Article V: On the Apprehensive Faculty of Morality

135. Thesis. The cognitive faculty of morality is nothing other than the intellect, which under this respect is called practical.

It is proved: A. indirectly, by the exclusion of other opinions. The cognitive faculty of morality is not experience, nor sense, nor instinct, nor subjective affection. Therefore (cf. nn. 136-137).

B. directly: 1) morality is conformity or agreement with the rule of reason and the ultimate end, or difformity or disagreement. But that pertains to the object of reason or intellect. Therefore morality is known by the intellect.

2. Judgment concerning moral things is a certain truth. But truth is the proper object of the intellect. Therefore judgment concerning moral things pertains to the intellect.

It is called practical because as its object it has the proportion of means to the end, and thus is ordered to directing the acts of the will toward the end. But the practical intellect is not diverse from the speculative intellect. A faculty is not diversified by an accidental difference of the object. But the object of the speculative intellect and the object of the practical intellect differ merely accidentally: for it happens to something apprehended by the intellect that it be ordered to work or not ordered to it. Therefore the practical intellect does not differ really from the speculative intellect (I, q. 79, a. 11).

136. Moral Empiricism is opposed to the aforesaid doctrine.

Moral empiricism repeats the cognition of morality solely from experimental observation of utility. All things are changeable; the absolute is a metaphysical illusion; and therefore morality is essentially changeable according to circumstances. Hence the system in fact is reduced to evolutionism, which rests upon impulses had and transmitted from repeated sensible experiences through all generations. In this, reason has only secondary parts: for it follows inclinations and experiences what is, but does not dictate what ought to be. And thus ethics is a descriptive and explanatory science, not a normative one.

Now organic ethics, as it is usually called:

A. As to the foundation, supposes materialism or positivism, and consequently acknowledges only the ethics of utilitarianism or sensualism.

B. As to method, 1) it is incomplete: for determining the rule of conduct, historical and psychological observation of facts and actions is certainly useful, but it does not suffice, because the question is not only what men have done or do, but also and chiefly what it is fitting or necessary to do. To determine this, experience does not suffice, but the exercise of reason itself is required, by which we know the cause and origin of this fittingness or moral obligation;

2. it is maimed: they assert indeed that there is no man who ultimately acts except on account of his own advantage. And yet experience also teaches that there are men who spend themselves and all that is theirs on account of God or neighbor; and that the notion of the honorable and just, at least among many, is distinct from the notion of happiness: for certain acts are held as good, indeed best or heroic, which so far from bringing pleasure cause sadness and detriment; but others are depraved although they procure advantage, as if someone, by using fraud in playing, wins victory for himself and much money.

C. As to the matter: 1) it is insufficient. The value of a necessary principle is not from experience, and instinctive impulses do not constitute the principle of morality. For we must ask whether impulses or organic dispositions are the true manifestation of good, or rather an hallucination. If the first, this will be only because they agree with reason, and thus we return to our criterion. If the second, the universality and persistence of those hallucinations would have to be explained;

2. it is illogical, as opposed to experience: for if moral ideas and inclinations come from heredity, how does ethics give us the faculty, and sometimes the duty, of acting against instincts?

3. it is erroneous: it falsely asserts that duty is a natural or intellectual instinctive necessity; but that obligation arises from an intrinsic sanction, for example harmful effects, and an extrinsic sanction, or fear of punishments, which is threefold: social, by which the stronger impose their will; civil, by which the prince necessary to social order is feared; religious, by which the souls of the dead, especially of the prince, are feared. Now:

a) that is not the notion which we have of duty or obligation;

b) many do not perceive these moral sanctions; but those who know them could say that they yield to force, not however that they acknowledge obligation;

c) such obligation does not have force and efficacy in conscience, but rather is the destruction than the explanation of moral obligation: for it would be nothing except an action extorted by fear alone.

4. Hence the system is not founded upon positive experience, but is constituted rather from a series of hypotheses.

137. Moral Intuitionism is also opposed.

By this general name are designated all who agree in this, that good and evil are immediately affirmed from a certain intuition of some faculty, as the Nativists and Innatists hold in psychology; or who assert that morality is known by instinct or by a special sense, by which man spontaneously affirms good and evil without the induction of experience and without the deduction of reason.

A. Some say that it is known by a physical or bodily sense, such as the Sensists and Phrenologists, who admit nothing except sensitive cognition. Against this:

1. The assertion rests upon a false foundation; it supposes materialism and a false system concerning the criterion of truth.

2. In the sensist system, no freedom remains, which supposes the indifference of judgment, which cannot be given without intelligence. Hence it destroys morality in its principle.

3. Universals, abstract and immutable things, such as the moral norm, are not known by sense, which essentially is changeable and varies according to circumstances and subjective dispositions. Therefore it destroys morality in its essence.

4. The moral rule orders human acts. To order pertains to the intellect. Therefore the cognition of morality pertains to the intellect.

5. Sense experiences nothing from objects except pleasure and pain; therefore logically sensism must lead to hedonism or sensualism.

1. Cf. Roselli, Ethica, q. 3, a. 2.

B. Others say it is known by a certain spiritual sense of intuition or by an instinctive sense, which differs from the intellect and corresponds to a blind instinct by which we immediately know first principles, both speculative and practical. This sense is of the affective order and consists in a certain internal affection or sympathy or taste. Thus the Scotist school, the Sentimentalists, and many more recent authors, who all in fact are altruists. This system:

1. For the most part is founded upon a false criteriological system.

2. Is inadequate. It denies the rational element and attributes the first parts to the affective element, which is only secondary. Reason, namely, according to them, only observes, it does not dictate; and social utility must be embraced not because it is conformable to reason, but because affection and instinct incline to it. On the contrary, affection is nothing except a prelude or resonance of the judgment of reason, which is the norm of morality.

3. It does not furnish a certain criterion, but a fallacious one. For we are not always affected with sympathy toward moral good, nor always with antipathy toward evil; but other non-moral causes also, such as talents, qualities, a happy outcome, fruition, joy, can excite the same affections.

4. It does not furnish a universal criterion: for the multitude and society toward which we are bound to be affected with sympathy is subject to change; but what if men toward whom we are sympathetically affected incline to diverse things?

5. It does not furnish an objective criterion, but a subjective one: sympathy and antipathy are changed according to circumstances and persons.

6. It does not furnish an ultimate criterion: for sympathies and antipathies themselves are good or evil. Why, unless because they are conformable or difform to reason?

7. Just as human reason reasons concerning speculative truth, so also concerning practical truth. But it is absolutely repugnant that the first principles of speculative reason be admitted by a blind instinct and without evidence. Therefore the same is repugnant also for the first principles of practical reason, in practical or moral matters.

8. There are other instincts and intuitions, namely egoistic ones. But why must we pursue sympathetic inclinations, not egoistic ones? Either because they are conformable to reason; or because they are a fact of evolution. In this last case it does not follow that they are legitimate and good. And moreover persons of an egoistic character can provoke antipathy.

The moral sense cannot be distinguished from other experiences unless there is first a certain notion of morality; that is, unless reason has investigated the idea and value of morality, and distinguished it from merely sensitive, aesthetic, or social impressions.

They object: the spontaneity and universality and persistence of moral conscience among all men and through all times, which cannot be explained except by instinct and a special sense; and this is the only argument which they bring forward. Resp.: this proves a constant and native disposition for knowing the first moral principles, namely synderesis or the habit of first practical principles, just as there is the habit of intellect for first speculative principles; but it does not prove a blind instinct or a special sense. It is useless, namely, to recur to a distinct special faculty, because practical reason informed by synderesis is able to explain this, and it itself is not a faculty distinct from speculative reason.

C. Others who profess transcendental objectivism, or the transcendental or absolute idealism arising from it, recur to a blind instinct of the intellect itself, by which abstract and universal truths are admitted in such a way that their value is not demonstrated, because it cannot be demonstrated that they correspond to reality. Thus Kant and after him those who, relying on his principles, fell into pantheism, such as Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Against this:

a) As to the foundation, this is a false criteriological system, or even pantheistic monism, in which case morality will be impersonal and supra-individual.

b) As to method, 1) this is incomplete: for although reason is chiefly necessary for defining what we ought to do, nevertheless historical and psychological observation of human nature must be added, to which the rules of morality must be adapted;

2. therefore it is not accommodated to human nature: thus if an act elicited with hope of reward or fear of punishment is said not to be good, since historically and psychologically it is established that men without respect to beatitude or fear of punishment do not do good, it follows that such a method and norm is not proportioned to human powers;

3. it rests upon blind faith: for if speculative reason is incapable of certainly knowing speculative truths, why will practical reason be more certain concerning the existence of obligation?

c) As to the thing itself, regarding the Kantian system enough has been said in n. 133. Regarding pantheistic systems:

1. in fact moral conscience attributes value to acts which tend solely to the perfection of the individual; in the individual man also there is the exigency of morality;

2. indeed, if it does not exist there, there will no longer be any exigency of morality: for obligation toward others exists so that they can be perfected.