Question IV: On the Specific Distinction Between a Good and an Evil Act

¶2.

That good and evil in the physical order do not constitute a specific difference is manifest: thus a good and bad garment, a healthy and sick man, are not species of garment or of man. Hence it is asked whether in human acts goodness and malice also are a mere accidental difference, or on the contrary differ per se and essentially, and consequently according to species. Concerning this one must hold what St. Thomas first of all taught.

144. Thesis. Human acts differ in moral species according to a good or evil object. - It is proved:

a) From the fact that a human act is rational. An act has species from the object. But an act is human and moral insofar as it proceeds from deliberating reason. Therefore it has species from the object considered as it is set before reason, or by comparison to reason. But good and evil in the object differ precisely and per se insofar as they are compared to reason, insofar as the object agrees with it or is repugnant to it. Therefore a good and evil object make human acts differ in species (a. 5).

Let it be noted that specific distinction does not arise from differences per accidens, but from a per se difference in the object according as it is compared per se to the principle of action. "Nothing," says St. Thomas, "which is per accidens constitutes species, but only what is per se." Thus to know color and sound are acts specifically diverse according to sense, because they differ per se by comparison to sense; not so according to intellect, which attains them under one notion of object, namely being and true. Likewise to sense white and black differ in species according to sight, because they differ under the notion of color, not according to taste. But human and moral acts are such according as they are from reason; and good and evil differ per se by comparison to reason. "Whence it is manifest that good and evil diversify species in moral acts" (a. 5). Cf. De Malo, q. 2, a. 4.

b) From the fact that a human act is voluntary. An act has species from the object. But an act is human and moral insofar as it is voluntary. Therefore it has species from the object by comparison to the will. But the object of the will is the good or the end. Therefore a human act has species from comparison to the end. But good and evil are said per se according to relation to the end: good insofar as it expresses order to the end, evil insofar as it deprives this order. Therefore in human acts good and evil differ in species (II Sent., d. 40, a. 1, ad 2; De Malo, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; q. 2, a. 4, ad 10).

145. Is indifference a third species of morality? - Resp.: 1) It is certain that not all human acts are good or evil of themselves according to species, but some are indifferent. For an act has species from the object, and a human act from the object compared to reason, from which the act proceeds. Therefore if the object of itself agrees with the order of reason, the act will be good according to species, for example, to give alms; if it includes repugnance to reason, it will be evil according to species, for example, to steal. But there are objects which express nothing that pertains to the order of reason, for example, to walk, to lift a straw from the ground, to give money, etc., and then the act will be indifferent according to species.

Acts indifferent from their own nature do not seem to be moral. For indifference, which is midway between goodness and malice, because it is neither conformity nor difformity to the rule, is not a species of morality but the negation of it. For morality expresses a respect to the rule; but the indifferent does not express respect to the rule: for it is that about which the rule does not care, and it is the same as if the rule did not exist. In other words, morality is said in order to reason, to which it has conformity or repugnance; but the indifferent expresses nothing which pertains to the order of reason; therefore indifference exists outside morality (a. 8).

There are nevertheless some who say that it is an incomplete species of morality.

Among indifferent acts some are called well- or ill-sounding, whose object, although it is neither good nor evil, nevertheless inclines more toward goodness, and these acts very often have formal goodness, such as to go to church, to visit the poor, to give money, etc.; or on the contrary toward malice, and then it rather often has an attached injustice, such as to take another's thing, to place a cause from which someone's death can also follow, to use amphibological speech or restriction, etc.; and therefore the act cannot be placed unless a reason is present which renders it honorable, for example, in a case of necessity.

146. Observation.

In order that goodness, of the object or of a circumstance, be contracted, it is required that it be intended in itself and for its own sake; but in order that malice be contracted, it is enough that it be foreseen and indirectly voluntary. For right reason dictates that good is to be pursued and loved in itself because it is worthy to be desired for its own sake; consequently, one who does not intend good in itself does not will it well and rightly and laudably, and as it deserves to be intended. Therefore it is required that the good be the end intended by the agent, or the motive by which he is moved to placing the act; or, as St. Thomas says, q. 19, a. 7, ad 3: "in order that the will be good, it is required that it be of the good under the notion of good, that is, that it will the good and on account of the good." Therefore no one is praised because he visited the sick only for the sake of conversation, or fasted in order to spare money, because the honesty of mercy or of fasting is not formally intended.

Nevertheless one need not explicitly intend that honesty or conformity with the rule as such, but implicitly suffices, by willing the act under some honorable reason, for example, alms because it relieves the poor. On the contrary, evil must not only not be loved, but must be guarded against and avoided, even when it is not intended; and this is not done by him who foresees and does not prevent it.

Hence, in order that an act be good, it must be good from an integral cause and from every part, namely, both of object, of end, and of circumstances; but in order that an act be evil, a defect is enough either on the part of the object, or on the part of circumstances or end.