Special Moral Theology: On Moral Virtues

1. Matter to be treated. - Moral theology considers the human acts by which man is moved toward God, the supernatural end; it is inscribed by St. Thomas: "concerning the motion of the rational creature toward God." It is, namely, that part of theological science which treats of human acts to be ordered to God as supernatural end according to revealed principles. Hence it treats of our ultimate end, of human acts in order to the end, whether good acts by which we tend toward it, or evil acts, or sins, by which we do not tend toward it, and at the same time of the rules of acts, namely conscience and law, and of their principles, namely habits, that is, virtues and vices. Moreover, it treats of all these first in general, then in species; and therefore it embraces a twofold part, which is usually called general moral theology and special moral theology respectively.

There are, moreover, seven principal virtues to which all others are reduced: three theological and four cardinal. Therefore special moral theology treats of each of these virtues, and of their acts, and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit corresponding to them, and of the sins which are opposed to them, and of the precepts which pertain to all these things.

Whence, after it has been said A. concerning the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity, by which we are ordered to God Himself, the ultimate end, and which therefore are, as it were, principles in supernatural moral life;

now B. it comes to be said concerning the moral virtues, which are concerned with the means to the end, and are reduced to the four cardinal virtues:

a) concerning prudence, with the annexed virtues, which is in practical reason so that it may be well disposed for rightly judging and commanding concerning all human acts as means to the ultimate end;

b) concerning justice, with the annexed virtues, which is in the will, so that man may be rightly disposed for operating in order to another, and indeed operations of every kind;

c) concerning fortitude and temperance, with the virtues annexed to them, which are in the sensitive powers concerning the passions, so that, by impelling the appetite against those passions which draw back from the good, or by drawing it back from those which impel toward evil, man may be well disposed toward himself.

1. I, in the prologue to question 2.

2. The order to be followed in the treatment is the natural order which exists among the cardinal virtues:

1. the first and principal is prudence, because it is in reason, and directive of the others, as rule and measure;

2. the second is justice, because it is in the will, which is nearer to reason and therefore participates reason more, and orders man well not only in himself but also toward another;

3. the third is fortitude, which subjects the appetite to reason concerning the arduous, indeed concerning that which is greatest in man, life and death itself;

4. the fourth is temperance, which subjects the appetite to reason concerning delights, even the greatest, which immediately serve life as to the individual and as to the species.

These virtues are to be considered in turn with their annexed virtues.