Prima Secundae
Lecture 59: Circumstances, Species, and the Goodness of the Will

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that the circumstance gives, what, a species to the moral act, either good or what? Bad, huh? It's like that when you discussed before about sterilization, because I don't have a right to do it. I know something he says in regard to the first objection there, which is saying that the species comes on the object, right? Why, does he deny that? I know, so he answered it. To the first, therefore, it should be said that a circumstance, according as it gives some species to the act, right, is considered as a condition of the object itself, huh? And as a, what, specific, what, difference of it, huh? Now, what about the circumstances being accident? Well, they remain as accident, he's going to say, right, because they don't give any species, huh? The second should be said, the circumstance remaining in the, what, ratio of a circumstance, since it has the ratio of an accident, does not give the species, right? But according as it is changed into a principal condition of the object, according to this, it gives a, what, species, right? So I was looking at the, put me a bookmark there in my reading of Sophocles, you know, and just got to reading the room with a tract, this is going over in the tragedies, you know. But now I'll read next, Electra, right, huh? Now, if your mother has killed your father, right, can you kill your mother? You say, your mother is, should be, maybe, you know, worthy of death, right, huh? Maybe you have to take into account the fact that you are, what? Yeah, yeah, to the son of this woman, right? Of course, you know, in some of those trilogies there, in Aestas, I know, you know, these pursuable theories afterwards, you know. So, and so, reason takes into account those things, right? Or should take them into account, right? Should you turn your mother or father in if they've stolen? I don't know if they steal. I mean, the current one is, as to, you know, what about the mission of the priest, as she should return as priest that has done such and such. There is a certain question about the propriety of it, actually, on the bishop relationship. Yeah, there's, I know, I have, I don't have a grasp of it as something in terms of history, but I know it was, the church always opposed civil authority having anything to do with trying to punish his clerics, although that has obviously changed. The Vatican supports those criminal constitutions of priests who give his children. If that's the case, they deserve to be tried by them. So, there's kind of a change in custom, I think, but I'm not sure. But the church, that's what got some, one of them got Beckett in trouble with Henry II was that he insisted that clerics are not going to be tried by civil law. That's it, there's no judgment of clerics. And it's interesting because Thomas More takes it up in utopia, too. I don't remember what he said. Peter has this dialogue, Uthifro, right? Uthifro is going to prosecute his father for your piety. It's impious itself, right? Anyway. Now, to the third, huh? Fear not going to have any species, right? To the third, it should be said that not every circumstance constitutes or puts a moral act in some species of good or bad. Because not just any circumstance implies some, what? Agreement, some consonance, huh? Sounding with or dissonance to, what? Reason. Reason, huh? Whence is not necessary, although there are many circumstances of one act, that one act be in many, what? Species, huh? Then he goes on to say, although it is not, what? Inconvenience, that one moral act should be in many, what? Disparate species of moral, right? It's quite different for an actual species then, right? Mm-hmm. Thomas talks about the angels, you know. He's got a chapter on how there's a genus and species in the angels, you know? Because it can't be like in us where the genus comes from what's material and the species from what is formal because the angels are entirely formal, right? So that'd be a question, right? Well, I mean, here you've got a different, how do you determine genus and species here, right? Or species in particular, right? And there's things that you wouldn't have in an actual thing, right? You don't have to talk about dog or cat, you know. It's a problem. You don't have to talk about dog or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat or cat Now, the eleventh article, to the eleventh, one goes forward thus. It seems that every circumstance pertaining to goodness or badness gives species to the, what? Act, huh? So if a circumstance makes the act better or worse, does it give it a different species? Thomas says, not always, huh? This is the famous distinction of, of what? More or less, right? Distinction of more or less gives you a difference in species? Well, if the more or less is partaking more or less of the same, it doesn't give you a different species, right? But if it is, what? Not particularly the same thing, right? Then it could be, what, difference in species, right? So, I mean, like, you talk about the, why is the end better than the means, right? Yeah. Is it just because it has more of the same? See? Or that the end has a goodness, a kind of goodness that the means doesn't have at all? Well, so the first objection says, good and bad are specific differences of moral acts. What therefore makes a difference in the goodness or badness of a moral act makes it differ according to a specific difference, which makes it differ according to what? Species, huh? Just to differ according to species. But that which adds something in goodness or badness of the act makes it differ in goodness and badness, right? Therefore, it makes it differ according to species. Therefore, every circumstance adding in goodness or the badness of an act constitutes a species, right? So if I steal, what, $100 for you instead of $50, does that make it a different species of sin? It's worse what I've done, right? But is it worse of the same kind rather than adding a new kind of badness to it, right, huh? I wonder, though, if I steal from a person who has only $100 and a person who has a million dollars. Carpet house material. You know, I'm depriving one person of the means of living, right? Yeah, which I'm not doing in the case. You're done wrong. Moreover, either the circumstance coming has in itself some reason of goodness or badness, or it does not. If not, it cannot add in goodness or badness to the act. Because what is not good cannot make something more good. And what is not bad cannot make something more bad. Now, is that true? Well, see, if I'm stealing, you know, let's see, you're a rich man. I'm stealing $100 for you instead of $50, right, huh? There's a difference between $100 and $50. Is that a new kind of badness in my act? So it's not making a new species, huh? If I steal $100 in my box outfit, that much isn't there? You won't get out of working in a lot. Then it's something, that's in church, right, huh? And therefore, there is a kind of evil there that's, yeah. But he says it's got to have an objection, saying it's got to have in itself a reason of goodness or badness, right? From this, it has done to what? Some species of good or bad. Therefore, every circumstance increasing the goodness or badness constitutes a new species of good or bad. Moreover, according to the great Dionysius, in the fourth chapter of the divine names, the bad is caused from, what, individual defects, huh? But any circumstance aggravating the evil has a special, what, defect. Therefore, any circumstance adds a new species of, what, sin, huh? Well, you could say, you know, species should not be, what, multiplied without necessity. Moral matter is hard enough to think about, right? Therefore, any, what, circumstance adds a new species of sin. And for the same reason, anyone increasing the goodness seems to add a new species of, what, good, huh? Just as in the, as one unit added to a number makes a new species of, what, number. Yeah, that's good. But the good consists in number, weight, and measure, right? The devil can quote scripture, right? But against this is it more and less to not diversify species. Now, Thomas will often, what, correct that, right? I mean, I mean, qualify that, right? Because sometimes it does involve it, right? But more and less is a circumstance adding in goodness or badness, huh? Therefore, not every circumstance adds in goodness or badness. Constance is a moral act in a species of good or bad, right? There's some truth there, huh? Tell us the question, right? I answer, Thomas says, that as has been said, a circumstance, huh, gives a species of good or bad to a moral act insofar as it regards some special order of reason, huh? Now, is there some special order of reason when I think, you know, of taking $100 instead of, I look at your box, you can get $100 in there. What, should I take $50? I take $100, right? You know, is there a special reason of evil there in taking $100 rather than, what, $50? The Robinhood might leave you alone to get you home. Leave you alone to get you home. There's nothing to be said for that. You know, you get a smaller penance in the confession. Yeah. If you tell them that you want to sell $100, but you only sold it. Yeah. Because it was a church. Now, it can happen sometimes, huh? That a circumstance does not, what, regard the order of reason in good or bad except presupposing some other circumstance from which the moral act has a species of, what, good or bad, huh? Just as to take something in a great amount, right, or a little amount does not regard the order of reason in good or bad except presupposing some other condition to which the fact that the act has, what, ill. And that's it, it's, what, alien is not yours, right, huh? And this is repugnant to reason that I take what belongs to, what, another, right, huh? Whence to take another's in a large or small quantity does not diversify the species of, what, sin, huh? Nevertheless, is he able to, what, aggravate or diminish the, what, sin, right? And likewise, also in other, what, other good things or bad things, right? Whence not every circumstance adds in goodness or bad, adding in goodness or badness varies the moral species of the, what, act, huh? Whether that take $50 or $100, it's still the same kind of bad act, right, huh? Except it's worse to take $100, I guess, than take $50, huh? Yeah, it's the same way, it doesn't change the species of it. Yeah, unless, unless, unless really, you're doing the guy, it means it's, you know, yeah. Maybe. Yeah, I would think so, yeah. Especially with pugnets. To reason, right? To deprive someone else of their means of subsistence. No, it would be a different species, I would think, you know. So I can say there's two sins. You could say... They stole his camel in the desert there, right? So he died there, huh? Or you could say, you know, those things that have been lost, you know, petty larceny and grand larceny. Well, in some ways, you could say, you could measure that by the one who's losing. So, it's petty to a millionaire who's a hundred bucks, but for the poor guy on the street, a hundred bucks going to be a school in a week, you know. So, to the first, huh? It should be said, in those things which are intensified, right, or diminished, the difference of intention or emission does not diversify the species, just as something differs in whiteness according to more and what? Less. It does not differ according to the species or the color. So, they're partaking of the same thing more or less, right? It doesn't give a different kind of thing, right? And likewise, what makes a diversity or a difference in goodness or badness according to intensity or emission does not make a difference in the moral act in species. Now, the second one, that interesting objection there, right? The second, it should be said that a circumstance aggravating the sin or increasing the goodness of the act sometimes does not have goodness or badness by itself, right, huh? But by order to some other condition of the act, as has been said, huh? And therefore, it does not give a new species, but it increases the goodness or the badness which is from another condition of the act, right? So $100,000 as opposed to $50,000 doesn't give you a different sense of what? The badness comes from the fact that it's not yours. And then you apply to the third objection. It should be said that not just any circumstance induces, what? An individual defect by itself, but only according to what? Order to something else. And likewise, it does not always add a new perfection, except in comparison to something else. And in this way, it what? Although it increases the goodness or badness, it does not always what? Vary the species of what? Good or bad, huh? So I go in a pilgrimage, right? I go a mile and someone else goes what? Ten miles, right? He might be more what? Yeah, might be better what he did, right? What I did, right? But is it a different act, kind of act, different species of act, or is it still just a pilgrimage? Yeah, I remember in Quebec you got this St. Anne de Beaupre, There used to be, you know, a march walk out there, you know, and the question is where do you start from? I think you're for, yeah, something start from the oratory, you know, people all the way up. How far is that? The one is, one of the plus of St. Andre in the Montreal, I mean, that's, you know, it's way up there, and a lot of people, they take the stairs and go on their knees, from the bottom to top. In fact, they have wood over these steps that help them do that because instead of eating stone, but they do it. They do it in Fatima, they do that, well, they built a new church in the back, they did this huge piazza. Yeah. Before they built the church, they say you could have been a million people in there. Yeah. And they had, they laid down some stones, like polished stone, the path down to the building chapel in the Tobin district. And it was all, I'd say, a good quarter mile, if not more, and people start at the other end, and you'd often see the mothers with the babies, on their knees with the rosary, and the husband's walking. He's right, she's holding the baby on her knees. She's getting more benefit. She knows, but she's going to work for it. Maybe that Father, Father Smith, Father Michael, who, oh, my singing for the, yeah, He used to have the singing about circumstances. If your neighbor borrows your ladder and you turn it, you can go over and take it. But not while he's on it painting his house. Yeah, that's the circumstance that changes the speech. You have a right to get it back, but not while he's up there. The Greeks, in one place, they had a rule that if you did something when you were drunk, you were punished double, right? Yeah. I'm interested, more questions. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was talking about the goodness or badness of human acts in general, right? Now he's going to take up the interior act of the will. the middle of the will. the middle of the will. I'm going to take up I'm going to take up I'm going to take up the middle of the will. I'm going to take up for its goodness or badness in particular, right? And then he's going to take up as the 20th question here about the exterior act, and its goodness or badness in what particular, right? And this is, Paul VI says, is the rule of teaching, right? Go from the general to particular. Cherish Thomas says in the beginning of the physics, right? Where does Pope Paul say that? Mm-hmm. Where does Pope Paul say that? Oh, I saw it in one of his sermons, yeah, one of his speeches, yeah. Makes sense, huh? So Euclid talks about what a quadrilateral is before he talks about what a square is, yeah. I was reading the third book of the Simicona Gentiles. I like to remember kind of where the breaks come in the text, right? And the first 63 chapters are showing that God is the end of the whole universe and of the rational creature especially, right, but general. But 64 starts the second part there, which is dealing with divine providence, right? In fact, he thinks towards the end, which he is, right? So I said, now how can I, you know, what significance is there in the number 64 that I can remember, right? Because I told you about in the first book, he starts the consideration of divine perfection in chapter 28. 28, and 28, of course, is the second perfect number, huh? 6 is the first perfect number, 28 is the second perfect number. So that fits very well, you know. I won't forget where he starts to talk about that. I said, what significance is there in the number 64? What is the significance about that number? Well, do you know what a square number is? And do you know what a cube number is? Okay. Now, can the same number be both a square number and a cube number? Well, 64, in fact, is both a square number. Because 8 times 8 is what? 64. And 4 times 4 times 4 is what? 64, huh? So it's the first number that is both square and what? Cube, right, huh? Okay. So I was thinking about this. That's interesting, right? Because this shows divine providence, right? You can combine the square and the cube, right, together and so on. But you could also say that, you know, what is the first square number? It's 4, right? And what's the first cube number? No, 9 is the square number. 8, yeah? And so 64 is the, what, cube of the first square number and the square of the first cube number. So it's really beautiful the way the square and the cube come together, this number, right? And therefore, you know, kind of dishonor to the divine, what, providence, right? You can bring the square and the cube together in those several ways, huh? Well, you know, a square has, what, four sides? It has a two-dimensional thing. Yeah. A cube has six surfaces. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, it's another thing about six, which is the first perfect number. If you take two times two times two times two times two times six times, then you get 64. When I was a little boy, they used to always have on the radio there, the $64 question, you know, was kind of a good thing. I don't know what, why they, why they decided that $64 was the price to give. It would be, you know, look too small nowadays, you know, with the inflation we had, you know. Well, but in those days, big deal, if we didn't get a $64 question, you don't get $64, that's true. Okay, we're up to question 19 now, huh? On the goodness and badness of the interior act of the will, huh? Then we're not to consider about the goodness of the interior act of the will. And about this, ten things are asked, right? Okay, first, whether the goodness of the will depends on its what? Yeah. Secondly, whether it depends from the object alone, right? Interesting, you use the word from there, right? You know, probably say something different. When you say in English, the goodness of the will depends from its object? Yeah. On. You can see that previous text there, you know, how hard it is to translate the word ratio into English, right? To give it, you know, the same sense it is. You know, as I say, I remember Demolion being asked in class, how do you translate it for ratio? You know? That's why I call translation a thankless task, right? You know, it's just... I guess the pender, it means to hang. We say hang from something. Maybe that's the sense it still has in Latin, it's hang. We say depend on. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good thing, right? Well, you see, the Greeks, and I guess the Latvians to some extent, they imagine the cause to be above the effect, and the effect is hanging from it, right? Why the Germanic tribes and Anglo-Saxons, you know, and so on, regard the cause as what? Holding up it, right? Now, sometimes you'll see, maybe even Latvian, too, you speak of the underlying cause, you know, but we kind of imagine the cause to be under the effect, holding it up, right? And so the native word for cause in Anglo-Saxons is really ground, huh? So we speak in the court, and we still say grounds for divorce, right? Cause for divorce, right? And of course, our word understanding goes with ground, right? So to understand in effect means to know what stands under it, right? To understand the word, you know what stands under the word, right? But the Latvians will say, impositio nominis, right? They're placing the name upon, right? And they'll do that, huh? So they'll imagine the thing named and the meaning to be under the word, huh? In terms of cause, they'll talk about it as, you know, above, right? And therefore, they speak of the cause that something depends upon, hangs upon, right? Like a dependent, like a woman's ring is called a pendant, I guess, you know? And it's hanging from there, right? And those are the difference in the languages, right? Don't argue with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes one is more, you know, I think the English word understanding is more useful than the Greek word nous, you know? And even better than intelligere, or intelligere is good, too, into slagere. That's the way they explain it here. But the word understand is really, I think, very good. It fits in, you know? It fits in with the word substance, too, right? Which means to stand under, right, huh? It's the understanding that those substances don't know it, right? And so, etymologically, understanding and substance are, what, the same, right? And so, you have to kind of look at these words a little bit. But tamper, the word ratsoe drives you crazy when you try to get the best, if you translate it by reason, in some cases, obviously you can, but in other cases, that's kind of, you know, that seems to be forcing itself in English. Whether it depends on what? Internal law. Oh, it could be from reason. Yeah, upon reason, right? From reason, right? From reason, yeah. Whether it depends from the eternal law. I found the eternal law, right? With a reason making a mistake, huh? With a reason wandering, huh? That's what it means, actually, the word, wandering. You wander an illusion, as Shakespeare says. With a reason wandering or being mistaken, obliges, right? You've got to follow that, you've got to follow that stake in conscience, as they say. Whether the will, following reason, curry. You've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to follow that, you've got to I'm mistaking, against the law of God, right, is what? Bad, huh? Seven, whether the goodness of the will in those things which are what? Yeah, depends upon the intention of the end. Eight, whether the quantity of goodness or badness in the will follows the quantity of good or bad in the intention. Nine, whether the goodness of the will depends upon its conformity to the divine will. Thy will be done, huh? See, a beautiful picture, you know, is coming out, the divine will. Ten, whether it is necessary for the human will to be conformed to the divine will in the thing willed, right, in order that it might be what? Good, huh? One of the stimulus, whatever it was, removed, right? My grace is sufficient for you. Was he wrong in first willing that? Okay, so, to the first end, one goes forward thus. It seems that the goodness of the will does not depend from the object, upon the object, right? Okay, on the object. For the will cannot be except of the good, huh? Because the bad is outside the will, right? As Dionysius himself says in the fourth chapter about the divine needs. If, therefore, the goodness of the will is judged from its object, it follows, or would follow, that every willing was good, and none, what? That reminds me of the specific argument I developed, you know, to show that you can't be mistaken. You're thinking. I'll give you that sometime. Maybe you're getting too far off. More of the good is found before in the, what? End, huh? Because the goodness of the end, as such, does not depend upon something else, right? But according to the philosopher in the sixth book of the Ethics, a good action is an end, right? Although making is never, what? The end. In the case of making, the end is a thing made, right? What's the distinction we make sometimes between doing and making? Have you seen that distinction? Something exterior. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't mean something. Now, if someone says to me, you know, wasn't making a chair doing something? I say, well, what you'd say is, is what? This is the kind of thing you'd say that doing can be divided into doing and making, right? And why does this doing keep the common name, right? And this doing get a new name? Yeah, and that is some product, right? Okay. So listening to the music of what says doing something. It's not making anything, right? Your wife often notices those things. It's not music anything, right? I got in trouble at work one day because the guys who smoke cigarettes could go take a cigarette break for 10 minutes. So I asked the boss, can I go over in the break room and just stand around for 10 minutes? No. I said, why not? Those guys are doing that. He said, yeah, well, they're doing something. They're smoking a cigarette. Maybe I should think I'm smoking. Smoking and doing something. For the latter, faccio is always ordered as an end to something, what? Maybe, you know? Therefore, the goodness of the act of the will does not depend upon some, what? Object, you know? If the object is something, you know, extrinsic, you know? Notice how grammar proceeds, right? You kind of, you know, I kick you and I see you, right? You know, grammatically they're similar, right? But in reality, are they similar? Each thing as it is makes another as it is, right? But the object of the will is what is good by the goodness of what? Nature. Nature. Therefore, it cannot bestow upon the will moral goodness, huh? Therefore, the moral goodness of the will does not depend upon the, what? Object, huh? Against this is what the philosopher says in the fifth book of the Ethics. The justice is that by which some will, what? Just things, right? And for the same reason, virtue is according, is that by which some will, what? Good things, right? Therefore, a good will is, but a good will is that which is according to virtue. Therefore, the goodness of the will is from this that it wills something, what? Good, huh? So that kind of a fundamental beginning, huh? A good will is a will that wills the good. Contrary to what Kant thinks, yeah? You want to admit that, huh? It's very strange, yeah? The bad will is the one that wills something bad, right? Well, I, Thomas, answer. It should be said that good and bad are per se differences of the act of the will, right? For good and bad pertain per se as such to the will, right? Just as true and false to, what? Reasons. Whose act per se are distinguished by the difference of, what? True and false. Insofar as we say that an opinion to be, what, true or false, huh? Whence, uh, will, good and bad, right, are acts differing in species, huh? But the difference of species and acts is according to their objects. This has been said in the previous question, huh? And therefore, good and bad in the acts of the will is properly to be noted according to their, what? Objects, huh? Okay. What do you do when you size up somebody? See whether his will is in the right place or not. Because the will is said to be, and it's what? Yeah. Geristyle says in the sixth book, you've got wisdom there, right, huh? Good and bad are in things, right? So the will is said to go to the object, right? I left my heart in San Francisco, right, huh? There your heart shall be, huh? Well, in the case of knowing, it's more reverse, right? You put it into, you know? So I think somebody's heart is now in the right place. So I had to give them a little distance, right? It's hard to see that people are so involved in abortion, how they're heart can be in the right place. It's hard to see that people are so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion, how they're so involved in abortion.