AQUINAS. See also Aquinas and Roman Catholic Ethics. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) as a dutiful disciple of Aristotle introduces his ethics by an empirical distinction between animals and men. Unlike inanimate objects that cannot determine their actions, animals have inclinations determined interiorly. The inclinations, however, are completely natural, and the animal cannot avoid desiring what he desires. But as one ascends the scale from inanimate, to animate, to men and angels, the nearer to God a being is, the more freedom it has - the more it is determined by itself.
Of course, man shares sensitivity with the animals, but in addition man has intellect and will. Sensitivity apprehends what is pleasant and what is useful to self-preservation, but only reason grasps the universal good. By reason man can know the end and the means to it, and so can determine his own inclination.
The main object of the will according to Aquinas, is the good as such: to desire it is a natural necessity for the will. But not all the acts of will are necessitated. Just as the intellect necessarily accepts the first principles of knowledge and cannot deny what follows from them, so too the will necessarily wills the universal good but may or may not will certain particular goods. But the goods that are necessarily connected with beatitude, the will wills necessarily, provided the intellect knows the connection. Clearly, an object must be known, before it can be willed. This explains why the good does not even will God, since he does not know the necessary connection between God and beatitude.
The intellect is superior to the will in the sense that it apprehends universal truth. The object of the will, the general good, and the objects of the will, the particular goods, are included among the objects of the intellect, truth and being, and so the intellect is superior, However, if we consider the good as universal and the intellect as a special power of the soul, the will is superior, both because every item of knowledge is good and because the will sets the intellect in motion.
This defense of free will makes morality possible, for we could not deserve blame or earn merits if our actions were all unavoidable.
The will and the intellect develop habits. Man is not a pure substance, not a theoretical construction of intellect and will, but is affected by his own actions. Habit is a quality that modifies man's substance and is therefore either good or bad. (God, of course, has no habits because he is in no way potential.) The habit of grasping first principles is virtually innate (though habituation and innateness are mutually exclusive). Virtues are not innate but are developed by repeated actions.
Virtues are good habits, in that they conform to man's nature. Vice is a habit that leads in the opposite direction. To distinguish between them we must bear in mind man's natural end - beatitude or God. Some acts are in accord with reason and lead to God. Others are the reverse and are irrational. Some, like picking up a wisp of straw, lead nowhere and are morally indifferent. Thomas then continues by describing moral virtues and intellectual virtues, much as Aristotle had done.
Ethics must consider law as well as good. Law is an obligation founded on reason. Different types of law should be distinguished. The eternal law of God rules the whole universe; but as it is inscribed on human nature, it becomes the legitimate tendencies of our nature or natural law. The first law of all nature is self-preservation. The second law of sensitive beings is reproduction. The third law of rational beings is to live rationally. This includes living in communities (the family and the state) in order to achieve the good more effectively by cooperation.
There is also human law. A gap opens between the universal principles of natural law and the infinite complexity of particular actions. On these matters peoples and states disagree. Kinds should deduce civil law from natural law; and if they do, a just man will conform to it with perfect spontaneity, as if the civil law did not exist. But unjust decrees are not law and need not be obeyed. It may be prudent to obey some unjust laws in order to modify them. But if a decree infringes on the rights of God, it should never be obeyed.
Gordon H. Clark
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