Question II: On inconsideration

INCONSIDERATION is thoughtlessness, or a not sufficiently attentive cognition of those truths from which one would judge rightly, as D. Thomas says. And so this sin is opposed to Prudence by reason of Synesis, and Gnome, annexed to it, which are judge of right judgment. On that account Cautelam and Incircumspectio are enclosed under this sin, against Cautela and Circumspection, which are integral parts of Prudence: For those ordinations are made toward right judgment, from which those two opposites fall short, which for that reason constitute one vice, and at the same time, together with Inconsideration, as Valentia and Tannerus say numero 52.

But it happens for the most part, when someone, otherwise having knowledge of the Law or of fact, sins inconsiderately against either; whence he is recalled to that ignorance which the prudent man ought to have avoided; hence he has culpability when it arises from that inconsideration which is called affectata, by which someone, letting himself be carried away by the impetus of his passion, ceases to consider what and how he ought to act; But often he does not have culpability, if from the sudden presence of some unexpected thing the mind is suddenly snatched into oblivion, and is otherwise prepared to act rightly; for often, from the surreption of some affair, the mind is dispersed into various things, and however attentively you had considered, they are scattered into alien thoughts; wherefore inconsideration taken in this sense is not adverse to prudence; since it passes into the inculpable nature of Ignorance.

Nor does culpable Inconsideration intervene only in choosing evil simply; but also in rejecting the greater, or better good; which happens when a sensible good allure more vehemently, and reason does not weigh all with mature deliberation; whence it follows that this vice always precedes sin; although sometimes it is the effect of that sin of which it is not the cause; for the more the will succumbs to the appetite of sensible things, the less the Intellect can attend to the due pondering of things.