Rosmini’s Theory of Ethics:
Some Considerations

5 The Will as the Cause of
Moral Good and Evil

Good is moral good when desired by the will. Morality is ‘a relationship between what is good and the intelligent nature which wills the good.’(50) If we tend towards being, love being, or desire being we perform a morally good act but this needs to be made more precise.
It is obvious from the definition of the will given in the table overpage that if the will operates according to reasons then it must depend on prior knowledge to act. This is because ideas serve as reasons and these must be present enabling human beings to deliberate, to choose and to will. The knowledge present in the subject before the will acts is formed instinctively.

§1. Direct and Reflective Knowledge

Direct knowledge lies in the formation of ideas. This then becomes the aim and object of reflection. The subject can reflect willingly on it using the reason. Rosmini gives an example. The desire for profit cannot be a motivating power n business if we do not first know what profit is. We must possess the idea of ‘profit’ before we can reflect on it and desire it. We cannot will what we do not know. But by our act of the will we can adhere to what we desire. We reflect on what is known and this act terminates not in simple contemplation but in assenting contemplation. There are, in fact, three types of reflecting acts; the first is simply contemplation of what is already known, offering no new knowledge; the second reflecting act analyses, unites and integrates things already known. In this way it produces new knowledge but still without volition following on it. Examples of this sort of reflection would be working on a scientific theory or analysing a work of art. The third type of reflection looks at the known object, willingly draws pleasure from it, fully acknowledging the good present in what is known. This third type of reflection is volition. The powers which cause reflection are instinct and will. The final assent depends upon ourselves.
When we carry out voluntary acts we show that we prefer to do them rather than not do them. We act in dependence on our predominant love.

Even if we are motivated by fear into doing an act we would otherwise not do, we choose it as the lesser of two evils. For example we might leap over a barbed wire fence when chased by a bull, or jump out of a high window to escape a fire. These actions are a means of freedom from a greater evil. All actions of moral beings are brought about by an act of predominant love, that is, practical love. Action follows necessarily on this.(54)

§2. Where does free will enter?

So where is this free will to be found? In our actions or in the way we determine our love? Obviously it can’t be found in actions willed independently of love because this involves a contradiction. We can only will what we love. If we are free to will or not to will this is because we are free to love our action or not, to increase or diminish our love or hatred for any actions or omissions.

Now the next thing to examine is whether freedom has its origin in our affections. Are we free simply because we are free in governing our affections, or do the affections themselves depend on a previous operation of our spirit in the same way as our external actions depend on our affections? We can hate something only if we consider it bad; good cannot cause hatred in us. Similarly we cannot love anything unless we consider it good; evil cannot cause love in us. We might love something which is in fact harmful or bad but not because we consider it as such, but because we view it as good for us. Again we might view something which is good as bad for us. The conclusion to this is that love and hatred are aroused in me not because of the thing in itself but by the way in which I consider, think and judge it.

Love, as an affection proper to an intelligent being, is directed towards a known object. This reveals its worth to the mind causing affection and love in the knowing subject.
Esteem is an intrinsic element of love which is not blind material instinct. If we love an object we esteem and approve of it as pleasing and good and worthy of love because love depends on a favourable judgement about the worth and loveable qualities of the object. Love is immediately preceded by esteem which produces it.

Esteem and judgement in this case are called practical esteem and practical judgement. Practical love is produced by practical esteem. Practical here means the kind of judgement we make about the worth of things we perceive. It is the immediate step preceding love and affection of the object being considered. Love and esteem are necessarily bound together. Only by first increasing or diminishing our practical esteem for an object can we influence our love by our power of free will. Since love is bound to esteem as effect to cause we thereby increase or diminish our love.

Human freedom is to be sought in the first act of reflection on the objects present to our mind by which we form our esteem or practical judgement. The practical judgement is simply an act of reflection on things already perceived. Direct knowledge does not depend on the will. For instance we cannot esteem human beings unless and until we know there are such beings. But once we have the idea of human beings and know them then we can assess this particular one, this person. We can look at them as good or bad,deserving of love or hate. The formation of the idea produces direct knowledge and it is only after this that reason gets to work. This work is voluntary and we can now judge what we know. We acknowledge it (re-know it, re-cognise it). This is where the moral act begins. Love and external action follow as its effect.

To sum up, then, ideas and memories of things are found in direct knowledge. The will then prompts reflection on what is known. This reflection is morally good or morally bad in so far as the worth of these things is impartially acknowledged or disavowed and distorted. If the will is good its sole aim is to acknowledge known things for what they actually are, with all their good properties and defects; the will moves naturally towards the truth. A bad will, however, does not aim at truth. Stimulated by an evil instinct this kind of will fixes itself partially and unjustly on the direct knowledge and disposes itself towards disorder.

§3. Error

In the case of irrational hatred the will decides to turn away from the good properties of the thing and devote itself to the thing’s defects. We see this for instance in people who are irrationally biased against certain things and people, or unnaturally opposed to authority. In the case of irrational love it devotes its complete attention to the good properties and disregards the defects. We say, ‘Love is blind’, when a person is besotted and unable to judge clearly about the character of the loved one and sees only the good in the person. He or she has a biased view point of the other! Moreover with the power of our will we can imagine defects in the thing we know, if this thing is the object of our hatred and conversely imagine good properties if we wish to love the object unduly. The will has the capacity to alter its own knowledge and form false judgements about the things it has perceived by giving them good properties or defects they do not possess. This is always the cause of error. Error is the effect of voluntary reflection.

When the will adheres to what it desires it produces for itself a vital apprehension of the worth or defect of the things present to it.
This vital apprehension is true or false because the will has the power to see what is not actually present in the thing known just as it can decide not to see what is actually there. Vital apprehension of good or evil in the thing concludes with practical judgement or esteem for what is known, namely faithful or unfaithful acknowledgement of what has been perceived in direct knowledge. This is the basis of moral consent. After this practical judgement vital pleasure or displeasure arises accompanying the vital apprehension of good or evil. Pleasure then gives rise to love and displeasure gives rise to hatred. Love and hatred are followed by action.

We find ourselves at odds about things which we obviously perceive in the same way. We use the same words which are common to all of us and these stand for the ideas which we form in direct knowledge. But our reflective judgements vary. Rosmini gives the example of politicians who not only might invent facts to deceive others but also deceive themselves by their own judgements which favour their hopes and opinions and which refuse to admit contrary well founded information. They thus exaggerate success and lessen failure. Statistics are notoriously prone to opposite interpretations.

One has only to listen to a debate in the House of Commons to see this. Rosmini concludes by saying that anyone with an evil will has two standards, one for things favourable and one for things unfavourable to himself. So for instance we all acknowledge the horror of war and yet supply arms to nations because it is a source of income! In modern parlance we have double standards.

The persuasion and esteem we form for ourselves with the power of our reflective will is reasonable if it harmonises with our direct knowledge of the thing about which we form our persuasion; it is unreasonable if it departs from direct knowledge through the force of our own interior creative effort. People take pride in their error because they sense that it is their own work and a lot of effort is invested in making a mistake than in simply acknowledging the truth. This persuasion is always a judgement. The judgement is true if it corresponds with our direct knowledge, it is false if it differs from it. The esteem we bestow on a thing depends on this judgement and is just or unjust in so far as it is proportionate to the idea or knowledge which we possess of the thing. The moral act, then, consists in acknowledging what we already know in necessary direct knowledge. If the will refuses to acknowledge what it first knows and rebels against the truth, it dissents unjustly and we lie to ourselves. There is a battle between what is true and a will that is averse to what is true. Persuasion about error is always weaker than persuasion of the truth. People persuaded of error always bears deep within themselves a continual contradiction of their error. Direct knowledge is never extinguished within us unless we fall into total ignorance about things. In certain circumstances the strongest arguments make little or no impression on certain people whose minds are filled with endless, pointless doubts about the most evident matters. We say, ‘You won’t listen to reason.’ Probity and justice bring peace to the human heart while injustice leads to internal distress and tension. We do violence to ourselves.

Notes

(50) Op. cit., n. 114. ‘The morality of acts is defined by the relationship of man’s freedom with the authentic good. This good is established, as the eternal law, by Divine Wisdom which orders every being towards its end: this eternal law is known both by man’s natural reason (hence it is ‘natural law’), and — in an integral and perfect way — by God’s supernatural Revelation (hence it is called ‘Divine Law’). Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man’s true good and thus express the voluntary ordering of the person towards his ultimate end: God himself, the supreme good in whom man finds his full and perfect happiness’ (Veritatis Splendor, n. 72). ‘The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the ‘object’ rationally chosen by the deliberate will. …To the extent that it [behaviour] is in conformity with the order of reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally, and disposes us to recognise our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love’ (ibid., no. 78).

(51) Op. cit., n. 118.

(52) Cf. New Essay, nn. 337, 417, 506.

(53) Cf. also A. Rosmini, New Essay, translated by D. Cleary and T. Watson under the title Certainty, nn. 1149-1157, 1258 ff.

(54) The objection may be raised, ‘Therefore there is no freedom?’ The answer Rosmini gives is that ‘the willing subject has brought the act of freedom to its conclusion ‘ (ibid., n. 131).

(55) Ibid., n. 133.

(56) Ibid., n. 135.

(57) Op. cit., n. 139