127. The Irascible and Concupiscible Appetites

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Two Powers of Sense Desire #

Concupiscible Appetite (Appetitus Concupiscibilis)

• Inclines the soul to pursue things that are suitable or agreeable to the senses
• Inclines the soul to refuse things that are harmful or disagreeable to the senses
• Operates at the level of direct sensory apprehension: pleasure/pain

Irascible Appetite (Appetitus Irascibilis)

• Concerned with resisting things that attack, fight against, or impede what is suitable
• Concerned with things that are “arduous” or “difficult”—goods and evils that present obstacles
• Moves the soul toward things not immediately agreeable to the senses if they serve a purpose
• Involves a higher mode of knowing than the concupiscible

Why Two Powers, Not One? #

Thomas’s argument draws on natural philosophy:

• Inanimate things (like fire and rock) have two kinds of natural inclination:
  1. To move toward what is suitable (fire rises; rock falls)
  2. To resist what corrupts or impedes (fire resists being extinguished; rock resists being broken)
• Since sense desire follows upon sense knowledge, it must similarly have two powers
• The concupiscible handles pursuit/avoidance of agreeable/disagreeable things
• The irascible handles resistance to obstacles and difficult goods/evils

The Role of the Estimative and Cogitative Powers #

• The irascible appetite is not moved by outward senses alone but by an inward sense: the estimative power (in animals) or cogitative power (in humans)
• Example: A sheep flees the wolf not because the wolf’s shape causes sensory pain, but because the estimative power recognizes the wolf as an enemy to be feared
• The young kitten that mistakes a striped belt for a snake shows an undeveloped estimative power
• This explains why the irascible is, in one sense, a higher power than the concupiscible—it operates through a more developed mode of sense knowing

The Eleven Emotions #

Concupiscible Emotions (6)

1. Love/Liking (Amor) – Response to something agreeable to the senses
2. Hate/Dislike (Odium) – Response to something disagreeable to the senses
3. Desire/Wanting (Desiderium) – Arises from love when the object is absent; involves awareness of lacking something
4. Aversion (Aborrentia) – Turning away from what is disliked; opposite of desire
5. Joy/Pleasure (Gaudium) – Arises when what is loved is present and obtained
6. Sadness/Pain (Tristitia) – Arises when what is disliked is forced upon us or present

Note: Love and hate are the two basic/fundamental concupiscible emotions; the others arise from them in relation to presence/absence and obtainment/imposition.

Irascible Emotions (5)

1. Hope (Spes) – Arises from desire when the good is difficult but estimated as achievable; moves one to effort
2. Despair (Desperatio) – Arises from desire when the good is difficult and estimated as unachievable
3. Fear (Timor) – Arises from aversion when the evil is difficult to avoid or resist
4. Boldness/Confidence (Audacia) – Arises from aversion when the evil can be overcome or resisted
5. Anger (Ira) – Arises from sadness/pain when one estimates one can do something to remove the cause

Note: The irascible emotions only arise when there is difficulty or impediment. If there is no difficulty in obtaining a desired good, no irascible emotion arises—only the concupiscible emotion of joy.

Relationship Between the Two Powers #

• The irascible is the “fighter for” and “defender” of the concupiscible
• All irascible passions arise from concupiscible passions and terminate in them
• Example: Anger arises from sadness (concupiscible) and aims at removing the cause; if successful, ends in joy (concupiscible)
• When one appetite is very active, it shuts down the other: concupiscence diminishes anger; anger diminishes concupiscence (ut in pluribus—in most cases)
• Examples: A hungry child forgets hunger when interested in something else; lovers become less angry when in an agreeable embrace; angry people eating may forget their hunger

Key Arguments #

Against the Objection: “Are These Powers Really Distinct?” #

Objection: Love and hate are contraries in the same genus; therefore the concupiscible and irascible must be the same power, since a single power handles contraries.

Thomas’s Response:

• Love and hate are indeed contraries in the concupiscible, dealing with what is agreeable vs. disagreeable to the senses
• But the irascible is not immediately about agreeable/disagreeable things
• The irascible is about resisting what fights against or impedes the suitable; this is not a contrary to liking/disliking but a different object altogether
• Therefore the contrariety in the concupiscible does not require identity of powers

Against the Objection: “Doesn’t the Irascible Involve More Than Sensing?” #

Objection: The irascible moves us to do things not agreeable to our senses (e.g., fighting is painful; running from danger is exhausting). So how is this a sensory appetite if it moves us against sensory agreeableness?

Thomas’s Response:

• The irascible involves the estimative power, which grasps something as useful/harmful to the animal—not merely as agreeable/disagreeable to the senses
• The irascible apprehends things as means to ends: running from danger is painful, but estimated as useful for survival
• This makes the irascible seem almost like reasoning, since it grasps particular things as means to ends
• The irascible is thus a higher power than the concupiscible, more aligned with reason

The Confusion About Hate #

Objection: Jerome says we possess hatred of vices in the irascible. So hate must belong to the irascible, not the concupiscible.

Thomas’s Response:

• Hate, properly speaking, is in the concupiscible, since it is contrary to love
• But anger (irascible) can arise from hate: “I hate that you’re sticking me with pins, and therefore anger arises”
• What appears to be hatred of vice in the irascible is really anger arising from dislike—the two get mixed together in human experience
• Example: When St. Thomas Aquinas grabbed the poker to drive away the temptress, was this anger or hatred of vice? The confusion arises because anger is an effect of hate

Important Definitions #

Vis Estimativa (Estimative Power)

• The inward sense in animals that perceives things not grasped by external senses
• Recognizes things as friend/enemy, useful/harmful without sensory pain/pleasure
• Example: Sheep recognizing wolf as enemy; mother animals recognizing young
• Operates through instinct; natural and automatic

Vis Cogitativa (Cogitative Power)

• The human equivalent of the estimative power
• Also called “particular reason” because it brings individual sense images under universal concepts
• Naturally subject to universal reason in humans
• More developed and flexible than animal instinct

Petitus Sensitivus (Sense Desire)

• The ability to desire following upon sense knowledge
• A genus that is divided into two species: concupiscible and irascible
• Like how sense (vision, hearing, etc.) is a genus divided into multiple species

Arduum (Arduous/Difficult)

• The formal object of the irascible appetite
• Not merely disagreeable or painful, but something that presents resistance and requires effort to overcome
• Applied to both goods that are difficult to obtain and evils that are difficult to avoid

Examples & Illustrations #

The Young Kitten and the Striped Belt #

• A kitten mistakes a striped belt for a snake and reacts with fear/aversion
• Shows an underdeveloped estimative power incorrectly recognizing something as an enemy
• An older cat with a more developed estimative power would not make this mistake
• Illustrates how the irascible involves the estimative power, not just external sensation

The Insect That Paralyzes Its Victim #

• An insect (described by Faber, a great entomologist) squeezes the head of another insect just enough to paralyze it, but not kill it
• Digs a hole, drags the victim by the antenna, deposits eggs upon it, and covers it
• The offspring have a fresh food supply when they hatch
• Shows apparent reasoning: the insect understands that killing would spoil the food, so it precisely calibrates the pressure
• But when Faber cut off the antenna, the insect could not adapt—it could not figure out to grab the insect by a leg instead
• This reveals it is not true reason but rather a programmed instinct limited to one specific action
• Shows the difference between animals (limited to specific actions) and humans (unlimited rational capacity)

The Fox and the Grapes (Aesop) #

• Fox desires grapes that are high up—a difficult good
• While the fox estimates it can reach them by jumping, it has hope
• After many failed attempts, hope turns to despair
• Illustrates how hope and despair are the irascible emotions arising from desire for a difficult good

The Big Bully in the Yard #

• Berquist recalls being a small child threatened by a big bully who claimed he would cut off his ears
• This caused fear: the evil (being mutilated) is difficult to avoid
• He brought his older brother, and then he had boldness (confidence he could overcome the threat)
• Illustrates how fear and boldness arise from difficult evils in the irascible

Stepping on Toes #

• If someone steps on your toes causing pain, and they ignore your protest, you become angry
• The anger arises from the sadness/pain and is directed at removing the cause
• But if the person is too strong for you to resist, you might instead feel fear
• If you manage to shove them off, the anger (now satisfied) can turn to joy
• Illustrates anger as the irascible emotion arising from sadness when one estimates one can do something about it

St. Benedict in the Bramble Bush #

• When tempted by sensuality, St. Benedict jumped into a bramble bush
• This shows the irascible appetite fighting against the concupiscible appetite
• The pain of the brambles (irascible resistance to harm) overcomes the desire for pleasure (concupiscible)
• Illustrates how irascible emotions can diminish concupiscible emotions

The Woman at the Dinner Party Who Dislikes Cheese #

• St. Margaret Mary’s family had a strong dislike of cheese (unusual for a French family)
• Her father reportedly was afflicted with something (detail unclear in transcript)
• When she entered the convent, an arrangement was supposedly made that she would never be required to eat cheese
• The arrangement was not fully kept, and she was forced to eat cheese despite her strong aversion
• Illustrates sadness/pain arising when something disagreeable to the senses is forced upon you

Angry Lovers Losing Their Appetite #

• A man and woman are in an agreeable embrace and not angry with each other
• Then they get angry about something, and suddenly they don’t want to be intimate
• Shows concupiscence being diminished by anger
• Common human experience illustrating the mutual inhibition of the two appetites

Anger in Tackle Football #

• Players in a rough game of tackle football are being knocked and tackled (painful)
• Yet they’re not merely fleeing from pain; they’re trying to beat the other guys and get even
• They may be driven by the fact that the other team won last year or cost them a tournament
• Even though suffering pain, the drive of the irascible appetite (anger at losing) keeps them engaged
• Shows how irascible emotion can overcome concupiscible aversion to pain

The Hungry Child Distracted from Food #

• A little child is very hungry and dinner is delayed
• If you get him interested in something else, he forgets his hunger
• Shows that when one power (imagination/interest) is very active, it shuts down another (appetite for food)
• Illustrates the mutual inhibition of different powers within the soul

Anger and Pity in the Courtroom (From Aristotle’s Rhetoric) #

• Aristotle notes that anger and pity are two emotions irrelevant to justice in the courtroom
• If the judge is angry at the defendant, his actions seem worse than they are, leading to excessive punishment
• If the judge feels pity, his actions seem less bad than they are, leading to insufficient punishment
• Aristotle compares this to warping a ruler before using it to measure—you won’t get an accurate measurement
• Shows how emotions cloud judgment and can be manipulated by rhetoric
• Anger (irascible) and pity (a form of sadness, concupiscible) interfere with each other

Questions Addressed #

Q: How can the irascible move us to do things that are painful, if sense desire is about what is agreeable to the senses? #

A: The irascible involves the estimative power, which grasps things as useful or harmful to the animal, not merely as agreeable/disagreeable. Running from danger is painful but estimated as useful for survival. The irascible thus operates at a higher level of sense knowing than the concupiscible.

Q: If love and hate are contraries in one power (concupiscible), why aren’t the irascible and concupiscible the same power handling different contraries? #

A: Because love/hate are both about what is agreeable vs. disagreeable to the senses. The irascible, by contrast, is about resisting things that fight against or impede the suitable—a different object entirely, not a contrary within the same genus.

Q: Doesn’t Jerome say that hatred of vices belongs to the irascible? #

A: Hatred properly belongs to the concupiscible. What appears as hatred of vice in the irascible is really anger arising from dislike. The two get confused in human experience because anger is an effect of hate, and when we hate vice, we become angry at it. St. Thomas Aquinas grabbing the poker to repel temptation exemplifies this confusion: was it anger or hatred of vice? Both are involved.

Q: How do we know the irascible and concupiscible are really two distinct powers and not just the same power manifesting differently? #

A: By observing that when one appetite is very active, it diminishes the other. Concupiscence diminishes anger; anger diminishes concupiscence. This shows they are truly two different powers operating in the soul, not merely different manifestations of one power. Also, the irascible requires the estimative power, while the concupiscible operates more directly on sensory agreeableness.

Notable Quotes #

“The irascible, you see, moves us to do things that are not agreeable to our senses.” — Berquist, explaining the irascible’s higher mode of operation

“It involves some kind of knowing more than just the outward senses, sensing something as agreeable to them, or disagreeable.” — Berquist, on why the irascible is a higher power than the concupiscible

“Concupiscence, when aroused, diminishes anger, right, huh? And anger aroused diminishes concupiscence, ut in pluribus, right?” — Thomas Aquinas (via Berquist), on the mutual inhibition of the two appetites

“It is clear from this also that the irascible is, as it were, the fighter for the concupiscible, and the defender.” — Thomas Aquinas (via Berquist), on the relationship between the two appetites