The first primary precept is that good is to be pursued and done and evil avoided. Gerard Smith, S.J., & Lottie H. Kendzierski. One might translate ratio as essence; yet every word expresses some intelligibility, while not every word signifies essence. [57] The object of the practical intellect is not merely the actions men perform, but the good which can be directed to realization, precisely insofar as that is a mode of truth. [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. His theory of causality does not preclude an intrinsic relationship between acts and ends. 91, a. Since the Old Law directs to a single end, it is one in this respect; but since many things are necessary or useful to this end, precepts are multiplied by the distinction of matters that require direction. 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. He points out that from God wills x, one cannot derive x is obligatory, without assuming the non-factual statement: What God wills is obligatory. He proceeds to criticize what he takes to be a confusion in Thomism between fact and value, a merging of disparate categories which Nielsen considers unintelligible. Although Suarez mentions the inclinations, he does so while referring to Aquinas. Eternal law is the exemplar of divine wisdom, as directing all actions and movements of created things in their progress toward their end. They are not derived from prior principles. Natural law does not direct man to his supernatural end; in fact, it is precisely because it is inadequate to do so that divine law is needed as a supplement. 1-2, q. 2, d. 42, q. [76] Lottins way of stating the matter is attractive, and he has been followed by others. Of course, I must disagree with Nielsens position that decision makes discourse practical. supra note 8, at 202203: The intellect manifests this truth formally, and commands it as true, for its own goodness is seen to consist in a conformity to the natural object and inclination of the will.). They are principles. Thinking that the practical principle must be equivalent to a theoretical truth, he suggests that the opposite relationship obtains. See also Van Overbeke, op. The first paragraph implies that only self-evident principles of practical reason belong to natural law; Aquinas is using natural law here in its least extensive sense. Aquinas recognizes a variety of natural inclinations, including one to act in a rational way. But must every end involve good? Here Aquinas indicates how the complexity of human nature gives rise to a multiplicity of inclinations, and these to a multiplicity of precepts. J. Migne, Paris, 18441865), vol. 1 is wrong. They are underivable. formally identical with that in which it participates. referring to pursuit subordinates it to the avoidance of evil: Perhaps Suarezs most personal and most characteristic formulation of the primary precept is given where he discusses the scope of natural law. 78, a. Now since any object of practical reason first must be understood as an object of tendency, practical reasons first step in effecting conformity with itself is to direct the doing of works in pursuit of an end. a. identical with gluttony. 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. [5] That law pertains to reason is a matter of definition for Aquinas; law is an ordinance of reason, according to the famous definition of q. Answer (1 of 10): We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 100, a. 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. Thus we see that final causality underlies Aquinass conception of what law is. Aquinas, of course, never takes a utilitarian view of the value of moral action. note 8, at 199. The latter ability is evidenced in the first principle of practical reason, and it is the same ability which grounds the ability to choose. Maritain recognizes that is to be cannot be derived from the meaning of good by analysis. [21] First principle of practical reason and first precept of the law here are practically synonyms; their denotation is the same, but the former connotes derived practical knowledge while the latter connotes rationally guided action. Here Aquinas indicates how the complexity of human nature gives rise to a multiplicity of inclinations, and these to a multiplicity of precepts. His response, justly famous for showing that his approach to law is intellectualistic rather than voluntaristic, may be summarized as follows. supra note 8, at 201, n. 23, provides some bibliography. But the first principle of practical reason cannot be set aside in this manner, as we have seen, and so it cannot represent an imposition contrary to the judgment that actually informs our choice. The prescription Happiness should be pursued is presupposed by the acceptance of the antecedent If you wish to be happy, when this motive is proposed as a rational ground of moral action. In this part of the argument, Nielsen clearly recognizes the distinction between theoretical and practical reason on which I have been insisting. Good things don't just happen automatically; they are created because the people of God diligently seek what is good. Hence I shall begin by emphasizing the practical character of the principle, and then I shall proceed to clarify its lack of imperative force. What difference would it make if these principles were viewed as so many conclusions derived from the conjunction of the premises The human good is to be sought and Such and such an action will promote the human goodpremises not objectionable on the ground that they lead to the derivation of imperatives that was criticized above? Even so accurate a commentator as Stevens introduces the inclination of the will as a ground for the prescriptive force of the first principle. Nor should it be supposed that the ends transcendence over moral virtue is a peculiarity of the supernatural end. 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. Hence first principles must be supplemented by other principles and by a sound reasoning process if correct conclusions are to be reached. In fact, Aquinas does not mention inclinations in connection with the derived precepts, which are the ones Maritain wants to explain. The Influence of the Scottish Enlightenment. supra note 8, at 199. 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. But it requires something extraordinary, such as philosophic reflection, to make us bring into the focus of distinct attention the principles of which we are conscious whenever we think. And of course it is much more opposed to wrong actions. Consequently, the first principle in the practical reason is one founded on the nature of good, viz., that good is that which all things seek after. 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. He not only omits any mention of end, but he excludes experience from the formation of natural law, so that the precepts of natural law seem to be for William pure intuitions of right and wrong.[31]. Good is what each thing tends toward is not the formula of the first principle of practical reason, then, but merely a formula expressing the intelligibility of good. 91, a. [16] In libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, lib. supra note 3, at 16, n. 1. This orientation means that at the very beginning an action must have definite direction and that it must imply a definite limit. Hence it belongs to the very intelligibility of precept that it direct to an end. He classified rule by a king (monarchy) and the superior few (aristocracy) as "good" governments. Indeed, the addition of will to theoretical knowledge cannot make it practical. Happiness and pleasure were the greatest good, according to Epicurus, while pain was bad. 34. For example, man has a natural inclination to this, that he might know the truth concerning God, and to this, that he might live in society. This paper has five parts. At first it appears, he says, simply as a truth, a translation into moral language of the principle of identity. But it can direct only toward that for which man can be brought to act, and that is either toward the objects of his natural inclinations or toward objectives that derive from these. that 'goodis to be done and pursued, and evilis to be avoided.' [3] This follows because according to Aquinas evil does not have the character of a being but is, rather, a lack of being,[4]and therefore 'goodhas the natureof an end, and evil, the natureof a Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. 1, lect. Flannery transposes this demonstration onto ethical terrain. It is: Does natural law contain many precepts, or only one? Unlike the issue of the first article, which was a question considered by many previous authors, this second point was not a standard issue. They wish to show that the first principle really is a truth, that it really is self-evident. From the outset, Aquinas speaks of precepts in the plural. Questions 95 to 97 are concerned with man-made law. 1, c. [29] Lottin, op. To know the first principle of practical reason is not to reflect upon the way in which goodness affects action, but to know a good in such a way that in virtue of that very knowledge the known good is ordained toward realization. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. What is at a single moment, the rationalist thinks, is stopped in its flight, so he tries to treat every relationship of existing beings to their futures as comparisons of one state of affairs to another. This view implies that human action ultimately is irrational, and it is at odds with the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. There is nothing surprising about this conclusion so long as we understand law as intelligence ordering (directing) human action toward an end rather than as a superior ordering (commanding) a subjects performance. 5 (1960): 118119, in part has recourse to this kind of argument in his response to Nielsen. The intellect is not theoretical by nature and practical only by education. It enters our practical knowledge explicitly if not distinctly, and it has the status of a self-evident principle of reason just as truly as do the precepts enjoining self-preservation and other natural goods. [10] In other texts he considers conclusions drawn from these principles also to be precepts of natural lawe.g., S.T. but the previous terminology seems to be carefully avoided, and . No, the derivation is not direct, and the position of reason in relation to inclination is not merely passive. [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. Rather, Aquinas relates the basic precepts to the inclinations and, as we have seen, he does this in a way which does not confuse inclination and knowledge or detract from the conceptual status or intelligible objectivity of the self-evident principles of practical reason. 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. Of course, so far as grammar alone is concerned, the gerundive form can be employed to express an imperative. And on this <precept> all other precepts of natural law are based so that everything which is to be done or avoided pertains to the precepts of natural law. The fact that the mind cannot but form the primary precept and cannot think practically except in accordance with it does not mean that the precept exercises its control covertly. In other terms the mind can think, but then it will not set out to cause what it thinks. supra 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.) Within experience we have tendencies which make themselves felt; they point their way toward appropriate objects. But reason needs starting points. By their motion and rest, moved objects participate in the perfection of agents, but a caused order participates in the exemplar of its perfection by form and the consequences of formconsequences such as inclination, reason, and the precepts of practical reason. Th., I-II, q. 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. Consequently, when Aquinas wishes to indicate strict obligation he often uses a special mode of expression to make this idea explicit. 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. The argument that there are many precepts of natural law Aquinas will not comment upon, since he takes this position himself. Mark Boyle argues that a primitive life away from the modern world is healthier, but the evidence strongly suggests that this is a privileged fantasy. In the fifth paragraph Aquinas enunciates the first principle of practical reason and indicates the way in which other evident precepts of the law of nature are founded on it. 179 likes. In practical reason it is self-evident precepts that are underivable, natural law. Hence this is the first precept of law, that good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to be avoided. Hedonism is _____. Similarly, from the truth of the premises and the validity of the reasoning we can say that the conclusion ought to be true. [50] A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., La philosophie morale de Saint Thomas dAquin (Paris, 1946), 109, seems to fall into this mistaken interpretation. In other words, the reason for the truth of the self-evident principle is what is directly signified by it, not any extrinsic cause. 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. Evil is not explained ultimately by opposition to law, but opposition to law by unsuitability of action to end. The formula. There are two ways of misunderstanding this principle that make nonsense of it. [69] The precepts of natural law, at least the first principle of practical reason, must be antecedent to all acts of our will. His response is that since precepts oblige, they are concerned with duties, and duties derive from the requirements of an end. For Aquinas, practical reason not only has a peculiar subject matter, but it is related to its subject matter in a peculiar way, for practical reason introduces the order it knows, while theoretical reason adopts the order it finds. 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. If every active principle acts on account of an end, then at a certain time in spring from the weather and our knowledge of nature we can conclude that the roses ought to be blooming soon. Nor does he merely insert another bin between the two, as Kant did when he invented the synthetic a priori. 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. 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. Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism. This transcendence of the goodness of the end over the goodness of moral action has its ultimate metaphysical foundation in this, that the end of each creatures action can be an end for it only by being a participation in divine goodness. One reason is our tendency to reject pleasure as a moral good. In accordance with this inclination, those things by which human life is preserved and by which threats to life are met fall under natural law. When they enter society they surrender only such rights as are necessary for their security and for the common good. 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]. We have seen how important the conception of end, or final causality, is to Aquinass understanding of natural law. Aquinas, on the contrary, understands human action not merely as a piece of behavior but as an object of choice. Neuf leons sur les notions premires de la philosophie morale (Paris, 1951), 158160. Questions 98 to 108 examine the divine law, Old and New. However, Aquinas does not present natural law as if it were an object known or to be known; rather, he considers the precepts of practical reason themselves to be natural law. Something similar holds with regard to the first practical principle. 5, c.; In libros Ethicorum Aristotelis, lib. Hence the good of the primary principle has a certain transcendence, or at least the possibility of transcendence, in relation to the objects of all the inclinations, which are the goods whose pursuit is prescribed by the other self-evident principles. They are not derived from any statements at all. Why, exactly, does Aquinas treat this principle as a. Lottin proposed a theory of the relationship between the primary principle and the self-evident principles founded on it. [44] Indeed, in treating natural law in his commentary on the Sentences, Aquinas carefully distinguishes between actions fully prohibited because they totally obstruct the attainment of an end and actions restricted because they are obstacles to its attainment. [25] See Stevens, op. 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. This view implies that human action ultimately is irrational, and it is at odds with the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. "The good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided" is not helpful for making actual choices. His response is that law, as a rule and measure of human acts, belongs to their principle, reason. Rather, it is primarily a principle of actions. Animals behave without law, for they live by instinct without thought and without freedom. Ibid. Aquinas expresses the objective aspect of self-evidence by saying that the predicate of a self-evident principle belongs to the intelligibility of the subject, and he expresses the subjective aspect of self-evidence in the requirement that this intelligibility not be unknown. 3, a, 1, ad 1. The first practical principle does not limit the possibilities of human action; by determining that action will be for an end this principle makes it possible. 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