Article III: On the Objective Foundation of Morality

It is necessary to ask not only about the subjective criterion of morality, or about the norm by which it is discerned, but also about the objective criterion and foundation of the intrinsic distinction between good and evil, or about the ontological principle from which the rule of morality has its origin and force, and upon which right reason rests in order to judge what is good or evil.

127. Thesis. The proximate objective foundation of morality, or of the rule of reason, is human nature with its end and essential relations; the ultimate foundation, or that of the eternal law, is the divine essence itself.

Many more recent authors say that rational human nature itself as such in itself is the proximate norm of morality; or even human nature considered completely with all its essential relations, namely, as rational (and not only sensitive), as social, and as created; indeed some add that it is the fundamental norm or foundation of the eternal law itself and of the will of God. But all these confuse the norm with its objective foundation. On the contrary, others deny that morality depends upon the ultimate end to which human nature nevertheless is ordered, or even upon the essential order of things. But one must say:

1. Thus Vasquez, Suarez, Lessius, Laymann, Lugo, Frins, Schiffini, Costa Rosetti, De Bie, Elter. Liberatore says: the norm is the essential order of things. Tanquerey, who used to say that the norm is reason, in the latest editions unhappily changed his opinion, and now establishes the norm to be human nature. On the contrary, Cathrein, who had formerly taught that it is human nature, later said that it is reason, but under the name of reason he understood conscience. Fr. Lehu in the work Philosophia moralis et socialis treats the whole question excellently; likewise very recently in the writing La raison regle de moralite d'apres S. Thomas.

1. Thus Vasquez and Frins.

2. Suarez, Frins, Cathrein.

3. Cathrein.

1. Rational human nature as such, or even considered completely with its relations, is not the formal rule and measure or criterion which distinguishes morality (and even if someone wished to call it a rule, at least it would not be the proximate rule), but the objective foundation according to which reason discerns what is good or evil: for from this the object or act is discerned as good or evil, because it has a relation of agreement or disagreement with rational nature. Hence the near norm and subjective criterion of morality is only the practical judgment of reason.

And therefore St. Thomas distinguishes between physical good and moral good, between works of nature and works of the will, and says that nature is the rule of natural works, reason the rule of acts of the will.

4. I-II, q. 21, a. 1; q. 77, a. 3; Q. D. De Malo 2, a. 4.

For reason is right from conformity to the eternal law. The eternal law becomes known from creatures, and especially from human nature. Therefore human nature stands as a medium between the eternal law and reason, and in this sense it is said to be, but it is not, a rule, except fundamentally, that is, the foundation of the rule of reason.

2. Consequently also the ultimate end of man, to which rational nature itself is naturally ordered, and the essential order of things or objective order arising from the necessary relations of the human agent to various beings, for the same reason can be called the objective foundation of morality. They are the rule fundamentally, or the foundation of the rule of reason.

5. I-II, q. 21, a. 2, ad 2; q. 77, a. 8; q. 109, a. 8; Q. D. De Pot. 3, a. 6, ad 12.

3. Yet human nature and the essential order of things are not the fundamental rule nor the foundation of the supreme rule and of the eternal law, because before the idea of God and independently of it, created essences and the order among them are altogether nothing and have no being, neither real nor ideal; hence the foundation of the eternal law, as of all things, is the essence of God alone, which is the absolutely ultimate end.

128. Observation.

Let no difficulty arise from the fact that we define good and evil according to conformity or difformity, whether to rational nature, or to reason, or to the ultimate end: for all these things come back to the same thing. For good is that which agrees with some nature; rational nature is constituted by reason; nature also is the principle of operation tending to its proper end. Therefore it is the same to say: moral good agrees with rational nature, or with reason, or with the ultimate end of human nature.