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. That law pertains to reason is a matter of definition for Aquinas; law is an, c. The translation is my own; the paragraphing is added. [42] Ibid. 2, ad 2. [17] In libros Posteriorum analyticorum Aristotelis, lib. Nonprescriptive statements believed to express the divine will also gain added meaning for the believer but do not thereby become practical. 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: In the third paragraph Aquinas begins to apply the analogy between the precepts of the natural law and the first principles of demonstrations. However, since the first principle is Good is to be done and pursued, morally bad acts fall within the order of practical reason, yet the principles of practical reason remain identically the principles of natural law. We usually think of charity, compassion, humility, wisdom, honor, justice, and other virtues as morally good, while pleasure is, at best, morally neutral, but for Epicurus, behavior in pursuit of pleasure assured an upright life. Some interpreters mistakenly ask whether the word good in the first principle has a transcendental or an ethical sense. Practical reason is mind directed to direct and it directs as it can. In the treatise on the Old Law, for example, Aquinas takes up the question whether this law contains only a single precept. at q. Because Aquinas explicitly compares the primary principle of practical reason with the principle of contradiction, it should help us to understand the significance of the relationship between the first principle and other evident principles in practical reason if we ask what importance attaches to the fact that theoretical knowledge is not deduced from the principle of contradiction, which is only the first among many self-evident principles of theoretical knowledge. But in directing its object, practical reason presides over a development, and so it must use available material. The first principle of the natural law is "good is to be done and pursued, and evil avoided" (q94, a2, p. 47). All precepts seem equally absolute; violation of any one of them is equally a violation of the law. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. The intelligibility of good is: what each thing tends toward. Rather, Aquinas proceeds on the supposition that meanings derive from things known and that experienced things themselves contain a certain degree of intelligible necessity.[14]. In the sixth paragraph Aquinas explains how practical reason forms the basic principles of its direction. cit. These. 1-2, q. at II.7.5: Honestum est faciendum, pravum vitandum.) Here too Suarez suggests that this principle is just one among many first principles; he juxtaposes it with Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 6. This fact has helped to mislead many into supposing that natural law must be understood as a divine imperative. The good in question is God, who altogether transcends human activity. Sertillanges also tries to understand the principle as if it were a theoretical truth equivalent to an identity statement. All other knowledge of anything adds to this elementary appreciation of the definiteness involved in its very objectivity, for any further knowledge is a step toward giving some intelligible character to this definiteness, i.e., toward defining things and knowing them in their wholeness and their concrete interrelations. Maritain attributes our knowledge of definite prescriptions of natural law to. 2). It is not equivalent, for example, to self-preservation, and it is as much a mistake to identify one particular precept as another with the first principle of practical reason. In the article next after the one commented upon above, Aquinas asks whether the acts of all the virtues are of the law of nature. Significant in these formulations are the that which (ce qui) and the double is, for these expressions mark the removal of gerundive force from the principal verb of the sentence. 1-2, q. [18] S.T. 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). But does not Aquinas imagine the subject as if it were a container full of units of meaning, each unit a predicate? They ignore the peculiar character of practical truth and they employ an inadequate notion of self-evidence. Aquinas knew this, and his theory of natural law takes it for granted. 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.) Let us imagine a teaspoonful of sugar held over a cup of hot coffee. Aquinass position is not: we conclude that certain kinds of acts should be done because they would satisfy our inclinations or fulfill divine commands. Like. 1, q. Many useful points have been derived from each of these sources for the interpretation developed below. Aquinas, on the contrary, understands human action not merely as a piece of behavior but as an object of choice. 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. 3, ad 1) 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. A careful reading of this paragraph also excludes another interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural lawthat proposed by Jacques Maritain. However, a full and accessible presentation along these general lines may be found in, Bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum., La loi naturelle et le droit naturel selon S. Thomas,. In other words, in Suarezs mind Aquinas only meant to say of the inclinations that they are subject to natural law. Thus Lottin makes the precept appear as much as possible like a theoretical statement expressing a peculiar aspect of the goodnamely, that it is the sort of thing that demands doing. But if these must be distinguished, the end is rather in what is attained than in its attainment. Aquinas thinks in terms of the end, and obligation is merely one result of the influence of an intelligible end on reasonable action. ODonoghue must read quae as if it refers to primum principium, whereas it can only refer to rationem boni. The primum principium is identical with the first precept mentioned in the next line of text, while the ratio boni is not a principle of practical reason but a quasi definition of good, and as such a principle of understanding. Because such principles are not equally applicable to all contents of experience, even though they can be falsified by none, we can at least imagine them not to be true. Hence he denies that it is a habit, although he grants that it can be possessed habitually, for one has these principles even when he is not thinking of them. Reason prescribes according to the order of natural inclinations because reason directs to possible actions, and the possible patterns of human action are determined by the natural inclinations, for man cannot act on account of that toward which he has no basis for affinity in his inclinations. a. identical with gluttony. Reason does not regulate action by itself, as if the mere ability to reason were a norm. Practical reason, equipped with the primary principle it has formed, does not spin the whole of natural law out of itself. at q. The pursuit of the good which is the end is primary; the doing of the good which is the means is subordinate. Thus the status Aquinas attributes to the first principle of practical reason is not without significance. And, in fact. The Republicans' good friend, Putin, that "genius" who invaded Ukraine (in the words of their Dear Leader) has already seen his plans of conquest slip from his incompetent and bloody . The mistaken interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural law considers natural law precepts to be a set of imperatives. supra note 3, at 45058; Gregory Stevens, O.S.B., The Relations of Law and Obligation, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 29 (1955): 195205. To the third argument, that law belongs to reason and that reason is one, Aquinas responds that reason indeed is one in itself, and yet that natural law contains many precepts because reason directs everything which concerns man, who is complex. 20. To recognize this distinction is not to deny that law can be expressed in imperative form. But there and in a later passage, where he actually mentions pursuit, he seems to be repeating received formulae. Otherwise (and in truth), to know that something is a being, and so subsumable under being, presupposes the knowledge which that subsumption applies to it. There are people in the world who seek what is good, and there are people in the world who seek what is evil. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. at 117) even seems to concur in considering practical reason hypothetical apart from an act of will, but Bourke places the will act in God rather than in our own decision as Nielsen does. Aquinas thinks of law as a set of principles of practical reason related to actions themselves just as the principles of theoretical reason are related to conclusions. 12. Thus the intelligibility includes the meaning with which a word is used, but it also includes whatever increment of meaning the same word would have in the same use if what is denoted by the word were more perfectly known. In this section I wish to show both that the first principle does not have primarily imperative force and that it is really prescriptive. In the third paragraph Aquinas begins to apply the analogy between the precepts of the natural law and the first principles of demonstrations. Reason is doing its own work when it prescribes just as when it affirms or denies. 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. In other words, in Suarezs mind Aquinas only meant to say of the inclinations that they are subject to natural law. The first article raises the issue: Whether natural law is a habit. Aquinas holds that natural law consists of precepts of reason, which are analogous to propositions of theoretical knowledge. Maritain suggests that natural law does not itself fall within the category of knowledge; he tries to give it a status independent of knowledge so that it can be the object of gradual discovery. Only truths of reason are supposed to be necessary, but their necessity is attributed to meaning which is thought of as a quality inherent in ideas in the mind. at II.6. Ibid. Lottin, for instance, suggests that the first assent to the primary principle is an act of theoretical reason. 2, d. 39, q. 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. 4)But just as being is the first thing to fall within the unrestricted grasp of the mind, so good is the first thing to fall within the grasp of practical reasonthat is, reason directed to a workfor every active principle acts on account of an end, and end includes the intelligibility of good. 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. Rather, it is primarily a principle of actions. As we have seen, however, Aquinas maintains that there are many self-evident principles included in natural law. Thus good does not signify an essence, much less does nonbeing, but both express intelligibilities.[15]. In practical reason it is self-evident precepts that are underivable, natural law. cit. The theoretical mind crosses the bridge of the given to raid the realm of being; there the mind can grasp everything, actual or possible, whose reality is not conditioned upon the thought and action of man. [9] After giving this response to the issue, Aquinas answers briefly each of the three introductory arguments. 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. 5) Since the mistaken interpretation regards all specific precepts of natural law as conclusions drawn from the first principle, the significance of Aquinass actual viewthat there are many self-evident principles of natural lawmust be considered. The principle of contradiction could serve as a common premise of theoretical knowledge only if being were the basic essential characteristic of beings, if being were. From mans point of view, the principles of natural law are neither received from without nor posited by his own choice; they are naturally and necessarily known, and a knowledge of God is by no means a condition for forming self-evident principles, unless those principles happen to be ones that especially concern God. Evil is not explained ultimately by opposition to law, but opposition to law by unsuitability of action to end. 2; S.T. For this reason, too, the natural inclinations are not emphasized by Suarez as they are by Aquinas. He thinks that this is the guiding principle for all our decision making. 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. 3. [37] Or, to put the same thing in another way, not everything contained in the Law and the Gospel pertains to natural law, because many of these points concern matters supernatural. 5, for the notion of first principles as instruments which the agent intellect employs in making what follows actually intelligible. The objective aspect of self-evidence, underivability, depends upon the lack of a middle term which might connect the subject and predicate of the principle and supply the cause of its truth. Maritain points out that Aquinas uses the word quasi in referring to the prescriptive conclusions derived from common practical principles. In the next article, Aquinas adds another element to his definition by asking whether law always is ordained to the common good. But Aquinas took a broader view of it, for he understood law as a principle of order which embraces the whole range of objects to which man has a natural inclination. The primary precept provides a point of view. Being is the basic intelligibility; it represents our first discovery about anything we are to knowthat it is, To say that all other principles are based on this principle does not mean that all other principles are derived from it by deduction. Even so accurate a commentator as Stevens introduces the inclination of the will as a ground for the prescriptive force of the first principle. 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. 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. 11; 1-2, q. That is what Kant does, and he is only being consistent when he reduces the status of end in his system to a motive extrinsic to morality except insofar as it is identical with the motivation of duty or respect for the law. 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. Aquinas recognizes a variety of natural inclinations, including one to act in a rational way. 2, d. 39, q. But binding is characteristic of law; therefore, law pertains to reason. [83] That the basic precepts of practical reason lead to the natural acts of the will is clear: Super Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, bk. In other texts he considers conclusions drawn from these principles also to be precepts of natural lawe.g., S.T. Together these principles open to man all the fields in which he can act; rational direction insures that action will be fruitful and that life will be as productive and satisfying as possible. 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. [49] It follows that practical judgments made in evil action nevertheless fall under the scope of the first principle of the natural law, and the word good in this principle must refer somehow to deceptive and inadequate human goods as well as to adequate and genuine ones. 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. Hence the end transcends morality and provides an extrinsic foundation for it. And what are the objects of the natural inclinations? 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. The first precept of natural law is that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. 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. Hence it belongs to the very intelligibility of precept that it direct to an end. One of these is that every active principle acts on account of an end. 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. 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. In theoretical knowledge, the dimension of reality that is attained by understanding and truth is realized already in the object of thought, apart from our thought of it. 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.[43]. Consequently, when Aquinas wishes to indicate strict obligation he often uses a special mode of expression to make this idea explicit. 100, a. 94, a. Hence it belongs to the very intelligibility of precept that it direct to an end. Precisely because man knows the intelligibility of end and the proportion of his work to end. Hence I shall begin by emphasizing the practical character of the principle, and then I shall proceed to clarify its lack of imperative force. One of these is that every active principle acts on account of an end. 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. Sertillanges also tries to understand the principle as if it were a theoretical truth equivalent to an identity statement. at 1718; cf. 2, c. Fr. If the mind is to work toward unity with what it knows by conforming the known to itself rather than by conforming itself to the known, then the mind must think the known under the intelligibility of the good, for it is only as an object of tendency and as a possible object of action that what is to be through practical reason has any reality at all. Here Aquinas indicates how the complexity of human nature gives rise to a multiplicity of inclinations, and these to a multiplicity of precepts. It is not the inclinations but the quality of actions, a quality grounded on their own intrinsic character and immutable essence, which in no way depend upon any extrinsic cause or will, any more than does the essence of other things which in themselves involve no contradiction. (We see at the beginning of paragraph 5 that Suarez accepts this position as to its doctrine of the intrinsic goodness or turpitude of actions, and so as an account of the foundation of the natural law precepts, although he does not accept it as an account of natural law, which he considers to require an act of the divine will.) Before the end of the very same passage Suarez reveals what he really thinks to be the foundation of the precepts of natural law. "Good is to be done and evil is to be avoided" is the first principle of practical reason, i.e., a principle applicable to every human being regardless of his "religion." The objective dimension of the reality of beings that we know in knowing this principle is simply the definiteness that is involved in their very objectivity, a definiteness that makes a demand on the intellect knowing them, the very least demandto think consistently of them.[16]. Third, there is in man an inclination to the good based on the rational aspect of his nature, which is peculiar to himself. 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. These tendencies are not natural law; the tendencies indicate possible actions, and hence they provide reason with the point of departure it requires in order to propose ends. In one he explains that for practical reason, as for theoretical reason, it is true that false judgments occur. As Suarez sees it, the inclinations are not principles in accordance with which reason forms the principles of natural law; they are only the matter with which the natural law is concerned. B. Schuster, S.J., Von den ethischen Prinzipien: Eine Thomasstudie zu S. 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