118. Truth, Good, and the Virtues of Reason

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Truth and Good as Inclusive Objects #

• Truth is primarily found in the mind through statements and judgments
• Good and bad are chiefly in things themselves
• There is a fundamental difference between knowing and loving:
  • Knowing: involves grasping and taking; the mind contains the object (like grasping with one’s hand)
  • Loving: involves giving and going out to the thing itself
• True and good include each other: truth is a kind of good (desirable); good is something true (understandable)
• The object of appetite can be true insofar as it has the definition of good
• The object of practical intellect is ordered to doing under the definition of truth

Knowledge of Opposites vs. Love of Opposites #

• Knowledge of opposites is almost the same knowledge (knowing virtue helps know vice)
• Love of opposites cannot be the same: if I love virtue, this prevents me from loving vice
• In things, one opposite excludes the other; love follows the reality of things
• Knowledge of a subject allows one to know its negation better than the reverse
• Example: A doctor with knowledge of health knows sickness better than a sick person knows health

Broad Meaning of Virtue (Dispositional Excellence) #

• Definition: The quality or disposition of a thing that makes it and its own act good
• Presupposes understanding a thing’s own act (ἴδιον ἔργον)
• Plato’s definition of own act: The act which either that thing alone can do, or which it does better than other things
• Everything having its own act can have virtue or vice: knives, herbs, eyes, ears, horses, humans, money
• Vice is the opposite: the disposition that makes a thing and its own act bad

Examples of Own Acts and Corresponding Virtues #

• Eye’s own act: seeing; virtue: keenness of sight; vice: blurredness
• Knife’s own act: cutting; virtue: sharpness; vice: dullness
• Herb’s own act: seasoning food; virtue: good savor; vice: loss of savor
• Money’s own act: enabling purchase; virtue: wealth; vice: poverty
• Feet’s own act: walking; hands cannot walk as well, so walking is the feet’s own act
• Horse’s own act: serving man in the way horses do

Human Virtue and Its Division #

• Man’s own act is an act involving reason (actus cum ratione)
• This is the basis for dividing human virtue into two kinds:
  • Intellectual virtues: perfections of reason itself
  • Moral virtues: in the will and emotions (things that partake of reason)
• Moral virtues require habituation of emotions and will to listen to and obey reason
• The relationship is not master-to-slave but father-to-son: reason rules for the good of the emotions, not for reason’s own good

Reason Ruling Emotions: The Habituation Process #

• Children initially follow appetite (eating all candy at once, getting angry easily)
• Parents provide external direction and correction (chastisement)
• With habituation, children develop internal control and moderation
• This process parallels Plato’s analogy: reason is like a man riding a horse; the horse initially resists but can be habituated to obey
• Proper habituation produces mature attitudes (e.g., children learning moderate wine-drinking at family tables develop mature relationship to alcohol, unlike peers who learn to get drunk)
• The word chastity itself comes from chastising: just as unchastised children become ungovernable, unchastised fleshly vices become ungovernable

Key Arguments #

Against the Objection that True and Good Diversify Powers #

Objection: If speculative reason’s object is truth and practical reason’s object is good, and if these are different objects, should they not diversify powers?

Response:

• True and good include each other; neither can be reduced to the other
• The distinction is not between two objects but between two different uses of reason by different powers
• The will has good as its object; the intellect has truth as its object
• Both speculative and practical reason seek truth, but:
  • Speculative reason seeks truth for its own sake
  • Practical reason seeks truth ordered to action or making

Against Confusing Objects of Different Powers with Ends #

Clarification: The confusion arises from mixing two distinct things:

• What a power’s object is (determined by the power’s nature)
• What a power’s end is (how a power is used or directed)
• Speculative and practical reason are not differentiated by having different objects (both seek truth) but by having different ends

Important Definitions #

Own Act (ἴδιον ἔργον / proprium actus) #

The act which either that thing alone can perform, or which it performs better than other things; the characteristic operation that distinguishes a thing’s functioning.

Virtue (Broad Sense) #

The disposition or quality of a thing that makes it and its own act good; any excellence in performing what is natural or proper to a thing.

Virtue (Human / Moral and Intellectual) #

The disposition in reason, will, or emotions that makes a human being and their characteristic human acts good; divided into intellectual virtues (in reason) and moral virtues (in emotions and will as habituated to reason).

Examples & Illustrations #

The Knife #

• A knife’s own act is cutting
• Sharpness is the virtue of a knife (makes it cut well, makes this act good)
• Dullness is the vice of a knife
• The right screwdriver fits the right screw; using the wrong tool ruins the screw or makes the work impossible

The Herb and Savor #

• An herb’s own act is seasoning food
• A virtuous herb seasons food well (has good savor)
• An herb loses its virtue when its savor fades with age
• A connoisseur chef can judge the virtue or vice of an herb better than an ordinary person
• Our Lord uses this comparison: “You are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its savor, it is cast out and trampled upon”

Eyes and Vision #

• The left eye may see more sharply than the right eye
• The more virtuous eye is the one that sees more distinctly
• Mozart had a very virtuous ear (extraordinarily sensitive to pitch)
• Wine experts (like Robert Parker) have more virtuous tongues and sense of smell for detecting qualities others miss

Children Learning Moderation #

• Child given a box of candy on birthday wants to eat it all at once
• Parent says “you’ve had enough for today; we’ll have some tomorrow”
• Parent externally provides the rule of reason until child can internalize it
• At a table with many sweets, children initially eat only candy but eventually, feeling poorly, learn to eat a balanced diet
• A child being teased learns gradually to restrain anger; you can see them pick up something to throw, then stop and look around—already learning control

Drinking Wine: Proper Habituation vs. Improper #

• Children who drink wine at family dinner table develop mature attitudes toward drinking
• High school peers who drink together to get drunk learn to associate drinking with intoxication, not moderation
• Properly habituated people have different behavior than those without proper habituation

Augustine’s Vision of the Trinity #

• Augustine on a beach contemplating the Trinity
• A boy digging a hole, running water from the ocean into it
• Augustine asks what the boy is doing; boy says “I’m putting the ocean in this hole”
• Augustine says “You can’t fit the ocean in this hole”
• Boy replies: “Neither can you fit the Trinity in your mind”
• The point: You could jump into the ocean (loving God—going out to the infinite), but you cannot put the ocean in yourself (knowing the infinite). Love is more proportionate to God than knowledge is.

Augustine’s Treasure Saying #

• “Where your treasure is, there also shall your heart be”
• If you love something, your heart goes out to it (you lose your heart to something/someone)
• Not bad to lose your heart if to someone worthy
• But always bad to lose your mind

Shakespeare on Love and Reason #

• “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends”
• Love tends to expand and overflow (hot, like boiling water)
• Reason tends to concentrate and restrain (cold)
• When someone is emotionally reactive, we say “Keep your cool”—meaning don’t just use your mind, maintain rational control

Notable Quotes #

“Truth is primarily in the mind, but the good and the bad are chiefly in things.” — Duane Berquist, explicating Thomas Aquinas

“In knowing, you’re trying to take the thing and put it into your mind. In loving, your heart is going out to the thing.” — Duane Berquist

“It’s always bad to lose your mind. It’s not always bad to lose your heart. It depends upon to whom you lose it.” — Duane Berquist

“If I love virtue, that impedes me from loving vice. If I love vice, that impedes me from loving virtue.” — Duane Berquist, on the exclusivity of loves in things

“You are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its savor, it is cast out and trampled upon.” — Jesus Christ, cited by Berquist as example of virtue and vice applied to human purpose

“Reason should rule the emotions like a father rules his son, not like a master rules his slave.” — Aristotle, cited by Berquist

“Much virtue in herbs, little in error.” — Plaque in a friend’s kitchen, cited as example of broad meaning of virtue

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.” — Shakespeare, cited to illustrate the expansive nature of love vs. the concentrating nature of reason

Questions Addressed #

How can the same knowledge apply to opposites if love of opposites excludes each other? #

Answer: Knowledge of one opposite helps us know the other because knowledge is abstract and grasps both in the same act (knowing temperance helps us understand intemperance). But love cannot work this way because love goes out to the thing itself, and in things, opposites actually exclude each other. A person cannot genuinely love both virtue and vice; loving virtue prevents loving vice because they are contrary in the thing itself.

If true and good include each other, why are they not simply the same? #

Answer: They include each other but are not identical. Truth is a kind of good (truth is desirable), and good is a kind of truth (good must be intelligible/understandable). But one can know the truth about the good without loving that good—just as one can know that drinking in moderation is good without having the habit of moderation, or knowing what virtue is without practicing it.

What is the basis for dividing human virtue into intellectual and moral virtues? #

Answer: Man’s characteristic act is an act involving reason. Intellectual virtues perfect reason itself. Moral virtues are in the will and emotions (things that partake of reason, meaning they can be ordered by and listen to reason). The division reflects how different human powers are perfected.

How does external habituation become internal virtue? #

Answer: Through repeated practice and correction. A parent initially provides external direction (telling the child when to stop eating candy). With habituation, the child gradually internalizes this rule until it becomes their own disposition. The emotions and will, through repeated habituation to obey reason, become permanently inclined toward reasonable action, making virtue a stable quality rather than external force.