II. On Desire and Joy

I. Notion and division. Desire is distinguished into simple desire and proposal. Simple desire is the act by which the will is indeed borne toward a work to be executed, but which nevertheless does not reach a proposal of executing that work. Proposal is the act by which the will proposes to execute the work. It is distinguished into absolute and conditioned, according as someone resolves absolutely or conditionally to commit the act.

Joy here is understood as deliberate complacency concerning an act committed. Joy expressed in words is called boasting.

II. Morality.

1. Simple desire, proposal, and joy concerning an evil act are evil, and indeed gravely or lightly evil according as the act is gravely or lightly evil. For they involve an affection of the will toward an evil act which they embrace: desire toward the future, joy toward the past. But an affection of this sort is manifestly evil, and indeed gravely or lightly evil according as the act is gravely or lightly evil. Add these words of Sacred Scripture: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife."¹

¹ Exod. 20:17.

2. Simple desire, proposal, and joy take species both from the object considered according to its lowest species, and from the circumstances both of the subject and of the object. The reason is that they tend toward the act as it is or was on the part of the thing, with all its circumstances. It is said:

a. From the object considered according to its lowest species. Hence one who proposes to himself to commit, for example, pollution or fornication, contracts the guilt of pollution or of fornication.

b. From the circumstances of the subject, as was said about morose pleasure (n. 120).

c. From the circumstances of the object. Hence one who takes up the proposal of sinning with a married person, a blood-relative, etc., becomes guilty of adultery or incest.

The aforesaid things hold even if the desire or joy regards an act materially only evil. Hence proposition 14 was deservedly proscribed by Innocent XI: "It is lawful for a son to rejoice over the parricide of his parent, perpetrated by himself in drunkenness, on account of the enormous riches thereafter obtained by inheritance" (St. Alphonsus V, 20). It is lawful, however, to rejoice that an act materially evil happened rather than formally evil.

Note. Boasting about a sin truly committed commonly carries with it joy properly so called concerning the sin. But boasting about a fictitious sin seems to involve rather morose pleasure than joy properly so called; indeed sometimes it involves pleasure only concerning the manner of the depraved work. Hence to this boasting let those things be applied which we said about morose pleasure either concerning the work or concerning the manner alone (St. Alphonsus V, 26).

3. A conditioned proposal concerning an act which, with the condition set aside, would be depraved:

a. Is evil, if the condition does not remove the malice of the object; this occurs if the condition does not regard the malice of the act, as if someone were to say: I would steal, if there were no hell; I would kill my enemy, if I had a sword; I would fornicate, if I were not a religious, etc. (St. Alphonsus V, 13).

b. Is not evil, at least gravely, if the condition removes the malice of the object. "And this can happen not only in things forbidden by positive law, as if you were to say: I would eat meat in Lent unless the Church forbade it, but also in things forbidden by natural law, in a case in which the object could be lawful, namely by saying: If God permitted it, I would want to carry off that thing of Titius; if I were not a priest, I would marry; and similar things. We said: at least gravely; for ordinarily desires of this sort are not excused from venial sin, since commonly they are dangerous or at least idle" (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).

c. What if someone were to say that he would do something which is intrinsically evil, by adding the condition: if it were lawful; for example, if you were to say: "If it were not a sin, I would want to blaspheme, perjure myself, commit adultery, fornicate, avenge myself, and similar things" (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.). Now most authors accuse him who speaks thus of sin, because the condition is impossible and therefore cannot remove the malice of the object. Granted; but deservedly it is doubted whether in the case there is true desire, or, to use the words of St. Alphonsus, "it is said with sufficient probability that when the will desires some impossible evil object under the condition if it were lawful, it never effectively consents to it; for when you choose that object by saying if it were lawful, and you know that it is not and cannot be lawful, you do not truly choose it, but only show your inclination. But it would be otherwise if you were to choose that evil object not to be prohibited, because to will the order and law of nature to be inverted is evil of itself" (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.). So also Cajetan,¹ the Salmanticenses,² and Suarez.³

¹ In I-II, q. 13, a. 5.

² Tractatus 20, De principiis moralibus, c. 13, n. 62.

³ De legibus, l. 3, c. 13, n. 10.

Corollary I. It is lawful to rejoice and to be delighted concerning a good effect, for example concerning a temptation quieted through pollution, or concerning offspring conceived from fornicatory intercourse, etc. The reason is that the object of the pleasure is good. Nevertheless, "pleasures of this sort sometimes are not without danger" (St. Alphonsus V, 20), because the transition is easy to pleasure concerning the depraved act itself, which was the cause of the effect. Likewise, once an evil act is supposed, it is lawful to desire its good effect, for example that someone, if he sins again, be punished and amended. But it is not lawful to desire that someone sin again, even for the end that he be punished and come to his senses.

It is disputed whether it is lawful to rejoice and to be delighted concerning an evil act, for example concerning fornication, insofar as, not because, it was the cause of a good effect. With St. Alphonsus (V, 20), against many, it seems that this must be denied, because that thing, insofar as it was the cause of a good effect, or as the cause of a good effect, is not really distinguished from the evil act, so that joy concerning such an act as the cause of the effect in reality embraces the evil act itself, and therefore from an evil object becomes evil.

Corollary II. It is lawful, for an honorable end, to rejoice concerning merely natural pollution, because it is not a sin, not even a material one (St. Thomas, In IV Sent., dist. 9, q. 1, a. 4, sol. 1, ad 5; St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.; n. 65). Otherwise one must speak of another pollution, even if it was only a material sin (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).