Chapter 7

The two elements of moral acts

193. All we have said so far demonstrates that moral acts consist of two elements:
1. law, and
2. will in harmony with the law.

The moral law is the direct knowledge or ideas of things. But universal being is the first idea, the form of all other ideas. It is therefore the first law, and the form of all laws.

The will, harmonising with the law by an act of voluntary reflection(61), acknowledges things exactly as they are in direct knowledge. This voluntary acknowledgement is a judgment and an esteem of things proportionate to their true value and free of arbitrary alteration; we find pleasure in what is good in things and willingly surrender ourselves to that good. In a word, we assent to truth without resistance or repugnance. From this honest esteem flows pleasure in truth which, in harmony with reason, provides us with a love of all things without exclusion according to their merit. With this love as a foundation, the human being acts, and acts justly if his love is rightly ordered.

194. If moral acts are composed of these two elements a treatise on ethics would have to study them carefully and deduce from this twofold principle the whole science of moral discipline. Consequently, I think it would be helpful to give a brief description of the deduction, but only a brief description as I am concerned simply with the foundations of ethics.

195. Moral acts are imputed to the praise or blame of their author. The degree of imputation varies according to the gravity of the law, and according to the efficacy of will present in the good or guilty act. The will's efficacy is measured according to the degree of intensity by which it is drawn to the act, as well as by the degree of freedom it enjoys.

196. Every evil action therefore has a double relationship: to the law violated and to the free will violating the law. Hence the distinction made by St. Thomas between sin and guilt: the notion of sin consists in the act of the will rejecting the law; the notion of guilt lies in the freedom of the will. When the will necessarily but not freely turns from the law, its act is indeed immoral, and in this sense is a sin, because both conditions, law and will, are present. But the act cannot be imputed as culpable because the will of the person committing it is not free. St. Thomas writes: 'Just as the notion of evil is more extensive than that of sin, so the notion of sin is more extensive than that of guilt. For an act is said to be culpable or praiseworthy when imputed to the person performing it. Praise or blame simply means to impute to someone the goodness or malice of his action. But the act is imputed to the agent when he is able to control it; this happens in every voluntary act(62) because a human being controls his actions through his willtherefore only voluntary (free) acts of good and evil are subject to praise or guilt; and in them evil, sin and guilt are the same thing'(63).

197. We have seen that there are two kinds of good, substantial good and the good of perfection. When each of these is the work of a will, it is moral good, because good is moral when produced by the will. In the subject that wills, therefore, there is goodness that I shall call 'productive', and goodness that is 'perfective', which are very different in nature. When substantial good is produced, no real being pre-exists but only the possibility and idea of the being to be produced; when 'perfective' good is in question, a real being pre-exists which as term of the will and love receives the act of goodness.

198. A possible being, which is only an idea and nothing in itself, cannot make itself a term of the will; it is only the law, norm and measure by which subsistent being can be known, judged and measured. But the will is directed only to subsistent being, in which its practical judgment terminates as in its end. Hence we see that possible being without a corresponding subsistent being cannot induce moral obligation or give rise to a moral judgment. Two elements are always necessary for a judgment, possible being (the means for judging) and subsistent being (the thing judged). No obligation can arise, therefore, towards mere possibilities; no one can be required to produce them. This is moral liberty.

Clearly, then, the creator is not required by a moral necessity to give existence to creation, because creation cannot demand anything before it exists.

199. Furthermore, a human being is not required to generate other humans, because, not existing, they cannot be the object of any duty (duties towards fictitious creations of our own imagination are not in question, of course). The absence of substantial good, therefore, is neither good nor evil. It is a simple negation, not a privation, and negation presupposes neither productive action nor a moral author of productive action.

200. Although the production of the good of existence does not originate in any moral necessity, an intelligent creature is a good to itself from the first moment of its production. It must therefore be grateful to the one who was the cause willing the good of its existence.

201. We may wonder perhaps how gratitude arises and how it is connected with the principles I have enunciated. It is a feeling consisting of many emotions, and is difficult to analyse. But I hope I can explain sufficiently how these affections constitute the matter of moral duty.

I love myself; I am a good to myself - there is nothing moral here, only an instinct, a subjective good. Nevertheless I know I do not exist through myself but through the will of another who has given me existence. The love I have for myself and my existence is naturally directed towards the cause that produced me. I consider this cause good to me, as the origin of my good, and therefore I love it because everything considered good is loved. This natural feeling conforms to the truth, as it is true that I am a good to myself, and the cause producing me is good relative to me. Hence, because I have a concept of what caused me, I must judge and value what caused me for what it effectively is.

202. Hence the creator or generator does not, by his act, become better in himself. No moral law approves or disapproves his act, because the law comes from the subsistent being we perceive, which does not yet exist. Thus, one of the two elements necessary for moral acts is missing, and the act is nothing more than an entirely free production of the will. However, once the intelligent being is created or generated, what caused it acquires a new goodness relative to the intelligent being. This new relationship makes no change in the moral state of the cause but produces a duty in the being who has received existence.

203. A further observation can be made about the affections contained in the feeling of gratitude which originates from the knowledge of a good received. No moral dignity is acquired by the person who receives good, because the increase of good is only subjective. However, if the good is one of perfection, the moral dignity lies entirely with the giver for whom the good is objective. For the receiver the good is subjective.

204. Human beings are compelled by conscience to seek moral good. Unless they are depraved, the voice of reason disinterestedly and generously indicates to them two noble sentiments when they receive good.

205. First, a feeling of esteem and love for the moral dignity of their benefactor. This sentiment must, by its nature, be happy and joyful if unopposed by an evil will. Second, a feeling of confusion, as they consider that they have received rather than given. Such a feeling, if unopposed by the will, shows itself in self-abasement, tempered with gentle unease. This self-abasement merits praise and approval in the measure that the will abandons itself to it, because self-abasement conforms to their true state, even if contrary to unworthy self-love. These upright sentiments, which accord with reason and arise spontaneously from the ideas of benefactor and benefited (direct knowledge), can be furthered by the action of the will. If they are, the human being exercises the virtue of gratitude in its fulness. If the will opposes them, the human being sins in various ways against this most fitting obligation.

206. An evil will shirks just humiliation, and compels people to conceal benefits, or to forget them, or consider them too burdensome and of no consequence. An ill will sees benefactions as an unforgivable wrong done by the benefactors, who are disavowed and denied the praise that reason urges. Because a moral and noble thought, which recognises and esteems merit in the benefactor but not in the receiver, is present in this despicable vice of ingratitude, the ungrateful go on proudly to glory in their own ingratitude! They are unaware that, even though a benefaction possess no moral dignity, denial of their state as receivers, a manifest injustice, is moral turpitude.

207. The will is good when it acknowledges and enjoys things as presented in the ideas extracted from the perceptions of the things, but evil when the opposite is true. In the first case, delight and love begin in the one who wills; in the second, the will opposes things, experiences sadness, and hatred enters in.

208. The act of honestly acknowledging and enjoying the worth of things (and more particularly, of persons) can be carried out with greater or lesser efficacy. We may ask, at what point does duty or moral obligation begin? And where does counsel start, which is a higher good than obligation? Can the will love intelligent beings excessively?

Being is infinitely lovable, and when the will inclines to being as such, acknowledging its infinite worth, no limit can be placed on the will's efficacy. The consequent indefinite increase of its levels of efficacy and love is simply an indefinite perfecting of the moral agent, who can always increase his moral excellence without ever attaining the infinitely distant summit. But if there can be no excess in the levels of efficacy, the immorality of the will is in the disorder with which it loves being itself.

209. Order is intrinsic to being, as we have said, and being must be loved according to this order. To love disordinately is to hate being. This is so true that if, for example, I were to love things more than persons, I would hate being. My esteem would remove from persons the element of being which raises them far above things; by not acknowledging this element, I have annihilated it from my reflective, willing thought, and hatefully destroyed it with my will. If I were to give things an element of being which places them above persons, I would not love being but only a fiction and an illusion, nothingness. And to love nothingness or false being is hatred of real being. To violate, by our esteem and love, the order of being is instrinsically repugnant and contrary to truth and virtue. Our duty and obligation is to appreciate and love in perfect proportion to this order.

210. We can now determine the dividing line between what is obligatory and what is morally good but not obligatory. Obligation extends to the distribution of our appreciation and love in proportion to the order of being, without any change to the order. It does not extend further. It does not include the level of esteem and love we give to beings, provided their proportion and order have been safeguarded. The level of esteem and love depends on our judgment. In its turn, the degree of our moral goodness corresponds to the degree of our esteem and well ordered love.

211. A vast area, therefore, is open for free, spontaneous moral goodness and perfection. All human beings can perform their duties perfectly, by maintaining right order in their judgments, affections and actions. But some people will be infinitely more perfect and excellent than others because stronger in will and more intense in action. Because this action unites them more closely to being, they can rejoice and take real pleasure in it, loving it all the more.

212. We must love human beings according to order. Although this love includes our moral duties towards our neighbour, it does not necessarily mean that our neighbour has a strict right to our love, claiming it as their own. We are the masters of our love, accountable only to the law and to the supreme legislator in whom the law resides. People can rightly object to our hatred for them, because they are the objects of injustice, but hatred does not take from them what in fact is truly theirs. My love is not their property, nor do I belong to them. It is the force of law that imposes the duty on me.

213. The word right, as I understand it here, refers to each one's property, that which is mine by right. Hence, if I damage another's right, I harm him; I injure the person and violate his right.
Duties towards my neighbour, therefore, in whom there is a corresponding right, are contained in the formula: 'Do not harm your fellow human being'. Human beings have only one right: not to be harmed, not to be despoiled of what belongs to them. They have no other rights, in the sense defined.
Having a right implies, as a consequence, that we can protect and defend ourselves with force against anyone who would harm us or take what is ours. On the other hand, as long as hatred is concealed in the heart, we have no way of defending ourselves against it. Hence, love and hatred are not a matter of right.

214. The rights of human beings therefore correspond to negative, prohibitive duties. But there are also positive duties, such as love of our neighbour, who can never be the property of another. Thus duties have their origin in law, not in human rights. Some duties then forbid us to harm our neighbour, while the law itself permits our neighbour to redress any harm done to him, and gives him a right to do so.
Duties towards human beings in whom there are corresponding rights are called duties of justice(64), other duties are duties of charity.

215. Ethics has for its sole aim the good of intelligent beings; hence God and humans are its objects(65). The subject as such is naturally excluded, as we have seen. An act is not moral because it concerns and pleases me but because it conforms to the truth (direct knowledge) which is essentially impersonal, having its own efficacy without dependence on any human person. Are duties to oneself, therefore, excluded?

216. 'Duties' to oneself produced directly by emanations from the feeling which is 'myself', are excluded. But because I am a human, intelligent being, an object of contemplation of my own mind, whatever is due to human nature is due to me. Duties to myself are the same as duties to all other human beings (and modern sensist philosophy has done much harm in the world by making a separate category of these duties to oneself amd declaring them to be the unique, supreme, universal class).

217. There is then no basic, essential difference between duties to oneself and to one's fellow human beings. However, duties to oneself do contain something particular. Ethics tells me I must desire the good of human nature, whether the nature is in me or elsewhere. This is a law common to all, without exception or special privilege, and applies to myself as much as to all humans beings. But how do I know what is good for human nature? How do I know what human nature needs to help and please it, or what harms and displeases it?

218. I cannot know from others, but know only from myself, by the feeling I have of 'myself'. All the different sensations (pleasure, pain, needs, instincts, etc.) that modify 'myself' are experiences indicating to me what takes place in my fellow human beings: what is good or evil for human nature, what it desires, rejects or avoids, what it seeks as its perfection. It is from my own fundamental, substantial feeling(66) that I acquire the idea of 'human being' (direct knowledge), and this idea becomes the rule by which I know what good I must desire for such a being. Only feeling perceives subsistences, and from its perceptions ideas are extracted. The subject, 'myself', a feeling, gives me an experience which becomes the rule for my treatment of all other human beings. This explains why the subject, 'myself', is found in the divine precepts, and why there are two precepts, not three: 'You will love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and all your mind; this is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like to this: you will love your neighbour AS YOURSELF'. And in case anyone should think there might be other commandments, the divine lawgiver immediately added: 'On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets'(67).

Yourself does not constitute a third precept; it is found in the precepts as the example of our duty to love human beings. Yourself expresses a subject from which comes not the moral law but knowledge of human beings and their needs. We would know nothing about human nature and others' needs if we did not have the perception of ourselves and the experience of what happens in us.

219. I have said that the law, commanding us to respect human nature as end, has no essential, intrinsic difference whether applied to ourselves or to others. Nevertheless, there is an accidental difference in the way it is carried out although this difference is not an exception or a law of special privilege arrogated by the subject. As regards myself, I can have a greater or lesser opportunity to put the law into practice; I can in varying degrees be helped by feeling or instinct in the faithful execution of what the law imposes on me; I can have the opportunity to carry it out more fully and extensively. This is true of the law regarding human nature when applied to myself only and not to my fellow human beings.

220. As far as the law applies to me, I have an inclination, a great interest and need to carry out the law or at least not to violate it. This may remove my liberty, which is an element of merit, and reduce or cancel the merit in carrying out the duty, but the duty still remains, commanding me. If I violate it, I am guilty in the measure that the violation was easy or difficult to avoid. In addition, I am always in my own company but not always with others, and can therefore more frequently and actually respect human nature in myself rather than in them. Finally, because I know all the needs of my nature, I can practise the law more extensively towards myself.

These three facts give duty towards myself a specific form: nature clearly entrusts me with the special responsibility of helping myself. It is a specific form of duty intended by nature and the creator, and I perform it in respectful obedience to the dispositions of the Being who has made all things. For this reason an accidental difference between the law of respect for human nature as applied to myself and as applied to others comes from a superior law, and not from some odious privilege in my favour. In the gospel precepts of charity, which are an enunciation of the natural law, this higher law is expressed by the word NEIGHBOUR, precisely because no one is more a neighbour to myself than myself! The word NEIGHBOUR dictates the execution of the universal law in conformity with the intentions of nature and God.

221. A further observation may help to illustrate more clearly this wonderful gospel word, NEIGHBOUR. The needs of nature are either common or particular. Common needs are those always present to the human being; particular needs result from some accidental relationship. For example, the need for food is common and constant, but the need to love children arises from the particular relationship between father and children. The moral law requires us to desire all possible good for human beings, and, if we are able, to fulfil all the needs of nature. Nature itself requires this, and these requirements of nature are precisely moral obligation. Consequently, a father is obliged to co-operate with the love nature has given him for his children. And the care of these children is a duty exercised by the father to himself, although it would be more accurate to say, exercised towards human nature present in himself through the relationship of fatherhood.

222. The subjective instinct, therefore, that moves the father to love and rear his children is not the same as duty. In human beings it becomes a duty because of the reasonableness of the instinct, but where reason is lacking, as in animals, it would be a pure instinct. The reasonableness of the instinct means the need reason has to acknowledge human nature, which we mentally conceive, for what it is, and as such, meriting love - if we respect human nature, we desire for it all possible good. Hence, human nature's desire to love the child, as expressed in fatherhood, is good, and nature must be helped and supported in this good. The father must love his children, not because they are his (a subjective principle) or a privilege granted to him, but because he is a father and they are children (a general principle and a law common to all); his love is not a good particular to him alone but a good for all human nature, which he must respect and love in himself. Anything that does not originate from this great principle, or adds to it or subtracts from it, is not duty but natural instinct, and has nothing to do with morality.

223. A father then sees human beings in his children and as human beings owes them what he owes every human being. But in addition to human nature, he has the quality of father, by which he owes to himself the love, care and education of his children. But also as father he must show reverence for human nature, because it is in him precisely as father.
The duty of loving and caring for children is confirmed and sanctioned by a superior duty.
This duty requires the father to obey divine Providence in the performance of the responsibility he has received from Providence.

224. The rights of children in respect of parents therefore are only those of human beings, but parents owe to themselves and to God the care of their children, not only as human beings but also as children. Here, we could say, subjective instinct contributes to law; we also understand the nature of duties towards ourselves and the force of the word NEIGHBOUR sanctified in the Gospel.

225. After all, why does a father owe himself the love and care of his children? This duty springs from the natural connection between him and his children - the nature of father binds him to them. He is, in fact, their NEIGHBOUR. This word includes every natural relationship of human beings, and therefore every particular duty.
But, if we consider the matter further, we may ask whether, amongst the relationships, there is any that is closer than the one we have with ourselves, and the answer is definitely 'no'. Indeed there cannot be a more absolute closeness, if we are allowed to use such an expression of the relationship of identity. Hence, it was fitting to take this maximum closeness as absolute norm and rule, as the Gospel did when it says: 'You will love YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF'.

We conclude then as follows. The law is universal: 'human nature must be respected and its good desired'.

226. The good of human nature is indicated by natural human instincts and inclinations, directed by the law towards certain persons rather than others, according to the persons' circumstances. This loving preference for certain people is called 'NEIGHBOURSHIP' by the gospel; it originates in the inclination we have to ourselves. 'Neighbourship' means simply closeness, the natural connection with ourselves. 'Ourself' therefore is the starting point of 'neighbourship' and distance.

227. Consequently, every natural bond binding human beings is preserved and prescribed, because to desire the good of human nature is to desire what human nature desires. This natural desire and love constitute the bond of 'neighbourship', as the Gospel shows by its use of the word NEIGHBOUR in the parable of the good Samaritan. In the parable our neighbour is the one who loves more and, relative to the one loved, gives greater help and assistance. The statement of the law as YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF is perfect and divine, and contains within itself the duties to ourselves, expressed in the place most fitting for them.

Notes

(61) This reflection, which is always voluntary ('freely willed'), is also positively willed. This is another element for judging the moral perfection of the agent, as we shall explain shortly.

(62) St. Thomas is speaking of a free will, as the context shows.

(63) Sicut malum est in plus quam peccatum, ita peccatum est in plus quam culpa. Ex hoc enim dicitur actus culpabilis vel laudabilis, quod imputatur agenti: nihil enim est aliud laudari vel culpari, quam imputari alicui malitiam vel bonitatem sui actus. Tunc enim actus imputatur agenti, quando est in potestate ipsius, ita quod habeat dominium sui actus: hoc autem est in omnibus actibus voluntariis, quia per voluntatem homo dominium sui actus habet. Unde relinquitur, quod bonum vel malum in solis actibus voluntariis constituit rationem laudis vel culpae: in quibus idem est malum, peccatum, et culpa. S.T. I-II, q. 21, art. 2.

(64) The word 'justice' is used in a strict sense: this justice is the foundation of civil law.

(65) Acknowledgement of God by voluntary reflection is the principle of adoration and of all acts of religion; it is the highest motive for love by human beings.

(66) Teaching on the fundamental feeling is presented in The Origin of Thought [695 ss].

(67) Mt 22. 37-40