Article I: On the Object

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 18, a. 2; a. 4, ad 3; a. 6; a. 7, ad 1; a. 10; q. 1, a. 3, ad 3; De Malo, q. 2, a. 6, ad 3.

147. State of the question.

We have seen that the supreme species in morality, namely goodness and malice, arise from object, circumstance, and end; but the lowest species of moral acts must also be considered, according to which they have such a special goodness or such a special malice. Hence it is asked:

a) whether that distinction arises from the same three sources;

b) indeed, since a natural being is placed in only one species, it is doubted whether several species of morality can be found in one moral act.

To these we shall give an answer, with object, circumstances, and end considered separately.

148. Principle I. The object considered morally gives to human acts not only generic morality but also specific morality.

It is explained. The sense is: the object not only makes the essential distinction between good and evil, and constitutes the supreme species of goodness and malice in human acts, but also the lowest species by which various good or evil acts are distinguished among themselves.

It is proved: a moral act is essentially a movement toward an object considered morally, as toward a term. But every movement essentially has its lowest species from the term. Therefore every human act has its lowest moral species from the object considered morally. And therefore according as objects express diverse agreement with reason or opposition to it, various species of good acts are distinguished (for example, love of God and of neighbor, faith and charity, fortitude and temperance), or of evil acts (for example, homicide and theft, blasphemy and detraction, lust and anger).

It is no obstacle to this doctrine 1) that a circumstance can constitute the lowest species of morality in a human act, because then it enters into the object and becomes its principal condition and, as it were, the specific difference of the human act, as will be explained more below, art. 2;

2. that a human act receives species from the end, because a) the end is the object of the will; b) as to the exterior commanded act, the end of the work is the same as the object, while the adjoined end of the one acting is a circumstance adding species, which is considered by the agent as an accessory condition of the object arriving extrinsically, insofar as the act takes place under the influence of the will, whose object is the end of the one acting (cf. art. 3).

149. Principle II. One and the same moral act can have a multiple species of morality.

It is proved: 1) This is not verified of a human act according to physical being, because a physical being is specified by a natural form which is determined to one thing and therefore is one in species; but according to moral being an act is specified by an object apprehended by reason, which is not determined to one thing, but under a diverse consideration can be referred to diverse species according to supervening moral conditions, whether the species are per se subordinated to one another, or are disparate, as if theft is ordered to drunkenness (a. 7, ad 1). Thus to take what belongs to another from a sacred place includes a diverse specific repugnance to the order of reason, which dictates that injury is not to be done to a sacred place; and yet one object remains, but one composed of several things.

2. Moral being accedes as a quality to physical being itself, and therefore just as one physical thing can be of diverse species of perfection or defect according to accidents, for example the same man white and musical, blind and deaf, so one physical act can pertain to several moral species. Hence nothing prevents the same act from being in diverse species of virtue or sin.

150. Principle III. One and the same moral act cannot nevertheless be both good and evil at the same time and in the same respect.

It is proved: for an act to be simply good, goodness from every part is required; for it to be simply evil, malice from any part suffices. Therefore.

And nevertheless an act evil from one part is not therefore deprived of all goodness proceeding from other sources: thus an act good according to species can be evil because of a circumstance, or an act good according to species and circumstances can be ordered to an evil end, because, as St. Thomas says, "when the posterior has been removed, the prior nevertheless remains," I Sent., d. 41, q. 1, a. 2 (cf. I-II, q. 18, a. 4, ad 3). The exception is if the act is done from the sole or total cause of evil, because then no goodness is intended or contracted, but the act is considered as a mere means of evil, insofar as the object is considered as wholly evil.