Prima Secundae
Lecture 56: Object, Circumstances, and End as Sources of Moral Goodness

Transcript
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And then they had to fill out a form, you know, I had to sign, I had to get my money back. And so, the pen that they gave me to sign it, I put it in my pocket. So I'm thinking I'll go back in and get it off there, so I'll go to the forms. I don't know how many pens we lost, you know. People are always doing that, you know, that's one of the most common things, huh? But the thing is, it's not proportioned to my act, which is that of taking it home, right? Because it's your pen, right, huh? It's not the sort of thing that I should take home, you know. So that's what he's saying, huh? If you just take the pen by itself and don't consider that it's your pen, or your possession, right, huh? You know, the pen itself is not bad. It could be a good pen, it could write well, right? The goodness of the pen as pen would be that it writes well, right? But if you consider the fact that this pen is your possession, right, then it's not an object suitable for me. To say, oh, put it in my pocket, right? But is the pen actually the object of the action? In other words, when we speak about the object of a moral act, can the object of a moral act be a physical thing? Well, I'm saying here, aliena, what does that mean there, you know? Isn't that a material object, right? A cheap array aliena, what does that mean? Take something that belongs to another, right? But yet, is the object of the action taking of the thing lost from it? What you're saying, in the reply to the first objection, right? Although the exterior things are in themselves good, right? That's a good ballpoint pen, that's why. Nevertheless, it does not always have a suitable, what, proportion to this or that action, right? So, to the action of taking it home, right, it's not suitable for such an action. That's what that disproportionate would probably mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And therefore, he says, although in itself it's good, right? And therefore, insofar as they're considered as objects of such actions, they do not have, what, yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't know, they don't know, they don't know, they belong to somebody else. Yeah. It's the same thing in terms of, let's say, adultery, right, huh? Nothing wrong with a woman, I mean, she's good in herself, right? You see? But she's not, didn't have a proportion to my use, right? Okay. Yeah. The second, it should be said, that the object is not matter from which, right, but matter about which, huh? And it has, in some way, the notion of form insofar as it gives the species, right? So, how do you distinguish between, you know, geometry and arithmetic, right? Well, geometry is about lines and angles and figures, right? And arithmetic is about numbers, right, huh? So, that's the matter trickle. So, it gives the, what, species of the science, right, which is geometry or arithmetic, right? Theology is about God, right? He's pretty formal. But it specifies this science, huh? Ethics is about human acts or something like this, right? Now, to the third objection, it should be said, that not always is the object of human action the object of an act of power, huh? For the desiring power, right, is in some way, what? Passive, yeah. Insofar as it's moved by the, what, desirable, right, huh? And nevertheless, the desiring power is a principle beginning if human, what, acts, huh? Nor do the objects of active powers always have the notion of an effect. But when they are, what, yeah, just as food changed is the effect of the, what, nourishing power, right, huh? But the food not yet changed is compared to the nourishing power as a matter about which it, what, operates, huh? From this, that the object is in some way the effect of the act of power, it follows that it is the end of its action. And consequently, it gives to it form and species, right? For motion has its species from its what? And so on. And although the goodness of the action is not caused from the goodness of the effect, nevertheless, from this, the action is said to be good, that is able to induce a good, what, effect, huh? And thus, the proportion of the action to the effect is the reason of its what? Goodness, huh? So if I love murder, the object of my love is what? Makes my love bad? I love the ugly. Article 3. To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that an action is not good or bad from what? Circumstance, huh? So if you love God, you say that's good. If you love the devil, that's what? Bad, yeah. You love mayhem? That's bad, right? Now, what about circumstances? They're not the object, right? For circumstances stand around the act, right? As it were, existing outside of it, as has been said. But good and bad are in the things themselves, as is said in the sixth book of metaphysics. That's a famous text of Aristotle there, where he distinguishes between true and false, right? Where they are primarily in the mind, right? In the statements that the mind makes. Why good and bad are primarily in what? Things, right? That corresponds to the other difference, you know, that knowing is getting the thing into the knower, and love is going out to the thing. So good and bad are in things, huh? That's interesting, you know, in the Prima Pars, right? You take up the goodness of God and the truth of God, where? You take up the goodness of God, right? In the treatment of the substance of God, right? So before you've taken up the will of God, right? Okay? But he doesn't take up the truth of God, that God is truth itself. He's the first truth until after he's taken up, what? The understanding, right? That's very significant, right? Even though they're both transcendentals, as they say, right? Okay? But because the good is primarily in things, right? Then the goodness of God is attached to the consideration of the perfection of the divine substance, huh? But the truth of... God, I am truth itself, he tells us, right? But the truth of God, and his being truth itself, is taken up after you take up his what? Yeah. That's really very Aristotelian, right? Well, you can see why Thomas is doing that. That's really profound in the order that he has there. Now, I was mentioning how I was studying the things on the angels there in the second part of the sentences, huh? But I noticed that Thomas, there again, he takes up the angels first, then he takes up the material world, huh? And then he takes up the soul, right? The same order, right? And you have that same thing in the Psalms, you know, where you're praising God, where you're praising with the higher things, and then the earth, and so on, and then finding good men to praise him, right? He follows that same order, what you have in the sentences, right? But you find it in scripture itself, it's beautiful, you know? Beautiful. And it prepares the way for understanding, you know, how in a sense, by becoming man, he's bringing the whole creation back to him, because man is a minor mundus, as he says it, right? And the Greek philosophers, even before Aristotle, had seen that, I think, as Democritus. And then he follows the order that he's created. Yeah. For Jesus, for Jesus, he's created a man. Yeah. Thank you for any man. Yeah. Yeah. I found that the order, and I haven't resolved, we speak in the vowels, poverty, chastity, obedience. Sometimes you say, obedience, chastity, poverty. Which is basically the same order, but we're back with the fourth. But then I discovered that John Paul, as Vida Canscrati, talked about chastity first, and then poverty, and then obedience. Where do you get that order? That's all mixed up. So then I went and looked at Vatican II. That's the order they treated. And I was reading Francis de Sales, the treaters of the love of God. And he treats it in that order too. And I'm like, what did I miss all these years? Why haven't they treated this order? And I realized that's the order of the gospel. Christ talked about marriage first, chapter 19 of Matthew. Then he talked about poverty, leave everything following, and the following, he was kind of like, ooh, that's the order of the gospel. Now, why Christ heard it that way, I don't know, because chastity is a matter that's more known to adults about, you might say, the phenomenon of it. Like, see, the so-called secular priest, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They take chastity, right? I mean, our priesthood, definitely. Yeah, yeah. But they don't have poverty. Poverty, yeah. They have a credible meaning of submission. They may be poor, but they don't have the advantage of the vow. I remember, though, the priests that I knew, you know, the College of St. Thomas, I mean, that they were diocesan priests, right? They were not in that thing, you know. They have to joke about it because, you know, when they go off to one of these conferences, you know, the monks, you know, would have this, their purse, you know. So they were better off than they were, you know, financially, these things, although they had taken them off of poverty, but they were given money by the avenue, whoever it is. That's right. And they were there on the cheap salary that they paid them, the diocesan priests. It was a joke for them, you know. Yeah. The Brazilian seminary is always, you know, the difference between you and the religious hour and us. You take the vow of poverty, but we live it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Brazilian seminary is always, you know, the difference between you and the religious hour and us. So, it's very brief, the text of Aristotle, you know, Chris Thomas, you know. What a master he is. Moreover, goodness and badness of an act are most of all considered in the doctrine of what? Morals. Morals, huh? I guess you have that broad sense of more again, huh? But circumstances, since there are certain, what, accidentia, accidents of acts, seem to lie outside of the consideration of art. Because no art considers that which is pro-accident, right? Oh. As is said in the Sixth Book of the Metaphysics, huh? And therefore, goodness and badness of action are not from, what, circumstances, huh? Moreover, that which belongs to something, according to its substance, is not attributed to it to some accidenta. But good and bad belong to an action according to its very substance. Because action from its very genus is able to be good or what? Bad, as has been said. And therefore, it does not belong to action from circumstances that it be good or what? Bad. Bad one. But according, but against all this, is what the philosopher says, right? Who's he? You better know why now. The county said, Aristotle is somebody, he said. Thomas says that Plato and Aristotle are the chief philosophers. So, Sophie Brick, could we? No one can be a philosopher without knowing Plato and Aristotle, since Albert the Great. But against this is what the philosopher says in the Book of the Nicolai Ethics, I suppose. That the virtuous man acts according as he ought, huh? And will he ought, and according to the other circumstances. And contrary-wise, the vicious man, right, huh? According to one of the vices, huh? He acts when he ought not. Where he ought not to, and so in other circumstances, huh? Therefore, human acts, according to circumstances, are good or what? Bad, huh? Thomas says, I answer that in natural things, there is not found the whole fullness of perfection, which is owed to a thing from its, what, substantial form, right? Which gives a species, but much is added above this from the coming upon, accidents, huh? As in man from his, what, shape, figure, color, and things of this sort, huh? Of which is one, if something is lacking to a, what, decent condition. There are five, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six something bad, right? So also an action. For the fullness of its goodness does not wholly consist in its what? Species. But something is added from those things which come as certain what? Accidents. And of this sort are the suitable what? Circumstances. When something is lacking that is required for the suitable circumstances, the action will be what? Bad. To the first, therefore, it should be said that circumstances are outside the action insofar as they are not at the very essence of the action. But nevertheless, they are in the action as certain what? Accidents of it. So they are in the thing, right? They might not be in the very essence of it. Just as accidents which are in natural substances, there's something outside their what? Essence. Yeah. So they are in Rebus, right? My geometry is in Rebus, right? In things. In this thing here. Yes, yes, yes. My logic and my geometry, right? They're in this thing over here. Okay. The second should be said that not all accidents have themselves per accidents to their subject. But some are what we call properties, or they call them per se accidentia, right? Which in each art are considered, right? Those are the properties. But notice the expression there, per se accidentia, right? I suppose accidentia could be taken, you know, and divided by per se accidentia and the other ones. And the per se accidentia had to be aware of that kind of, what? Equivocal by reason, huh? And they are considered in the chart, right? So the geometry shows that the interior angles of a triangle equal to two right angles, right? This is a per se accidentia. And in this way are considered circumstances of acts in moral, what? Doctrine, right? To the third, it should be said, that since good is convertible with being, right? Just as being is said according to substance and according to accident, so also good is attributed to something, both according to its essential being and according to its, what? Accidental being, huh? Both in natural things as well as in, what? Moral actions, huh? The same is true about the other division of being and to act and ability, right? Act is good simply, but ability is good because it's capable of acting. It's ordered to it. So from the object you get more of the essential goodness or badness of the act, and from the circumstances kind of a, what? Accidental goodness, but you know, that's per se, huh? Per se actually didn't, so. You studied the very senses of per se, huh? Ka-Fal-Toba. To the fourth one goes forward thus. It seems that good and bad in human acts are not from the, what, end. For Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names that nothing looking towards the, what, evil or the bad acts, right? In other words, everybody's acting for something good. Good is what all want. If, therefore, from the end is derived operation good or bad, then no action would be, what, bad. Which is clearly, what, false. So when I murdered you, I want to get rid of the annoyance of my life, right? Because I need something good, therefore it's good for me to have murdered you, right? You know, ask the bank robber, you know, why do you rob banks? That's what the money is, he said. That means, obviously, that's the way he's making it. Moreover, the goodness of an act is something existing in that thing, right? But the end is an extrinsic cause. Therefore, an act is not said to be good or bad according to the end, right? You see how he's kind of ordered these things, right? Because Article 3 there is about something that is an accident of the thing, right? And therefore, it seems to be in the thing, right? And therefore, it's more reason to be thought to be, what, determining the goodness, something about the goodness or badness or the act, or maybe increasing it or not, right? Decreasing it. And about the end, that's... That's true, right. Even it seems to be more extrinsic than the circumstances, right? Moreover, it can happen that some good operation is ordered to a bad, what, end, huh? Just as when someone gives alms on account of inane glory, right? Sound of trumpet for you. If they actually did that or not, and they say there's that way of speaking, you know? That's kind of what they do when they have fundraisers. They make a great big check, and they hand it to the guy, and they take pictures and see where he's at. And they converse, though, some bad doing, right, can be ordered to a good end, as Robin Hood, huh? Who steals that he can give to the, what, poor, huh? He didn't steal from everybody, right? But these fat guys coming through, huh? Just like Obama. Therefore, not from the end is the action good or bad, huh? I wonder if anybody's called him President Robin Hood. I'd be cut away, though, running the campaign, right? President Robin Hood steals from everybody to give to the boy. Or he says, Chicago Hood. Yeah, that's more like. Against this is what Boethius says in his topics, right? That whose end is good, it also is good, right? And whose end is, what, bad, it also is, what, bad, huh? Thomas says, I answer. It should be said that the same is the disposition of things in goodness and in, what, being, huh? Now, there are some things whose being does not depend upon, what, another. And in these, it's enough to consider their being, what, absolutely, right? But some things there are whose being depends from another or upon another. Whence is necessary that it be considered by the consideration of the cause of which it depends, huh? Now, just as the being of a thing depends upon both the agent and the form, so also the goodness of the thing depends also upon the, what, end. Whence in the divine persons who do not have, what, a goodness depending upon another, there is not considered any, what, reason of goodness from the, what, end, huh? And that argument they have there, you know, sometimes about the Trinity, you know, where some people argue, you know, well, why do you need three persons, right? One person is sufficient enough, right? And it's kind of applying the principle of simplicity, you know, that we have in natural philosophy to God, right, huh? But Thomas will say, you know, well, that principle of simplicity says, what, talk about a goal, right? And you don't use more than is necessary to reach the goal, right? But this is not to reach some goal, that there are three persons in the best of Trinity, right? You know, that you need three of them, you know, to reach some goal, right? It's kind of a, what, natural necessity, right? The Father generates the Son, right, huh? He doesn't choose to, it's not by his will. It would be a good thing to do, yeah. Yeah. And they don't choose to have the Holy Spirit proceed from them, right? So, human acts and other things whose, and other things whose goodness depends upon another, right, have the reason of their goodness from the end for which they depend. There's more water here, yes. I have a coffee. But human acts and other things whose goodness depends upon another, have some reason of their goodness from the end for which they depend, right? In addition or besides the absolute goodness which exists in them. Thus, therefore, in human acts, a fourfold, what, goodness, is able to be considered. One by their, what, genus. In so far as it is, in so far as it is a, what, action. Because as much action has of being, right, as much as it has of goodness as has been said, huh? Another, according to its, what, species, which is taken according to a suitable, what, object. Third, according to circumstances, as according to some, what, accidents. Fourth, according to the end, fourth, according to the end, as it were, according to its relation to the, what, cause of goodness. So there's a fourfold goodness to be considered a human act. It's a generic there. It's an action. Its species coming from its, what, object. Its accidents, right? Circumstances. And it's, what, depends upon a cause, right? Goodness, huh? Now, the genus, is it speaking of whether or not it's a good or bad action? Is that what, what a quality of it is? No, he's talking about it simply as an action, right? Okay. As some kind of being, huh? It's something that exists. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the outside of the realm of morals, right? Well, it's some goodness, though. Nevertheless, huh? He's talking about a fourfold division of them, huh? That kind of takes into account the two, three, and... Four and something beyond that. Okay. Now, to the first therefore it should be said, in answer to this objection from Moses Dianysius, that the good to which someone looking operates is not always a true good, huh? But sometimes it is a true good and sometimes it's a parent good, right? And it's Aristoteles says too, right? And according to this, this from an end can follow a what? Yeah. And blow these people up, you know. It's going all the time over there in Afghanistan and Iraq still and so on. About 50 people the other day. And get those Christians at their Christmas thing and so on, terrible things. Christ says that, you know, they'll persecute you thinking they're doing honor to God, right? Yeah. I think they're doing that, right? How do you want them to do this? St. Peter used that, that pretty Jewish context on pedicons. You thought you were serving God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The second should be said that although the end is an extrinsic cause, nevertheless, a suitable what? To the end? In relation to it, right? In here it's in the action, right? Right, huh? It's fitted to us at an end, huh? To the third, huh? There's a third injection there again. Oh, yeah, okay. To the third should be said that nothing prevents an action having one of the four said goodnesses, those four that he distinguished, right? But to be lacking another one, right? And according to this, it can happen that an action which is good according to its species, right? Or according to its, what? Circumstances, right? Can be ordered to a bad, what? End. And a conversa, right? Where a, what? Bad act can be ordered to a good end, right? That was a question, a moral question coming up the other day about the assassination of that nuclear scientist there in Iran, right? They blew up one of them, you know? Somebody came by with a magnet bomb or stuck it on his car as he was going to work and blew up him and barely. Well, now, is that moral? Are you justified or not, see? In collaboration of nuclear violence. Yeah, yeah. That's got to, these moral questions are very, very difficult, huh? So nothing prevents an action from having one of the four said goodnesses, but to be lacking another, right? And according to this, can happen an action which is good in its species or according to circumstances is ordered to a bad end and the reverse, right? A good act. And a bad act, and a good end. Not, however, is an action good simply unless what? All the goods run together, yeah. Because any individual defect causes the bad, but the good is caused from an integral cause, right? That's what's very hard to, good, right? There's many ways to go wrong. As Dionysius says in the fourth chapter for the divining, so. Stuff, no? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you're up to Article 5 here in Question 18, to the fifth one goes forward thus. It seems that moral acts do not differ in species by good and, what, bad. For, first of all, good and bad in acts is found in a way conformed to, what, things. But in things, good and bad don't diversify species. But the same species is a man, what, good and bad, right, huh? You know, different species, but you're a bad man, right, from a good man, huh? Therefore, neither also do good and bad diversify species in our acts. Moreover, bad, since it is a privation, of course, the English word for privation is what? Black, yeah. Moreover, since the bad, the bad, since it is a privation, is a certain non-being, huh? But non-being cannot be a difference. According to the philosopher in the third book of metaphysics. It's something positive, huh? It's a great difference. Since, therefore, a difference constitutes the species, huh? And you add the difference to the genus, huh? Because porphyry defined difference is what the species has in addition to the genus, huh? Or what separates species onto the same genus? It seems that some act, then, for the fact that it is bad, is not constituted in some species, huh? When you have the species constituted by a lack of non-being. Nothing would be making it to be of this kind. And thus, good and bad do not diversify the species of human acts, huh? Moreover, of diverse acts and species, there are diverse effects. But the same effect in species can follow from a good act and a bad one. Just as a man is generated by adultery and by the matrimonial concubitur, huh? Therefore, good and bad act do not differ any species, huh? There was a guy there in Edmund there in King Lear's, right, huh? He's the illegitimate one, huh? And he said, I'm just as good as his brother. How dare they call me this, you know? We're hearing a woman sing sometime on the radio, something like that. Well, in my day, we didn't, you know, you shouldn't like that name, illegitimate child, right? In my time, you should have been called a love child. Euphemism, you know what I mean? The Supremes had a Motown hit called Love Child. So the illegitimate child, you know, since there's more, you know, heat in the love child, you know, so you probably got a better product, you know, than you get from this miracle. So, great Shakespeare, then. It's a play, huh? Moreover, good and bad are said in acts sometimes by circumstances, huh? This has been said. But circumstance, since it's an accident, does not give the species to the act, huh? So, accident is distinguished from difference, right? Therefore, human acts are not differing species on account of goodness and badness, huh? But against all this, according to the philosopher in the second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? Similar acts render similar, what? Habits, right? But good and bad have its differing species, as liberality and, what? Yeah. Extreviance. Therefore, their causes, right, huh? Must differ in species, too, right? Therefore, good and bad acts differ in species, huh? But how can that stand against four objections on the other side, huh? Four to one, huh? The score is four to one right now. Now, what is the Master going to say here? I answer, it should be said that every act has its species from its, what? Object, huh? This has been said above. Whence it is necessary that some difference in the object makes the diversity of species in the, what? Acts, huh? Now, it should, however, be considered that some difference of object makes a difference of species in, what? Acts. According as they are referred to one active principle, that do not make a difference in acts according as they are referred to another active principle. Now, why is this, he says, huh? Because nothing that is per se constitutes a species, but only what is per se, huh? To itself. Now, some difference of an object can be per se in comparison to one active principle, and per achedens in comparison to another. Just as to know color and sound, per se differ in comparison to the, what? The senses, huh? The senses, huh? But not in comparison to the, what? Understanding, huh? Which knows both of these, huh? You know, this principle that I give a lot of times, that it always belongs to the higher power and the higher science to distinguish between itself and the lower ones, right, huh? And you can see this in regard to reason and the senses, huh? Can the senses distinguish between reason and the senses? Only reason can do that, right, huh? And when Aristotle is in the second book of the physics, huh? Natural philosophy, in the second philosophy, right? He distinguishes between second philosophy and third philosophy, which is, what, mathematics, huh? But he doesn't distinguish wisdom from those two, right? When you get to the sixth book of the metaphysics, then he distinguishes between, what, wisdom or first philosophy, and natural philosophy or second philosophy, and mathematics or third philosophy, huh? And then to some people's chagrin, I apply it to philosophy and theology. And does it belong to philosophy to distinguish between philosophy and theology? No. It belongs to the higher knowledge and the knowledge which has a more of the character of wisdom, which is theology. So that's kind of a problem for the modern philosophers, because they don't accept theology, and therefore they can't really distinguish between philosophy and theology correctly, and let alone see the order that they should be of the two, huh? So that's a good point, right, huh? That's why I used to always object, you know, to this so-called philosophy religion, that kind of a catch-all phrase, right? It's officially a philosophy course, not a theology course, right? But you're talking about Christianity and Mohammedism and the rest of it, and it's as if, you know, the philosopher as philosopher could distinguish between these, right? And he can't do that as philosopher. But here you can see how, in a way, how reason could distinguish between sight and hearing, these two senses, but could sight do that or could hearing do that? You know, it's very clear in the beginning, right, huh, of the higher knowledge. One that is more like wisdom does the, sees the distinctions. Now, all of that is said in general, and now he applies it to the latter hand. In human acts, good and bad are said by comparison to, what, reason, huh? That's the key thing to see. And Thomas often quotes Dionysius to this effect, huh? Because, as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter about the divine names, the good of man is... is to be in accordance with reason, and bad is to be outside of reason. So when I was teaching students, you know, what is a good human act, what is a bad human act, right? Well, you could say, in general, that a good human act is a reasonable act, right? And the bad human act is an unreasonable human act, right? It's contrary to reason in some way. Yeah. For each thing, that is good for each thing, right? That belongs to it according to its, what? Form. And bad, what is to it, outside the order of its form. It's clear, therefore, the difference of good and bad, considered about the object, is compared, what? Per se, to reason. To it according as the object is suitable to it, or what? Not suitable, right? For some acts are called human, or moralis. You know, moral doesn't mean necessarily good, right? Yeah, yeah. The morals distinguish from natural, right? So, yeah, sir. According as they are by reason, right? It's its form. Once it is manifested, good and bad, diversify species in moral acts. For differences that are per se, diversify the, what? Species, huh? Now, what about that first objection there, right? But Thomas says, even, to some extent, in natural things. Even in natural things, good and bad, what is, what? According to nature, and, what? Against nature, diversify the species of nature. For a dead body, and a living body, huh? Are not in the same, what? Species, huh? So, Aristotle's always saying, huh, that the eye of a dead man is an eye, equivocally speaking. And likewise, the good, insofar as it is by reason, and the bad, insofar as it is, what? Besides reason, right? Outside of reason, diversify the species of, what? Now, the second objection here, right? What about privation being a, what? Non-being, right, huh? Okay. But Thomas is going to point out that the non-being here is something that's attached to some end, that is something positive, right, huh? But attached to this positive thing is the lack of the order of, what? Reason, right, huh? Okay. So, I'm drinking too much, huh? I'm really doing something, right? I haven't swallowed a lot of this beverage. And so, that's not a lack. There's a lack of, a lot of beer or wine, whatever it is. And, but it lacks the, what? Order and measure of reason, right, huh? Okay. So, it's not simply that this bad act is, what? Lacking reason, right? It's something positive, right? You can hear the googling going down, right? Slurp. But, but, but this, uh, swallowing of this stuff is, what? Without measure, right? Without the measure of reason, huh? So, she says that bad implies a lack, not absolute, right, by itself, but falling upon some power, right, huh? But, but an act is said to be bad in a species, not from this that it has no object at all, right, huh? But, because it has an object that is not, what? Suitable or fitting to reason. Just as to take things that belong to someone else, right? Whence, insofar as the object is something, what? Positive, huh? Positively. Let's say it's not a non-being. Non-being, right? It is able to constitute the species of a, what? Bad act, huh? Okay? Now, this is the thing in my text. It's got a little quote there from Thomas' work, huh? In fact, from the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Yeah. Okay? Who'd have thought? Yeah. Yeah. I'll just read it to you. I'll have a little translation here. I guess it might be there, but. Of all moral contrarieties, right, huh? Either both are bad, as, what? Prodigality and illiberality, right? Or one is good and the other bad as liberality and illiberality, right? Now, it is therefore a malum, morale, huh? Moral, evil, both the genus and the difference. Not according as it is the lack of the good of reason, right? From which it is said to be bad. But from the nature of the action or habit, ordered to some end, which is repugnant to the end of, what? Reason, huh? Just as a blind man is a, what? Individual man. Not insofar as he's blind, but insofar as he's this man, right? And just as irrational is sometimes said to be a difference of animal, right? That I'm irrational, irrational. Not on account of the lack of reason, right? This is what makes him to be a dog or a beast. But the reason of such a nature to which follows the emotio of reason, right? So we call the dog or the beast an irrational animal, right? Not that his nature is the lack of reason, but his nature is such that there follows upon having that nature, the lack of what? Reason, right, huh? Okay? So it's something positive, right? That I'm doing, taking your money or something, right, huh? But it's something bad because it lacks the order and the measure of reason, huh? The act, huh? Okay? If it was just the lack of something, it wouldn't be, what? A real species, huh? And his little text here from the sentences. A bad action is specified from its order to a, what? Phenomen debitum, unsuitable. To which is, I wish you care, mixed up, right? The lack of the devotee, Phenomen, right? Surwend. From which the ratio of bad falls into it, right? Whence it is clear that not only, non-sola, huh? Not only deprivation specifies a bad habit in action, but the laying down of an order to an end with deprivation of this surwend, huh? Okay? Although, in that should be, depity, yes, that's one that's old, right? Depity, depity, depity, depity, you know? Okay? So sometimes Thomas will speak about the, more explicitly here, about the equivocation of the word bad, right? Because the first meaning of bad is, what? A lack, yeah? The non-being is something you're able to have and should have when you should have it, right? Okay? And then the second meaning of bad, he says, is not the lack, but what has the lack, right? So that's not just a non-being, right? And then the third meaning is what produces that, what? Lack, and that's called bad, right? So you put, in regard to the second thing, and that's called bad because of the first meaning, right? So you've got to keep those meanings kind of, what? Distinct, right? And so when you say a bad act, it's not the first meaning of bad, it's not the lack, but it's an act that has a lack. You can just think of having a lack, huh? Okay? But it's an act that lacks something, right, huh? That it should have, right? That lacks the order or the measure of what? Reason, right? Okay? doctors get in trouble, don't they, you know, if they are found out to have had a drink or something like that before, or the airline pilots, you know, you know, we saw them drinking in the lounge or something, you know, that he might lose his job, right? So, it doesn't mean that an airplane pilot can't have a drink, but after the flight, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but not before, right? Before and after is the definition of order, right? So, a drink before the flight is a drink out of order, out of the order of the reason to say, right? You see, you do this afterwards, right? And, yes. But that's the reason why Augustine will say that sin is nothing, right, huh? And the man who sins becomes nothing, right? He's kind of, in a sense, a little bit exaggerating the way of speaking there, huh? Not quite as careful as Thomas would be, right? Because strictly speaking, the bad is not nothing, right? It's not simply none being, but none being in a subject able to have something and doesn't have what it should have, right, huh? Okay, so Aristotle will distinguish between the opposition of being and none being and the opposition of lack and having, right? So, the typical example is, you know, speaking of stone is not what blind, right? Even though it doesn't see, right? But that's in renegation, it's not a lack, huh? You know, the English language, of course, which is a frequent language for philosophy and thought, but, you know, the English word want, huh? Want can mean, what? Desire, right? I want something, right? But desire is for something you don't have, right, huh? So, sometimes you say somebody is sadly wanting, a student sometimes, because he or she is lacking something that they should, what? Have, right, huh? Okay? Or we would say a food, you know, that it's not seasoned properly or something, you know, it wants something, you see, the cook or the chef or the diner will say something, it wants something, right? Like, a little bit of this, something, right? But you see the connection there between want and lack, right? It's a very beautiful English language, huh? Okay, now what about this, uh, adulterous regeneration, like in, uh, this legitimate one, huh? I think you had the two, the two sons, Edmund and Edgar there, right? In, in, uh, King Lear, right? You know, know that play, I hope. This time I saw it playing the stage, you know, I was as close to the actor as I am to you, you know, I was right off the front there, you know, and the guys, you'd think, you know, my God, don't distract the poor actor, you know? Don't breathe. Yeah, yeah. But now the distinction that he made there in the first paragraph of the, uh, first part of the corpus. The conjugal act and adultery, right, huh? According as they're compared to reason, they differ in what? Species, huh? Because one is reasonable and the other is unreasonable, right? And they have effects differing in what? Species, right? One of them merits praise and reward and the other blame and punishment, huh? But according as they're compared to the generating power, huh? They don't differ in what? Species, right? And thus they have one effect according to species, right? That comes up, you know, this question about adultery. Isn't God cooperating with adultery, right? When he infuses a rational soul into this illegitimate body. And Thomas says, well, he's cooperating with what? Nature, not the moral act. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nature is, is, dispose something, you know, for rational souls, though. He does that. You've got to see that distinction, right? But I mean, some of you say, you know, he can't be doing this because then he's cooperating with the sinner, right? But he's not, he's cooperating with what? Nature, right? Sooner be down, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, yeah, this is, this is the point I think the church always makes about this, why there's certain limits to what we can't do. Yeah. Because of it, because it's a, a, very, unlike any other creature, it's a cooperation with the creation of the person. Yeah, yeah. Which is something that lets just make us pause. Yeah. I don't, what does the word procreation mean, you know? It means you're helping, you know? Right, exactly. Because that's, that's the thing that the animals don't procreate, they just reproduce the species. Mm-hmm. If you're, you're a person. What about circumstances, right? You know, that's a, you've got to be careful with the circumstances, right? To the fourth, it should be said that circumstances, quanduque sometimes is taken as a, what? Essential difference of the object, huh? But of it, according as it's compared to, what? Reason. Reason, right? And then is able to give a species to the, what? Moral act. Moral act. And this is necessary to be, whenever the circumstances change the act from goodness to what? Bad, huh? For circumstances would not make an act bad, unless by this they were, what? Yeah. So it becomes per se, right? Okay. Now I know some people who take their principal meal at noontime, huh? They say it's better. You guys do it too? You have your main, yeah, okay. So now I take mine in the evening, right? Yeah, yeah. And by some, you know, people, you know, I think Warren Murray's taking his main meal at noontime or something like that. And, uh, but is that circumstance, the main meal at noontime or the evening, is that, um, make one of us good and one of us bad? Huh? Um, doesn't seem to be any repugnance to reason there, right? Mm-hmm. Which time you take your, your principal meal, right? Make, make one good and one better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, my brother Marcus always had the, had the rule about alcohol that you never drink, you know, alcohol and beverages before noon. You always wait until afternoon. You know, that was kind of a good rule, you know? Oh, good. Um, but you read, you know, in the English novels and the English, uh, fiction, you know, they're always drinking small beer for breakfast, right? Right. But I suppose it could, the water was no good, right? Right. You know, so it, it might be, uh, opposed to reason for us, but not for the guy who's drinking small beer. Yeah. You can't, uh, be poisoned by the water, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One man's poison is another man's salvation. Okay. Okay. So that's very interesting, huh? Mm-hmm. How we go on to-