Aquinass response to the question is as follows: 1)As I said previously, the precepts of natural law are related to practical reason in the same way the basic principles of demonstrations are related to theoretical reason, since both are sets of self-evident principles. But it can direct only toward that for which man can be brought to act, and that is either toward the objects of his natural inclinations or toward objectives that derive from these. Before the end of the very same passage Suarez reveals what he really thinks to be the foundation of the precepts of natural law. but the previous terminology seems to be carefully avoided, and . Copyright 2023 The Witherspoon Institute. A formula of the first judgment of practical reason might be That which is good, is good, desirable, or The good is that which is to be done, the evil is that which is to be avoided., Significant in these formulations are the that which (ce qui) and the double is, for these expressions mark the removal of gerundive force from the principal verb of the sentence. d. identical with asceticism. The first paragraph implies that only self-evident principles of practical reason belong to natural law; Aquinas is using natural law here in its least extensive sense. Thus the modern reader is likely to wonder: Are Aquinass self-evident principles analytic or synthetic? Of course, there is no answer to this question in Aquinass terms. Aquinas identified the following "Universal Human Values": Human Life, Health, Procreation, Wealth, Welfare of Children and Knowledge. If one supposes that principles of natural law are formed by examining kinds of action in comparison with human nature and noting their agreement or disagreement, then one must respond to the objection that it is impossible to derive normative judgments from metaphysical speculations. The mistaken interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural law, with its restrictive understanding of the scope of the first practical principle, suggests that before reason comes upon the scene, that whole broad field of action lies open before man, offering no obstacles to his enjoyment of an endlessly rich and satisfying life, but that cold reason with its abstract precepts successively marks section after section of the field out of bounds, progressively enclosing the submissive subject in an ever-shrinking pen, while those who act at the promptings of uninhibited spontaneity range freely over all the possibilities of life. 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]. [45] Lottin, op. 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. Hence good human action has intrinsic worth, not merely instrumental value as utilitarianism supposes. His position has undergone some development in its various presentations. The Latin verb translated as "do" is the verb "facere," which can also be . This point is merely lexicographical, yet it has caused some confusionfor instance, concerning the relationship between natural law and the law of nations, for sometimes Aquinas contradistinguishes the two while sometimes he includes the law of nations in natural law. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. 94, a. 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. In the sixth paragraph Aquinas explains how practical reason forms the basic principles of its direction. 3, ad 2; q. Reason prescribes according to the order of natural inclinations because reason directs to possible actions, and the possible patterns of human action are determined by the natural inclinations, for man cannot act on account of that toward which he has no basis for affinity in his inclinations. If practical reason ignored what is given in experience, it would have no power to direct, for what-is-to-be cannot come from nothing. 4, c. [27] See Lottin, op. By their motion and rest, moved objects participate in the perfection of agents, but a caused order participates in the exemplar of its perfection by form and the consequences of formconsequences such as inclination, reason, and the precepts of practical reason. The first principle of practical reason is a command: Do good and avoid evil. Although Suarez mentions the inclinations, he does so while referring to Aquinas. Now what is practical reason? Only by virtue of this transcendence is it possible that the end proposed by Christian faith, heavenly beatitude, which is supernatural to man, should become an objective of genuine human actionthat is, of action under the guidance of practical reason. Of course, so far as grammar alone is concerned, the gerundive form can be employed to express an imperative. The good which is the subject matter of practical reason is an objective possibility, and it could be contemplated. 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. At any rate Nielsens implicit supposition that the natural law for Aquinas must be formally identical with the eternal law is in conflict with Aquinass notion of participation according to which the participation is. The object of a tendency becomes an objective which is to be imposed by the mind as we try to make the best of what faces us by bringing it into conformity with practical truth. Even in theoretical knowledge, actual understanding and truth are not discovered in experience and extracted from it by a simple process of separation. The first practical principle does not limit the possibilities of human action; by determining that action will be for an end this principle makes it possible. 1, c. [29] Lottin, op. Nor is any operation of our own will presupposed by the first principles of practical reason. 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. DO GOOD AND AVOID EVIL 1. 45; 3, q. supra note 11, at 5052, apparently misled by Maritain, follows this interpretation. 2) Since the mistaken interpretation restricts the meaning of good and evil in the first principle to the value of moral actions, the meaning of these key terms must be clarified in the light of Aquinass theory of final causality. [57] In libros ethicorum ad Nichomachum, lib. [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. Moral action, and that upon which it immediately bears, can be directed to ulterior goods, and for this very reason moral action cannot be the absolutely ultimate end. Of course, one cannot form these principles if he has no grasp upon what is involved in them, and such understanding presupposes experience. Reason does not regulate action by itself, as if the mere ability to reason were a norm. The principle of contradiction could serve as a common premise of theoretical knowledge only if being were the basic essential characteristic of beings, if being were what beings arethat is, if being were a definite kind of thing. 45; 3, q. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that practical knowledge, because it is prior to its object, is independent of experience. There is one obvious difference between the two formulae, Do good and avoid evil, and Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. That difference is the omission of pursuit from the one, the inclusion of it in the other. Aquinas maintains that the first principle of practical reason is "good is that which all things seek after." Aquinas maintains that the natural law is the same for all in general principles, but not in all matters of detail. Thus Lottin makes the precept appear as much as possible like a theoretical statement expressing a peculiar aspect of the goodnamely, that it is the sort of thing that demands doing. This is a directive for action . If the first principle of practical reason were. Because Aquinas explicitly compares the primary principle of practical reason with the principle of contradiction, it should help us to understand the significance of the relationship between the first principle and other evident principles in practical reason if we ask what importance attaches to the fact that theoretical knowledge is not deduced from the principle of contradiction, which is only the first among many self-evident principles of theoretical knowledge. At any rate this is Aquinass theory. Thus actions are considered good or bad only by virtue of extrinsic consequences. But if we This early treatment of natural law is saturated with the notion of end. These remarks may have misleading connotations for us, for we have been conditioned by several centuries of philosophy in which analytic truths (truths of reason) are opposed to synthetic truths (truths of fact). 94, a. Many other authors could be cited: e.g., Stevens, op. 6. [80] As a particular norm, the injunction to follow reason has specific consequences for right action. Hence first principles must be supplemented by other principles and by a sound reasoning process if correct conclusions are to be reached. 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. But does not Aquinas imagine the subject as if it were a container full of units of meaning, each unit a predicate? Yet the first principle of practical reason does provide a basic requirement for action merely by prescribing that it be intentional, and it is in the light of this requirement that the objects of all the inclinations are understood as human goods and established as objectives for rational pursuit. 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. a. the same as gluttony. The formula (Ibid. [69] Ibid. Why are the principles of practical reason called natural law? cit. Verse Concepts. But the first principle all the while exercises its unobtrusive control, for it drives the mind on toward judgment, never permitting it to settle into inconsistent muddle. Lottin, for example, balances his notion that we first assent to the primary principle as to a theoretical truth with the notion that we finally assent to it with a consent of the will. 93, a. For Aquinas, there is no nonconceptual intellectual knowledge: How misleading Maritains account of the knowledge of natural law is, so far as Aquinass position is concerned, can be seen by examining some studies based on Maritain: Kai Nielsen, , An Examination of the Thomistic Theory of Natural Moral Law,. Von den ethischen Prinzipien: Eine Thomasstudie zu S. Th. 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. Ought requires no special act legitimatizing it; ought rules its own domain by its own authority, an authority legitimate as that of any is. Therefore this is the primary precept of law: Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. 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. In defining law, Aquinas first asks whether law is something belonging to reason. "The good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided" is not very helpful for making actual choices. [33] Hence the principles of natural law, in their expression of ends, transcend moral good and evil as the end transcends means and obstacles. In other words, the reason for the truth of the self-evident principle is what is directly signified by it, not any extrinsic cause. The latter ability is evidenced in the first principle of practical reason, and it is the same ability which grounds the ability to choose. [4] A position Aquinas develops in q. It is important, however, to see the precise manner in which the principle, Good is to be done and pursued, still rules practical reason when it goes astray. 94, a. The difference between the two points of view is no mystery. [12] Nielsen, op. Lottin, for instance, suggests that the first assent to the primary principle is an act of theoretical reason. This is, one might say, a principle of intelligibility of action (cf. Explanation: #KEEPONLEARNING Advertisement Still have questions? On the other hand, the intelligibility does not include all that belongs to things denoted by the word, since it belongs to one bit of rust to be on my cars left rear fender, but this is not included in the intelligibility of rust. correct incorrect Suarez offers a number of formulations of the first principle of the natural law. The end is the first principle in matters of action; reason orders to the end; therefore, reason is the principle of action. These same difficulties underlie Maritains effort to treat the primary precept as a truth necessary by virtue of the predicates inclusion of the intelligibility of the subject rather than the reverse. In fact, it refers primarily to the end which is not limited to moral value. Second, there is in man an inclination to certain more restricted goods based on the aspect of his nature which he has in common with other animals. Since from this perspective the good is defined as an end to be pursued, while evil is defined as what is contrary to that end, reason naturally sees as good and therefore to be pursued all those things to which man has a natural inclination, while it sees the contraries of these things as evil and therefore to be avoided. Odon Lottin, O.S.B., Le droit naturel chez Saint Thomas dAquin et ses prdcesseurs (2nd ed., Bruges, 1931), 79 mentions that the issue of the second article had been posed by Albert the Great (cf. But it is central throughout the whole treatise. [51] Similarly he explains in another place that the power of first principles is present in practical misjudgment, yet the defect of the judgment arises not from the principles but; from the reasoning through which the judgment is formed.[52]. 11; 1-2, q. nonconceptual, nonrational knowledge by inclination or connaturality. But our willing of ends requires knowledge of them, and the directive knowledge. His response, justly famous for showing that his approach to law is intellectualistic rather than voluntaristic, may be summarized as follows. Nevertheless, the first principle of practical reason hardly can be understood in the first instance as an imperative. This paper has five parts. [3] Paul-M. van Overbeke, O.P., La loi naturelle et le droit naturel selon S. Thomas, Revue Thomiste 65 (1957): 7375 puts q. seems to fall into this mistaken interpretation. They are not derived from prior principles. See Lottin, op. But if the Pies super fan steps . Answer: 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. One might translate ratio as essence; yet every word expresses some intelligibility, while not every word signifies essence. As we have seen, it is a self-evident principle in which reason prescribes the first condition of its own practical office. To function as principles, their status as underivables must be recognized, and this recognition depends upon a sufficient understanding of their terms, i.e., of the intelligibilities signified by those terms. Any proposition may be called objectively self-evident if its predicate belongs to the intelligibility of its subject. supra note 40, at 147155. 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. An act which falls in neither of these categories is simply of no interest to a legalistic moralist who does not see that moral value and obligation have their source in the end. For Aquinas, however, natural law includes counsels as well as precepts. [19] S.T. Reason is doing its own work when it prescribes just as when it affirms or denies. Any other precept will add to this first one; other precepts determine precisely what die direction is and what the starting point must be if that direction is to be followed out. For example, the proposition. [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. by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. To the first argument, based on the premises that law itself is a precept and that natural law is one, Aquinas answers that the many precepts of the natural law are unified. What difference would it make if these principles were viewed as so many conclusions derived from the conjunction of the premises The human good is to be sought and Such and such an action will promote the human goodpremises not objectionable on the ground that they lead to the derivation of imperatives that was criticized above? The primary precepts of practical reason, he says, concern the things-to-be-done that practical reason naturally grasps as human goods, and the things-to-be-avoided that are opposed to those goods. These. [50] A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., La philosophie morale de Saint Thomas dAquin (Paris, 1946), 109, seems to fall into this mistaken interpretation. 2; Summa contra gentiles, 3, c. 2. 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. His theory of causality does not preclude an intrinsic relationship between acts and ends. Self-evidence in fact has two aspects. I have just said that oxide belongs to the intelligibility of rust. Whatever man may achieve, his action requires at least a remote basis in the tendencies that arise from human nature. They are not derived from any statements at all. At first it appears, he says, simply as a truth, a translation into moral language of the principle of identity. 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. [58] S.T. In the case of practical reason, acting on account of an end is acting for the sake of a goal, for practical reason is an active principle that is conscious and self-determining. Later Suarez interprets the place of the inclinations in Aquinass theory. The mistaken interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural law considers natural law precepts to be a set of imperatives. 95, a. In his response he does not exclude virtuous acts which are beyond the call of duty. He also claims that mans knowledge of natural law is not conceptual and rational, but instead is by inclination, connaturality, or congeniality. [68] For the will, this natural knowledge is nothing else than the first principles of practical reason. 1, q. Similarly, from the truth of the premises and the validity of the reasoning we can say that the conclusion ought to be true. 2, c. The translation is my own; the paragraphing is added. But the generalization is illicit, for acting with a purpose in view is only one way, the specifically human way, in which an active principle can have the orientation it needs in order to begin to act. [55] De veritate, q. These inclinations are part of ourselves, and so their objects are human goods. What the intellect perceives to be good is what the will decides to do. Moreover, the fact that the precepts of natural law are viewed as self-evident principles of practical reason excludes Maritains account of our knowledge of them. (Ibid. cit. The mistaken interpretation of Aquinass theory of natural law considers natural law precepts to be a set of imperatives. [54] The first principles of practical reason are a source not only for judgments of conscience but even for judgments of prudence; while the former can remain merely speculative and ineffectual, the latter are the very structure of virtuous action.[55]. 13, a. The mistaken interpretation inevitably falls into circularity; Aquinass real position shows where moral reasoning can begin, for it works from transmoral principles of moral action. [16] In libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, lib. Practical reason is the mind working as a principle of action, not simply as a recipient of objective reality. On the one hand, a principle is not Self-evident if it can be derived from some prior principle, which provides a foundation for it. 1 (1965): 168201. 2; S.T. 6)Because good has the intelligibility of end, and evil has the intelligibility of contrary to end, it follows that reason naturally grasps as goodsin consequence, as things-to-be-pursued by work, and their opposites as evils and thing-to-be-avoidedall the objects of mans natural inclinations. Grisez 1965): only action that can be understood as conforming with this principle, as carried out under the idea that good is to be sought and bad . [12] That Aquinas did not have this in mind appears at the beginning of the third paragraph, where he begins to determine the priorities among those things which fall within the grasp of everyone. No doubt there are some precepts not everyone knows although they are objectively self-evidentfor instance, precepts concerning the relation of man to God: God should be loved above all, and: God should be obeyed before all. This orientation means that at the very beginning an action must have definite direction and that it must imply a definite limit. He points out that from God wills x, one cannot derive x is obligatory, without assuming the non-factual statement: What God wills is obligatory. He proceeds to criticize what he takes to be a confusion in Thomism between fact and value, a merging of disparate categories which Nielsen considers unintelligible. A sign that intentionality or directedness is the first condition for conformity to practical reason is the expression of imputation: He acted on purpose, intentionally., In forming this first precept practical reason performs its most basic task, for it simply determines that whatever it shall think about must at least be set on the way, Of course, we can be conditioned to enjoy perverse forms of indulgence, but we could not be conditioned if we did not have, not only at the beginning but also as an underlying constant throughout the entire learning process, an inclination toward pleasure. Thus we see that final causality underlies Aquinass conception of what law is. Hence he holds that some species of acts are bad in themselves, so that they cannot become good under any circumstances.[42]. 1-2, q. Similarly, the establishment of the first precept of practical reason determines that there shall be direction henceforth. 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. These we distinguish and join in the processes of analysis and synthesis which constitute our rational knowing. These remarks may have misleading connotations for us, for we have been conditioned by several centuries of philosophy in which analytic truths (truths of reason) are opposed to synthetic truths (truths of fact). When I think that there should be more work done on the foundations of specific theories of natural law, such a judgment is practical knowledge, for the mind requires that the situation it is considering change to fit its demands rather than the other way about. 1, q. Sertillanges, for example, apparently was influenced by Lottin when he remarked that the good in the formulations of the first principle is a pure form, as Kant would say.[77] Stevens also seems to have come under the influence, as when he states, The first judgment, it may be noted, is first not as a first, explicit psychologically perceived judgment, but as the basic form of all practical judgments.[78]. [36]. The second issue raised in question 94 logically follows. at q. Within experience we have tendencies which make themselves felt; they point their way toward appropriate objects. Aquinas recognizes a variety of natural inclinations, including one to act in a rational way. Without such a foundation God might compel behavior but he could never direct human action. Philosophers have constructed their systems of ethics weighted in favor of one or another good precisely for this reason. This question hasn't been solved yet Ask an expert True or False There his formulation of the principle is specifically moralistic: The upright is to be done and the wrong avoided. Thus the status Aquinas attributes to the first principle of practical reason is not without significance. He not only omits any mention of end, but he excludes experience from the formation of natural law, so that the precepts of natural law seem to be for William pure intuitions of right and wrong.[31]. 92, a. In this section I wish to show both that the first principle does not have primarily imperative force and that it is really prescriptive. This principle is not an imperative demanding morally good action, and imperativesor even definite prescriptionscannot be derived from it by deduction. Precisely because the first principle does not specify the direction of human action, it is not a premise in practical reasoning; other principles are required to determine direction. The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the, [Grisez, Germain. Having become aware of this basic commandment, man consults his nature to see what is good and what is evil. 57, aa. [18] S.T. Thus, the predicate belongs to the intelligibility of the subject does not mean that one element of a complex meaning is to be found among others within the complex. In the fourth paragraph he is pointing out that the need for practical reason, as an active principle, to think in terms of end implies that its first grasp on its objects will be of them as good, since any objective of action must first be an object of tendency. This participation is necessary precisely insofar as man shares the grand office of providence in directing his own life and that of his fellows. supra note 3, at 45058; Gregory Stevens, O.S.B., The Relations of Law and Obligation, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 29 (1955): 195205. And what are the objects of the natural inclinations? On this open ground man can accept faith without surrendering his rationality. 12. The first precept of natural law is that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. 91, a. [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. . 44 votes, 141 comments. [74] In fact, the practical acceptance of the antecedent of any conditional formulation directing toward action is itself an action that presupposes the direction of practical reason toward the good and the end. All other precepts of natural law rest upon this. If every active principle acts on account of an end, then at a certain time in spring from the weather and our knowledge of nature we can conclude that the roses ought to be blooming soon. This view implies that human action ultimately is irrational, and it is at odds with the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. Usually we do not need to think principles by themselves; we call them to mind only to put them to work. The theory of law is permanently in danger of falling into the illusion that practical knowledge is merely theoretical knowledge plus force of will. The rule of action binds; therefore, reason binds. For example, the proposition, Man is rational, taken just in itself, is self-evident, for to say man is to say rational; yet to someone who did not know what man is, this proposition would not be self-evident. Of course, I must disagree with Nielsens position that decision makes discourse practical. 2, c. Fr. Still, his work is marked by a misunderstanding of practical reason, so that precept is equated with imperative (p. 95) and will is introduced in the explanation of the transition from theory to practice, (p. 101) Farrell (op. supra note 8, at 200. p. 70, n. 7. In the next article, Aquinas adds another element to his definition by asking whether law always is ordained to the common good. Imagine that we are playing Cluedo and we are trying to work out the identity of the murderer. 1 Timothy 6:20. Hence the basic precepts of practical reason accept the possibilities suggested by experience and direct the objects of reasons consideration toward the fulfillments taking shape in the mind. 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. 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Translation is my own ; the paragraphing is added compel behavior but he could direct... Manner, all other precepts of natural law part of ourselves, and imperativesor even definite prescriptionscannot derived! Life and that it is a command: do good and what are principles... Command: do good and what is good, together with Such an action must definite! To moral value the identity of the principle of practical reason is the mind working as a of... Themselves felt ; they point their way toward appropriate objects perceives to be a set imperatives..., leads deductively to do likely to wonder: are Aquinass self-evident principles analytic or?! Is nothing else than the first principles must be supplemented by other and! End of the premises and the directive knowledge we distinguish and join in the article... The sixth paragraph Aquinas explains how practical reason reasoning we can say that first... Aquinas, however, natural law is that good is to be foundation! And truth are not derived from any statements at all the intellect perceives to be done and pursued and. To express an imperative demanding morally good action, not merely instrumental value as utilitarianism supposes is! Manner, all other precepts would be a set of imperatives suggests that the conclusion to... And practical reason determines that there shall be direction henceforth, simply as a particular,...