Rosmini's Theory
of Ethics:
Some Considerations
7 The Powers involved
in
Moral Acts and Imputability
There are two kinds of moral powers:
those moral in themselves and those moral by participation. The
former direct the practical judgement and the latter regulate affections and
external acts.
We have examined the steps leading to external acts. External moral acts presuppose
the power of acting externally, this becomes a moral power when moved by moral
affectivity. This power in turn becomes moral when moved by practical esteem
or practical judgement which in itself is a moral power. The others are powers
by participation.
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Moral Powers |
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Practical Esteem |
Moral power in itself
Moral power by participation
Moral power by participation |
Now which powers are involved with the power regulating the practical judgement?
Moral Intellect: When being is used as the moral law, the intellect which sees being is called the moral intellect. Moral intellect is therefore the faculty of intellect dependent on the first moral law.
Reason: Reason is the faculty enabling us to apply being, to render perceptions intellective, to separate ideas from these perceptions, and to integrate and unite the ideas in judgements and reasonings. The power to apply being as moral law can be called moral reason.
Moral reason is, therefore, the power to form perceptions and ideas as moral law, to deduce secondary laws from the first, universal law, and to define just and unjust actions. It is the faculty for making moral judgements.
Eudaimonological Reason: It is called eudaimonological reason when it is concerned with human happiness. It is the power to apply being as a rule for judging our own subjective good.
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Eudaimonological and Ethical Behaviour Our own subjective good is always subject to moral good and if the two clash we should always pursue moral good unselfishly. Thus I may never do evil, which is immoral - against moral good - so that I might benefit subjectively. A woman may never abort her baby in order to remain in good health. She would certainly achieve subjective good but at the expense of moral good; the order of being has not been acknowledged. |
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Conscience If I make a practical judgement based on eudaimonological non moral motives I sin, and certain affections and immoral actions follow. I am conscious of sinning, and experience interior bitterness. I am conscious of not assenting to direct knowledge and of violating it. I judge myself, declaring my practical judgement evil and immoral. This judgement is moral conscience. It is a speculative judgement on the morality of my practical judgement and its consequences. We say we must follow our conscience. That is, we must appreciate and judge things for what they are worth, love them proportionately, and then act according to this well ordered love. Conscience precedes practical judgement, indicating how it should be made. When it has been made conscience approves or disapproves of it |
Practical Reason: Is the capacity of voluntary reflection to form decisive esteem of the object and consequently of the action which follows. As we saw above, decisive love is bound up with this esteem and the external action then follows.(59) The practical reason is the power which controls the practical judgement. This power vacillates in its preference between moral and eudaimonological motives presented to it. After it has considered them, it makes the practical judgement or esteem which activates the affection and then issues in an external act. It is the judge between the utility and probity of actions. It judges what is better to do here and now and is based on moral and eudaimonological reasons. For example, 'Do I feed myself and leave my brother or sister to starve, or do I deprive myself and give them what they need?' Both ethical and eudaimonological reason are included in practical reason. These are theoretical and speculative and reduced to practice by practical reason. A comparison is made between moral and eudaimonological motives, their importance is weighed and an operative judgement is made. Affection and action follow immediately. This is the practical judgement as opposed to the speculative judgement and it is controlled by the practical reason.
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Reason |
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Theoretical (Speculative) Reason Considers motives for acting |
Practical Reason The arbiter of action |
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Ethical (Moral) |
Faculty for making moral judgements |
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Eudaimonological |
Faculty for making Eudaimonological judgements |
The judgements made by moral reason are secondary laws contained in the first supreme moral law. 'In all you do, follow the light of being'. When I judge that an intelligent being can never be used as a means to my own end I use the idea of being as the rule to measure subsistent beings, determining the degree and quantity of their being. I see that intellective beings can never be used as means, whereas a non intellective being can be used as a means. This judgement of moral reason becomes a moral law which can be expressed as: 'Intelligent being has in itself the nature of an end, and therefore must be acknowledged as such.'
§2.The Imputability of Acts
Our moral acts are either praiseworthy or blameworthy, and they are imputed to us in so far as we are the authors of them. The degree of imputation depends on the gravity of the law and the efficacy of the will and this latter depends on the degree of intensity by which it is drawn to the act and the degree of freedom it enjoys.
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Moral Imputability |
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Gravity of the Law : |
Efficacy of the will: |
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Sin and Fault
Sin consists in the act of the will rejecting the law. The notion of fault lies in this freedom of the will. If the will necessarily but not freely turns from the law the act is immoral and a sin because both conditions of law and the will are present. But the act cannot be imputed as culpable because the will is not free. Rosmini quotes St Thomas who says that the notion of sin is more extensive than that of fault. An act is blameworthy or praiseworthy only when the act of the person is voluntary. In these acts evil, sin and fault are the same thing.(60)
Conclusion
To conclude, then: in our lives we constantly choose between two norms of conduct, i.e., between the idea of subjective fulfilment in which the object is ourselves, and the desire for an objective satisfaction in which is proposed the order of being, known to us by the light of reason. In both we look for, and desire, our well being but in the former case this is limited to our own subjective fulfilment; in the latter case we live in the realm of universal good. Subjective and objective good are different in species and yet we tend to both these species of good because of our double nature (individual feeling and idea of being). We often experience an opposition between pleasure and virtue, self-interest and duty. Do I commit adultery and follow my own pleasurable instincts using my friend's husband or wife as a means to satisfying myself or do I respect the rights of the other spouse and follow the dictates of moral conduct. To choose the latter might engender frustration, but gives the satisfaction of an increase of our own personal value. To choose the former gives us the pleasure of an increase of life of our own ego but also a sense that our person is degraded. This momentary pleasure is opposed by the divine light of reason. To follow the light of reason is opposed by the demand to live our own life. How do we decide, as the possessor of these two essential faculties? The answer lies in the power of our free will by which we make one of the motives prevail over the other. If we go for personal satisfaction we create a false reason for our action of momentary self gratification. If we make the appeal of reason prevail we create a new energy of soul and incarnate in ourselves the objective and ideal of order of being. This is the path of virtue.(61) But, as Rosmini says, human beings, if they possess essential, intellective good, cannot lack any happiness of which their corporeal element is capable and thus will share in the joy coming from essential good. After all, the pursuit of virtue will lead to the possession of the absolute good in which lies the bliss for which intelligent beings are created.
Notes
(59) Summary, p. 58, steps 5-8.
(60) S.T., I-II, q. 21, art. 2.
(61) Cf. Claude Leetham, Rosmini, Priest and Philosopher, New City Press, New York, 1982, Chapter 8, The Philosopher, pp. 301-302.