Article II: On the Norm of Morality

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 19, a. 3 and 4; q. 21, a. 1; q. 71, a. 6; q. 72, a. 4 and 8; q. 74, a. 7; q. 86, a. 1 and 2; q. 63, a. 2; De Malo, q. 2, a. 4; q. 16, a. 2.

124. Thesis I. The nearer and intrinsic norm of morality is right practical human reason.

It is explained: it is said to be: 1) reason, and not only conscience, which is the rule of the subjective morality of human acts, while here it is a question especially of the norm of objective morality: for conscience is particular reason, by which a determinate person judges concerning the morality of such an act in particular and applies the law to a determinate concrete case; here, however, universal reason is considered more, which judges concerning the morality of acts in the universal and enunciates law, and is by essence common, and is in all men;

2. right, that is, judging conformably to the eternal law, from which it flows as from the source and rule of every good; for, as St. Thomas says, II Sent. d. 24, q. 3, a. 3, ad 3: "Corrupt reason is not reason, just as a false syllogism properly is not a syllogism, and therefore the rule of human acts is not any reason whatever, but right reason," which alone is able fittingly to order to the end and as it ought;

3. it is the nearer norm, rather than the proximate norm: for the latter is conscience, which applies the law to the concrete act, and thus is the wholly proximate and immediate rule of acting; and with respect to it, universal reason or law is already a more remote rule; and nevertheless this is a near rule with respect to the supreme and ultimate rule, which is the eternal law of God himself;

4. and intrinsic: for reason is intrinsic to man, while the eternal law of God is extrinsic to him.

The thesis is proved 1) by facts: a moral action must be called good, like any being, when it attains its end or at least tends rightly and ordinately to its proper end. But it belongs to man's practical reason to detect what our ultimate end is, and what means are necessary or useful for attaining this end. Therefore human reason is the norm of the goodness or malice of human acts.

The minor is proved:

a) Generally, by experience;

b) Especially from the difference between rational and irrational nature (I-II, q. 91, a. 2): for it is established that man rules himself and orders his acts to the end; since therefore order is according to a rule, there had to be inserted into man a rule by which he might rule himself and be able to order his acts: and this is nothing other than reason.

c) For just as speculative reason is born to know the true, so practical reason is able to perceive the good (under the aspect of the true), that is, the ordered relation of acts to the ultimate end; for example, it dictates that blasphemy is evil as contrary to God, the ultimate end, and that intemperance is a sin because men abuse for the pleasure of the senses those things which are ordered to their preservation.

Briefly: the judgment of practical reason has as its object the agreement and disagreement of an act with the end. But the goodness of an action resides in the relation of agreement and subordination to the ultimate end of rational nature; malice, in the relation of disagreement. Therefore the judgment of practical reason showing this relation is the subjective criterion manifesting it, and thus the norm of goodness and malice.

2. By reason taken from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 90, a. 1: in each genus that which is the principle is the measure and rule of that genus. Reason is the first principle of human acts, because to it belongs ordering to the end, which is the first principle in things to be done. Therefore the rule and measure of human acts is reason.

125. Thesis II. The supreme and extrinsic norm and the ultimate rule of morality is the reason of God or the eternal law itself.

It is said to be: 1) the supreme norm, because morality depends more upon that rule than upon the near rule. For an effect depends more upon the first cause than upon the second cause, since the second cause does not act except in the power of the first cause; hence that human reason is the rule of morality, it has from the eternal law. Therefore morality depends more upon the eternal law than upon human reason (q. 19, a. 4);

2. ultimate: namely, the nearer norm is founded ultimately in the remote and fundamental norm or eternal law. Hence human reason is called the near, subordinate, and regulated norm of morality; the eternal law is called the ultimate and supreme and regulating norm (q. 71, a. 6; q. 21, a. 1);

3. it is eternal law, that is, divine reason insofar as it conceives the ordination of all actions and orders them to the ultimate end, the will of God insofar as it necessarily wills this ordination to be observed by man, and the reason of God insofar as it commands this ordination and imposes it upon us.

It is proved: 1) human reason is true or false according as it is conformed to truth or not: for it is cognitive, not productive, of truth.

But the measure of all truth is the reason of God, which is the first truth and productive of every other truth.

Therefore human reason is a true rule according as it is conformed to the reason of God (q. 19, a. 4).

2. In human acts good and evil are said from order to the ultimate end. But the ultimate end is constituted and intended by the author of nature. Therefore the supreme ordination of human acts is from God; and acts are good or evil according to the ordination of God.

3. Hence the third proposition of the Syllabus was condemned: "Human reason, with no regard at all had to God, is the only arbiter of the true and the false, of good and evil."

They object: We do not know the eternal law; therefore it is not a rule. - Resp. It becomes known from creatures and especially from the knowledge of human nature, for all things have from the eternal law that they are ordered and moved to their own end and to the end of the whole universe: "Although the eternal law is unknown to us according as it is in the divine mind, nevertheless it becomes known to us in some way either through natural reason, which is derived from it (and is known to be derived) as its proper image, or through some superadded revelation" (q. 19, a. 4, ad 3).

126. Corollary.

Human reason is the secondary and near, proper or homogeneous, and immanent rule; the eternal law is the primary and supreme, heterogeneous, and transcendent norm (q. 19, a. 4, ad 2; q. 21, a. 1; q. 71, a. 6).