Morality as relation to the rule of conduct

By performing good actions a man becomes a good man morally, and he is a bad man morally if he performs bad actions. Actions are called good or bad morally with reference to the norm or rule of human conduct. So that the morality of an action is its relation to the rule of human conduct. It will be a morally good action if it be conformed to the rule of conduct; otherwise it will be a morally bad action. As men have differed, and do differ, widely in their views as to the meaning of human life and as to man’s destiny, they naturally have differed, and do differ, widely in deciding what is the rule of human conduct. The rule in different systems will be progress, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or pleasure, or the categorical imperative of the individual reason. Even among Catholic philosophers and divines there is some difference of opinion as to what constitutes the fundamental norm of morality. Practically the different opinions come to much the same, especially as there is greater agreement among Catholics as to what are the formal and proximate rules of morality. The teaching of St Thomas and many others seems to be that the fundamental norm of morality is rational human nature as such. Good in general is that which is conformable to the being whose good it is; and so morally good actions will be such as are conformable to the rational nature of man considered in itself and in all its relations.. Man’s intellect can know man himself, the existence of God and our relation to him, our relations to other human beings, and to the world round about us; knowing these things, our reason can tell us what actions are becoming and what unbecoming to such a nature. Moreover, reason tells us that although we have the physical liberty to do wrong, we are nevertheless under a moral obligation to abstain from it. Our most wise, and good, and provident Creator, who has given us our nature and placed us in the position which we hold, cannot be indifferent as to the manner in which we conduct ourselves. The still, small voice of conscience is there to tell us what is right, in the name of God whose herald it is, to approve of what we do well, to condemn what we do ill. The fundamental norm of right conduct, then, is man’s moral nature, morally right conduct is conduct in conformity with man’s nature in itself and in all its relations. This constitutes right order in the moral world, which God the Creator and provident Ruler of the universe cannot but will us to observe, and this divine Will or Reason bidding us to observe right order and prohibiting its violation is the eternal law of God, the formal objective rule of morality. Human reason, applied to conduct, or conscience, is the formal subjective rule which makes known to us and applies the objective rule¹

¹ V. Frins, De Act. Hum. 2, n. 65. 2, n. 65.

The morality of a human act belongs to it inasmuch as it issues freely from the will with knowledge of its moral quality. Because it is the free product of the human will, a human or a moral act makes a man culpable or praiseworthy. Now the will alone is free, and so morality belongs properly to the internal act of the will. In a perfect human action, indeed, the external act must follow, if it is in the agent’s power, in order to the completeness and perfection of the internal act; otherwise there will be no perfect and efficacious will, But the external act, which is called free only with reference to the will from which it proceeds, cannot have any separate morality of its own, nor of itself can it add to the morality of the internal act. In a complete human act, therefore, consisting of an internal and external action, morality is formally in the internal act alone. Accidentally, on account of longer duration, or repetition, or greater intensity which the external act causes, it may add something to the goodness or malice of the internal act, but not in and by itself. A man is good or bad as his will is good or bad.

From this it must not be concluded that an external sin is the same as an internal sin; that if a man has committed fornication, it is sufficient to confess the desire and intention to do so; the malice of the internal and external acts are the same substantially, but an internal act is different from an external act; and so the sins also differ, for sin is a bad human act.

Habits and Morality.—The importance of habits in man’s moral life is very great. (a) Habits are an index to a man’s past career, for the ease and facility he now possesses through them is the result of many struggles and efforts and difficulties overcome, or of defeats and surrenders and neglected opportunities. (b) Habits constitute a man’s moral character. Morally, a person is the sum of his moral habits and dispositions grouped around the central interest or idea of his life. He who would know himself, therefore, cannot do better than to examine what are his habits, and which is the predominant one among them. (e) Habits are a prophecy of the future. Habits are not irresistible and do not destroy freedom, but they produce such ease and readiness for acting in one particular way that the probabilities are, when habits are strong, that a person will continue to follow them in the future as he has done in the past, thus progressing or deteriorating, as the case may be.

Duties as regards Habits.—(a) Bad habits should be avoided and those that have been formed should be destroyed (see 138). The means to accomplish these victories are divine help obtained through prayer and the other instrumentalities of grace, watchfulness through self-examination, and the cultivation of a spirit of self-denial, as well as attack made on the habit that is forming or already formed (see 255 sqq.)

(b) Good habits should be acquired, and those already possessed should be exercised and put to the best advantage. The means to this end, in addition to those that are supernatural, are especially a realization of the importance of good habits, a great desire to have them, and constant and regular effort to practise them (see 137).

23. Likewise the proximate and formal rule, namely law, also embraces all human acts: since it commands some and prohibits others; but those which it neither commands nor prohibits, but permits either positively or negatively, are to be performed, by that same commanding law, in such a way that they are not repugnant to the order and rectitude of reason; and thus acts of this sort are by that very fact morally good, since if in performing them the order of reason is observed, they are already fitting to reason and morally good and honorable.

24. If the fundamental rule is compared with the proximate objective and subjective rule, it is clear that in truth the end, by the very fact that it is the foundation of the morality or rectitude of the act ordered and directed to it, is not properly a rule, but is merely the end or term of that act, whose order to the aforesaid end or term ought to be measured according to some rule, which indeed is law and human reason; and if law is compared to human reason, the former is the remote rule, the latter the proximate rule. “It must be said,” says St. Thomas, q. 21. a. 1, “that evil is broader than sin, just as good is broader than right. For any privation of good in anything whatever constitutes the character of evil; but sin properly consists in an act which is done for some end, when it does not have the due order to that end. But due order is measured according to some rule, which rule, indeed, in those things which act according to nature, is the very power of nature, which inclines to such an end. Therefore, when an act proceeds from natural power according to a natural inclination to the end, then rectitude is preserved in the act, because the mean does not depart from the extremes, namely the act from the order of the active principle to the end; but when some act recedes from such rectitude, then the account of sin enters in. But in those things which are done through the will, the proximate rule is human reason, while the supreme rule is the eternal law. Therefore whenever the act of man proceeds to the end according to the order of reason and of the eternal law, then the act is right; but when it is bent away from this rectitude, then it is called sin. But it is manifest that every voluntary act is evil by this, that it recedes from the order of reason and of the eternal law. Whence it follows that a human act, from the fact that it is good or evil, has the character either of rectitude or of sin.... It must be said that the end is twofold, namely ultimate and proximate. But in a sin of nature an act indeed falls short of the ultimate end, which is the perfection of the generated thing; but it does not fall short of every proximate end, for nature works by forming something. Similarly, in a sin of the will there is always a defect from the ultimate intended end, because no evil act of the will is orderable to beatitude, which is the ultimate end, although it does not fall short of some proximate end which the will intends and attains. Whence, even when the very intention of this end is ordered to the ultimate end, in the very intention of an end of this sort the account of rectitude and sin can be found.”

5. Moreover an order of reason of this sort is the order of the eternal law, and the order of human acts to the end. And thus a human act, good or evil, has the character of rectitude and of sin according to this order to the law and to the end. “Therefore whenever the act of man proceeds to the end according to the order of reason and of the eternal law, then the act is right; but when it is bent away from this rectitude, then it is called sin. But it is manifest from the premises, q. 19. a. 3 and 4, that every voluntary act is evil by this, that it recedes from the order of reason and of the eternal law, and every good act accords with reason and the eternal law. Whence it follows that a human act, from the fact that it is good or evil, has the character of rectitude or of sin.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 21. a. 1. Therefore evil is more common than sin, good more common than right.

7. From all things said thus far it is also clear that the moral good is the same in reality as the honorable. For the moral good is what is according to the order of reason; and the honorable is said to be what fits man insofar as he is man, and what is sought for its own sake by a rational appetite. St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 145. a. 3 ad 1. Nevertheless they differ in reason. For something is called honorable insofar as it has a certain comeliness from fittingness with rational nature and from the ordering of reason. St. Thomas, in the cited place, a. 3. For honorableness is said as though “a state of honor.” Whence from this something is called honorable, because it is worthy of honor. Honor is owed to excellence. But the excellence of man according to virtue is a certain disposition of someone holding himself fittingly according to the mode of his nature, or a disposition of the perfect toward the best. St. Thomas, in the cited place, a. 1, and 1. 2. q. 71. a. 1. Moreover both clarity and due proportion concur in the account of comeliness or beauty. Whence the beauty of the body consists in this, that man has the members of the body well proportioned, with a certain due clarity of color. And similarly spiritual beauty consists in this, that the conduct of a man, or his action, is well proportioned according to the spiritual clarity of reason. And this renders man worthy of honor. St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 145. a. 2. But glory is the effect of honor. For from this, that someone is honored or praised, he is rendered clear in the eyes of others. And therefore, just as the honorable and the glorious are the same, so also the honorable and the comely are the same. St. Thomas, in the cited place, a. 2 ad 2.

8. As the moral good is the same in reality as the honorable, although distinguished in reason, so the moral good and the honorable are the same in reality as the pleasurable and the useful, although they are distinguished in reason. For that which is morally good and honorable, or ordered according to reason, is naturally fitting to man. But each thing is naturally delighted in what is fitting to itself. And therefore the honorable is naturally pleasurable to man. Nevertheless not every pleasurable thing is honorable, because something can also be fitting according to sense, and not according to reason. But this pleasurable thing is beyond man’s reason, which perfects his nature. Moreover even virtue itself, which according to itself is honorable, is referred to something else as to an end, namely to happiness. “And according to this the honorable and the useful and the pleasurable are the same in subject. But they differ in reason; for something is called honorable according as it has a certain excellence, worthy of honor because of spiritual beauty; pleasurable insofar as it quiets the appetite; and useful insofar as it is referred to another. Nevertheless the pleasurable is broader than the useful and the honorable, because every useful and honorable thing is in some way pleasurable, but not conversely.” St. Thomas, in the cited place, a. 3. But nothing “can be simply and truly useful which is repugnant to honorableness, because it must be repugnant to man’s ultimate end, which is good according to reason, although perhaps it can be useful in a certain respect, with respect to some particular end.” St. Thomas, in the cited place, ad 3. Whence it is clear that, as not every pleasurable thing reaches the account of the honorable, so also not every useful thing reaches the account of the honorable, but only that which is pleasurable and useful according to reason.

9. Therefore the moral good is always an honorable good. For moral good is good according to reason, and honorable good is nothing other than good fitting to rational nature, and therefore according to reason. But the moral good is not always a useful good and a pleasurable good, but only when they observe the right norm of reason.

123. 1. Notion. Besides temperament and education, natural habits influence liberty; for since they are acquired by repeated acts, they increase the inclination to performing similar acts. - Here we treat only of natural habits, which are acquired by repeated acts, and not of supernatural habits, which are divinely infused; and indeed insofar as they affect a free act.

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 49-54; Suarez, Disput. metaphysicae, disp. XLIV; Meyer, t. I, n. 130-139; Bouquillon, n. 338; Vieux Moraliste, apud Ami du Clergé, XXI, 1899, p. 529-593, 673 sq.; Rabier, Psychologie, p. 571-587; F. Ravaisson, De l'habitude (thesis), Paris, 1838.

In this sense, habit is defined as a constant inclination acquired by repeated acts for producing similar acts. Already by the first act a certain initial facility is acquired for repeating the same; but when the same acts are often repeated, at a short interval, with attention and with a propension of the will, especially if it is a question of a delightful thing, soon a vehement inclination is formed and rooted; and this not rarely is acquired and strengthened much more easily by the law of ancestral heredity, concerning which above. This inclination is added to various faculties, and therefore can affect not only the sensitive appetite, but also the intellect and the will.

In moral matters one must carefully distinguish between voluntary and involuntary habit. (a) When a habit has been knowingly and freely acquired and has not been efficaciously retracted,¹ it can be called actually voluntary; indeed, if it had been acquired inadvertently, it becomes actually voluntary when it has not been retracted after the agent became conscious of this habit. (b) When an inclination was acquired inadvertently and retracted as soon as the operator was conscious of it, it must be called altogether involuntary. (c) If it was acquired or retained advertently, but afterward efficaciously retracted, it is called antecedently voluntary and actually involuntary, nor is it morally imputed to the agent.

¹ It is efficaciously retracted when means apt for overcoming the custom are applied, even if it is not immediately conquered.

124. 2. Concerning the influence of habits on liberty. (A) What is done from a voluntary habit, not yet retracted, is free and imputable: in itself indeed, if the habit is actually voluntary; in the cause, if it is antecedently voluntary.

(a) For he who actually wills to retain a habit of which he is conscious by that very fact freely wills frequently to elicit the acts which he foresees will naturally follow from that habit; otherwise he would retract the habit.

(b) But if he does not actually will positively to retain the habit, but formerly freely acquired it, without ever having retracted it, the acts which proceed from the habit can be called voluntary in the cause, insofar as the agent, by freely acquiring the inclination, by that very fact freely willed the effects which he foresaw would follow from it. But, as we noted above, n. 97, the free in the cause is less imputable than the free in act.

(c) Indeed, a habit actually willed increases the voluntary, and consequently merit or demerit; for he who is conscious of some habit, good or evil, and positively wills to retain it, by that very fact shows how vehemently he intends the acts proceeding from the habit; for knowing that they arise from the habit frequently and intensively, he nevertheless wills to retain the habit, and therefore intends this frequency and intensity.

125. (B) What is done from an involuntary or efficaciously retracted habit is less free and imputable.

For, on the one hand, the habit itself is not voluntary, and on the other hand, it so impedes the deliberation of reason and allures the will that it weakens its powers and greatly diminishes liberty. - Indeed, sometimes the habit is so vehement that, when it bursts forth into act, it anticipates the judgment of reason and free consent, especially if it affects the executive powers, as is evident in the example of those who utter blasphemous formulas without any deliberation. Not rarely also custom has sent down the deepest roots, so that, even if it does not wholly remove the use of reason, nevertheless it takes away that degree of liberty which is required for grave sin, as can be seen among certain drunkards who, even after the habit has been retracted, are impelled to drinking by a propension almost invincible.

Wherefore, where habit prevails, it must be morally judged from all the adjuncts how great a degree of liberty remains in the agent.

126. 3. Concerning the manner of acting with regard to habits. From this it is given to understand of how great importance it is to acquire good habits and to eradicate evil ones. For by custom the powers of the will are increased a hundredfold, and acts are performed more promptly, more easily, more perfectly, and more delightfully, and thus the way is prepared for true and constant progress: for with less effort a greater effect is produced.¹ Those, therefore, who have obtained the custom of piety and virtue walk expeditiously in the ways of the Lord and ascend the arduous paths of perfection with a great heart; but those who have formed depraved habits fall easily into sins, undergo the tyranny of the passions, and can return to the practice of virtue only with difficulty and by heroic efforts.

¹ Concerning the utility of habit A. Lemoine says, apud Rabier, Psychol., p. 587: "If it were necessary for the will always to make the same efforts to direct the movements of the members, if no trace remained today of yesterday's exercise, man would not walk; he would scarcely drag himself along like a child of tender age. He would not speak, he would stammer. He would see without looking, he would learn without ever knowing. If it were necessary for him always to conquer the same resistance of instincts and passions without passion losing its force, without that of the will increasing, the most valiant man would soon be at the end of moral energy; he would succumb in this struggle ceaselessly renewed, and virtue would be only a word. It is thanks to habit that man can run instead of crawl, that the sciences are constituted and enriched; that virtue is acquired, that in all things progress is accomplished. In proportion as the act no longer requires, in order to be repeated, anything but a simple effort, the surplus of power, which the cause does not expend in order to reproduce it, becomes in some way available for new and superior efforts."

Happy, therefore, are those who, already from childhood, learn to cultivate, by repeated acts, honesty, piety, abnegation of oneself, charity toward others, and the other virtues!

But if depraved habits have already sent down deep roots, nevertheless one must not despair: custom is conquered by custom. In order that a depraved custom may be conquered more efficaciously, (a) there ought to go before it attentive consideration or meditation on all the motives which ought to move us to eradicate it completely; (b) when the evil inclination urges, we ought to divert the mind to other things, and, if an external occasion is present, immediately flee it and direct our whole attention to something honorable; (c) we ought to apply the means described above, n. 107, for overcoming the passions.¹

¹ Payot, op. cit., p. 200-222, after ascetics, explains how especially sensuality and pleasure can be conquered by the young.

569. 1. Notion. Habit (from the word habere, to have) in a general sense signifies a mode of bearing oneself. But in a more particular sense it designates a stable quality by which some being is perfected. But this can be completed in two ways: in its being and in its operations; in the former case, the habit is called entitative: thus, for example, health of body with regard to the natural order, habitual grace in the supernatural order; in the latter case, the habit is called operative: such are the virtues of prudence, fortitude, etc.

Here we treat of operative habits. In this sense, habit is usually defined as a stable quality which disposes and helps a potency for act. Therefore it is a certain reality, belonging to the genus of quality, added to some faculty, so that this faculty may become ready for acting. According to St. Thomas, it differs in some way from disposition, which is, as it were, an inchoate habit, but does not yet obtain that stability which is desired for habit properly so called.¹

¹ "Disposition is taken in two ways: in one way according as it is the genus of habit, for disposition is placed in the definition of habit. In another way according as it is something divided against habit. And disposition properly so called can be understood to be co-divided against habit in two ways: in one way as perfect and imperfect in the same species, so that disposition is said to retain the common name when it inheres imperfectly, so that it is lost easily; but habit, when it inheres perfectly, so that it is not easily lost, and thus disposition becomes habit, just as a boy becomes a man... From this it is clear that the name habit imports a certain lastingness, but not the name disposition." (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 49, a. 2, ad 3.)

570. Habit helps a potency to act in a twofold way; a natural and acquired habit helps it to perform an operation more promptly, more easily, and more delectably; but a supernatural and infused habit² of itself does not confer facility, but elevates the potency, which by its nature is unfit for certain acts, so that it may be able to perform these acts; thus the infused virtue of faith indeed does not give promptitude for eliciting acts of faith. Yet it must be noted that facility of operating is acquired by the exercise of infused virtues, for example, by repeated acts of faith, insofar as obstacles are removed, and the potencies are rendered more apt for eliciting these acts, as will be explained below.

² To understand rightly the distinction between natural and supernatural habits, there must be recalled to memory the things which we said in Theologia Dogmatica, De Deo Creante, n. 144-146, and above n. 85. Supernatural virtues are infused by God, - tend toward a supernatural end, - are exercised under the influence of actual grace, - and do not of themselves give facility, but only the power for acting supernaturally.

571. 2. The subject of habit. (a) Habits properly so called do not exist in subjects determined to only one thing in operating, or to acting always in one and the same mode: for then it can scarcely be conceived what habit adds to a potency which always does the same thing and acts in the same mode. But it can exist in all subjects which are not determined to one thing, but can operate in diverse ways, and exercise their operations more or less promptly and perfectly: for then it can incline and dispose the faculties toward one or another genus of actions, and toward eliciting those actions more or less promptly and perfectly.

(b) Hence habits can be in the human body, because, insofar as it is substantially united to a spiritual soul, it can be disposed and habituated to serve promptly the operations of the soul.¹ Thus by the assiduous practice of temperance, chastity, and mortification, the body becomes accustomed to obey the command of the will more promptly and more easily; wherefore it is of the greatest moment to subdue the body by good habits, that it may be made a docile instrument of the soul.

¹ Nevertheless St. Thomas holds that habits of this kind are principally in the soul, and secondarily in the body, because the body receives its movement from the soul.

572. (c) The intellectual faculties of the soul are properly the subject of habits, because they are not determined to operating in one way; but the will is the principal subject in which they are rooted, because it, as endowed with free choice, most greatly possesses the power of choosing. Nevertheless also the sensitive powers are the subject of habits, although less principally, insofar as they are subject to the command of the will (above, n. 73-75). This indeed is established by experience; through custom, the imagination is more or less subdued, or on the contrary is accustomed to wander; - through custom, passions are restrained or on the contrary are more easily borne toward illicit things. Indeed, with experience as witness, custom is conquered by custom: thus those prone to anger, by repeated efforts, become meek, the proud learn to cultivate humility, the ambitious turn themselves toward divine things, etc. (above, n. 107). Therefore it matters greatly to acquire good habits already from childhood, but utterly to eradicate evil ones.

573. 3. Concerning the origin and increase of habits. Some are supernaturally infused by God: concerning these below. Others are naturally acquired: and concerning these we must now treat.

(a) That natural propensions transmitted by heredity are given we already noted above, n. 116-117; inclinations of this kind can be called latent habits, insofar as they remain sleeping until, by an external occasion, they are aroused as though from sleep; thus sons born from drunken parents not rarely have contracted an inclination toward alcoholic drinks, which as soon as it is excited by libations passes into habit.

(b) According to St. Thomas,² certain habits are implanted by nature itself, at least inchoatively. Thus, with regard to first principles (for example, the whole is greater than its part, good is to be loved), we are so inclined to knowing them that the habit of these principles can be called naturally implanted. Likewise in certain individuals are found certain natural propensions which are, as it were, inchoate habits: for there are some disposed, from the proper complexion of the body, toward chastity, others toward gentleness, others toward fortitude, as was said above, where temperament and character were treated, n. 120-121.

² St. Thomas, I-II, q. 51, a. 1. - Others indeed, with Suarez (Disput. metaph., disp. 44, sect. 13, n. 7), do not wish these propensions to be called habits; but the question is more about the name than about the thing.

574. (c) But especially from multiplied acts habits are generated and increased, as experience establishes: namely, the more frequently, longer, and more intensely acts are repeated, provided nevertheless that the powers are not exhausted, the greater facility and promptitude are obtained for doing the same acts. The first act already produces some disposition, which the second increases; other acts will complete the generation of the habit. The reason for this is that any faculty is at the same time active and passive; insofar as it is active, it impresses a certain movement, and insofar as it is passive, it receives and retains an impression, by force of which subsequent acts become easier.

Nevertheless, according to St. Thomas,¹ an act does not increase a habit unless it is at least equally intense as the habit itself; for if it is more remiss, it does not dispose toward its increase, but rather toward its diminution; thus he who has already acquired the habit of fervor does not increase it, but rather diminishes it, when he prays remissly and tepidly.

¹ St. Thomas, I-II, q. 52, a. 3. - Yet some on the contrary hold with T. Raynaud, De Virtutibus, l. I, c. 2, that even remiss acts increase with some proportion the force of the habit.

575. (d) Habits can grow in two ways, extensively and intensively: extensively, when the object with which they are concerned is multiple and is successively amplified; thus the habit of knowledge grows when it extends itself to more things, and humility is increased when the various degrees of this virtue are reached; intensively, when they are rooted more deeply in the soul, so that actions are elicited more easily and more delectably. This indeed can be explained thus: through the repetition of acts, difficulty in acting is diminished, and therefore with the same effort subsequent acts are performed more easily, and consequently more delectably.² But how habits influence liberty we explained at n. 109-110.

² "In proportion as the act no longer requires for being repeated except a lesser effort, the excess of power, which the cause does not expend in reproducing it, becomes in some way available for new and superior efforts." (Lemoine, apud Rabier, Psychol., p. 587.)

576. 4. Concerning the loss of habits. That acquired habits are diminished or sometimes utterly perish is established by experience. (a) First, according to all, they decrease or perish through contrary acts, especially intense and long-lasting ones; thus the habit of temperance is gradually diminished and finally utterly taken away through often repeated acts of drunkenness. For contraries are destroyed by contraries, and custom is conquered by custom; thus facility of using food and drink moderately soon decreases when someone begins to indulge gluttony and drunkenness: for, just as by repeated acts of temperance a good habit had been acquired, so by frequent contrary acts an evil habit is contracted; now, when contrary habits are present, the stronger destroys the weaker.

577. (b) Moreover they are diminished and sometimes perish through long cessation from exercise, not indeed directly, as the more probable opinion holds, but indirectly, insofar as, exercise ceasing, impediments are multiplied, and little by little contrary habits are introduced which overwhelm the former ones. Thus memory is diminished unless you exercise it. The same must be said of moral habits: for when someone, for a long time, does not use the habit of virtue for moderating passions, these are accustomed to rise up against reason, and to transgress just limits; thus the inclination to good is gradually diminished, and depraved habits are born which can overturn good ones.¹ Nevertheless, if after some time new efforts are made before the habit is utterly extinguished, it revives more easily.

¹ St. Thomas, I-II, q. 53, a. 3.

But by accident habits impressed upon organic powers can be altered by an alteration of the organ itself; thus sometimes memory is diminished or perishes.

578. 5. Concerning the division of habits. (a) By reason of the object with which they are concerned, habits are good or vicious, according as their object is good or evil. Good habits are called virtues, but evil ones vices; here we treat only of the former, since we have already spoken of the latter, where sins were treated. (b) By reason of origin and nature, virtues are acquired or infused: concerning these we must treat separately.

108. The true opinion concerning the essence and norm of morality. Morality consists formally in a tendency (or transcendental relation) to the object, insofar as that object precisely falls under the rules of morals. But the rules of morals are the eternal law and all things which are derived from the eternal law, such as all other just laws and conscience. Almost all Thomists explain the essence of morality in this way, for example, John of St. Thomas,²⁵ Gonet,²⁶ the Salmanticenses,²⁷ Billuart.²⁸ The reason for this opinion is that an act is formally constituted by its tendency to its object; for the whole account of an act is its object. This indeed is admitted by all in the physical order and is plain of itself; thus, for example, the act of vision is formally constituted by its tendency to the object seen. Therefore, by parity, a moral act is essentially constituted by its tendency toward a moral object. But an object is moral insofar as it is subjected to the rules or norms of morals.

1. The supreme objective norm of morality is the eternal law, or the reason of divine wisdom, insofar as it is directive of all human actions. For man is bound by all his acts to tend to the ultimate end, which is God, as was proved above. Therefore all human acts must have a right order to this ultimate end, or, as the Angelic Doctor says, "the rectitude of the will is through due order to the ultimate end."²⁹ If they have that order, they are morally good; otherwise they are morally evil. But since that order has been established by the eternal law, it is rightly said: The morality of human acts consists formally in conformity or difformity with the eternal law. The matter is explained by an example. An act of theft is morally evil. Why? Because God has prohibited it. - Why has God prohibited it? Because through theft the social order is disturbed and thus the glory of God is injured. But if the glory of God is injured by man, the eternal law is also injured, and man will not attain his ultimate end.

2. The proximate objective norm of morality is human reason, that is, the dictate of right reason, not indeed of itself, but insofar as it is a participation of the eternal law.³⁰ For reason is the first principle of human and moral acts. But reason judges concerning the conformity of an act with the eternal law. Hence the Angelic Doctor,³¹ speaking of the twofold species of morality, says: "Good, insofar as it is according to reason, and evil, insofar as it is beside reason, diversify the species of morals." Elsewhere the same holy Doctor says:³² "Good is represented by reason to the will as object, and insofar as it falls under the order of reason, it pertains to the genus of morals and causes moral goodness in the act of the will." The proposed doctrine can be clarified by the example of the shining moon and sun. For just as the full moon does not shine, but reflects the light of the sun, so the dictate of right reason is not the norm of morality except insofar as it reflects the eternal law. - Up to this point the discussion has been concerning the objective morality of human acts.

3. The subjective norm of morality is conscience. Therefore a man must conform his actions to conscience commanding or prohibiting; otherwise he acts badly, as will be said more broadly below, n. 307. The eternal law is inscribed in our hearts (in conscience) either directly by God himself, the author of our rational nature, or by means of just positive laws. Therefore it can be said briefly: The eternal law is the ultimate objective norm, but conscience is the proximate subjective norm of the morality of human acts.³³

²⁵ Cursus theol. in I-II, q. 21, disp. 8, a. 1, n. 23.

²⁶ Clypeus in I-II, disp. 1, n. 18.

²⁷ L. c. punct. 1.

²⁸ L. c. diss. 4, a. 1.

²⁹ S. theol. I-II, q. 4, a. 4.

³⁰ Ibid. q. 19, a. 4. "In all ordered causes an effect depends more on the first cause than on the second cause, because the second cause acts only in virtue of the first cause. But that human reason is the rule of the human will, by which its goodness is measured, it has from the eternal law, which is the divine reason." Hence proposition (3) of the Syllabus of Pius IX was condemned: "Human reason, with no regard whatever had to God, is the sole arbiter of true and false, good and evil" (Denz. n. 1703).

³¹ S. theol. I-II, q. 18, a. 5 ad 1.

³² Ibid. q. 19, a. 1 ad 3.

³³ "The rule of the human will is twofold: one proximate and homogeneous, namely, human reason itself; but the other is the first rule, namely, the eternal law, which is as it were the reason of God" (ibid. q. 71, a. 6; cf. q. 19, a. 4).

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 19, a. 3 and 4; q. 21, a. 1; q. 71, a. 6; q. 72, a. 4 and 8; q. 74, a. 7; q. 86, a. 1 and 2; q. 63, a. 2; De Malo, q. 2, a. 4; q. 16, a. 2.

124. Thesis I. The nearer and intrinsic norm of morality is right practical human reason.

It is explained: it is said to be: 1) reason, and not only conscience, which is the rule of the subjective morality of human acts, while here it is a question especially of the norm of objective morality: for conscience is particular reason, by which a determinate person judges concerning the morality of such an act in particular and applies the law to a determinate concrete case; here, however, universal reason is considered more, which judges concerning the morality of acts in the universal and enunciates law, and is by essence common, and is in all men;

2. right, that is, judging conformably to the eternal law, from which it flows as from the source and rule of every good; for, as St. Thomas says, II Sent. d. 24, q. 3, a. 3, ad 3: "Corrupt reason is not reason, just as a false syllogism properly is not a syllogism, and therefore the rule of human acts is not any reason whatever, but right reason," which alone is able fittingly to order to the end and as it ought;

3. it is the nearer norm, rather than the proximate norm: for the latter is conscience, which applies the law to the concrete act, and thus is the wholly proximate and immediate rule of acting; and with respect to it, universal reason or law is already a more remote rule; and nevertheless this is a near rule with respect to the supreme and ultimate rule, which is the eternal law of God himself;

4. and intrinsic: for reason is intrinsic to man, while the eternal law of God is extrinsic to him.

The thesis is proved 1) by facts: a moral action must be called good, like any being, when it attains its end or at least tends rightly and ordinately to its proper end. But it belongs to man's practical reason to detect what our ultimate end is, and what means are necessary or useful for attaining this end. Therefore human reason is the norm of the goodness or malice of human acts.

The minor is proved:

a) Generally, by experience;

b) Especially from the difference between rational and irrational nature (I-II, q. 91, a. 2): for it is established that man rules himself and orders his acts to the end; since therefore order is according to a rule, there had to be inserted into man a rule by which he might rule himself and be able to order his acts: and this is nothing other than reason.

c) For just as speculative reason is born to know the true, so practical reason is able to perceive the good (under the aspect of the true), that is, the ordered relation of acts to the ultimate end; for example, it dictates that blasphemy is evil as contrary to God, the ultimate end, and that intemperance is a sin because men abuse for the pleasure of the senses those things which are ordered to their preservation.

Briefly: the judgment of practical reason has as its object the agreement and disagreement of an act with the end. But the goodness of an action resides in the relation of agreement and subordination to the ultimate end of rational nature; malice, in the relation of disagreement. Therefore the judgment of practical reason showing this relation is the subjective criterion manifesting it, and thus the norm of goodness and malice.

2. By reason taken from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 90, a. 1: in each genus that which is the principle is the measure and rule of that genus. Reason is the first principle of human acts, because to it belongs ordering to the end, which is the first principle in things to be done. Therefore the rule and measure of human acts is reason.

125. Thesis II. The supreme and extrinsic norm and the ultimate rule of morality is the reason of God or the eternal law itself.

It is said to be: 1) the supreme norm, because morality depends more upon that rule than upon the near rule. For an effect depends more upon the first cause than upon the second cause, since the second cause does not act except in the power of the first cause; hence that human reason is the rule of morality, it has from the eternal law. Therefore morality depends more upon the eternal law than upon human reason (q. 19, a. 4);

2. ultimate: namely, the nearer norm is founded ultimately in the remote and fundamental norm or eternal law. Hence human reason is called the near, subordinate, and regulated norm of morality; the eternal law is called the ultimate and supreme and regulating norm (q. 71, a. 6; q. 21, a. 1);

3. it is eternal law, that is, divine reason insofar as it conceives the ordination of all actions and orders them to the ultimate end, the will of God insofar as it necessarily wills this ordination to be observed by man, and the reason of God insofar as it commands this ordination and imposes it upon us.

It is proved: 1) human reason is true or false according as it is conformed to truth or not: for it is cognitive, not productive, of truth.

But the measure of all truth is the reason of God, which is the first truth and productive of every other truth.

Therefore human reason is a true rule according as it is conformed to the reason of God (q. 19, a. 4).

2. In human acts good and evil are said from order to the ultimate end. But the ultimate end is constituted and intended by the author of nature. Therefore the supreme ordination of human acts is from God; and acts are good or evil according to the ordination of God.

3. Hence the third proposition of the Syllabus was condemned: "Human reason, with no regard at all had to God, is the only arbiter of the true and the false, of good and evil."

They object: We do not know the eternal law; therefore it is not a rule. - Resp. It becomes known from creatures and especially from the knowledge of human nature, for all things have from the eternal law that they are ordered and moved to their own end and to the end of the whole universe: "Although the eternal law is unknown to us according as it is in the divine mind, nevertheless it becomes known to us in some way either through natural reason, which is derived from it (and is known to be derived) as its proper image, or through some superadded revelation" (q. 19, a. 4, ad 3).

126. Corollary.

Human reason is the secondary and near, proper or homogeneous, and immanent rule; the eternal law is the primary and supreme, heterogeneous, and transcendent norm (q. 19, a. 4, ad 2; q. 21, a. 1; q. 71, a. 6).

I say, 1st. The essence of morality consists primarily in the habitude or relation of a human act to the eternal law, which is the divine reason, or the will of God commanding that the natural order be preserved and forbidding that it be disturbed. The reason is that only that can be the primary rule of morality which is the supreme norm of an infallible and indefectible order, and able to oblige in conscience; but such is the eternal law alone, from which alone the other laws receive the force of obliging. Therefore.

I say, 2nd. The essence of morality consists secondarily in the habitude of a human act to right reason. For human actions cannot be measured against the supreme norm of morality except by means of human reason, which is a certain participation in, and consequently manifestation of, the divine reason. Hence:

1st. That, and that alone, is a moral being which stands under the rule of morals, or under the law of God commanding or permitting. For through that alone are we ordered to our ultimate end, or disordered from it.

2nd. It is false that the essence of morality is to be placed in liberty alone. For this is prerequired as a condition that an act can be imputed, but it is not the reason why it is imputed unto praise or blame. For he who acts freely is not for that reason worthy of reward, but only he who, since he is free, acts conformably to the divine reason.

3rd. It is false also that morality consists in the voluntary alone. For the voluntary without liberty is in no way imputable, because without it man would not be master of his own actions.

4th. It is false that public opinion is the rule of morality, because it is neither infallible nor immutable, and consequently tomorrow that could be called unjust which today is reputed honest.

5th. Indeed the civil laws themselves cannot be the supreme rule of morals, because laws measure the goodness or malice of an act only insofar as they are honest and reasonable, and consequently insofar as they participate in some higher criterion. Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 19, art. 4; q. 71, art. 6; and q. 93, art. 3. - St. Alphonsus, nn. 34 and 35.

1. A habit is a quality difficult to change, whereby an agent whose nature it was to work one way or another indeterminately, is disposed easily and readily at will to follow this or that particular line of action. Habit differs from disposition, as disposition is a quality easily changed. Thus one in a good humour is in a disposition to be kind. Habit is a part of character: disposition is a passing fit. Again, habit differs from faculty, or power: as power enables one to act; but habit, presupposing power, renders action easy and expeditious, and reliable to come at call. We have a power to move our limbs, but a habit to walk or ride or swim. Habit then is the determinant of power. One and the same power works well or ill, but not one and the same habit.

2. A power that has only one way of working, set and fixed, is not susceptible of habit. Such powers are the forces of inanimate nature, as gravitation and electricity. A thing does not gravitate better for gravitating often. The moon does not obey the earth more readily to-day than she did in the days of Ptolemy, or of the Chaldean sages. Some specious claim to habit might be set up on behalf of electricity and magnetism. A glass rod rubbed at frequent intervals for six months, is a different instrument from what it would have been, if left all that time idle in a drawer. Then there are such cases as the gradual magnetising of an iron bar. Still we cannot speak of electrical habits, or magnetic habits, not at least in things without life, because there is no will there to control the exercise of the quality. As well might we speak of a "tumbledown" habit in a row of houses, brought on by locomotives running underneath their foundations. It is but a case of an accumulation of small effects, inducing gradually a new molecular arrangement, so that the old powers act under new material conditions. But habit is a thing of life, an appurtenance of will, not of course independent of material conditions and structural alterations, in so far forth as a living and volitional is also a material agent, but essentially usable at will, and brought into play and controlled in its operation by free choice. Therefore a habit that works almost automatically has less of the character of a true habit, and passes rather out of morality into the region of physics. Again, bad habits, vices to which a man is become a slave against his better judgment, are less properly called habits than virtues are; for such evil habits do not so much attend on volition (albeit volition has created them) as drag the will in their wake. For the like reason, habit is less properly predicable of brute animals than of men: for brutes have no intelligent will to govern their habits. The highest brutes are most susceptible of habit. They are most like men in being most educable. And, of human progeny, some take up habits, in the best and completest sense of the term, more readily than others. They are better subjects for education: education being nothing else than the formation of habits.

3. Knowledge consists of intellectual habits. But the habits of most consequence to the moralist lie in the will, and in the sensitive appetite as amenable to the control of the will. In this category come the virtues, in the ordinary sense of that name, and secondarily the vices.

4. A habit is acquired by acts. Whereupon this difficulty has been started:—If the habit, say of mental application, comes from acts of study, and again the acts from the habit, how ever is the habit originally acquired? We answer that there are two ways in which one thing may come from another. It may come in point of its very existence, as child from parent; or in point of some mode of existence, as scholar from master. A habit has its very existence from acts preceding: but those acts have their existence independent of the habit. The acts which are elicited after the habit is formed, owe to the habit, not their existence, but the mode of their existence: that is to say, because of the habit the acts are now formed readily, reliably, and artistically, or virtuously. The primitive acts which gradually engendered the habit, were done with difficulty, fitfully, and with many failures,—more by good luck than good management, if it was a matter of skill, and by a special effort rather than as a thing of course, where it was question of moral well-doing. (See c.ii., s.ii., n.9, p. 10.)

5. A habit is a living thing: it grows and must be fed. It grows on acts, and acts are the food that sustain it. Unexercised, a habit pines away: corruption sets in and disintegration. A man, we will say, has a habit of thinking of God during his work. He gives over doing so. That means that he either takes to thinking of everything and nothing, or he takes up some definite line of thought to the exclusion of God. Either way there is a new formation to the gradual ruin of the old habit.

6. Habit and custom may be distinguished in philosophical language. We may say that custom makes the habit. Custom does not imply any skill or special facility. A habit is a channel whereby the energies flow, as otherwise they would not have flowed, freely and readily in some particular direction. A habit, then, is a determination of a faculty for good or for evil. It is something intrinsic in a man, a real modification of his being, abiding in him in the intervals between one occasion for its exercise and another: whereas custom is a mere denomination, expressive of frequent action and no more. Thus it would be more philosophical to speak of a custom of early rising, and of a custom of smoking, rather than of a habit of smoking, except so far as, by the use of the word habit, you may wish to point to a certain acquired skill of the respiratory and facial muscles, and a certain acquired temper of the stomach, enabling one to inhale tobacco fumes with impunity.

7. Habits are acquired, but it is obvious that the rate of acquisition varies in different persons. This comes from one person being more predisposed by nature than another to the acquiring of this or that habit. By nature, that is by the native temper and conformation of his body wherewith he was born, this child is more prone to literary learning, that to mechanics, this one to obstinacy and contentiousness, that to sensuality, and so of the rest. For though it is by the soul that a man learns, and by the act of his will and spiritual powers he becomes a glutton or a zealot, nevertheless the bodily organs concur and act jointly towards these ends. The native dispositions of the child's body for the acquisition of habits depend to an unascertained extent upon the habits of his ancestors. This is the fact of heredity.

8. Man is said to be "a creature of habits." The formation of habits in the will saves the necessity of continually making up the mind anew. A man will act as he has become habituated, except under some special motive from without, or some special effort from within. In the case of evil habits, that effort is attended with immense difficulty. The habit is indeed the man's own creation, the outcome of his free acts. But he is become the bondslave of his creature, so much so that when the occasion arrives, three-fourths of the act is already done, by the force of the habit alone, before his will is awakened, or drowsily moves in its sleep. The only way for the will to free itself here is not to wait for the occasion to come, but be astir betimes, keep the occasion at arm's length, and register many a determination and firm protest and fervent prayer against the habit. He who neglects to do this in the interval has himself to blame for being overcome every time that he falls upon the occasion which brings into play the evil habit.

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 49, art. 4, ad 1, 2; ib., q. 50, art. 3, in corp., ad. 1, 2; ib., q. 51, art. 1, in corp.; ib., q. 53, art. 3, in corp.; Ar., Eth., II., i.; ib., III., v., 10-14; ib., II., iv., 1, 2, 4.