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Chapter 9

The Differences Between What Is Personal And What Is Moral

854. I shall omit discussion on the general perfectibility of human nature and confine myself to the question of the perfection possible to the human person. But we must first compare that which is personal with that which is moral, noting carefully the differences.

855. I have said that morality consists in a relationship of the will with the moral law (cf. 574-478). Hence, there can be no actual morality unless there is 1. an individual intelligence sufficiently developed to evaluate the objective value of things, and 2. an individual will. But an intelligent, volitive individual presupposes person. A very close bond, therefore, exists between morality and person.

856. We must establish a difference of concept between what is personal and what is moral. That which is moral concerns only the relationship of the will with the law, whereas that which is personal includes the concept of the supremacy of the active principle.

857. We must also distinguish person from the principle which causes morality. The concept of what is personal is formed in part also by passivity; person acts but also experiences, that which acts is itself that which experiences. On the other hand, mere experience on the part of person cannot constitute a cause of morality. Nothing moral exists in the human being as person without its being produced through co-operation from some movement or at least inclination of person, that is, without some degree of personal activity.(397)

858. The experiences of person can be called personal experiences, but not personal acts, although they can be acts of the nature to which person belongs. For example, if the sensuous instinct delights the will, we would have an act on the part of human nature and an experience on the part of the human person.

859. Furthermore, the conditions proper to personal acts are not always moral. To be moral they must be part of the bond between the will and the law, where alone morality is located (cf. 856). Certain conditions of person relate not to the law but to person simply as supreme, active principle. The following considerations will clarify my thought.

From the first moments of human existence, human personality has its seat in the objective principle of action, and develops with this principle. We have already described the important developments of the objective principle; we said that the will acts spontaneously first by co-operating with the animal instinct and then with the human instinct. Finally, when it begins to distinguish the objective value of things, its action takes on a new and much more noble form: freedom. All these phases to which the will's action is subject form part of the subjective principle and its development.

As long as the will is in the first phase, its action is certainly less noble than that of the second or third phase. Nevertheless, its action is personal, not because its operating principle is objective, but because the activity by which it acts is the most excellent of all its possible activities at the time.

We can say the same about the second phase. When the objective principle has reached this level of development, everything the will does is carried out by its noblest and highest activity, thus acquiring the characteristic of personal activity.
Finally, the third phase, more excellent than the other two, follows the same process.

860. However, this is not sufficient, because the following universal law regarding the action of person must be kept in mind: `In any particular act whatsoever, person always uses the noblest activity it can dispose of at the time.'
For example, let us suppose that the objective principle in which person is located is fully developed and has reached the phase of freedom. If a human being has reached this state of freedom, he can only act freely; he cannot, for instance, use some kind of lower activity, nor act solely in accord with the law of spontaneity. He must act freely, and do so because freedom is his supreme activity in act. In other words, he must act freely because person, in its mode of action, is governed by this law: it must always act with its most sublime activity, granted the necessary conditions for positing its action.

861. Person, therefore, considered in its potentiality, is located in the objective principle. But considered in its exercise, it is located in the finest activity emanating from the objective principle, granted the necessary conditions for drawing this activity into act.

862. This development through different states and acts dependent on varying conditions does not render person morally better or evil. Here we have another difference between that which is merely personal and that which is moral. This difference shows that everything modifying person does not directly and essentially modify the moral state of the human being.

863. The same observations can be made about the development that the will and freedom receive from the corresponding development of the understanding, which moves from an order of lower reflections to an order of higher reflections. Now, because the will is `the principle which acts according to knowledge', it is certain that a higher activity on the part of the will corresponds to every higher order of reflections. This, too, is an application of the law that the human being acts with whatever activity corresponds to the highest of his actual reflections. However, although acting according to an order of higher or lower reflections does in fact determine a particular state and mode of personal action, such action does not pertain directly and essentially to morality. Moral good and evil can be found at its highest level in every order of reflections and in every corresponding activity of the will.

864. From all I have said we can infer a fourth and last difference between that which is moral and that which is simply personal.
The personal element is innate, and accompanies the human being from the first moment of his existence until the end of his life. On the other hand, the moral act (we are speaking about act, not habit) does not manifest itself either in the first or second phase of the will's action, but only in the third.

In the first two forms of human action, the human being tends solely to eudaimonological good. He does not yet know moral good, because he does not know the objective value of beings. This does not mean, however, that we can deny person in first human acts; the personal principle should be sought in every single action provided it is intellective.

The supreme, intellective activity which operates in every single action has its origin in the objective principle, and is supreme in that one action. Hence, it is also the foundation of person; it is personal. It is certainly true that moral reasons have not appeared at this stage in the human mind, but as we said, although they make person moral, they do not constitute it in its being as person.

Notes

(397) Hence, when St. Thomas is investigating the difference between punishment as evil and fault as evil, he says that the former harms person, while the latter harms person in its action. Hence, some action is supposedly always present in fault. He says: `The concept of punishment includes that which harms an agent in itself; the concept of fault, however, includes that which harms the agent IN ITS ACTION' (S.T., I, q. 48, art. 5, ad 4). Note, what he says here about the agent he says expressly elsewhere about person (cf. S.T., I-II, q. 21, art. 1, ad 3).