Question I: On the Essence and Species of Morality

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 18, a. 1 and 8.

114. Morality is the attribution of human acts according to which they are called good or evil, that is, fitting or unfitting. Good and evil are attended to in a special way in human acts. For good and evil are said by comparison to the end; therefore where there is specially the notion of end, there there is specially the notion of good. But it belongs to man in a special way to act for the sake of an end, insofar as he freely determines the end for himself. Therefore in the human act, besides the metaphysical goodness of the act, common to all beings insofar as they are, there is given another goodness which consists in this, that man rightly determine an end for himself. And this is moral good, to which moral evil is opposed.

1. Cf. St. Thomas, in II Sent., d. 27, a. 2, ad 2.

115. Morality is a condition of every human act and is customarily defined: the conformity or difformity of a human act with its rule, right reason.

It is proved: good is that which is fitting to a being by comparison to the end, and evil is that which is unfitting; hence good in a human act is that which is fitting to a human act by comparison to the end. That which is fitting to a human act is fitting to the acting man insofar as he is man. That which is fitting to the acting man insofar as he is man is fitting to reason, which is the first principle of human acts and to which it belongs fittingly to order toward the end. Therefore good in a human act is that which is fitting to reason, or which is according to right reason, by comparison to the end; and evil is that which is not fitting to reason, or which is against right reason.

Right reason, however, is nothing other than a participation in the eternal law of God, whose foundation is the absolutely ultimate end. Hence a threefold rule can be distinguished, as it were: the ultimate end, the eternal law, and right reason.

Whence St. Thomas, De Malo, q. 2, a. 4: "Good and evil in acts must be taken according to that which is proper to man insofar as he is man. But this is reason. Hence good and evil in a human act are considered according as the act agrees with reason informed by divine law, either naturally, or through teaching, or through infusion."

116. The Essence of Morality.

Morality does not consist:

a) In the free act or in its freedom, which is attributed to Scotus: for this is a mere aptitude for morality, namely, the matter or foundation and condition of morality, which adds something to this; whence there can be manifold morality in the same act, but only one freedom. Moreover, freedom pertains to the physical being of the act, for even if morality did not exist, the free act would remain.

b) Nor in imputability, as Pufendorf holds: for this is a consequence of morality, since in order that an act be imputed to praise or fault, it is supposed to have been good or evil.

c) Nor is it a mere denomination extrinsic to the act, as Suarez holds, or a relation of reason, as Vasquez holds: for the act by reason of itself is good or evil; and goodness or malice in acts really and properly inheres and exists even if reason does not consider or denominate them. Whence St. Thomas, a. 4, ad 2: "the due proportion to the end and the relation to it inheres in the action."

1. Modern authors from the Society of Jesus unite the first and third opinions, and say that morality is freedom together with a twofold extrinsic denomination. Thus, for example, Frins and Cathrein say that it is the dependence of an act upon a free operating will and upon reason adverting to the honorableness or baseness of the object. Here there are three things: the intrinsic denomination of the voluntary, and a twofold extrinsic denomination: the relation of dependence upon the free will, and the relation of dependence upon reason adverting. Similarly Pesch says that it consists in this, that the will is freely borne toward an object apprehended under the aspect of good or base (Zeitschrift fur K. Th., 1887, p. 867).

d) Nor is it a real relation properly so called, or predicamental: for this is to a term as a pure term, whereas the act is related to the rule as to its perfective principle. Moreover, it does not pertain to the essence of the human act, but is an accident which comes to it, whereas morality is essential to it because it belongs to it by reason of its proper object, from which it has species.

e) But morality is an intrinsic respect or transcendental relation, that is, the intrinsic habitude of the act itself, by which it tends to the object precisely as conforming or difforming with the rules of conduct. This is the opinion of the Thomists.

It is proved: 1) Morality is an order or disposition which deliberate reason makes in voluntary acts. But reason precisely makes in these acts that their intrinsic habitude or physical tendency toward the object be a tendency toward the object as subject to rules. Therefore morality is the respect or intrinsic order which reason makes in human acts and by which they tend toward the object conformably or difformably to their rules.

2. The essence of any act is an intrinsic order to the object. Therefore the moral act essentially is an intrinsic tendency to the moral object. But the object is moral insofar as it is subjected to the rules of conduct. Therefore morality also essentially is the intrinsic tendency of the act to the object as subject to the rules of conduct.

117. Divisions of morality. - Since morality is the habitude of an action to a rule, hence according to a varying habitude to a varying rule, morality is varied:

1. The rule is remote and objective, namely law, whether the eternal law of God or the temporal law or prescribing right human reason; or proximate and subjective, namely the actual conscience of the law and of the conformity or difformity of the act to it. Hence there is distinguished material or objective morality, which is the conformity or difformity of the objective element, that is, of the act considered according to itself, with its objective rule, law, no account being taken of the relation of the agent to the rule, or independently of the practical judgment of the agent; and subjective or formal morality, which is the conformity or difformity of the subjective element, that is, of the act insofar as it proceeds from the agent, and of the one acting himself, with the subjective rule or practical judgment of conscience. One can be without the other, as when someone from invincible ignorance places an evil act which he thinks good, the act will be materially evil but formally good; and conversely. Thus blasphemy uttered by a madman is materially evil; uttered by one in possession of himself, it is also formally evil.

2. The rule is commanding, or approving and counseling, and therefore there is distinguished obligatory morality, when something is prescribed or prohibited, and free morality, when something is only approved and counseled. Evil is always prohibited; but good is not always commanded, but only that which is judged necessary.

3. The rule is necessary and natural, or positive, and therefore there is distinguished intrinsic and necessary morality, arising from the nature of things: this belongs to those things which are good or evil from their own nature, and necessarily commanded or prohibited; and extrinsic morality, arising from the positive free will of the one commanding: this belongs to those things which are good or evil only because commanded or prohibited.

118. Species of morality. - The supreme and fundamental species of morality is twofold: goodness and malice. It is said to be supreme, because there can be many lowest species of morality, which are taken from objects diverse in species, as will be explained below in q. 5.

It is proved: for a human act is either conformed to its rules or difform from them. In the first case it is good: for good and being are convertible, whence something has so much of goodness as it has of being; if therefore an act has the fullness of being due and fitting to it, it is good. But that which is conformed to its rules has everything that it ought to have. Therefore the act conformed to them is good. In the second case it is evil: for that which has something of the fullness of being is according to this a being and good; but insofar as it does not have the whole being which it ought to have, it falls short of goodness and is called evil. But an act which in some way is difform from its rules does not have the whole being which it ought to have. Therefore such an act is evil. Hence the axiom: Good is from an integral cause, evil from any defect whatever.

Accordingly, good is defined as that which agrees with the rule of reason and with rational nature, evil as that which disagrees.

119. Observation.

In the terminology of modern authors, moral act or morality is often taken in a rather different sense. A moral act is opposed to an immoral act, and then it is the same as an honorable act: thus Kant distinguishes moral, immoral, and amoral acts. In St. Thomas, moral act is never said in this sense, nor is the word immoral ever used, but to a moral act is opposed a non-moral act. Likewise morality among moderns is often taken for honesty and is opposed to immorality. But according to the meaning of the word, just as conduct can be good or depraved, so morality is twofold: goodness and malice.

1. Aptly Ballerini, Op. theol. mor. I, n. 135: "Yet these notions (of modern authors) have nothing in common with the first imposition of the name, according to which, just as conduct can be good and depraved, so also a moral act is good or evil, and therefore morality must be called both good and evil. And for this reason one would have to speak of moral acts in the same way as of human acts, namely, that any act is either human or not human, moral or not moral."