Chapter 5

The will as the cause of moral good and evil

114. As we have seen, the will is our interior, moral power. 'Good' is called 'moral good' when it is desired by a will. Properly speaking, morality is 'a relationship between what is good and the intelligent nature which wills the good'.
The morally good act consists in willing good, or being, and it is this act which we must now examine with the utmost attention. Already we have indicated it rather vaguely, using various phrases to describe it: to will is, 'to tend towards being', 'to love being', 'to desire being'. These phrases must be rendered more accurate and definite by a careful analysis of the morally good act posited by an intelligent subject.

115. First we must determine the nature of the will. Is it our only power for action, and if not how is it distinguished from other active powers within us?

We recall that the human being has two principal passive faculties, feeling and intelligence. Feeling enables us to perceive things as subsistent; intelligence is our power of conceiving things mentally in so far as they are possible. The understanding conceives objectively, reaching out to things as objects of the mind and hence as essentially different from the subject; feeling perceives things subjectively, through the action they exert in the subject which they modify.

116. These two passive faculties are accompanied by two active powers: instinct corresponds to feeling, will corresponds to intelligence. Instinct moves the subject towards pleasurable things and presides over the subject's happiness(43); will is the subject moving itself (44) to approve known objects in so far as they can be approved, without reference to the subject itself or to the pure delight consequent upon this approval. It is the will that presides over rectitude or moral good.

117. The will, therefore, is the active power by which human beings operate relatively to the objects of their mind rather than according to the stimulus of inclination. Through the will, the subject operates knowingly and in accord with the reasons he contemplates.

118. We define the will as an 'active power operating according to reasons present to the mind and proposed by the human subject to himself'. It is clear therefore that the will depends upon prior cognitions in order to act; human beings must have first acquired ideas that can then serve as reasons enabling them to deliberate, choose and will.

119. The knowledge present in the subject before his will acts is formed instinctively, not willingly. This direct knowledge(45) then becomes the matter, or (as I would prefer to say) the object and aim of reflection. The act which precedes the act of will, is a first act instinctively moving the subject to perception and other acts of knowledge(46). As a result of remembering his perceptions and the ideas of things, the subject, drawn now not by instinct but by a principle of reason, can reflect upon them willingly. The desire of profit, for example, cannot be a motivating power in business if we do not know what profit is; the idea of profit must be present to the mind if the will is going to desire it as an end. Without such an idea, profit could not be an end for human activity; and if we could not propose it to ourselves as an end, we could not will it. It is the nature of the will to work for an end, and to use only what is known as a motive or reason for action: voluntas non fertur in incognitum ['the will is not drawn to what it does not know'].

120. When we decide to work for an end, such as profit, we need to present it to our mind in order to will it. In other words, we have to reflect upon an idea which we already possess, draw it from our habitual memory and fix our attention upon it so that it is actually present to us and becomes a target-sign for our will. The whole process of willing consists in first having the idea (direct knowledge) of what we are going to will, before reflecting upon it in order to make it an object of willing.

121. The difference and contrast between simply knowing something and willing it does not require successive acts in the human subject. Nevertheless it is certain that the two operations very often do succeed one another, that the act of knowledge is distinct from the act of will, and that this second act is dependent upon the first in the sense that human beings can will only what they know. It is also certain, to the acute observer, that by his act of will a subject adheres to what is desired as the term of his volition. But adhering to what is known is the equivalent to reflecting upon an idea, upon the thing as known. An act of will is an act of reflection terminating not in simple contemplation, but in 'assenting' contemplation. Reflection may take place without any desire for what is known and reflected upon, but it can also terminate in an act of will. If so, will is found at the term or final point of reflection where what is already known in the idea and held in the memory as a result of perception is now beheld anew.

122. The close connection between reflection and the will may also be illustrated by reference to matters explained elsewhere.

123. The act of reflection with which we turn our attention to things known to us through direct knowledge either effects something in what is known or effects and produces nothing. In the second case, reflection simply looks at things as they present themselves, reinforcing its attention by making them more vivid and actual, but without producing any new cognition. In the first case, however, reflection analyses, unites or integrates(47) previous direct knowledge, and thus becomes a source of new knowledge. The new forms and aspects under which the mind considers what it has known previously are themselves new knowledge.

Where reflection is at work to draw new knowledge from what the subject already knows, the term of reflection is increased knowledge; where reflection simply fixes attention more vividly on what is known, it may terminate either by beholding knowledge anew or by willing it also, that is, by assenting willingly to the truth and goodness of what is known.
With the act of will, therefore, the intelligent subject reflects upon something he knows (which forms part of direct knowledge), and terminates his act by assenting to it. In other words, he acknowledges what he knows as good by desiring and willing it.

124. There are, therefore, three types of reflective acts. The first is simply contemplation of what is already known; it offers no new knowledge, nor is it a volition. The second analyses, unites and integrates things already known; it produces new knowledge, but without volition. The third and last beholds anew the known object, willingly draws pleasure from it, enjoys it, and rejoices in the delight experienced by an intelligent being who fully acknowledges the good present in what is known. This third kind of reflection is volition, and implies abandonment on the part of the willing subject to the pleasing action raised in the mind by all things desired as they should be.

125. We can now ask: what causes reflection? what stimulates or motivates a person to pass to a reflective from a non-reflective state? One sufficient reason for this passage is found in instinct, another in the will (it is not impossible for one act of will to be dependent upon a preceding volition: a person can will to will).

126. But whatever causes reflection upon what we know, it is certain that the conclusion of our reflection - the term, the final judgment, the assent, the repose of spirit that comprises the act of will - depends upon ourselves. This explains how the human person operates through the will, and it allows us to define the act of will as 'a final act consummating, not initiating, reflection'. It is, therefore, an act carried out with knowledge of its cause and preceded by an inchoate reflection which is not yet an act of will. Only when it pleases us to add volition to reflection as a complement and conclusion does reflection share the nature of volition.

127. When I voluntarily carry out an action, I show that I prefer to do it rather than not do it; I have preferred that action to all the others I could have chosen. If I had not chosen it (I cannot be forced to do it because the action in question is voluntary, not simply physical), I would have declined it; if another action had presented itself which I preferred, I would have done it.

128. What does this observation about the strict connection between actions and affections show us? It enables us to grasp this important truth: we always act in dependence upon our predominant love. It would be absurd to think of abandoning something we love more for the sake of something we love less. In every case without exception the true sign and expression of our love is found in our actions because they are in some way an effect of our love. We could, for example, imagine ourselves morally forced to do something we do not like ('morally', because the actions of the will are not subject to mechanical violence or necessity). Fear, for instance, can exert great pressure upon us. But it remains true that what we do in such a case is a consequence of a prevalent affection (I am not speaking of extraordinary fear which can overwhelm the mind and leave us devoid of knowledge. This would render impossible any act of the will, and leave the field open to instinct). When a person acts willingly, he acts naturally and necessarily according to the love predominant in him at that moment. The contrary is impossible. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the fear, for example, impelling him to carry out an action he would otherwise avoid, he does at least consider his fear-motivated action as the lesser evil. But the lesser evil, when compared with the greater, is indeed something good, and good is what he loves; in these circumstances a person does not choose evil as such, but as a means of freedom from the greater evil he fears more. From this point of view, the lesser evil becomes lovable, although in other ways it may be detested.

129. We must also notice that the predominant love with which we act is very different from all other love and endowed with special characteristics. In other words, it is not speculative, but practical love. It is not love in general, but a particular love in which we consider in detail the action we have to perform. It is not habitual love, nor does it necessarily last for a long time; it is actual love, and as such may last only for the instant immediately preceding and determining our action. Very often we find ourselves drawn by spontaneous love to do something we had previously condemned and which we regret as soon as it has been done. As the poet says,

The intensity of the love lasts only for the instant in which it is decided upon, but in this very instant we are moved to act. Love for something else may prevail immediately afterwards.

130. Thus we become mysteries to ourselves, living contradictions who immediately disavow what we have just willed. We marvel at the brevity of such acts of love in which we do something we may have previously despised. They occur so quickly that we neither know nor examine them, and they easily escape our advertence. Actions like these enfold and hide the many, swift gradations by which passion takes root, grows strong and finally arrives at its term, ready, unless we oppose it with some greater love, to expand and stimulate our effective powers and exterior actions.

131. There is no doubt, therefore, that an act of love will necessarily produce its desired effect if stimulated strongly enough before another act intervenes. Under such stimulation, freedom is no longer present or (as I would prefer to say) the willing subject has irrevocably brought the act of freedom to its conclusion.

132. All the actions of moral beings are brought about by an act of predominant love, which I call practical love. When this love has been posited, action follows necessarily. On the other hand, the human subject is free. Where is his free will to be found? In his actions? Or in the way he determines the love with which alone a moral agent produces his actions?

133. It cannot consist in actions willed independently of love because to will actions without loving them involves contradiction. But if we are free to will or not to will our actions, we do so because we are free to love them or not, free to increase or diminish our love or hatred for any actions or omissions. The power we call freedom is first exercised on the affections of our heart and only consequently on our actions in so far as they are inseparably bound to our affections. Our actions are free, but only by sharing in the freedom present in our affections.

134. Granted that we rule our actions solely because we rule our affections, we have to see if freedom has its origin in the affections. Are we free simply because we are free in governing our affections, or do the affections themselves depend upon a previous operation of our spirit just as our external actions depend upon the affections?

135. If we examine the nature of human affections, and of love and hatred in particular, we find that we can hate something only if we think it bad - it is impossible for good to cause hatred in us. Similarly, we cannot love anything unless we consider it good because evil cannot cause love in us. It is true, of course, that we can love what is harmful and bad for us, but only on condition that we view it under a favourable aspect enabling us to judge it good. Similarly I can hate things useful and good for me, but only if I consider them from a displeasing and harmful point of view. Love and hatred are not aroused in me by the thing as it is in itself, but by the way in which I consider, think and judge it. The thing may be good, but if I judge and consider it bad, I will reject it; it may be bad, but if I judge and consider it good, it will attract my love. As the scholastics said, evil can be loved by us only sub specie boni [when it appears good]. Like so many other sayings of the schoolmen, this has passed into everyday language because it expresses a feeling common to us all.

136. We must remember that love, as an affection proper to an intelligent being, is directed towards a known object which, revealing its worth to the mind, causes affection and love in the knowing subject. Esteem is an intrinsic element of love, which is not to be confused with blind, material instinct. If I love an object, I necessarily esteem and approve it as pleasing and good, and worthy of love. I cannot love it without first esteeming it because love depends upon a favourable judgment about the worth and lovable qualities of the object. It is true that while I love an object, I also know its defects, but these are not the aim and cause of my love. The object must possess some real or apparent worth attracting my love while weakening or extinguishing the aversion produced by its defects. The act may be momentary, as we said, and I may disapprove of it immediately, but for that moment love of the object has prevailed. I have found a powerful reason for loving the object; I have been struck by its worth and blinded to everything else; I have esteemed it as lovable and as such held it dear. For a single instant I have been dominated by it, and in that instant have necessarily esteemed what I know while I love it (I assume that it is love, not irrational frenzy). I have persuaded myself of the overwhelming worth of the object which I have been drawn to desire.

137. Love, therefore, is immediately preceded by esteem, which produces it; a judgment about the worth and lovableness of the object loved indicates love as the act of an intelligent being, and distinguishes it from animal inclinations which are confined to bodily sensibility and unrelated to freedom. Esteem and judgment in this case are called practical esteem and practical judgment, to distinguish them from other kinds of esteem and judgment. Practical denotes the kind of judgment we make about the worth of the things we perceive. It is the efficient cause or at least condition of every affection, and the immediate, necessary step preceding it.

138. Practical love, therefore, is produced by practical esteem and is not to be confused with speculative esteem rising from general, stable reasons. Practical esteem can depend upon very particular reasons, and is sometimes based on momentary incidents. And love exists only when enkindled by preceding, practical esteem as its necessary source. On the other hand, as soon as we have arrived at our practical esteem for a being, and judged it practically, love springs up inevitably as a continuation of our esteem, and as a feeling of esteem.

Love and esteem are bound together by an unchangeable law not dependent on human deliberation. In this respect their bond is similar to that between external actions and love. Only by first increasing or diminishing our practical esteem for an object can we increase or lessen our love for it; only through esteem can we influence our love by our power of free will; only because we increase or lessen in ourselves the practical esteem we have for an object's worth are we able to increase or lessen our love, which is intimately and essentially tied to esteem as an effect is bound to its cause.

139. Human freedom, therefore, is exercised primarily, immediately and properly on the esteem or practical judgment that we bring to bear on the objects we contemplate mentally. Our affections, love and hatred are influenced only mediately. The nature and laws of freedom are to be sought in the first act of reflection on the objects present to our mind by which we form our esteem or practical judgment. Our next step, therefore, is to examine carefully this first act of reflection.

140. We have already distinguished direct from reflex knowledge and shown that while the former is necessary, the latter depends upon human will. The practical judgment we are describing is simply an act of reflection upon things already perceived. We know these things, and we form a judgment about them through the ideas that give us knowledge of them. But the whole process by which this operation is carried out by the willing spirit requires acute observation and careful charting as we shall see.

Direct knowledge is necessary knowledge; it does not depend upon an act of will.

This statement is explained by noting that direct knowledge is the result of our first ideas about things. Before we acquire these ideas, we have no special interest stimulating any kind of desire for themwe do not even know them. We do not perceive them deliberately, but instinctively and passively, as they present themselves. For example, before I know what human beings are, I cannot esteem them, nor judge whether they please or displease me. I have no motive drawing me favourably or unfavourably to the idea, human being; I receive it just as it is. But after I have come to know what someone is, and formed the idea of human beings, I can evaluate them in various ways, looking at them as good or bad, deserving of love or hate. First I must have the idea; then I can form my judgment. The idea provides direct knowledge which is not, and cannot be, subject to my will, and hence cannot be the source of morality.

141. But given the idea, or direct knowledge, our reflection upon the idea can be wholly voluntary. With full deliberation we can now judge what we know, and lead our reflection to a conclusion which conforms with our will.
In the idea of the thing (direct knowledge), I have mentally conceived the being of the thing. I have also conceived the being as good because being is good and the foundation of what is good. If I now wish to note explicitly the quantity of good in this thing, it is sufficient to note its quantity of being. I already know this quantity as it is because I have conceived directly the thing I know. If I want to note what it is I have conceived, or affirm to myself its degree of being or level of goodness, it is sufficient for me to reflect upon what I know and acknowledge it (re-know it, re-cognise it) without hiding from myself what it is, and what I already know it to be. Full, entire acknowledgement (re-cognition) of what I already know, that is, of the objects already perceived by me, is an act immediately subject to my free will. The moral act begins here, and is formed here. Love and external action follow as its effects.

142. To remove equivocation and confusion in describing this highly important operation of the human spirit, which we easily lose sight of, we have to note the difference between the effect of sensation and the effect of direct knowledge. Sensation produces in us an instinctive inclination towards or aversion from the objects we feel; ideas, on the contrary, are universal(48) by nature and frigid, and produce only an incipient, uniform delight which would cease immediately without the intervention of willing reflection. This reflection acts upon the first ideas we have of things. It contemplates them, adheres to them and cherishes the worth of the objects it thinks of, drawing from it the delight dependent upon willing reflection which allows us to feel and intellectually enjoy the efficacy of this worth. It is not the first idea of a thing which produces living delight in us; reflection enamours us of what we know and gives rise to our loving adherence to what we know. But embracing a known object in order to sense its worth is a voluntary act of the spirit; the spirit throws light for itself upon the object and, by predisposing itself to receive more effectively the impression of this idea and likeness, perceives it more vividly. The light accumulating on the object and its worth - if this is the aim of the act of reflection - draws the will to ever greater degrees of delight which lead in their turn to true, increasing levels of endearment.

143. The first ideas in which things are known to us are all equally cold, and provide light without warmth. The will, therefore, remains perfectly free, and its first act consists in reaching out to acknowledge or disavow the worth of things. If the will acts with the intention of acknowledging the being's worth, it reflectively fixes its attention on what it knows, and allows the worth of what it knows to work vividly within it. The will unveils for itself greater, more enhancing and enthralling light which leads it to judge favourably and practically what it knows. If the will acts with the intention of disavowing its objects of knowledge, it either admires their worth slightly or fixes its gaze on their defects by putting its objects in the least favourable light. Seen like this, their deformities and defects become obvious and produce a displeasing feeling with proportionate hatred and external actions towards the objects themselves.

144. The process by which the human will operates can, therefore, be described as follows. First, ideas and memories of things are found as direct knowledge in human beings. The will then prompts reflection on what is known. This reflection is either morally good or bad in so far as the worth of these things are impartially acknowledged, or disavowed and distorted.

145. If the will is good, that is, free from self-interest, secondary ends and perverse instincts, its sole aim is to acknowledge known things for what they actually are, with all their good properties and defects. In this case, the will moves naturally towards the truth without exaggerating the action of defects relative to that of good properties, or insisting upon some defects and good properties rather than others. What is known is loved in all its parts, as it is; no wrong is done to it because all the being found in it is loved without exaggeration or diminution.

146. A bad will does not aim at truth. Stimulated by an evil instinct(49), this kind of will fixes its reflection partially and unjustly on the objects of the mind (direct knowledge) and disposes itself towards disorder by accepting a disproportionate stimulus either from the defects or good properties of what it knows. In the first case, it is prey to irrational and unjust hatred, in the second to irrational and unjust love.

147. The origin of irrational hatred depends upon the will's decision to turn away from the good properties of the thing it knows and devote its attention to the thing's defects; irrational love involves complete attention to the good properties and disregard for the defects. But the power inherent in voluntary reflection goes further than this. This power is capable of creating imaginary defects in the thing it knows if this thing is the object of its hatred, and imaginary good properties if it wishes to love the known object unduly. This power of will is an extremely important fact, and is always underestimated.

148. However, from what has been said it is clear that the will is perfectly free when it begins to reflect upon the objects perceived, and is able then either to acknowledge in simplicity the things known through direct knowledge (things present in the mind), or disavow them. In the first case, the will is good; in the second, evil. Moral goodness or evil has its proper seat, therefore, in the first voluntary direction taken by reflection. Its source and origin lies here and accounts for the words spoken by the author of the gospel, 'When your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness'(50). The eye of the soul is healthy when the will, seeing clearly, stimulates sound desires and actions done in the perfection of light. In fact, the will exerts itself rightly or wrongly in the act of reflection. It adheres to what it desires, and in doing this 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 also decide, if it so wishes, not to see what is actually there. Vital apprehension of good or evil in the thing concludes with practical judgment or esteem for what is known, that is, in faithful or unfaithful acknowledgement of what has been perceived in direct knowledge. This is the ground of moral consent.

149. Once this acknowledgement, or practical judgment and esteem, has been formed, vital pleasure or displeasure immediately arises to accompany the vital apprehension of good or evil. Pleasure then gives rise to love, which is formed immediately as the final complement to pleasure; displeasure gives rise to hatred, its seal and complement. Love and hatred are followed by action.

150. Before a moral being arrives at his external action, therefore, the spirit works inwardly according to the following steps: 1st step, apprehension or direct knowledge of things; 2nd, voluntary reflection on the things known - this reflection is upright or perverse in so far as it tends to acknowledge faithfully the direct knowledge, or to alter it; 3rd, meditation, that is, the varying period in which voluntary reflection concentrates on what is known directly; 4th, vital, efficacious apprehension resulting from meditation and depending for its truth or falsehood on the upright or wayward act of will giving rise to meditation; 5th, practical judgment or esteem, the effect and complement of vital apprehension; 6th, intellectual delight or pain, the effect of the practical judgment; 7th, practical love; 8th, external acts.

151. This is the series of operations, or rather successive states in a moral being who acts externally. His external action is only the last of the seven steps we have enumerated and analysed. The first is direct knowledge, immune in its formation from any act of will, but nevertheless the foundation of the moral edifice in so far as it provides the will with the matter on which to turn and exercise its activity.

152. I cannot see that it is possible for anyone turning back attentively on himself not to acknowledge the truth of the formation of the moral act, as I have described it. Nevertheless one difficulty in understanding it could easily arise, and it would be helpful to remove it immediately. How can voluntary reflection, concentrating on known things, create in them what is not present in them, or disregard what is to be seen in them? It would seem at first sight that we are not free relative to what we think, and that we must see things as we perceive them. The difficulty is easily resolved if we examine carefully the fact of knowledge as we have described it.

153. It is true that things are perceived as they present themselves, and in this way form what we call direct knowledge which, as we have said, is immune from influence of any judgment directed by the will and anterior to the use of human freedom.
But as we pass from knowing things to acknowledging them, that is, to reflecting upon things already known to us, and viewing their worth, goodness and lovableness, our will shows itself to be free. It has the capacity to alter its own knowledge and form false judgments about the things it has perceived by conceding to them good properties or defects they do not possess. And this is always the cause of error in human minds. Error is the effect of voluntary reflection; if this were not the case, error would be inexplicable. But I have spoken elsewhere at length about the will as the cause of error(51).

154. We have to bear in mind that we not only reason, but believe. Believing in ourselves and in our passions we choose, on this basis, to form completely artificial persuasions. It is the will's power to propose things for its own belief, which lies at the root of the first interior injustice we are describing as the source and essence of every injustice and immorality.

155. Why do we find ourselves at odds about things we obviously perceive in the same way? We use the same words to name these things and understand without difficulty the common meaning we give to the words. This is sufficient to show that direct knowledge is equal for all. But a reflective judgment intervenes which varies according to the subject forming it. This judgment provides one person with one result, and another with another, according to the dispositions of will in the person making the judgment.

156. Listen, for example, to politicians discussing facts at election time. I do not mean the 'facts' they actually invent in order to deceive others rather than themselves. The judgments I refer to are those with which they deceive themselves by giving credence to what favours their hopes and opinions, and obstinately refusing to admit contrary, well-founded information; judgments which cause them to exaggerate success and lessen failure; judgments which make them careful about certain things and careless about others; judgments which draw them to examine minutely things which please them and to ignore what displeases them.

157. Ingenious arguments are conjured up by politicians to persuade themselves that all is well; a curious obtuseness draws a veil over situations they prefer to hide from themselves. People of different parties will listen together to a report on the same facts and immediately reflect on this direct knowledge in their own favour . Their will, already inclined to whatever helps their own party, prompts reflection which inevitably results in conclusions suitable to their own purposes. Statistics, for example, are notoriously prone to opposite interpretations, although there may be unqualified agreement about the numbers and percentages under discussion. It is possible, of course, that different interpretations depend upon varying degrees of intellectual capacity or foresight on the part of the interpreters, but experience shows that people are only too prone to adopt the absurd logic of others when such a tactic suits them. We can be sure that contrary conclusions exist which depend not on different starting points, nor on superior intelligence in one of the parties, but on determination to see the matter through in one's own favour.

158. Summing up, we can say that anyone with an evil will has two standards, one for things favourable and one for things unfavourable to himself. These standards prove the power of the will to intervene in reasoning: error is not found in direct, necessary cognition, but in voluntary, reflective knowledge made up of judgment, spurious persuasion, and credulity.

159. We have, therefore, an interior energy enabling us to voluntarily esteem objects we know, to form persuasions about them, and to impose our own belief on them. This is the special work of the will.

Esteem is followed by affection, which participates in the voluntariness of esteem; affection is followed by external action, which in turn depends on the voluntariness of affection. Esteem is of its nature, essentially free; affection is free but in dependence on the freedom of esteem; external action is free because it necessarily depends upon affection and shares in its freedom.

160. 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. In this case it is imaginary, artificial and arbitrary persuasion, suitably described by the tag: stat pro ratione voluntas ['will takes the place of reason']. In other words, error is entirely individual, produced by ourselves alone.

This would explain the pride people take in error. We sense that it is our own work, and that we use more energy in erring than we would in simply acknowledging the truth. The greater effort required in making a mistake becomes our title to the miserable glory so many seek and so many are prepared to bestow.

161. The persuasion we are describing is always a judgment. When we persuade ourselves that an object possesses a certain degree of goodness or worth in itself, we judge that the thing really is like this. The judgment is true if it corresponds with our direct knowledge; it is false if it differs from the direct knowledge. The esteem we bestow on the thing depends upon this judgment, and is just or unjust in so far as it is proportionate to the idea or knowledge we possess of the thing. Reasonableness in persuasion, truth in judgment and justice in esteem are essentially the same thing, but expressed in three different relationships or modes.

162. What, then, is the final basis of the morally good act? What constitutes an upright, just act?

The moral act consists in acknowledging what we already know. We know things: this is direct, necessary knowledge; we acknowledge things: this is reflective, voluntary knowledge. In direct knowledge we mentally conceive what we know, and in what we know, all its being. If, in reflecting on what we know, we acknowledge everything contained in what we know, we necessarily affirm the just, true degree of goodness in the thing; if, with the whole thing present to our mind, we dissimulate its being, we do an injury to what we know and we lie to ourselves by judging it to have less goodness than it actually possesses. We know what this degree of goodness is, but we do not want to know what it is. And we perpetrate the same kind of lying injustice, but at a deeper level, when we voluntarily and arbitrarily place more good in what we know than the thing actually contains. We see, or we say we see, some good which is not truly present in what we know, and is not seen by us.

163. Two acts of knowledge take place within us. If they agree, we possess truth and justice; if they disagree, we have lied interiorly, we are unjust.
If our second knowledge is true and good, it consists in an assent given by the will to our first knowledge of a thing. The will gladly rests, as it were, in our first, spontaneous knowledge. Truth makes its home in us, and brings tranquillity and peace in its wake. If our second knowledge is false and evil, it consists in the will's aversion and unjust dissent from the first knowledge. The will refuses to acknowledge what it first knows, and rebels against truth. Instead of admitting what it knows, it tries to change the very being of things by bringing them into contrast with true, legitimate and natural knowledge, and by substituting for truth a veneer of false, imaginary and unnatural knowledge. A battle commences between what is true and a will that is averse to what is true - but the will is unable to prevent what is true from continuing to be true.

164. These observations explain why persuasion about error is always weaker than persuasion about truth. A person persuaded of error always bears deep within himself a continual contradiction of his error. Direct knowledge is never extinguished within us unless we fall into total ignorance about things.

165. The same observations explain why in certain circumstances the strongest arguments make little or no impression on certain persons whose minds are filled with endless, pointless doubts about the most evident matters. They also explain why, as the gospel says, 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand'(52).

166. Again, these observations explain why probity, rectitude and justice bring peace to the human heart, while injustice leads to internal distress and tension. In the just person everything harmonisesthe will with knowledge, direct knowledge with reflective knowledge. Injustice, however, leads to continual strife between the will and knowledge, and between reflection and direct knowledge; despite our knowledge about things, we deny its existence and refuse to adhere to it. But we cannot do this without continual violence to ourselves because we cannot destroy what is present to our spirit. We can never eliminate our grasp of what we know, nor annihilate the truth within: it continually condemns us, witnessing to our error and our immorality.

167. Finally, such observations throw greater light on what has been said about the supreme principle of morality. In the last analysis, this principle consists in the voluntary ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of our first, necessary knowledge, that is, in not denying what we know and in voluntarily admitting the good present in what we have perceived. This acknowledgement and assent is the joyful tribute of homage and esteem that we freely and rightly pay to things we know, and to their goodness.

168. Truth is an exemplar or type, a norm or rule of the mind, a standard for that which must conform to it(53). As a type, it is the truth of what refers to it. A thing is true if it conforms to its truth, or type; if not, it is false.
Being is the first, universal exemplar, and the supreme rule of every judgment. It is, therefore, the first, universal truth.
Every idea is truth relative to something; the thing is true if it corresponds to its idea.

Direct knowledge is simply the idea of something and hence the truth. Reflective judgments are true if they conform with their truth or direct knowledge. They are false if they disagree with direct knowledge because the only aim of these judgments is to affirm that the thing I have mentally conceived is as I have conceived it. The idea or direct knowledge preceding reflective judgments serves as the norm directing these judgments.

If I do not faithfully acknowledge the worth of something known by me, but invent something to replace my knowledge of this worth, I lie to myself. This lie is the immoral act of which we are speaking.

169. It is clear, therefore, that truth is the principle of morality, and that acknowledgement of the truth (that is, acknowledgement of direct knowledge) is the supreme duty and the proper, essential act of morality. This explains why in scripture truth and moral goodness on the one hand, and lying and sin on the other, are often synonymous. Every sin is finally a way of lying to ourselves. Before positing the externally evil act, we have succeeded in deceiving and seducing ourselves internally. A false, lying interior word is the foundation of all our exterior misdemeanours.

170. The upright person, dear to the Lord, is described with great wisdom in the scriptures as one who 'speaks truth in his heart'(54). God's law itself is 'truth'(55).

171. We have examined our power of will and seen that it either surrenders to the truth or substitutes for the truth a lie which it respects as though it were the truth. But when I have the idea of something (direct knowledge), and disavow its worth to myself, I esteem the thing falsely and unjustly. At that moment, I feel I am doing what is wrong. I feel remorse, and become aware of my own impropriety. This remorse, and consciousness of impropriety, makes known the force of obligation.

172. When I know something (with direct knowledge), nothing forces me to tell myself that I do not know it, nor to affirm that my knowledge is different from what it actually is. My reflection simply tells me that what I know has a certain nature and being, together with certain degrees of being and a certain worth superior to something else. In other words, I declare that I know the thing in a certain way. I am giving myself an account of my own knowledge and saying that on reflection I find that what I know has these degrees and modes of being which make it superior in worth to something else. My esteem for the thing is founded only on the previous knowledge I have of it. Esteem is simply an analysis by which I voluntarily confirm and declare what I already know. It is, in a word, an acknowledgement.

173. It is obvious, however, that if I deny my knowledge of what I actually know, I lie to myself. Nothing forces me to tell myself that I know something in one way if I do not know it in that way. I am voluntarily lying to myself through the internal power by which I can either assent gracefully to what I know by acknowledging it, or hatefully rebel against it either by refusing to acknowledge what I know or by refusing to tell myself that I know what I do indeed know - whether I want to acknowledge it or not.

174. It is clearly fitting that I should both affirm to myself what I know exactly as I know it, and witness to my knowledge without changing or deforming it; it is clearly unfitting that I should do the opposite. The fittingness that I feel about acting in this way is the first moral obligation. It is perfectly obvious, and the reason and source of all other obligations; it is the form of what is upright, just as unfittingness forms moral impropriety.

175. I want to insist that the obligation of acknowledging what one knows is evident per se in my first reflective operation. It does not need proof, because I cannot know a thing and tell myself I do not know it without precipitating an internal contradiction and tension from which spring the unfittingness that constitutes evil(56). I become the author of the evil within me because I voluntarily make myself the author of my interior contradiction and tension, that is, of the struggle between acknowledgement and knowledge. As the willing author of evil in an intelligent being, I make myself morally bad.

176. The interior contradiction and tension that I cause for myself when I create and imagine for myself a reflective knowledge contrary to direct knowledge is alien to the order of being. Order is synonymous with harmony and concord, and has its source in the intimate exigency of direct knowledge, the type to which reflective knowledge must conform. Direct knowledge is unchangeable. It is truth itself, as we said, and outside any action of the human will, As such, it requires by its very nature to be acknowledged for what it is, and not to be disavowed.

There is no need to prove that if we want to affirm what we know, we have to affirm what we do in fact know. We are now at the level of the principle of identity and have brought ethics to its primary reason where the principle of morality is fully evident. If we affirm that we do not know what we do indeed know, or if we affirm that we do know what we do not know, are we not endeavouring to make something what it is not, or not what it is? In this case we are acting contrary to the principle of contradiction which affirms, 'that which is, cannot not be, and that which is not, cannot be'. Our attack is on being itself as we struggle to make it not what it is, or make it what it is not. Our will has rebelled, and turned on truth and being, in order to destroy them. It desires evil because it attempts as far as it can to overthrow truth and being and to destroy good along with them. This violent outrage on the part of our will is the essence of immorality.

177. It may be objected that I cause human freedom to act without a sufficient reason. But how, I ask, does this sufficient reason determine the human will? If it determines the will necessarily, the will cannot operate freely. Free will is destroyed. But if it determines the will while leaving it free to act or not, human freedom has been safeguarded - which is the teaching I have developed throughout this book.

In fact it is false to say that I make the will act without sufficient reason. On the contrary, I define the will as a power of acting which follows a reason. This is the will's specific characteristic, and distinguishes it from pure instinct. But I go on to note that when the will has several reasons for acting, it can of its own acord choose to render them more or less effective for itself by making some prevail through the use of the practical judgment we have spoken of. The will never acts without a reason, but this reason is weighed by the will itself and prevails because the balance has been tilted in its favour. The will either allows itself to be moved by this reason, or resists it freely by bringing forward another reason.

178. Let us look a little more carefully at human actions. We involuntarily receive perceptions and ideas of things (direct knowledge). When we act to evaluate what we know, we realise that we must not conceal from ourselves anything we know. We feel obliged to acknowledge simply and purely the known truth. This truth - the things known to us - is the reason according to which we know we have to judge. Consequently we feel an obligation to carry out our judgment uprightly. But some self-interest, dependent upon feeling, may intervene (initially by chance, perhaps), or pride may interfere, to make us think that it would be useful to disavow what we know. We may be drawn to judge what we know in a different way from that in which we know it. A new reason has presented itself, and our spirit is now face to face with contrary reasons: one of them tells us to surrender to truth and probity; the other to pursue pleasure by rebelling against the truth and disavowing it.

We know that we must follow the first reason; we feel its intimate fittingness and its absolute, unchangeable obligation.

179. Nevertheless, neither this obligation nor the delight opposed to it impels us mechanically to action. We are free, and can act either according to the obligation we feel, or disregard our duty and second our guilty inclination. We decide between good and evil; we make the choice. In doing so we form our practical judgment which prefers to accept or reject our obligation. In the first case we act uprightly; in the second we sin.

180. The efficacy of our will lies in this practical judgment. In either case we act for a reason, but in practice by choosing the reason we want. The choice we make depends upon the interior efficacy of the will itself, the wonderful power we use to move ourselves rather than be moved. The will is a kind of creative power that we employ to complete sufficient reason, as scripture says in describing human freedom. God 'made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel(57). He added his commandments and precepts. If you will keep the commandments and perform acceptable fidelity for ever, they will preserve you. He has set water and fire before you: stretch forth your hand to that which you will. Before man is life and death, good and evil: that which he shall choose shall be given him'(58).

181. Several important corollaries follow from what we have said about the freedom of the human will.

Note

(43) Just as there are two senses in us, the corporeal and the spiritual, there are also two instincts. The first moves us to bodily pleasure, the second moves us continually to happiness.

(44) For this reason we said earlier that human personality has its proper place in the will because, although instinct is an active power, it cannot be considered as an intelligent subject using a power; on the contrary it is a power functioning in the intelligent subject.

(45) I have spoken at length about direct knowledge in Certainty, 1149-1157, 1258 ss.

(46) The Origin of Thought, 524.

(47) For the integrating faculty of the understanding see The Origin of Thought, 623-624

(48) The idea of a thing is simply the intuition of the possibility of the thing, and the possibility of a thing is by nature cold. Possible food does not appease hunger and does not interest the starving. The same is true of every good that is merely possible.

(49) Action of the will is always present when we act for a known end. But instinct can also move us for the same end. Hence both will and instinct intermingle and often act together.

(50) Lk 11. [34].

(51) Certainty, 1279 ss.

(52) Lk. 8, [10].

(53) For the definition of truth see Opuscoli Filosofici, vol. 1, pp. 98, 318 ss, and, in more detail, Certainty, 1044 ss and 1123 ss.

(54) Qui loquitur veritatem in corde suo. Ps. 14. [3]. He that speaks truth in his heart. (Douai).

(55) Lex tua veritas. Ps. 118. [142]. Thy law is the truth. (Douai).

(56) Chap.2, art. 2.

(57) Counsel is an intellective activity. This agrees with what we said about volition being made by means of a reflection which concludes, so to speak, with the assent of the will.

(58) Ecclesiasticus 15. [14-18] (Douai).

(59) This arises from the unity of the feeling and willing subject. The sensible stimulus acts on the feeling subject, which is also intellective and thus moves the will to satisfy the stimuli of the bodily sense.