95. Causes of Pleasure: Liberality, Benefaction, Likeness, and Wonder

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Benefaction (Article 6) #

Thomas addresses whether doing good to another can be a cause of pleasure, given that benefaction appears to give away one’s own good rather than achieve it.

The Problem: Benefaction seems to cause sadness rather than pleasure because:

• Pleasure comes from achieving one’s own good
• Benefaction pertains to giving up one’s own good
• Illiberality (stinginess) is more connatural to humans than prodigality (wastefulness) because we naturally preserve ourselves
• Therefore, benefiting others should cause sadness, not pleasure

Thomas’s Solution: Benefaction causes pleasure in three ways:

1. Through love: When we regard another’s good as our own good through the union of love. We delight in the good that comes about to others, especially friends, as in our own good. The principle is that “a friend is another self” (ὁ φίλος ἑστιν ἄλλος αὐτός)
2. Through hope: When someone does good to another, they hope to achieve some good for themselves, either from God or from some man. Hope itself is a cause of pleasure
3. Through the beginning of the action: This can be understood in three sub-ways:
   • The faculty of doing well: The ability to benefit another gives rise to imagination of abundant good in oneself, from which one can communicate to others. Men delight in their sons and in their own works as things to which they have communicated their own good
   • The habit of virtue: When liberality (generosity) becomes habitual, giving becomes second nature. It accords with habit and is thus pleasant naturally. As St. Paul says, “God loves a cheerful giver”
   • The motive of love: When someone is moved by someone they love to benefit another, for everything done on account of a friend is delightful, because love is the cause of pleasure

On Prodigality vs. Illiberality: The vice of illiberality (refusing to give) is formed by negation of the virtue name, while prodigality has its own name. This is because virtue lies between two extremes but is closer to one than the other. Liberality is closer to illiberality than to prodigality because prodigality corrupts one’s ability to sustain oneself, which is repugnant to nature.

Likeness as a Cause of Pleasure (Article 7) #

Thomas examines whether similarity between things causes pleasure, or whether dissimilarity causes more pleasure.

The Problem: Objections suggest dissimilarity (ruling over others, superiority) causes more pleasure:

• Ruling over and standing before implies superiority, which is dissimilar, yet is delightful
• Those who suffer sadness most seek pleasure, showing that dissimilitude to sadness causes pleasure
• Those filled with pleasant things grow tired of them; satiation through likeness is not pleasant

Thomas’s Solution: Likeness causes pleasure insofar as it is unity, and unity is lovable. However, the effect depends on whether likeness corrupts one’s own good:

1. When likeness does not corrupt one’s good: It is simply delightful (man to man, youth to youth)
2. When likeness corrupts one’s good: It becomes burdensome or saddening per accidens, not insofar as it is like and one, but insofar as it corrupts what is more one (one’s own good)

How Likeness Corrupts One’s Good: Through two mechanisms:

1. Excess/Measure: Bodily goods like health consist in a certain commensuration (proper measure). Excessive similar things (excessive food, excessive bodily pleasures) cause nausea and disgust because they corrupt the measure
2. Direct Contrariety: Like potters who abominate other potters—not insofar as they are potters (the likeness), but insofar as they lose their own proper excellence or profit through competition. Example: the rivalry between Dickens and Thackeray as novelists, yet their eventual reconciliation

On Ruling Over Others: This causes pleasure not because of dissimilarity per se, but because:

• It creates imagination of one’s own goodness and excellence (wisdom and superiority belong to rulers)
• Through ruling, one benefits others, which is delightful

On Competition and Friendship: Painters and poets have natural affinity and friendship because they share likeness but are not in direct competition (unlike two painters or two poets competing for the same excellence).

Wonder as a Cause of Pleasure (Article 8) #

Thomas addresses the paradox that wonder (which involves ignorance) can cause pleasure when knowledge is what is truly delightful.

The Problem: Objections suggest wonder should not cause pleasure:

• Wonder is of an ignorant nature; ignorance is not delightful but knowledge is
• It is more delightful to contemplate things known than to seek unknown things. Inquiry has difficulty and impediments; contemplation does not
• Pleasure results from unimpeded operation; wonder impedes pleasure
• Customary things (which are delightful) are not wonderful; wonder is contrary to what makes things pleasant

Thomas’s Solution: Wonder is a cause of pleasure insofar as it involves desire for knowing, not insofar as it involves ignorance itself. Wonder arises from two sources:

1. First kind of wonder: Seeing an effect while ignorant of the cause. This creates a desire to know what one lacks knowledge of
2. Second kind of wonder: Recognizing that the cause exceeds one’s capacity to know it fully. This is wonder arising from the excellence of the thing known

Why Wonder Causes Pleasure:

• Wonder includes hope of attaining knowledge of what one desires to know
• All wonderful things are delightful because they are rare
• All representations of things are delightful, even of things not pleasant in themselves, because “the soul rejoices in bringing together one thing to another,” which is the proper and natural act of reason
• Learning something newly is more delightful than reviewing what is already known
• Being freed from great dangers is more delightful because it is more admirable and wonderful

Two Senses of Wonder in Aristotle:

• In the Physics/Metaphysics premium: Wonder as the beginning of philosophy, arising from ignorance of causes. As understanding advances, wonder diminishes and becomes knowledge
• In the Metaphysics Book XII: Wonder arising from contemplation of the first cause (God), which proceeds more from knowing the excellence of God. This is admiration rather than curiosity—not desire to know what one lacks, but astonishment at what exceeds one’s capacity to comprehend fully

Distinction from Curiosity: Curiosity can be a vice (inordinate desire to know), but wonder in its philosophical sense is the beginning of wisdom. Even the blessed in heaven experience wonder perpetually in contemplating God, not from lack but from the perpetual excellence of what they contemplate.

Response to Customary Things: Those things which are customary are delightful insofar as they are made natural through habit (custom is a second nature). But things which are rare can be delightful in two ways:

1. By reason of knowledge: One desires knowledge of them as wonderful things
2. By reason of operation: From desire, the mind is more inclined to operate intensely on something new, and more perfect operation causes more perfect pleasure

Key Arguments #

On Benefaction Causing Pleasure #

Objection: Giving away one’s own good should cause sadness, not pleasure, because pleasure comes from achieving one’s own good, and prodigality (immoderate giving) is unnatural.

Response: Benefaction causes pleasure through three distinct ways: (1) through love, regarding another’s good as our own; (2) through hope of receiving good from God or others; (3) through the faculty, habit, or motive of benefaction itself. The example of Romney closing Bain Capital to search for a missing girl illustrates how benefaction can be delightful to the one giving.

On Likeness Despite Competition #

Objection: Dissimilarity (superiority, ruling over) causes more pleasure than likeness, since potters hate other potters, and excess of similar things causes satiation.

Response: Likeness causes pleasure insofar as it is unity, which is lovable. What makes likeness burdensome is not the likeness itself but the corruption of one’s own good through excess or competition. Dissimilarity causes pleasure not by being dissimilar per se but by removing contraries to one’s natural disposition.

On Wonder and Knowledge #

Objection: Wonder involves ignorance; knowledge, not ignorance, is what is delightful. Completed knowledge (contemplation) is more perfect than seeking unknown things (wonder).

Response: Wonder is pleasant insofar as it involves desire for knowing and hope of attaining knowledge, not insofar as it involves ignorance. Two types of pleasure exist: resting in present good (contemplation) and the investigation of truth through hope of attaining it (wonder). Wonder can cause greater pleasure than bare contemplation when it proceeds from greater desire.

Important Definitions #

Benefaction (Benefacere): To do good to another, which can be pleasant through three mechanisms: (1) regarding the other’s good as one’s own through love; (2) hoping to achieve good for oneself; (3) the faculty, habit, or motive by which one benefits another.

Liberality: The virtue of generosity; giving moderately according to what sustains one’s own good while benefiting others. It is a mean between illiberality (refusing to give) and prodigality (giving excessively).

Illiberality (Illiberalitas): Stinginess or refusal to give; formed by negation of the virtue name because it is more connatural to humans than prodigality, as we naturally preserve ourselves.

Prodigality: Excessive giving that corrupts one’s ability to sustain oneself; has its own name because it is more opposed to liberality than illiberality is.

Likeness (Similitudo): Unity or sameness between things; causes pleasure insofar as it does not corrupt one’s own good.

Wonder (Admiratio): A desire for knowing arising either from (1) seeing an effect while ignorant of its cause, or (2) recognizing that a known cause exceeds one’s capacity to comprehend it fully.

Imagination (Imaginatio): The imagining of one’s own goodness and excellence; distinct from understanding, wonder involves imagining rather than full comprehension.

Disgust/Nausea (Fastidium): Loathing or weariness that arises when similar things exceed the measure proper to one’s nature, corrupting one’s good through excess.

Second Nature (Natura Secunda): Habit, which makes actions natural and thus pleasant to perform. As Thomas says, “custom is a second nature.”

Examples & Illustrations #

On Benefaction:

• Romney closing Bain Capital with 30 employees to search for a missing girl in New York, then reopening it afterward, showing how benefaction can be delightful despite the apparent giving away of good (time, resources)
• A father giving his wife a nice gift; the father has pleasure in doing good to one he loves
• Parents rejoicing when their children do well, finding pleasure in the good they have communicated to their children
• St. Paul’s principle that “God loves a cheerful giver,” showing how habitual benefaction becomes naturally pleasant

On Likeness and Competition:

• Potters hating other potters—not because they are potters (likeness) but because they compete for the same excellence and profit
• The rivalry between Dickens and Thackeray as competing novelists, with eventual reconciliation by extending hands
• Washington Irving on the friendships between painters and poets: they have enough affinity to be drawn to each other but are not in competition, unlike two painters or two poets
• The story of Bain Capital is also relevant here: Romney’s action demonstrates how unity and love (benefaction to a stranger) overcome the potential competition between capital and charity

On Wonder:

• Plato’s Theaetetus: Socrates tells Theodorus that “there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder”
• Aristotle’s Metaphysics: At the beginning, men wonder at natural phenomena; through inquiry, they arrive at knowledge of causes; but when arriving at the first cause (God), they experience wonder again—not from ignorance but from excellence
• Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: The way Shakespeare describes wonder at the discovery of a long-lost daughter is described as “a perfect description” of how people experience wonder—a whole world of discovery
• The pleasure of first learning something new exceeds the pleasure of reviewing what is already known
• Intellectual pleasures (knowledge of God, philosophy) are more delightful than bodily pleasures, even if imperfect, because the soul rejoices in “bringing together one thing to another,” which is reason’s proper act

Questions Addressed #

Article 6: Is Benefaction a Cause of Pleasure?

• Question: How can giving away one’s own good cause pleasure when pleasure should come from achieving one’s own good?
• Resolution: Through three ways: (1) regarding another’s good as our own through love; (2) hoping to achieve good for ourselves from God or others; (3) through the faculty, habit, or motive of benefaction itself.

Article 7: Is Likeness a Cause of Pleasure?

• Question: Why does dissimilarity (ruling over, superiority) seem to cause more pleasure than likeness, given that potters hate other potters and satiation occurs with similar things?
• Resolution: Likeness causes pleasure insofar as it is unity. When likeness corrupts one’s good (through excess or competition), it becomes burdensome per accidens. Dissimilarity causes pleasure not by being dissimilar per se but by removing contraries to natural disposition.

Article 8: Is Wonder a Cause of Pleasure?

• Question: How can ignorance (wonder) cause pleasure when knowledge is what is truly delightful?
• Resolution: Wonder is pleasant insofar as it involves desire for knowing and hope of attaining knowledge. All wonderful things are delightful because the soul rejoices in bringing together one thing to another, which is reason’s proper act. Both contemplation of known truth and investigation toward unknown truth can be delightful, though through different mechanisms.