This principle is not an imperative demanding morally good action, and imperativesor even definite prescriptionscannot be derived from it by deduction. Opposition between the direction of reason and the response of will can arise only subsequent to the orientation toward end expressed in the first principle. For example, the proposition. 4)But just as being is the first thing to fall within the unrestricted grasp of the mind, so good is the first thing to fall within the grasp of practical reasonthat is, reason directed to a workfor every active principle acts on account of an end, and end includes the intelligibility of good. Aquinas suggests as a principle: Work in pursuit of the end. Aquinas says that the fundamental principle of the natural law is that good is to be done and evil avoided (ST IaIIae 94, 2). [29] While this is a definition rather than a formulation of the first principle, it is still interesting to notice that it does not include pursuit. [83] The desire for happiness is amply the first principle of practical reason directing human action from within the will informed by reason. Amen. 78, a. The orientation of an active principle toward an end is like thatit is a real aspect of dynamic reality. 4, c. [27] See Lottin, op. supra note 8, at 5455. Good is what each thing tends toward is not the formula of the first principle of practical reason, then, but merely a formula expressing the intelligibility of good. Any proposition may be called objectively self-evident if its predicate belongs to the intelligibility of its subject. More than correct principles are required, however, if reason is to reach its appropriate conclusion in action toward the good. This fact has helped to mislead many into supposing that natural law must be understood as a divine imperative. Copyright 2023 The Witherspoon Institute. Lottin, for instance, suggests that the first assent to the primary principle is an act of theoretical reason. It is the rationalistic assumptions in the back of his mind that make the empiricist try to reduce dispositional properties to predictions about future states. The intelligibility of good is: what each thing tends toward. The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation. Nor should it be supposed that the ends transcendence over moral virtue is a peculiarity of the supernatural end. In practical reason it is self-evident precepts that are underivable, natural law. 2, a. The second was the pleasure of having your desire fulfilled, like a satisfied, full stomach. He does make a distinction: all virtuous acts as such belong to the law of nature, but particular virtuous acts may not, for they may depend upon human inquiry.[43]. 94, a. Nonprescriptive statements believed to express the divine will also gain added meaning for the believer but do not thereby become practical. [84] G. P. Klubertanz, S.J., The Root of Freedom in St. Thomass Later Works, Gregorianum 42 (1961): 709716, examines how Aquinas relates reason and freedom. at q. If every active principle acts on account of an end, so the anthropomorphic argument goes, then it must act for the sake of a goal, just as men do when they act with a purpose in view. Nor should it be supposed that the ends transcendence over moral virtue is a peculiarity of the supernatural end. This summary is not intended to reflect the position of any particular author. No, the derivation is not direct, and the position of reason in relation to inclination is not merely passive. The master principle of natural law, wrote Aquinas, was that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." Aquinas stated that reason reveals particular natural laws that are good for humans such as self-preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God. supra note 21) tries to clarify this point, and does in fact help considerably toward the removal of misinterpretations. Many proponents and critics of Thomas Aquinass theory of natural law have understood it roughly as follows. But reason needs starting points. This fact has helped to mislead many into supposing that natural law must be understood as a divine imperative. Man and the State, 91. supra note 40), by a full and careful comparison of Aquinass and Suarezs theories of natural law, clarifies the essential point very well, without suggesting that natural law is human legislation, as ODonoghue seems to think. The first principle of morally good action is the principle of all human action, but bad action fulfills the requirement of the first principle less perfectly than good action does. What the intellect perceives to be good is what the will decides to do. Only after practical reason thinks does the object of its thought begin to be a reality. On the one hand, the causality of God is not a principle evident to us. Experience can be understood and truth can be known about the things of experience, but understanding and truth attain a dimension of reality that is not actually contained within experience, although experience touches the surface of the same reality. 2, and applies in rejecting the position that natural law is a habit in q. Each of these three answers merely reiterates the response to the main question. The objective dimension of the reality of beings that we know in knowing this principle is simply the definiteness that is involved in their very objectivity, a definiteness that makes a demand on the intellect knowing them, the very least demandto think consistently of them.[16]. An intelligibility includes the meaning and potential meaning of a word uttered by intelligence about a world whose reality, although naturally suited to our minds, is not in itself cut into piecesintelligibilities. In other words, in Suarezs mind Aquinas only meant to say of the inclinations that they are subject to natural law. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. [54] For the notion of judgment forming choice see ibid. The pursuit of the good which is the end is primary; the doing of the good which is the means is subordinate. Thus the principles of the law of nature cannot be potential objects of knowledge, unknown but waiting in hiding, fully formed and ready for discovery. at II.7.5: Honestum est faciendum, pravum vitandum.) Here too Suarez suggests that this principle is just one among many first principles; he juxtaposes it with Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 1-2, q. Precisely because man knows the intelligibility of end and the proportion of his work to end. supra note 56, at 24.) [15] On ratio see Andre Haven, S.J., LIntentionnel selon Saint Thomas (2nd ed., Bruges, Bruxelles, Paris, 1954), 175194. The good which is the end is the principle of moral value, and at least in some respects this principle transcends its consequence, just as. Law is imagined as a command set over against even those actions performed in obedience to it. 3, c. Quasi need not carry the connotation of fiction which it has in our usage; it is appropriate in the theory of natural law where a vocabulary primarily developed for the discussion of theoretical knowledge is being adapted to the knowledge of practical reason.) It is necessary for the active principle to be oriented toward that something or other, whatever it is, if it is going to be brought about. As I explained above, the primary principle is imposed by reason simply because as an active principle reason must direct according to the essential condition for any active principleit must direct toward an end. For a comparison between judgments of prudence and those of conscience see my paper, The Logic of Moral Judgment, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 26 (1962): 6776, esp. 1-2, q. The precepts are many because the different inclinations objects, viewed by reason as ends for rationally guided efforts, lead to distinct norms of action. The will necessarily tends to a single ultimate end, but it does not necessarily tend to any definite good as an ultimate end. 98103. As we have seen, it is a self-evident principle in which reason prescribes the first condition of its own practical office. I do not deny that the naked threat might become effective on behavior without reference to any practical principle. The end is the first principle in matters of action; reason orders to the end; therefore, reason is the principle of action. Thinking that the practical principle must be equivalent to a theoretical truth, he suggests that the opposite relationship obtains. Consequently, as Boethius says in his De hebdomadibus,[6] there are certain axioms or propositions which are generally self-evident to everyone. Although Suarez mentions the inclinations, he does so while referring to Aquinas. For this reason, too, the natural inclinations are not emphasized by Suarez as they are by Aquinas. My main purpose is not to contribute to the history of natural law, but to clarify Aquinass idea of it for current thinking. Later in the same work Aquinas explicitly formulates the notion of the law of nature for the first time in his writings. 92, a. See. Why, exactly, does Aquinas treat this principle as a. Lottin proposed a theory of the relationship between the primary principle and the self-evident principles founded on it. Nevertheless, the first principle of practical reason hardly can be understood in the first instance as an imperative. [53] Law is not a constraint upon actions which originate elsewhere and which would flourish better if they were not confined by reason. The mistaken interpretation suggests that natural law is a set of imperatives whose form leaves no room to discriminate among degrees of force to be attached to various precepts. Not because they are given, but because reasons good, which is intelligible, contains the aspect of end, and the goods to which the inclinations point are prospective ends. Our personalities are largely shaped by acculturation in our particular society, but society would never affect us if we had no basic aptitude for living with others. by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. . [36]. There is a constant tendency to reduce practical truth to the more familiar theoretical truth and to think of underivability as if it were simply a matter of conceptual identity. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Evil is not explained ultimately by opposition to law, but opposition to law by unsuitability of action to end. For instance, that man should avoid ignorance, that he should not offend those among whom he must live, and other points relevant to this inclination. Like most later interpreters, Suarez thinks that what is morally good or bad depends simply upon the agreement or disagreement of action with nature, and he holds that the obligation to do the one and to avoid the other arises from an imposition of the will of God. The first argument concludes that natural law must contain only a single precept on the grounds that law itself is a precept[4] and that natural law has unity. The act which preserves life is not the life preserved; in fact, they are so distinct that it is possible for the act that preserves life to be morally bad while the life preserved remains a human good. This is a truth which by its very evidence immediately imposes itself on everyone. In this section I wish to clarify this point, and the lack of prosequendum in the non-Thomistic formula is directly relevant. That is what Kant does, and he is only being consistent when he reduces the status of end in his system to a motive extrinsic to morality except insofar as it is identical with the motivation of duty or respect for the law. 78, a. He considers the goodness and badness with which natural law is concerned to be the moral value of acts in comparison with human nature, and he thinks of the natural law itself as a divine precept that makes it possible for acts to have an additional value of conformity with the law. If the first principle of practical reason were. Man can be ignorant of these precepts because God does not fall within our grasp so that the grounds of his lovability and authority are evident to everybody. The natural law, nevertheless, is one because each object of inclination obtains its role in practical reasons legislation only insofar as it is subject to practical reasons way of determining actionby prescribing how ends are to be attained. a. The intellect is not theoretical by nature and practical only by education. 64, col. 1311. Aquinas expresses the objective aspect of self-evidence by saying that the predicate of a self-evident principle belongs to the intelligibility of the subject, and he expresses the subjective aspect of self-evidence in the requirement that this intelligibility not be unknown. This desire leads them to forget that they are dealing with a precept, and so they try to treat the first principle of practical reason as if it were theoretical. Practical reason understands its objects in terms of good because, as an active principle, it necessarily acts on account of an end. Mark Boyle argues that a primitive life away from the modern world is healthier, but the evidence strongly suggests that this is a privileged fantasy. Nielsen was not aware, as Ramsey was, that Maritains theory of knowledge of natural law should not be ascribed to Aquinas. He maintains that there is no willing without prior apprehension. Finnis - Human Rights. The theory of law is permanently in danger of falling into the illusion that practical knowledge is merely theoretical knowledge plus force of will. Purma (18521873), 7: bk. 91. In the second paragraph of the response Aquinas clarifies the meaning of self-evident. His purpose is not to postulate a peculiar meaning for self-evident in terms of which the basic precepts of natural law might be self-evident although no one in fact knew them. He thinks that this is the guiding principle for all our decision making. One of these is that differences between practical judgments must have an intelligible basisthe requirement that provides the principle for the generalization argument and for Kantian ethics. Reason is doing its own work when it prescribes just as when it affirms or denies. The imperative not only provides rational direction for action, but it also contains motive force derived from an antecedent act of the will bearing upon the object of the action. For that which primarily falls within ones grasp is being, and the understanding of being is included in absolutely everything that anyone grasps. The basic principle is not related to the others as a premise, an efficient cause, but as a form which differentiates itself in its application to the different matters directed by practical reason. [28] Super Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi in St. Thomas, Opera, ed. For that which primarily falls within ones grasp is being, and the understanding of being is included in absolutely everything that anyone grasps. He does not accept the dichotomy between mind and material reality that is implicit in the analytic-synthetic distinction. An object of consideration ordinarily belongs to the world of experience, and all the aspects of our knowledge of that object are grounded in that experience. In one he explains that for practical reason, as for theoretical reason, it is true that false judgments occur. The basic principle is not related to the others as a premise, an efficient cause, but as a form which differentiates itself in its application to the different matters directed by practical reason. at q. Objectum intellectus practici est bonum ordinabile ad opus, sub ratione veri. B. Schuster, S.J., . The preservation of human life is certainly a human good. cit. Once its real character as a precept is seen, there is less temptation to bolster the practical principle with will, and so to transform it into an imperative, in order to make it relevant to practice. 2 .Aquinas wrote that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." Aquinas stated that reason reveals particular natural laws that are good for humans such as self-preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God. The point of saying that good is to be pursued is not that good is the sort of thing that has or is this peculiar property, obligatorinessa subtle mistake with which G. E. Moore launched contemporary Anglo-American ethical theory. [84] Yet mans ability to choose the ultimate concrete end for which he shall act does not arise from any absurdity in human nature and its situation. 1, ad 9. 4, c. However, a horror of deduction and a tendency to confuse the process of rational derivation with the whole method of geometry has led some Thomistsnotably, Maritainto deny that in the natural law there are rationally deduced conclusions. Please try again. To ask "Why should we do what's good for us?" is useless because we are always trying to do what is good for us. [40], Aquinas, of course, never takes a utilitarian view of the value of moral action. He concludes his argument by maintaining that the factor which differentiates practical discourse is the presence of decision within it. 1) Since I propose to show that the common interpretation is unsound, it will be necessary to explicate the text in which Aquinas states the first principle. But no such threat, whether coming from God or society or nature, is prescriptive unless one applies to it the precept that horrible consequences should be avoided. [10] In other texts he considers conclusions drawn from these principles also to be precepts of natural lawe.g., S.T. It is this later resolution that I am supposing here. A careful reading of this paragraph also excludes another interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural lawthat proposed by Jacques Maritain. For the Independent Journal.. An intelligibility need not correspond to any part or principle of the object of knowledge, yet an intelligibility is an aspect of the partly known and still further knowable object. 94, a. The first practical principle is like a basic tool which is inseparable from the job in which the tool is used; it is the implement for making all the other tools to be used on the job, but none of them is equivalent to it, and so the basic tool permeates all the work done in that job.[81]. Only truths of reason are supposed to be necessary, but their necessity is attributed to meaning which is thought of as a quality inherent in ideas in the mind. 1, a. Neuf leons sur les notions premires de la philosophie morale (Paris, 1951), 158160. His response is that since precepts oblige, they are concerned with duties, and duties derive from the requirements of an end. Assumption of a group of principles inadequate to a problem, failure to observe the facts, or error in reasoning can lead to results within the scope of first principles but not sanctioned by them. The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theologiae, 1-2, Question 94, Article 2, [Grisez, Germain. Previously, however, he had given the principle in the formulation: Good is to be done and evil avoided., But there and in a later passage, where he actually mentions, he seems to be repeating received formulae. The mere fact of decision, or the mere fact of feeling one of the sentiments invoked by Hume, is no more a basis for ought than is any other is. Hume misses his own pointthat ought. [27] Hence in this early work he is saying that the natural law is precisely the ends to which man is naturally inclined insofar as these ends are present in reason as principles for the rational direction of action. 12. 94, a. Evil is not explained ultimately by opposition to law, but opposition to law by unsuitability of action to end. Thus the status Aquinas attributes to the first principle of practical reason is not without significance. Naturalism frequently has explained away evildoing, just as some psychological and sociological theories based on determinism now do. In some senses of the word good it need not. We at least can indicate a few significant passages. Questions 95 to 97 are concerned with man-made law. The natural law is a participation in the wisdom and goodness of God by the human person, formed in the image of the Creator. The first principle, expressed here in the formula, To affirm and simultaneously to deny is excluded, is the one sometimes called the principle of contradiction and sometimes called the principle of noncontradiction: The same cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. [60] A law is an expression of reason just as truly as a statement is, but a statement is an expression of reason asserting, whereas a law is an expression of reason prescribing. The principle of contradiction is likewise founded on the, Although too long a task to be undertaken here, a full comparison of Aquinass position to that of Suarez would help to clarify the present point. We do not discover the truth of the principle by analyzing the meaning of rust; rather we discover that oxide belongs to the intelligibility of rust by coming to see that this proposition is a self-evident (underivable) truth. This point is of the greatest importance in Aquinass treatise on the end of man. In his youthful commentary on Lombards Books of Sentences, Aquinas goes so far as to consider the principles of practical reasonwhich he already compares to the principles of demonstrationsto be so many innate natural ends. Practical reason has its truth by anticipating the point at which something that is possible through human action will come into conformity with reason, and by directing effort toward that point. According to Finnis, human rights must be maintained as a 'fundamental component of the common good'. Nature is not natural law; nature is the given from which man develops and from which arise tendencies of ranks corresponding to its distinct strata. Only truths of fact are supposed to have any reference to real things, but all truths of fact are thought to be contingent, because it is assumed that all necessity is rational in character. Do good, together with Such an action is good, leads deductively to Do that action. If the first principle actually did function in this manner, all other precepts would be conclusions derived from it. Remittances to Nicaraguans sent home last year surged 50%, a massive jump that analysts say is directly related to the thousands of Nicaraguans who emigrated to the U.S. in the past two years. 2; S.T. See John E. Naus, S.J., The Nature of the Practical Intellect according to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Roma, 1959). To know the first principle of practical reason is not to reflect upon the way in which goodness affects action, but to know a good in such a way that in virtue of that very knowledge the known good is ordained toward realization. [17] Rather, this principle is basic in that it is given to us by our most primitive understanding. 94, a. One is to suppose that it means anthropomorphism, a view at home both in the primitive mind and in idealistic metaphysics. A peculiarity of the value of moral action is no willing without prior apprehension primary ; the doing the... Might become effective on behavior without reference to any definite good as active... Its appropriate conclusion in action toward the good which is the end is primary the... With duties, and imperativesor even definite prescriptionscannot be derived from it by deduction and critics of Aquinass. On behavior without reference to any definite good as an ultimate end, but it does not the! The inclinations, he does not accept the dichotomy between mind and in metaphysics! Divine imperative to law, but opposition to law by unsuitability of action to.. 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