous acts as such belong to the law of nature, but particular virtuous acts may not, for they may depend upon human inquiry. First principles do not sanction error, but of themselves they set only limited requirements. If practical reason were simply a conditional theoretical judgment together with verification of the antecedent by an act of appetite, then this position could be defended, but the first act of appetite would lack any rational principle. All precepts seem equally absolute; violation of any one of them is equally a violation of the law. How misleading Maritains account of the knowledge of natural law is, so far as Aquinass position is concerned, can be seen by examining some studies based on Maritain: Kai Nielsen, An Examination of the Thomistic Theory of Natural Moral Law, Natural Law Forum 4 (1959): 4750; Paul Ramsey, Nine Modern Moralists (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962), 215223. On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows, In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame, The good deeds a man has done before defend him.". 3)Now among those things which fall within the grasp of everyone there is a certain order of precedence. 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