§ II. On Desire and Joy

I. Notion and Division. Desire is distinguished into simple desire and purpose. Simple desire is an act by which the will is indeed borne toward carrying out a work, but which nevertheless does not reach the purpose of carrying that work out. Purpose is an act by which the will proposes to carry out a work. It is distinguished into absolute and conditional, according as someone resolves to commit an act absolutely or conditionally.

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

II. Morality. 1. Simple desire, absolute purpose, 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 with respect to the future, joy with respect to the past. But an affection of this kind is manifestly evil, and indeed gravely or lightly evil, according as the act is gravely or lightly evil. Add these words of Sacred Scripture: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife."¹

2. Simple desire, absolute purpose, and joy take their 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 an act according as it is or was in reality, 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 fornication.

b) From circumstances of the subject, as was said concerning morose delectation.

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

The foregoing points, moreover, hold even if desire or joy regards an act that is only materially evil. Hence proposition 14 was deservedly proscribed by Innocent XI: "It is licit for a son to rejoice over the parricide of his parent, perpetrated by himself in drunkenness, on account of the immense riches obtained from the inheritance thereby"² (St. Alphonsus, V, 20). It is licit, however, to rejoice that the materially evil act happened as materially 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 rather to involve morose delectation than joy properly so called; indeed sometimes delectation concerning only the manner of the evil work. Hence to this boasting are to be applied the things which we have said concerning morose delectation, whether of the work or only of the manner (St. Alphonsus, V, 26).

3. Conditional purpose concerning an act which, apart from the condition, would be wicked:

a) It is evil if the condition does not remove the malice of the object; this has place 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) It is not evil, at least not gravely, if the condition removes the malice of the object. "And this can occur, not only in things forbidden by positive law (as if you were to say: I would eat meats in Lent unless the Church forbade it), but also in things forbidden by natural law, in the case in which the object could be licit (namely by saying: If God permitted it, I would wish to take that thing of Titius; if I were not a priest, I would marry; and similar things)... We said: at least not gravely; for ordinarily desires of this kind are not excused from venial sin, since commonly they are dangerous or at least idle" (St. Alphonsus, cited place).

c) What if someone were to say that he would do something which is intrinsically evil, adding the condition: if it were licit; for instance, if you were to say: "if it were not a sin, I would wish to blaspheme, perjure myself, commit adultery, fornicate, take revenge, and similar things" (St. Alphonsus, cited place). Now most authors charge the one who speaks thus with sin, because the condition is impossible and therefore cannot remove the malice of the object. Be it so; but one rightly doubts whether in the case there is a 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 licit, it never efficaciously consents to it; for when you wish for that object by saying if it were licit, and you know that it is not and cannot be licit, you do not truly wish, but only show your propensity. It would be different, however, if you wished that that evil object were not prohibited; because it is evil in itself to will that the order and law of nature be overturned" (St. Alphonsus, cited place). So also Cajetan,³ the Salmanticenses,⁴ and Suarez.⁵

¹ Exod. 20:17.

² Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1165.

³ Cajetan, In I-II, q. 13, a. 5.

⁴ Salmanticenses, tract. 20, De principiis moralitatis, c. 13, n. 62.

⁵ Suarez, De legibus, bk. 3, c. 13, n. 10.

Corollary I. It is licit to rejoice and to take delight in a good effect, for example, in a temptation quieted through pollution, in offspring conceived from fornicatory intercourse, etc. The reason is that the object of the delectation is good. Nevertheless "delectations of this kind are sometimes not without danger" (St. Alphonsus, V, 20), because there is an easy transition to delectation concerning the wicked act itself which was the cause of the effect.

Likewise, once an evil act is supposed, it is licit to desire its good effect, for instance that someone, if he sins again, may be punished and amended. But it is not licit to desire that someone sin again, even for this end, that he may be punished and come to his senses.

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

Corollary II. It is licit, for an honorable end, to rejoice over merely natural pollution and to wish for it, because it is not a sin, not even materially (St. Thomas, In IV Sent., dist. 9, q. 1, a. 4, sol. 1, ad 5; St. Alphonsus, cited place; n. 65). The contrary must be said of another pollution, even if it was only a material sin (St. Alphonsus, cited place).

In what respect it is licit to rejoice over a temporal evil of one's neighbor or to wish for it is explained in the treatise on the cultivation of charity.