The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Ethics 1316618110, 9781316618110, 1107167744, 9781107167742

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The Cambridge Companion to

MEDIEVAL ETHICS Ethics was a central preoccupation of medieval philosophers, and medieval ethical thought is rich, diverse, and inventive. Yet standard histories of ethics often skip quickly over the medievals, and histories of medieval philosophy often fail to do justice to the centrality of ethical concerns in medieval thought. This volume presents the full range of medieval ethics in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy in a way that is accessible to a non-​specialist and reveals the liveliness and sophistication of medieval ethical thought. In Part I there is a series of historical chapters presenting developmental and contextual accounts of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish ethics. Part II offers topical chapters on such central themes as happiness, virtue, law, and freedom, as well as on less-​ studied aspects of medieval ethics such as economic ethics, the ethical dimensions of mysticism, and sin and grace. This will be an important volume for students of ethics and medieval philosophy. Thomas Williams is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida. He has published widely on figures including Anselm, Duns Scotus, Augustine, and Aquinas, and he is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge, 2003) and Thomas Aquinas: Disputed Questions on the Virtues (Cambridge, 2005).

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OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS

ABELARD   Edited by JEFFREY E. BROWER and KEVIN GUILFOY ADORNO   Edited by THOMAS HUHN ANCIENT ETHICS   Edited by CHRISTOPHER BOBONICH ANCIENT SCEPTICISM   Edited by RICHARD BETT ANSELM   Edited by BRIAN DAVIES and BRIAN LEFTOW AQUINAS   Edited by NORMAN KRETZMANN and ELEONORE STUMP ARABIC PHILOSOPHY   Edited by PETER ADAMSON and RICHARD C. TAYLOR HANNAH ARENDT   Edited by DANA VILLA ARISTOTLE   Edited by JONATHAN BARNES ARISTOTLE’S ‘POLITICS’   Edited by MARGUERITE DESLAURIERS and PAUL DESTRÉE ATHEISM   Edited by MICHAEL MARTIN AUGUSTINE   2nd edition Edited by DAVID MECONI and ELEONORE STUMP BACON   Edited by MARKKU PELTONEN BERKELEY   Edited by KENNETH P. WINKLER BOETHIUS   Edited by JOHN MARENBON BRENTANO   Edited by DALE JACQUETTE CARNAP   Edited by MICHAEL FRIEDMAN and RICHARD CREATH THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO   by TERRELL CARVER and JAMES FARR CONSTANT   Edited by HELENA ROSENBLATT CRITICAL THEORY   Edited by FRED RUSH DARWIN   2nd edition Edited by JONATHAN HODGE and GREGORY RADICK SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR   Edited by CLAUDIA CARD DELEUZE   Edited by DANIEL W. SMITH and HENRY SOMERS-HALL DESCARTES   Edited by JOHN COTTINGHAM DESCARTES’ ‘MEDITATIONS’   Edited by DAVID CUNNING DEWEY   Edited by MOLLY COCHRAN DUNS SCOTUS   Edited by THOMAS WILLIAMS EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY   Edited by A. A. LONG EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY   Edited by DONALD RUTHERFORD EPICUREANISM   Edited by JAMES WARREN EXISTENTIALISM   Edited by STEVEN CROWELL FEMINISM IN PHILOSOPHY   Edited by MIRANDA FRICKER and JENNIFER HORNSBY FICHTE   Edited by DAVID JAMES and GUENTER ZOELLER Continued at the back of the book

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The Cambridge Companion to

MEDIEVAL ETHICS Edited by Thomas Williams University of South Florida

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University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–​321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi –​110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06-​04/​06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/​9781107167742 DOI: 10.1017/​9781316711859 © Cambridge University Press 2019 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Williams, Thomas, 1967– editor. Title: The Cambridge companion to medieval ethics / edited by Thomas Williams, University of South Florida. Description: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. | Series: Cambridge companions | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018038848 | ISBN 9781107167742 (hardback) | ISBN 9781316618110 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Ethics, Medieval. Classification: LCC BJ231.C36 2018 | DDC 170.9/02–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038848 ISBN 978-​1-​107-​16774-​2 Hardback ISBN 978-​1-​316-​61811-​0 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

List of Contributors List of Abbreviations

page vii xi

Introduction 1 Thomas Williams PART I  HISTORY

1 From Augustine to Eriugena Erik Kenyon

9

2 From Anselm to Albert the Great Ian Wilks

32

3 From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s Eric W. Hagedorn

55

4 Islamic Ethics Jon McGinnis

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5 Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy T. M. Rudavsky

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PART II  CONCEPTS AND THEMES

6 Happiness Jeff Steele

127

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vi Contents

7 Virtue Thomas M. Osborne, Jr.

150

8 Law Jean Porter

172

9 Freedom without Choice: Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom Tobias Hoffmann

194

10 Practical Reasoning M. V. Dougherty

217

11 Will and Intellect Thomas Williams

238

12 Emotions Martin Pickavé

257

13 Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism and the Problem of a “Mystical Ethics” Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi

280

14 Economic Ethics Roberto Lambertini

306

15 Self-​Interest, Self-​Sacrifice, and the Common Good John Marenbon

325

16 Sin and Grace Eileen C. Sweeney

348

Bibliography

373

Index

405

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Contributors

M. V. Dougherty holds the Sr. Ruth Caspar Chair in Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University. He is author of Correcting the Scholarly Record for Research Integrity: In the Aftermath of Plagiarism (2018) and Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas (Cambridge, 2011) and has edited Aquinas’s “Disputed Questions on Evil”: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2016) and Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (Cambridge, 2008). Amber Griffioen is a Margarete von Wrangell research fellow and lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Konstanz. She is co-​editor of Interpreting Religion: The Impact of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Reden über die Religion for Religious Studies and Theology (2011) and has published various articles on topics in philosophy of religion, the history of philosophy, philosophy of emotion and action and philosophy of sport. Eric W. Hagedorn is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Norbert College. He has published articles in journals including Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Tobias Hoffmann is Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of Creatura intellecta: Die Ideen und Possibilien bei Duns Scotus mit Ausblick auf Franz von Mayronis, Poncius und Mastrius (2002), the editor of Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present (2008) and A Companion to Angels in Medieval Philosophy (2012), and the co-​editor (with J. Müller and M. Perkams) of Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge, 2013). vii

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viii List of Contributors Erik Kenyon teaches Philosophy and Classics at Rollins College. He is author of Augustine and the Dialogue (Cambridge, 2018) and co-author of Ethics for the Very Young: A Philosophy Curriculum for Early Childhood Education (2019). Roberto Lambertini is Professor of Medieval History in the Department of Humanities at the University of Macerata. Some of his studies about the theory of Franciscan poverty and its implications are collected in the volume La povertà pensata (2000) and he is co-​editor (with Isa Lori Sanfilippo) of Francescani e politica nelle autonomie cittadine dell’Italia basso-​medioevale (2017). Jon McGinnis is Professor of Classical and Medieval Philosophy at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. He is the author of Avicenna in the Oxford University Press Great Medieval Thinkers Series (2010), translator and editor of Avicenna’s Physics from his encyclopedic work, The Healing (2009), and co-​translator (with David C. Reisman) of Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources (2007). John Marenbon is a senior research fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Honorary Professor of Medieval Philosophy in the University of Cambridge. His recent books include Pagans and Philosophers: The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz (2015) and (as editor) The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy (2012). Thomas M. Osborne, Jr., is Professor at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He is the author of Love of Self and Love of God in Thirteenth-​Century Ethics (2005), Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham (2014), and numerous scholarly articles. Martin Pickavé is Professor of Philosophy and Medieval Studies and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Medieval Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the co-​editor (with Lisa Shapiro) of Emotions and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy (2012).

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List of Contributors ix Jean Porter is John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Her books include Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority (2010), Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (2005), Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (1999), and Moral Action and Christian Ethics (Cambridge, 1994). T. M. Rudavsky is Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University. She is editor of Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy: Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives (1984) and Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition (1995), and co-​editor (with S. Nadler) of the Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: From Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 2009). She is the author of Time Matters: Time, Creation and Cosmology in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (2000), Maimonides (2010), and Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Science, Rationalism, and Religion (2018). Jeff Steele is Lecturer in Philosophy at Santa Clara University. He has published articles in journals including Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy and the Florida Philosophical Review. Eileen C. Sweeney is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. She is the author of Logic, Theology and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Absence of Things (2006) and Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (2012). Ian Wilks is Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Acadia University. He has published articles in journals including the Journal of the History of Philosophy and the Review of Metaphysics. Thomas Williams is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida. He has published widely on figures including Anselm, Duns Scotus, Augustine, and Aquinas, and he is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge,

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x List of Contributors 2003) and Thomas Aquinas: Disputed Questions on the Virtues (Cambridge, 2005). Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi is Associate Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Theology at Imam Khomeini International University. He is the author of several English-language articles on religion and Islamic philosophy.

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Abbreviations

Internal Divisions of Works a(a). article(s) a. un.

the sole article

ad n

reply to the nth objection

arg. in opp.

argument for the opposite

c(c). chapter(s) com. comment d(d). distinction(s) def. definition fol. folio in corp.

in the body (of the question)

lect.

lectio

lib. book l(l). line(s) n(n).

paragraph number(s)

obj. objection prol. prologue qc.

quaestiuncula (sub-​question)

q(q). question(s) q. un.

the sole question

r

recto (on the front side of the page, with a for the left column and b for the right)

resp. response s. c.

sed contra (but on the contrary)

sol. solution tr. tractate v

verso (on the back side of the page, with a for the left column and b for the right)

xi

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xii List of Abbreviations

Works Frequently Cited Borgnet

Albert the Great, 1890–​1899. Opera omnia, ed. E. Borgnet

CCCM

Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina

Col.

Albert the Great, 1951–​. Opera omnia (ed. Coloniensis)

Conf.

Augustine of Hippo, Confessiones

CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

Lect.

John Duns Scotus, Lectura

Leonine

Thomas Aquinas 1882–​. Opera omnia, iussu Leonis XIII edita cura et studio Fratrum Praedicatorum. 43 vols. to date. Rome

Lottin

Odon Lottin 1942–​1960. Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles. 6 vols. Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César; Gembloux: J. Duculot

NE Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics OPh

William of Ockham, Opera philosophica

Ord.

John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio

OTh

William of Ockham, Opera theologica

Quod.

Quodlibetal Questions

SCG

Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles

Sent.

Peter Lombard, Four Books of Sentences (or, as otherwise indicated, another author’s commentary on Lombard’s Sentences)

ST

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (i: First Part; i–​ii, First Part of the Second Part; ii–​ii, Second Part of the Second Part; iii, Third Part)

Vat.

Vatican edition of John Duns Scotus 1950–​

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Introduction Thomas Williams

Though it is certainly possible to exaggerate the marginalization of ethics within the historiography of medieval philosophy (and of medieval ethics within the historiography of philosophical ethics generally), it is fair to say that more general histories tend not quite to do justice either to the proportion of their attention that the medievals gave to ethics or to the creativity and fecundity of medieval ethical thought. This volume is intended to help remedy that deficit. The first section offers an overview of the history of ethical thought in the period. The history of ethics in the Latin West is divided into three chapters. In Chapter  1, “From Augustine to Eriugena,” Erik Kenyon emphasizes the eminently practical character of ethical thought in the early medieval period, which sought to reorient human lives around eternal goods. He gives attention to formal, structural characteristics of such works as Augustine’s Confessions and Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, because in that period literary structure so often carried philosophical meaning. Moving from the ninth century to the eleventh, Ian Wilks in Chapter 2, “From Anselm to Albert the Great,” charts the development of ethical thought away from the first-​personal reflections characteristic of early medieval thinkers to the kind of scholastic thought that would characterize the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thinkers in this middle period developed complex accounts of the structure of moral acts and reflected on the relationship between Christian law and natural law. This is the period in which Peter Abelard developed a provocative version of Augustinian ethics and Peter Lombard produced the Four Books of Sentences, which would become a standard textbook in the centuries to come. The chapter ends with Albert the Great, who would exercise great influence not 1

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2 Thomas Williams only as an early exponent of Aristotle but as the teacher of Thomas Aquinas. In Chapter 3, “From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s,” Eric W.  Hagedorn provides an overview of Aquinas’s moral theory that focuses on his account of natural law and his theory of the virtues, as well as the way in which he develops the account of the structure of moral acts that we saw developing already in Chapter 2. After a judicious account of the Condemnation of 1277 and its influence on later thinking, Hagedorn examines three key debates that took place in its aftermath: the question of the modal status of moral truths, debates on the nature of virtue, and the dispute over Franciscan poverty. In Chapter  4, “Islamic Ethics,” Jon McGinnis offers an overview of the ethical systems of Islamic philosophy and theology from roughly 850 to 1200. He examines metaethics and moral psychology, philosophical systems that emphasize virtue and happiness, and theological questions about whether reason unaided by revelation can discern moral duty and whether one can rightly speak of natural law in the context of Islam. Similar questions arise in the context of Chapter 5, “Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in which T. M. Rudavsky explores the ways in which Jewish thinkers creatively appropriated Aristotelian eudaimonism and virtue ethics. The term “natural law” is not much used within Jewish ethics in this period, but many of the topics related to natural law do receive extensive discussion: the nature of reason, the relation between reason and revelation, and the question of whether moral duties can be discovered by reason alone. The second section turns to concepts and themes of central importance in the period. It begins with chapters on three central organizing concepts in medieval thought: happiness, virtue, and law. In Chapter  6, “Happiness,” Jeff Steele sets out Aristotle’s formal conditions for happiness and shows how Augustine, Boethius, and Thomas Aquinas all accept that formal account of happiness and agree that happiness as thus described is obtainable only in the next life, but have different ways of elaborating their substantive views of happiness. He then turns to John Duns Scotus, who breaks with

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Introduction 3 the consensus of his predecessors by separating happiness from morality. Finally, he considers the debate over whether happiness belongs primarily to the intellect or to the will. Thomas M.  Osborne, Jr., examines another central concept in Chapter 7, “Virtue.” Medieval thinkers drew on scriptural, patristic, and classical sources in developing their accounts of the virtues. Osborne considers especially the classification of the virtues, including the role of the cardinal virtues, the connection of the virtues, and debates over which psychological faculties the virtues belonged to. In Chapter 8, “Law,” Jean Porter examines scholastic accounts of natural law and natural right. She considers both theoretical issues about the relationship between reason and revelation (with human reason and Scripture being “complementary and mutually interpreting”) and the practical use of accounts of law to critique both civil and ecclesiastical institutions and social practices. She gives particular attention to debates over the institution of private property and the implications of natural law for sexual morality. The next four chapters concern moral psychology, broadly construed. In Chapter  9, “Freedom without Choice:  Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom,” Tobias Hoffmann notes that although most medieval authors agreed that we have the freedom to choose between alternatives, many of them also thought that there are situations in which we will freely even though we cannot will otherwise than we do. What, then, is the essential nature of freedom, if it is not the power to choose between alternatives? Hoffmann lays out the Augustinian background of this question and then examines key thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century contributions to this debate. In Chapter 10, “Practical Reasoning,” M. V. Dougherty examines views about the reasoning by which we come to know how we ought to act, and the sources of error and confusion that hinder such knowledge. He also examines the hotly contested question of whether any agent can be genuinely perplexus, that is, in a situation in which there are no morally permissible options open to the agent (in today’s language, whether there are any genuine moral dilemmas).

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4 Thomas Williams In Chapter  11, “Will and Intellect,” I  argue that there is no stable meaning of voluntas (will) across the period and consider different characterizations of voluntas from Augustine through William of Ockham. I then turn to thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century debates over the respective roles of will and intellect in the process of action. In Chapter 12, “Emotions,” Martin Pickavé examines the emotions or passions:  their nature, the psychological faculty or faculties in which they are located, their contribution to the process of action, whether there are basic or fundamental emotions, and the extent to which the passions are subject to rational control and therefore potentially praiseworthy or blameworthy. The volume concludes with four chapters that emphasize the ethical dimension of mystical practice, the moral significance of economic activity, the individual’s relation to the common good, and the influence of the theological categories of sin and grace on philosophical ethics. In Chapter 13, “Medieval Islamic and Christian Mysticism and the Problem of a ‘Mystical Ethics,’ ” Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi argue that mystical traditions are often oriented around recognizably ethical concerns:  an account of the highest good and a path for achieving union with or closeness to it, and discussions of virtues and vices, goodness and perfection. Even apophaticism (the view that nothing affirmative can be said truly of God) and antinomianism (the view of some mystics that they are not subject to ordinary laws or norms of behavior) can, when viewed in the context of the larger mystical project, be seen not as challenges to the very possibility of ethics but as contributions to a distinctive mystical ethics. In Chapter 14, “Economic Ethics,” Roberto Lambertini examines ethical concerns with economic practices. He shows how changing social and political arrangements affected thinking about the licitness of private property, the virtues and vices that can be manifested in economic exchange and the acquisition of wealth, and arguments for and against the charging of interest and making a return on investments. In Chapter 15, “Self-​Interest, Self-​ Sacrifice, and the Common Good,” John Marenbon considers both

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Introduction 5 psychological egoism (the view that human beings are motivated exclusively by self-​interest) and ethical egoism (the view that human beings ought to be motivated exclusively by self-​interest) in light of discussions of the possibility and rationality of self-​sacrifice for the common good. Marenbon examines the lively disputes about these matters both before and after the full text of Aristotle’s Ethics became known, taking us from Abelard and Heloise in the twelfth century all the way to Lorenzo Valla in the fifteenth century and Pietro Pomponazzi in the sixteenth. In Chapter 16, “Sin and Grace,” Eileen C. Sweeney examines how the concept of sin shapes both the formal character of moral action –​the nature of moral action and the locus of moral worth –​and its material character –​what counts as sin and how that differs from vice. She concludes by examining how grace affects the notion of moral responsibility. Many important themes recur in different contexts in such a way that the contributions complement each other without overlapping. For example, the question of the rational accessibility of morality arises in Christianity in Chapter 3, in Islam in Chapter 4, and in Judaism in Chapter 5; it recurs in Chapter 8’s discussion of law and again in Chapter 14’s discussion of whether the prohibition of usury can be known by reason or rests entirely on revelation. Happiness is the central concern of Chapter 6, but Chapters 1, 3, 4, and 5 also examine developing conceptions of happiness in the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions, and Chapter 15 asks how (or whether) self-​sacrifice can be justified in an ethic that takes happiness to be the ultimate goal of human life. The discussion of economic ethics in Chapter  14 is supplemented by the account of the debates over Franciscan poverty in Chapter 3 and natural-​law reflections on the legitimacy of private property in Chapter  8. The important (and too-​often neglected) role of canon and civil law in medieval ethical thought is highlighted in both Chapter  8 and Chapter  10. And the relationship between intellect and will is explored not only in Chapter 11 but also in discussions of moral psychology in Chapters 3 and 4, the debate in Chapter 6 over whether the intellect or the will

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6 Thomas Williams has primacy in happiness, and the discussion in Chapter 7 of the psychological location of the virtues. It is our hope that this collection will provide an accessible and appealing way into the rich and varied debates within ethical theory that characterized the Middle Ages and demonstrate both the historical importance and the continuing philosophical relevance of this lively and engaging period in the history of philosophy.

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1 From Augustine to Eriugena Erik Kenyon

By the end of the Hellenistic period, pursuit of the good life had established itself as the main purpose of philosophy. Academic skeptics argued that each dogmatic school’s thought hangs off its view of the human final end and then proceeded to attack all possible systems.1 Stoics positioned ethics as the crowning gem of their curriculum. Epicureans went so far as to judge theories in physics by whether one could attain tranquility by accepting them. Augustine and Boethius are squarely rooted in this Hellenistic outlook, which makes living well the linchpin of all philosophical undertaking. Just as important was the idea that the best life for a human (Greek: eudaimonia; Latin: beata vita) is a matter of realizing our distinctively human nature. Within the domain of ethics, ideas about living well are ideas about human excellence or virtue (Gr.: arete; Lat.: virtus). These, in turn, are grounded in ideas of human nature within the domains of physics and psychology. While the various Hellenistic schools argued about the details, for the most part they all took this general framework for granted. When Augustine and Boethius depart from this Hellenistic rootstock, it is by grafting on Christian and Platonist ideas, which are sometimes hard to distinguish from each other. The result is a hybrid of sorts, a living system which is what the West later came to accept as Platonism. At the heart of this system is the notion that human beings are metaphysical straddlers: we have one foot in eternity and another in time. When it comes to the good life, the task is to live the best life for us, given the kind of thing we are. In practical terms, this calls us to reorient our lives around eternal norms, even amid the transient concerns of everyday life. The present chapter aims to orient readers to the early medieval 9

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10 Erik Kenyon project of using Hellenistic and Platonist frameworks to work out how Christians ought to live their lives as the created image of an eternal God. This interplay of time and eternity provides a thread through a maze of philosophical puzzles distinctive of this period: the problem of evil, fate vs. free will, temporal vs. eternal law, grades of virtue, theories of mind, and strategies for reading Scripture. We will begin with Augustine of Hippo, who sets out this project, and Boethius, who refines it. We will then skip ahead to the Carolingian renaissance with Alcuin of York, who helped restart liberal learning, and Eriugena, whose encounter with the negative theology of Pseudo-​Dionysius led him to reframe the Augustinian project, creating a bold new breed of Christian Platonism. Our period sits in the era between apologists fighting for Christianity’s survival and scholastics seeking to refine and systematize centuries of classical, Arabic, and Christian thought. Ethical inquiry, particularly in these earlier centuries, is more concerned with self-​reflection and spiritual exercise than demonstrative argument. It is more first-​person than third-​person (see Matthews 1992). What’s more, frameworks and hierarchies that later medieval thinkers take for granted are still being put together. I take this to be a strength: insofar as these earlier thinkers are operating closer to the ground, it is easier to connect their work to issues today.2

1.1 Augustine Augustine was born in the relative obscurity of provincial North Africa. Like Cicero before him, his skill for rhetoric carried him quickly to the center of political power, at that point the imperial court at Milan. Situated between Constantine’s conversion and Justinian’s theocracy, Augustine’s Rome was still only partly Christianized. While Augustine looked to Ambrose as a role model for an educated Christian, it was Ambrose’s rival in the Altar of Victory affair, Symmachus, who secured Augustine his position in Milan. At this point, the question was not whether Christianity was

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From Augustine to Eriugena 11 here to stay, but what form it would take. Augustine’s philosophical career was dominated by working out a synthesis of Christian faith and classical philosophy. The first challenge in discussing Augustine’s ethical thought is to determine what we should consider his “ethical works.” As with the American Pragmatists, Augustine criticized pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake (Conf. 10.35.54–​57). Even his most tortured metaphysical speculations and antiquarian exegetical pursuits tie back, however indirectly, to improving how we live. So in one sense, we could look to any of Augustine’s works for his ethical thought. Given that the corpus is huge  –​dialogues, letters, sermons, scriptural commentaries, autobiography, polemics  –​I  will narrow my focus to those works that readers of the present volume are likely to be most interested in. Yet this raises a second challenge:  if we use current assumptions about what counts as “ethical thought” to guide our selection, we risk giving a skewed version of earlier figures’ work. Modern ethics tends to focus on the rightness or wrongness of particular actions; ancient and medieval ethics tend to focus on the goodness or badness of lives. This difference, however, can be put to good use, as it allows us to augment current debates by setting them within more holistic discussions from the past. I will thus focus on aspects of early medieval thought that differ most from our own. This raises the third challenge: differences often sit not at the level of individual claims or arguments but in the overarching projects of whole works. We must set individual passages within their larger contexts, engaging in something closer to formal, literary analysis than might be usual for some philosophers. Put another way, to see what is characteristic of Augustine, we must ask not merely what he thinks but what he is doing with those thoughts.3

1.1.1  De libero arbitrio The deep structure of De lib. arbit. is built around the idea that not all goods are of equal value. (See Harrison 2006 for a close reading of De lib. arbit.) Augustine helps clarify the relative worth of things by

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12 Erik Kenyon grouping them into three classes. Eternal goods such as God, wisdom, and mathematical truth are the most valuable things there are. Temporal goods such as wealth, physical resources, and bodily health are at the bottom of the value scale. Human beings, as metaphysical straddlers, come in the middle. He articulates this scheme in De lib. arbit. 2 by reflecting on human acts of judgment (2.3.7–​10.29). If I am deciding whether to replace a dented salad bowl, then clearly I  am worth more than the salad bowl. Humans judge things; things don’t judge humans. In passing judgment, however, I use eternal standards which are not up to me to decide: in this case, mathematical facts about circles. I cannot change the definition of a circle to accommodate my dented bowl. Eternal truths are thus more valuable than the human beings who use them. This broad structure of the world is mirrored in human nature. I am certain that I exist, that I live, and that I  understand (that I  exist and live). Yet mere existing, which I have in common with rocks, is not that impressive insofar as living things do it already. In turn, living, which I  have in common with animals, is not that impressive insofar as all understanding things do it already (2.3.7). Human cognitive faculties mirror this scheme in a similar way. My most basic way of grasping the world is through my bodily senses. Yet through an “inner sense” I  coordinate and judge my five senses, even though I cannot grasp this inner sense through any of my bodily senses. My inner sense is thus worth more than my bodily senses. This much I have in common with other animals. Yet insofar as I  can reflect abstractly on such matters, e.g. in working through the present argument, my reason, which takes my bodily and inner senses as its objects but not vice versa, is higher still. This reason is the highest human faculty. Through it, I am connected to eternal goods, just as my bodily senses connect me to temporal goods. In this way, human psychology bridges eternity and time. If we accept Augustine’s three broad classes of relative value –​ temporal things, human beings, eternal goods  –​then we should respect these relative values when making decisions. De lib. arbit. 1  explores what happens when we do not. If I  steal my neighbor’s

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From Augustine to Eriugena 13 car, then I have inverted the actual worth of things in valuing a temporal good over a human being. On this view, evil action arises from inordinate desire or “lust” (libido), which De lib. arbit. 1 defines as loving something that can be lost against one’s will. To “love” a thing in this context means to thoroughly invest oneself in it, to place it ahead of all else in one’s decisions. In De lib. arbit. 2’s terms, this is to value a temporal good as though it were something more than temporal. This inordinate desire also explains how temporal punishment works (1.2.5–​5.12). All a state can do to a criminal is take away temporal goods, whether wealth, freedom of movement, or even embodied life. Yet this taking away will punish, in a strong sense, only those people who love temporal goods inordinately in the first place. While this does not line up individual crimes with individual punishments, it does sort out broad classes of people. Those who keep their desires in line with what things are actually worth may have temporal goods taken away, but, as the Christian martyrs have shown, they will not really suffer as a result. What’s more, individuals are responsible for their own inordinate desires (1.7.16–​11.22). Temporal goods or even other people cannot corrupt my desires unless I  acquiesce. Eternal goods, meanwhile, will not do so given that they are by definition good. It follows that the human individual, by his own free choice, is responsible “for enslaving himself to lust.” Given that this follows from the normative structure of reality, Augustine concludes that it is a matter of eternal law that evildoers make themselves susceptible to temporal laws’ punishments. The state of having one’s desires in line with the actual worth of things is what Augustine calls “piety.” While this is not sufficient for attaining happiness, Augustine treats it as a necessary step along the way. At De lib. arbit. 3.2.5, he sets out the “rule of piety” as calling us to (i)  think of God in the highest terms possible; (ii) thank God for the goods He’s given us, even if they are not the greatest goods; (iii) acknowledge our sins and look to God for healing. Augustine introduces this by thinking about a puzzle of how it is that we freely sin if God foreknows our actions. The answer –​that our actions cause

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14 Erik Kenyon God’s knowledge, not vice versa  –​is from an ethical perspective not as important as his analysis of how people go wrong in dealing with this puzzle. Some, by concluding that God cannot know our free choices, contradict (i). Others, by concluding that we are not to blame for our sins, contradict (iii). Both groups inquire “impiously.” From this small example, Augustine makes the more general point that the only way to make progress in inquiries such as this is to hold firmly to the rule of piety. On my reading, this discussion of piety provides the linchpin for the whole of De lib. arbit. Looking back, we see that the philosophical inquiry leading up to this point helped instill a pious mindset: book ii’s classifications of goods drive home (i) and (ii), while book i’s discussion of punishment drives home the importance of (iii). Looking ahead, we see the rest of book iii taken up with an exploration of Genesis which is guided by this pious outlook. The surface structure of De lib. arbit. is built around a discussion between Augustine and his friend Evodius over the problem of evil. Book i opens as Evodius asks whether God is responsible for evil action. The discussion of crime and punishment that ensues brings them to the answer: no, because humans freely choose to give in to inordinate desire. Book ii opens with the question of whether God was wrong to give us free will which makes evil possible. They proceed to spin out hierarchies of goods which drive home the general idea that all goods are good, even if not all are the greatest goods. Augustine positions free will in this scheme by two criteria (2.18.47–​20.54). Great goods, such as virtue, can be used only for good. Free will clearly does not fit. Among the class of goods that can be used for good or evil, minor goods are those without which we can live rightly, e.g. feet, while intermediary goods are those without which we cannot live rightly. Augustine places free will in this intermediary class. In fact, it is through this intermediary good that we have access to great goods of virtue freely chosen. Free will is thus a good and God was not wrong to give it to us. If evil exists at all, it does not exist as a thing (after all, God made all things good); rather, evil is merely a perverse movement of the will.

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From Augustine to Eriugena 15 Book 3 opens with the question of where this perverse movement comes from. After running a quick piety check, Augustine looks to Scripture for an answer. He responds first (3.5.12–​16.46) by invoking a principle of plenitude, i.e. that the world is a perfect good because it contains every possible grade of goodness. This involves multiple comparisons, e.g. a horse that wanders off is better than a stone that stands still. Yet this perfection does not require human beings to sin, merely the existence of human beings who could sin. God is thus not the source of the will’s perverse motion. Augustine then turns to the account of the Fall in Genesis to show where this perverse motion does come from (3.18.51–​25.77). While we today are responsible for freely choosing to sin, our wills are impaired by ignorance of the good and trouble at holding to it (3.18.51–​23.70). This ignorance and trouble are punishment for the original humans’ transgression. Adam and Eve, by contrast, were created in a middle state, not unlike infants, and could have chosen wisely or foolishly. Unfortunately, they took the latter option at the Devil’s prompting (3.23.66–​25.77). What then of Lucifer? As the highest created being, he must have been aware of what a great good he was losing in turning away from God. Augustine suggests that it was the realization of his own exalted status as the pinnacle of creation that led Lucifer to value the penultimate good, himself, over the ultimate good, God. Thus, “pride is the beginning of all sin.”4 In a final twist, it turns out that the process of thinking through the problem of evil instills the virtue, piety, that opposes the vice at the heart of evil, pride. In short, thinking about evil makes us better people.5 De lib. arbit. may open with a merely theoretical question of why God allows evil. Yet the inquiry that ensues seeks nothing short of reorienting our relationship to temporal and eternal goods. This project is best understood, I  suggest, against the backdrop of Platonist ideas about the “grades of virtue.”6 The basic idea is that if virtues are human excellences, then there are three different ways in which humans may excel:  living an embodied life (civic virtue), purifying themselves of embodied life (kathartic virtue), and

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16 Erik Kenyon living above bodily life (contemplative virtue). References to this scheme are scattered across Augustine’s dialogues.7 The most elaborate comes at the end of De quantitate animae, where Augustine develops Plotinus’s three grades of virtue into a seven-​step scheme of the human soul’s activities (33.70–​36.81). The first three involve the soul’s (1) living, (2) sensing, and (3) rational activity through the body. In the next two, the soul turns to itself to (4) purify itself of bodily attachments and (5) keep itself pure. In the final two, the soul (6) looks to and (7) finally sees God. The more significant stages here are 4 which De quant. an. identifies as “virtue,” i.e. kathartic virtue, and 7 which it dubs “contemplation.” Stage 3 represents the highest human life short of the inward turn and is characterized by arts from housebuilding to politics to poetry. Yet one may be an excellent poet and a terrible human being. I suggest that Augustine does not allow knowledge, in for independent civic virtue.8 Virtue requires self-​ particular knowledge that the rational soul is more valuable than anything physical but less valuable than God. As metaphysical straddlers, our best life is to contemplate eternal truths in God. Our second-​best life is to strive for such contemplation, while using the same eternal standards in directing our day-​to-​day affairs. There is no third-​best life. Treating the world only on the world’s terms is, for Augustine, not a viable option.

1.1.2 Confessiones Augustine opens Confessiones announcing, “our heart is restless until it rests in you [God]” (Conf. 1.1.1) and closes it with an allegorical reading of the seventh day of creation, when the human heart will finally rest in the Lord (13.35.50–​37.52). If we take this as the work’s main frame, then the intervening action consists in Augustine working through obstacles to finding this rest. He comes close to giving us a table of contents at the start of book 3. At this point, a twenty-​something Augustine has, in the course of studying rhetoric, read Cicero’s Hortensius, which set him on

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From Augustine to Eriugena 17 Table 1.1 Obstacles and resolutions in the structure of Confessiones Obstacle to finding rest in God

Resolved

Motivates

Old and New Testaments conflict Problem of evil Anthropomorphic conception of God Disordered will

Conf. 3 Conf. 7 Conf. 7 Conf. 9

Conf. 13 Conf. 12 Conf. 11 Conf. 10

the search for God and wisdom. Meanwhile, given his Christian upbringing, he holds the “name of Christ” to be a requirement that is not up for negotiation. The trouble is that he has been confronted with two groups –​Catholics and Manichees –​who claim the name of Christ and promise a path to wisdom. Augustine reports that three Manichee critiques of Catholicism held him back:  conflict between the Old and New Testaments, the problem of evil, and Catholics’ anthropomorphic conception of God (Conf. 3.6.10–​7.12). As in De lib. arbit., Conf. treats a rightly ordered will as a necessary step along the way to knowledge of God. We may thus add Augustine’s disordered will to the list as a subsidiary problem. Conf. is structured around these four obstacles to finding rest in God. The narrative books, 1–​9, recount Augustine working through them in a sort of coming-​of-​age story. The answers he arrives at, in turn, motivate the self-​reflection of 10 and scriptural exegesis of 11–​13, as Augustine finds his new worldview within the account of creation in Genesis.9 (See Table 1.1.) These critiques and Augustine’s responses to them build upon the ethical thought of Augustine’s dialogues. Let us therefore walk briefly through Conf., tracing how each of these threads plays out and focusing on how the discussion here expands upon what we have already seen. Manichees were selective in their use of Scripture and criticized the Catholics for accepting contradictory passages, e.g. the

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18 Erik Kenyon differing stances on polygamy found in the Old and New Testaments. Augustine responds by invoking an account of temporal and eternal law (3.7.13–​9.17). His strategy is to argue that eternal laws never change, temporal laws may change, and issues like polygamy are matters of temporal law. Scripture may thus without contradiction endorse polygamy in one instance but not another. Augustine draws eternal law from Matthew 22: love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind; love your neighbor as yourself. In this, he finds a scriptural hook for De lib. arbit.’s hierarchies, according to which God is to be valued over all else, and rational human beings over non-​rational creation. Much of the drama of Conf. can be traced in terms of how well or poorly Augustine’s will is ordered around these first two laws.10 To these, Augustine adds a corollary: do nothing contrary to nature. God, after all, created nature, so acts contrary to nature offend the love of God. Otherwise, one should follow the rules of one’s state. These may vary from place to place and change over time, but that’s okay. If these temporal laws contradict eternal law, however, eternal law always trumps. In our terms, this is a kind of Christian ethical pluralism, which moderately minded Christians today should find attractive. In holding to love as the core of Christian ethics and letting the details work out as they will, Augustine walks a middle way between a fundamentalist’s rigidity and a freewheeling relativism which will accommodate cultural differences to the point of spinelessness. According to the Manichees Good and Evil are both material substances, eternal and equal to one another. Our world is a battleground between these two forces, and the point of Manichee religion is to liberate portions of the Good through ascetic discipline. The reason God does not stop evil is that He cannot. According to Conf. 5.5.8, part of Augustine’s initial attraction to Manicheism was that the Catholics did not seem to have any better explanation of evil. All of this, however, is narrated from the perspective of a forty-​something Catholic bishop with Platonist sensibilities, who takes himself to have found just such an explanation. Books 3–​7 recount the young

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From Augustine to Eriugena 19 Augustine’s progress toward this goal. First, he had to realize that passages of Scripture that seem to  offend correct reason may be read figuratively. The sermons of Ambrose introduce Augustine to this idea (5.14.24, 6.1.1–​5.8), which he makes ample use of in the later books’ reading of Genesis, particularly book 13. This much gets him over Scripture’s crassly anthropomorphic images of God as a man with a body, sitting on a throne, etc. Yet this leaves him still needing to find a conception of God to replace this crassly materialistic one. Augustine gets there in the ascent of Conf. 7.10.16–​21.27. While he borrows moving language from the Psalms, the basic shape of this ascent is in keeping with De lib. arbit. 2’s reflections on human acts of judgment. The main insight in the current version is of God as Being, infinite and immutable, the ultimate cause of all finite, mutable beings. The books leading up to this judge the young Augustine’s progress toward this goal.11 While Conf. 7’s insight finally resolves the Manichees’ three critiques of Catholicism, Augustine finds himself still having trouble committing to his new worldview. In the terms of De lib. arbit. 3.18.51–​23.70, the insight of Conf. 7 resolved his “ignorance of the good” but left him with “trouble in holding to it.” Conf. 8 addresses this new hurdle, with Augustine’s reflections on how one’s will can be divided against itself (8.5.10–​12, 8.20–​11.27, 12.29). Into this are woven narratives of conversion experiences through which individuals have overcome such problems:  the pagan orator Victorinus (8.1.1–​5.10), Anthony of Egypt (8.6.14–​15), and ultimately Augustine himself (8.6.13–​12.30). The basic point is that merely assenting to a correct view of God is insufficient for resting in God. One must reorient one’s life around this view. For Augustine, this took nothing short of a providential conversion experience. Conf. 9 concludes the work’s narrative portion by presenting the life of Augustine’s mother, Monnica, as an instance of such reorientation (9.8.17–​10.25), and a second, more successful ascent as mother and son rise to God together in the final days before Monnica’s death (9.10.23–​13.35). With Conf. 10 Augustine turns from narrative to theoretical reflection on what it means to seek God within (10.1.1–​26.37)

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20 Erik Kenyon and then  takes stock of his current progress in reorienting his life around the eternal (10.27.38–​43.70). Similar to De lib. arbit.’s piety check, Conf. 10 tests how well the preceding philosophical inquiry has prepared Augustine for reading Scripture. The rest of the work looks to Genesis to ground the new worldview Augustine has forged in books 1–​9. Conf. 11 uses Genesis 1:1 as a test case for developing a more sophisticated approach to reading Scripture than the Manichees had allowed for in Catholicism. Conf. 12 reads the account of creation in Genesis in a way that supports the metaphysical assumptions undergirding Augustine’s solution to the problem of evil. Conf. 13 returns to book 3’s discussion of temporal and eternal law, as Augustine presents an allegorical reading of the seven days of creation which, like De quant. an.’s seven grades of virtue, provides a unifying framework for God’s actions scattered across history. In sum, Conf. reiterates and expands upon the theoretical content we find in De lib. arbit. –​grades of goods, temporal and eternal law, account of evil. Both treat philosophical inquiry as a kind of reality check, bringing our confused opinions and desires in line with reality. In this, philosophy provides a useful arena for practicing kathartic virtue, which Augustine treats as a prerequisite to reading Scripture in a useful way. While the two works share similar deep structures, they part ways in their more overt framing, as De lib. arbit.’s inquiry into evil is replaced by a first-​person coming-​of-​age story.

1.2 Boethius,

CONSOLATIO PHILOSOPHIAE

Boethius (480–​524) was born into wealth and power and adopted by a descendant of the Symmachus who helped Augustine secure a position in Milan. In addition to keeping up family traditions of politicking, Boethius was an ardent student of classical learning. Fluent in Greek literature, language, and philosophy, he set out to preserve this education for the West by providing Latin commentaries and translations of the complete works of Aristotle and then Plato. But his political career got in the way when he was imprisoned and executed by Theoderic, the Ostrogothic emperor of Rome. Following

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From Augustine to Eriugena 21 a Platonist curriculum of his day, Boethius had begun with the logical works of Aristotle and was cut short before finishing even these. While his project would presumably have brought him around to ethical questions eventually, his impending death sentence prompted him to get there more quickly. Consolation of Philosophy represents the West’s last classically trained philosopher mustering a millennium of thought to prove to himself that despite the loss of wealth, power, freedom, family, and even life, happiness is still within his grasp. The work is cast as a dialogue in which Philosophy personified plays doctor to a Boethius gripped by a spiritual sickness (for clarity’s sake, I  will refer to the author as “Boethius” and the character as “the Patient”). Its particular genre takes its cue from Menippean Satire, as the text alternates between sections of prose and poetry, heavy with nature-​imagery, in a variety of meters. Scholarship on Cons. has been dominated by two debates. First, why does this work of a Christian author contain so little distinctively Christian content? Second, how does the work’s seemingly scattered collection of ideas fit together, if at all? While the first of these may seem more relevant to questions of ethics, in Boethius’s time issues of literary shape have philosophical significance. I suggest that addressing the second will put us in a position to see why the first is mostly a red herring. Cons. 1 opens as the Patient bewails his ill fortune and concludes as Philosophy takes the Patient’s spiritual temperature through three questions (1.5–​7). Problems arise with the last: “Do you, a human, remember what you are?” The Patient gives the common response: a mortal, rational animal. Philosophy’s diagnosis is that he has forgotten himself, and she sets out to remedy this problem. The Patient’s problem is a lack of self-​knowledge. Given that he is in fact a rational animal, the most specific problem is that he has forgotten his immortality. Since this is a lot to swallow, Philosophy sets out on a spiritual regimen, starting with lighter treatments and working her way up to harder ones.

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22 Erik Kenyon Cons. 2 is a delightful read. Philosophy’s first move is to use rhetorical wit to get her Patient to stop whining. She begins by pointing out that it is in the nature of Fortune to change (2.1–​2) and argues, following Epicurus, that minimizing one’s desires is a better way to satisfy desires than relying on Fortune (2.3–​4). From here, she moves on to Stoic arguments, stripping the apparent value from externals such as wealth (2.5), power (2.6), and reputation (2.7). She ends with a soul-​making argument that what is normally called good fortune is in fact bad as it seduces us into valuing such externals, while adverse fortune is actually good as it helps us recognize true goods such as friendship (2.8). The gloves come off in Cons. 3, as Philosophy constructs an argument to turn her Patient from false happiness to true happiness. To start, she invokes Aristotle’s endoxic method from Nicomachean Ethics 1, taking stock of what kinds of life people consider to be happy, teasing out the good pursued in each kind of life, and pointing out how each falls short. Following Aristotle, Philosophy argues that people who devote their lives to the pursuit of wealth, office, kingdoms, glory, and pleasure are really after self-​sufficiency, preeminence, power, acclamation, and delight, respectively. Yet they never attain these ends, since wealth can be lost, kingdoms usurped, etc. Within NE, Aristotle uses his survey of lives to argue that his own account of happiness captures everything worth capturing in other accounts but without their problems (NE 1.8). In Cons., Philosophy uses the same strategy to argue for a Platonist conclusion. Invoking a principle of convertibility, she argues that each of the goods pursued by the five kinds of life canvassed is, in its true form, the same good (Cons. 3.9). That is to say that, in their true forms, self-​sufficiency = preeminence = power = acclamation = delight. Real power, for instance, comes from not relying on anyone except oneself, which is what self-​sufficiency really is. People go wrong when they seek part of what is really partless, thus closing themselves off from the whole of happiness. At this point, the Patient has been freed from false conceptions of happiness and turned toward a true one.

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From Augustine to Eriugena 23 To show that such a singular good exists (3.10), Philosophy invokes the principle that perfection can decay into imperfection but imperfection cannot build to what is perfect. Given that we have ideas of imperfect happiness, there must therefore be a perfect happiness. And since nothing is better than God, this true happiness is God. Human beings who become happy thus become gods, albeit by participation rather than by nature. Philosophy closes (3.11–​12) by arguing that all things are good insofar as they live fully into their nature and they do this insofar as they preserve their own unity. Thus, the God/​True Happiness we’ve been talking about is Unity. And since we humans find unity through our minds, not our bodies, we should look for happiness within. It’s one thing to be convinced that true happiness exists, it’s another thing to be truly happy. What would the Patient need to do to attain such happiness? Book 1 identifies the Patient’s problem as forgetting his immortality. Book 3 elaborates that, in seeking happiness in externals, he found misery by breaking into parts what is partless. What he needs is a way to turn inward toward the unity that sits behind and above external multiplicity. This, I  suggest, is the purpose of the rest of the work. When Boethius raises the problem of evil in Cons. 4 and of divine foreknowledge in Cons. 5, the point is not that the Patient wants some nagging questions resolved. The point is that the conceptual work involved in resolving these problems will help the Patient turn inward to (re)capture his immortality. Cons. 4’s discussion of evil is familiar from Augustine, albeit anchored in different schools of thought:  Platonic (4.p2.11–​16), Aristotelian (4.p2.17–​24), and Stoic (4.6–​7). Yet the last of these is introduced via a quite un-​Stoic distinction between God’s Providence, which takes in the whole at a glance, and Fate, which is the working out of this Providence in time. Philosophy elaborates by analogies of an artist’s plan vs. the execution of that plan; a point vs. a circle; eternity vs. time. While none of these distinctions is really necessary for resolving the problem –​the Stoics did fine without invoking eternity –​thinking through them is good practice for thinking about

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24 Erik Kenyon the unity that sits behind multiplicity, thus setting the stage for the final book. Cons. 5 tackles the problem of reconciling human freedom and God’s foreknowledge. The problem is formulated in two ways:  one focuses on its being fore-​ (5.p3.3–​6), the other on its being -​knowledge (5.p3.19–​32). Philosophy’s response incorporates two conceptual enrichments. The first deals with necessity. If we assume that knowledge is of what is necessary (e.g. mathematical truths), then whatever God knows happens by necessity and not free choice. Philosophy responds by arguing that the necessity of knowledge stems not from the object known but from the nature of the knower (5.4–​5). To present this point, she leads the Patient through an ascending series of cognitive capacities, reminiscent of De lib. arbit. 2, beginning with conches, whose sense capacities allow them to grasp objects insofar as they cause feelings of pleasure or pain; brute animals, whose imagination allows them to grasp objects as particulars; humans, whose reason allows us to grasp objects as universals in a spread-​out way; and God, whose understanding grasps universals in a unified way. A  stick, for instance, when poked into a conch would feel like pain, when thrown around a dog would register as a particular object to be chased, when presented to a human can become the object for reflection on stick-​ness, which may ultimately culminate in the kind of understanding that God had already. Each level embraces those below, bringing more certainty in a way that does not change the object grasped:  a stick is a stick, even if a dog has a better grasp of it than a conch does. This is what undergirds Philosophy’s argument that God’s foreknowledge does not necessitate events. Moreover, human beings are capable of this complete range of cognition. While we may spend most of our time with reason, we are capable of moving beyond this to understanding. When we do, we rise above our merely human state and grasp the world as God does. In this way, we become gods. On my reading, this is what advances the work’s bigger project, as it pushes the Patient to remember

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From Augustine to Eriugena 25 that within him which is immortal. Philosophy’s second conceptual enrichment is to define eternity as “a possession of life simultaneously entire and perfect, which has no end,” in contrast with time, which is characterized by a life that has its moments spread out. Just as unified understanding is preferable to spread-​out reasoning, a unified eternal life is preferable to a life spread out in time. It is not that God lacks temporal beings’ ability to change; it is temporal beings that lack God’s ability to hold it all together. To wrap our minds around this, we must view the world from the perspective of eternity. If we do so, then we realize that God’s simultaneous gaze over all of time adds no more necessity to events than a dog’s looking at a stick  does. More importantly, by taking this perspective we touch that which is immortal within us, becoming gods however briefly.12 While there might not be much Scripture involved, Cons. lays out a spiritual regimen thoroughly in line with Augustine. On my reading, Cons. is an exercise in kathartic virtue. In this it fulfils the role assigned to philosophy in De quant. an.: one step on the way to seeing God. Given God’s ability to operate through sacraments and more hidden means, it may even be an unnecessary step. But it is still a useful one. Given the circumstances of its composition, Cons. shows us in particularly stark relief the role of ethical thought in this period:  the first-​person project of reorienting one’s life around the eternal.

1.3 Alcuin In terms of philosophical production, not much happened in the century or two following Boethius’s death. Seeking to rebuild the high culture through which Augustine and Boethius had moved, Charlemagne (742–​814) established schools in cathedrals and monasteries, using classical learning as preparation for the study of Holy Scripture. Alcuin of York (735–​804) was central to this project, which combined theoretical questions of curriculum design with practical challenges of producing accurate copies of texts.

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1.3.1  De Virtutibus et Vitiis Liber Alcuin’s Book on Virtues and Vices is dedicated to a certain Count Guy, “to arouse zeal for eternal blessedness” (De virt. 5–​6). Since Guy is “busy with secular matters,” Alcuin neatly lays it out as a “handbook” (46), holding up Scripture as a mirror for the reader to consider himself in (11). The result is something like a second-​person spiritual exercise which walks through lists of the kinds of virtues one finds in Scripture: faith, charity, and hope (8–​10); almsgiving, chastity, and avoiding fraud (23–​25); and the “eight principal vices” (33), which are conquered by eight holy virtues: “pride by humility, greed by abstinence, fornication by chastity, avarice by wisdom, anger by patience, weariness by constancy of good works, bad sadness by spiritual joy, vainglory by the charity of God” (42).

1.3.2  Disputatio de Rhetorica et de Virtutibus At first glance, Alcuin’s Dialogue on Rhetoric and the Virtues seems to advance far less ethical theorizing than De virt. does. The bulk of this dialogue consists in Alcuin walking Charlemagne through the five parts of Rhetoric:  invention (4–​45), arrangement (36), style (37–​38), memory (39), and delivery (40). The work closes with a brief discussion of the virtues’ four “roots” (radices):  prudence, justice, courage, and temperance (40–​ 47). Ethically charged insights into character, motive, and the nature of law are scattered throughout the discussion of Rhetoric, particularly in the section on Invention, or “the devising of subject matter, either true or apparently true, which makes a case convincing” (4).13 Yet it is a systematic exposition of rhetorical principles, rich with distinctions and sub-​ distinctions, that drives the discussion. The closing discussion is equally tidy, marching dutifully through the four virtues from philosophical (44–​ 46) and Christian (47) perspectives. The work’s two main sections, while rather dry on their own, become interesting when juxtaposed. Insights scattered throughout the discussion of rhetoric are gathered together and refocused within

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From Augustine to Eriugena 27 the closing discussion of virtues. For the moderate person, principles of delivery will come naturally (42–​43). Similar connections may be drawn between other virtues and rhetorical principles. The concluding Christian look at the virtues brings the focus even tighter, grounding the four virtues in the love of God and neighbor. Such love may “purify” the soul, helping it “fly back from this troubled and wretched life to eternal peace.” It is thus only at the end that we discover the work’s main project, as a dialogue, “which had its origin in the changing modes of civil questions, [that] finds thus an end in eternal stability” (47).

1.4 Eriugena,

PERIPHYSEON

Two generations after Alcuin, Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald, commissioned John Scottus Eriugena (815–​877) to translate into Latin the works of Pseudo-​Dionysius the Areopagite. This enigmatic author, probably a fifth-​ century Syrian monk, adopted the literary identity of a first-​century Athenian who converted to Christianity upon hearing Paul’s sermon on the unknown God (Acts 17:34). Pseudo-​Dionysius’s negative theology develops the Platonist idea that God is beyond human comprehension and thus is described better through denials than through affirmations. This provides a skeptical challenge of a sort, which throws into question the whole Augustinian project of seeking happiness in the understanding of God. As Platonists, Augustine and Boethius occasionally nod to the idea that God is beyond the ability of human beings to grasp; yet in their main lines of thought, Augustine was happy to equate God with Being and Truth as the ultimate object of human contemplation (Conf. 7),14 and Boethius continued the project with his account of divine simplicity (Cons. 3). In short, both figures based their ethical theories on the idea that human contemplation of God is the ultimate end of human life. Negative theology throws all of this into question by claiming that God, the One, exceeds even the highest of human cognitive faculties. The best we can hope for is to put knowledge aside and strive to become one with the One through a mystical

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28 Erik Kenyon loss of self. Eriugena’s Periphyseon (On Nature) seeks to reconcile Eastern mysticism and Western rationalism via some of the most elaborate theory construction since Boethius. Periphyseon has rightly been described as a “summa of reality” (Carabine 2000, 17). The dialogue between Teacher and Student opens with a fourfold division of nature (1.1): that which creates and is not created (God as the Source of all creation), that which is created and creates (the primary causes, which are more or less Platonic forms), that which is created but does not create (effects of the primary causes; more or less the sensible world), and that which is neither created nor creates (God as the End of all creation). Each division of nature is assigned a book, with two books for the last. This simple scheme, however, provides the framework for the work’s deeper structure (3.3), which moves through logic, theology, physics, and ethics, while simultaneously following a Platonist emanation scheme as all things process from and return to the One. Since God is incomprehensible, book 1 lays out a logic whereby we may make metaphorical assertions about God by attributing created effects to their Creator. This allows us to say that God is Good, Being, Truth, and whatever else Augustine and Boethius attributed to him. Strictly speaking, though, God is none of these, not because he lacks such properties but because He exceeds them: God is Good to such a degree that our concept of Goodness falls short. That said, all creation gives finite expression to its infinite Creator through a series of “theophanies.” Book 2 lays out the first of these, the primordial causes, “which the Greeks called ideas or forms” (2.36)15 and which lie eternally in the Word of God. Book 3 argues that corporeal bodies are merely bundles of these intelligible ideas (3.7–​8), and undertakes a heavily allegorical reading of Scripture, finding this metaphysical scheme in the account of creation in Genesis. Book 4 proceeds to the creation of humanity. Here Augustine’s and Boethius’s habit of comparing human cognitive faculties to non-​human creatures’ (plants, conches, etc.) is put to the novel task of arguing that all creation is contained within human nature. While the human soul is one, it is called “intellect” when it

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From Augustine to Eriugena 29 approaches the Divine Essence, “reason” when it considers created causes, “sense” when it looks to created effects, and “vital motion” when it tends to a body. This account of humans as metaphysical straddlers underlies what we might call Eriugena’s “negative anthropology.” Just as God is Truth and not (because exceeding) Truth, man (homo) is animal and not (because exceeding) animal (4.5). As the image of God, human nature is infinite and thus ultimately unknowable (4.7). Because of the Fall, however, we have forgotten our exalted status, being weighed down by the earthly bodies given as a punishment for sin. Book 5 completes Eriugena’s allegorical reading of Genesis, explaining how all creation will be perfected by returning to its Creator. This is accomplished by reversing the order of creation (5.20–​40). The process starts as humanity’s earthly body is exchanged for its original spiritual body. Given that all creation is contained in humanity, the rest of creation comes along for the ride. Given that all bodies, even spiritual ones, are ultimately ideas, these spiritual bodies will then turn into ideas in the mind of Christ. At this point, all humans will have returned to Paradise, which is simply the contemplation of God. Those who would rather be attending to temporal affairs won’t like it much (this is Eriugena’s version of eternal damnation). Others will pass even beyond this understanding and become, through an ineffable union, one with God through the process of “deification” (5.36–​38). Given God’s infinity, this process will never be completed; rather each of us will strive toward an unattainable goal as much as our individual natures allow. Given that “God Himself is both the Maker of all things and is made in all things” (3.9), our coming to know God is also God’s coming to know Himself through his theophanies. We humans will not, however, lose our individuality; rather, to borrow an image from Pseudo-​Dionysius, we will be like the light of several lamps combining in one without losing their individual identity (5.8–​13). In short, Eriugena makes humanity the linchpin of cosmic salvation. In this, we find the tension between civic and contemplative

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30 Erik Kenyon virtue finally broken in favor of the latter. Augustine and Boethius sought to integrate civic virtue within a broader scheme. Even Alcuin was content to allow this-​worldly advice to sit side-​by-​side with a call to eternal goods. For Eriugena, not just humanity but all creation finds its ultimate happiness in humanity’s contemplation of God.

1.5  Conclusion: From Classical to Medieval The content of Eriugena’s Christian Platonism  –​grades of goods, the primacy of contemplation, account of evil –​clearly has much in common with that of Augustine and Boethius. Yet the works of these earlier figures start from the bottom and seek to turn the mind back to God. Pseudo-​Dionysius’s influence leads Eriugena to start from the top and trace the procession of all things from the One as a way of setting the stage for the return of things to their origin. In following Pseudo-​Dionysius’s lead, Eriugena loses Augustine’s introspective, first-​person approach. While Periphyseon follows De lib. arbit. and Conf. in using philosophical reasoning to prepare the way for reading Scripture, the mode of philosophical reasoning is markedly different. Augustine starts with personal experience and uses it to make sense of the broader world. Eriugena starts with the structure of the world –​ arrived at through a combination of reason and authorities –​and uses it to make sense of personal experience. Whether we think this is a change for the better or the worse, Periphyseon provides a model for Aquinas’s Summa in a way that Conf. or Cons. never could, marking a midpoint between scholasticism and the classical world.

Notes 1 See Cicero 2005 and Algra 1997. 2 For a fuller introduction to the intellectual climate of the time, see Marenbon 2007, 1–​84. 3 Heath 1989 argues that, while modern readers tend to interpret a work around thematic unity, ancient literary theorists looked for unifying aims of a work. See Kolbet 2009 for Augustine’s particular aim of “curing” the soul.

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From Augustine to Eriugena 31 4 Ecclesiasticus 10:15 quoted at De lib. arbit. 3.25.76. 5 Thanks to Kolten Ellis for this neat summation of my reading. 6 See Plotinus, Enneads 1.2, and Porphyry, Sententiae 32. 7 See especially Sol. 1.14.25. 8 At Contra Academicos 3.17.37 Augustine calls civic virtues “truth like,” i.e. derivative from true virtues found through the intellect. 9 Conf. is an incredibly rich work. I present this as one scheme among many for drawing connections between its two halves. 10 See Conf. 1.6.10, 2.4.9–​10.18, and 4.4.7–​12.19 for early milestones. 11 See Conf. 4.13.20–​16.31, 5.3.3–​11.21, and 7.1.1–​8.12. The passage from book 5 echoes De lib. arbit.’s rule of piety, as Augustine claims that Manichees, by attributing evil to an alien force, fail to take credit for their own wrongdoing; Platonists, by claiming God and the soul to be of the same substance, fall prey to pride; Catholic Christians, meanwhile, by thinking of God in the highest terms possible and not getting bogged down in the details of creation, maintain piety. 12 This is corroborated by the work’s poems, whose nature images serve as stepping stones inviting us to raise our minds above mundane affairs as we turn from time to eternity. 13 Howell  1965. 14 Turner 1995 gives an alternative reading. 15 Uhlfelder  1976.

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2 From Anselm to Albert the Great Ian Wilks This chapter traces developments in moral theory from the late eleventh century to the mid-​thirteenth: from the era of Anselm to that of Albert the Great. This is a profoundly formative time in moral theory, in which a predominantly Augustinian model for treating this subject matter mutates into what is increasingly recognizable as a Thomistic one. Discussion of the nature of sin develops into a complex account of the structure of the moral act. Discussion of virtue joins ancient to Christian doctrine and elaborates the common product of the two. Discussion of law draws likewise from ancient sources to develop the distinction between Christian and natural law. These three lines of development do not exhaust the creative impetus of this era, but they do have a place of great centrality within it, and will thus be the guiding themes of the following account.

2.1  Late eleventh and twelfth century 2.1.1  Anselm of Canterbury We begin with Anselm of Canterbury (1033–​1109), famed in his own day as a Catholic prelate, and ever since for his ingenious line of argument to demonstrate God’s existence. His sources were largely patristic, especially Augustinian, and his interest as a moral theorist was predominantly focused on the nature of sin. This is apparent in his On Truth (De veritate), a treatise in dialogue form, where (among other things) Anselm discusses justice and sin. Sin, we are told, is nothing other than failure to will as we ought to will; even the Devil’s sin is such that “if he had always willed what he ought, he would never have sinned” (On Truth 4).1 This association of sin with what is willed as opposed to what is physically done 32

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 33 is a characteristic preoccupation of early medieval moral theory, and Anselm’s own thoughts on the matter are dominated by the association. Not only do we have to will what we ought in order to be just, the argument goes, but we have to will as we ought for the right reason, not for the wrong reason. The reasoning behind this view centers on what Anselm calls “rectitude” (rectitudo).2 This word expresses the state of development something has achieved when it becomes a completed, fully realized instance of its kind. Fire can have rectitude (On Truth 12), as can humans, because individual fires and individual humans can both be more or less complete expressions of their respective natures. Anselm uses the notion of truth to explain this point; an x with rectitude is one that has developed true-​to-​type, has become a true and authentic x. This leads to an account of justice. Justice resides in a will that has rectitude, that has become a true and authentic will. A thief who returns the stolen property under compulsion does not exhibit such a will. Neither does someone who is charitable to the poor out of pride (On Truth 12). Both do what they ought, and even will what they ought  –​but in each case they do it for the wrong reason. Acting from an endeavor to achieve rectitude of will itself would be the right reason: When the just man wills what he ought, he does not … preserve rectitude for the sake of anything other than itself. But someone who wills what he ought only because he is compelled, or because he is bribed by some extraneous reward, preserves rectitude not for its own sake, but for the sake of something else. (On Truth 12)

Moral theorists must not only look to the act of will that underlies the deed; they must look to an even deeper level of motivation, the reason for willing that underlies the act of will. The point here is to notice how strongly Anselm’s moral theory places emphasis on motivation and intention. In this he reflects patristic –​especially Augustinian –​tradition, but amplifies

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34 Ian Wilks that tradition, as do his twelfth-​century successors. The justice in a will, he says, remains “even if it is impossible for what we correctly will to come about” (On Truth 12); and thus the moral status of the will does not seem to depend upon ensuing actions. On the contrary, it is the moral status of actions that depends upon the will. In his On the Virginal Conception and on Original Sin, Anselm defends the view that “no action is called unjust in itself, but only on account of an unjust will” (Virginal Conception 4); he offers examples of apparent sins that are in fact not sinful:  the case of Phineas, who kills another man from a motive of justice (Numbers 25:7–​13), or the case of sexual intercourse between married couples. Now there are indeed some physical actions, he quickly adds, that “can never be done without injustice” (Virg. Con. 4); perjury is an example. But that is because it is a kind of action that can only arise from ill will, and so inevitably qualifies as unjust. Anselm wishes to avoid the extreme of discounting the moral value of physical actions entirely, but nonetheless affirms strongly the moral centrality of the agent’s underlying motive. His treatment of this theme is not widely studied in the following century, but the theme itself becomes ubiquitous among his philosophical successors.

2.1.2  Anselm of Laon, William of Champeaux, and the School of Laon The next figures of importance in this historical account are Anselm of Laon (d. 1117), and William of Champeaux (ca. 1070–​1121). The former, who seems to have studied with the earlier Anselm, founded a school at Laon of mainly theological bent; the latter began his career as a philosophically prominent member of that school. The textual leavings of this later Anselm and his followers are fragmentary, but unmistakable in their focus on sin and choice. These themes are developed into an account of the stages of sin. These involve first the suggestion, which presents the sin to mind as a course of action; then the delectation, or pleasure, taken in that thought; then the consent to that pleasurable suggestion; and finally

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 35 the ensuing act.3 Anselm seemingly considers the consent phase in this sequence of greater moment than the pleasure phase, because, he says, the pleasure is sinful only when consented to, not when it is just a “motion of the flesh” (Lottin v, 73)4  –​in other words, involuntary. The same holds for delectation, which can likewise be just a motion of the flesh, and only counts as a sin when subject to some control. An anonymous fragment from the School makes a parallel case for the preeminence of the consent over the ensuing act, claiming that “we should not consider what people do, but in what spirit they do it” (Lottin v, 292); both God and Judas send Christ to his death, but it is a sin only for the latter, whose motive is base. William of Champeaux takes the point into less familiar territory by arguing that even virtues and vices must be judged by reference to consents. Extravagance and avarice are not sinful in the absence of consent to actions supposedly manifesting them; piety, justice, and chastity are not virtues under that condition either (Lottin v, 222). This account of sin is very much within the patristic tradition. So is the School’s account of virtue, which centers in a traditional way on the Christian virtue of charity.5 This is defined by Anselm as love of God and neighbor, but in either case only for the right motive: love that is for the sake of God, and not for the sake of imagined reward (Lottin ii, 61, 63). The love of God itself “is fed and grows” (Lottin ii, 63–​4) through love of neighbor. The fact of this social stimulus might well have spurred interest in classical material on virtues to gain further insight into what love of neighbor entails; and a few fragments do indeed show awareness of basic notions –​the list of cardinal virtues, and the Aristotelian ideas of mean and, especially, habit. But there is no extended inquiry in this area. Much the same can be said for treatments of natural law. The central issue is mainly theological:  the relation between the Old and New Law of the two Testaments. The Decalogue and Golden Rule supply elements common to both traditions (Anselm of Laon 1919, 35–​36, 79); these are pressed on humans by “natural reason” (naturalis ratio), allowing those living under the Old Law to gain some prior insight

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36 Ian Wilks into the content of the New. William of Champeaux thus describes natural law as both inborn (nata) and known (nota) among all, and as such it appears to be a capacity capable of being realized independently of both Old and New Testament traditions (Lottin v, 211). A robust notion of natural law is certainly at work here, but a more elaborated account of this matter that would meet the needs of moral theory more broadly is not in evidence. The writings of this School  –​unlike those of the earlier Anselm –​were widely disseminated in their own time, and set the stage for much that followed in the twelfth century.

2.1.3  Hugh of St. Victor Hugh of St. Victor (1096–​ 1141) exemplifies this influence. He is linked to William of Champeaux through his accession to leadership in the Parisian monastery of St. Victor, which was earlier founded by William, and his moral theory is very reflective of both the interests and limitations of the Laon schoolmen. Most conspicuous is his account of sin, focused on consent, as theirs is, but if anything more forcefully so; in his On the Sacraments (De sacramentis), for example, he claims that “the entire merit is in the will. As much as you wish, so much you deserve” (Sacraments 2.14.6; Hugh of St. Victor 1951, 413).6 A vice has an ancillary role in the genesis of sin; it is an underlying corruption, from which sin arises through consent. But it does not seem to be a sin itself, and indeed seems in a positive sense to offer an opportunity for a “reward and crown” when the action it might naturally cause is successfully checked (Sacraments 2.13.1). Hugh distinguishes within the class of actions some so good they cannot be omitted without sin, and some so bad they cannot be committed without sin (Sacraments 1.12.9). Underlying this distinction is a fact about humans in general, that they innately grasp precepts to the effect that we should do nothing to another except what we would have done to ourselves (Tobit 4:16), and that we should do to others what we would have them do to us (Matthew 7:12). These

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 37 precepts are, in fact, identified as key elements of natural law, which Hugh distinguishes, as does the School of Laon, from the Old Law of the patriarchs (where those precepts essentially appear in more specified form as the Decalogue), and the New Law of grace. This identification is a suggestive way of connecting a natural law theory with a consent-​based doctrine of sin. Less well integrated is Hugh’s account of virtues, which –​as would be expected –​centers on charity as love of God and neighbor for the sake of God (Sacraments 2.13.6), but pursues the theme in a largely theological context, forgoing any special discussion of virtue in a non-​theological context (Sacraments 2.13.6–​12). Hugh’s work was widely studied in the twelfth century and beyond, making his discussion of sin available to an extensive audience.

2.1.4  Peter Abelard Peter Abelard (1079–​1142) maintained a fierce rivalry with many of his philosophical contemporaries, especially William of Champeaux and Anselm of Laon. Nevertheless, his views in moral theory maintain a similar basic outlook.7 The greatest difference lies in a more thorough treatment of natural law and virtue theory; this is clearly the product of familiarity with Stoic sources, especially via Cicero’s On Invention (De inventione). Abelard’s Know Yourself (Scito teipsum) seems to have been the first independent treatise on moral theory to be authored in the medieval tradition. In keeping with the times, he develops an account of sin which depends conspicuously on the idea of consent. Only our consents count as sinful; prior mental acts and subsequent physical ones do not. This is because it is only the sinful consent that is truly expressive of contempt for God, who cannot be injured by us, but can be offended by such contempt (Peter Abelard 1971, 4).8 Someone may desire to steal the fruit from another’s garden, but does not consent to such an undertaking; so no sin has occurred (Peter Abelard 1971, 14). Neither is there sin in an act of killing another in certain cases

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38 Ian Wilks of mistaken identity, since the act was not what was consented to (Peter Abelard 1971, 24). A vice like anger which disposes us to sinful consents may seem itself sinful, but Abelard disagrees; its doing so simply makes the achievement of a non-​sinful consent all the more pronounced (Peter Abelard  1971, 2). Only the consents count. And just as those consents manifesting contempt for God are sinful, those manifesting love of God are meritorious (Peter Abelard 1971, 6). Abelard does not regard his theory as implying any material revision to existing moral law. The law is just differently framed as telling us what acts not to consent to, instead of telling us what acts not to do (Peter Abelard 1971, 24). This indeed makes a difference, he argues, because someone might consent to kill or bear false witness, and then be seen as faultless if some accident prevented the deed from taking place. It is also no part of Abelard’s thinking to suppose that we lack awareness of what the moral law proclaims. In various works, notably in his Dialogues (Collationes), he reflects the Stoic belief that there are moral principles generally implanted in the minds of rational beings. “Natural law,” he says, “is what the reason naturally innate in all people urges should be put into effect, and therefore remains the same among all people” (Peter Abelard 2001, 144). This law provides core elements of the revealed law of the Christian faith, such as the commandments to worship God, love one’s parents, and punish the wicked –​and by the standard of these injunctions, all rational agents may be held accountable for the content of their consents. The Old and the New Law of the two Testaments expand the content of natural law; in common with others of his era, Abelard is keen to elucidate the relationships between these differing kinds of moral edict. He is likewise concerned to produce a harmonizing account of ancient and Christian virtue theory. The cardinal virtues receive significant attention, as does the Stoic program of arguing their centrality by showing that other virtues are simply reducible to them (Peter Abelard 2001, 138).9 He claims that prudence is not really a moral virtue at all, and then takes temperance and courage

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 39 in a  somewhat ancillary function as protecting justice against the dangers of temptation and fear, respectively. Justice is then the preeminent cardinal virtue. The relationship of classical theory to Christian thus boils down to the relation between these three and the Christian virtue of charity (since the other two members of its preeminent triad, faith and hope, are, like prudence, shown not to be moral virtues). Charity, he says, includes those three other virtues; “on account of the fact that it makes people just, brave and temperate, it is rightly called ‘justice,’ ‘courage’ and ‘temperance,’ ” and is thus properly understood as the only virtue that “obtains merit from God” (Peter Abelard 2001, 118). While the above doctrine conforms to the general outlook of the twelfth century, Abelard’s use of it to analyze the example of Christ’s persecutors decidedly does not. Assuming these men regarded their actions as pleasing to God, it can be argued that they were not showing him contempt; so, Abelard concludes, their persecution appears not to have been sinful (Peter Abelard 1971, 54). This conclusion was provocative, and appeared in the list of articles of condemnation ultimately upheld by the Council of Sens in 1140.10 Later accounts of sin will have the resources to provide a more nuanced response to a problem of this sort; Abelard’s own boldness on the matter somewhat discredited his whole body of work as a moral theorist, both in his own time and beyond.

2.1.5  Alan of Lille With Alan of Lille (d. 1203), we round out our treatment of the twelfth century; a highly celebrated figure from its latter half, he continues this era’s emphasis on the moral role of decision. When it comes to meriting eternal life or penalty, he says, “all actions are indifferent” (Lottin iv.1, 323), and thus claims, for example, that “adultery is not judged adultery unless it is from the will” (Lottin iv.1, 32).11 Against this he cites the opposing, Augustinian view that some physical actions are generically evil (de genere malorum), evil from their very nature irrespective of will; the truth of the matter, says Alan, is that

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40 Ian Wilks when we think of such actions we inevitably associate them with bad purposes, and so we naturally associate the evil with the actions themselves. Another opposing view he tries to explain away is the one that regards the act as somehow adding to the evil already in the will. There is no addition, he argues; what happens is that it takes “more contempt” (Lottin iv.1, 331) for an evil will to give rise to an evil action than simply to remain inactive, so the action is not adding anything, but just showing that there was greater evil already in the source. Note that Alan also takes some care to deal diplomatically with the problematic case of Christ’s tormentors; these men, it is claimed, simply willed to carry out a crucifixion, not to carry out the wishes of God, and thus they showed bad will in their actions (Lottin iv.1, 325). He thus protects himself from the controversy dogging Abelard on this point. There is no question of where the moral guidance lies that will direct the meritorious will; “Just as man is naturally rational,” Alan says, “he has it implanted in him that he not do to others what he does not want done to himself” (Lottin iii.1, 120). He does not speak explicitly of natural law here, but the innate insight he is describing maps directly on to the notion. That sort of insight suffices to confer what he calls “political” virtues on the person lacking Christian faith  –​in other words, cardinal virtues that are theologically uninformed.12 But these are transformable on the attainment of faith into cardinal virtues simpliciter –​in other words, into Christian virtues. Virtuous living is based on due regard for both the purpose (finis) of one’s life (in other words, God) and the sort of civic or institutional duty (officium) one’s life involves. The gift of Christian faith, associated with charity, deepens insight into both; that is how the transformation of political into Christian virtues unfolds (Lottin iii.1, 120). Alan’s account of the virtues is heavily focused on the cardinals, and gives special place to justice, the “one around which the others are turned, as if around a hinge (cardo)” (Lottin vi, 53). He defines justice by the common Ciceronian formula (which Abelard uses too), as the “virtue of allotting to each their right (ius), while preserving

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 41 the common good” (Lottin vi, 52). As such it governs relations to God and neighbor alike. The other cardinal virtues are claimed to be in such close association with justice and one another that the attainment of each entails the attainment of the others (Lottin vi, 67). This unity of virtues is then extendable to include all the other virtues definable in terms of these four. Alan can be seen in many ways as offering a synthesis of characteristic twelfth-​century views in moral theory, views bespeaking Stoic influence on many points. One must say, however, that this sort of synthesis does not retain currency much beyond the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the landscape changes under the influence of new and different source materials.

2.2  Early to mid-​t hirteenth century The decades late in the twelfth century and early in the thirteenth seem to have been a more static time for the development of moral theory; it is not until the 1220s that significant new writings in this area appear (Lottin ii, 469). By then philosophers have started reacting to three different bodies of material which gained great prominence in the intervening period: Peter Lombard’s Books of Sentences (Libri sententiarum), Gratian’s Decretum, and recovered portions of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Peter Lombard (1095/​ 1100–​ 1160) studied under Hugh of St. Victor and perhaps Abelard himself; in the 1150s he produced his Sentences, a massive compilation, with accompanying commentary, of theological and philosophical citations, especially from patristic sources. This became a standard textbook over the next centuries. Topics in moral theory are raised at various points in this compendium; of special interest is Lombard’s account of moral intention. He cites a view to the effect that “any action can be good, if it is done from a good intention” (Peter Lombard 1971–​1981, 1.2.40.5), likely a reference to Abelard.13 He presents the opposing view that while some actions may draw their moral value from the accompanying intention, others have intrinsic moral worth. But he also presents the

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42 Ian Wilks view that only negative worth is intrinsic to actions; in other words, some actions are intrinsically sinful, but none are intrinsically meritorious. The implication is that a bad intention can make a seemingly meritorious action sinful, but a good intention cannot have the opposite effect. This asymmetrical position is widely adopted by thirteenth-​century philosophers as a means of limiting the controversies which an intention-​based moral theory may generate. Gratian of Bologna (fl. 1240)  is little known apart from the Harmony of Discordant Canons (Concordia discordantium canonum), otherwise known as the Decretum, appearing under his name in the mid-​twelfth century. This work is a compilation and discussion of legal materials, especially canon law, drawn from Christian and ancient sources. It became seminal for the comparative study of law, and exercised influence for centuries. It was also an impetus for moral theorists attempting a general account of natural law, quite different conceptions of which emerge in the first distinction of the work. At the outset it is equated with divine law from biblical texts, and exemplified by the Golden Rule. But shortly thereafter Gratian claims that “natural law is common to all nations because it exists everywhere through natural instinct, not because of any enactment” (Decretum 1.1.7).14 Basing it on natural instinct is not the same as basing it on biblical texts; while the views may be compatible, it takes an argument to make them so. The implication is that the idea of natural law is not by itself entirely transparent, and apparently stands in need of clarification.15 This is but one e­ xample –​although probably the most conspicuous –​of how the Decretum served as a profound stimulus to philosophical inquiry in this area. The infusion of new Aristotelian source materials into the Latin tradition is a well-​known feature of this era. With the Nicomachean Ethics the process was slowed somewhat by the difficulty of integrating Aristotle’s secular ideas about virtues and happiness with the theological ones rooted in Christianity. It was not until the end of the twelfth century that a translation of this work appeared, and that only a partial one, covering books 2 and 3.16 A full translation

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 43 followed early in the thirteenth century, to be supplanted later in mid-​century (1246/​7) by the rendering of Robert Grosseteste. One sees progressive assimilation of Aristotle’s ideas earlier in the thirteenth century, mainly in the area of virtue theory; but it is not really until mid-​century that the full range of ideas comes under discussion. Many figures contribute to the rich tradition of thirteenth-​ century moral speculation prior to the Thomistic era, of which three are examined in the following, chosen both for their importance and for their representativeness: William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, and Albert the Great.17

2.2.1  William of Auxerre William of Auxerre (c. 1140–​1231) was an early figure in the University of Paris; his masterwork was the Golden Summary (Summa aurea), a massive production containing, among other things, quite a bit of moral theory. William pursues the idea of an act that is generically good or bad (bonum/​malum in genere), but still able to shift value when further specifying features are added to it; this kind of act he describes as good or bad in se (in itself). But he distinguishes from this the act that is generically good or bad secundum se (by itself), whose moral value is fixed regardless of what further specifying features it may receive. Being charitable is irreversibly good, he says, and fornication irreversibly bad; so both possess value secundum se. But giving alms, while generically good, can be done from vainglory and become bad, while killing another human, while generically bad, can be done from a motive that makes it good; in these two cases, then, value is present only in se (Gold. Sum. 3.10.4, q. 5, a.1, sol.).18 These latter examples clearly show how the accompanying intention is capable of altering the moral value of the act. But the physical circumstances of the act can do this too, as can what William calls “the underlying root of the act”  –​in other words, the presence or absence of the virtue of charity as motivating the act (Gold. Sum. 2.18.4, sol.). At least in the case of intention, the change of moral value seems to happen more

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44 Ian Wilks naturally in the direction of good into bad than vice versa; he argues that performing an act with the intent of its being meritorious does not make it meritorious, but performing an act with the intent of its being sinful does make it sinful (Gold. Sum. 2.18.4, sol.). Lombard’s suggestion that sins and merits be differently handled –​that intention can by itself make an act sinful but not meritorious –​has clearly by this time had its effect. Not just the moral value of actions, but even moral laws can exhibit a degree of contextual variation. In his highly influential treatment of natural law,19 William adopts a distinction from Gratian between precepts/​prohibitions and demonstrations (demonstrationes). Precepts (such as the Golden Rule) and prohibitions (such as the ones contained in the Decalogue) are invariant. They hold regardless of context. But demonstrations, by contrast, hold on some occasions but not on others. As an example, William cites the directive to share possessions (“own all things in common”), which clearly applied in the state of innocence or nature, but seemingly does not apply at the present time when nature has been corrupted. Another demonstration would be the directive upholding the permissibility of self-​defense; but Christ enjoins his disciples to turn the other cheek, and thus suggests limits on the permissibility of self-​ defense (Gold. Sum. 3.18.1, sol. 1). With context having this sort of effect on the application of law, there is some question about how we grasp natural law in the first place. William takes note of different conceptions of natural law: most broadly as the order inherent to all things, less broadly as the order inherent in animal life, and most specifically as pronouncements of human reason. While rejecting none of these definitions, it is the third that informs moral insight (Lottin ii.75). The “superior part of reason” that provides this insight is referred to as “synderesis” by theological tradition. This capacity is explained by William as deriving from the image of God inherent in humans, which they are capable of seeing, or failing to see, inside themselves; in the latter case, synderesis yields incorrect

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 45 judgments about moral truth (Gold. Sum. 2.10.6.1, sol.). The view that it can sometimes be in error will be decisively rejected by William’s successors, who nonetheless follow him in pursuing synderesis as a central philosophical theme. Following his discussion of natural law, William turns to the political virtues. His opening examples of these are the cardinals, but subsequent virtue-​by-​virtue analysis includes many other entries that strike one as more theologically than politically oriented, such as the virtues of fasting, almsgiving, obedience, and so on (Gold. Sum. 3.22, 3.24, 3.25). Political virtues are said to arise from the precepts of natural law, and to make us more able to attain the theological virtues; they also “make us more in the image of God through external works” (Gold. Sum. 3.19). These comments may leave a sense that William is subsuming the political virtues under the theological, but in fact he seems to be trying to create a degree of separation between the two. His opening definition of virtue characterizes it as a “good quality of mind by which one lives properly, which no one uses badly, and which God engenders in us without our doing (sine nobis)” (Gold. Sum. 3.11.1).20 The last clause of this, William tells us, is present to differentiate theological from political virtues, since the latter arise from “repeated well-​doing” (ex frequenti bene agere), while the former are “from God alone” (Gold. Sum. 3.11.1). The cardinal virtues, on this approach, are not reducible to charity, but occupy their own domain. The key Aristotelian notion of habit –​captured in the phrase “repeated well-​doing”  –​has a central place here. So does the notion of the mean, which is used to gloss the definition’s reference to living properly; this is explained as involving means that “do not go off by extremes” (Gold. Sum. 3.11.1). The overriding theological focus of these passages notwithstanding, intimations of future lines of development in virtue theory –​more Aristotelian, less theological –​are conspicuous. That, indeed, may pass for a general assessment of William’s foray into moral theory, which in so many ways points to future trends in thirteenth-​century thinking.21

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46 Ian Wilks

2.2.2  Philip the Chancellor Philip the Chancellor (d. 1236)  became Chancellor of Notre Dame in 1217, and was an important figure in some of the formative political struggles that shaped the University of Paris thereafter. While a contemporary of William, his greatest work, Summa of the Good (Summa de bono), clearly represents a further point in the developmental path of moral theory. As a first example we may observe how Philip refines the received account of the moral act. Acts have an overall generic character, he argues, that becomes more specific when the circumstances of the act, and the intention behind it, are taken into account. So, for example, we speak abstractly of feeding the hungry and thus denote a generic good. If we then add detail about how much is given in the feeding, or how needy are the recipients, we describe a more specific circumstantial good, and this change may well make a difference in the moral value of the generic good. The same holds when we specify the intention and describe how far the act is, or is not, based on an underlying virtue of charity; the moral value of the generic good may shift again. An act is thus understood as a complex genus/​ species construct, with its moral value the combined product of all the different aspects of that construct. A further step Philip takes is to import into the discussion a principle (of Pseudo-​Dionysian provenance) cited by Peter Lombard, to the effect that an act is morally good only if all of its aspects are appropriate, whereas it may fail to be good if any one of them is not. So he describes an act in which charity is the cause of merit but only when the generic and circumstantial good are already present “over which the grace may flow” (Philip the Chancellor 1985, 347). To say “he killed a man” does not describe an act we can identify as charitably done. But to say “he killed a subverter of the faith” may indeed do so, given that the generic and circumstantial features of the act are now specified as being ones that could well be the product of charitable motivation (Philip the Chancellor 1985, 346).

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 47 The problem of explaining the moral insight that underlies charitable motivation brings Philip into the domain of natural law. His treatment of the subject is unusual in focusing more on the moral psychology of how that insight arises, and less on the classification and differentiating features of the laws themselves. The central idea is that of synderesis; Philip offers a treatment of the idea so influential that it “virtually created the formal treatise on the subject.”22 A central question is how synderesis relates to the basic powers of the soul: reason, emotion, and desire. Is it a fourth basic power co-​relative with those? Some hold this view, Philip says, but others identify synderesis as a less basic, dispositional element –​in other words, a settled habit of the soul, but not a basic power. He himself sees it as combining features of both, having the inborn permanence of a power, but also the very specific operational properties of a disposition. So he calls it a dispositional power (Philip the Chancellor 1985, 194). As such it is innate, not acquired, but at the same time plays a much more circumscribed role than reason, given that it offers insight only into a very limited region of truth. It offers insight only into moral truth, but even more narrowly than that, only into the general truths of morality; it does not advise on how a general truth may or not have application to a particular case. Moral deliberation requires, further to synderesis, a reason for free choice leading to action; the combination of that reasoned free choice with synderesis is what Philip calls conscience.23 We can reason incorrectly as regards the dictates of synderesis and do the wrong thing, but those dictates themselves (contrary to the view of William of Auxerre) can never be in error. Finally, there are the characteristics of those who consistently succeed in moral deliberation and achieve virtue. Philip canvasses eleven distinct definitions of virtue, of which six are Augustinian, four Aristotelian, and one from Hugh of St. Victor. His purpose is not to choose between them, but to argue for the merits of each as capturing some aspect of the definiendum. Augustinian definitions receive the lion’s share of the discussion. The most recognizably Aristotelian of

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48 Ian Wilks them –​“Virtue is a voluntary habit based on (consistens in) the mean” (Philip the Chancellor 1985, 526) –​in fact receives scant attention, the main point being that it is chiefly applicable to virtues deriving from habituation, not grace. The treatment of virtues deriving from habituation  –​political virtues  –​is in fact dominated by the Stoic program of establishing the centrality of the four cardinals, and then arguing for their unity. Philip argues that the centrality of the cardinals follows from their relation to the three powers of the soul (desire, emotion, and reason) –​in particular, from their relation to the characteristic acts of these powers. Temperance is taken in correspondence with acts of desire and courage with acts of emotion. The case of reason is a bit more complex. It is in correspondence with the acts of both remaining cardinals: prudence involves acts of reasoning directed to one’s own self, and justice involves ones directed to others (Philip the Chancellor 1985, 88). Further considerations support the Stoic notion that the other (non-​theological) virtues are to be “reduced to these virtues, either as their parts or as their species or as their dispositions” (Philip the Chancellor 1985, 98). That establishes the centrality of the cardinals. Philip then argues for their underlying unity. While they are distinguished by the acts of reason, emotion, and desire to which they give rise, there is a sense in which none of these acts typically occurs without some occurrence of the other two. So in this sense –​which Philip regards as analogical –​the cardinal virtues coincide as one in the actions of someone genuinely virtuous.24 One encounters much Aristotelian nomenclature in Philip’s moral theory, but the influence of Aristotle’s own moral theory is still incipient. We find a rather different situation when we turn to Albert the Great.

2.2.3  Albert the Great Albert the Great (c. 1200–​1280) was much influenced by Philip the Chancellor, and was himself a teacher of Thomas Aquinas. As an early commentator on major Aristotelian works, including the

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 49 Nicomachean Ethics, he was also a significant conduit of material from this source into the medieval tradition. In his treatise On the Good (De bono), Albert marks off the domain of non-​theological moral theory by distinguishing the “goodness of habituation” from the “goodness of grace” (On the Good 1.2.3);25 drawing attention to the former opens a ready path for assimilating Aristotelian doctrine, especially in the domain of virtue theory. A starting point in Albert’s discussion of the moral act is Philip’s definition of the generic good as an act on the requisite matter (debitam materiam) –​or in other words, an act considered in conjunction with the object it is directed to (On the Good 1.2.4). So, for example, the act of giving alms is not by itself taken as a generic good; giving alms to the needy is; so is feeding the hungry, as opposed to the act of feeding taken by itself. In both cases the act happens to be an appropriate one relative to the object, and so, as Albert expresses the point, it is proportioned to the object. That proportion explains why the generic good is good. But, of course, its goodness is not fixed; it is revisable in light of further facts. For what these might be, one looks next to circumstantial goods (or evils). These will further specify generic goods (evils), just as genera are typically divided into species. Albert brings significant detail to this part of the argument by proposing a classification of seven possible sorts of circumstances which specify actions and potentially shift moral value (On the Good 1.3.2); the main source of this material is Cicero’s discussion in his On Invention concerning those features of acts that help determine moral status in a court of law.26 Albert lists as relevant the time, place, manner, and means of action, certain qualities of the person who acts, details of what led up to and followed the act, and finally, why the act was done –​its underlying intention. It is here, at the level of specifying circumstance, that intention is given its role. While, like any circumstance, intention may modify the underlying character of generic good (or evil), Albert is careful to work into his discussion various caveats on how far this modification may extend. He does not see a morally informed intention (as opposed to an ignorant one)

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50 Ian Wilks as extenuating a mortal sin like fornication, for example, because as morally informed it would never intend that sort of act as being in the service of some good (On the Good 1.3.2, ad 10). The idea that moral value is determined not just by generic but by circumstantial features of acts is echoed in Albert’s account of natural law. He speaks of “the natural tribunal (iudicatorium) of reason or synderesis” as offering pronouncements of natural law that are subject to neither error nor doubt (On the Good 5.1.1, sol.). But the question of how these pronouncements inform moral judgment is given a rather complex treatment. While in one sense the soul is not a tabula rasa with respect to these principles, there is a secondary sense in which it is; we grasp many moral principles innately, but the meanings of the words composing the principles (such as “theft” and “adultery”) are subject to further insight that will arise via experience (On the Good 5.1.1, ad 1). So our grasp of moral principles is presented as being both innate and per accidens. The point is that the principles composing natural law offer a core content of unvarying certainty, but are also subject to specification based on circumstance. Albert speaks of three modes in which principles occur as elements of natural law: essentially, suppositively, and particularly. Principles appearing in the first mode will be ones of maximum generality, such as the Golden Rule and Decalogue. Principles appearing in the second have greater specificity; citing Cicero on the point, Albert characterizes them as being somewhat drawn from nature, but also very shaped by social usage. Principles appearing in the third are so-​called positive laws, the product of political deliberation. All are products of reason, but they differ in how more or less finely they are fitted to the specifics of social circumstance. The moral agent is in the position of having to deliberate at differing levels of generality, and this necessity is reflected in the very character of natural law itself (On the Good 5.1.3, sol.).27 Just as insight into law is presented as arising from experience, the cardinal virtues are presented as arising from habituation. This origin in fact gives them a certain kind of value that infused virtues

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 51 lack; habituation makes action more automatic and thus less difficult for the agent, something not provided for by grace. As with Philip we encounter various definitions of virtue, but in Albert’s On the Good the number is capped at four, mainly the result of limiting the Augustinian entries to two. An Aristotelian definition occurs fourth in the list (following a Ciceronian one):  “Virtue is a voluntary habit consisting in a mean relative to us (quoad nos), determined by reason and as the wise will determine” (On the Good 1.5.1).28 It is this definition that receives the lion’s share of attention in the subsequent tally of objections and responses. Albert thus imputes great centrality to the doctrine of the mean as a defining feature of a virtue. Why does the definition of virtue not specify its behavioral outcome, he asks in an objection; why does it just say what a virtue is (a habit) and not what it does (On the Good 1.5.1, obj. 30)? Albert’s answer is that it does say what a virtue does; reference to the mean in the definition does exactly this, in that achieving the mean is nothing other than the behavior of comprehending the good and enacting it (On the Good 1.5.1, ad 30). This focus on the mean plays a role even in Albert’s defense of the non-​Aristotelian doctrine of the cardinal virtues. Rejecting other more traditional arguments for this view as non-​probative, he bases his own view (as Philip does) on the three powers of the soul, but with special emphasis on the power of reason. As individuals relate to themselves, he argues, the power of reason expresses itself in the achievement of the mean, and as they relate to others it expresses itself in certain social relations; in the former case we have prudence, and in the latter justice. When the power of reason achieves mastery over internally provoked desires, temperance results, as does courage when reason achieves mastery over externally provoked emotions (On the Good 1.6, sol.). While Albert proceeds with the traditional program of unifying other habitual virtues under the cardinals, he denies the thesis of the unity of virtues but also claims, following Philip, that the underlying acts characteristic of each are all present each time any of the cardinals

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52 Ian Wilks are expressed in action.29 This speaks to the prevalence of reason in the life of the moral agent, a notion inherent in the doctrine of the mean.

2.3  Concluding Remark On that Aristotelian theme, the above survey reaches its end. One may observe how solid a footing has developed for the later thirteenth-​ ­century achievements in moral theory. In response to patristic, especially Augustinian, sources, the moral theorists of the twelfth century and earlier confronted the problems of how to accommodate intention into an account of sin, how to relate human to divine law, and how to give non-​theological conceptions of virtue a place in their conception of human nature. Building on these earlier accounts, but also in response to the infusion of new source materials, the moral theorists of the early thirteenth century offer many refinements in the handling of these same problems, refinements which in time prove to be essential to the achievements of their more celebrated successors.

Notes 1 References to Anselm’s works are by chapter. Critical editions are found in Anselm 1968. I have used the translations of Thomas Williams (Anselm 2007b, 2007c), to which the same chapter references apply. 2 Pouchet 1964 provides an extensive inquiry into the technical notion of rectitudo. Brower 2004, 234–​239, gives, in particular, a detailed account of its role in the above argument. On the question of translating this notion, see Rogers 2005, 751, and Williams and Visser 2001, 223, note 5. 3 The trio of pleasure, delectation, and consent derives originally from Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte 1.12.34. 4 Translations in this section are mine (as they are elsewhere in this chapter where a translation is not specified). 5 Colish 1986, 18–​19, traces the stages theory to the theology of St. Jerome. A fuller account of it is available in Blomme 1958, 27–​53, and Marenbon 1997, 254–​255. 6 References to this work cite book/​part/​chapter. A critical edition is found in Hugh of St. Victor 2008. I have used the translations of Roy

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From Anselm to Albert the Great 53 Deferrari (Hugh of St. Victor 1951), to which the same book/​part/​ chapter references apply. 7 Portrayals of Abelard’s moral theory as inherently extremist –​as found, for example, in McInerny 1992, 100–​101 –​seem not to take his whole range of ethical writings and views into account. More recent scholarship, such as Marenbon 1997, 265–​281, and J. Porter 2000 present a more comprehensive view. King 1995 argues for the plausibility of the theory in a more contemporary context. 8 References to Know Yourself and the Dialogues cite Peter Abelard 1971 and 2001, respectively; both are critical editions with facing-​page translation. I have used these translations (from David Luscombe and John Marenbon/​Giovanni Orlandi, respectively). 9 Cicero’s On Invention 2.53 is the plausible source of these key elements of Abelard’s discussion of virtues. See Cicero 1949. Normore 2004 exposes many aspects of the Stoic influence on Abelard’s moral thinking. 10 Of the nineteen items said to be on this list, three pertain directly to moral theory. Two of these three (that humans are not made better or worse by their deeds, and that neither will nor desire nor delectation is a sin) are not particularly extreme views by twelfth-​century standards. The claim about Christ’s persecutors, by contrast, clearly is. (For the list of heresies, see Mews 1985, 108–​110, or Peter Abelard 1969, 12.473–​480.) 11 References are to Alan’s On Virtues and Vices and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (De virtutibus et de vitiis et de donis Spiritus Sancti). An edition is found in Alan of Lille 1960. 12 Buffon 2009, 31–​33, sketches the history of this distinction, which derives from Platonic sources via Macrobius. On political virtues more generally, see Bejczy 2005. 13 Reference by volume/​book/​distinction/​section. No general summary of Lombard’s moral theory is attempted in this paragraph; see Colish 1994, ii:471–​515. 14 Reference by section/​distinction/​chapter. Translation from Gratian 1993. A critical edition is found in Gratian 1879. 15 See Crowe 1977, 73–​77. 16 Nederman 1989 shows how much Aristotelian moral theory could be gleaned from non-​Aristotelian texts available much earlier in the

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54 Ian Wilks tradition. For an overview of how Aristotelian texts (in particular the Nicomachean Ethics) were transmitted, see Dod 1982. 17 Besides these three, various other figures achieve prominence in Lottin’s studies of the period, such as Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, Godefroid of Poitiers, Hugh of St. Cher, John of la Rochelle, Prevostin of Cremona, Odon Rigaud, Stephen Langton, and so on. 18 References to the Golden Summary cite book/​tractate/​chapter, and then question and article where appropriate. A critical edition is found in William of Auxerre 1980–​1986. 19 Crowe 1977, 114 (following Lottin ii.75), speaks of William as “the first to adopt the natural law fully into theology.” 20 This definition derives from Augustine by way of Peter Lombard’s Sentences. For more on this definition, see Osborne, Chapter 7.1 in this volume. 21 The above discussion of William is indebted to Lottin iv.1, 398–​407; iii.1, 142–​146; ii, 123–​126. 22 Crowe 1977, 130. See also Lottin ii.138–​157. 23 On this point, see Potts 1980, 15. 24 For Philip’s account of the cardinal virtues, see Houser 2004, 45–​56. 25 References to On the Good cite tractate/​article/​question (plus more specific placement within the question, where appropriate). A critical edition is found in Albert the Great 1951. 26 On Invention 1.24–​28. See Cunningham 2008, 131–​133. 27 For Albert’s account of natural law, see Cunningham 2008, 207–​237. 28 The definitions occur in an introductory section of the question, prior to the first objection. 29 This view is found in book 3 of Albert’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, dist. 36, a. 1, resp. See Houser 2004, 128–​155, and Cunningham 2008, 159–​198, more generally on the virtues.

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3 From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s Eric W. Hagedorn The late thirteenth and early fourteenth century are often depicted as the high point of medieval philosophy. This is the time of the flourishing of the great medieval universities, during which the rediscovery of Aristotle in the Latin West created both great concern and innovation as Christian theologians tried to integrate existing doctrine with Aristotelianism. The two premier ethical theorists of the period were Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–​1274) and John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–​1308), and the contrast between their views is in many ways emblematic of the eras in which they operated. Thinkers in the late thirteenth century were writing in the immediate aftermath of the translation and adoption of Aristotle and his Arabic interpreters. Their ethical theories tend to focus on the character of the moral agent and to embody many of the emphases associated with ancient Greek ethical thought, such as taking the agent’s own flourishing to be the motivation for moral behavior and identifying the possession of virtuous character traits as a necessary requirement for such flourishing. Much of the ethical theory of the early fourteenth century, however, constitutes a reaction against the strong naturalistic trends of that previous generation. (This reactionary development was encouraged, if not entirely prompted, by official pronouncements by ecclesiastical officials.) These fourteenth-​century theories increasingly identify the divine will as the foundation of moral obligation and also place less prominence on the possession of virtuous character traits by the moral agent. As with many of the philosophical transitions of this period, John Duns Scotus is one of the principal agents of this change.1 Though Aquinas’s thought did not dominate scholastic discussions in the way that it typically dominates contemporary 55

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56 Eric W. Hagedorn discussions of medieval philosophy, I  begin by offering a summary of the main lines of Aquinas’s ethical system, principally focusing on his account of (i) what determines an agent’s moral obligations and (ii) what enables an agent to act morally. I then survey a few of the main debates that take place in ethical theory after Aquinas’s death, highlighting a pair of ecclesiastical pronouncements that were particularly impactful.

3.1  Thomas Aquinas In contrast to most medieval philosophers, whose thoughts on ethics are typically scattered piecemeal throughout their corpora, Aquinas wrote both systematically and voluminously on ethical topics. Aquinas’s ethical writings include his collections of disputed questions, covering such topics as sin, charity, hope, fraternal correction, virtue in general, and the cardinal virtues in particular; a long commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics along with an incomplete commentary on the Politics; and, not least of all, the second part of the Summa theologiae, comprising 303 questions concerning the nature of happiness, action theory, the relationship between law and grace, an extensive taxonomy of the various species of virtue and vice, and more.2 Aquinas’s ethical theory is simultaneously syncretic and original. It integrates aspects from ethical traditions that are typically seen as rivals: Aquinas’s theory combines the deontology of Stoicism and the Hebrew Bible with the virtue ethic of the Aristotelian tradition, and then adds a minor consequentialist component atop of that. Aquinas presents a naturalistic ethical theory whose content is derived from an essentialist conception of human nature, yet that same theory also depends in important ways on God’s voluntary creative act. He promotes the Aristotelian life of virtuous activity as an ethical ideal, while also arguing for the necessity of divine grace in order to achieve true and complete happiness. Needless to say, it is impossible to convey here the full complexities of Aquinas’s views, let  alone weigh in on the numerous scholarly controversies

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 57 surrounding them; in what follows, I provide merely a brief overview of the main lines.3 Two central components of Aquinas’s ethics are his account of natural law and his theory of virtue. The former is primarily aimed at explaining what the moral obligations of human agents are, while the latter is primarily aimed at explaining how human agents can act so as to meet those obligations. Aquinas is perhaps best known as a natural law theorist; indeed, he is often considered to be the paradigmatic natural law theorist (e.g. M. Murphy 2011). On his view, actions are right insofar as they contribute to the good of the agent; and given that the good for a given being just is what is rationally desirable by that being (a thesis taken from the opening line of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics), Aquinas explicitly infers that what is rationally desirable for a being is what is morally licit for that being: “Reason naturally apprehends as good (and, hence, as things that ought to be worked for) all those things that a human being has a natural inclination towards; and the contraries of those things reason apprehends as bad, as things that ought to be avoided” (ST i–​ii, q. 94, a. 3). Aquinas goes on to assert that humans possess natural inclinations for self-​ preservation, for the continuation of the species, for knowledge of God, and for living in society. (Whether this is meant to be a complete list of human natural inclinations is unclear.) These inclinations make certain action-​types morally good for humans, such as those action-​types by which human life tends to be preserved, by which children are born and raised, by which peace is promoted within a community, etc. However, Aquinas’s ethical theory does not end there, with a listing of morally licit action-​ types. For Aquinas, the proper subjects of moral appraisal are particular human acts (and only those actions which result from an act of will, as opposed to those resulting from reflex, instinct, or the like) (ST i–​ii, q. 1, a. 1). For Aquinas, every particular human act is either morally good or morally bad; that is, there are no morally indifferent act-​tokens.

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58 Eric W. Hagedorn The moral status of any particular act is determined by four factors; in Aquinas’s parlance they are (1)  the object of the act, (2) the circumstances of the act, (3) the end of the act, and (4) the foreseeable consequences of the act.4 If even one of these factors is bad, then that particular action is morally bad; for a particular action to be morally good, each of these four factors must be good or at least indifferent.5 With respect to the first of those four factors, it is not wholly clear what precisely Aquinas takes to be the object of a given act. He speaks of the object as “whatever thing is willed,” i.e. that thing which is sought by the will as a result of the agent’s reason considering it to be good, but it is not obvious how the agent’s reason determinately fixes a precise characterization of what is willed. (To extend an example of Thomas Williams [2014b], what makes it the case that the object of a taking is that-​$100-​bill-​that-belongs-​ to-​someone-​else rather than being the simpler that-​$100-​bill or the more

complex

that-​$100-​bill-​that-​belongs-​to-​someone-​else-​who-​

owes-​me-​an-​unpaid-​debt?) What is clear is that Aquinas takes the object of an act to be what determines the species of that act; for instance, he explicitly states that what makes a given act an act of theft is that the object of the act is secretly appropriating the property of another, and since this is a bad object, the action-​type which this object specifies must be bad (ST i–​ii, q. 18, a. 5, ad 2; ii–​ii, q. 66, a. 4). As noted above, every species of act has a moral status determined by its relation to the good of the agent; unlike particular actions, though, some species of acts may be morally indifferent, rather than being morally good or morally bad. What determines the moral status of a given species of act is its connection to the good of human beings: a given act-​species is morally good just in case it necessarily is directed at the ultimate end for human beings, namely, happiness. Conversely, a species of actions is morally bad when that act-​type necessarily is directed away from human happiness. An act-​ species is morally indifferent, then, if it neither necessarily leads to happiness nor necessarily leads away from happiness.6

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 59 Even though some species of acts may be morally indifferent, Aquinas insists that any particular act will be either morally good or morally bad, as determined by the circumstances in which that particular act is performed together with its intended end and its foreseeable consequences. An act of a good or indifferent species may be morally bad because it is performed at the wrong time; for example, loudly clapping my hands is, in general, a morally indifferent type of action, but doing so at a moment calling for solemnity would nevertheless be morally wrong. But though circumstances, end, and foreseeable consequences might make it wrong to perform a good or neutral action-​ type, Aquinas claims that these other factors can never make it right to perform an act of a morally bad species. Acts which are contrary to reason (i.e. those acts that are not naturally desirable owing to their necessarily leading away from beatitude) are never licit, regardless of the circumstances, motive, or foreseeable consequences. Among such acts are theft, lying, and the taking of innocent life. (What it is for an action to belong to one of these species, though, is often a matter of subtle distinction: for example, according to Aquinas, it is not theft for the starving impoverished man to take what is required for his self-​preservation, nor did Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac constitute an intention to take innocent life.7) Aquinas’s ethical thought is not completed with his analysis of what determines the moral status of particular actions; at least in terms of page count, it has barely begun. His attention then turns to what is required for an agent to actually perform those morally good acts that will lead to the attainment of the human good. According to Aquinas, what is required for a human to actually perform morally good acts and thus attain happiness is that all the cognitive and appetitive faculties that contribute to action be perfected by the virtues, i.e. by those dispositions that make the agent more apt to perform such acts. Thus, the agent’s sensitive appetites, intellect, and will all need to be disposed to perform such acts consistently, easily, and pleasurably.8 Further, Aquinas actually posits two wholly

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60 Eric W. Hagedorn distinct sets of virtues, each with a different purpose:  one set of naturally acquired virtues directing the agent to the human good that is attainable in the present life (what Aquinas calls “imperfect happiness”), and a second set of supernaturally infused virtues directing the agent toward heavenly beatitude (“perfect happiness”).9 The taxonomy and analysis of these virtues and their respective vices constitutes 140 questions of the Summa theologiae, roughly a quarter of the entire work.

3.2  The Condemnation of 1277 Thomas Aquinas died on March 7, 1274; precisely three years later occurred one of the more monumental events in the history of medieval philosophy. On March 7, 1277, the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, delivered a searing condemnation of the teaching that was being given by the undergraduate and graduate faculties at the University of Paris. The Condemnation of 1277 named 219 different doctrines and threatened excommunication to anyone who “taught …, dared in any way to defend or uphold … or even to listen to” any of the condemned teachings (Mandonnet 1911). Previous ecclesiastical authorities had unsuccessfully tried to slow down or stamp out the spread of certain Aristotelian doctrines throughout the thirteenth century; councils, bishops, and popes had either forbidden or at least strongly cautioned against public readings or teachings of Aristotle’s work. For the most part, these earlier prohibitions seem to have been quietly ignored or even openly flouted; where those previous efforts failed, however, the Condemnation of 1277 appears to have had much greater success. For decades afterwards, pointing out that “such-​and-​such is an article condemned at Paris” was a tactic frequently used to end or forestall debate.10 A number of the condemned articles dictate specific positions on ethical issues; among those positions declared false were that happiness is to be found in philosophical contemplation, that the natural virtues are sufficient for acquiring eternal happiness,

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 61 that all sin results from bodily passions, that killing non-​human animals is always wrong, and that material possessions are required to perform morally good actions.11 Tempier’s decree directs particular attention to condemning the doctrines of Greek and Arabic necessitarianism. By rejecting those doctrines, the Condemnation affirms instead that God does not create by necessity, that the created world is not eternal, and that God is able to bring about the effects of any given created cause without first bringing about that cause.12 The sustained attack on necessitarian doctrines includes a number of articles on action theory, ruling out any account which attributes any kind of necessitation to human action, whether that necessitation be the result of a desire, a desirable object, or reason itself.13 A  number of further articles without specifically ethical content nevertheless had significant implications for ethics: e.g. if God is able to bring about the effects of any created cause without the cause itself, it seems that God could miraculously give someone a virtuous character without needing any virtuous action to produce that character. Contrary to some histories of medieval philosophy, the Condemnation of 1277 was not a revolutionary document; it did not overturn some broad consensus or great medieval synthesis of the late thirteenth century (for there wasn’t any such consensus among scholastic thinkers prior to the Condemnation). Nor  –​contrary to some rival histories  –​did the Condemnation bring an end to all philosophical debate by ecclesiastical fiat. But the Condemnation did result in philosophical and theological discussions in subsequent generations having a strikingly different tenor to the debates that preceded it. Following the Condemnation, greater attention would be given to the scope of divine power, and fewer necessary connections would be postulated within the created realm. In the realm of ethics, the Condemnation prompted theologians to rethink the modal status of moral truths and the nature of moral virtue.

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62 Eric W. Hagedorn

3.3  Ethical Debates after the Condemnation 3.3.1  On the Modal Status of Moral Truths Although thinkers of this period largely agreed on what the actual moral truths were, there was no such agreement concerning the modal status of these truths. Whether the moral truths laid out in Catholic doctrine were necessary or contingent was a matter of dispute. As explained above, on Aquinas’s view what is good for an agent is what determines which actions are right for that agent. Now Aquinas thinks that what is good for an agent is an objective feature of human nature that is the same in all human beings. Whatever leads to flourishing and happiness for human beings is good for human beings, and whatever leads away from flourishing and happiness for human beings is bad for human beings. Furthermore, every rational creature has a natural inclination toward what is good for that creature; as such, every human being has a natural inclination toward what is good for that human being. On Aquinas’s view, it’s possible to determine by reason alone what is morally right: anything that all human beings have a natural inclination toward is good for a human being, and any kind of action which leads toward those good things is morally right. Conversely, anything that all human beings have a natural aversion toward is bad for human beings, and thus any kind of action which leads toward those bad things is morally wrong. Since the natural inclinations of human beings are determined by human nature, and since the properties of a nature are necessary features of it, God ultimately does not have control over what is morally right for human beings. As such, if God chooses to create human beings, they will have precisely the moral obligations they in fact have. God could not create different moral obligations for humans; not even God could make it morally obligatory to murder, or commit adultery, or dishonor one’s parents. Aquinas does affirm, however, that it is within God’s power to arrange situations to make an action

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 63 that could have been morally wrong into a morally permissible action; for instance, when discussing the Israelites’ despoiling of the Egyptians, Aquinas claims that this was not an instance of theft since God had declared the Egyptians’ property to be due to the Israelites. Similarly, God might make some particular action not be an instance of murder or adultery (by, say, justly ordering death in the former case or divinely annulling the marriage in the latter) (ST i, q.  100, a. 8, ad 3). It should be noted that although Aquinas never explicitly says so, one may think that it’s consistent with his theory that God could have created an entirely different set of moral obligations by creating some other kind of rational creatures, beings that possessed a rational nature with markedly different natural inclinations than ours. (Of course Aquinas does believe there are other rational beings with somewhat different obligations than ours; but what he considers to be sinful for angels turns out to be quite similar to what he says is sinful for human beings: ST i, q. 63.) Whether or not this is a possibility for Aquinas depends upon both (i) whether he thinks there could have been some other species of rational creatures, distinct from the rational creatures that there are in actuality, and (ii) whether the natural inclinations of human beings result from something unique to human rationality or just from rationality in general. Fully answering this question would require careful consideration of both the details of Aquinas’s account of natural law and also his account of truths about merely possible creatures, neither of which can be done here;14 but the fact that Aquinas seems to treat the natural inclinations of human beings as continuous with the inclinations of plants and non-​human animals makes me doubt that Aquinas would consider it possible that there could be rational beings with obligations that significantly differed from ours. John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–​1308) responds to this question of the contingency of moral obligation quite differently than Aquinas does. While Aquinas affirms that a creature’s essence necessarily dictates what is morally obligatory and morally forbidden for that

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64 Eric W. Hagedorn creature, Scotus presents a much weaker position, according to which (at least some of) the moral obligations for a creature might have differed, had God willed differently. Prior to God’s creative act, Scotus claims, there are no truths regarding what ought to be done or ought to be created, and hence the divine intellect has no practical knowledge prior to creation. In other words, there are no truths of the form “S ought to φ,” because the truth of such “practical principles” is dependent upon the decision of the divine will (Lectura i, d.  39, qq. 1–​5): “given how God’s cognition is related to the act of his will, the divine intellect does not have beforehand any cognition dictating that anything should be done, or any cognition of a principle, or any quidditative cognition of a term that includes a practical principle.”15 That is, on Scotus’s view, the truths of morality are contingent and thus not available to the divine intellect prior to the divine will selecting them. The reason Scotus gives for holding this view is that the alternative would be an inappropriate limitation of God’s freedom: if, before any act of the divine will, the divine intellect could have some such [practical] cognition, it would have it purely naturally and necessarily, because all cognition in the divine intellect that precedes an act of will is purely natural and is had through the divine essence as a purely natural ground of understanding; therefore, the divine intellect would know of necessity that such-​and-​such is to be done, and then God’s will, to which his intellect would present such cognition, could not fail to will it; for if it could, it would be able not to be correct, being able to deviate from correct practical reason and thus not to be correct. Therefore, the divine will would will every act of necessity, because the same reasoning applies to any given act.16

Thus, for Scotus, ethical truths are not necessary. God, according to his “absolute power,” might have decreed a different moral law than the one which was actually decreed (although once a given set of

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 65 ethical truths is actually decreed, God acts according to that law, by God’s “ordered power”).17 The lone exception to God’s freedom here is with respect to whether God ought to be loved; Scotus affirms that this principle is in fact necessarily true; the divine intellect recognizes its truth prior to any decision of the divine will, and the divine will is obligated to will it. Scotus reaffirms this doctrine when speaking explicitly of the connection between the natural law and the Ten Commandments: he claims that the first two commandments (which forbid irreverence toward God and worship of other deities) are necessarily true and “belong to the natural law in the strict sense,” while the remaining commandments are not necessarily true.18 Since the remaining commandments are not necessary, God can grant (and, according to Scotus, has granted) dispensations from the commandments to not steal or not murder; the obvious implication is that God could also have never instituted those commandments in the first place.19 Indeed, Scotus explicitly states that though it is not permissible to kill an innocent man, it would be permissible if God were to revoke the commandment against murder, and would even be obligatory were God to expressly command the killing. Similar considerations hold for the prohibition of lying: if God were to revoke the commandment against lying, it would be morally licit to intentionally deceive others (Ordinatio iii, d. 38, q. un., n. 17). There is intense debate in the secondary literature regarding how strongly we should read Scotus’s claims. He clearly affirms that all practical truths other than ‘that God ought to be loved’ are contingent upon the divine will. Some scholars infer from this that Scotus believes the content of the moral law is fixed only by God’s free and undetermined choice;20 others point to his designation of the will as a rational power and his contention that the commandments concerning love of neighbor are “highly consonant” both with the natural law and with right reason as evidence that Scotus believes the scope of possible moral truths is far narrower than I suggest above (e.g. Ingham 2001). But it is difficult on the face of it to fully reconcile

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66 Eric W. Hagedorn this latter, more modest interpretation of Scotus with his affirmation that lying and murder would be licit were God to command them. The contingency of the moral law for Scotus also entails that there is no necessary connection between human action and human happiness; had God decreed a different moral law, even Judas’s actual actions might not have entailed his damnation.21 Relatedly, Scotus also affirms that the virtues are as a matter of fact useful for beatification, though not necessary for it, as Aquinas had held. Similar considerations hold for the case of human freedom; our own freedom of action would be endangered if the dictates of our intellect or our dispositions to action determined our acts; therefore, possession of the virtues is not necessary for performing morally right actions. William of Ockham (c. 1285–​1347) follows Scotus in believing that the content of the moral law is contingent upon God’s command. Ockham seems to reason as follows: God is able to do anything that does not involve an obvious contradiction; in general, there is no obvious contradiction in God commanding “S ought not φ” rather than “S ought to φ“; therefore, God is able to command “S ought not φ.” In particular, Ockham claims, God could make it the case that acts of hatred, theft, and adultery had no badness attached to them; indeed, God could make it the case that such actions were even meritorious for salvation.22 Ockham offers another argument for this point, arguing that any exterior action can be morally right or wrong depending on the intention of the agent performing it. (Indeed, Ockham argues, even the very same action can be right at one moment and wrong at the next, if the intention of the agent were to change from good to bad during the performance of the action.) The only possible exception here is similar to the exception that Scotus made; Ockham seems to affirm that the act of loving God above all other things is necessarily virtuous inasmuch as it is impossible for a created agent to form that intention without that intention being morally good. But it seems that Ockham goes beyond Scotus on this point, raising the possibility that even the obligation to love God is under

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 67 God’s power. Ockham suggests in an early text that God could command some creature to hate God, and that in such a case the creature would be obligated to hate God. Whether the suggestion in this early text should be taken at face value, and whether Ockham continues to affirm this possibility in his later writings, is a matter of significant scholarly controversy.23 But it does certainly appear on the face of it that Ockham considers this to be a possible divine command, which would imply that Ockham takes the entirety of the moral law to be contingent upon the divine will.

3.3.2  Debates on the Nature of Virtue The concept of virtue was central to medieval ethical thought; but what, precisely, is a virtue? What ontological category does it belong to, and where and how are virtues instanced? The near consensus position, defended by Aquinas, Scotus, Henry of Ghent (c. 1217–​ 1293), Ockham, John Buridan (c. 1300–​1360), and others, is that a virtue is a habit (habitus), where a habit is a disposition (i) which is generated by the initial performance of a certain kind of action and (ii) strengthened by the continual performance of that kind of action, and (iii) whose existence makes the future performance of that action easier for the agent. Authors who reject this standard account of virtue are rare, but there are at least a few dissenters:  Henry of Harclay (c. 1270–​1317), for instance, argues that moral virtue is not a habit but rather a harmony among the rational and sensitive powers of the soul.24 Setting Harclay’s view aside, though, amidst the widespread agreement that virtues are dispositions for performing moral action, there still remained much debate over (i) the precise enumeration of the virtues, (ii) how an agent comes to possess them, (iii) their location in the agent, and (iv) whether an agent who possesses one of the virtues necessarily possesses them all. The standard taxonomy included four cardinal virtues (courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom) and three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity). Adding to this list, Aquinas held that each of the

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68 Eric W. Hagedorn four cardinal virtues has both a naturally acquired and a supernaturally infused form; thus a complete taxonomy of the virtues would have to include, for instance, both acquired temperance and infused temperance. An agent acquires the former disposition through the performance of temperate actions, while the latter virtue only comes about by God directly infusing it into the agent. (The theological virtues, on the other hand, only come about by being infused by God, and thus do not have acquired forms.) The acquired virtues aim the agent at her natural end of temporal happiness; the infused virtues, on the other hand, aim the agent at her supernatural end of eternal beatitude.25 Aquinas’s position on this issue was attacked as superfluous from two sides, as most agreed that it was unnecessary to posit both acquired and infused cardinal virtues. Some, such as Gregory of Rimini (c. 1300–​1358), rejected the existence of any natural, non-​ infused virtues by arguing that no natural trait can bring about morally correct action without divine grace. Scotus and others contrarily held that there is no need for positing infused cardinal virtues over and above the naturally acquired cardinal virtues by arguing that the theological virtues alone are sufficient to direct the agent to her supernatural end.26 Ockham follows Scotus in rejecting infused cardinal virtues as unnecessary, but applies Aquinas’s distinction between acquired and infused virtue to the theological virtues instead. Ockham thus postulates the existence of acquired faith, hope, and charity in addition to infused faith, hope, and charity. In the typical case, the acquired theological virtues are habits which come about as a result of the actions prompted by the associated infused virtues; for example, acquired charity is a naturally occurring volitional habit which results from repeated acts of loving God. Ockham argues for this distinction by claiming that an agent’s naturally acquired habit of hating God might continue to exist for some time after receiving infused charity, but that she cannot continue to habitually hate God once she has developed the acquired habit of loving God.27 But he

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 69 also recognizes that it seems possible for the acquired theological virtues to exist without the infused versions: for instance, an unbaptized individual might believe the articles of the Creed, or one who rejects the doctrine of the Trinity might nevertheless accept the Incarnation; in either case, the individual in question could have an acquired habit of faith without an infused habit of faith, which is received via baptism and confers belief in all the articles of faith. Ockham then even argues that the infused theological virtues appear to be theoretically superfluous: their existence is not experientially known, for, he asserts, “all the operations which we experience by means of supernatural habits we can [also] experience by means of natural habits,” nor is their existence necessary for human beatitude, since God’s power is sufficient that “just as Paul sinned and received grace without any merit, so God could confer eternal life to [a non-​ believer] without any merit and without a supernatural habit.”28 Ultimately, Ockham does admit the existence of the infused virtues, regardless of their seeming superfluity, though only on the basis of church teaching. The scholastics’ commitment to compositional metaphysics inevitably raised the question of where to locate virtues within the human soul. This question of where virtues are located within the agent may initially appear to be an obscure aspect of scholastic ontology with little practical import, but in actuality this question is inextricably linked to the theory of action. As the virtues are dispositions to perform moral action, the question of the location of the virtues is ultimately the question of which faculties of the soul are involved in the production of morally good acts. Aquinas claimed that each of the cardinal virtues belongs to a distinct faculty of the soul: courage and temperance inform the two sensitive appetites (the irascible and the sensual, respectively), prudence informs the intellect, and justice informs the will. Aquinas argues that this must be so because, in order for a human being to be appropriately aimed toward their final good, every faculty of the human soul that contributes to the formation of human actions must be appropriately habituated.

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70 Eric W. Hagedorn That is, in order to perform those good acts that lead toward beatitude, Aquinas believes that one’s appetites must be appropriately held in check by courage and temperance, one’s will must be attuned by justice, and one’s intellect must be formed by prudence. Additionally, Aquinas claims that the virtues are necessarily connected, with prudence the link among the acquired virtues and charity the link among the infused virtues: that is, anyone who possesses acquired prudence will possess all the other acquired cardinal virtues (and vice versa), while anyone who possesses infused charity will possess all the other infused virtues (and vice versa).29 Scotus and others contended instead that all the moral virtues (courage, temperance, and justice) were located in the will. Scotus argues for this claim on the basis that the will retains the power to make morally good or morally bad choices regardless of the state of the intellect or the sensitive appetites. So any virtues which habituate an agent toward performing certain actions must be located in the will.30 Ockham largely adopts Scotus’s position, but amends it in a rather idiosyncratic fashion; he argues that repeatedly performing any kind of action will result in habits being formed both in the sensitive appetites and in the will. Each of these sets of habits disposes the agent to perform the relevant sort of action more easily, but only the habits in the will count as virtues since strictly speaking the only virtuous actions for Ockham are acts of the will.31 With respect to the connection of the virtues, Scotus contends that the virtues are not necessarily connected; he takes there to be obvious counterexamples to Aquinas’s position. For example, an agent might be disposed to temperate acts by the virtue of temperance without possessing all the other cardinal virtues. Nor are the theological virtues connected with the cardinal virtues, for a new convert or a baptized infant may have infused charity without possessing any other virtue at all.32 Ockham attempts to occupy a sort of middle ground on this point. On Ockham’s view, each virtue comes in five degrees, varying according to the agent’s dedication to performing the act in the face of adverse circumstances and according

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 71 to the agent’s purposes in performing the act. The lowest degrees of the moral virtues are in no way connected; Ockham agrees with Scotus that one can be just, temperate, or courageous to some degree without possessing any other virtues. But matters become more complex at the higher degrees, as one virtue might imply the existence of some other –​at least in the actual created order.33 For example, the highest degrees of justice, which by definition involve acting justly only for the sake of right reason or only for the sake of the love of God, exclude every vicious habit; and the fourth degree of each moral virtue, which requires acting for the sake of the love of God, requires the presence of some degree of theological virtue.34

3.3.3  Disputes over Franciscan Poverty Within fifty years of the Condemnation of 1277, another ecclesiastical pronouncement would have significant ramifications for medieval ethical thought. The dawn of the fourteenth century saw an increasing number of discussions about the merit of economic asceticism, especially among the Franciscan Order, which made “apostolic poverty” a key component of its religious identity. The Franciscans held that Christ and his apostles owned absolutely nothing, not even the clothes on their backs and the food that they ate. Hoping to imitate the example of the apostles, early in the thirteenth century the Franciscans reached an agreement with the papacy, according to which neither individual Franciscans nor the order as a whole had ownership of anything; chapter houses, books, clothes, food, etc., were officially possessed by the papacy, but the Franciscans were granted usage rights over all of these items. Some Franciscans felt that this arrangement did not go far enough; following the thought of Peter of John Olivi (c. 1248–​1298), these so-​called “Spiritual” Franciscans held that the order’s vows should go beyond merely giving up property rights to items and should instead commit members of the order to a life of strict asceticism (in their terms, to usus pauper). The years after Olivi’s death were marked by a wide-ranging series of philosophical arguments both within the Franciscan Order

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72 Eric W. Hagedorn and without concerning the value of poverty, the nature of property rights, and more.35 Some Franciscan authors argued that personal property was a cause of discord and distraction, and that a life without any possessions was thus more perfect; critics such as the Dominican Hervaeus Natalis (c. 1260–​1323) were quick to point out that a complete lack of possessions is incompatible with the mere continuation of life, let alone with life’s perfection.36 Unlike the other debates discussed above, however, these disputes were not merely the matter of commentaries on Aristotle and university disputations. Those Franciscans who did not follow Olivi (the “Conventuals”) as well as the Catholic hierarchy saw the more extreme members of the Spirituals as dangerous radicals; various splinter groups of Spiritual Franciscans were first excommunicated and then quashed violently by the Inquisition in the early decades of the fourteenth century. The dispute reached its culmination in 1323, when Pope John XXII abruptly ended the arrangement by which the papacy had ownership of all the order’s goods, and also declared the belief in apostolic poverty to be heretical. The Franciscans appealed their case, but to no avail; on May 26, 1328, the Franciscan Minister-​General, Michael Cesena, together with William Ockham and a handful of other renegade Franciscans, fled the papal court at Avignon without permission; they sought and found shelter at the court of the excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor, Louis of Bavaria. Louis’s court became a home to innovative political theory. There Marsilius of Padua (c. 1270–​1342) had already begun to develop decidedly non-​medieval views about the roles and authority appropriate to secular and clerical power in his Defensor pacis. Marsilius claimed that the will of the people, rather than the will of their ruler, was the source and justification of the law’s authority, and argued for the superiority of the secular authority over the ecclesiastical. The exiled and excommunicated Ockham also turned his attention to questions of civil and ecclesiastical power, writing a number of political tracts in which he proposes a clear separation of secular and clerical authority, according to which the emperor and the pope would

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 73 each have a distinct sphere of authority in which he was supreme. Ockham even raises the idea of a kind of primitive system of checks and balances between secular and ecclesiastical, suggesting that the church should have the power to depose a tyrannical emperor, and likewise the state should have power to depose a heretical pope.37 Ockham’s evident desire that the pope be deposed and replaced by one more amenable to the Franciscan cause never saw fulfillment; he remained in exile in Munich until his death in 1347 (Gál 1982).

Notes 1 Though there are many studies of individual scholastic philosophers, there are only a few book-​length discussions in English covering ethical thought across this period; chief among these is Kent 1995. 2 With the possible exception of the Quaestiones disputatae de malo, Aquinas’s major ethical works are believed to have all been written between 1268 and 1272, during his second regency at the University of Paris (Stump 2003, xvi–​xx). 3 There are any number of excellent introductions to Aquinas’s ethics; those largely unfamiliar with Aquinas’s thought may find especially useful DeYoung et al. 2009 as well as c­ hapter 9 of Shields and Pasnau 2016. Fuller and more scholarly treatments of the individual pieces of his theory can be found in Pope 2002. 4 ST i-​ii, q. 15, a. 4, and i-​ii, q. 20, aa. 3–​5. I have collapsed under the heading of “foreseeable consequences” two distinct sorts of consequences which Aquinas discusses: those consequences which are in fact foreseen and those consequences which follow from the nature of the action in most cases, in virtue of which said consequences should be foreseen, even if as a matter of fact they are not. See q. 20, a. 5, resp. and ad 3. 5 This fourfold analysis differs from the one Aquinas himself presents in ST i-​ii, q. 15, a. 4: there Aquinas mentions the object, the circumstances, and the end, but in place of the consequences he cites the genus as a contribution to the good of the act. However, as is made clear in articles 1 and 4 of question 18, the contribution of the “genus” is that the action is good just in virtue of being an existing entity; i.e. every particular action is good according to its genus, insofar as every particular action

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74 Eric W. Hagedorn is an entity which has being. Only the three other criteria (object, circumstances, and end) could make the particular act morally bad. Furthermore, in q. 20, a. 5, Aquinas makes clear that those consequences of the action which are either foreseen or regularly follow upon the action also contribute to its moral status, albeit only by increasing the goodness or badness contributed by the object, circumstances, and end. 6 See DeYoung et al. 2009, 91, for discussion of this point. 7 Aquinas discusses the theft example at ST ii-​ii, q. 66, a. 7; the case of Abraham and Isaac (along with other biblical cases) is at ST i-​ii, q. 100, a. 8, ad 3. 8 Quaestio disputata de virtutibus in communi, a. 1. 9 See ST i-​ii, q. 3, a. 8; i-​ii, q. 5, a. 5; Quaestio disputata de virtutibus in communi, aa. 9–​10. 10 Mahoney (2001) recites numerous examples from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and even fifteenth centuries of the Condemnation being used to settle previously disputed doctrines. Already in 1295, the theologian Godfrey of Fontaines “deplore[d]‌the harm that had been done to the search for truth, since ‘men are now immovably held to one side of a topic and prevented from disputing properly debatable issues’ ” (Mahoney 2001, 909, citing Godfrey’s Quodlibet xii, q. 5). 11 Articles 2, 171, 167, 179, and 212, respectively. 12 Articles 20, 85, and 69, respectively. 13 See articles 151, 158, and 163. 14 The literature on his theory of natural law is enormous; a reasonable starting place is J. Porter 2005. For Aquinas’s account of possibilia, see Wippel 1981b, Ross 1990, and Frost 2007. 15 Ordinatio i, d. 38, q. un., n. 5 (trans. Williams 2017, 83). 16 Ordinatio i, d. 38, q. un, n. 6 (trans. Williams 2017, 83). 17 Ordinatio i, d. 44, q. un., nn. 8, 10: “Just as [God] can act otherwise, so also can he establish a different law; and if that law were established by God, it would be correct, because no law is correct except insofar as it is established by the divine will’s acceptance … [therefore God] can act otherwise than as is ordinate according to a universal order –​in other words as accords with laws of justice –​because both things that are outside that order and things that are contrary to it can be done ordinately by God through his absolute power” (trans. Williams 2017, 96–​97). 18 Ordinatio iii, d. 37, q. un., n. 20: “[T]‌his follows necessarily, ‘If God exists,’ he alone is to be loved as God.’ And it likewise follows that

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From Thomas Aquinas to the 1350s 75 nothing else is to be worshiped as God and that no irreverence is to be done to him” (trans. Williams 2017, 252). 19 Ordinatio iii, d. 37, q. un., especially nn. 36–​39. 20 “Some of the laws of morality, Scotus says, are in force only because God willed them to be in force … The divine intellect, which necessarily understands all things, understands L as a possible (that is, a logically possible, non-​contradictory) law. It also understands the opposite of L, not-​L, as a possible law. If his will endorses L, L is in force; if his will endorses not-​L, not-​L is in force. And there is nothing about either L or not-​L that moves God’s will to endorse one or the other” (Williams 1998b, emphasis in the original). 21 Ordinatio i, d. 44, q. un., n. 11: “God can foreknow that Judas is to be saved by his ordered power, though according to some other order [than the actual order], because [God] set things up in that way according to some order that was then possible; according to the actual order, of course, God cannot do so by his ordered power, but only by his absolute power.” 22 Reportatio ii, q. 15 (OTh v:352). 23 Ockham discusses the possibility of God commanding a creature to hate God in Reportatio iv, q. 16 (OTh vii:352). Those who think Ockham changes his mind about this point especially to Quodlibeta septem iii.14 (OTh ix:253–​257), where Ockham seems to suggest that loving God is an act of the will which can never fail to be virtuous. But this latter text is rather compressed and can quite plausibly be read as merely saying that loving God is actually always virtuous, given God’s actual commands. For the scholarly debate over these passages, see especially Adams 1999, King 1999, Osborne 2005, and Williams 2013. 24 “[M]‌oral virtue is a certain imperfect health of the interior person, a health which consists in a proportional and appropriate subjugation of the sensitive appetite to the intellective, insofar as that is possible in the present life” (Ordinary Questions, q. 23, n. 13, in Henry of Harclay 2008, 862). 25 Quaestio disputata de virtutibus in communi, aa. 9–​10. 26 See Gregory of Rimini, Lectura super primum et secundum Sententiarium, Book ii, dd. 26–​28, q. 1, and Scotus, Ordinatio iii, d. 36, q. 1, nn. 109–​113. Gregory’s position is discussed in Kent 2010. 27 See, e.g., De connexione virtutum, aa. 2, 4 (OTh viii:339, 391–​392).

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76 Eric W. Hagedorn 28 Reportatio iii, q. 9 (OTh v:279–​281). 29 ST i–​ii, q. 61, a. 2 and q. 65, aa. 1–​5; also Quaestio disputata de virtutibus cardinalibus, aa. 1–​2. 30 Ordinatio iii, d. 33, q. 1, nn. 43–​45. For commentary and discussion of other authors, see Kent 2010, 224–​245. 31 Reportatio iii, q. 11 (OTh v:358–​366). 32 Ordinatio iii, d. 36, q. 1, nn. 32–​33, 108–​113. 33 In general, Ockham’s beliefs about the power of divine omnipotence commit him to believing that God’s power is sufficient to separate any virtue from any other. 34 De connexione virtutum, a. 3 (OTh viii:347–​360). Discussion of Ockham’s position can be found in Wood 1997, 223–​237. 35 The history of the poverty dispute is traced in Burr 1989 and 2001. 36 For these arguments and more, see Hervaeus Natalis 1999. Natalis discusses the arguments just mentioned on pp. 25–​31. 37 See especially Ockham’s Dialogus, Part 3.1, book 1 and Part 3.2, books 1–​3. For discussion, see McGrade 2002 and Kilcullen 1999.

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4 Islamic  Ethics Jon McGinnis

4.1 Introduction What is Islamic ethics? There almost certainly is no single answer to this question, if by such an answer one is seeking some sole, monolithic account of what Islamic ethics is. Instead “Islamic ethics” is more like notions such as “Christian philosophy” or “naturalistic ethics.” Islamic ethics can be, and indeed is, as diverse as the spectrum of ethical systems or the various interpretations of Islam itself. Consequently, the present study does not pretend to be a comprehensive survey of Islamic ethics, even of the various medieval Islamic ethical systems. Most notably, this study sets aside Sufi ethics, which was frequently criticized as antinomian inasmuch as that ethical system is grounded in an ecstatic mystical relation with God rather than Islamic law (sharıʿa). (For a discussion of Sufi ethics, see 13.3–​7 in the present volume.) Instead this survey limits itself to an overview of the ethical systems of Islamic theology (kalām) and philosophy (falsafa) during the classical period (roughly 850–​1200). Still, such a limitation has the benefit of considering a formative period in the theological and philosophical articulation of Islam as well as some of the more historically influential figures from both the philosophical and theological traditions. Within medieval Islam, falsafa and kalām represented two of the most important theoretical approaches to understanding the world and our place within it. Falsafa continued the Greco-​Arabic philosophical and scientific tradition, whereas kalām drew upon the Qur’an, traditions of the Prophet (sing. ḥādith), and Islamic religious law (fiqh). While these two approaches are frequently viewed as having been at odds with one another, the fact is that they were more 77

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78 Jon McGinnis like two parallel streams frequently crossing into and feeding one another. Moreover, even within a single stream there could be eddies, crosscurrents, and underflows. Accordingly, even within these two intellectual traditions there were multiple ways of thinking about ethics and morality. Toward presenting the ethical system of these two traditions, this study divides into three parts. The first part considers certain metaethical issues important to Islamic ethics in both traditions. These issues include moral psychology and the closely related issues of will and action theory. The second section takes up the ethical systems of falsafa. Thinkers within this tradition most frequently subscribe to virtue ethics and eudaimonistic theories as found in the Arabic translations of Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and even the thought of Stoics. Thus, within the falsafa tradition I consider Stoic-​inspired therapies of the soul, ethical debates focusing on what a virtue is, and what constitutes human flourishing or happiness and whether such happiness even can be attained in this world or only in the hereafter. Historical figures to be considered include al-​Kindı, Miskawayh, al-​Fārābı, Avicenna, al-​Ghazālı, and Fakhr al-​Dın al-​Rāzı. The third section considers important moral issues within kalām, namely, the status of reason in determining moral duty, a rationalist science of ethics, and Islamic natural law and its critics. A  general theme throughout all of these kalām issues is whether the moral status of actions is the product of God’s commanding or forbidding those actions (theological voluntarism) or whether certain actions are simply inherently morally right or wrong (moral realism or objectivism). Figures to be considered are rationalist Muʿtazilites, such as ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, traditionalists, and moderate traditionalists like al-​Ghazālı and Fakhr al-​Dın al-​Rāzı.

4.2  Islamic Metaethics This section deals with three issues in Islamic metaethics addressing the status, foundations, and scope of morality itself as understood within the medieval Islamic world. These issues include the general

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Islamic Ethics 79 moral psychology of many (though not all) of the players in this study and issues of free will and action theory within medieval Islam.

4.2.1  Moral Psychology Within medieval Islam there were two distinct psychologies, that is, theories of the soul. The earliest proponents of kalām were atomists with a physicalist conception of the human person. Thus, if there are rewards in the Hereafter for acting according to God’s commands in the here and now, those rewards will be bodily and so require a bodily resurrection. In contrast, the philosophers and even some later kalām thinkers adopt a Neoplatonized, Aristotelian faculty psychology, which identifies the human person with (most frequently an immaterial) intellect. Since this later psychology provides the foundation for virtually all of the discussions of the virtues treated in this study as well as such ethically relevant notions as pleasure and pain, its basic contours should be sketched. This faculty psychology had its historical origins in Plato, Aristotle, and their later Greek commentators. In the Republic (iv, 435c–​441c), Plato had argued that the human soul is tripartite, having appetitive, spirited, and rational components. Aristotle effectively followed this division of the parts of the soul in his De anima, now identifying vegetative, animal, and rational faculties of the soul. The vegetative faculty gives rise to our desires for food, sex, and other basic bodily needs. The animal faculty is the source of perception and ultimately motion, frequently motivated by anger and fear. Finally, the rational faculty or intellect (Gk. nous, Ar. ʿaql) is of two sorts. One sort is the practical intellect, which moderates and ideally controls the vegetative and animal faculties. The other sort is the theoretical intellect, which apprehends the essence or universal intelligibles, like horseness, squareness, and in general gets at the ultimate underlying causes of things. By the time one reaches the medieval Islamic world, the prominent view is that the theoretical intellect is immaterial, and because

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80 Jon McGinnis it is immaterial it can survive the death of the body. Additionally, a human’s proper happiness is thought to be the perfection of the theoretical intellect, which many philosophers believe one achieves only in a disembodied state in the Hereafter. Such a position, however, was not universally accepted by all Muslim philosophers. For instance, al-​ Fārābı (c. 870–​ 950) in his now lost commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics apparently maintained that happiness is to be achieved only in this life, not in the afterlife (see Neria 2013). Moreover, Averroes himself in his long commentary on Aristotle’s De anima argues that an immaterial  intellect common to all humans, and yet separate from any individual human, is what is immortal, and so strongly implies that there is no individual or personal immortality (see Taylor 1998).

4.2.2  The Will and Action Theory Closely related to moral psychology is an account of the will as well as what motivates and brings about human actions. According to the Muʿtazilites, that is, one branch of Muslim theologians who emphasized God’s absolute justice, humans must have a will, and that will must be free to choose between real options. They reason that since God has promised to reward those who do what the Qur’an prescribes and punish those who do what the Qur’an proscribes, humans must be morally responsible for their actions. That is because, they argue, it would be unjust for God to reward or to punish those who are not morally responsible for their actions. To be morally responsible for an action, they continue, one must have willed that action such that the action is one’s own, and also must have been able not to will the action. To hold one responsible for an action that is not one’s own willful doing would render God unjust, or so maintain the Muʿtazilites. Thus, within the sphere of human actions Muʿtazilites are free will libertarians. In polar opposition to the Muʿtazilites were Muslim voluntarists and traditionalists, who emphasized God’s absolute power and omnipotence, where this power extends even to the

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Islamic Ethics 81 realm of human actions. At its extreme, the voluntarists’ position took the form of occasionalism. On this view, God literally re-​creates the world, all the atoms, and whatever features those atoms might have, as well as every event, anew at each moment. The result is that nothing in the created order, whether objects or events, is causally related to anything else in the created order. For these thinkers, God is the only Cause. As for moral responsibility, humans are still morally accountable for their actions, according to some of these thinkers. To explain how humans are responsible, some traditionalists, notably the Ashʿarıtes, appealed to a theory of acquisition (kasb). According to the theory, while the power that brings about any actions is God’s, humans acquire, and so are responsible for, their actions by being the locus (maḥall) of God’s power. It is in fact the human who does the action, even if the power to do the action is from God. Abū Ḥāmid al-​Ghazālı (1058–​1111) developed perhaps the most sophisticated strategy for explaining human moral responsibility in light of God’s absolute omnipotence in his theory of two powers (Iqtiṣād fı l-​iʿtiqād [=Moderation of Belief], ii.1.1; see Marmura 1994 and McGinnis 2006 for discussions). According to al-​Ghazālı human action is the product of two powers: God’s active power and humans’, so to speak, passive power. Humans must have a passive power inasmuch as they change from not performing some action (and so are in a state of potentiality with respect to the action) to performing it (and so come to be in a state of activity with respect to the action). Thus, when not performing the action, they have a passive power to do it, whereas at the time that they act that passive power must be actualized, which God does through his active power. Thus, for al-​Ghazālı, humans have the passive power to do good or evil. When they do good or evil, it is because God activates the passive power within them such that they can be said to act and so are morally responsible for the action. Al-​Ghazālı acknowledges that when the human’s passive power is compared with God’s active power, human power appears to be no power at all. Still, maintains al-​Ghazālı, it is

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82 Jon McGinnis better that humans appear to have no power than to claim that God is in fact not completely omnipotent. The philosophers take a middle path between the libertarianism of the Muʿtazilites and the hard determinism of the traditionalists, which perhaps may best be described as a form of compatibilism (see Ruffus and McGinnis 2015). While it is true that every action is determined by a set of complete causes, included among the set of complete causes are reasons for acting, some of which may be internal to or up to the human agent such that a given action is through the will (bi-​l-​irāda), that is, volitional. For example, in Avicenna’s action theory, the principle of volitional actions is either the imagination (takhayyul), opinion (ẓann), or understanding (‘ilm). These three sources of volitional actions can be traced back to the tripartite psychology of Plato and Aristotle, with imagination corresponding with appetites, opinion with spirit, and understanding with reason. To be more precise, however, it is the imagined, opined, or (intellectually) understood good, which these faculties perceive, that is the source of action. That is because the agent rationally wishes for the perceived good, deliberates about the means of achieving it, and then decides and so acts to acquire that good. The main point, and one accepted by all the philosophers, is that every agent, including God, acts for some reason, namely, some good, whether an imagined, opined, or intellectually grasped good. (In the case of God, the good is God’s very being or self (dhāt), that is, God wills his own existence as his good.) Al-​Ghazālı provides what became the standard criticism of the philosophers’ thesis that all volitional actions result from some reason for acting (see Incoherence of the Philosophers, First Discussion, [45–​46]). Al-​Ghazālı complains that the philosophers have mischaracterized the nature and operation of the will. The very nature of the will, asserts al-​Ghazālı, is simply to choose between particular options independent of reason, even if reasons can play a role in one’s choice. His general argument for this thesis is a thought experiment: One is asked to imagine a starving man presented with

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Islamic Ethics 83 two palm dates of which he can only choose one. The palm dates are for all intents and purposes identical, with nothing about one making it more desirable than the other. Moreover, there is nothing about the man, like being right-​or left-​handed, that weighs in giving preference to taking one date over the other. Al-​Ghazālı asserts that such a situation is possible and additionally asserts that it is impossible that the man would not choose one date rather than sit in indecision and starve. It is through an act of the will, al-​Ghazālı claims, that the man chooses one particular date over another independent of any reason for picking that particular date. He can do so, concludes al-​ Ghazālı, precisely because the nature of the will, contrary to what the philosophers say, is to choose among options regardless of having a reason for such a choice.

4.3  Ethical Systems of

FALSAFA

For medieval Islamic philosophers, the thought of three ancient figures held significant sway over the ethical systems that developed. These are Plato, particularly the ethics of the Republic, Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics, and Galen and his two Stoic-​inspired ethical treatises, On the Affections and Errors of the Soul and On Ethics. This section considers three themes found in these authors and how they are developed at the hands of medieval Muslim philosophers. These themes are (1)  therapies of the soul, (2)  virtue ethics, and (3) eudaimonism, that is, what constitutes the happy or flourishing life.

4.3.1  Therapies for the Soul The first Arab philosopher, al-​ Kindı (801–​ 873), can be credited with the earliest ethical writings within falsafa. His treatise On the Means of Dispelling Sorrow belongs to a Stoic-​inspired genre of works, which might best be described as therapies for the soul. The general idea is that like the body the soul can experience both health and maladies, that is, affections or passions and errors. When the soul is in an affected or ill state, then, it requires a cure, although

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84 Jon McGinnis as with bodily health, optimally one tries to prevent psychological ailments from occurring in the first place. In al-​Kindı’s On the Means of Dispelling Sorrow, the psychological ailment is sorrow, the cause of which al-​Kindı identifies with loss of loved or cherished things. The way to prevent sorrow, al-​Kindı suggests, is twofold: first, love and cherish only that which cannot be lost, namely, the things of the intellect, and, second, decrease the number of the things that one possesses that can be lost. As for curing sorrow, one must ask whether the cause of the sorrow is one’s own action or that of another. If it is one’s own action, then one must refrain from doing it. If it is the action of another, then the dispelling of that sorrow is either up to oneself or up to another. If the dispelling of the sorrow is up to oneself, one should do so. If the cause of the sorrow is up to another, then one should not fret before the actual sorrow occurs, for the cause might not occur and so one will have felt sorrow without cause. If the cause does occur, then one must first take consolation in the fact that the sorrow will abate over time and second do what one can to shorten the period of time, presumably by taking delight in the things of the intellect. Also writing in the genre of psychological therapy were Abū Zayd al-​Balkhı (d. 934)  and Abū Bakr al-​Rāzı (865–​925). Al-​Balkhı was a student of al-​Kindı and expands on the theme of dispelling affections from the soul, now to include not only sorrow, but also anger, envy, fear, melancholy, and suspicion (Adamson 2007, 111). As for al-​Rāzı, like Galen before him, he was a physician whose work, Spiritual Medicine, is directly in the Galenic line of a therapy for the soul (see Adamson 2017 for details). Drawing upon the tripartite faculty psychology, al-​Rāzı underscores in this work the greater value of the rational faculty when compared with other faculties. More pointedly, the rational faculty, al-​Rāzı maintains, echoing Galen, must dominate the other faculties; for it to be otherwise would reduce a person to the status of an irrational brute. While Spiritual Medicine has strong tendencies toward a rigid asceticism, al-​Rāzı’s autobiography, The Philosophical Life, champions a life of moderation. This

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Islamic Ethics 85 moderate life, in which one is not enslaved to the passions, is the best one, since reason can seek its proper perfection and so one can reach ultimate human flourishing.

4.3.2  Virtue Ethics This last point is seen most clearly in the discussion of virtue (faḍıla) in which the medical practices used for acquiring and maintaining bodily health all find their counterpart in acquiring and maintaining virtue, which is identified with psychological health. Medieval Muslim philosophers adopt Aristotle’s account of virtue presented in Nicomachean Ethics 2.1–​6. Virtue, then, is a fixed disposition of the soul acquired through a process of habituation (iʿtiyād) that produces an intermediate or mean (wasıta) response, relative to us, to affections of the soul like fear, anger, desire, etc. Vice in contrast is a habitual response to those affections that is either excessive or deficient relative to the mean. This account of virtue and vice is found in al-​Fārābı’s Directing Attention to the Way of Happiness, Avicenna’s On the Science of Ethics, the epitome of Plato’s Republic by Averroes, Ahmad ibn Muhammad Miskawayh’s (932–​ 1030) Refinement of Character, Naṣır al-​Dın al-​Ṭūsı’s (1201–​1274) Naṣırean Ethics, and the Jalālean Ethics of Jalāl al-​Dın al-​Dawānı (1426–​1502). Indeed, medieval Muslim philosophers accept Aristotle’s definition of virtue almost without argument. Where they differ from Aristotle is merely in the extent to which they rely on a comparison between health and virtue to explain Aristotle’s definition and develop the various therapies of the soul mentioned in the previous section. A perhaps novel element in the virtue ethics of Muslim philosophers is their taxonomy of the virtues. In the Republic, Plato identified four cardinal virtues:  moderation (Gk. sōphrosunē, Ar. ʿiffa), courage (Gk. andreia, Ar. shajāʿa), wisdom (Gk. sophia, Ar. ḥikma), and justice (Gk. dikaiosunē, Ar. ʿadāla). Plato linked moderation with the appetitive faculty of the soul, courage with the spirited (or animal) soul, and wisdom with the intellect. Finally, justice is viewed as a virtue arrayed throughout all of the soul when each part

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86 Jon McGinnis acts according to its proper function. This Platonic view is accepted in the main, with most medieval Muslim philosophers adopting the view as is. The later philosophers, al-​Ṭūsı and al-​Dawānı, slightly diverge in their consent. Specifically, al-​Ṭūsı maintains that the virtue of wisdom properly corresponds only with the theoretical intellect, whereas justice corresponds properly with the practical intellect. (Admittedly justice occurs only when the appetitive and animal faculties submit to the practical intellect.) Al-​Dawānı mentions both views about justice, namely, the Platonic suggestion that justice is not localized and al-​Ṭūsı’s claim that justice is localized in the practical intellect. While al-​Dawānı remains uncommitted, his leaning appears to be toward al-​Ṭūsı’s view. Whatever the view about the relation of justice to the soul, many of these philosophers, and even the occasional theologian like al-​Ghazālı, maintain that the four cardinal virtues  –​moderation, courage, wisdom, and justice –​are in fact genera with subspecies of virtues falling beneath them. Concerning the various subspecies of the cardinal virtues, there appears to be no firm consensus on either their number or even under which genus a subspecies necessarily falls. Their various classifications of humility hopefully will make this point. Miskawayh in his Refinement of Character, which is arguably the most important and complete ethical work in the classical medieval Islamic period, does not mention humility at all as a moral character, whether as a virtue or a vice. Al-​Ghazālı, in one work, identifies humility with a vice standing opposite to arrogance, whereas in later works he sees humility as a subspecies of courage. Both al-​Ṭūsı and al-​Dawānı followed the later al-​Ghazālı in identifying humility with a subspecies of courage, namely, one does not assign merit to oneself over those of a lowlier station. Presumably, one does not fear other people thinking less of one than one deserves. Avicenna takes an entirely different tack and classifies humility as a subspecies of wisdom in which one not only discerns one’s superiority over another but also recognizes that nothing is to be gained by lording it over that individual.

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Islamic Ethics 87 In addition to the cardinal virtues and their subspecies, at least one philosophically inspired theologian, namely al-​ Ghazālı, who incorporates many elements of the philosophers’ virtue ethics into his own ethics, maintains that certain theological virtues (al-​faḍāʾil al-​tawfıqiyya, lit. “[divine] assisting virtues”) are also essential for a complete virtue ethics (see Sherif 1975 for al-​Ghazālı’s virtue ethics). These virtues, which are linked with divine grace (faḍl), are four: (1) divine guidance (hidāyat Allāh), (2)  good sense (rushd), (3)  focus or aim (tasdıd), and (4) support (taʾyıd). In very general terms, the virtue of divine guidance is God’s gracing us with a general knowledge of what is good and evil; it is a knowledge of good, however, not the doing thereof. Where divine guidance concerns a general knowledge of good and evil, good sense appears to be a recognition that a particular action is good or evil. In this respect, both divine guidance and good sense might be seen as God’s helping us to recognize some good, whether a general or particular good, as a proper end of action (or conversely some evil as an end to be avoided). One is apparently graced with the virtue of focus or aim when one deliberates correctly about the means to some end or good. Finally, divine support is God’s aiding us in our actions directed toward the various means and final ends. Al-​Ghazālı draws much of his understanding of these theological virtues not from the philosophers but from debates with Muslim theological rationalists, who believe that unaided reason can discover much of what is morally right and wrong. Still, al-​Ghazālı also seems to have embedded these theological virtues within a theory of action much indebted to that of the philosophers, with its elements of rational wish, deliberation, and decision.

4.3.3  Eudaimonism and the Proper End of Human Life For the philosophers, of the four cardinal virtues, only wisdom, that is intellectual activity in its highest form, was to be reckoned as the true and final end of human life, the obtainment of which brings proper human happiness or flourishing (saʿāda). Intellectual activity for these thinkers refers to the activity of either the practical intellect

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88 Jon McGinnis or the theoretical intellect. The activity of the theoretical intellect involves understanding the ultimate underlying causes of things, not with an eye to manipulating them to our benefit or as means to some further activity, but for the sake of understanding alone. In contrast, the activity of the practical intellect is about understanding how we should manage a society (political science) or ourselves (ethics). While sometimes it was simply assumed that the activity of the theoretical intellect should be given priority over that of the practical intellect when determining the proper end of human activity, it was occasionally argued on the basis of various aims or ends of human action. Thus, al-​Fārābı (Attaining Happiness, ¶75) identifies three ends of human actions, namely, to acquire what is either pleasurable, useful, or noble. When the end is to be useful, its usefulness is precisely that it helps in attaining what is either pleasurable or noble. Consequently, the proper activity of human life must have either the pleasurable or the noble as its true end, not simply the useful. Al-​ Fārābı dismisses the suggestion that the proper end of human action is pleasure (Attaining Happiness, ¶67), which he even identifies as an obstacle to human happiness. The proper end of human life, rather, must aim at either what is noble or what is useful. If, however, it aims at what is useful, it again does so precisely because that activity is useful for attaining what is noble (since what is pleasurable was excluded as the proper end of human life). The end of the practical intellect’s activity, however, is just the useful, whether what is useful for the management of society or of ourselves. In contrast, the activity of the theoretical intellect, namely understanding the underlying causes of the world around us, that is, science, is sought for its own sake. Therefore, the attainment of scientific understanding, which al-​Fārābı and the other philosophers call wisdom, is the true end of human life, whose attainment ensures happiness. Here it is worth nothing that for the philosophers, wisdom (ḥikma) involves, first, the acquisition of logic, followed by training in the physical and mathematical sciences, and then is crowned with

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Islamic Ethics 89 an understanding of metaphysics. While there was some dispute about the precise subject matter of metaphysics, all agreed that it culminated in an understanding of, to the extent possible, God, the Cause of all causes. Thus, true human happiness is attained only by means of contemplating God. It was noted that al-​Fārābı dismissed a life of pleasure (ladhdha) as the ultimate end of human life. Al-​Fārābı was not alone in insisting that a life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure is not fitting as our proper human end. For example, Miskawayh in The Refinement of Character argues at length against the suggestion that human perfection involves bodily pleasure. In general, he notes that bodily pleasures, like the pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex, follow upon a prior pain or at least discomfort. Indeed, bodily pleasure, Miskawayh argues, is simply the body’s return to a balanced or healthy state after experiencing some imbalance or malaise. In short, bodily pleasure is a restoration from a disease-​like state. Obviously “the treatment of a disease does not constitute complete happiness.” He continues, “The completely happy person is he who is never affected by any disease” (Refinement, 45). Despite Miskawayh’s fairly clear dismissal of bodily pleasure as the end of human life in The Refinement of Character, he endorses the suggestion that pleasure is a proper human end in a short treatise On Pleasures and Pains. While such a turnaround might seem inconsistent, it need not be, since Miskawayh has two distinct notions of pleasure at play in these different works. In the Refinement of Character, Miskawayh appeals to and endorses what has been termed the “restoration” theory of pleasure (Adamson 2015). Pleasure is a certain motion back to a balanced or healthy state and not that healthy or perfect state itself. This conception of pleasure can be traced back as far as Plato and Aristotle. In contrast, in On Pleasures and Pains, Miskawayh adapts a suggestion from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 10.4, which makes pleasure no longer a motion toward some perfection but “the perfection perceived by what is perfected” (On Pleasures, §1). Avicenna also adopts this understanding of pleasure,

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90 Jon McGinnis which he defines as “a perception and attainment within the perceiver of a certain perfection and good as such” (Pointers and Reminders, 8.3). We may call this view the perfection theory of pleasure. On the perfection theory of pleasure, there are as many different kinds of pleasures as there are different kinds of perceptions and their corresponding perfections. The different kinds of perception are in turn related to different faculties of the soul. For example, the external senses are most frequently associated with the appetites of the vegetative soul, and so give rise to sensual pleasures, while perception directed toward the appetites of the animal faculty give rise to the pleasures of the spirit, like the pleasures taken in victory or honor. Analogously, intellectual perception has an associated intellectual pleasure. Indeed, philosophers (and some theologians) thought intellectual pleasure to be more pleasant than the pleasures of the body or spirit. That is because on this view pleasure is a perceived perfection, and the ultimate object of intellectual perception is again contemplation of God, who is most perfect. Consequently, the perception of God is most pleasurable. Admittedly, intellectual pleasures in their purest form can be fully appreciated only once one is free of the distractions of the body, that is, in the afterlife. Given the philosophers’ notion of intellectual pleasure and that some philosophers, like Miskawayh, actually identify God with the highest intellectual pleasure, some of these thinkers endorse in a very refined way a form of utilitarianism or consequentialism. For what makes an action good or evil of its kind is that it promotes some perfection rather than imperfection, and closely tied (even occasionally identified) with the perfection or imperfection of the action is a corresponding pleasure or pain. Ironically, it is the philosophically inspired theologian Fakhr al-​Dın al-​Rāzı who perhaps develops the most thoroughgoing Islamic consequentialism based upon this philosophical perfectionist theory of pleasure (see Shihadeh 2006, esp. 56–​83, 109–​129). For him, following the philosophers, perfection and pleasure are closely linked. Precisely, the perfection of some part of the soul is

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Islamic Ethics 91 an objective psychological reality, while pleasure is the subjective response to that perfection. Additionally, unlike many traditionalist Muslim theologians, who were physicalists, al-​Rāzı adopts the philosophers’ faculty psychology and accordingly accepts the immateriality of the soul. Consequently, he acknowledges both bodily, that is, appetitive and spirited, pleasures, and non-​bodily intellectual pleasures. Given this understanding of the relation between perfection and pleasure, al-​Rāzı happily endorses a utilitarian view that all human actions are directed toward the attainment of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Moreover, and ironically, based upon his consequentialism, al-​ Rāzı criticizes the philosophers for maintaining that humans seek God in order to attain their proper end, for such a view, he complains, renders God a mere means to our end. In contrast, al-​Rāzı notes that pleasure is only ever sought as an end in itself, not as a means. Thus, since contemplating God perfects us and indeed is our greatest perfection, so likewise is it our greatest pleasure. Consequently, the contemplation of God must be sought for itself as our final end, not as a means, for the contemplation of God is the greatest human pleasure.

4.4  Ethical Systems of  KALA ̄ M In addition to medieval Islamic philosophers, whose ethics clearly finds its inspiration in classical Greek moral theory, there was the ethics of the Muslim speculative theologians and lawyers. While these thinkers were certainly aware of the ethical systems of the philosophers and, as seen, even drew upon and responded to them, they relied most heavily upon religious sources like the Qur’an and the life and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Additionally, the ethical project of Muslim theologians and lawyers was fundamentally different from that of the philosophers. Whereas the philosophers approached issues of morality from the stance of virtue ethics, theologians and lawyers most frequently approached ethics from the stance of deontology. Thus, for the theologians and lawyers, ethics

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92 Jon McGinnis was less about forming a moral character from which good actions flow than about duty and which actions are morally obligatory, permissible, or forbidden.

4.4.1  The Debate about Reason One of the significant metaethical issues for Muslim theologians and lawyers is the status of independent reasoning (ʿaql or raʾy) and to what extent, if any, it can stand alongside revelation as a source for determining the moral value of actions. There are three stances: (1) a strong rationalist position; (2)  a hard voluntarist or traditionalist position; and (3)  a “soft voluntarist” or “weak rationalist” position, for lack of a better term, which is loosely poised between the other two positions. On one side are the rationalist theologians, frequently identified with Muʿtazilites like ʿAbd al-​Jabbār (935–​1025) and Abū Ḥusayn al-​Baṣrı (d. 1044). The Muʿtazilites were among the first Muslim “speculative theologians” (mutakallimūn, literally proponents of kalām) and much of their theology was forged in debates with either Christian theologians or proponents of falsafa, both of whom were trained in Greek logic and science. In part as a result of the Muʿtazilites’ interactions with Greek philosophy, they developed a rationalist system of ethics, which maintains that the demands of reason are necessary and frequently sufficient conditions for determining the moral status of an action. Thus, not only can reason discover much of what is morally good and bad independent of Scripture, but also God as a rational agent must act according to the dictates of reason. In short, God commands us to act in certain ways precisely because reason demands it. On the opposite side were the traditionalists, like Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (780–​855), Ibn Abı l-​Dunyā (823–​894), and Ibn Hazm (994–​ 1064). They maintained that independent human reasoning provides no authoritative foundation for the rightness or wrongness of an action nor can human reason judge an act to be morally permissible or obligatory. God’s willing alone determines an action’s moral status. Consequently, humans need Scripture to learn what God’s

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Islamic Ethics 93 will is and subsequently to learn the moral status of actions. In short, an action is right or wrong precisely because God commands it. Finally, between these two positions was that of the weak rationalists/​ soft voluntarists, who include al-​ Ghazālı and Fakhr al-​Dın al-​Rāzı and, as seen, drew upon and developed themes from the philosophers. These legal theorists follow the traditionalists in maintaining that God is under no obligation to act according to what we humans believe that reason demands, and if he does so, it is only through his grace. Where these thinkers differ from the traditionalists is that they recognize that the Qur’an and prophetic traditions have not addressed all moral quandaries that might arise. Thus, in certain limited and defined cases, reason can determine and judge what action it is our moral duty to perform (see Emon 2010, ch. 4, for a discussion of the conditions under which exceptions are made). Since, for the traditionalists, God’s will determines morally right behavior and God’s will is known only through religious sources, the ethical treatises of these thinkers frequently took the form of collections of traditions of the Prophet Muhammad with perhaps the occasional and additional story of a pre-​Muhammadan prophet or one of Muhammad’s Companions. Such is certainly the case of ethical works in the “noble qualities of character” genre (makārim al-​akhlāq), where the emphasis is on providing examples of moral character rather than elucidating an ethical theory (see Bellamy 1963 for a discussion of one such work). I do not consider these works here, but limit myself to traditionalist critiques of the rationalists. As for more moderate traditionalists, many of their unique contributions to ethical theory were seen above in response to the philosophers. Thus, in the present section, I focus on the rationalists’ ethics, particularly as articulated by ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, then discuss the rationalist tradition of natural law followed by the voluntarist critique.

4.4.2  Rationalism and a Science of Ethics Muslim rationalists are most frequently associated with Muʿtazilite theologians, whose most notable representatives include Abū

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94 Jon McGinnis l-​Hudhayl (d. 841), Abū l-​ʿAlı al-​Jubbāʾı (d. 915)  and his son Abū l-​ Hāshim (d. 933), and then later ʿAbd al-​Jabbār. It is the late and fully developed ethical theory of ʿAbd al-​Jabbār and his discussion of moral vocabulary, postulates, and practical reasoning that is presented here (see Hourani 1971 and 1985 for more detailed discussions). One point of clarification is in order first. While what typifies Muʿtazilite theologians is their rationalism, they still believed that Scripture has a place in one’s ethics. (That is, once one has proved rationally (1) that God exists, (2) that God sends prophets, and (3) that the particular Scripture is indeed the revelation of a true prophet.) The need for Scripture occurs because Muʿtazilites did not believe that every moral claim could be discovered by human reason alone. Some moral claims are learned only through Scripture, although once revealed human reason can and should be used to assess those claims. Such claims include, for example, the moral value of prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. ʿAbd al-​Jabbār attempted to embed these and other value claims within a demonstrative science of ethics, the development of which involves three steps. The first step provides definitions of the most basic value terms, like “evil” and “obligatory.” The next step sets down certain moral postulates that link the basic definitions with various classes of actions. Finally, these moral postulates are used to assess particular moral actions. These steps are themselves all part of a Muʿtazilite natural law theory, which is the subject of the next section. For ʿAbd al-​Jabbār there are four basic value terms: evil (qabıḥ), permissible (mubāḥ), virtuous (tafaḍḍul), and obligatory (wājib). In a certain respect, ʿAbd al-​Jabbār defines these terms by reference to the degree of praise or blame the agent of the action deserves or merits. Thus, an action is evil if its agent deserves blame for doing it, while an action is obligatory if the agent deserves blame for not doing it. An action is permissible if its agent deserves neither praise nor blame for performing it, whereas an action is virtuous if its agent merits praise for doing it but does not deserve blame for not doing

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Islamic Ethics 95 it. In many cases, purportedly we immediately recognize that some action is deserving of blame or praise. We can do so according to ʿAbd al-​Jabbār because humans have a divinely created disposition that is directed to the good (ḥusn or maṣlaḥa), which he calls luṭf, literally a kindness or civility. This disposition seems much akin to the Christian scholastic notion of synderesis, that is, an innate principle in the moral consciousness of all humans directing us toward the good and restraining us from evil. Thus, through the application of reason one can distinguish what is good and beneficial from what is evil and harmful. Given these basic moral definitions, ʿAbd al-​Jabbār turns to the second stage, in which he indicates the moral postulates for a science of ethics. Moral postulates link the basic moral valuations with specific kinds of actions. For ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, there are two classes of moral postulates: absolute duties and prima facie duties. In both cases, a rational agent simply sees that these postulates are true. Absolute duties are those actions that a rational agent sees are true without qualification regardless of the surrounding circumstances. Examples of absolute duties include “thanking the benefactor is obligatory,” “injustice or wrongdoing (ẓulm) is evil,” and “lying is evil.” (The case of lying creates some tension for ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, since traditionalists observed that if someone came to murder a prophet in your home, lying would be at least permissible if not obligatory. ʿAbd al-​Jabbār’s response seems to be that while lying is always evil, telling the truth is not always obligatory, for one can be evasive or dissemble without lying or even simply remain silent.) Most moral postulates, however, are of the variety of prima facie duties. In these cases, the postulate taken in its simple form is seen to be true, but there are also certain aspects (sing. wajh), which must be weighed too. For example, to harm or to cause pain to another is prima facie evil; however, there might be certain circumstances when causing pain is permissible or even obligatory, such as disciplining a child or punishing a criminal. Similarly, fasting

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96 Jon McGinnis during Ramadan is obligatory for a Muslim; however, if the Muslim is a pregnant woman or a traveler, then fasting is not a duty. The third stage in ʿAbd al-​Jabbār’s ethics is the application of these moral postulates to particular cases, which involves a type of practical reasoning. The reasoning is straightforward. One subsumes some particular action done at some particular time and place by some particular agent under one of the classes of actions identified in the moral postulates. For example, all lying is evil; this particular action is a case of lying; therefore, this particular action is evil. Or again, causing pain is prima facie evil, although certain aspects must also be weighed; this particular action is a case of causing pain and none of the relevant aspects is there (or some are); therefore, this particular action is evil (or permissible if the relevant aspect is present).

4.4.3  Islamic Natural Law Theory and its Critics ʿAbd al-​Jabbār’s account of moral vocabulary, postulates, and reasoning as well as the Muʿtazilites’ ethics more generally is embedded within a theory of natural law. (See Emon 2010 for details. The philosopher Averroes also seems to have understood the Aristotelian theory of natural justice in terms of natural law; see Taliaferro 2017.) For the purposes of this study, I  take there to be two desiderata of a natural law theory in ethics (M. Murphy 2011). The first essential feature concerns the place of human reason in natural law, namely that natural law consists of those principles that determine whether a human action is reasonable or unreasonable. Thus, from that perspective a theory of natural law is in the main a theory of practical reasoning. The second key feature is that natural law is rooted in God’s creation of a good and beneficial world. Thus, natural law is from that perspective part and parcel of a theory of divine providence. We have seen in the previous section how ʿAbd al-​Jabbār develops a Muʿtazilite science of ethics that culminates in a theory of practical reasoning, and so meets the first desideratum. Now I consider how Muʿtazilites in general link ethics and divine providence so as to round out their natural law theory.

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Islamic Ethics 97 Muʿtazilites begin by noting that God created the world either (1)  without a purpose or (2)  with a purpose. Next, if God created the world with a purpose, that purpose is either (2a) harmful or (2b) beneficial. Finally, if the purpose is beneficial, then either (2bi) God is benefited or (2bii) creation is benefited. Muʿtazilites take it as necessary that God is a rational agent who only acts for the good. Consequently, God does nothing without purpose, and so (1)  must be rejected. Similarly, since God acts only for the good, he would create this world not for some harmful end, but for some good or beneficial end, and so (2a) must also be rejected. Finally, the Muʿtazilites argue, since God is in need of nothing, creation cannot be for God’s benefit but for that of creation. Consequently, the argument concludes, (2bii) God purposefully created the world for creation’s benefit. Since creation is for our benefit, the argument continues, the use of creation in the way that it was intended, namely to benefit and not to harm, is permissible, otherwise there would be no purpose in God’s creating. Conversely, an action that harms is prohibited. Notions of permissibility and prohibition are identified with what we ought to do: we ought to do good and to avoid evil. Thus, because we can know whether some thing or some action is good or bad, we can further determine whether we ought to act thus or not act. Facts purportedly become fused with value through the intermediacy of the permissibility to use creation as it was intended. In short, through reason we can learn that we are obliged to do what is good and avoid what is evil. Humans then can develop a demonstrative science of practical reasoning about what is good precisely because they can discover and reflect on the nature of the good and fitting things created in accordance with God’s providential design. Muʿtazilite rationalists and Islamic natural law theorists were not without their critics, who came from both the traditionalist and soft voluntarist camps (Emon 2010, ch. 3). In general, these critics had three kinds of objections to the Muʿtazilites’ natural law theory.

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98 Jon McGinnis These were of either a metaphysical, epistemological, or metaethical stripe. The metaphysical criticism appeals to God’s omnipotence. The natural law theorists’ argument is predicated on the principle that God must act for the good. Such a principle was thought to compromise God’s power to do anything (or at least everything possible). For these critics, there are no restrictions upon what God can do and if, as a matter of fact, God does act for the good, it is only because of His grace (faḍl, tafaḍḍul), not because He cannot do what is harmful and bad. ʿAbd al-​Jabbār had an interesting response to this kind of objection, which apparently relies upon a difference between metaphysical and nomic modalities. He concedes that it is logically possible that God not act for the good, for presumably there is no contradiction in such a proposition. Still, asserts ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, it is not permissible for us to entertain such a proposition. In short, while we have to take it as necessary that God only acts for the good, and so any theology or ethical system must proceed from the belief that God’s acts are good, the negation of this proposition is not absolutely impossible. The second class of objections to the Muʿtazilites is epistemic in nature, taking two forms, noting either the apparent arbitrariness of many of the Muʿtazilites’ moral propositions or the apparent circularity haunting their attempt to account for basic value terms. Concerning this first form, the natural law theorists assume that what is good or bad is an objective fact that all humans can know regardless of their circumstances. Some voluntarists noted that what appears good and bad is significantly a product of one’s social and cultural upbringing. What appears rational to a Christian may not appear rational to a Jew or a Muslim. Consequently, human reason is not a sufficiently reliable tool to fathom the depths of God’s willing that certain actions are permissible and others prohibited. For example, pork and wine both appear good, and yet God has prohibited their consumption by Muslims. The second form of the epistemic objection is that their attempt to account for basic value terms is circular. These critics

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Islamic Ethics 99 observe that terms like evil, obligatory, and the like are intended to be the most basic value terms, with all other moral valuations being made in reference to them. The Muʿtazilites, however, explain these basic terms by reference to such notions as “deserve” or “merit,” namely, to deserve or merit praise or blame. The criticism then continues that for some action to deserve praise or blame implies that it is appropriate or what one ought to do. Of course, notions like appropriate and ought are themselves value judgments indicating what is obligatory; however, obligatory is just one of the terms that the Muʿtazilites wanted to explain by reference to deserving praise or blame. Metaethical objections make up a third class of criticism leveled against Muʿtazilite rationalism. One concern is that there is a kind of category mistake at the heart of the Muʿtazilite natural law theory. Terms like “good,” “bad,” “beneficial,” and “harmful” are best thought of as aesthetic and ethical in nature, telling us about our preferences and personal valuations. In contrast, terms like “permissible” and “prohibited” are legal categories understood by references to laws. Laws involve lawgivers –​in this case, what God wills –​and it is because God commands a certain law that we ought to do it. Thus, in a way perhaps anticipating the idea of an “is–​ought” fallacy, these thinkers complain that what we ought to do cannot be derived from facts about us and our preferences. Certain later soft voluntarists, like al-​Ghazālı and al-​Rāzı, went further and complained that the basic notion of deserving praise or blame used in the Muʿtazilites’ description of value terms lacked any rationalist basis at all. Instead, to say some action deserves our praise or blame is merely to express our like or dislike for the action (Hourani 1985, 135–​166, esp. §2; Shihadeh 2006, 56–​ 63). Consequently, both al-​ Ghazālı and al-​ Rāzı, who broadly accepted the philosophers’ moral psychology, could deny that ethical propositions are discovered by reason (ʿaql). Instead, such propositions are the product of our imagination (wahm and khayāl), which is rooted in the animal rather than the rational

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100 Jon McGinnis soul. Consequently, our valuation of moral propositions, like “lying is evil,” is the result of our emotional responses to imagined scenarios, which give rise to certain pleasures or pains. Indeed, these critics’ response to the Muʿtazilites verges on an emotivist critique of ethical rationalism. Whatever the case, claim these critics, moral propositions are merely rhetorical and so cannot lie at the base of a demonstrative science of ethics.

4.5 Conclusion This study considered two historically important approaches to ethics prevalent in the medieval Islamic world. The falsafa tradition as a rule relied heavily upon Greek sources, even if at times going beyond them. The kalām tradition took both a traditionalist and a rationalist approach to ethics, with Islamic rationalism itself arising from interactions with Greek thought. Perhaps one broad generalization can be drawn from this study. Medieval Islamic ethics was arguably at its most creative when Greek sources were made to interact with Islamic and Arabic sources so as to be modified and re-​adapted to a new environment. One sees such re-​adaptations in al-​Ghazālı’s virtue ethics and al-​Rāzı’s consequentialism. There is also evidence that such an influence was at work in Islamic natural law theories as well. While there is much more that can be said about medieval Islamic ethics, hopefully one now has some sense of the various ethical resources and key issues at play during this philosophically vibrant period.

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5 Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy T. M. Rudavsky 5.1 Introduction Jewish philosophers incorporated material from rabbinical texts, from Greek philosophy, and from their intellectual contemporaries in discussing issues related to virtue and happiness.1 On the one hand, the very notion of Jewish ethics can only be understood against the backdrop of the Mosaic commandments. Halakha (divine law) covers a myriad of situations including rituals, sacred attitudes toward the Deity, and interpersonal relationships. These latter actions are commonly considered to comprise the moral domain. But can there be ethical dictates independent of the divine commandments? The rabbis already worried whether there exists a domain of “right behavior” that antedates, or exists independently of, divine commandment. Given the ubiquity of halakha in practically every aspect of Jewish life, thinkers both modern and ancient have disagreed whether halakha is all-​inclusive, or whether there exists an independent moral standard to which even halakha (and the giver of halakha, namely God) is beholden. On the other hand, the formative texts from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics promoted a view of happiness (or eudaimonia) as a “human flourishing” or “psychic wellbeing.” All human beings desire to be happy, Aristotle tells us, but we tend to confuse what we desire materially with what truly leads to happiness. The ultimate life of virtue is one that fulfills our function or telos as rational animals; eudaimonia thus results from living in accordance with reason. Another set of issues pertains to the type of character training requisite to achieve ethical perfection. Both Aristotle and the early rabbis emphasized the importance of character development in the 101

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102 T. M. Rudavsky acquisition of a moral compass. Aristotle emphasizes the role played by habit, a habitual repetition of morally conducing actions, while the book of Proverbs emphasizes the development of character formation as part of moral education. In this chapter, I briefly explore the development of medieval Jewish ethics against the backdrop of both rabbinic and philosophical discussions, focusing upon the works of Solomon ibn Gabirol, Baḥya ibn Paquda, Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), Ḥasdai Crescas, and Joseph Albo. Each of these thinkers manifests the tensions described above, grappling with the task of accommodating biblical and rabbinic views of moral behavior with that of their philosophical peers.

5.2  Living the Good Life: Ibn Gabirol, Baḥ ya ibn Paquda, and Maimonides While the divine commandments provide human beings with a general blueprint for how to conduct one’s life, Jewish philosophers incorporated Aristotle’s methods into their discussions. The practical syllogism, the doctrine of the mean, and Aristotle’s intellectualism all played an important role in defining the domain of practical reason. For Aristotle, ethics is not an exact science and so, unlike logic, it employs what Aristotle calls a “practical” as opposed to a “demonstrative” syllogism. Although we should expect a modicum of accuracy common to any study, ethics does not contain the sort of accuracy found in the demonstrative sciences (NE 1.3, 1095a). Aristotle’s virtue morality is couched in terms of his well-​known doctrine of the mean, which represents an intermediate between excess and defect (NE 2.6, 1106a30). Moral virtue, then, must aim at the mean: to feel fear, confidence, appetite, anger, pity, and the like “at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue” (NE 2.6, 1106b20–​22). These elements of the Aristotelian ethical theory

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 103 appear in the works of Solom on ibn Gabirol, Baḥya ibn Paquda, and Maimonides. Solomon ibn Gabirol (c. 1021–​ c. 1058)  was a prominent but reclusive member of Andalusian Jewish intellectual society. Representing the flourishing of Jewish intellectual life in Andalusia just after the enlightened reign of the Umayyad caliphate, he was one of the first Jewish philosophers in Spain to benefit from the intellectual ferment of this Golden Age. Ibn Gabirol’s major contribution to ethical literature is his work Tiqqun Middot ha-​Nefesh (On the Improvement of the Moral Qualities). Written in 1045 in Saragossa, this work is available in the original Arabic (Aslah al-​Akhlâq), as well as in Judah ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation, which has been reprinted in many versions. Tiqqun Middot ha-​Nefesh is primarily a treatise on practical morality, in which ibn Gabirol develops a system of ethics dependent upon the rule of reason. Although his ideas are supported by biblical references, he also includes quotations from Greek philosophers and Arab poets. Ibn Gabirol describes the qualities and defects of the soul, with particular emphasis upon the doctrine of the Aristotelian mean. The qualities of the soul, according to Ibn Gabirol, are made manifest through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Each sense additionally governs four main moral qualities: sight corresponds to pride and humility, modesty and impudence; hearing to love and hate, mercy and cruelty; smell to anger and favoritism, jealousy and diligence; taste to joy and grief, confidence and remorse; and touch to generosity and parsimony, bravery and timidity (Harvey 2012, 88; Wise 1902). Harvey notes that Ibn Gabirol’s correlative pairs do not have an explicit precedent in philosophic literature, but rather seem to be drawn from Hebrew idioms. “He must have presumed,” writes Harvey, “that ancient Hebrew idioms reliably reflect human physiology and psychology and therefore may be used to construct a theory of moral qualities” (Harvey 2012, 88).

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104 T. M. Rudavsky Ibn Gabirol describes human beings as representing the pinnacle of creation; inasmuch as the final purpose of human existence is perfection, they must overcome their passions and detach themselves from this base existence in order to attain felicity of the soul. The soul distinguishes humans from other living beings, and by developing his or her own soul, an individual can increase spiritual perfection. The body as well as the soul must participate in the person’s aspirations toward felicity: “In the actions of the senses as well as in the moral actions, one must reside in the mean and not fall into excess or defect” (Schlanger 1968, 18). In true Neoplatonic fashion, Ibn Gabirol has delineated a complete parallel between the microcosm as represented by the human being, and the macrocosm, which is the universe. Baḥya ibn Paquda (fl. eleventh century), ibn Gabirol’s younger contemporary, is best known for his system of quasi-​pietistic Jewish ethics, which appeared in 1040 in Arabic and was later translated into Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon. This work, entitled in Hebrew Sefer Ḥovot ha-​Levvavot (The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart), is one of the first attempts to present Judaic ethical laws and duties in a coherent philosophical system. Baḥya describes his motivation for compiling his ethical system in the introduction of the work. It was his impression that many Jews either paid little attention to the duties of Jewish law, or paid exclusive attention to rote duties performed by the body. He was underwhelmed by the supposed evidence that people were obeying and cultivating duties of the heart, from which the work gets its title. Baḥya ibn Paquda’s ethical system is more ambitious than that of ibn Gabirol. Like his Neoplatonic peers, he emphasized that ultimate human happiness is dependent upon excellence of the intellect and can only be experienced in the afterlife. Wellbeing of the soul depends upon possessing an accurate knowledge of the structure of the world. Baḥya emphasizes the importance of both science and logic to understand the workings of the created universe and its creator:  a wise and discerning individual will “avail himself of

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 105 the science of mathematics, the science of demonstration, and the science of logic” (DH Introduction, 59). In Duties of the Heart, Baḥya distinguishes between two types of duties: duties of the heart and external duties. The former duties are purely rational and intellectual, while the latter are practical. The two types of duties are linked, as external duties (such as moving one’s limbs or helping one’s neighbor) are impossible without internal duties (consent of the mind in the former instance, and love or respect of one’s neighbor in the latter). In the introduction, Baḥya characterizes the “inner duties of the heart” as connected to inward intentionality and expresses surprise that nobody had written about these duties, which he finds to be the “basis of all the commandments! If they were to be undermined, there would be no point to any of the duties of the limbs” (DH Introduction, 11). The ultimate purpose of these inner duties is to serve God. The ideal state, which Baḥya terms “wholeheartedness,” is reached when human beings achieve complete accord of the mind and body. When our outer and inner selves are in conflict, when our actions are not matched by our intentions, “if the actions of our limbs are at odds with the convictions of our hearts,” we cannot worship God whole-​heartedly (DH Introduction, 37). When “wholeheartedness” is impossible, then an unrealized intention is preferable to a correct deed completed without intention. In other words, inner spirituality is of greater importance than external behavior. Duties of the Heart is divided into ten chapters, representing the ten roots, or “gates,” of the duties of the heart. These roots lead to a wholehearted, or what we might think of as a mindful, belief in God. In Duties iii.10, Baḥya presents a list of twenty moral qualities, borrowed from those of Ibn Gabirol; unlike those pairs found in Ibn Gabirol, however, Baḥya’s list is grouped into contrary pairs: (1) joy and grief; (2)  fear and hope; (3)  courage and timidity; (4)  shame and brazenness; (5) anger and contentment; (6) mercy and ruthlessness; (7) pride and humility; (8) love and hate; (9) generosity and parsimony; (10) diligence and idleness (DH iii.10.341–​347). He claims

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106 T. M. Rudavsky to have recorded the qualities as they occurred to him, and in no particular order, and each of the pairs is discussed briefly. Subsequent sections amplify these qualities in the context of the duties of the heart, and provide a way of achieving closeness to the Deity. We turn now to Maimonides who, like his predecessors, focuses in his ethical work Eight Chapters primarily upon character traits. Maimonides (1125–​ 1204) is unarguably one of the greatest figures in the medieval Jewish period. In his major philosophical work Moreh Nevukhim (Guide for the Perplexed), Maimonides applies Aristotelian principles of mathematics and logic to religious doctrines in order that his intended audience, composed of devout religious individuals who also admire science and law, might potentially assuage their “perplexities.” His discussion of ethical behavior occurs in a number of works, including Eight Chapters, Laws Concerning Character Traits, and The Guide for the Perplexed.2 In Eight Chapters, Maimonides reserves the terms virtuous and vicious for character traits rather than for actions. He emphasizes the propadeutic nature of moral virtues: “the improvement of moral habits is the same as the cure of the soul and its powers” (EC i.61). Note that the terms virtue and vice pertain not to human actions, but to characteristics in the human soul. Like Aristotle and the Islamic philosopher al-​Fārābı, Maimonides distinguishes between two types of virtue:  rational and moral. Rational virtues include wisdom and intelligence, which in turn comprise theoretical intellect, acquired intellect, and what he calls “brilliance and excellent comprehension” or intuition (EC ii.65). Moral virtues are found in the appetitive part of the soul, not the rational part, and include a number of characteristics: moderation, liberality, justice, gentleness, humility, contentment, and courage. Following Aristotle and al-​ Fārābı, Maimonides emphasizes the repetition of habitual actions for proper character formation. The very title of the work Character Traits reinforces the importance of character development. Maimonides claims that inculcation of virtues requires habitual repetition of “right actions” (CT i.7.30). Virtues are not innate; the most we can

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 107 say is that individuals may have a natural proclivity toward particular virtues. We come now to the heart of Maimonides’s discussion of moral virtue, which incorporates Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. Maimonides reiterates Aristotle’s theory, as mediated by al-​Fārābı, and presents the middle way, or life in accordance with the mean, as a way of achieving both personal serenity and communal wellbeing. Chapter  4 of Eight Chapters concerns the doctrine of the mean: “good actions are those balanced in the mean between two extremes, both of which are bad: one of them is an excess and the other a deficiency” (EC iv.67). Maimonides then gives a number of examples: moderation is the mean between lust and insensibility; liberality is the mean between miserliness and extravagance; humility is the mean between haughtiness and abasement; generosity is the mean between prodigality and stinginess. Maimonides says that these virtues can be firmly established in the soul by repeating the actions pertaining to a particular moral habit over a long period of time, resulting in our “becoming accustomed to them” (EC iv.68). But what about the fact that Torah Law mandates many actions that do not reflect the mean? How do we account, for example, for the dietary laws, many of which clearly do not reflect a doctrine of the mean? More generally, what correlation can we draw between acquisition of moral virtue and acquiescence to the commandments? Further, what do we do with Maimonides’s characterization of the ḥasid or saint, whose extreme ascetic behavior reflects an apparent repudiation of the mean? Recognizing these difficulties, Maimonides adopts a less moderate position in the cases of humility and anger, advocating the saint to utter meekness “so as to leave not even a trace of pride in their soul” (HS Avot 4.4, 5.11; for a detailed discussion of these and other ethical traits, see Frank 1990; Rudavsky 2010). In this regard he appears to deviate markedly from Aristotle, who presented both proper pride and appropriate anger as virtues to be achieved (NE 4.3, 1123b14).

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108 T. M. Rudavsky We turn now to Gersonides (1288–​ 1344) whose importance as one of the most significant and comprehensive medieval Jewish philosophers has been recognized in recent years. Gersonides is not known for his ethical views; most of his philosophical writings engage matters in the natural sciences, astronomy, logic, and mathematics. Recent scholars, however, have pointed to an ethical dimension in his biblical commentaries, which include commentaries on the book of Job (1325), Song of Songs (1326), Ecclesiastes (1328), Esther (1329), Ruth (1329), Genesis (1329), Exodus (1330), most of Leviticus (1332), and finally the remaining books of the Torah (completed in 1338). Many of them draw from the philosophical material in his major philosophical work, Wars of the Lord, and incorporate a “mix of philosophical material and more purely exegetical exposition” (see Eisen 1995, 4; Eisen provides an extensive summary and analysis of several of these commentaries). In these commentaries, Gersonides incorporates “to’aliyot,” or ethical lessons, in which he reviews and summarizes the major philosophical lessons gleaned from the particular portion of Scripture. These lessons represent practical maxims that enable one to achieve perfection. Feldman suggests that one “could collect all the to’aliyot dealing with the de’ot and systematize them into a coherent Jewish theology.”3 Gersonides’s

ethics

are

consistently

informed

by

his

metaphysics (see Horwitz 1997, 289). Take, for example, Gersonides’s explanation of Abraham’s actions when entering Egypt and passing his wife Sara off as his sister. Horwitz claims that, in this case, following the lead of Maimonides in Guide iii:27, Gersonides “had to account for Abraham’s pursuit of the prosaic but absolutely essential necessities of life,” and did so by highlighting Abraham’s need to perfect and preserve his body (Horwitz 1997, 289–​290). As we shall see below, Gersonides’s commentary on Song of Songs is imbued with an extended discussion of human felicity. Gersonides claims that because of their inherent weakness and epistemological imperfections, most human beings are incapable of achieving felicity: “only very few individuals can acquire even a large measure of it” (Song of Songs, 6).

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 109 For the masses, the Torah and its commandments function as the best guide to moral perfection. Although the ultimate purpose of the commandments is “being cleaved to God,” most people are incapable of appreciating such an end, and so for such individuals the Torah couches the end-​goal as “that they who observe them will thereby achieve length of days, and many other fanciful felicities” (Song of Songs, 6).

5.3  Is there Room for Natural Law Independent of Divine Law? We turn now to our second broad theme, namely the relationship between divine law and morality. The exercise of trying to provide rational reasons for the commandments can be viewed as a scientific attempt to ground ethical precepts. The process dates back to rabbinic times, and continued throughout the medieval (and into the modern) period. Whether there exists a moral code independent of divine command is often couched in the context of natural law theory, but in Jewish philosophy the very process of defining a “natural law” independent of halakha is itself rife with problems. As Van Zile points out, natural law theorizes human morality as an autonomous function of human reason derived from nature, and is thus separate from divine command (Van Zile 2017). Joseph Albo’s work Book of Principles is the only medieval Jewish work devoted at least in part to an investigation of the foundation or roots of all kinds of law. While he was one of the very few Jewish philosophers (if not the only one) to make use of the term “natural law,” Albo’s discussion, drawn primarily from Aquinas, is confused at best. Since Aquinas’s theory is so well known, I  shall not discuss it in detail except to point out that Aquinas’s notion of natural law does incorporate divine command. In his canonical discussion of natural law in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas claims that natural law participates in the eternal law and as such reflects God’s providential interaction with human beings (ST i–​ii, q.  91, a.  2). In addition to eternal and natural law, Aquinas recognizes both divine

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110 T. M. Rudavsky and human law: divine law represents the old and new covenants and circumscribes human action in general, while human law is essential for human survival in society. The precepts of natural law are analogous to those of scientific demonstration in that both sets of precepts are self-​evident (ST i–​ii, q. 94, a. 4). Albo adapts portions of Aquinas’s discussion and in the fifth chapter of the first part of the Book of Principles, he turns to the topic of natural law. He starts this chapter by noting that humans are political by nature, and that it is almost necessary for them to be part of a city (BP, vol. i, i.5:72), but in order to preserve justice and eliminate wrong-​doing, humans need what he terms a “natural law.” This law is natural in the sense that it is something that humans need as part of their nature. Humans living in a group need a certain modicum of order allowing them to maintain justice (BP, vol. i preface, 27). Albo notes in ii.31 that natural law is not sufficient for political society and must therefore be supplemented by a nomos or conventional law that enables political life to unfold. The prescriptions of natural law are indispensable for achieving the preservation of the species. Thus, by the end of c­ hapter  5, the reader realizes that natural law must be supplemented by conventional law, and c­ hapter  6 explains that divine law rules all other laws. In i.7 the notion of natural law is amplified. Albo asserts that there are three kinds of law –​natural, conventional, and divine –​ and distinguishes them on the basis of both their establishment and intention (BP, vol. i, i.7:78). Albo suggests that natural law is universal in that it applies equally to all humans, times, and places, the conventional law takes account of contingencies of place and time, and the divine law is ordered by God through a prophet or messenger (e.g. Adam, Noah, Moses, or Abraham). Albo’s conventional law is thus analogous to Aquinas’s human law. The reader is left with the impression that natural law serves as the foundation of the other kinds of law, each of which supplements and completes the natural law, but it is not clear from Albo’s work what natural law actually is.

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 111 Apart from Albo’s discussion, the term natural law does not appear in medieval Jewish texts. But the notion behind natural law is embedded in a number of related contexts, including the nature of nature, the nature of reason itself, the relation between reason and revelation, the function of law, and the relation of law to human nature. Another way of getting at this issue is to ask more pointedly whether any aspects of halakha are discoverable by reason alone, or whether they are completely dependent upon God’s will. As noted above, while Albo is the only Jewish philosopher to talk about “natural law” explicitly, other Jewish philosophers did broach the general topic surrounding the universality of the commandments in the context of trying to ascertain rational reasons for the commandments. The sense of a grounding for some of the commandments independent of divine command is articulated by the tenth-​century Jewish philosopher Saadiah Gaon (882–​942), one of the leaders of the intellectual circle of Jews in Babylonia. In The Book of Belief and Opinions (Kitāb al-​Amanāt wa-​al-​I‘tiqādāt [Sefer ha-​Emunot ve-​ha De’ot]), a work much influenced by Islamic kalām epistemology and cosmology, Saadiah distinguished between the rational commandments, which in theory are discoverable by means of reason, and the traditional laws, which comprise rituals and ceremonial laws (such as the dietary laws) that are not rooted in reason. Saadiah is the first Jewish philosopher to frame his discussion of ethical precepts in the context of their rational apprehension. In the introduction to the work, Saadiah distinguishes four sources of reliable knowledge: sensation, reason or nous, logical inference, and reliable tradition. Sense knowledge is based on empirical contingents and is posited as the basis for all other knowledge forms, which are rooted in this indubitable epistemic foundation. Reason represents the faculty of immediate, intuitive knowledge by means of which we apprehend self-​evident axioms of reason. Reason, Saadiah tells us, emanates ultimately from God, resulting in an innatist theory according to which ideas are “implanted” in the mind. The word “implanted” connotes a source for knowledge that

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112 T. M. Rudavsky lies outside the realm of human consciousness. In chapter ii.13, for example, Saadiah asks how it is possible to establish the concept of God in our minds if we have never seen God, and responds that “it is done in the same manner in which such notions arise in them as the approbation of the truth and the disapproval of lying, although these matters are not subject to the perception of any of our senses” (BBO ii.13:131). In a similar manner, we are able to “recognize” a violation of the law of non-​contradiction, even though it is not based on the senses. In contradistinction to reason, reliable tradition is not universal, but is common to “the community of monotheists.” If, however, reason, with the help of this outside source, enables humans to determine both the self-​evident axioms and necessary principles of thought, what becomes of tradition? In other words, why do we even need tradition if reason itself is sufficient to determine ethical (and other) precepts? Saadiah relegates to tradition two roles:  first, tradition enables us to determine the particulars necessary for observing the more general rational precepts; and second, tradition also speeds up the rather tedious process of discovering these rational principles. Thus, while reason allows one a limited amount of epistemic authority, tradition with the aid of revelation enables us to achieve salvation. Based on these epistemological distinctions, the foundations for moral obligation are delineated primarily in book three, while details on how to achieve the good life are found in book ten. The classification of ethical precepts into rational and revelatory is straightforward: rational commandments are those whose “approval” has been implanted in our minds (BBO, iii.2:140). Saadiah further argues that the rational commandments are inherently related to the dictates of reason, and that they represent logical inferences from these dictates (BBO, ii.5:106; iii.1:139). Revelatory commandments, which constitute the second general division of law, are not inherently dependent upon the above-​mentioned rational dictates, but rather are imposed by God without regard to their inherent rationality. Hence, the

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 113 approbation of these laws implies no more than simple submissiveness to God. Nonetheless, Saadiah discerns a social utility for nearly all these laws. Thus, Saadiah will want to argue that although these laws are not grounded in reason, nevertheless they may too be justified by rational argument. Saadiah offers many examples (sanctifying certain times rather than others, the dietary laws, etc.) to explicate the overall social utility of the traditional laws. In short, Saadiah attempts to uphold a distinction between the rational and revealed commandments based on the idea that the former have their own intrinsic rationality that, in his opinion, any rational person would recognize (Rynhold 2009, 140). Seen in this light, Saadiah’s system introduces a theory of rational obligation into the rubric of revelatory commandments. Maimonides’s analysis of the commandments reflects Saadiah’s distinction between rational and ritualistic commandments, but in contradistinction to Saadiah, Maimonides claims that all the commandments are rational:  both the laws and the statutes have beneficial ends, the only difference being that the former are recognizable to all, whereas the latter possess ends that are only manifest to the wise. The laws correspond to Saadiah’s rational commandments, while the statutes correspond (in general) to Saadiah’s listing of ceremonial laws and rituals. For Maimonides, however, both laws and statutes have a basis in reason. Aspects of a natural law sentiment can be found throughout Maimonides’s work. Maimonides is clear that “governance of the Law is absolute and universal” (Guide, iii.34:534). In Guide 3.25, Maimonides offers several proofs based on philosophical reasoning for the rationality of law. He argues that to attribute to God non-​purposive and non-​rational actions, namely laws that are the arbitrary result of God’s will, would be blasphemous, for frivolous actions are the most demeaning. Furthermore, he argues that in order to command the respect of the nations of the world, Jewish law must be rational. Turning specifically to the utility of commandments, Maimo­ nides distinguishes between the generalities and the particulars of a

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114 T. M. Rudavsky commandment. While the generalities of the commandments were given for utilitarian reasons, the particular details may not have the same utilitarian value. While the overall purpose of the particulars is to purify the people (Guide, iii.26:508), Maimonides castigates those who try to find causes for every particular detail in the laws. Such individuals are stricken with “madness” and “are as far from truth as those who imagine that the generalities of a commandment are not designed with a view to some real utility” (Guide iii.26:509). In fact, Maimonides goes to great lengths to warn his reader that for some particulars, no cause can be found. Why, for example, did the law prescribe the sacrifice of a ram rather than a lamb? No reason can be given, but one or other particular had to be chosen. Maimonides argues further that the commandments serve to support social and political beliefs. In an extended passage, he offers a historical deconstruction of the law (Guide, iii.29:514–​522; iii.32:525–​531; iii.37:540–​550; iii.45–​ 46:575–​ 592). For example, in the case of sacrifice, he traces the laws back to Moses’ attempts to combat the Sabians, who were a polytheistic tribe steeped in magic and myth. According to Maimonides’s deconstructive analysis, Moses recognized that in order to wean the Israelites away from idolatry and sacrifice rituals, the commandments regarding sacrifice needed to be relaxed, so that eventually sacrifices would be abandoned altogether. But ought these rationally graspable and intelligible reasons for the commandments be divulged to the public? Maimonides clearly states that “all laws have causes and were given with a view to some utility” (Guide, iii.26:507). This utility is applicable to both welfare of the soul (achieved by acquisition of true beliefs) and welfare of the body (achieved by practical and moral virtues). Might not the very process of uncovering the reasons for the commandments lead to a sort of philosophical antinomianism among the masses, if they were to understand both the causes and goals of particular commandments? Could not this understanding lead to the seductive conclusion that these prescribed actions are dispensable? If the goal of human existence (namely intellectual perfection) can be achieved

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 115 in a way that does not require performance of the commandments, does that not render the commandments otiose? Maimonides offers no response to this challenge. Perhaps the best he can do is suggest that the laws function in much the same way as does Aristotle’s virtuous individual or phronimos:  just as the phronimos provides the model for proper human behavior, so too has God provided us a model for proper behavior in the form of commandments.

5.4  On Human Felicity: The Meaning and Purpose of Life We turn now to our final set of issues: is it even possible for a human being to achieve ultimate felicity or happiness? Inasmuch as the rabbinic sages did not regard immortality as dependent upon intellectual perfection, how do our philosophers’ views accord with those of the rabbis? What role, for example, do Scripture and Aristotle play in achieving ultimate human perfection? Aristotle himself provides an ambivalent response regarding the essence of human felicity. On the one hand, happiness is actualized through moral action, and the happiest person is one who lives well in the moral and political sphere. On the other hand, in the final book of the Nicomachean Ethics (NE 10.7–​8) Aristotle presents theoretical wisdom as the final end of human life. These two ways of life appear to be incommensurable: the contemplative life attaches little importance to the moral, and the morally virtuous individual places little or no importance on theoretical contemplation. Aristotle concludes that we should make ourselves immortal by cultivating that “which is divine in us” (NE 10.7, 1177b31–​ 34). Jewish philosophers assimilate Aristotle’s emphasis upon intellectual virtue. But does it follow that all humans can achieve intellectual perfection: is the road the same, and open, to all? And is there only one road to ultimate felicity, or are there many routes? Neoplatonists, Maimonides, Gersonides, and Crescas provide startingly different answers to these questions. The fate of the soul has been eloquently described by the anonymous author of a Neoplatonic work known simply as Ibn

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116 T. M. Rudavsky Ḥasdai’s Neoplatonist.4 The Neoplatonic ontology places matter at one end of the hierarchy, God at the other, and the human soul as engaged on a quest away from the material world and back to God. This human soul represents within itself all levels of created existence:  functioning as a microcosmic prism, it incorporates elements of matter, form, intellect, and will. The soul is engaged in a perennial journey back to its source, the success of which is wholly dependent upon its moral character. The sinful soul, which has not cleansed itself from the defilements of this world, deserves its exile: It remains sad and despondent … hungering and thirsting to find a way so as to go home to its country and return to its native place. It resembles a man who travelled away from his house, brothers, children and wife, relatives and family, and stayed abroad for a long time. When finally he was on his way back and approached his country and the goal of his desires … and was filled with the strongest desire to reach his home and rest in his house –​ obstacles were put in his way and the gates were shut and he was prevented from passing through. He called, but it was of no avail … He wandered about perplexed to find a refuge, weeping bitterly and sorrowfully bewailing the great good which he has lost and the evil which had befallen him. (Stern 1961, 120)

The rational soul, on the other hand, acts according to truth, purifies itself from the corporeal defilement of the material world, and thus receives its just reward: If the rational soul is righteous … it is then worthy of receiving its reward and goes to the world of intellect and reaches the light which is created from the Power, its pure brilliance and unmixed splendor and perfect wisdom, from where it had been derived; it is then delighted by its understanding and knowledge. This delight is not one of eating, drinking and other bodily delights,

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 117 but the joy of the soul in what it sees and hears, a delight which has nothing in common with other delights except the name. (Stern 1961, 119)

Compare this image with that provided by Maimonides in his famous parable of the king’s palace.5 Maimonides tells us that intellectual perfection is the only way to reach God, but this union can only occur through the active intellect, exemplified by the king; those lacking in intellectual perfection (the masses of humanity) never even enter the gates of the palace, let alone see the king. Maimonides describes the intellectual contemplation of God as a form of meditative stance, and he warns us not to contaminate inner worship with outer worldly matters. Guide iii.51 thus reinforces the view that some (very few) individuals can actualize a purely intellectual self, one that has transcended a hylomorphic composite. Intellectual apprehension of God represents the truest form of worship. On the one hand, Maimonides tells us that love of God can only be achieved through intellectual and scientific pursuit:  love of God “becomes valid only through the apprehension of the whole of Being as it is” (Guide iii.28). On the other hand, Maimonides has argued that there are limits to what we can know demonstratively about God.6 The truest dimension of prayer consists in inner and outer silence, a silence that reflects the profound epistemological limits of human beings. The very last chapter of the Guide presents yet another set of interpretative challenges having to do with the relation between theoretical and moral ways of life. In Guide iii.51 Maimonides extols the intellectual life as one of “solitude and isolation,” and suggests that the truly excellent person avoids human interaction and “does not meet anyone unless it is necessary” (Guide iii.51:621). Maimonides reflects statements in Aristotle and the Islamic philosophers who upheld the theoretical, contemplative life as superior to the moral life.7 We find a similar ambivalence in Maimonides’s description of the four ways of achieving perfection; his description of these

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118 T. M. Rudavsky perfections can be characterized as follows. Material perfection comprises possession of material goods; bodily perfection comprises bodily health and strength; moral perfection comprises moral virtue and action; and rational or theoretical perfection consists in contemplation of divine matters (Guide iii.54:635). Following Aristotle and the Islamic philosopher Ibn Bājja, Maimonides regards these four perfections as arranged hierarchically, from lowest (material) to highest (theoretical). Maimonides describes material possessions as “external” to the person, having no essential relation to the inner person: “all this is outside his self” (Guide iii.54:634). Maimonides claims that the commandments do not compare with intellectual perfection: all the actions prescribed by the Law –​I refer to the various species of worship and also the moral habits that are useful to all people in their mutual dealings –​that all this is not to be compared with this ultimate end, and does not equal it, being but preparations made for the sake of this end. (Guide III.54:636)

In this remarkable passage, Maimonides is suggesting that the commandments have little to do with intellectual perfection, which is the true aim of human existence; the commandments only serve an instrumental purpose, enabling people to interact in a social situation. One who has achieved intellectual perfection, and surpassed corporeality, has transcended the need for the commandments.8 However, Maimonides then adds what some scholars have described as a fifth perfection, which emphasizes the importance of imitating God’s actions (imitatio Dei):  that we should glory in the apprehension of God’s attributes and actions, namely loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness (Guide iii.54:637). Does this fifth perfection mark a radical break with the Aristotelian ideal, reintroducing a practical component into the highest form of human existence; or does it represent a byproduct of the fourth perfection, consisting in the pleasure one experiences as a result of

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 119 contemplation; or does this fifth perfection reflect a reintroduction of Platonic themes in Maimonides, perhaps in line with al-​Fārābı and others? Each of these positions reflects a plausible interpretation of Maimonides’s text.9 We thus detect in Maimonides a tension between two worldviews: the Fārābian representation of the Platonic model in which the intellectual ultimately fulfills his political obligations and returns to the community; and the model offered by Ibn Bājja who, in his Governance of the Solitary, called upon the philosopher to withdraw from the community altogether and live a spiritual life in isolation. No such tension exists in the mind of Gersonides, however, who repeatedly emphasizes the superiority of intellect in the attainment of ultimate felicity. As Horwitz points out, this theme is explicit in Gersonides’s biblical commentaries (Horwitz 2006, 124). Immortality of intellect is impossible without attaining sufficient knowledge in this world. Nowhere is this emphasis seen more clearly than in Gersonides’s commentary on Song of Songs. While ostensibly Song of Songs describes the love affair and desires of a shepherd for a maiden, generations of commentators saw in the work an allegory of the relation between God and Israel. Gersonides, however, provides a philosophical reading of the work that incorporates two sets of subsidiary dialogues, first between the human material intellect and the active intellect, and second between the faculties of the soul and the material intellect. Gersonides spells out the import of these discussions in his introduction to the commentary. He first lays down the premise that “man’s ultimate felicity resides in cognizing and knowing God to the extent that is possible for him” (Song of Songs, 5). Such knowledge is achieved through observation of the state of existing things in the natural universe, that is, through the beings that God has created and caused. Knowledge of God, therefore, is predicated on knowledge of the natural order. Gersonides warns his reader, however, that the purpose of Song of Songs is meant to guide only selected individuals to their felicity: “this book … guides the elite only to the way of achieving

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120 T. M. Rudavsky felicity, and thus its external meaning was not made useful to the masses” (Song of Songs, 8; see Kellner 2010, 160). In truth, most ordinary mortals will not achieve this “stupendous felicity”: “only very few individuals can acquire even a large measure of it” (Song of Songs, 6). Many obstacles stand in the way of most humans, including their hankering after their physical desires, as well as the misleading nature of imagination and opinion. Because it is so difficult to achieve felicity, the prophets have devoted much effort to guiding and helping ordinary mortals along. Gersonides then unpacks the various levels of enlightenment that he finds in Song of Songs, moving from mathematics to physics, astronomy, and finally metaphysics. Gersonides is clear that the science of physics builds upon moral knowledge derived from Scripture (Song of Songs, 11; see also the discussion in ­chapter 3). The allegories and symbolic representations in the work all emphasize the goal of ultimate felicity as the union with God via the active intellect. In contradistinction to the Aristotelian intellectualism found in both Maimonides and Gersonides, Ḥasdai Crescas emphasizes a non-​intellectual form of felicity. Crescas (c. 1340–​1410/​1411) was born in Barcelona and studied with the famed philosopher Nissim ben Reuben Girondi. Philosophically Crescas’s interests lay in distinguishing the fundamental beliefs, or religious concepts, that follow analytically from his view of the nature of the Torah. His major work, Sefer Or Adonai (The Book of the Light of the Lord), finished several months before his death in 1410, is a polemic against his two Aristotelian predecessors, Maimonides and Gersonides. Crescas saw the Maimonidean/​ Gersonidean emphasis upon intellectual contemplation of God as subversive to Judaism in part because it ignored the importance of the commandments.10 Crescas states his aim in Light vi.1: “it will be demonstrated that the eternal happiness of the soul is consequent on the love and fear of God” (Light ii.6.1 in Harvey 1998, 124). This demonstration rests on several propositions, including that the human soul is “a spiritual substance” and not an intellectual cognizing substance in itself, and

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 121 that perfection of this spiritual soul brings about eternal felicity (Light II.6.1 in Harvey 1998, 124). Arguing that the ultimate end of human existence requires perfections of the body, of the moral qualities, and of “opinions,” Crescas disagrees with both Maimonides and Gersonides about the content and importance of these latter, and rejects their claim that the ultimate human goal is intellectual perfection. Such opinions, he says, “destroy the Law and extract the roots of the Tradition,” by denying theories of reward and punishment, rejecting the importance of the commandments, and denying theories of resurrection (see Light ii.6.1 in Frank at al. 2000). He first cites passages from traditional Jewish sources and then argues against the coherence of the intellectualist view on philosophical grounds. Crescas claims that the doctrine of acquired intellect (in both its Maimonidean and Gersonidean permutations) is proved untenable:  their followers “were seduced to follow them, and they did not perceive, nor did it enter their minds, how thereby they were razing the wall of the edifice of the Law and breaching its hedges, even as the theory itself is groundless!”11 After refuting the concept of an acquired intellect, Crescas then presents an alternative understanding of ultimate felicity based on observance of the law and commandments. Crescas denies that God is pure intellect, and replaces the intellectual depiction of God with passion, will, joy, and love. In contradistinction to Maimonides and especially Gersonides, Crescas emphasizes that joy and love are essential to God, and related to God’s will.12 Crescas sees God not as an active knower, but as the active lover: “God’s love expresses God’s essence, goodness and benevolence … God’s love not only sustains the world, it also functions as the perfection of natural things” (Tirosh-​ Samuelson 2003, 385). Crescas’s redefinition of imitatio Dei in terms of love, rather than intellectual perfection, replaces the intellectualist view of felicity with a “non-​intellectualist interpretation of human love that focuses on the willingness of the individual to be committed to God” (Tirosh-​ Samuelson 2003, 386). The eternal happiness of the soul, he avers,

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122 T. M. Rudavsky is not dependent upon holding the right opinions or upon actions, but rather the eternal happiness of soul is consequent upon the love and fear of God (Tirosh-​Samuelson 2003, 387). Seeing God as a “lover” reinforces the importance of the very act of loving for human beings:  the notion of imitatio Dei in Crescas’s thinking reflects the importance of loving God rather than knowing God. Crescas then tries to make the case that love and fear of God are the ultimate aim of philosophy as well, and so from this perspective, philosophers and the multitude stand on the same level: diligence in the satisfaction of the commandments, and not intellectual perfection, is what matters for ultimate felicity: “the greater the love between God and man, the greater and stronger will be the adhesion” (Light ii.6.1 in Harvey 1998, 126). Crescas has replaced the intellectualist strain found in much of medieval Jewish philosophy with a fideistic passionate love of the deity. The struggle between these two strands continues into the modern period, with the works of the pietistic musar movement, Jewish mysticism, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, and others.13 But that is a separate chapter in the history of Jewish ethics.

Notes 1 The following abbreviations will be used in this chapter: BDO refers to book, chapter, and page number of Saadiah Gaon (1948), The Book of Beliefs and Opinions; DH refers to book, chapter, and page number of Baḥya ibn Paquda (2004), The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart; BP refers to Joseph Albo (1946), Book of Principles; EC refers to chapter and page number in Maimonides (1975a), Eight Chapters; NE refers to book, chapter, and page number in Aristotle (1984), Nicomachean Ethics; Guide refers to part, chapter, and page number of Maimonides (1963), Guide of the Perplexed; HS refers to part, chapter, and page number of Maimonides (1972), Commentary on the Mishnah. Introduction to Ḥelek: Sanhendrin, Chapter Ten; Wars refers to book and chapter of Gersonides (1984–​1999), Wars of the Lord; Light refers to Ḥasdai Crecas (1969) Light of the Lord; CT refers to Maimonides 1975b.

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Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 123 2 The Eight Chapters is part of Maimonides’s Commentary on the Mishnah (an introduction to the Chapters of the Fathers (Pirqei Avot)) in which Maimonides brought together a number of ethical ideas. Laws Concerning Character Traits is a short work, part of the Mishneh Torah, devoted to ethical matters. See Rudavsky 2010 for further details on these works. 3 See Feldman’s discussion in Gersonides Wars, vol. i:11–​16. Given the wealth of philosophical material in these commentaries, and their popularity among subsequent biblical exegetes, it is surprising, Eisen notes, that they have received so little attention from scholars of Jewish philosophy (see Eisen 1995, 4). Touati was the first to highlight the significance of these works, but recent scholars (Green 2016; Horwitz 2006) have begun groundbreaking work in the area. Further, it is important to note that Gersonides’s Commentary on the Torah has finally begun to appear in a critical edition. Why have these commentaries been neglected for so many centuries by scholars of philosophy? Eisen suggests one reason may be that the ease of reading them might have scared away scholars more used to Gersonides’s terse, technical style in the Wars: there is the temptation to view these exegetical works as “simplistic compositions that are at best an adjunct to the more complex philosophical discussions in the Wars” (Eisen 1995). For a recent study of the reception of these commentaries, see Kellner 2013. 4 S. M. Stern traces the history and influence of this treatise, offering a reconstruction of the text (Stern 1961, 58–​120). Ibn Ḥasdai’s treatise Ben ha-​Melekh ve-​ha-​Nazir is a Hebrew adaptation of the Arabic book Bilawhar wa-​Yudasaf, which goes back to the legend of the Buddha. A complete translation of this work can be found in Stern 1961, 102ff. 5 For details and differing interpretations of this famous parable, see Rudavsky 2010; Ivry 2016; Kellner 1990. 6 For the limits of what we can know about God, see Rudavsky 2010. 7 See for example Aristotle, NE 6.7, 1141a20–​22; 10.8, 1178b33–​35. 8 See Shatz 2005 for extended discussion of this point. 9 In an influential article, Shlomo Pines has argued that Maimonides’s presentation in this passage represented a radical break with the Aristotelian ideal as laid down in the Nicomachean Ethics. Pines claims that in this final chapter, Maimonides does an

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124 T. M. Rudavsky about-​face: because humans cannot have certain knowledge of metaphysics, it turns out that practical activity is the only perfection attainable. “The practical way of life, the bios praktikos,” turns out to be superior to the theoretical. But others have argued that the practical activity is a consequence of intellectual life. Shatz (2005, 186) has argued that “by achieving intellectual perfection, the perfect individual engages in a life of imitatio Dei with respect to the Deity’s actions.” According to Altmann (1972, 24), imitatio Dei is but the practical consequence of the intellectual love of God and is part and parcel of the ultimate perfection. 10 For a comprehensive summary of Crescas’s views on felicity, see Tirosh-​Samuelson 2003, 2009. 11 Crescas, Light ii.6.1 in Frank et al. 2000, 269. See Tirosh-​Samuelson 2003, 383: “Crescas concludes that the doctrine of the acquired intellect is both philosophically unsound and religiously heretical.” 12 See Harvey’s illuminating discussion (1998, 100ff). Harvey notes (106) that Crescas is careful not to attribute passions per se to God. 13 For a characterization of musar literature, see Mittleman 2012, 6.

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6 Happiness Jeff Steele

6.1 Introduction “Happiness,” or beatitudo in Latin, is roughly equivalent to the Greek notion of eudaimonia, which is often also translated as “happiness.” However, both the ancient account of eudaimonia and the medieval account of beatitudo should be understood not in our contemporary sense of a subjective feeling or experience, but in terms of a deep satisfaction or flourishing of the whole person. According to the ancient Greek philosophical tradition, the good life (the purpose of moral philosophy) was intimately connected to happiness. Ancient ethics were teleological in nature: all action aims at something conceived as good. This has been sometimes described as a “desire-​satisfaction” model: human nature has certain ends and desires, such that true happiness and complete fulfillment of the human person can only be found in whatever satisfies or completes human nature, that is, in whatever is our final end and our highest good –​ the summum bonum. Aristotle, for example, begins the Nicomachean Ethics with the observation that every craft, inquiry, action, and decision aims at some good. Hence Aristotle identifies the notion of good with the notion of an end. The good of each action, then, turns out to be “that for the sake of which” the action was initiated. But there are various reasons for which some action might be undertaken, and some of the ends for which we act are subordinate to others, such as, for example, when I eat vegetables for the sake of health. Not every end, according to Aristotle, can be instrumentally good in this way. If every action were done for the sake of another, there would be no termination of the chain of ends, no ultimate fulfillment of desire, and no decisive 127

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128 Jeff Steele reason for which the initial action was undertaken. Rather, there must be some final end that terminates the regress –​something we want for its own sake –​something that grounds, explains, and gives meaning to all other actions. And that thing for which all action terminates and which fulfills all desires –​that ultimate end –​Aristotle calls “happiness.” Specifically, Aristotle provides a number of formal conditions1 for an ultimate end:  finality, completeness, and self-​sufficiency. If something were to count as an ultimate end, it must indeed be the last or final end of action in the sense of being the end for which all other action was undertaken. Second, an ultimate end must be complete: Since there are evidently more than one end, and we choose some of these (e.g., wealth, flutes, and in general instruments) for the sake of something else, clearly not all ends are complete ends; but the chief good is evidently something complete. Therefore, if there is only one complete end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most complete of these will be what we are seeking. Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more complete than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more complete than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call complete without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else.2

According to Aristotle, that end which we call ultimate cannot be some end we pursue for the sake of something else. Rather, the ultimate end will be complete in terminating desire. A  complete end, then, is final and perfect, signified by reaching one’s telos. Notice too that a complete end is also comprehensive: if we act for

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Happiness 129 the sake of other ends, our ultimate end will encompass all of these varied pursuits. Lastly, Aristotle argues that the ultimate end must be self-​ sufficient: an ultimate end is such that, once you have it, you need nothing else in order to be happy:  “The self-​ sufficient we now define as that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing; and such we think happiness to be” (NE 1.7, 1097b15). When the ultimate end is reached, no further objects of desire need fulfilling. It may be helpful here to distinguish between the formal and substantive conceptions of eudaimonism: formally, all ancient ethical theories agree that happiness is the ultimate end and highest good, and that whatever brings about this happiness must be final, self-​sufficient, and complete. But while ancient accounts of happiness all agree that true happiness is found in the highest good, they often disagreed about what in particular satisfies all of these conditions. Aristotle makes this distinction in Nicomachean Ethics 1.4. He states, “Verbally there is very general agreement [i.e. about the highest good men seek]; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ” (NE 1.4, 1095a18–​20). For Aristotle, happiness consists in an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. For the Epicureans, it consists in a certain type of pleasure. For the Stoics, it consists in acting in accordance with Nature, recognizing what one can control and what must be left to fate. Medieval Christian eudaimonist accounts of ethics agree with the ancient Greek tradition that happiness is the ultimate end and final good, and thus whatever generates happiness must possess the qualities of finality, self-​sufficiency, and completeness; nevertheless, they disagree with these ancient accounts over whether these conditions can be satisfied by any finite good. As we will see, medieval Christian eudaimonists emphatically argue that only the transcendent and perfect Good –​God himself –​can meet these

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130 Jeff Steele conditions. In other words, the only thing which can truly satisfy all human longing and desire, and the only good that, once obtained, can never be taken away, is God himself. In what follows, we’ll first consider three medieval accounts of happiness  –​Augustine, Boethius, and Thomas Aquinas  –​noting in particular the connection between happiness, the ultimate end, and virtue. As we will see, these various accounts all share the formal conception of happiness with their ancient predecessors, but uniformly agree that only the perfect and unchanging good, God himself, can truly satisfy these conditions as the ultimate end. However, each of these accounts has a unique way of filling out its content  –​the substantive nature of beatitude. Second, we’ll consider Duns Scotus’s rejection of the intimate connection between happiness and morality. Finally, we’ll consider the late medieval debate about which psychological faculty was primary in the enjoyment of the divine essence: intellect or will.3

6.2 Augustine The formal structure of Augustine’s account of happiness does not differ from his classical predecessors, but like the ancients before him, he has a unique way of filling out its content. To say that Augustine was obsessed with the notion of happiness would not be an overstatement. Augustine’s first completed work while at Cassiciacum was titled “On the Happy Life” (De beata vita), and Augustine continued thinking about happiness throughout his lifetime, devoting significant time and space to it in his letters, sermons, and all of his most important works: Confessions, On the Trinity, and City of God. Augustine’s formal account of beatitude contains two elements: first, that everyone desires happiness; and second, that happiness is found only in the highest good.4 As for the first, references to this permeate his writings. In the Confessions, he asks rhetorically, “Is not the happy life that which everyone seeks, and which nobody

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Happiness 131 entirely fails to desire?” He goes on to emphasize that this desire for happiness is not exclusive to himself or his friends, but is actually found in everyone.5 In On the Trinity xiii.3, Augustine claims that everyone wants to be happy, and that no one would fail to acknowledge this. Specifically, happiness is the goal of both philosophical speculation and religious affection. Various philosophical schools, as Augustine conceived them, while differing on their respective emphases, all desired to discover what makes humanity happy. Indeed, Augustine states that philosophy was practiced for no other reason than happiness.6 The quest for the happy life also encompasses the religious sphere. In Sermon 150.3, Augustine explains to his congregation that the reason they became Christians was to attain the happy life, and that seeking the happy life is a characteristic of all men, grounded in an appetite for happiness. How does one attain the happy life? According to Augustine, it is achieved only by finding the highest good.7 So the first step in obtaining the happy life is directing action toward the right end. In that vein, Augustine agrees with Aristotle and the ancient eudaimonist tradition more generally that our ultimate end  –​happiness  –​must meet certain formal conditions if it is to count not merely for an end, but for the ultimate end. According to Augustine, whatever counts as the supreme good must meet certain conditions: Here [in the subject of moral philosophy] the highest good is sought, to which all things we do refer, seeking after it not on account of something else, but on account of itself. And securing it, we require nothing more in order to be happy. For that reason it is obviously called an end, because we want all other things on account of it, but [want] it only for its own sake.8

In City of God xix.1, he adds that this final good is an end that perfects and fulfills. In Letter 118, he states: “Therefore, the [highest good] is called the final end, because now, one can no longer find something

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132 Jeff Steele which extends beyond it, or to which it can be referred. There one finds the resting place of desire, the security of happiness, and the calmest joy of an upright will.”9 In other words, whatever counts as the ultimate end and the source of happiness must be final, complete, and self-​ sufficient. Thus on the notion of an ultimate end and its resulting happiness, Augustine wholeheartedly agrees with the classic eudaimonist tradition but with one important wrinkle. We can see this by examining the substance of his account of happiness. Augustine’s divergence with the classical eudaimonism of the philosophers can be seen from two distinct angles:  the positive, Neoplatonic identification of the Supreme Good with God, and his negative attack on any attempt to construe the ultimate end (happiness) in any finite, created entity –​whether bodies, minds, or both. First, Augustine’s conception of goodness is grounded within his Neoplatonic metaphysics, particularly in the so-​ called “great chain of being.” “Being” for Augustine is an ordered scale. God is identified with “Being” itself and every other existent thing obtains its being from God, and has a lesser degree of being proportional to its participation in God.10 In De natura boni 1–​3, Augustine identifies God with the supreme, eternal, immortal, and unchanging Good. All other goods derive their origin, being, and goodness only by participation in him. Now, recall that Augustine claimed that human happiness consists in attainment of the highest good. The inference is obvious:  happiness can only be found in God, the supreme good itself. Augustine’s formal account of happiness is thus often infused with content that reflects his Christian Neoplatonism. So he says that the search for God is synonymous with the search for happiness (Conf. vi.11.19), that happiness is joy found in loving God for His own sake (Conf. X.23.33), that in seeking happiness, we are seeking none other than God (Conf. x.20.29), that we become happy by participating in God (City of God viii.5), and that God is the fountain of our happiness (fons nostrae beatitudinis) and the end of all our longing

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Happiness 133 (ipse omnis adpetitionis est finis) (City of God x.3). Thus our ultimate happiness is found in the enjoyment of God, and nothing less. In City of God xix.4, Augustine mounts several arguments against any finite good satisfying the formal conditions of an ultimate end, and thus, against any finite good effectuating happiness. Generally, the form of his argument seems to be that for any good, x, (1) If x can be obtained, but taken away, then x isn’t the ultimate end/​ supreme good.

And, (2) If x can be obtained, but its obtainment nevertheless leaves the agent desiring something further, then x isn’t the ultimate end/​supreme good.

Augustine then argues that the prime candidates for an ultimate end/​supreme good in pagan philosophy were found in either bodily pleasure, virtue, or both. However, all of these options are susceptible to (1) or (2), or both. Bodily goods, for example, are always subject to calamities and misfortunes of various sorts: sickness destroys health, deformity ruins beauty, weakness devastates health, etc. Accordingly, any bodily good presently obtained is subject to the whims of chance, and thereby can be lost, so it cannot pass the first test. Likewise, consider the moral virtues, the highest among human goods, whose goal is to fight various internal vices:  temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude. Here, Augustine shows that in each case, the human condition, even when accompanied by virtue, remains in a state of war against these sinful tendencies in us, and so we cannot be counted as happy in such a state. For example, even when we have the virtue of temperance, which allays our desires for various lusts, we are not made perfect and left satisfied in the way we would hope a Supreme Good would satisfy. Why? Because even with the virtue, we are in a state of continual internal struggle, and it seems more appropriate to say that our happiness is only reached when the soul has gained a total and decisive victory over our sinful tendencies. This victory, however,

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134 Jeff Steele cannot be achieved in the present life. So even if we obtain the various virtues which strengthen the will in waging war against our vices and sinful tendencies, we are still left desiring something more: namely, the victory which is impossible in this life but promised in the next. Consequently, the supreme good cannot be found in a life of virtues, since, even when obtained, it leaves the agent wanting more. It is in this context that Augustine mounts an argument against the Stoics, by particularly focusing on the virtue of fortitude, which enables the soul to endure various hardships of life with patience. As Augustine sees it, the Stoics simultaneously believe that the various troubles of life are not really troubles at all, and yet, if they become so overwhelming that a sage cannot bear them, suicide is an acceptable alternative. Furthermore, the Stoics believed that happiness could be obtained by one’s own efforts in this life. Augustine offers the Stoic a dilemma: if this life, which is plagued with so many evils of various sorts, is a happy one, then why would the sage flee it? But on the other hand, if this life is so bad that a sage is compelled to end his own life in order to leave it, then why call it a happy life? Augustine concludes that we should not suppose that the final and supreme good can be found in this mortal life, when even the virtues themselves, by what they help the subject overcome, testify to the various toils, hardships, and perils of life (City of God xix.4). Consequently, if some good can be taken from you, or if you possess it and are found wanting more, desiring more, or not completely satisfied, then it’s not final, complete, or self-​sufficient. Thus Augustine uses the formal constraints many pagan philosophers solicited in order to reject common pursuits of the good life  –​ pleasure, honor, wealth (see NE 1.5) –​directly against them; that is, he shows that their own conception of happiness falls prey to the whims of fortune and fate, and leaves the seeker truly unsatisfied. Indeed, unless the ultimate end terminates in the perfect, eternal, unchanging Good itself, happiness cannot be obtained. Nothing in

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Happiness 135 this world truly satisfies, since every good obtained here and now can, at any moment, be taken away. And so it seems, at least at the end of his life, Augustine offers a fairly pessimistic outlook about the chances of ever reaching true happiness here and now, in part because everything obtained in this life is beset with misfortune and anxiety, and in part because the supreme good is no longer something this-​worldly. Happiness consists in the enjoyment of God, our supreme good who makes us happy. But this enjoyment, according to Augustine, remains impossible without salvation, an event for which we can now only longingly hope with patience (City of God xix.4).

6.3 Boethius Roman statesman and philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (d. c. 525), often considered the “last of the Romans, first of the scholastics,”11 wrote his masterpiece, The Consolation of Philosophy, from a cell in a prison of the Ostrogothic king, Theoderic. Once elevated to the Master of Offices, Boethius occupied one of the most powerful positions –​Roman or Gothic –​in Theoderic’s administration at Ravenna. Now, accused of treason and sentenced to death, dejected and lamenting over the unfortunate turn of events that brought his life crashing down, Boethius is appeared to be the personification of wisdom, Lady Philosophy. Her role is therapeutic: to console the miserable Boethius by means of a number of “remedies” for his particular wound: his supposed harsh treatment at the hands of fortune (i.4.1–​3). In book 3, she offers a remedy that “stings the tongue” but is sweet once ingested, namely, the nature of true and false happiness. While humanity has many disparate pursuits in life, everyone strives to reach one and the same end: happiness (iii.2.2). Lady Philosophy then equates happiness with the attainment of a final, complete, and self-​sufficient good. First, happiness is the good which culminates in the satisfaction of all desire –​finality (iii.2.2). Second, happiness is a complete good:

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136 Jeff Steele It is the highest of all goods (omnium summum bonorum), containing all good things within itself; for if there were anything lacking, it would not be the highest good, because there would remain something extrinsic to it that could still be desired. So it is evident happiness is a complete state brought about by the convergence of all good things. (III.2.3)

Lastly, perfect happiness requires a self-​ sufficient good, one that contains all good things and lacks nothing outside itself (iii.2.14–​15). If the desire for this true good is naturally implanted in the minds of humanity (iii.2.4), and all, though pursuing different ends, agree in loving the same good as their end (iii.2.20), then why are humans unhappy? Well, the image of happiness is a bit foggy, much like remembering a hazy dream: we can make out some of the salient features, but without being sure of all the particulars. So while our natural inclinations draw us toward this end, happiness, which is our true good, we have an obscure conception of it, and so we seek it in the wrong things  –​in false notions of happiness (iii.3.1–​4), such as wealth, honor, power, glory, and bodily pleasure. Going forward, Lady Philosophy has two tasks pertaining to the happiness remedy:  first, to establish that various false notions of happiness fail to meet the conditions of an ultimate end/​good (iii.3–​8), and second, to explicate the substance of her own account of happiness –​one found in the highest good, immune from the shifting tide of fortune (iii.9–​12). As to the first, let’s briefly consider her various arguments against placing happiness in wealth, all grounded in its failure to satisfy the formal conditions of beatitude (iii.3). First, the narrative takes a personal turn, as she queries Boethius (the character) about his life before fortune spun its indeterminate wheel. Was he not wealthy before his infelicitous imprisonment? Yes, very much so. And at that time, was he in a state of self-​sufficiency, whereby in obtaining wealth, he lacked nothing? Well, no. Then wealth cannot make a

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Happiness 137 person self-​ sufficient, lacking nothing. Second, Lady Philosophy suggests there is nothing in the nature of money itself that prevents it from being taken away from one possessing it against his or her will. And as Augustine has shown us, if it can be taken from us, it cannot be our highest good. Third, even when wealth is obtained, all human needs and longings are not satisfied. In other words, wealth isn’t the final and complete end itself, since it leaves something to be desired. After showing that true happiness cannot be found in any of the other aforementioned goods, these false notions of happiness, Lady Philosophy concludes that these things “can neither supply those goods they promise, nor are they perfect/​complete in gathering all of these goods [together], neither do they bring about happiness as if there were various roads [to it], nor do these things themselves make people happy” (iii.8.12). Next, Lady Philosophy turns to the positive project of spelling out the substance of true and perfect happiness. While no earthly, temporary goods can produce true happiness, they nevertheless give us images of the true good and hence are imperfect goods (iii.9.30). From this admission, she mounts her argument for perfect happiness, the conclusion of which is this:  if there are imperfect goods and imperfect happiness, there must be some perfect good culminating in perfect happiness. In Platonic fashion, she reasons that things are called “imperfect” in virtue of the fact that they contain some diminution of perfection. So if there exists a class of imperfect goods, there must exist a perfect exemplar –​a fount of all goods (fons bonorum), the source of perfect happiness (iii.10.1–​6). Next, Lady Philosophy offers two arguments for the identification of the highest good –​and thus perfect happiness –​with God himself. Let’s call these the “proto-​Anselmian argument” and the “Neoplatonic argument.” First, in proto-​ Anselmian fashion, Lady Philosophy argues that nothing better than God can be conceived (nihil deo melius excogitari queat),12 and if so, no one can doubt that that than which nothing is better, is also good (iii.10.7–​8). But if God

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138 Jeff Steele is good, and nothing is better than God, then the highest goodness must be identical with God. If not, then there would be something better than God  –​something prior to, and more perfect than, God. But the concept of God implies that he is the source of all things, and hence, the highest good. And since Lady Philosophy has already shown that true happiness is found only in the highest good, true and perfect happiness must reside in God (iii.10.9–​10). Second, Lady Philosophy argues from a Neoplatonic hierarchy of being to the identification of God with perfect happiness, an argument she thinks is stronger than the first. Suppose there are two highest goods, call them A and B. If A and B are identical, then the argument is won:  happiness is God. If there are two highest goods which are distinct, then A  is not the same as B, and thus neither of them is perfect: for A lacks something B has, and B lacks something A  has  –​yet the very notion of perfection excludes the possibility of some diminution. If so, then neither of them is actually the highest good, since the very concept of a highest good implies perfection. She concludes that it is impossible that any of the highest goods differ from one another. In other words, both happiness and God are the highest good. She concludes her account with a corollary: since humanity is happy by obtaining happiness for themselves, but happiness consists in divinity, humanity is thus made happy by the acquisition of divinity. However, by acquiring divinity, she says, they become gods. But since God’s nature is one, happy humans are divine by participation (iii.10.23–​25).

6.4  Thomas Aquinas Aquinas’s Aristotelian account of happiness in his Summa theologiae i–​ii begins with his notion of an end. All action that is properly called “human” aims at some end (q. 1, a.  1). However, this chain of ends cannot continue forever, Aquinas says, because without some ultimate or final end which stops the regress, nothing would be desired, no action would find its terminus, nor would any intention of the agent be satisfied (q. 1, a. 4). Hence there must be some

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Happiness 139 ultimate end which is final, singular, conceived as good, for the sake of which all action is undertaken, and identical for every human (q. 1, aa. 4–​7).13 Aquinas is quick to note, however, that while everyone agrees there must be some ultimate end (later identified as happiness), people disagree about how this ultimate end is reached (q. 1, a. 7; see also q. 5, a. 8). So Aquinas then surveys the various candidates for such an ultimate end –​external goods, bodily goods, pleasure, and goods of the soul –​in order to show that, for various reasons, none of these goods satisfies the nature of an ultimate end (q. 2, aa. 1–​7). External goods  –​such as wealth, honor, fame, and power, for e­xample  –​ fail, among other reasons, at being a self-​ sufficient good (per se sufficiens): that is, the type of good that, once obtained, leaves the agent lacking in nothing. These goods, even when obtained, may require other goods like health and wisdom. So they cannot count as the ultimate end (q. 2, a. 4) –​and so on for bodily goods, pleasure, and goods of the soul. Aquinas, following in the footsteps of Augustine and Boethius, then concludes that no finite good counts as humanity’s ultimate end, and thus no created good constitutes human happiness: It is impossible for any created good to constitute human happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which completely satisfies desire: otherwise, it would not be the ultimate end, if something still remained to be desired. But the object of the will, which is human appetite, is the universal good, just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. From this it is obvious that nothing can satisfy the human will, except the universal good. This is not to be found in any created good, but in God alone: because every creature has participatory goodness. And so, God alone can satisfy the human will, according to what has been said in the Psalms, “who satisfies my desire with good things.” Therefore, human happiness consists in God alone. (ST I–​II, q. 2, a. 8)

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140 Jeff Steele Aquinas appropriately asks whether this happiness consists in any created good, and based upon the formal constraints of an ultimate end, he claims it does not. He argues that happiness consists in a complete good, where “complete” means the total satisfaction of desire. If the final good were not something that terminated in fulfillment of desire, happiness would not be the ultimate end. True happiness, then, can only be found in a vision of God and a union with the divine essence (q. 3, a.  8). Unfortunately for us, such a state of perfect happiness cannot be had in this life. In ST i–​ii, q. 5, a. 3, Aquinas gives two reasons for this. First, the formal considerations concerning the nature of happiness itself prevent it from being the kind of thing attainable here and now: true happiness is a complete and self-​sufficient good (perfectum et sufficiens bonum), excludes every evil, and satisfies every desire. But nothing in this life meets these stringent conditions for an ultimate end. Here Aquinas appeals to Augustine’s City of God xix.4, and argues that every good obtained here and now is subject to unavoidable evils. Furthermore, true and perfect happiness must be found in some permanent good that satisfies all desires, but every good in this life is transitory. Second, perfect happiness is found in the vision of the divine essence, which Aquinas has already shown cannot be obtained in this life, since here and now we cannot know God’s essence.14 While perfect and true happiness can only be found in a vision of God in the next life, Aquinas nevertheless conceives of a less than perfect happiness (beatitudo imperfecta) attainable here and now. In short, imperfect happiness consists in Aristotle’s conception of human flourishing in the life of the polis –​natural happiness obtained in this life through virtue (q. 3, a. 2, ad 4; q. 5, a. 5). As such, Aquinas thinks human nature is directed at two good ends (q. 62, aa. 1–​2), one natural and obtainable by virtue, and one supernatural, ultimate, and obtained only with divine aid. As with Aristotle, imperfect happiness will require various external goods (q. 4, aa. 6–​7) –​things not constitutive of happiness but instruments of happiness –​and friends with whom to live virtuously (q. 4, a. 8); these things can be obtained by

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Happiness 141 our own power through virtue (q. 5, a. 5), but can also be lost (q. 5, a. 4). In contrast, perfect happiness requires none of these things, but instead requires divine aid, consists in divine contemplation, and, once obtained, can never be lost. Aquinas appeals not only to Aristotle’s notion of teleology and the conditions for an ultimate end in order to identify God with the highest good and the source of human happiness. His views are also shaped by a real ambiguity in Aristotle’s own discussion about whether eudaimonia is properly human (as he argues in NE 1)  or superhuman (as he suggests in NE 10.8, 1178b25–​33). In the case of the latter, Aristotle proposes a rather idealized conception of happiness as contemplation, which he calls “complete” happiness, and which he identifies with the life of the gods. Human activity, insofar as it resembles divine contemplation, is also blessed or happy. Aquinas appeals to both of these accounts in formulating his distinction between imperfect and perfect happiness, and perhaps, as implicit evidence that the Stagirite himself embraces something like a twofold conception of happiness: while imperfect happiness is the proper and natural end of human action, perfect happiness consists in a certain sort of contemplation  –​contemplation of the divine essence.15 Consequently, when Aquinas alters the end of human teleology in the summum bonum from the context of some finite good (for Aristotle, the polis) to an infinite and transcendent end, the overall nature of the moral life changes: when the highest good is something this-​worldly, as for Aristotle, the nature of the virtues was construed a certain way, and directed toward social life in the polis. But when the highest good becomes a transcendent end, the highest virtues must be supplemented as well. Aquinas’s argument runs as follows: the virtues are necessary to perfect (complete) human nature, and this perfection is directed at human happiness. However, as we have seen, human happiness is twofold:  imperfect happiness obtained through one’s natural powers, and perfect happiness that surpasses human nature. This

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142 Jeff Steele latter happiness, Aquinas claims, can only be obtained by God’s power alone. Because the latter surpasses human nature, our capacities which enable us to act well toward natural ends aren’t sufficient; consequently, we need “principles” of supernatural assistance for perfect happiness. Such “principles” Aquinas calls theological virtues, for the following three reasons: their object is God, they are infused in us by God, and they are known only through divine revelation (q. 62, a. 1). So Aquinas thinks that human nature directs us toward an end which we lack the natural powers to achieve on our own (q. 5, a.  5). Notice that whereas Augustine conceived human nature as sick and corrupt, and as such, incapable of virtue and a suitable orientation of our loves –​thus requiring grace –​Aquinas’s account is thoroughly Aristotelian:  he conceives the problem to be that our nature directs us to an end which we lack the appropriate means to obtain.16 As such, only imperfect happiness can be achieved through our natural powers in this life. Perfect or complete happiness consists in a vision of the divine essence that requires supernatural aid and the addition of theological virtues:  grace perfects nature.

6.5  Duns Scotus: A Rejection of Eudaimonism While medieval eudaimonism reigned in some of the most prominent accounts of moral philosophy, not all medieval philosophers saw the intimate connection between one’s happiness and the moral life as entirely unproblematic. Franciscan master John Duns Scotus, for example, criticizes eudaimonism in at least three ways:  an Augustinian attack on eudaimonism’s conception of self-​love,17 an Anselmian critique of the human inclination for happiness alone,18 and finally, an insistence that moral virtue requires disinterested moral motivation.19 Let’s focus on what I take to be Scotus’s primary problem with eudaimonistic ethics:  if human nature universally and naturally seeks happiness in the way outlined by Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas, then Scotus is concerned that such a will would not exhibit

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Happiness 143 the kind of freedom requisite for moral responsibility.20 As Scotus conceives it, natural appetites are simply necessary inclinations to a thing’s proper perfection. For example, a stone’s natural appetite necessarily seeks its proper perfection at the center of the earth. The appetite for happiness, which Scotus calls the affection for the advantageous (affectio commodi), is just this kind of natural appetite. As such, just like the stone, it cannot elicit a free act of will. Since the appetite for happiness is no different from any other natural appetite in that it naturally and necessarily seeks its own perfection, it has nothing to do with freely elicited acts, and thus, nothing to do with the moral life. In order for the will to freely elicit acts, it must be regulated by a different kind of affection –​an affection for justice (affectio iustitiae). As such, Scotus adamantly denies the intimate connection between happiness and morality that was essential to medieval eudaimonism, whereby the agent’s happiness was necessarily bound to one’s own good and the good of others.21 The moral life, in contrast, concerns obeying what God has commanded and not acting for the sake of self-​interest.22

6.6  The Nature of Beatitude: Intellectual Vision or Volitional Love One of the most interesting debates in the high Middle Ages concerned the relationship between the intellect and will, and which psychological faculty of the soul was primary. The debate generally pitted Dominicans against Franciscans, the former insisting on the primacy of the intellect, and the latter on the primacy of the will. Naturally, the debate not only concerned which faculty was more important for human freedom, virtue, etc., but often included as a sub-​debate which faculty was of utmost importance in the enjoyment of the divine essence. In typical Dominican fashion, Aquinas offers various arguments for the primacy of the intellect in beatitude.23 First, he argues from God’s supreme intelligibility as the ultimate end of a rational nature to intellectual vision:  since the proper and most perfect human

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144 Jeff Steele operation is to know, and God is most perfectly intelligible, human beatitude must be found in knowing God.24 “Hence, it is necessary that the ultimate end of human perfection is in understanding the most perfectly intelligible thing, which is the divine essence.”25 Second, Aquinas argues from the notion of an exemplar cause to intellectual vision: there exists a certain likeness between the cause and its effect, and since God’s beatitude is found in perfect contemplation of himself, and humanity is made in God’s image, human beatitude must also consist in intellectual contemplation of God.26 Third, Aquinas argues from the natural and universal desire of humanity to know, and to know God as ultimate beatitude, to the need for such knowledge to sometimes find its terminus. In Summa contra Gentiles iii.51.1, he states: Since it is impossible for a natural desire to be left unsatisfied, which it would be if it were not possible to arrive at understanding the divine substance, which all minds naturally desire, it is necessary to say that it is possible for the substance of God to be seen through the intellect, both by separate intellectual substances and by our souls.

The main idea here is something like this: humans naturally desire to know, not just something in general, but the human good itself –​ God. But if it were not at least possible for this potentiality to be actualized, then the entire teleological structure of reality would be jeopardized, since the potentiality would be in vain. Hence, it must at least be possible for the faculty of intellection to reach its actualization, which is only possible in an intellectual grasping of the divine nature itself. So beatitude must consist in an intellectual vision of the divine essence. In contrast to beatitude as intellectual vision, Franciscans (along with other voluntarists) argue that beatitude more properly belongs to an act of will. In one sense, the arguments offered parallel Aquinas’s: if the highest human faculty is the intellect, then naturally, the ultimate beatitude ought to consist in its fulfillment: intellectual

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Happiness 145 vision. But if the highest human faculty is not the intellect, but the will, then ultimate fruition must consist in the satisfaction of the will and its love for God. Scotus, for example, takes beatitude to essentially involve an act of will, consisting in love of God (grounded in the affection for justice), which results in enjoyment or fruition (see especially Ord. iv, d. 49, q. 5). According to Scotus, the first practical principle of action is directly connected with the affective part of the soul, for Scotus believes that one’s love for God is the highest and most perfectible state possible. This first practical principle in action, which Scotus identifies as the primary natural law principle, self-​evidently known, dictates that “what is best must be loved most” (Ord. iii, d. 37, q. un., n. 14). But since God is this highest good, one ought to love God above all else. Love is not an intellectual pursuit, however, but an affective one, grounded in the will. Scotus says that this theological virtue of charity perfects the highest part of the soul, which Scotus then identifies with the will and its affection for justice. Hence the highest part of the soul must receive its ultimate fulfillment, and this is only possible when the will loves God above all else, from an affection for justice, and through God’s immediate infusion.27 Thus beatific fruition primarily concerns the will. That is not to say that the intellect plays no role in beatitude. It does. However, Scotus’s main concern seems to stem from the way in which Aquinas’s account makes the will passive in the beatific vision. While it is certainly true that the will finds its rest or satisfaction in God, it only does so in virtue of the intellect’s satisfaction, since on Aquinas’s account, the will is a passive power that wants whatever object the will presents to it as good. There seem to be at least two problems here. One, if the will is a passive power, then it does not seem to receive the immediate satisfaction that the intellect receives, but a secondary fulfillment of sorts in virtue of the intellect’s fruition (see Ord. iv, d. 49, pars 1, q. 4, nn. 186–​198). Against this, Scotus argues that ends –​ultimate or otherwise –​are the proper and immediate objects of the will itself (Ord. iv, d.  49,

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146 Jeff Steele pars 1, q. 4, nn. 189–​194). As such, the will retains a metaphysical priority even if the intellect’s vision is necessary for, or prior to, such enjoyment. This is secured by the will’s non-​mediated connection with the ultimate end, in contrast to the act of the intellect, which is ordered to the ultimate end only through the mediation of the will’s act of love: “For the act of the will is so ordered or orderable to the end absolutely, that it is immediate to it in the order of those things which are (ordered) to the end; the act of intellect is not ordered, and yet it is orderable and mediate, and therefore a lesser participant in the nature of the end” (Ord. iv, d. 49, pars 1, q. 4, n. 195). Two, if the will is passive in the manner suggested, then the will in and of itself could not be praiseworthy or blameworthy. And yet the will’s satisfaction in and enjoyment of God seems to be a praiseworthy state, and one that results from a freely elicited act (Ord. iv, d. 49, pars 1, q. 4, nn. 198–​200). Thus Scotus maintains that the will, as the highest human faculty, meets the apex of fruition itself, not by passively and necessarily following some beatific vision of God, but by freely and actively loving God as the ultimate end, an act which ultimately conjoins the lover with the most lovable thing:  God Himself. The result: fruition.

6.7 Conclusion In closing, medieval eudaimonists agreed with their ancient predecessors that the ultimate end of human action is happiness, found only in the highest good, and that there is an intimate connection between happiness and the moral life. However, since nothing in this world meets the conditions for an ultimate end, and God was identified with the highest good, the obvious conclusion they drew was that nothing in this world could truly satisfy us, and consequently, nothing in this world can truly make us happy. Now, whether something less than complete happiness is possible here and now remained an open question. Aquinas thinks so, since he conceives human nature as having two ends –​one of which can be actualized by living virtuously here and now. Augustine, on the other

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Happiness 147 hand, seems less than hopeful about such prospects. Others, like Scotus, reject the intimate connection between happiness and morality, but nevertheless retain the position that humanity’s ultimate end and highest good is God himself, and when obtained, results in beatitude.

Notes 1 See Annas 1995, 39. These are formal conditions for an ultimate end because they “serve to rule out some candidates for specifying our final end, not on the grounds of their particular content, but on the prior grounds that they are not the right kind of thing to be our final end, since they fail these constraints.” 2 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.7, 1097a25–​1097b1. All translations from the Nicomachean Ethics are from Aristotle 1984. 3 For conceptions of happiness in Islamic ethics, see McGinnis, this volume, 4.3.3; for Jewish ethics, see Rudavsky, this volume, 5.4. 4 See De moribus ecclesiae catholicae I.3.4–5. 5 Augustine, Confessions x.20.29–​21.31. Translated from Augustine 1992. 6 See City of God xviii.41 and xix.1; Sermon 150.3. 7 Letters 118.13–​20; City of God xix.1. 8 City of God, viii.8. See also City of God xix.1; Letter 118. 9 Letter 118.13, CSEL 32–​2. 10 See City of God xii.2; Confessions, vii.11.17. 11 According to fifteenth-​century humanist Lorenzo Valla. See Chadwick 1998, xi. 12 Consolation of Philosophy iii.10.7–​8, CCSL 94. I call this “proto-​ Anselmian” since Anselm seems to be the best-​known proponent of this line of thinking. But it is not unique to Anselm. In fact, Augustine argues along the same line in De moribus ecclesiae catholicae. Cf. Augustine, De moribus 2.11.24 (CSEL 90): “quo esse aut cogitari melius nihil possit.” Anselm, Proslogion 2: “Et quidem credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.” Sancti Anselmi opera omnia (Anselm of Canterbury 1968). 13 I should note that scholars are conflicted about how to understand Aquinas’s claims that every action of every human has one ultimate end: descriptively, normatively, or explanatorily. For the descriptive interpretation and problems with it, see J. Porter 1990, 72–​73. For

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148 Jeff Steele taking Aquinas’s claims as normative, in which Aquinas is setting forth “criteria of fully rational action,” see MacDonald 1991 and J. Porter 1990, 73. A third view, offered by Thomas Williams, takes Aquinas’s arguments as explanatory: he is not providing a descriptive or normative account of action but analyzing the metaphysical preconditions for action, namely, what is needed for the very possibility of action: “His arguments for a single ultimate end are akin to his arguments for a single unmoved mover or uncaused cause; they are at bottom neither psychological descriptions nor conceptual analysis, but quia arguments intended to trace the phenomena of human action to their ultimate explanation in a good that awakens desire, and thereby initiates action, in its own right and not in the power of any other good.” See Williams 2012, 201–​202. 14 See ST i, q. 12, a. 11. Given our nature and natural powers, our knowledge of God is limited to the effects caused by God’s essence, but not God’s essence as such. See also ST i–​ii, q. 3, a. 8, where Aquinas argues that in this life, the intellect knows only the effect of the cause and not the cause itself. As such, there is some potentiality left unfilled in this life that can only be satisfied by the intellect’s reaching its proper object, namely the very essence of the first cause, the essence of God himself. 15 For Aquinas’s appeal to Aristotle’s notion of contemplation as the ultimate perfection of a rational nature, see ST i, q. 62, a. 1; ST i–​ii, q. 3, a. 5; ST i–​ii, q. 4, a. 7; ST i–​ii, q. 61, a. 5; Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics x.12. 16 For a helpful discussion of the differences here, see Cary 2000, 67–​71. 17 See Irwin 2007; Osborne 2005. For Augustine’s complicated account of self-​love, see O’Donovan 1980. 18 See Ingham 2000; King 2011; Williams 1995, 1998a, 2000, 2009. 19 See Irwin 2007; Williams 1995. Both observe the striking similarity between Scotus and Kant on disinterested moral motivation. 20 See Ord. i, d. 1, pars 2, q. 2; ii, d. 6, q. 2; iii, d. 27, q. un.; Reportatio iva, d. 49, qq. 8–​9 (Wadding). 21 I should note that Scotus isn’t denying that God is the ultimate end, or that some type of communion with him is central to human happiness per se, but rather that happiness isn’t connected intimately to the moral life. As we will see below, Scotus –​along with other

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Happiness 149 Franciscan masters –​nevertheless insists that humanity’s ultimate end is God himself, and its result: beatitude. Scotus, however, denies that happiness is intimately connected to the moral life. 22 See especially Ord. iii, d. 37, q. un., n. 16; iv, d. 17, q. un., n. 19; iv, d. 33, q. 1, n. 22. 23 For a more detailed treatment of these arguments, see Bradley 1997, 431–​439. I am generally following his account here. 24 See Scripta super libros Sententiarum ii, d. 4, q. 1, a. 1; Scripta super libros Sententiarum iv, d. 49, q. 2, a. 1; Quodlibet x, q. 8, a. 1; De veritate q. 8, a. 1. 25 De veritate q. 18, a.1. 26 Scripta super libros Sententiarum ii, d. 16, q. 1, a. 2. 27 Ord. iii, d. 27, q. un., nn. 14–​15. For Scotus’s discussion about how the infused virtue of charity and a freely elicited act of will work together in producing an effect that is accepted by God, see Lect. I, d. 17, pars 1, q. un., and Ord. i, d. 17, q. un.

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7 Virtue Thomas M. Osborne, Jr.

Medieval moral theorists in general inherited and developed an understanding of virtue that has its roots in ancient philosophy. Jesus Christ and early Christian writers stressed the importance of faith and an interior love for God and one’s neighbor. The Church Fathers used this emphasis in order to correct and incorporate what they learned about the virtues from ancient philosophy, and in particular Stoicism. For instance, Augustine of Hippo described the virtues in terms of ordered love.1 Moral theology developed greatly alongside the other aspects of theology during the twelfth century. In particular, Gilbert of Poitiers inspired a group at the cathedral of Chartres who are usually referred to as the “Porretans.” They were particularly concerned about the relationship between virtues acquired through one’s own efforts and virtues that are the result of God’s grace. At about the same time Peter Lombard, who was a canon in Paris, compiled the Four Books of the Sentences, which became the standard textbook for medieval theology in the universities that developed during this period. His material on the virtues draws largely on Augustine. Once the University of Paris was established (c. 1200), most advances in moral theory occurred in a university context. Although its earliest masters had access to the first three books of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in Latin, Aristotle himself was under some suspicion, and it was only in the 1240s that the whole Nicomachean Ethics became available in Robert Grosseteste’s translation. Consequently, the full reception of Aristotle’s understanding of virtue should be understood in the context of previously existing debates both in the university and in the earlier cathedral schools. 150

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Virtue 151 Three issues in particular stand out in the thirteenth-​century debates. The first issue involves how to define and classify the virtues, and predates the full reception of Aristotle. The second issue concerns the connection of the moral virtues with one another. This debate existed before the reception of Aristotle but was largely transformed by the introduction of the discussion of prudence in book vi of the Nicomachean Ethics. The reception of Aristotle also intensified the debate over whether the moral virtues reside in the will or in the sense appetite. Aristotle connects moral virtue to that appetitive part of the soul which listens to reason (NE 1.13, 1102b14–​ 1103a4). But Aristotle’s understanding of the appetite’s relation to reason is undeveloped in comparison with that of medieval thinkers.

7.1  Classification of the Virtues Medieval thinkers inherited several definitions of virtue from the Church Fathers and ancient philosophers. The most important definition is Lombard’s own rendering of an Augustinian definition: “Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which we live rightly, which no one uses badly, which God works in us without us.”2 When the first three books of the Nicomachean Ethics were translated, moral theorists drew on the definitions in book II, namely that virtue is “a voluntary habit consisting in a mean relative to us, determined by reason, and as the wise man will determine it,” and that it is “a habit by which someone is good and renders a work well.”3 Both definitions describe virtue as a property of the soul that is used in the production of good actions. The Augustinian definition states that God produces the virtue. Medieval authors accept the distinction between four cardinal virtues, namely prudence, justice, courage, and temperance (Lottin iii.1, 153–​ 194; Houser 2004, 1–​ 82). Although Ambrose of Milan seems to have been the first to describe these virtues as “cardinal,” the division itself has its roots in ancient philosophy, and particularly in book iv of Plato’s Republic. It is also in the Book of Wisdom (8:7)

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152 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. in a less technical way. Gregory the Great and some other Church Fathers make use of the philosophical schema of the cardinal virtues even though they were skeptical of their presence in and value for non-​ Christians. In the twelfth century, even though some other thinkers such as Peter the Chanter consider them as in a qualified way present in some non-​Christians, many others, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, think that these cardinal virtues are inseparable from one another and present only in Christians (Bejczy 2005, 133–​154; see also Mattison 2010, 189–​229). However, all sides admit that the cardinal virtues lead to no merit in God’s eyes apart from the virtues of faith and charity. In the early thirteenth century, Philip the Chancellor distinguishes between the cardinal virtues as distinct from each other, and as each involving the whole moral life.4 Considered as distinct virtues, prudence is concerned with discernment, temperance with corporeal pleasure, and courage with bodily threats. However, in a wider sense these virtues might be about the danger that pleasure poses to the reasonableness of any action, and courage to the difficulty that is present in any virtue. This wider understanding of the cardinal virtues as general conditions became widespread and could be used to interpret Christian and sometimes Stoic writers who defended the thesis that the moral virtues are inseparable. Thomas Aquinas mentions this usage, although he argues that it is more proper to speak of the cardinal virtues as specifically distinct habits that have distinct objects (ST i–​ii, q. 61, a. 4, resp.). According to Thomas and his contemporaries, the cardinal virtues are central in such a way because the matter of other virtues can in some way be reduced to or associated with them. For instance, Bonaventure associates humility with justice, whereas Thomas classifies it with temperance.5 Beginning with Albert and Thomas, many medieval commentators used this doctrine of four distinct cardinal virtues to interpret and organize the many moral virtues that are discussed in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Bejczy 2007, 179–​ 198). According to Aristotle, moral virtues include not only

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Virtue 153 temperance, courage, and justice, but also such virtues as liberality, truthfulness, and affability. He contrasts these moral virtues with intellectual virtues, which perfect the reason. Aristotle classifies prudence among the intellectual virtues, which also include virtues that have little to do with the practical life, such as scientific knowledge and the contemplation of first causes. Thomas and his contemporaries generally associate prudence with the moral virtues, even though they agree with Aristotle that it is strictly speaking an intellectual virtue. Even though there are many interpretations of why some virtues are called “cardinal,” by the middle of the thirteenth century medieval thinkers generally held that the cardinal virtues are in some way the principal moral virtues. They are principal not because they are the most important, but because of the way in which their matter covers the principal areas of the moral life. For instance, Thomas thinks that religion lacks the strict equality that justice requires, although it belongs to justice to the extent that it involves another (ST ii–​ii, q. 80, a. un.; for the preeminence of religion, see ST ii–​ii, q. 81, a. 6). It is more important than justice but it lacks one of the features that make justice characteristic of the agent’s relationship to other persons and consequently a cardinal virtue. Similarly, humility is more important than temperance even though it should be associated with temperance because it restrains disordered desire (ST ii–​ii, q. 161, a. 5). What is the relationship between these cardinal virtues and Christian virtues such as faith and love? The Porretans Simon of Tournai and Alan of Lille introduced a distinction between “political” virtues and the “catholic” virtues of faith, hope, and charity (Lottin iii.1, 105–​ 115; Bejczy 2005, 146–​ 149). Although they disagreed about the exact relationship between the two kinds of virtues, they admitted that political virtues could be acquired through repeated action. They were clear that the political virtues could be transformed by charity, but they did not explain the nature of this transformation.

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154 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Thirteenth-​ century thinkers differ about whether all moral virtues are political, or whether they too might in some instances be infused (Lottin iii.1, 116–​125). Praepositinus, later the Chancellor of the University of Paris from 1206 to 1210, states and rejects the view of nameless masters who hold that charity eliminates the political virtues and adopts as his own the view that the political virtues remain and are informed by charity. This position was similarly held at Paris by Stephen Langton and Godfrey of Poitiers. Philip the Chancellor mentions the distinction between natural, political, and gratuitous virtue.6 In this terminology, “natural” means prior to reason and choice. “Political” is used to describe that which is a virtue according to ethics. “Gratuitous” describes what is fully and truly a virtue, namely that which is given by God. The persistence of the acquired or political virtues along with charity seems to have become accepted, although the nature of their connection to charity remained debatable. For instance, Philip distinguishes between the prudence of the spirit, which is either a science or a gratuitous virtue, and acquired prudence, which is natural.7 Philip mentions that many think that superadded grace perfects nature in such a way that, when informed by grace, acquired prudence can become the gratuitous virtue of prudence. But Philip argues that since infused and acquired habits belong to a different nature, they remain distinct. Albert in his early De bono, which is highly influenced by Philip, departs from him on this point.8 Albert mentions that the acquired virtue either remains alongside or is united with virtue. According to Albert, since grace perfects nature, it follows that acquired virtue is perfected by being united to infused virtue. Bonaventure and Thomas seem to have been among the first to argue for the existence of not only political but also infused moral virtues. Bonaventure distinguishes between cardinal virtues that are political and those that are infused by God.9 According to him, the political virtues can produce good but not meritorious actions, and can be caused by repeated actions or God’s causal influence, or both together. Thomas Aquinas at greater length defends the existence of

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Virtue 155 infused moral virtues that correspond to the matter of the acquired virtues, although their formal object differs.10 He emphasizes that the supernatural moral virtues must be infused, and that the natural virtues are infused only when God wishes to produce what is ordinarily an effect of secondary causes without the secondary causes (in ST i–​ii, q. 51, a. 4, resp.; q. 63, a. 4, resp. and ad 3). Both Bonaventure and Thomas clearly state that charity not only informs the political virtues, but also informs and brings with it moral virtues that are directly caused by God. These infused moral virtues are distinct because they produce acts that are meritorious. Infused virtues cannot be acquired by human effort precisely because they elevate human abilities. They accompany charity and are lost when charity is lost through mortal sin. Agents who lack charity are only capable of morally good acts that are not meritorious. Thomas addresses the relationship between the acquired and infused moral virtues at greater length than Bonaventure does. Thomas seems to think that the acts of acquired virtue become meritorious when ordered by charity and infused moral virtue to God as a supernatural end.11 But not all meritorious acts are produced by both infused and acquired moral virtue.12 For instance, when someone with the vice of intemperance receives charity, he must have infused temperance in order to act well, but he still lacks acquired temperance. His vice becomes a mere disposition to act and not a habit, because if it were a habit it would conflict with the perfect habit of temperance. Acquired temperance takes away the felt struggle against bodily pleasures, and it causes the agent to act temperately. Infused temperance does not take away the disordered desires for such pleasures, but, as long as it remains, it infallibly overcomes such desires.13 In the next generation, Godfrey of Fontaines and Henry of Ghent both argue that the influence of charity makes infused moral virtue superfluous.14 They think that the acquired virtues can be directed to God through the theological virtues. Despite the Augustinian James of Viterbo’s spirited defense of infused moral virtue, by the

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156 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. fourteenth century few outside Thomas’s own Dominican Order defended their existence, and they were even criticized within the order by Durandus of Saint-​Pourçain.15 Although John Duns Scotus also denies the existence of infused moral virtues, he developed and defended the existence of acquired theological virtues.16 According to Scotus, properly speaking a theological virtue must fulfill three conditions:  (1) that it have God as an immediate object, (2) that it have the First Truth as its rule, and (3)  that it be efficiently caused by God. Acquired faith, hope, and charity can have the same object and even rule as the infused, even though they must lack the third condition. These incompletely theological virtues seem to produce acts that have the same object and belong to the same species as acts that are produced by the fully theological virtues. Early thirteenth-​century thinkers sometimes identified moral virtues with acquired virtues and the theological virtues with the infused. Thomas and Bonaventure held that some moral virtues are infused and not acquired. Scotus and those influenced by him deny that there are infused moral virtues, and hold that there are acquired counterparts to the infused theological virtues.

7.2  Connection of the Virtues Medieval writers struggled over the thesis that the cardinal virtues are connected in such a way that whoever has one virtue must have the other virtues. This discussion had roots in Stoic philosophy, according to which the sage possesses all of the virtues equally. Christian writers such as Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux were cited in support of this thesis. With the translation of book vi of the Nicomachean Ethics in the late 1240s, the discussion quickly shifted to the connection of the virtues with one another through prudence. Aristotle had argued for the interdependence of the moral virtues with prudence. Thirteenth-​century moral theorists disagreed over the nature and extent of this interdependence. Some, such as Thomas Aquinas, argued that the moral virtues were connected with

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Virtue 157 one another because of their interdependence with the one virtue of prudence. Others, such as Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent, focused on the need for these virtues to be connected when acquired at a higher level. In the later twelfth and early thirteenth century, theologians generally held that the gratuitous moral virtues were connected because of their dependence on charity (Lottin iii.1, 207–​219). The connection between charity and virtue is in Lombard’s Sentences:  “ ‘charity,’ as Ambrose says, ‘is the mother of all virtues,’ which informs all, without which no true virtue exists.”17 The reasoning is based partially on the belief that charity and vice cannot exist in the same agent. How can this dictum be applied to political virtue? Godfrey of Poitiers holds that the infused virtues are acquired and lost at once; the acquired virtues can be acquired or lost only through repeated actions. Consequently, the acquired virtues are no more connected with one another than their opposed vices are. The connection of the infused virtues through charity became the accepted doctrine among the thirteenth-​century masters, although they differ slightly concerning the way in which charity would be described as moving the other virtues toward the supernatural end, and they do not agree on the role of political virtue. Moreover, these masters, after some debate, eventually agree that charity requires the other theological virtues of faith and hope, although in a way these other virtues could exist without charity. There was no such eventual consensus over the connection of the acquired moral virtues. Although William of Auxerre repeats the position that the political virtues need not be connected, Philip the Chancellor defends a new thesis. We have already seen how Philip distinguishes between a narrow and a wider meaning of the cardinal virtues. According to Philip, the moral virtues as concerned with distinct matter can be acquired separately, although in a wider sense they must be present in every virtue.18 Philip thinks that it is in this general sense that the connection was understood by Seneca, Cicero in his In libro Tuscalanorum, and Bernard. Philip separates their view of the

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158 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. connected virtues from what he describes as Aristotle’s view, which he would know only through the first three books of the Nicomachean Ethics. He did not know of Aristotle’s argument for their connection through prudence. Philip reasons that since Aristotle thinks that the political moral virtues as specifically distinct are acquired through distinct acts, then it is possible to acquire one without the other. Three Franciscans show how the debate over the connection of the virtues to some extent became a discussion of the way in which the virtues might be possessed in different degrees (R. Wood 1997, 43–​ 46). Alexander of Hales, who eventually became the first Franciscan master at the University of Paris, mentions Aristotle as opposing the connection of the virtues.19 Alexander accepts this thesis as true for the moral virtues, although he thinks that the gratuitous virtues are connected. He is among the first to mention in this context a text that becomes central to later treatments, namely a letter from Augustine to Jerome in which Augustine criticizes the Stoic theory precisely by appealing to the development of the virtues. In this text Augustine writes, “The Stoics seem wrong to me, who are unwilling to say that the man advancing (proficiens) in wisdom has wisdom at all, but then only, when he is perfect (perfectus).”20 Alexander notes that someone can recede more or less from virtue. The Franciscan Odo Rigaldus seems to combine Philip’s treatment of the connection of the virtues with this opposition between Stoics and other philosophers (Lottin iii.1, 222–​225). Like Philip, he distinguishes between the cardinal virtues as common conditions, which he states are connected, and the specific virtues, which can be separated. He quotes the same text from Augustine that Alexander had used, and himself criticizes the Stoic claim that any deviation from an indivisible virtuous mean is equally vicious. Bonaventure accepts all of Rigaldus’s points, but, aside from holding that there are connected infused cardinal virtues, he more clearly applies Augustine’s text to the different states of virtue.21 He holds that, simply speaking and according to the normal state, there is no connection among the political virtues if they are considered

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Virtue 159 as specifically distinct virtues rather than as common conditions. However, according to the state of perfection, there is a connection between the distinct virtues, because one virtue can only be perfectly possessed if the others are also possessed. This connection is a superadded perfection and does not belong to the essence of acquired moral virtue. According to Bonaventure, the acquired moral virtues are unconnected simply speaking and in the imperfect state, although they are connected in a qualified way and non-​essentially when they are present in the perfect state. Albert the Great and his student Thomas Aquinas were among the first to profit from the complete translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, which made available Aristotle’s claim that prudence and moral virtue are interdependent. Although in his earlier works Albert denies that the political virtues are connected, in his Super ethica, which was written while Thomas was studying with him at Cologne (1250–​1252), he discusses the connection of the virtues in the context of the distinction between perfect and imperfect virtue.22 Although his use of the word “perfect” recalls the Franciscan use, Albert employs it to describe the distinction between connected and unconnected acquired moral virtue. According to Albert, prudence is perfect only if it concerns the matter of the different virtues, since it is the one intellectual virtue that concerns all of human action. Someone has imperfect prudence if he has prudence concerning temperance but lacks it with respect to courage. Just as it is impossible to have the moral virtues perfectly without perfect prudence, so it is impossible to have perfect prudence without all of the moral virtues. Whereas Bonaventure considers the presence of other major virtues as a superadded perfection to any acquired virtues, Albert seems to think that the dependence on perfect prudence and consequently on other acquired virtues is in some way essential. From this point the unity of prudence as concerned with the matter of different virtues became a central topic of subsequent thirteenth-​century discussions of the connection of the virtues.

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160 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Thomas Aquinas as a student put in order his copious notes on Albert’s lectures on the Nicomachean Ethics in order to prepare them for publication. It is unsurprising that in his own work he primarily discusses the connection of the virtues in the context of prudence.23 In his early Commentary on the Sentences, Thomas distinguishes between the imperfect virtues that are given by nature and the perfect virtues that are acquired through action. According to Thomas, these perfect virtues are connected in three ways, namely (1) through prudence, (2) as common conditions, and (3) on account of their end. Any agent who has one moral virtue has them all, unless he is prevented by lack of opportunity, as when a poor person cannot be liberal with money. In later texts Thomas emphasizes that the moral virtues are common conditions only in a less proper sense. He also sets aside the discussion of the end, and focuses almost entirely on prudence. In the Summa theologiae Thomas states that prudence is perfect if it commands acts with respect to the whole moral life, and imperfect if it concerns only some good actions (ST ii–​ii, q. 47, a. 13, resp.; see Osborne 2007, 57–​64). In this sense prudence is unlike a craft (ars) or a science.24 It is possible for someone to be good at carpentry and bad at forestry. Similarly, someone might possess the science of physics but not metaphysics. The specific principles of a craft or a science do not apply to all other crafts or sciences. In contrast, prudence is concerned with the good of reason, which equally considers the matter of the different virtues. Consequently, moral virtues such as courage and temperance are connected through their principles in ways that crafts and sciences are not. According to Thomas, prudence is fully practical. The prudent agent begins his moral reasoning with the ends supplied by moral virtue, and his prudence commands the appropriate means to that end.25 This command is prudence’s proper act. Therefore, since prudence is formally one and fully practical, a bad person can perform some good actions, but he can never have that perfect prudence that is necessary for a good life (ST ii–​ii, q. 47, a. 13.). He will either lack

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Virtue 161 prudence in an area of moral virtue or his correct knowledge will not result in a fully practical act of reason. Thomas’s understanding of the connection of the virtues was threatened by an alternative account of prudence that was presented by Henry of Ghent and Peter of John Olivi, who argued in different ways that prudence could be developed in some areas and not in others (Lottin iii.2, 469–​574, 627–​31; R.  Wood 1997, 50–​53). Despite his reservations about the unity of prudence, Henry strongly emphasized the dependence of prudence on the moral virtues. According to Henry, the bad will blinds reason and hence vice corrupts prudence. Henry’s own account of the dependence of the virtues depends on his understanding of moral development. According to Henry, the virtues have four stages of development, namely perseverance, continence, perfect virtue, and heroic virtue (Quod. 5, q.  16, 185r–​188v). Henry takes these terms from book vii of the Nicomachean Ethics and attributes a developmental account to Aristotle himself. Although Thomas thinks that continence is imperfect in relation to temperance, he argues that it is specifically distinct because continence restrains passions whereas temperance moderates them (ST ii–​ii, q.  155, aa. 1–​2; a.  3, ad 1). Henry thinks that it is specifically the same habit, but in an imperfect state. Henry uses the old description of “advancement” (profectio) to describe continence. Moreover, he applies a developmental interpretation to Aristotle’s account of the interdependence between the specifically distinct moral virtues and prudence.26 According to Henry, the fully virtuous person will have that general prudence from which moral virtue proceeds and another particular prudence that is caused by perfected virtue. The agent at the consummation of perfect virtue is correctly ordered to the end and also to all the means to the end. Moreover, he emphasizes that the connection holds at the highest stage, which is heroic virtue. Nevertheless, Henry states that the acquired moral virtues are unconnected in those who lack the perfect habits but possess only the dispositions of continence and perseverance (see also Henry, Quod. 5, q. 17, ad 1, 192v). Although

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162 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Henry distinguishes between connected habits and unconnected dispositions, he states that at each stage the moral virtues are essentially the same. Although Henry’s account was particularly influential among Franciscans, Thomas’s view had several defenders. For instance, Godfrey of Fontaines devotes an early quodlibetal question to the Aristotelian thesis that the perfect virtues can only be possessed with perfect prudence.27 In an extended Ordinary Question he argues at length for the unity of prudence in order to defend such a connection.28 James of Viterbo similarly defends the unity of prudence, and he criticizes Henry by denying that there are four stages. According to James, there is only a difference between the individual and general aptitude for virtue and that connected habit which is a virtue. Ockham develops an alternative developmental account according to which the virtues are connected but not through the unity or practical nature of prudence. According to Ockham, most kinds of prudence do not depend on the moral virtues and consequently cannot connect them.29 Moreover, he states that there are five specifically distinct degrees of virtue.30 These virtues are specifically different because the relevant moral circumstances become part of an interior act’s moral object. According to the first and lowest degree, an agent wishes to perform a work that conforms to right reason precisely on account of the work’s moral worth. The second degree adds the condition that the agent will never do otherwise, even if faced with death. The third degree adds that the reason for the act must be precisely and only the dictate of right reason. The fourth degree indicates an additional end, namely the love for God. Among these first four degrees, each higher degree includes the conditions of the lower. The fifth degree is heroic virtue, and can be seen as adding a condition to either the third or the fourth degree, namely that its act exceed the common state and be against natural inclination. Ockham argues that even though the virtues are not connected necessarily through prudence, there is some connection of

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Virtue 163 the virtues at the third level and above, since the agent is motivated to always perform the right action.31 Such an agent cannot knowingly and willingly possess any vice. Ockham connects the virtues by focusing on the way in which the agent’s end is included in the virtue’s definition. Although Ockham developed the thesis of earlier Franciscan masters that the virtues are connected in a perfect state, he passes over Scotus, who is perhaps the most significant Franciscan philosopher and opponent of the connection of the virtues.32 Scotus rejects at length Henry’s thesis that the virtues are connected through a higher level of perfection.33 He argues that since the virtues are distinct qualities, an agent can acquire one without the other by acting in accordance with right reason in one area and not in another. Perhaps more interestingly, Scotus distinguishes the question of how a virtue is connected with its own associated prudence and the question of whether all moral virtues might be connected with one prudence. With respect to the first issue, Scotus argues that someone can judge prudently and lack virtue.34 He rejects Henry’s thesis that the will can blind the intellect. Scotus devotes special attention to the question of whether prudence is formally one in such a way that it can connect different moral virtues.35 He perhaps draws on Henry and Olivi in his defense of the thesis that there are many species of prudence. According to Scotus, the distinct species of prudence correspond to the objects of the different virtues. Consequently, prudence can exist without virtue, and prudence in one area can exist without prudence in another. Scotus thinks that the agent might perfectly possess prudence in the area of temperance and lack prudence that concerns courage. Although he describes such an agent’s prudence as “imperfect,” it is imperfect only in the sense that the genus of prudence lacks a species.36 One species can be perfect in itself without the other species. His view directly opposes that of Thomas and the late Albert, who state that someone who has prudence in matters of temperance but lacks it in courage has an imperfect prudence even with

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164 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. respect to temperance. Scotus agrees that a perfect agent will possess all of the relevant virtues and the correspondingly complete genus of prudence, but he thinks that these virtues can be developed and lost independently. Later medieval discussions of the connection of the virtues to a large extent focus on whether prudence is fully practical and formally one. Thomists such as Capreolus defend Thomas Aquinas’s account of prudence’s formal unity against Scotus’s view.37 Nevertheless, Ockham’s discussion of prudence as well as his focus on the agent’s end greatly influenced such disparate thinkers as Chatton, John Buridan, and Gabriel Biel.38

7.3  Subject of the Virtues The reception of Aristotle not only changed the earlier discussion of the connection of the virtues, but also introduced the problem of the subject of the virtues. Early scholastic discussions of the cardinal virtues placed them in different powers of the soul, such as courage in the irascible and temperance in the concupiscible, but the discussion lacked precision on account of the lack of development in the overall accounts of both virtue and the soul’s powers.39 In book I, ­chapter 13 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle had divided the soul into the rational and that which participates in reason. Moral virtue perfects that which participates in reason, and the intellectual virtues perfect reason itself. But what parts of the soul participate in reason? Unlike Aristotle, medieval authors clearly distinguished between two appetitive powers, namely the rational appetite or the will, and the sense appetite. Furthermore, they distinguished between the concupiscible appetite, which is for the good itself, and the irascible appetite, which is for the good under the aspect of a difficulty. Although there was wide agreement that the latter division between sensible and irascible divides the sensitive powers, there was disagreement over how this division applies to the will. Bonaventure addresses this issue by distinguishing between philosophers and theologians.40 According to him, some moral

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Virtue 165 philosophers wish to say that justice and prudence are in the rational part of the soul, whereas fortitude and temperance are in the inferior parts that merely obey reason, namely the irascible and the concupiscible. In contrast, theologians reject this view because they think that in order to be principles of merit, the cardinal virtues must belong to the superior part of the soul, namely the rational. Consequently, insofar as they are principles of merit, they belong to the power of free choice. On this view, prudence is in the reason, whereas the other virtues are in the rational affective part, which is the will. According to Bonaventure, both the will and the sense appetite are divided into the concupiscible and the irascible. The virtue of temperance belongs to the rational concupiscible and not the sensible, and similarly the virtue of courage belongs only to the rational irascible. He admits that through repeated action the sense appetite makes virtuous acts easier, but he argues that this facility (habilitatio) in the sense appetite is not part of what it means to be a virtue, even though it is connected to virtue. Unlike Bonaventure, Thomas argues that the sense appetite itself is the subject of some moral virtues (ST i–​ii, q. 56, aa. 3–​6; see Kent 1995, 216–​224). His view is in part determined by differences in moral psychology. First, since Thomas denies that there are distinct irascible and concupiscible powers in the will, he is unable to assign more than one cardinal virtue to the will as to a distinct subject. More importantly, Thomas disagrees with Bonaventure’s claim that the will uses a habit in order to achieve its proportionate object, which is the agent’s good. Consequently, Thomas denies that an agent needs a habit of the will in order to be temperate or courageous. The increased promptness and pleasure of a virtuous person’s act comes from the sense appetite. Therefore, he assigns these virtues to the two distinct sense powers, namely the irascible and the concupiscible. Consequently, Thomas is able to argue for the existence of four cardinal virtues in part by indicating their distinct subjects (ST i–​ii, q. 61, a. 2, resp.). Prudence is in the reason, justice in the will, courage in the irascible appetite, and temperance in the concupiscible appetite.

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166 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Thomas thinks that many moral virtues belong to the rational part, and especially to the will. For instance, continence is a habit of the will and concerned with bodily pleasures similar to the kind that specify temperance. Why is a habit of the will necessary if temperance resides in the sense appetite? The will needs this habit not in order to choose its proportionate good, but to overcome sense passions that would distract it from this good. Whereas the virtue of temperance orders the sense passions, continence enables the will to resist disordered sense passions. With respect to the subject of the cardinal virtues, Thomas agrees with Bonaventure insofar as he assigns justice to the will. He differs from Bonaventure in his reasoning that the will requires a virtue because the object of justice, which involves the whole human race, exceeds the will’s proportionate object. Thomas also agrees that even though prudence is in some way a moral virtue, its subject is the intellect. In the following generation Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines took opposed positions on the subject of the virtues (Lottin iii.2, 487–​510). Henry defended a version of Bonaventure’s position that virtues belong to the will.41 Henry admits with Bonaventure that virtuous acts cause related habits or dispositions in the sense appetites, but Henry emphasizes that the virtuous habits are acquired first and that the will unlike the sense appetites needs these habits in order to determine its action. Godfrey takes the diametrically opposed position that all virtues belong to the sense appetite.42 On his account, the will follows reason unless it is distracted by an inferior power, such as the sense appetite. Consequently, the rightly ordered agent needs a virtuous habit to prevent such disorder in the sense appetite. Even though Godfrey to some extent agrees with Thomas about the will’s ability to act well without a habit concerning its proper good, he also states that it can act well without a habit with respect to any natural good, including that of justice. The Augustinian master James of Viterbo rejects both extremes.43 According to James, all virtue must be in the will principally and in the sense appetite in a qualified way. Since the

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Virtue 167 will is changeable, it requires habits to produce virtuous acts consistently. In James’s moral psychology, particular acts of the human will require corresponding acts in the sense appetite. Consequently since virtuous actions are habits that produce particular will acts, they require corresponding habits in the sense appetite as well. Like Godfrey, James states that even the virtue of justice requires a habit in the sense appetite. The thesis that moral virtue primarily belongs to the will was accepted and developed by most Franciscans, including John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.44 Scotus even mentions habits that can be developed in the body, just as habits develop in the hand of the writer or the cither-​player.45 These habits are caused by human action and yet are not relevantly different from the habits possessed by irrational animals such as horses. Ockham notes that it cannot be proved that virtuous acts themselves cause a quality in the sense appetite, since these qualities can be caused in other ways.46 For instance, someone might be inclined to chastity by a merely corporeal change caused by medicine or a change in the weather. The Franciscan Peter Auriol departs from the general consensus of his confreres by arguing that Thomas’s opinion is more probable than the others, although the correct view is that the virtues exist both in the sense appetite and in the will.47 Auriol compares virtue to health and beauty in that all of them in one way require distinct qualities and yet are in another way one. The Thomist John Capreolus objects vehemently against Auriol that any virtue is a simple habit, and consequently cannot consist of different habits or qualities.48 Moreover, he denies that every virtue, including justice, requires the concurrence of the sense appetite. It can be seen from this brief survey that the question of the subject of the virtues directly concerns the role of the passions in the moral life, but it also is important for other issues, such as the distinction between the cardinal virtues and the ability of the will to choose its proper good. It also determines different positions on the relationship of continence to temperance. Is continence merely

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168 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. an imperfect version of temperance, as Henry argued, or is it a habit with a distinct subject, namely the will, as Thomas held?

7.4 Conclusion The development of theories concerning virtues during the medieval period showed various ways that ancient theories of virtue could be developed and incorporated into Christian theology. By the early fourteenth century, despite the progress that had been made, there was persistent disagreement over basic issues such as the existence of the infused moral virtues, the unity and practical character of prudence, and the subject of the virtues. These positions in moral theory were defended and refined by members of different schools such as Scotism and Thomism, as well as scholastics who were later influenced by them. Although the period did not end in any settled consensus, there were clear advances in the possible ways of understanding the virtues. The first twelfth-​century accounts seem perhaps less sophisticated than those of ancient philosophers and have not inspired contemporary thinkers. But their contributions were necessary for the development of thirteenth-​century theories that remain viable today.

Notes 1 Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum, 1.15.25 (CSEL 90, 29–​30). 2 Lombard, 3.27.1 (vol. i.2, p. 480). This is a compressed form of the description of virtue in Augustine, De libero arbitrio, 2.19.52 (CCSL 29, 271; CSEL 74, 85). See Lottin iii.1, 101. 3 Aristotle, NE 2.6, 1106b36–​1107a2, in Albert, De bono, tr. 1, q. 5, art. 1, n. 101 (Col. 28:66). For Philip’s version, see Summa de bono, p. 526. “Virtus est habitus a quo quis bonus est et bene reddit opus.” Philip the Chancellor, Summa de bono, 526. See Aristotle, NE 2.5, 1102a22–​23. 4 Philip, Summa de bono, 1071. Lottin iii.1, 220–​222. 5 Bonaventure, 3 Sent., d. 33, a. 1, q. 5, ad 4 (vol. iii, 721); Thomas, ST ii–​ii, q. 161, a. 4.

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Virtue 169 6 Philip, Summa de bono, vol. ii, 596–​597. William of Auxerre distinguishes primarily between political and theological virtues in his Summa aurea, lib. 3, tract. 11, cap. 1 (vol. iii.1, 172); cf. lib. 2, tract. 13, cap. 1 (vol. ii.2, 474). See Lottin iii.1, 142–​146. 7 Philip, Summa de bono, 786–​789. See Tracey 2009, 285–​286. 8 Albert, De bono, tr. 4, q. 1, a. 5 (Col. 28:240–​241); Tracey 2009, 285. For Albert’s understanding of virtue, see Cunningham 2008, 159–​178; Müller 2001, 136–​221. 9 Bonaventure, 3 Sent., d. 33, a. un., q. 5, resp. (vol. iii, 722–​723). 10 Thomas, 3 Sent., d. 33, q. 1, art. 2, sol. 3–​4 (vol. iii, 1030–​1032); ST. i–​ii, q. 63, a. 3; De virtutibus in communi, q. un., a. 10 (Thomas Aquinas 1965, ii:733–​737). For further texts and their reception, see Lottin iii.2, 451–​535. The most thorough treatment of Thomas is still Bullet 1958. 11 De virtutibus in communi, q. un., a. 10, ad 4 (Thomas Aquinas 1965, ii:736). 12 De virtutibus in communi, q. un., a. 10, ad 16 (Thomas Aquinas 1965, ii:737). 13 De virtutibus in communi, q. un., a. 10, ad 14 (Thomas Aquinas 1965, ii:737). 14 Henry, Quod. 6, q. 12 (vol. x, 139–​142); Godfrey, Quaestio disputata 11, ed. Lottin iii.2, 497–​502. 15 James, Quod. 3, q. 20; Durandus of Saint-​Pourçain, 3 Sent. d. 33, q. 6 (vol. ii, 273–​274.) 16 Ord. 3, d. 26, q. un. (Vat. x:31–​32). 17 Lombard, Sent. 3, d. 23, cap. 3, n. 2, p. 142. This text seems to come from Ambrosiaster, Commentarius in Pauli epistulam ad Romanos 14.1 (CSEL 81, 432–​433). 18 Philip, Summa de bono, 1069–​1076. See Lottin iii.1, 220–​222. 19 Alexander, 3 Sent. d. 36 (AE), pp. 445–​452. 20 Alexander, 3 Sent. d. 46 (AE), p. 450, n. 16. Augustinus, Epistola 167, 3 (CSEL 44, 599). 21 Bonaventure, 3 Sent., d. 36, a. un., q. 3 (vol. iii, 796–​799). 22 Albert, Super ethica, lib. 6, lect. 18 (Col. 2:510–​511). Lottin iii.2, 271–​276. For the context, see Müller 2001, 69–​71. 23 Aquinas, 3 Sent. d.36., a. 1, vol. iii, 1214–​1218. For other texts, see Sententia libri ethicorum, lib. 6, lect. 11 (Thomas Aquinas 1882–​, 47.2:370–​373); ST i–​ii, q. 65, a.1; Quod, 10, q. 14, a. un. [23] (Thomas

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170 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Aquinas 1882–​, 25.2:416–​418); De virtutibus, q. 5, a. 2 (Thomas Aquinas 1965, ii:817–​821). For the development of Thomas’s different arguments and the consistency of his argument from prudence, see Lottin iv, 232–​235, 247–​251. 24 Aquinas, 3 Sent., d. 36, a. 1, ad 2 (Thomas Aquinas 1929–​1947, iii:1217); ST i–​ii, q. 65, a. 1, ad 3–​4; De virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 2, ad 4, 8 (Thomas Aquinas 1965, ii:820). 25 Thomas, ST ii–​ii, q. 47, aa. 6–​8. For a discussion of how moral virtues provide the end for prudence, see Hoffmann 2013. 26 Henry, Quod. 5, q. 17, 190r–​191r. Lottin iv.2, 569–​575; R. Wood 1997, 50–​51; Hoffmann 2008, 58–​63; Counet 2003, 227; Leone 2011, 292–​301. 27 Quod. 2, q. 11 (Godfrey of Fontaines 1904, 147–​151). 28 Quaestio ordinaria 3 (Godfrey of Fontaines 1937, 119–​137). 29 Quaestiones variae q. 7, a. 3 (OTh viii:363–​375; ed. R. Wood 1997, 122–​140); Adams 1996, 510–​521. 30 Quaestiones variae q. 7, a. 2 (OTh viii:335–​337; ed. R. Wood 1997,  80–​84). 31 Quaestiones variae q. 7, a. 3 (OTh viii:347–​355; ed. R. Wood 1997, 100–​110). 32 Lottin iv.2, 655–​660; Adams 1996, 505–​509; Kent 2003, 369–​374; Hoffmann 2008, 63–​68. 33 Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 11–​41 (Vat. x:222–​238); Lect. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 11–​46 (Vat. xxi:314–​324). 34 Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 43–​93 (Vat. x:239–​258); Lect. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 48–​85 (Vat. xxi:324–​225). 35 Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 96–​100 (Vat. x:259–​261); Lect. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 91–​108 (Vat. xxi:336–​340); Collatio Prima, nn. 3–​9 (John Duns Scotus 1968, iii:345–​349). For the contrast between Thomas and Scotus, see Osborne 2010. 36 Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., n. 98 (Vat. x:260); Lect. 3, d. 36, q. un., n. 108 (Vat. xxi:340). 37 Defensiones 3, d. 36 (Johannes Capreolus 1900–​1907, v:423–​445; trans. Johannes Capreolus 2001, 325–​376); Pinckaers 2001, xxiv–​xxv. 38 Chatton, Reportatio 3, d. 33, qq. 3–​5 (Walter Chatton 2005, 233–​241; Buridan, Super libros Ethicorum, lib. 6, q. 21 (John Buridan 1513, 137r–​138v); Biel, 3 Sent. d. 36, q. un. (Biel 1973–​1992, iii:595–​625). For Buridan, see Walsh 1986; for Chatton, see Hoffmann 2008.

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Virtue 171 39 Summa aurea, lib. 3, tract. 11, cap. 3, q. 3 (William of Auxerre 1980–​ 1986, col. 3.1, 190). Philip, Summa de bono, pp. 85ff. 40 3 Sent. d. 33, a. un., q. 3 (Bonaventure 1882–​1902, iii:713–​718). 41 Quod. 4, q. 22 (Henry of Ghent 1518, 138r–​141v); Kent 1995, 224–​236; Leone 2011, 286–​291. 42 Quod. 14, q. 3 (Godfrey of Fontaines 1937, 340–​346). Godfrey also addressed the issue in his early Quod. 3, q. 13 (1286), but his response is not extant (Godfrey of Fontaines 1904, 225–​226). For problems with his Quod. 1–​4, see Wippel 1981a, xxviii–​xxix. His Quaestio disputata 3 can be found in Neumann 1958, 160–​161. See Kent 1995, 236–​237. 43 Quod. 4, q. 19 (James of Viterbo 1968–​1975, 104–​107). 44 Scotus, Ord. 3, d. 33, q. un. (Vat. x:142–​175); Ockham, Quod. 2, qq. 16–​17 (OTh ix:183–​272). 45 Ord. 3, d. 33, q. un., n. 60 (Vat. x:169). 46 Quod. 2, q. 16 (OTh ix:183). 47 Auriol, 3 Sent. d. 27, q. 1, a. 3 (Johannes Capreolus 1900–​1907, 519–​520). 48 Capreolus, Defensiones, 3. d. 33, q. un. a. 3, ad argumenta Aureoli primum et quartum (vol. v, 403, 404).

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8 Law Jean Porter

Beginning in the late eleventh century and continuing through the early fourteenth century, European society experienced a period of rapid and thoroughgoing social and intellectual transformations.1 These both generated and came to depend upon institutional reforms and innovations which continue to affect our lives today. In particular, this period saw the transformation of the legal systems of church and secular society, from small-​ scale, localized systems heavily dependent on customs and local traditions, to organized, centralized legal systems relying on legislative innovation and legal professionals. The concept of law in medieval moral thought cannot be detached from this context. While law is a central motif in both scriptural and classical traditions, the theoretical presuppositions and practical implications of this concept were first developed in a systematic way by medieval jurists, drawing extensively on earlier traditions of natural law and natural right. At the same time, medieval jurists, including secular as well as canon lawyers, were strongly influenced by theological and ethical considerations, and theologians appropriated juridical concepts of natural law and natural right for their own purposes. The resulting interchange generated a rich, practically significant concept of law in its twofold aspect of natural and divine, that is to say, scriptural law. In this chapter, I will offer an overview of the conception of law developed by scholastic jurists and theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. More specifically, I will focus on the scholastics’ conceptions of natural law and natural right.2 This may seem to be an overly restrictive approach to the topic of law in medieval ethics, but that topic is so immense that it is necessary to limit it in some way. The scholastics interpret natural law or right in an expansive 172

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Law 173 way, relating pre-​rational causes and processes, on the one hand, and divine, that is to say, revealed law, on the other, to natural law in the focal sense of reason or rational first principles. For that reason, the concept of natural law provides an entree into their understanding of law more generally.

8.1  Conceptions of Law, Natural Law, and Natural Right: An Overview Conceptions of natural law and natural right were transmitted to the scholastics through a wide variety of texts, including Scripture itself, as interpreted by Christian thinkers from late antiquity onwards, together with a range of classical authorities, including Aristotle, Cicero, the Roman jurists collected by Justinian, and a number of other Roman and Hellenistic philosophers.3 Although they differed considerably on the details, these authorities generally agreed on the main outlines of a conception of natural law or right. With very few exceptions, appeals to the natural law presuppose a meaningful distinction between social conventions, human laws, and customs, on the one hand, and the pre-​conventional givens of human life out of which those conventions emerge, on the other. Natural law theories developed along these lines generally do not presuppose that the natural is good without qualification, nor, correlatively, do they assume that social conventions are morally bad. However, they do generally imply or claim that social conventions can be analyzed, in part at least, in terms of their pre-​conventional origins, in such a way as to yield some kind of moral insight into the value and limitations of conventions, laws, or customs. This basic distinction can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways, corresponding to different views on nature, and especially human nature.4 At various times, “nature” has been identified with the order displayed by the natural world or revealed through metaphysical analysis, with the regularities of human nature, including those aspects of it shared with other animals, and with the operations of human reason. The normative force of nature can be identified

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174 Jean Porter with an impersonal cosmic order, or with the natural activities and processes of life, or as a rational power or capacity for moral discernment. Social conventions can be construed as immediate and organic expressions of human nature, or as constructions developed through reason and deliberation out of naturally given starting points. Clearly, this overall approach to the natural law would be attractive to Christian theologians. It was compatible with a Christian conception of God as the author and defender of the natural law. Even more fundamentally, the distinction between the natural and the conventional allowed both revealed law and conscience to be identified with natural, that is to say, pre-​conventional origins of morality and social customs. These connections began to be made at an early point, and Christian thinkers in late antiquity established the main lines of a Christian conception of the natural law, which the scholastics later developed.5 To take an early example, Origen identifies the law of nature with the law of God. Similarly, Ambrose identifies the natural law with the Mosaic law, in the sense that the latter confirms and extends the former; he also takes Paul’s reference to the inner law of the Gentiles (Romans 2:14–​15) to refer to the natural law. Jerome likewise identifies this inner law with the natural law, adding that synderesis, or reason, cannot be extinguished even in Cain. Augustine also identifies the natural law with the unwritten law of the Gentiles. He also associates the natural law with the Image of God, which he interprets as the rational soul; hence, on his view, the natural law is innate and cannot be eradicated. Finally, in common with many other Christian thinkers in late antiquity, he connects the natural law to the Golden Rule and the Decalogue. The former is a basic moral norm which is known to all, and ideally, we would be able to derive the fundamental principles of morality from this norm. However, given the corrupting effects of original sin, we cannot reliably do so, and for this reason, God mercifully revealed the fundamental precepts of the natural law in the Mosaic law, particularly in the Decalogue. Hence, the latter can be considered to be a written formulation of the natural law.

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Law 175 Early Christian views on the natural law were summarized in a text that became a locus classicus for scholastic reflection on the natural law, taken from what came to be called the Ordinary Gloss. This is an early twelfth-​century gloss, that is to say, a running commentary on Scripture, compiled out of patristic commentaries on individual passages. It is described as the “ordinary” gloss, because it quickly became the standard such compilation for scholarly use in the medieval schools, and as such, it marks a point of contact between early Christian theology and the medieval West. The text in question is a gloss on Romans 2:14, “When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves”: Paul said above that the Gentiles are damned if they act badly and saved if they act well. But since they do not have a law, as it were being ignorant of what is good or evil, it would seem that neither should be imputed to them. Contrary to this, the Apostle says: Even if he does not have the written law, he nonetheless has the natural law, by which he understands and knows within himself what is good and what is evil, what is vice insofar as it is contrary to nature, which in any case grace heals. For the Image cannot be so far extirpated from the human soul by the stain of earthly desires, that none of its lineaments should remain in it. For that is not altogether removed which was impressed there through the Image of God when the human person was created. Accordingly, when vice has been healed through grace, they naturally do those things which pertain to the law. Grace is not denied on account of nature, but rather nature is restored through grace; being renewed, the law of justice, which crimes destroyed, is reinscribed through grace in the interior of the human person.6

When the scholastics turned to the task of developing their own accounts of the natural law, they found that the complexity of the tradition they received offered them a wide variety of definitions of the natural law. This could present a problem, and they were

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176 Jean Porter not always successful in integrating these into a coherent account. Nonetheless, they did move toward identifying a primary or central understanding of the natural law, to which other construals were related as secondary senses, expressions of the primary natural law, or derivations from it. We see a good example of both the complexity of the scholastic concept of the natural law, and the way in which they attempted to bring order to this complexity, in the writings of the late twelfth-​century canon lawyer Huguccio: And because different people have different views on natural right, let us set forth its different meanings. Thus, natural right is said to be reason, insofar as it is a natural power of the soul by which the human person distinguishes between good and evil, choosing good and rejecting evil … Now in the second place, natural right is said to be a judgment of reason, namely, a motion proceeding from reason, directly or indirectly; that is, any work or operation to which one is obliged by reason, as to discern, to choose, and to do good, to give alms, to love God, and those sorts of things … But understood in this way, it is said to be natural right improperly; because any of the things which we have said to be contained in this understanding of natural right should rather be said to be an effect of natural right, or should be said to derive from it, or to be something that one is bound to do by natural right, rather than taking it as natural right itself. Likewise, according to a third sense, natural right is said to be an instinct and order of nature by which like things are propagated by their like, by which like things rejoice in their like, by which they are well suited to one another, by which they suckle newborn young, by which they seek peace, flee disturbance, and do other things which they have to do in accordance with sensuality, that is, a natural appetite … Likewise, in a fourth sense, natural right is said to be divine right, that is, what is contained in the law of Moses and the evangelical law; and this is said to be natural right, because the highest nature, that is, God, transmitted it to us and

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Law 177 taught it through the law and the prophets and the gospel, or because natural reason leads and impels us even through extrinsic learning to those things which are contained in divine right. Hence, if I may speak boldly, I say quite certainly that this right is called natural in an improper sense, because natural right, that is, reason, compels one to do those things which are contained in it, and one is obliged to do those things by reason.7

I quote this text at some length, because even though Huguccio self-​consciously sets forth a distinctive and somewhat controversial position (“if I may speak boldly”), his way of analyzing the natural law comes to dominate the scholastic approach in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Scholastic discussions of the natural law typically include a list of diverse senses of natural law or natural right, and sometimes these are set out without any attempt at analysis. Yet in many instances, what looks at first like a catalogue of definitions turns out on closer inspection to be informed by analysis, through which these diverse interpretations are related to a primary sense, usually identified with reason or with fundamental principles of moral discernment, and evaluated accordingly. At the same time, the scholastics appeal to Scripture as interpreted through the earlier theological tradition in order to confirm their interpretations of natural law, and correlatively, the divine law revealed in Scripture is said to be congruent with natural reason. This point should be underscored, because it indicates how the scholastics understand the normative force of Scripture, as well as qualifying their conceptions of natural law. For them, Scripture is the supreme and definitive expression of divine wisdom, but not the only such expression. The interpretation of Scripture presupposes innate capacities for reason and judgment which are themselves God-​given and reflections of divine wisdom.8 As Bonaventure says, we would not be able to understand the moral message of Scripture, if it were not for the light of reason with which God has endowed us.9 Hence, the scholastics have no

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178 Jean Porter qualms about interpreting Scripture, in part, in light of explicit or implicit standards of reasonableness. But at the same time, the human faculty of reason is itself interpreted in theological and ultimately scriptural terms. Human reason and Scripture are complementary and mutually interpreting, in such a way that reason enables us to comprehend and interpret Scripture even as Scripture completes and corrects rational judgments. This brings us to a further point. The scholastic concept of the natural law reflects the predominantly theological concerns informing its development, and we often find it employed in order to resolve a theological problem, rather than to defend a particular moral claim. But this does not mean that their concept of the natural law had no practical significance. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a great deal of conflict, as well as reform and development, between ecclesiastical and secular authorities, and among different elements within the church and civil society, at every level from the village to the (so-​called) empire.10 Over the next two centuries the practice of scholasticism as institutionalized in the emerging university system provided one centrally important institutional framework for assessing, critiquing, and developing these institutional changes. As Richard Southern observes, Western society was not naturally conformist: the population was divided into too many semi-​autonomous groups, and the inclination to oppose authority was too strong to be lightly disregarded. The arguments in the schools served the purpose of bringing to light the objections which would be raised outside the schools, so a congruity of outlook between schools and the outside world was an essential basis of practical success. Far more than the meeting of the royal council which came to be called “parlements,” the schools were the parliaments of medieval Europe.11

The scholastic concept of the natural law, precisely because it represented a synthesis of scriptural, classical, and philosophical

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Law 179 elements, provided a most useful framework for sorting out and adjudicating these competing claims. The scholastics recognize that social practices and institutions cannot be regarded as organic expressions of nature, which emerge spontaneously from its exigencies and derive their authority from that fact. On the contrary, they recognize that these are always more or less conventional, and may even be contrary to natural law in some respects without losing all legitimacy. In this respect, they follow Cicero rather than Aristotle.12 That is, rather than endorsing Aristotle’s view that social conventions stem immediately from natural inclinations, in such a way as to reflect human nature immediately and directly, they appropriate Cicero’s view that human society reflects a longstanding process of human reflection and invention, in which natural inclinations are given expression through negotiation, legislation, and the emergence of custom. Nonetheless, they also hold that social conventions are grounded in human nature in a way that is at least sometimes open to analysis and morally instructive. Hence, when they comment on specific questions in the light of the natural law, they almost always take received norms and practices as their starting point, and proceed by analyzing these in terms of the principles of the natural law from which they emerge. Here, for example, is Bonaventure’s analysis of marriage, following on a remark that the virtue of conjugal chastity is in accordance with that very law of nature by reason of nature as originally constituted, which was formed in distinct sexes, according to the beginning of Genesis: “God created the human person in accordance with his image and likeness, male and female he created them.” It is also in accordance with the law of nature remaining to this day by reason of a further precept, according to the beginning of Genesis: “God blessed them and said, ‘Increase and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it,’ ” which indeed cannot legitimately be done except through the exercise of conjugal chastity. It is no less in accordance with the law of

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180 Jean Porter nature by reason of a revelation given from above. For Adam spoke prophetically after his sleep, when he said, “This then is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh” … From the first of these, the union of man and woman is natural, from the second, it is moral, and from the third, it is sacramental; and these are all consistent with one another in accordance with a determination of the law of nature, from which in the first instance the acts and practices of conjugal chastity are drawn.13

Very often, the scholastics were content simply to analyze existing norms and practices in the light of their natural origins, without attempting to evaluate them accordingly. However, this line of analysis could also provide a basis for the legitimation of received practices and social institutions. Taking their orientation from the general principle of the goodness of nature seen as God’s creation, they could claim that any institution that reflects a genuine aspect of human nature in a reasonable and legitimate way is by that token morally legitimate. Although it is not apparent from the quotation above, Bonaventure’s analysis of marriage is in fact an example of this kind of argument, as the immediately preceding context makes clear. That is, he is here defending the claim that conjugal chastity is a genuine virtue worthy of the Christian life, over against those who argued that sexual activity is always sinful, or at best a shameful necessity. Of course, a great deal can be packed into qualifiers such as “reasonable” and “legitimate,” and this raises the question whether the scholastics’ concept of the natural law was capable of generating these qualifiers on its own terms, or depended on external principles for its moral force. It is difficult to answer this question in any definitive way, precisely because the basic concept of natural law is so capacious. Any pre-​conventional principle for morality can be regarded as a kind of natural law or natural right, insofar as it is in some way normative for a conventional formulation or practice. For this reason,

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Law 181 it is more fruitful to ask whether the scholastics are able to develop an account of natural law capable of generating real normative force on its own terms. In general, we find the most developed and cogent accounts of the natural law among the thirteenth-​century scholastic theologians, because their theological systems provided orienting frameworks within which to sort out the different senses of nature and to place them systematically in relation to one another. It would take us too far afield to explore the specific accounts of natural law developed by individual theologians in any detail. Without going further into these views, however, we can take note of some ways in which the scholastic concept of the natural law provides both a basis for moral critique of social practices and a basis for defending existing or innovative practices. We are accustomed to associate medieval natural law with a particular sexual ethic, which is developed in terms of a distinction between natural and unnatural forms of behavior, the latter being condemned under all circumstances. Certainly, the idea of unnaturalness played an important role in this context (and a few others as well), but the scholastics’ repertoire of principles for critique and revision is broader than this example would suggest. In particular, they recognize that not every practice that is non-​natural, in the sense of stemming from social conventions, is unnatural in a pejorative sense. For example, property is traditionally regarded as a non-​natural institution in this sense, yet no scholastic in this period doubted the legitimacy of property as an institution. Nonetheless, the concept of the natural law could still provide criteria, formulated in terms of overall purposes or legitimating justifications, in terms of which non-​ natural institutions such as property could be subjected to some kind of moral critique. We find a good example of this approach in the early thirteenth-​century theologian William of Auxerre. He notes that the community of possessions, that is to say, the condition that would exist apart from the institution of property, was not a precept of natural right simply speaking, but only in accordance with some qualification; for it was a precept in the

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182 Jean Porter state of innocence, or in the state of nature as well organized; but in the state of greed and corrupted nature it is not a precept, nor should it be, since if it were, public order would be dissolved, and the human race would destroy itself by mutual slaughter. It is nonetheless true that all things should be held in common in a time of extreme necessity, since natural reason directs that the well being of the neighbor is to be cherished in preference to one’s worldly goods.14

Other theologians are prepared to say that property is not altogether contrary to the natural law, if the complexity of the latter is taken into account; by the same token, however, the complexity of the relevant aspects of the natural law provides resources for a richer moral critique and analysis. Here is Albert the Great on the same topic: The common possession of all things and the ownership of some things are both derived from natural right, because the principles of right are not the same, as we have already said. Hence according to that state in which there is neither robbery nor usurpation of that which is given over to common use, conscience and reason directed that nothing should be private property, but it should be handed over to the common possession of everyone, as it was created in common. But with changing conditions, and the increase of malice and robbery and rancor, nature employs another principle, namely, that private property should be legitimated, for the provision of oneself and of the poor. And so from that point it is not contrary to the right of nature to have something of one’s own, but this is to be shared in time of necessity. And so the edict according to which something belonging to no one is granted to the occupant is right, as are others of this kind.15

Aquinas takes Albert’s analysis of property one step further, arguing that humanity enjoys a kind of natural dominion over material things:

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Law 183 exterior things can be considered in two ways. In one way, with respect to their nature, which is not subject to human power, but only to the divine power, which all things obey straightaway, and in another way, with respect to the use of the thing itself. And so the human person has natural dominion over exterior things, because through his reason and will he is able to make use of them for his benefit, as if they were made for him, for more imperfect things always exist for the sake of more perfect things … And by this argument, the Philosopher proves in the first book of the Politics that the possession of exterior things is natural to the human person. Furthermore, this natural dominion over other creatures, which is appropriate to the human person on account of reason, in which consists the image of God, is manifested in the very creation of the human person, where it is said, “Let us make the human person to our image and likeness, and let him have authority over the fishes of the sea, etc.”16

At the same time, he affirms the consensus of the time that private ownership is a matter of positive, rather than natural right, and he goes on to argue that the natural principles which justify this convention also serve to limit and constrain it: Provisions of human right cannot restrict natural right or divine right. Now according to the natural order instituted by divine providence, lower things are directed to this end, that human necessities are to be supplied by them. And therefore, the division and appropriation of material things, which proceeds from human right, does not prevent human necessities from being supplied by things of this kind … [He adds that ordinarily, human needs will be met through such practices as almsgiving.] Nevertheless, if the need be so urgent and evident that it is manifest that the immediate need must be relieved by whatever things occur …, then someone can licitly take another’s things to relieve his need, whether openly or in secret. Nor does such an action properly have the character of theft or robbery.17

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184 Jean Porter By implication, the poor person in this situation is immune from punishment if she takes the goods of the rich. That is already a fairly significant qualification on the claims generated by private ownership. As we will see further on, some scholastic jurists in this period asserted that the poor individual may claim what he needs to survive from the rich by natural right, and this right should be safeguarded by law. This represents a further, most important way in which the scholastic concept of the natural law had concrete normative implications. That is, it generated social norms insofar as it provided a justification for the innovative social practices embodying those norms. Scholastic reflections on natural law and natural right have had a far-​reaching impact on social attitudes and institutions. It would take us too far afield to examine all the ramifications of scholastic thought in this area. In the next two sections, we will look briefly at two aspects of the scholastic concept of natural law which continue to be widely influential and controversial, namely, their treatment of sexual ethics, and their attitude toward what came to be called natural or human rights.

8.2  The Natural Law and Sexual Morality Scholastic theories of natural law are widely associated with a stringent, and many would say unrealistic, sexual ethics. Yet when we place the scholastics’ comments on sexual morality within the context of their presuppositions and look at the trajectory of their thought, we see that their views developed, in key part, through their attempts to apply natural law principles to what for them was a difficult problem. At the beginning of the period we are considering, jurists and theologians tended to assume that sexual desire and activity are intrinsically shameful and perhaps even morally problematic. This negative view of sex is pre-​Christian in origin, but by this period, it was deeply ingrained in Christian theology and reflected in ecclesiastical custom.18

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Law 185 By the middle of the twelfth century, attitudes toward sex began to change. Marriage was by now regarded as a sacrament, and Christian theologians spoke with great frankness about the theological symbolism of sexual intercourse.19 Nonetheless, sexual activity even within marriage was still viewed with suspicion, and the pursuit of sexual pleasure outside marriage was universally condemned. It is therefore hardly surprising that the scholastics unanimously condemn any form of sexual expression apart from heterosexual intercourse as unnatural, in a specifically pejorative sense. Masturbation, homosexual intercourse, bestiality, non-​ procreative practices between man and woman, and the use of contraceptives are all condemned as gravely sinful. While the exact rationale for these condemnations was not always clear, at least at the beginning of this period, it was generally agreed that these kinds of actions violated the one clear purpose of sexual intercourse, namely, procreation. Indeed, these are the most grievous of sexual sins, because they usurp the order of sexual relations established by God for the sake of continuing the human race. On the other hand, sexual sins involving ordinary heterosexual intercourse can, and often do, fulfill the natural purpose of procreation. Why, then, are they condemned? Initially, the scholastics were divided in their approach to this problem. For most of the canonists and some of the theologians, the pursuit of sexual pleasure outside marriage is sinful because sexual pleasure itself is not part of nature, at least as originally constituted, but one aspect of the corrupting effects of original sin.20 This analysis is consistent with the scholastic view that the operations of nature are intelligible and good in terms of the purposes they serve. If sexual desire is assumed from the outset to be sinful, then it cannot be either natural or good. But it is not clear that this line of argument is really illuminating. Moreover, it comes uncomfortably close to the heretical position, defended at this time by the Cathars in southern France, that sexual activity itself is inherently evil.21

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186 Jean Porter At the same time, some theologians are prepared to say that sexual sins involving heterosexual intercourse are natural considered as sexual acts, even though they involve a violation of the due order of human sexual relationships. Although this appears to have been initially a minority view, it reflects a more general tendency among the scholastics to move away from the claim that sexual pleasure is wrong in itself, toward a view according to which heterosexual sexual sins involve a misdirected or excessive exercise of the sexual function. Hence, they involve a violation of virtue, or of the reasonable order of human sexual relationships. This line of analysis is consistent, at any rate, with a view of sexual pleasure as neutral or even as good in itself. Abelard takes this view, and more than a century later, the secular theologian William of Auxerre asserts that sexual delight is natural in itself, and should be distinguished from lust, which is an effect of original sin. Aquinas explicitly says that sexual pleasure is morally neutral in itself, adding that it serves the natural purpose of providing an inducement to reproduce. This argument does not imply that it is legitimate to engage in sexual intercourse for the sake of pleasure alone, but it does finally establish that sex is a normal, morally legitimate part of the moral lives of married couples.22 Many contemporary moral thinkers would question the scholastics’ views on the purpose of sexual activity and the naturalness, or otherwise, of different forms of sexual desire. But at any rate, the scholastics’ views on this subject reflect the critical and self-​ corrective aspects of their conception of the natural law, and suggest a trajectory for further reflection on these issues.

8.3  Natural Right and the Rights of Individuals We turn finally to a consideration of one of the most durable aspects of scholastic reflections on natural law and natural right, namely, their incipient doctrines of rights, considered as moral properties of individuals. Until recently, historians and moral and political theorists generally agreed that for ancient and medieval authors, “right” is always understood in terms of what is objectively just, in accordance

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Law 187 with an impersonal moral order within which each person equally benefits from the moral duties incumbent on all. The duties inherent in this moral order can be expressed in terms of objective rights, but these do not add anything normatively to the demands of the moral order itself. As such, objective rights are contrasted with subjective rights, understood as a kind of authority or moral power inherent in the individual, through which she can legitimately claim immunity from some kinds of harm or coercion. The scholastics universally affirm the existence of objective right, but until recently, historians believed that doctrines of natural or human rights, understood as subjective moral powers, did not emerge until the late Middle Ages at the earliest.23 More recently, Brian Tierney and his former student Charles Reid have conclusively shown that the general view just sketched is wrong.24 Admittedly, the jurists do not develop systematic theories of natural rights, nor do they extend rights claims to every domain of moral thought or legal practice. Nonetheless, beginning in the mid-​ thirteenth century, canon lawyers begin to defend individual claims to some performance or some forbearance, in terms which clearly indicate that they understand these as, in our terms, subjective natural rights. Rights claims are central to the theory and practice of marriage law, and they also emerge in many other contexts. And these are not just theoretical claims; individuals can assert them in tribunals of various kinds, in the reasonable hope of a fair hearing and the possibility of vindication. As Tierney has observed, Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was a litigious society, within which traditional and novel claims of right played a central role in the expansion and reform of judicial procedures.25 Men and women of every condition laid claim to rights of all kinds, on whatever basis, in whichever courts would give them a hearing. Initially, these claims were justified by appeals to prior agreements, or historical grants of privilege or immunity, or some enactment of human or divine law. However, the scholastic concept of natural law and right provided an alternative, which

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188 Jean Porter associates the right with pre-​conventional principles of morality and social life. For the Roman jurists, natural right was associated with immutable legal or moral principles, which are known through one’s natural powers of reasoned judgment but which are in no way under the individual’s control. For the scholastic jurists and theologians, in contrast, natural right is associated most fundamentally with the individual’s capacities for moral discernment, or with the fundamental first principles which provide the starting points for such discernment. Natural right thus understood is a kind of individual capacity or power, integrally connected to the human person’s freedom and her standing as a responsible moral agent. This conception of natural right does not necessarily imply any kind of belief in rights as subjective moral powers, but within the scholastics’ context, it would readily suggest such a view. As Tierney remarks, once the term jus naturale was clearly defined in this subjective sense the argument could easily move in either direction, to specify natural laws that had to be obeyed or natural rights that could licitly be exercised; and canonistic arguments soon did move in both directions. Stoic authors, when they wrote of jus naturale, were thinking mainly in terms of cosmic determinism; the canonists were thinking more in terms of human free choice. When the concept of jus naturale was associated in the canonists’ glosses with words like “power,” “faculty,” “free will,” it was moving in a different semantic field of force, so to speak, and took on new meanings. Stoic reflection on jus naturale never led to a doctrine of natural rights; canonistic reflection did so, and quickly.26

Natural rights, thus understood, are claims to some kind of performance or some immunity, which are grounded in natural, that is to say, pre-​conventional aspects of human life. These kinds of claims might have been construed in such a way as to yield a system of objective, impersonal duties, which all are bound to observe without reference to any one individual’s claims. Tierney’s point, however, is

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Law 189 that the close association between the concept of right and notions of freedom, faculty, and power led the canon lawyers of the time to construe these claims in terms of individual freedoms or powers, stemming in some way from the agent’s natural capacities and needs. Thus understood, someone who claims his right to some benefit or forbearance exercises a discretionary claim, which goes beyond general obligations by specifying that these are to be performed in some specified way, for the benefit of the one exercising the claim. Thus, the recognition of natural rights added two things to the accepted framework of mutual obligations, namely, the recognition that individuals enjoy a discretionary power to enjoin or forbid certain kinds of actions in their regard, and by implication, second, that individuals have the power to specify general obligations in such a way as to render them concrete and exigent. Seen from one perspective, rights claims thus represent a reasonable, if not inevitable, development of longstanding philosophical and doctrinal commitments. Seen from another perspective, these claims reflect a logical extension of practices already in place, in both civil and ecclesiastical contexts, for safeguarding individual freedom. In the previous section, we saw that jurists and theologians defended a number of rights associated with marriage, including the fundamental right to marry and the right to the marriage debt. Tierney offers an example from another sphere of activity, citing the thirteenth-​century canon lawyer Laurentius, who reformulates the obligation of the rich to supply the necessities of the poor in terms of a right possessed by the poor individual. According to Laurentius, when the poor person takes from another under press of necessity, it is “as if he used his own right and his own thing.” What is more, this right came to be regarded as a claim having juridical effect, insofar as it could be asserted and secured through a public process of adjudication. Of course, such a process would require some kind of legal structure, but for that very reason, it is incumbent on society to put the necessary procedures in place. And indeed, as Tierney goes on to observe, scholastic canon lawyers did set up legal fora through which

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190 Jean Porter the right to surplus wealth could be publicly defended and enforced, relying on a process known as “evangelical denunciation:” By virtue of the authority inhering in his office as judge, a bishop could hear any complaint involving an alleged sin and could provide a remedy without the plaintiff bringing a formal action. From about 1200 onward several canonists argued that this procedure was available to the poor person in extreme need. He could assert a rightful claim by an “appeal to the office of the judge.” The bishop could then compel an intransigent rich man to give alms from his superfluities, by excommunication if necessary.27

In this way, concepts of natural law and natural right provided a rationale for institutional innovation, as well as critique and reform. While the scholastics in this period do not have a theory of natural rights, in the sense of an explicit, systematic account, they do recognize that men and women can make claims of various kinds by natural right, in such a way as to place moral demands on the community for some kind of response.

8.4 Conclusion The scholastic concept of the natural law, together with the specific theories and moral arguments developed within the context it provided, comprise one of the great achievements of medieval theology. It is an impressive achievement in its own right, and offers a resource of permanent value for theology and moral reflection. The distinctive contours and the value of this achievement have been largely obscured, because the medieval scholastics did not attempt the one task that their immediate successors regarded as centrally important  –​that is to say, they did not attempt to derive a comprehensive set of moral precepts from one or a few first principles, regarded as compelling to all rational persons. It is difficult to appreciate this fact, because we are so accustomed to thinking of the natural law in just this way. But this approach to the natural law

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Law 191 is distinctively modern  –​more specifically, it is especially characteristic of those early modern philosophers regarded collectively as the “fathers” of natural law. Ever since, we have tended to assess the scholastics in terms of what they did not do and, given their own aims and assumptions, had no reason to attempt –​rather than asking what we might learn from their own distinctive approach.

Notes 1 I do not believe that the following account of European society in this period would be controversial, although there would of course be considerable disagreement about how best to understand the phenomena described here. In what follows, I am especially indebted to Brundage 2008, Southern 1995, and van Caenegem 1988. 2 We are accustomed to speak of a natural law, but scholastic jurists and theologians in this period commonly refer to natural right (jus), or a right of nature, rather than to natural law (lex) or law of nature. What is more, a number of them call attention to the distinction between right and law, identifying right with a principle of equity or justice, and identifying law with a legal enactment, or other formulation of a just claim. This distinction is not always relevant to our overall understanding of natural law and natural right, but it should be flagged, if only because the scholastics themselves do so. 3 For a standard, and very useful, survey of the history of natural law thought, see d’Entrèves 1970. Detailed treatments of scholastic discussions of the natural law up to Aquinas include Grabmann 1926, Lottin 1931, Weigand 1967, and Crowe 1977, 192–​245. For further details, including a more extensive bibliography, see J. Porter 1999,  66–​75. 4 For more details on the scholastic concept of natural law and its relation to medieval conceptions of nature, including further references, see J. Porter 1999, 66–​75. I discuss patristic conceptions of the natural law in J. Porter 1999, 124–​129. 5 For an overview of patristic thought on the natural law, including fuller discussions of the authors cited here, see Carlyle 1903–​1936, i:102–​110. 6 I take this from Migne 1841–​1855, cxiv:475–​476; I also checked the facsimile text published as the Biblia latina cum glossa ordinaria, vol.

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192 Jean Porter iv in 1992. The Ordinary Gloss later came to be attributed, wrongly, to Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), and is published under his name in Migne. 7 This text is excerpted, in Latin, in Lottin 1931, 109–​110. 8 Southern (1995, 1–​57) emphasizes this point. In addition, see J. Porter 1999, 129–​146. 9 Collationes de decem praeceptis i 2.2. 10 I am particularly indebted to Southern’s analysis of the interconnection between these social and institutional developments and the emergence of scholasticism as an intellectual movement; see Southern 1995, especially 198–​231, and for further details and documentation, J. Porter 1999,  34–​41. 11 Southern 1995, 144–​145. 12 In general, see J. Porter 1999, 247–​258; on the indebtedness of the scholastics to Cicero, see Nederman 1988 and 1991. 13 De perfectione evangelica 3.1 Similarly, Albert the Great says that even though marriage was instituted by God, it has subsequently been shaped by both divine and human law; see De sacramentis 9.6. 14 Summa aurea iii.18.1 15 De bono v, 1.3 ad 6 16 ST ii–​ii q. 66, a. 1; the scriptural reference is to Genesis 1.26 17 ST ii–​ii q. 66, a. 7; on the conventional character of private property, see ST ii–​ii q. 66, a. 2 ad 1. 18 On the classical and patristic antecedents to the scholastic sexual ethic, see Brundage 1987, 77–​123. For a more detailed account of the scholastics’ views on sexual ethics, with fuller textual citations, see J. Porter 1999, 190–​199. 19 See, for example, Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis i.8.13 20 See Brundage 1987, 262, for further details. 21 For a good account of the influence of Catharism and similar movements on the sexual ethics of this period, see Noonan 1965, 211–​244; also see Brundage 1987, 429–​431. 22 For a discussion of Abelard’s view, see Brundage 1987, 203; cf. Peter Abelard 1971, 18–​24. In addition, see William of Auxerre, Summa aurea iv.17.1 and Aquinas, ST ii–​ii q. 153, a. 2, especially ad 2. 23 Brian Tierney offers a good overview of this position, which he goes on to refute, in Tierney 1997, 13–​42.

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Law 193 24 Tierney 1997, 43–​77; Reid 1991 and, in greater detail, 2004. 25 Tierney 1997, 54–​58; for more general accounts of the expansion and development of legal activities and fora in this period, see Southern 1995, 134–​162, 237–​282, and Brundage 2008, 75–​125. 26 Tierney 1997, 65–​66; more generally, see 58–​69. 27 Tierney 1997, 74.

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9 Freedom without Choice: Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom Tobias Hoffmann Medieval authors generally agreed that we have the freedom to choose among alternative possibilities. But most medieval authors also thought that there are situations in which one cannot do otherwise, not even will otherwise. They also thought that when willing necessarily, the will remains free. The questions, then, are what grounds the necessity or contingency of the will’s acts, and –​since freedom is not defined by the ability to choose –​what belongs to the essential character of freedom, the ratio libertatis? I  will begin by providing the background in Augustine and in two theologians who helped transmit some core Augustinian ideas. Then I will examine a few significant accounts between William of Auxerre and William of Ockham.1

9.1  Augustine and Two (Quasi-​) Augustinians No one shaped discussions of free will in the Latin West more than Augustine (354–​430). Two of his teachings were key for later medieval theories of free will apart from choice. The first concerns degrees of free will (libertas voluntatis, liberum arbitrium; Augustine’s terminology varies):  Adam, the first man, had the freedom of will to be able not to sin; but the blessed in heaven have the much greater freedom of being unable to sin. Analogously, Adam was able not to die (so long as he did not sin); but the blessed have the much greater immortality of being unable to die (De correptione et gratia 12.33; Enchiridion 28.105; De civitate Dei 22.30). Since God and the blessed, who cannot sin, have free will, Augustine does not define it by the ability either to sin or not (Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 6.10; cf. 5.38). And yet it is by free will that one either sins or not (e.g. De 194

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 195 correptione et gratia 1.2, 11.32). Thus, Augustine connects two ideas with free will:  freedom from the servitude of sin (cf. John 8:31–​36) and control of one’s acts. Augustine’s second influential teaching is that free will is compatible with necessity, provided that what is necessary is not against one’s will, such as the necessity of death (De civitate Dei 5.10). The necessity by which the blessed can live only well and cannot sin is no threat to freedom: on the contrary, it is a “blessed necessity” that grounds “true freedom” (De perfectione iustitiae hominis 4.9).2 The impact of these ideas on later medieval thinkers was partially mediated by two theologians who were deeply influenced by Augustine (although they never cite him in their treatises on free will):  Anselm of Canterbury (1033–​1109) and Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–​ 1153). Anselm insists that “the ability to sin is neither freedom nor a part of freedom”; if it were, then neither God nor the blessed angels would have freedom of decision. Anselm carefully avoids saying that anyone is free to sin. The evil angel “sinned by his decision that was free, but not on account of its being free” (De libertate arbitrii [DLA] 2). Anselm defines freedom of decision (libertas arbitrii) as “the ability to preserve rectitude of the will for the sake of rectitude” (DLA 3, 13).3 Most later medieval authors agree with Anselm that freedom does not consist in the ability to sin or not.4 But they prefer to define freedom of decision differently, emphasizing more the idea of control. Bernard of Clairvaux develops central Augustinian insights in a way that allows for conceiving freedom not only as ordered to the good, but also as control. The ideas of goodness and control, however, now come apart. Bernard distinguishes three types of freedom:  freedom from necessity, from sin, and from misery. He also expresses these in positive terms, as freedom of decision (libertas arbitrii), which belongs to our natural constitution; freedom of counsel (libertas consilii), which is a gift of grace and prevents freedom of decision from willing evil; and freedom of delight (libertas complaciti), which belongs to the state of glory in heaven and guarantees that freedom of decision

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196 Tobias Hoffmann does not lack what it wills (De gratia et libero arbitrio [DGLA] 3.6–​7; 6.20; 7.21). Freedom of decision means to act of one’s own accord (sponte), not by some foreign impulse; in fact, it is freedom from external necessity (DGLA 4.9). As for Augustine, so also for Bernard, the second and third types of freedom have degrees: being able not to sin and being able not to be distressed, as opposed to being unable to sin and being unable to be distressed (DGLA 7.21). Bernard sharply distinguishes these two types from freedom of decision (DGLA 3.6; 4.11). Contrary to Augustine, he insists that freedom of decision cannot be increased or diminished; in fact, according to Bernard it is found equally in God and in rational creatures, in the just and in sinners, in this life and in the next (DGLA 4.9; 7.21; 8.24; 9.28; 9.30). Bernard adopts Augustine’s and Anselm’s view that freedom of decision is not the power to choose between good and evil. But Bernard in point of fact disconnects freedom of decision from the good: the bad angels have freedom of decision even though they cannot choose good. What makes the will free is not that it acts well, but merely that it acts willingly (DGLA 10.35). Only the second and third types of freedom, then, are essentially ordered to the good.

9.2  From William of Auxerre to Bonaventure Theologians in the thirteenth century or later are familiar with the ideas expounded above, in part thanks to Peter Lombard’s summary discussion in book 2 distinction 25 of his Sententiae, a sort of textbook which served in theology formation from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. William of Auxerre (c. 1140–​1231) asks in which sense free decision, which he understands as the power to choose (Summa aurea 2.10.2; William of Auxerre 1980–​1986, i:276–​277), is free. Is the freedom (libertas) of free decision absence of coercion, the ability to turn to either alternative (namely good or evil), or the ability to turn to what one wants? (Summa aurea 2.10.4; William of Auxerre 1980–​1986, i:283.) William distinguishes between necessity of inevitability and necessity of external coercion, which allows him to understand Bernard’s freedom from necessity more precisely

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 197 as freedom from coercion. The freedom of free decision, then, is freedom from coercion, which unlike the other two candidates is found in everyone who has free decision (William of Auxerre 1980–​ 1986, i:284). Theologians writing from the 1220s to the 1240s pick up William’s question about the freedom of free decision. Philip the Chancellor (d. 1236) discusses William’s three candidates but ends up defining freedom as the ability not to be subject to a deficiency except by one’s own accord (Summa de bono; Philip the Chancellor 1985, i:183–​189). Hugh of St. Cher (d. 1263), the first Dominican master, identifies freedom with the ability to do what one wants (Sent. 2.25; Hugh of St. Cher 2013, 230). Albert the Great (c. 1200–​ 1280) understands freedom in one sense as the ability to turn to either alternative, in another sense as the ability to do what one wants, and in a third sense as Anselm’s ability to conserve rectitude for its own sake (De homine; Albert the Great 1951–, xxvii/​ 2:520b). After William of Auxerre it becomes standard to replace Bernard’s freedom from necessity with freedom from coercion and to consider free decision to be compatible with necessity of immutability. Bonaventure (1221–​ 1274), for example, writes that God, Christ, the angels, and the blessed have free decision although they cannot will evil. Bonaventure clarifies, however, that even when willing something necessarily, free decision requires that one wills “by one’s own command,” which he explains as willing one’s own willing, moving oneself to will, being one’s own master in willing. In contrast, the ability to choose among alternatives is not essential to free decision as such, only to a special type of free decision, which Bonaventure calls “free decision as deliberating” as opposed to the general notion of “free decision as free” (Sent. 2.25.2.1.2 in corp.; Bonaventure 1882–​1902, ii:612–​613). In contemporary terms, for Bonaventure a necessary condition for free decision is sourcehood (that is, being the source of one’s act, which for Bonaventure involves the will’s self-​motion), not the ability to do otherwise.

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198 Tobias Hoffmann

9.3  Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas (1224/​5–​1274) develops a theory of free will as compatible with necessity that initially resembles Bonaventure’s. There are, however, differences, which theologians of the following generation amplify. Aquinas adopts various senses of freedom, without attempting to relate them to a core idea of freedom.5 A basic assumption of Aquinas’s moral psychology is that the will is a “rational appetite” (appetitus rationalis), that is, an appetitive power whose inclinations result from rational cognition. For Aquinas, this implies two things regarding the things we love (that is, the things we desire, choose, or enjoy): we can love only things in which we see some aspect of good, and we cannot help but love those things in which we see only good and no aspect of evil. Thus, according to Aquinas, we love happiness necessarily, provided we think about it (ST i–​ii, q. 10, a. 2; De malo q. 6 in corp., Leonine xxiii:150a). (A further explanation of why we desire happiness necessarily is that our will is by nature ordered toward happiness; De veritate q. 22, a. 5 in corp.; ST i, q. 82, a. 1.) The blessed, who have direct knowledge of God, love God necessarily, for they see that he is good from every perspective. In contrast, in this life we have only imperfect knowledge of God, and so we do not love him necessarily (ST i, q. 62, a. 8; q. 82, a. 2). God, too, loves himself necessarily, because his will is by nature ordered toward his essence (ST i, q. 19, a. 3). God’s self-​love grounds the so-​called “spiration” of the Holy Spirit, that is, his procession from the Father and the Son (ST i, q. 27, aa. 3–​4; q. 36, a. 2; q. 41, a. 2 ad 3); for Aquinas and his contemporaries, spiration is another prime example of necessary acts of the will. In sum, according to Aquinas, necessary willing is rooted in the nature of the will and in the knowledge of an all-​encompassing good. He occasionally expresses the root of necessity in terms of “determination,” either a determination by nature (De veritate q. 22, a. 5 ad 2 and ad s.c. 5) or a determination by the object known as good from every perspective (De malo q. 6 in corp., Leonine xxiii:149b–​150a).

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 199 Although these acts of the will are necessary and not subject to choice, Aquinas considers them to be free (see, e.g., De potentia q. 10, a.  2 ad 5; Contra doctrinam retrahentium a religione 13, Leonine xli.c:64b). Augustine’s De civitate Dei 5.10 is Aquinas’s preferred authority in confirmation that certain kinds of necessity are compatible with the will and with freedom (e.g. De veritate q. 22, a. 5 in corp.). Like his contemporaries, Aquinas holds that what is contrary to freedom is violence or coercion (violentia vel coactio). Violence and coercion impede a thing’s natural movement; for example, throwing a stone upward is violent because it impedes the stone’s natural fall. But when the will acts necessarily, its own inclination is not violated, and hence it is that we freely desire happiness, that God freely loves himself, and that the Holy Spirit is freely produced (De potentia q. 10, a. 2 ad 5). Physical movements can be coerced, but the will’s inclinations cannot. The will can only be moved by its own inclination; in other words, the will is always the source (principium) of its act (“sourcehood”). One cannot be coerced to will something voluntarily (De veritate q. 22, a. 5 in corp. and ad 2; ST i, q. 6, a. 4). Even the fallen angels, who immutably persist in their act of turning away from God, persist voluntarily and so are free in the basic sense of being uncoerced (De malo q. 16, a. 5 ad 8). Voluntariness is in fact partly defined by freedom from coercion; in addition, voluntariness requires that a person be aware of relevant circumstances. Thus not every action that is free from coercion is also voluntary; if I  shoot a passerby, ignorant through no fault of my own that someone is passing by, I do so involuntarily (ST i–​ii, q. 6, aa. 1–​2, 8). The highest degree of voluntariness, which Aquinas calls “voluntariness in the perfect sense,” is when one knows not only a thing that is an end (that is, worthy of pursuit), but also the reason why it is an end (ratio finis) and how certain things are ordered to the end (ST i–​ii, q. 6, a. 2; cf. De veritate q. 24, a. 1, in corp.). In a minimal sense, then, free will is freedom from coercion; thus free will presupposes sourcehood, but not the ability to do otherwise. Aquinas usually reserves the term free will (libera voluntas,

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200 Tobias Hoffmann also libertas voluntatis) for this broad notion of freedom. (It is what Bonaventure calls free decision, liberum arbitrium). Alternative possibilities are required, however, by free will in the narrow sense of freedom of choice, which Aquinas calls free decision (see especially De malo q.  16, a.  5 in corp.). (Bonaventure calls it free decision as deliberating.)6 Terminological differences aside, Aquinas understands sourcehood differently from Bonaventure; for Aquinas the will’s necessary acts do not spring from its self-​motion, as Bonaventure holds, but rather from a determination, either by the will’s own nature or by the intellect’s cognition. While in one sense the will is always free because it cannot be coerced, Aquinas also has a notion of freedom that requires more. According to Aristotle’s teaching recalled by Aquinas, coercion in the strict sense means that the source of action is entirely outside, bare of any contribution from the one suffering coercion. This is the kind of coercion that the will cannot undergo. Coercion in a broader sense includes what Aristotle calls mixed voluntary actions, which are done under duress or from fear. When one acts under duress, one still acts voluntarily (ST i–​ii, q. 6, a. 6; cf. NE 3.1, 1110a4–​19), but one is not fully free, for one acts not by one’s will, but against it, only to avoid a greater evil (Sent. 3, d. 34, a. 2, q. 2, qc. 1 in corp.; Summa contra Gentiles 4.22 n.  3588). A  further sense of freedom, then, is freely doing what one wants (ST ii–​ii, q. 162, a. 4 ad 4; De perfectione spiritualis vitae 10) –​a sense considered by William of Auxerre, preferred by Hugh of St. Cher, and adopted by Albert as one of several senses. Freedom as lack of coercion or as doing what one wants has no relation to the true good; in fact, this freedom can be experienced in search of something merely apparently good (SCG 4.22 n. 3589), and as we have seen, it is even experienced by the fallen angels who permanently reject the true good. But this is not “true freedom,” for true freedom –​which Aquinas also calls “spiritual freedom” –​makes reference to the true good. True freedom is freedom from sin, because it allows us to tend to what suits us (ST ii–​ii, q. 183, a. 4 in corp.),

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 201 freeing us from what separates us from the good (Sent. 2, d. 25, a. 1, q.  5 ad 2). Citing St. Paul, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17), Aquinas writes that someone who turns away from the good acts slavishly, whereas the Holy Spirit, through the gift of charity, confers on a person the freedom to be inclined to the true good (SCG 4.22 n. 3589; ST ii–​ii, q. 183, a. 4 ad 1). The necessity to will or do the good, then, does not threaten free will; but Aquinas says more:  it enhances free will (SCG 3.138 n. 3120; ST i, q. 62, a. 8 ad 3; ST ii–​ii, q. 88, a. 4 ad 1). In addition to the grounds of necessity considered above, a certain necessity to do the good can result from a freely taken initiative, such as when someone is made firm in the good through virtue (SCG 3.138 n. 3120) or when someone commits to something good by means of a promise or a vow. Although such self-​commitments make the corresponding acts in a sense necessary, they become thereby more praiseworthy and more meritorious (Contra doctrinam retrahentium a religione 13; ST ii–​ii, q. 88, a. 6). Aquinas frequently cites in this context Augustine’s Epistula 127 (n. 8):  “Fortunate is the necessity which compels to what is better!”

9.4  Henry of Ghent Bonaventure holds that the will’s necessary acts result from its self-​motion. Some theologians directly or indirectly influenced by Bonaventure elaborate this point. Peter Olivi (c. 1248–​ 1298), for example, makes the will’s self-​motion the most essential feature of the will’s freedom and insists more strongly than Bonaventure that the will’s necessary acts (e.g. our desire for happiness) are self-​moved (Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum 57 ad 17, Peter of John Olivi 1922–​1926, ii:358–​359, 378). Henry of Ghent (d. 1293), the most prominent theologian in the two decades after Aquinas’s death, develops this idea systematically. Henry adopts Aquinas’s terminology:  only free decision (liberum arbitrium), but not free will (libertas voluntatis), requires the ability to choose among alternatives (Summa q. 45, a. 3 ad 1; q. 45, a. 4 in corp., Henry of Ghent 1979–​,

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202 Tobias Hoffmann xxix:120, 125).7 For Henry, it is clear that free will is compatible with necessity. But in contrast to Aquinas, he considers free will to be incompatible with determination of any sort, whether it be determination by nature or by the intellect. Henry explicitly draws out the implications of his theory of necessary willing for the ratio libertatis while discussing free but necessary willing regarding human freedom (Quodlibet 3.17) and, shortly thereafter and in more detail, regarding divine self-​love (Summa 45–​47).8 Henry gives a simple explanation of why God loves Himself necessarily: the end of any will whatever is God Himself, in whom there is the perfect character of every good; hence everything necessarily wants the good that is God, provided it knows Him; God knows Himself; so He necessarily loves Himself (Summa 47.5 in corp., XXX:25). The more crucial questions for Henry are why the divine will remains free in acting necessarily and by what kind of necessity it acts. Henry makes an important observation: considering the manner in which the will elicits its act (its modus eliciendi) is more essential to the problem of free will than considering which object its act is concerned with (Quod. 3.17 in corp., Henry of Ghent 1518, 78vG). Accordingly, regarding divine self-​love, he clarifies that the difficulty concerns not the necessity by which God wills a determinate object, but rather the necessity by which a will-​act springs forth from God’s will. Manifestly, God’s will-​act has necessarily the divine essence as its object. But by which necessity does the act of loving his essence spring forth from his will? (Summa 47.5 in corp., XXX:25–​26.) Henry excludes from the divine will the necessity imposed by something external by way of violence or coercion, for the same reason given by Aquinas:  the will essentially wills from an internal inclination, and so it cannot be moved against its inclination. In confirmation, Henry mentions Aristotle’s statement that what is necessary due to violence is unpleasant, and he quotes Averroes’s comment on this statement: “Willing [voluntas] is delightful, necessity is unpleasant.”9 (Summa 47.5 in corp., XXX:26–​27; cf. Quod. 3.17 in corp., Henry of Ghent 1518, 78vG.)

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 203 But not all types of necessity are incompatible with freedom. Henry takes up the standard distinction between necessity through coercion, which derives from something external, and necessity of immutability, which arises from an internal condition. For Henry it is crucial to further divide necessity of immutability into a necessity that is antecedent to the divine will and one that is concomitant with the divine will. Antecedent necessity would subordinate the divine will, and this would eliminate the freedom by which it elicits its act of love. Antecedent necessity is what characterizes nature (that is, a natural cause) as opposed to the will (that is, a free cause). In contrast, the necessity by which the divine will loves God Himself is concomitant to the will’s act, springing from the divine will itself; and this is what matters for Henry. While antecedent necessity would subordinate the will, concomitant necessity is subordinated to the will (Summa 47.5 co., XXX:27–​28). What Henry here expresses in terms of antecedent as opposed to concomitant necessity, he had expressed a few articles earlier in terms of determination as opposed to lack thereof. Determination destroys freedom because it removes agency: the inclination or direction of a determined thing has its source not in itself, but in what determines it (Summa 45.3 co., XXIX:111). Only the appetitive power of nonhuman animals is subject to determination:  their movement is determined by whatever happens to be in their perception. Thus, sheep invariably flee wolves and wolves invariably pursue sheep. In willing, nonhuman animals do not act, but rather are acted upon, as Henry writes, citing a popular phrase from John of Damascus. Hence their movement is not free, but slavish (Summa 45.3 in corp., XXIX:112–​117; 47.5 in corp., XXX:28). In contrast, passivity, that is, being moved from the outside, is foreign to any will, human, angelic, or divine; instead, the will is only moved by itself (Summa 45.2 in corp., XXIX:107–​109). Virtually no medieval theologian would hold that the divine will is determined by something external to God, but Henry insists that it is not even determined by the divine nature or the divine intellect (Summa 45.4 co., XXIX:126). In loving Himself, God’s will is not

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204 Tobias Hoffmann led by antecedent necessity to its act, but rather freely leads itself to its act of self-​love. The divine essence does not determine the will to love it, but only entices the will to lead itself to love it (Summa 46.3 ad 2, XXIX:146–​147). The concomitant necessity of God’s self-​love is freely self-​imposed by the divine will (Summa 47.5 co., XXX:29–​30); it results from the rigor of the will’s freedom (Summa 47.5 ad 1, XXX:33). But not all necessity in God is self-​imposed. The necessity by which God lives springs simply from His nature; the necessity by which He knows Himself springs from a determination of the intellect by its object, the divine essence; only the necessity by which He loves Himself derives neither from nature, nor from a determination by the willed object, but only from the “mode of freedom” in God’s will (Summa 47.5 co., XXX:32). Henry draws out the implications of his account of necessary willing for the ratio libertatis. Concomitant necessity does not eliminate the freedom of the will, but rather makes it firm, because the will elicits this act “with delight and as it were by choice” (delectabiliter et quasi eligibiliter) (Summa 47.5 co., XXX:28). This concise formula summarizes Henry’s view of the essence of freedom and its compatibility with necessity. “What belongs to the essential character of freedom, simply speaking, is not being able to will or not, as some people think, but only to will with delight [affectanter] and as it were by choice” (Summa 47.5 ad arg. in opp., XXX:34; cf. Quod. 3.17 ad 1, Henry of Ghent 1518, 79rI). In accordance with Averroes’s description of voluntariness we saw above, “with delight” expresses that the will is not subject to necessity of coercion. “As it were by choice” expresses that the will is not subject to antecedent necessity of immutability, but rather acts of its own accord (sponte), that is, without being led, only leading itself to its necessary act. Henry qualifies “by choice” (eligibiliter) with the adverb “as it were” (quasi) in order to allow the ratio libertatis to apply also to free will apart from choice. Like divine self-​love, the love of God by the blessed in heaven is necessary and free in the sense just described (Summa 45.4, XXIX:126;

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 205 47.5, XXX:28, 30; Quod. 3.17 in corp. and ad 1, Henry of Ghent 1518, 78vG, 79rK). In both cases, the necessity of the will’s act in no way results from a determination by the intellect or by nature. Natural necessity –​ necessity rooted in a natural cause rather than in the will –​is incompatible with the will and its freedom (Summa 45.3 ad 2, XXiX:121). At most, natural necessity can be in a certain sense attached (annexa) to the will’s act, yet without preventing the will from freely eliciting its act. This is the case with the act by which the divine will spirates the Holy Spirit (Summa 60.1 ad 4, Henry of Ghent 1520 II.157vI–L). Throughout his writings, Henry denies that the will is determined, that is, moved, by the desirable object. Rather, the will moves itself to its acts, including its necessary acts such as the enjoyment of the beatific vision.10 For Henry, the will moves itself not merely in some incidental sense, for example by moving the intellect which in turn moves the will, as some of his contemporaries hold; rather, in his view the will moves itself in the strict sense, reducing itself from potentiality to actuality.11 To be sure, this presupposes knowledge of a desirable object, but the causality of the desirable object and of the intellect presenting it –​even in the will’s necessary acts –​is merely a “causa per accidens et sine qua non” –​ an incidental cause without which the will does not act (e.g. Quod. 9.5 in corp., XIII:123; Quod. 12.26 in corp., XVI:152–​153; Quod. 13.11 in corp., XvIII:88).

9.5  Godfrey of Fontaines The theologian most opposed to Henry’s views on freedom is Godfrey of Fontaines (before 1250–​1306?). Godfrey rejects Henry’s view that the will’s act is essentially caused by the will itself while knowledge of the desirable object is only a causa sine qua non. The implied assumption, that the will moves itself from potentiality to actuality, is contradictory: the will would be in act and not in act in the same respect. Instead, for Godfrey, the will’s act is essentially caused by the object known as desirable (Quod. 6.7 in corp., Godfrey of Fontaines 1914, 152–​154, 164, 170).

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206 Tobias Hoffmann Godfrey shares the standard view that freedom is compatible with necessity of immutability but not with necessity of coercion. The ratio libertatis does not include being able to will otherwise, only being the cause or source (causa vel principium) of one’s act, and so God’s necessary love of His happiness and the necessary love of God by the blessed are free (Quod. 8.16 in corp., Godfrey of Fontaines 1924–​1931, 162–​164). While for Henry it is the will’s self-​determination that is essential to sourcehood, for Godfrey it is the intellect’s knowledge: free acts presuppose that one is one’s own cause or source not merely “naturally” and hence without knowledge, like the free fall of a stone, nor merely by dint of knowing the thing that is an end, as non-​human animals do, but rather as a result of knowing the thing that is an end, knowing why it is an end (ratio finis) and knowing how things that promote the end are related to it. An act of justice presupposes freedom in precisely this sense: one must do what is just because it is just, and so one must understand what is just and why it is just (Quod. 8.16 in corp., p. 162). Godfrey, then, understands sourcehood in terms of Aquinas’s “voluntariness in the perfect sense.” Ultimately, the ratio libertatis is rooted in immateriality, for what makes it possible to know an end, why it is an end, and what promotes the end is separation from matter (abstractio). This applies to the intellect no less than to the will, and hence both powers are equally free (Quod. 8.16 in corp., pp. 147, 155). Alternative possibilities are not required for freedom, and not even for praiseworthiness: willing something good is praiseworthy even if one cannot will otherwise (Quod. 8.16 in corp., pp. 162–​164).

9.6  John Duns Scotus No one prior to John Duns Scotus (1265/​6–​1308) stressed so strongly the contingency of our willing, that is, our ability to will otherwise. His position is thus in stark contrast to Godfrey’s account of free will, which Scotus in fact subjects to a detailed critique (Lect. 2, d. 25, q. un., nn. 28–​37, 40–​50). But Scotus admits that there are cases of necessary willing which are nonetheless free. While his

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 207 explanation of the compatibility between freedom and necessity is similar to Henry’s, he shifts the emphasis from the psychology of intellect and will toward the metaphysics of the distinction between nature and will. Scotus makes the novel claim that human psychology does not entail that we desire happiness necessarily and that the blessed in heaven love God necessarily (Ord. 1, d.  1, pars 2, q.  2, nn. 143–​ 145). To prove this claim, he postulates an axiom that one power has only one mode of originating or eliciting its acts, namely, by natural necessity or freely. In other words, a single power either elicits all its acts by natural necessity or it elicits all its acts freely. Thus, for Scotus, it is not possible that the will wills “the end” by natural necessity, but “what promotes the end” freely, as Aquinas had held (ST i, q. 82, a. 2; i–​ii, q. 10, a. 2). (“The end” or “ultimate end” is in different respects God and happiness; see Aquinas, ST i–​ii, q. 1, a. 8; Scotus, Ord. 1, d. 1, pars 2, q. 2, n. 82.) Scotus argues that since it is manifest that the human will wills what promotes the end freely, it must be the case that it also wills the end freely. If this is so in this life, then it is so as well for the blessed, whose will is not different from ours; hence even the blessed will (that is, love) God freely (Ord. 1, d. 1, pars 2, q. 2, nn. 80, 136). Freedom here means the ability to will the end (velle) or not (non velle). To will against (nolle) the end, however, is impossible, since the end contains no aspect of evil (Lect. 1, d. 1, pars 2, q. 2, n. 118; Ord. 1, d. 1, pars 2, q. 2, nn. 147, 149–​151; Quod. q. 16, nn. 20, 22, Noone and Roberts 2007). If the will elicits its acts freely and never changes its mode of eliciting its acts, what makes the final reward and punishment eternal? Scotus’s answer is that while the freedom of the blessed would allow them not to love God, God prevents them by His grace from turning away from Him (Ord. 4, d. 49, pars 1, q. 6, nn. 348–​371). And while the freedom of the damned would allow them to suspend their act of evil willing (Ord. 2, d. 7, q. un., nn. 70–​75), God refuses to give them the grace required for meritorious acts by which they would return to God (Ord. 2, d. 7, q. un., nn. 51–​54, 60).

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208 Tobias Hoffmann Scotus provides a further reason why, divine intervention aside, rational creatures do not will anything necessarily. A  necessary act of the will requires three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions: the will must be infinite, for only an infinite will cannot fail to be morally right (recta) and cannot suspend its willing of the perfectly known infinite good; the object must be an infinite good; and the object must be perfectly known. Rational creatures obviously fail to meet at least the first of these conditions. But these conditions are met in the cases of divine self-​love and the spiration of the Holy Spirit (Lect. 1, d.  10, q.  un., n.  26; Ord. 1, d.  10, q.  un., nn. 47–​49; Quod. q. 16, nn. 6–​7, 13, 30). Although divine self-​love and spiration are necessary, Scotus argues that they are free. He shows this again by means of the axiom that one power has only one mode of eliciting its act. God wills creatures contingently, and since contingency implies freedom, he wills them freely. (For Scotus, contingency implies freedom, but freedom does not imply contingency.12) Given this axiom, since God wills creatures freely, it must be the case that He also wills His own goodness freely (Quod. q. 16, n. 36; cf. Ord. 1, d. 10, n. 44). Scotus’s two applications of this axiom turn out to be asymmetrical:  in creatures, the fact that some volitions are contingent shows that all are contingent; in God, the fact that some volitions are contingent does not show that all are contingent, only that all are free. Scotus’s axiom warrants the conclusion that the human will wills everything freely, but not the stronger claim that it wills everything contingently.13 In fact, what grounds this axiom is an idea already encountered in Henry of Ghent: what primarily differentiates active powers is their mode of eliciting their acts, rather than being concerned with this or that object (Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum 9, q.  15, n.  21; Ord. 1, d.  1, pars 2, q.  2, n.  80). There are only two such different modes: eliciting naturally or freely; accordingly, there are only two most general kinds of active principle: nature and will (Q. met. 9, q. 15, n. 22; Quod. q. 16, nn. 56, 62). So the fundamentally different ways of eliciting an act are “naturally

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 209 vs. freely,” not “necessarily vs. contingently” (Quod. q.  16, n.  40). Necessity in general is compatible with the will and its freedom; only natural necessity is not. What does it mean, then, to will freely when one wills necessarily, albeit not by natural necessity? Scotus’s answer is indebted to Henry’s discussion of God’s necessary self-​ love, which Scotus knows very well and expounds accurately, citing also Henry’s formula expressing the ratio libertatis (Quod. q. 16, nn. 42–​46). A natural power is determined to act, whereas the will is never determined to act, but rather determines itself to its act, even when it wills necessarily (Quod. q. 16, nn. 63–​64). Scotus’s account of necessary but free willing is broadly in agreement with Henry’s; Scotus only rejects Henry’s claim that natural necessity accompanies the spiration of the Holy Spirit (Quod. q. 16, nn. 52–​53; Ord. 1, d. 10, nn. 25–​29). It appears, then, that for Scotus, freedom is essentially to act by will, not by nature. To act by will is to act from self-​ determination, that is, “as it were by choice” in Henry’s formula. Only in rational creatures, but not in God, does self-​determination entail contingency.

9.7  Peter Auriol A fundamentally different approach to freedom is taken by Peter Auriol (c. 1280–​1322). While Scotus attached no importance to the part in Henry’s formula that identifies freedom with delight, this is the only part that matters for Auriol. Auriol discusses the ratio libertatis primarily in connection with the love of God by the blessed. According to Auriol, for the will to love an object necessarily, it suffices that the object be infinite goodness and that it be sufficiently known. Thus, the blessed love God necessarily, but here on earth we do not love God necessarily, because we have only imperfect knowledge of God (Sent. 1.1.8.3 nn. 122–​123, 130, Peter Auriol 1952). It poses not the least problem for Auriol to call the love of the blessed free. Freedom is not defined by contingency; rather, “the

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210 Tobias Hoffmann formal character of freedom consists in a power through an act of complacentia and delight” (Sent. 1.1.8.3 n. 114). Complacentia has a different meaning than the English word complacency; for Auriol, complacentia and delight mean the same thing, although with different connotations (Sent. 1.1.7.1 n. 68; see also n. 54). Auriol’s understanding of complacentia seems influenced by Aquinas, who posited a sequence of three acts of love in the sensory appetite or the will (ST i–​ii, q.  26, aa. 1–​2). According to Auriol, the perception of a desirable object that is still absent already causes a certain delight or complacentia; this is the first act of love. Second, since the object pleases, one desires it. Lastly, when one attains the object, the appetite rests in it; and this rest causes delight or complacentia more fully than the first act (Sent. 1.1.7.1 n.  51; 1.1.8.3 n. 120; 1.17.1.2, Peter Auriol 1596, 412bC). Most often when Auriol speaks of complacentia, he refers to this third act of love by which the sensory appetite or the will rests in a present good. In this sense, it is the love by which the lover is united to the loved object, an object that is suitable (conveniens) (Sent. 1.46.2, 1093aa, af–​ba; 1.17.1.2, 411bd–​e); it is love of a present good that is the end, that satiates, and that offers rest (finit, satiat, et quietat) (Sent. 1.46.2, 1091af–​ba). Auriol provides a number of arguments why complacentia is the essential character of freedom. According to Aristotle, to be free is to be for one’s own sake, as opposed to slaves who are for the sake of their master (Metaphysics 1.3, 982b25–​26). The only act that is for its own sake is the act of complacentia; in fact: “Ask someone why he or she does whatever act, and the answer will be ‘because I like it’; ask the person further why he or she likes it, and the answer will be the same: ‘just because I like it’ ” (Sent. 1.1.8.3 n.  114). Another argument is reminiscent of Henry of Ghent’s ideas: what is formally free is opposed to what is formally violent; but what is done with displeasure (displacentia) is said to be done violently and not freely; so, by negation, an act of complacentia is formally free (Sent. 1.1.8.3 n. 116). Freedom so understood even

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 211 extends to non-​human animals, as Auriol remarks (Sent. 1.1.8.3 n. 120). To further support his notion of freedom, Auriol insists on the compatibility of freedom with necessity. He argues that a power that does not control whether it acts or not is still a free power, as long as there is complacentia. In fact, God’s self-​love is immutable and the spiration of the Holy Spirit occurs by natural necessity, and yet these are eminently free acts because they involve complacentia. While in these acts there is necessity with freedom, in events of natural agents there is contingency without freedom; hence contingency is not part of the ratio libertatis (Sent. 1.1.8.3 n. 118). The fact that Auriol holds that the Holy Spirit is produced by natural necessity already indicates a fundamental disagreement with the theory expressed in the second part of Henry’s formula, that the will is free insofar as it elicits its act “as it were by choice.” Auriol furthermore disagrees with this part of Henry’s formula because for Auriol, freedom does not require that the will elicits its act; in fact, he holds that God’s will does not elicit its act of willing at all, and yet it is free. The divine will is identical with the divine essence; hence its act is no more elicited than is the divine essence. God’s willing is subsistent willing, not elicited willing that inheres in the divine essence (Sent. 1.46.1, 1087af–​1088aa). But the denial that the divine will elicits its act of willing does not diminish the freedom of this act, precisely because freedom consists simply in complacentia (Sent. 1.46.1, 1088aB–​D). Clearly, then, for Auriol what is most essential to freedom is which object the will is concerned with, not in which way it elicits its act, pace Henry and Scotus. Freedom requires that the loved object be present, causing the will to rest in it. And freedom in a sense also requires sourcehood, for by nature, complacentia cannot be imposed, but rather must be of one’s own accord (spontaneus) (Sent. 1.1.8.3 n. 133). One may have reservations about the soundness of Auriol’s arguments for identifying freedom with complacentia.14 But the claim itself is plausible: when one possesses a loved good, one is free.

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212 Tobias Hoffmann Auriol’s notion of freedom also expresses Aquinas’s notion of “true freedom,” which is freedom from sin, that is, from what separates us from the good. Similarly to Augustine and Aquinas, Auriol holds that necessity can be beneficial to the moral quality of the will: “there is greater perfection in the will when it is drawn to the good in an unchangeable way, rather than in a changeable way” (Sent. 2.7.1, Peter Auriol 1605, I:89bE).

9.8  William of Ockham All the thinkers considered so far agree that freedom and necessity are compatible; for them, the question is only which kind of freedom is compatible with which kind of necessity. Contrary to them all, William of Ockham (c. 1285–​1347) argues that freedom is incompatible with necessity. He clarifies his theory of freedom above all in the contexts that were traditionally seen as cases of necessary yet free willing. Using Scotus as a foil, Ockham argues that since divine self-​ love and spiration are necessary, they are not free acts. For Ockham, freedom is most properly defined by contingency, in the sense of having in one’s power alternative possibilities, since according to Ockham this is how freedom was understood by Aristotle and other authoritative philosophers. Scotus’s axiom that one power has only one mode of eliciting its acts is worthless to show that divine self-​ love and spiration are free; in fact, according to Ockham, this axiom, which Scotus uses to argue that all acts of the will are free, could be equally used to argue that all acts of the will are necessary. Ockham furthermore denies, like Auriol, that God’s will elicits any acts; so Scotus’s attempt to show that God’s will elicits its act freely is misdirected to begin with (Sent. 1, d. 10, q. 2, OTh iii:335–​338, 341, 343–​344). Ockham’s own definition of freedom is “the ability by which I can indifferently and contingently posit different things, such that I can either cause or not cause the same effect, even if no difference

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 213 is found outside of this ability” (Quodlibet 1.16, OTh ix:87; cf. Sent. 1, d. 1, q. 6, OTh i:501; 4, q. 16, OTh vii:359). Ockham stresses here that in situations that allow for making a choice, it depends entirely on myself which alternative I choose. Like Scotus –​but for different reasons –​Ockham thinks that we want happiness freely and that the blessed love God freely, that is, contingently. For Ockham, we can love happiness or not, and we can even will against (nolle) happiness, because we can consider happiness to be impossible (Sent. 1, d. 1, q. 6, OTh i:503; 4, q. 16, OTh vii:350). The blessed could want God not to exist (nolle Deum) even while contemplating the divine essence, because His existence could become detestable to them if they falsely thought that God might still punish them (Sent. 1, d.  1, q.  6, OTh i:505–​506). The blessed could also hate God, because God could command them to do so, and whatever is commanded is possible (Sent. 4, q. 16, OTh vii:352). As to the damned, their free will would allow them to suspend the act of wanting not to be punished and of hating God, for the will is free to impede every one of its own acts (Sent. 2, q. 15, OTh v:339–​340). Scotus held that the beatifying act of the blessed and the sinful acts of the damned are as such contingent, but that the bestowal or refusal of God’s grace makes blessedness or damnation permanent. Ockham, too, thinks that their acts are as such contingent, but he goes beyond Scotus, as appears most clearly in his discussion of the permanent states of the blessed and damned angels. Ockham holds that God is the total and immediate cause of their love or hatred of God –​or at least of the act by which the blessed want not to sin and the act by which the damned want not to be punished (Sent. 2, q. 15, OTh v:339–​346; 4, q. 16, OTh vii:352). Because the blessed or damned are not even a partial cause of these acts, these acts are not free. Only acts that are not totally caused by God remain free: the evil angels are free to tempt humans or not; the good angels are free to protect humans or not (Sent. 2, q. 15, OTh v:344–​345). According to Ockham, there is nothing scandalous in holding that God causes others to hate Him: God does not sin in doing so, for God Himself is not bound by

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214 Tobias Hoffmann any precept. In fact, He does not owe anything to anyone, and so He cannot do anything He must not do. Besides, hatred is evil only so long as it is against a divine precept. When God commands it, it can even be meritorious (Sent. 2, q. 15, OTh v:343, 347, 352–​353).15 Ockham clarifies that those acts of the blessed or damned that are totally caused by God are necessitated, but not coerced, for their wills do not have a natural inclination toward the contrary. Furthermore, even though these acts are not caused by their own wills, it is still their wills that want them (Sent. 2, q.  15, OTh v:341, 351). Still, as Ockham objects to himself, it seems that if God causes the acts of the blessed, they are less free than before, contrary to what Augustine and other “saints” hold. Ockham responds by distinguishing five senses of freedom: freedom (1) from the servitude of sin, (2)  from the servitude of misery, (3)  from the servitude of punishment, (4)  from coercion, and (5)  from immutability (which is Ockham’s own preferred notion of freedom: the ability to choose among alternatives). The damned lack the first three types of freedom, but have the last two types regarding those acts that are not totally caused by God. The blessed are free regarding the first four types, and actually freer than when they were on earth. Even their freedom from coercion is greater than before: on earth, only their internal acts (that is, their volitions) cannot be coerced; in heaven, not even their external acts can be coerced. As regards the fifth type, the blessed are free only as to those acts that are not totally caused by God, and so in this sense they are less free than when they were able to sin or not; yet this restriction is no imperfection (In Sent. 2, q. 15, OTh v:349–​350, 354–​356; cf. Sent. 1, d. 1, q. 6, OTh i:501–​502).

9.9 Conclusion The word freedom has many senses, most of which are metaphorical. Originally, freedom was a political term denoting the opposite of servitude –​a word which itself came to be used mostly metaphorically.

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Medieval Theories of the Essence of Freedom 215 In the Latin medieval tradition, of which modern and contemporary philosophy is the heir, the primary psychological sense of freedom became free will, which only presupposes being the source of one’s act. Some thinkers emphasized that sourcehood requires certain knowledge conditions; others demanded the will’s self-​ motion. However understood, sourcehood is only a minimal condition for free will, and as such it is indifferent regarding good and evil. Medieval theologians generally affirmed also a richer notion of freedom, which makes reference to the good, such that free will increases to the extent that one acts well and attains what one desires. In both these senses, free will is compatible with necessity. Yet for the most part, medieval theologians are not compatibilists in the contemporary sense, for they generally held that moral responsibility –​at least for evil –​presupposes the ability to do otherwise, and hence not merely free will, but also free choice.

Notes 1 While this chapter concerns medieval theories of free will apart from choice, elsewhere I discuss primarily free choice; see Hoffmann forthcoming, chs. 1–​5. 2 For a recent study of Augustine’s theory of free will, see Jenkins 2012. 3 For more details and discussion, see Williams and Visser 2001. 4 A minority rejected Anselm’s theory that freedom excludes the ability to sin, for example Peter Lombard, Sent. 2.25.8 n. 8 (Peter Lombard 1971–​ 1981, i:468), and most outspokenly Peter Olivi; see Kent 2017. 5 See Spiering 2015. 6 For a more detailed account of Aquinas’s general notion of free will in contrast with free decision, see Hoffmann and Michon 2017, 1–​8. 7 All further references to Henry are by volume and page number in Henry of Ghent 1979–​, unless otherwise indicated. 8 In Quod. 14.5, a late text, Henry takes a different approach to the ratio libertatis but fundamentally confirms his earlier account. For a discussion of this text, see Pickavé 2012b. 9 Averroes, In Met. 5 com. 6 (Averroes 1971, 100), commenting on Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.5, 1015a26–​30.

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216 Tobias Hoffmann 10 See, e.g., Quod. 9.5 in corp., XIII:132, 137; Quod. 11.6 ad 2, 457ro; Quod. 12.26 co., xvi:152–​153; Quod. 13.11 ad 2, xviii:98–​99, 103–​104. 11 See, e.g., Quod. 10.9 co., xiv:225; Quod. 13.11 ad 3, XVIII:125. Cf. Teske 1996. 12 See Quod. q. 16, n. 36, and Ord. 1, d. 1, pars 2, q. 2, n. 131. Contingency must be traced to a free power, that is, to a will, because only the will is truly a contingent cause, controlling whether it causes its effect or not (Ord. 1, d. 2, pars 1, qq. 1–​2, nn. 81, 86). On one occasion, Scotus writes that contingency does not require a free power, because it can result from natural causes being impeded (Quod. q. 16, n. 40). But this is no real counterexample, for as he has shown elsewhere, contingency due to impediments, without intervention of a free power, is at bottom necessity, not contingency (Ord. 1, d. 2, pars 1, qq. 1–​2, nn. 84, 87). 13 Most of Scotus’s direct disciples in fact rejected his claim that humans will the ultimate end contingently; see Alliney 2015, as well as earlier studies by Alliney cited there. 14 Walter Chatton (c. 1285–​1343) refutes Auriol’s arguments one by one; see his Lectura super sententias 1.10.2 nn. 42–​52, Walter Chatton  2007–​. 15 See Eric W. Hagedorn, 3.3.1 in this volume, and Adams 1999.

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10 Practical Reasoning M. V. Dougherty

Theologians, philosophers, and canonists of the medieval period generally considered success in practical reasoning to mean that an agent in a given situation avoided moral failure by performing an action that perfected the agent in some way. Many thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas, held that no actions by agents could be morally indifferent; as performed in particular circumstances, all actions are either good or bad (De malo q. 2, a. 5, in corp.). As success in practical reasoning was understood to have profound implications not only for an agent’s temporal happiness, but also for the agent’s prospects for avoiding eternal damnation and attaining salvation, medieval ethical theorists carefully identified a variety of substantive threats –​both epistemic and metaphysical –​to sound practical reasoning. Epistemic threats are the various kinds of ignorance and errancy that can impede an agent from determining a morally correct way of acting in a particular circumstance. If an agent does not know how to act, then practical reasoning will fail and the likelihood of correct action is slim. A  longstanding assumption common to most moral theorists in the Middle Ages was that there is always at least one morally permissible course of action for every agent in every situation. The difficulty of practical reasoning consists in the agent’s ability to overcome ignorance and error to determine and implement a morally permissible course of action. To succeed, agents need to determine how the slate of available possibilities falls into the respective categories of prohibited, obligatory, or permissible. While epistemic threats provide serious challenges to successful practical reasoning, they can  –​at least in principle  –​be neutralized with an increase in knowledge. Metaphysical threats, on 217

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218 M. V. Dougherty the other hand, are more debilitating; they cannot be so neutralized. Some medieval moral theorists hypothesized that there are some situations where an agent must act, but all the actions available to the agent are morally prohibited. In such scenarios, there would be no correct or permissible course of action, and therefore the agent would necessarily sin. Such hypothesizing called into question the longstanding assumption that there is always a permissible course of action for every situation. Even when proposed as hypothetical or per impossibile scenarios, such cases provided medieval thinkers with highly original ways to consider the limits of practical reasoning.

10.1  Epistemic Threats As knowledge is required for any successful exercise of practical reasoning, it should not be surprising that many medieval theorists were interested in the ways in which ignorance or error could vitiate moral judgments. How can an agent have sufficient moral knowledge to avoid moral failure in the vicissitudes of life when faced with the urgency to make decisions with little time for reflection and limited experience? When contrasted with some of the later philosophical anthropologies of the Reformation, which at times presented human cognitive capacities as fundamentally damaged or severely corrupted by original sin, the great confidence generally exhibited by medieval ethical theorists concerning the human ability to know moral truths may seem startlingly optimistic by comparison. This medieval optimism appears to be grounded on the view that agents have two distinct ways to arrive at truth:  the agent’s ability to reason and the agent’s access to moral truths given in divine revelation. Thomas Aquinas conveys a widespread view when he relates that agents can attend “to the rule of reason or the divine law” in moral decision-​making, and he often maintains further that God included in revelation some moral truths that are in principle naturally knowable to human beings.1 This inclusion of what is naturally knowable within revelation prompted some medieval theorists to ask how much of the

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Practical Reasoning 219 moral content of revelation could be discerned by reason alone, apart from revelation. Some medieval authors provide very highly positive accounts; Aquinas contends in one late text that God disclosed the precepts of the Decalogue in a format in which they are manifest to the natural reason of every human being, even the average one (De malo q.  15, a.  2, ad 3). In other texts, Aquinas explains that the inclusion of naturally knowable truths within the content of revelation was fitting since there can be disagreement and error among those who judge about moral matters on their own (ST i–​ii, q. 91, a. 4, in corp.). In short, there is a great confidence in the medieval period concerning the human ability to know moral truths, and this optimism was grounded on views about the trustworthiness of human cognitive capacities as well as the belief that many moral truths are disclosed through the Hebrew and Christian revelations. But what about extreme or outlier cases of ignorance? Since knowledge is recognized as a necessary requirement for voluntary or culpable actions, some medieval theorists attempted to separate vincible and invincible ignorance. Agents are not typically held to be culpable for actions when such agents are in principle unable to acquire the requisite knowledge for permissible action. Peter Abelard put forth a host of arresting scenarios in defense of this view. He argued that an agent could have sexual relations with another who is not one’s spouse, or kill an innocent person, or take one’s sister in marriage –​all without sin –​if the agent is inculpably ignorant in a way that consent is entirely lacking (Peter Abelard 1971, 25–27). Thomas Aquinas provides a somewhat more nuanced account, considering the extent to which ignorance diminishes, rather than outright excuses, sin, yet nevertheless he concedes that in principle one could commit acts of fornication and adultery without sin if the agent’s ignorance were absolute (De malo q. 3, a. 8, in corp.). Medieval thinkers were reticent to speak more generally of how culture might render an agent ignorant about more general moral precepts or classes of prohibited actions, yet Julius Caesar’s contention in De

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220 M. V. Dougherty bello gallico that ancient Germans did not consider theft from other tribes to be wrong did prompt some brief reflections by Aquinas (ST i–​ii, q. 94, a. 4; see Doolan 1999).

10.1.1  Conscience and Synderesis Beginning in the mid-​thirteenth century, Aristotle’s views of the practical syllogism as well as his account of the virtue of prudence became available to medieval theorists, when the Nicomachean Ethics was rendered in its entirety in Latin translation. Aristotle’s text provided much help not only in modeling how practical reasoning works, but also in accounting for success and failure in discrete acts of practical reasoning in the context of such topics as weakness of will and voluntariness.2 The Dominican Albert the Great was one of the earliest to appropriate the newly available Aristotelian texts, and in his Summa de creaturis he formalized what came to be an influential view of practical reasoning. He offered a simple example of a practical syllogism: “Every good is to be done; this is good; therefore this is to be done.”3 Albert explained that such a syllogism represents an agent’s conscience (conscientia), where “conscience is a conclusion of practical reason from two premises, of which the major is from synderesis, and the minor is from reason.”4 The term conscientia had been much debated in earlier centuries, and the controversies would continue after Albert. While many thinkers assigned to it a fundamental role in practical reasoning, they nevertheless argued over whether it should be best understood as a habit of some kind, or faculty, or power. Albert himself offered various accounts in his own writings throughout his career, and certain tendencies of interpretation respectively formed within Dominican and Franciscan schools of thought (see Colavecchio 1961). Detailed expositions of conscience proliferated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as discussing conscience became a standard exercise for those writing commentaries on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard, particularly in regard to distinction 39 of the second book.

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Practical Reasoning 221 Albert presents conscience as a conclusion of practical reasoning in the Summa de creaturis, and by identifying the source of major premises with synderesis, he invokes a longstanding and multi-​faceted tradition that in various ways identified the term synderesis with general moral knowledge. The term’s origin has been a subject of some debate among historians and linguists, yet most agree that the term first surfaces in Jerome’s scriptural commentary on Ezekiel and may owe its existence to scribal error rather than to a deliberate coinage. Jerome had left the precise role of synderesis somewhat unclear, stating that it is the spark of conscience (scintilla conscientiae) that was not even extinguished from the heart of Cain after he was ejected from the garden of paradise after his act of fratricide.5 Jerome’s text would gain wide exposure in the Middle Ages, as Peter Lombard referenced it in his Sententiae, and it prompted many interpretations. Albert interprets synderesis to be the source of major premises in practical syllogisms, and it is identifiable with a basic and very general knowledge of right and wrong. Minor premises, in contrast, are identified by Albert as coming from reason, and they identify particular situations. The resultant conclusion from the major and minor premises of a practical syllogism expresses a judgment regarding what should be done by the agent. On Albert’s account, conscience is an act of practical reason involving the application of general moral knowledge to a particular case, with a conclusion enjoining an agent to perform an action. Thomas Aquinas follows Albert in maintaining that acts of conscience are the conclusions of practical syllogisms. Aquinas further clarifies that synderesis should be understood as a habit that infallibly provides agents with general moral propositions, each of which is self-​evident or known in virtue of itself (per se nota). These principles are known to be true as long as the terms are known. Aquinas states, for example, that practical reason (ratio practica) is to be led by self-​evident principles such as “evil is not to be done” or “nothing is to be done against divine precept.”6 Aquinas regards

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222 M. V. Dougherty the habit of synderesis for practical reasoning to be parallel to the habit of understanding (intellectus) for speculative reasoning, as both habits supply self-​ evident first principles for arguments in their respective domains. Synderesis supplies the general truths as major premises for practical syllogizing, and intellectus provides the same function for theoretical syllogizing, supplying speculative first principles such as the principle of non-​contradiction. In an early work, De veritate, Aquinas offers the following example of a practical syllogism, specifying the respective sources of the major and minor premises, as did Albert: If the judgment of synderesis expresses this statement: “nothing prohibited by the law of God is to be done,” and if the knowledge of higher reason presents this minor premise: “sexual intercourse with this woman is forbidden by the law of God,” the application of conscience will be made by concluding: “this sexual intercourse is to be avoided.”7

Again, there is a level of generality with the major premise, followed by a particular situation with the minor premise, and then a conclusion obliging the agent to perform an action, which in this case is to desist from unlawful sexual intercourse. Given the infallible status of the moral self-​evident principles that serve as the major premises in an agent’s practical reasoning, one may wonder how error, and any resultant moral failure, would be possible in acts of conscience. On Aquinas’s account, even though the habit of synderesis ensures that the major premises are self-​evidently true and universal, the minor premises adopted by an agent have no such protection. The minor premises may or may not be true. Aquinas largely identifies error in practical reasoning with the adoption of faulty minor premises by agents. Additionally, error can occur if an agent makes inferential mistakes in reasoning from the premises of a practical syllogism. False minor premises and inferential mistakes in reasoning can each vitiate acts of practical reasoning that lead to moral failure, even though synderesis

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Practical Reasoning 223 is never mistaken. On the Thomistic account, conscience can err, but synderesis cannot.

10.1.2  The Erroneous Conscience A frequently discussed matter appearing throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in theological summae, quodlibetal questions, disputed questions, and commentaries on major authors was whether an erroneous conscience binds. If errant practical reasoning generates a conclusion that enjoins an agent to do something that is contrary to the natural or divine law, what should the agent do? In one of the lengthier treatments of erroneous conscience in the Middle Ages, the Franciscan Walter of Bruges carefully examined a great number of stock examples found in the writings of earlier medieval thinkers, featuring agents whose erroneous consciences dictate that they should fornicate, commit adultery, commit patricide, neglect certain commandments, and the like.8 Even though very detailed treatments of conscience can be found among medieval writers, Thomas Aquinas is often today invoked as the paradigmatic medieval defender of the strict inviolability of conscience. Aquinas’s view that it is always sinful not to follow one’s conscience is usually invoked apart from his concomitant view that it is also sinful to follow an erroneous conscience that enjoins a morally prohibited action.9 If both to follow and not to follow an erroneous conscience generates sin, how is an agent with an erroneous conscience to avoid moral failure? Aquinas’s solution to the problem of the erroneous conscience is not highly original, as he is consistent with a plurality of thinkers who thought in such cases that it is simply necessary to put away (deponere, dimittere) an erroneous judgment of conscience that enjoins the performance of a prohibited action. The view that erroneous consciences should simply be set aside can be found in a diverse range of medieval theologians, including William of Auxerre, Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, Walter of Bruges, Giles of Rome, John Duns Scotus, Peter Auriol, Jean Gerson, and

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224 M. V. Dougherty Denis the Carthusian, among many others.10 This position should be understood not as a cavalier dismissal of the human ability for moral evaluation, but simply as stating that a particular act of conscience should be dismissed when it prescribes a violation of an established moral norm. The error of conscience is material rather than formal, and many thinkers emphasized the need for agents to determine how a particular judgment of practical reasoning went awry. Such agents should seek out and remove, for example, any faulty minor premises that cause such errant acts of conscience.

10.2  Metaphysical Threats One fruitful way of approaching the medieval consideration of metaphysical impediments to practical reasoning is by looking to the twilight of the Middle Ages, when some of the longstanding debates had come to a resolution, or at least the original attention to certain topics had begun to wane. During a period that can plausibly be regarded as the end of the Middle Ages (or perhaps the beginning of the Renaissance or early modern period), the fifteenth-​century Dominican preacher and theologian Antoninus of Florence produced a massive compendium of moral theology. His Summa theologica, compiled in the mid-​1400s, possesses a fundamental pastoral orientation, primarily as an aid to preaching, yet it approaches in detail many of the pressing moral concerns of the period through the lens of the earlier medieval tradition. One of the many topics receiving treatment is the issue of whether an agent can ever be in a situation where all options are morally prohibited but some option must be chosen; that is, whether there are situations where an agent’s practical reasoning is even in principle incapable of identifying a course of action that is morally permissible simply because there are none. In medieval terminology, the issue was framed in terms of whether an agent is ever perplexus, or in present-​day nomenclature, whether an agent is ever in a genuine moral dilemma (or trilemma, or quadrilemma, etc.). Antoninus looks back over the preceding three centuries of theorizing about the topic and renders a very clear position on the matter.

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Practical Reasoning 225 In short, he finds the idea that sinning could ever be unavoidable to be entirely untenable and to be a major threat to the integrity of the moral life, and he subjects earlier medieval defenses of perplexitas to sharp criticism. Antoninus begins by looking back and correctly locating the origin of medieval theorizing about the topic of moral dilemmas within the canon law tradition. The key text, initiating 300 years of debate on whether genuine moral dilemmas exist, is distinction 13 of Gratian’s magisterial Decretum. In that legal masterwork, Gratian proposes that there are no exceptions to the natural law, “unless perhaps two evils press upon someone in such a way that it is necessary to choose one or the other of them.”11 Agents experiencing such situations, Gratian famously advises, should choose the lesser evil (minus malum).12 In citing Gratian’s influential text in his account of moral dilemmas, Antoninus makes it clear that he is entirely unpersuaded by the master of canon law. He begins his criticism of Gratian by writing: “Gratian the monk, the author or compiler of that book, set forth certain things in comments, in which he speaks from his own sense, which nevertheless are not to be held.”13 In the judgment of Antoninus, Gratian was confused by “his own sense” rather than the truth in alleging the existence of moral dilemmas and the subsequent necessity for agents to select between sins. Antoninus explains, “according to the truth of the matter no one is able to be perplexed between two sins.”14 The Dominican preacher categorically rejects the possibility that agents can be entrapped among morally prohibited options.

10.2.1  The Principle of the Lesser Evil Gratian’s twelfth-​ century discussion of moral dilemmas became enormously influential in the succeeding debates that appeared over several hundred years, and some opponents found Gratian’s endorsement (and popularization) of the principle of the lesser evil to be particularly untenable. His position suggests that the best that practical reasoning can offer in certain situations is simply the identification

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226 M. V. Dougherty that one sin, from a subset of sins, is the least serious, with the accompanying injunction to commit that sin. On Gratian’s view, practical reasoning helps one to minimize wrongdoing, but not avoid it altogether, in certain situations. Gratian implies that the determination of the lesser evil is a function of practical reasoning, insofar as he cites in his account an obscure text noting that the “acuity of pure reason” enables an agent in a moral dilemma to determine the lesser evil.15 Medieval readers frequently understood Gratian to be advising that venial sins should always be chosen over mortal sins when sinning as such was unavoidable. Furthermore, even among mortal sins, the various traditions of the seven capital vices (uitia capitalia) or so-​called deadly sins implied a hierarchy where greater and lesser mortal sins could be distinguished. In a text that surely must have incited the ire of his later opponents, Gratian ended his treatment of moral dilemmas and his defense of the principle of the lesser evil by borrowing from Gregory the Great, which concludes with the claim that an agent “passes to greater virtues through the commission of lesser evils.”16 On one reading, the text appears to imply that one could sin one’s way to virtue.

10.2.2  Ought Implies Can The opposition to Gratian’s position began quickly in the medieval period; it appeared first in the canon law tradition and then later among theologians. The early multi-​authored commentary on Gratian’s Decretum, the Glossa ordinaria, initially observed that Gratian spoke “badly” on the issue of exceptions to the natural law and on the necessity of choosing the lesser evil.17 Canonists and theologians in the succeeding centuries standardly retrieved patristic texts from Augustine of Hippo to oppose the view that agents are ever in situations where moral failure is unavoidable. Stock texts included one from Augustine’s De vera religione that states, “it is in no way sin if it is not voluntary” and another from De libero arbitrio, which queried rhetorically, “Who sins in that which one is not able to avoid?”18 The prospect of unavoidable sinning, particularly in

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Practical Reasoning 227 dilemmas consisting of options all of which are mortal sins, could be understood to imply the possibility of unavoidable damnation for agents. To put the issue in terms of contemporary ethics, the existence of genuine moral dilemmas appeared to be a rejection of the principle “ought implies can.” The precept that duties and obligations cannot be in conflict, famously expressed by Kant in the neo-​Latin phrase “obligationes non colliduntur,” is certainly anticipated in many medieval texts that discuss, and then rule out, the possibility that there are situations where agents cannot avoid wrongdoing. In his rejection of genuine moral dilemmas, Pseudo-​John Buridan (Nicolaus Girardi de Waudemonte) expresses the principle as “no one is obliged to do the impossible.”19 Similarly, a theological version of “ought implies can” is found in William de la Mare’s rejection of genuine moral dilemmas. He argues that “the route of evading without sin is always open to a human being” and “God does not oblige the impossible; accordingly, it is possible to avoid every sin.”20 These and other opponents of Gratian found the existence of genuine moral dilemmas to be a threat to the integrity of the moral life, and ultimately to be a threat to one’s salvation.

10.2.3  Ought but Cannot The debate about inescapable moral wrongdoing inaugurated by Gratian in the middle of the twelfth century became ensconced as a major topic in discussions of practical reasoning in the theology of the next century. The systematizing theologians William of Auxerre and the authors of the Summa Halesiana each gave significant attention to the problem, casting it as the issue of the “inevitability of sinning” (inevitabilitas peccandi) in their respective comprehensive works.21 Similarly, discussions within the canon law tradition moved beyond commentaries on Gratian’s Decretum to appear in larger systematic works, such as Raymond of Peñafort’s Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio.22 The topic also appeared in works of the genre of summae confessorum, of

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228 M. V. Dougherty which John of Freiburg’s influential text contains a chapter titled De perplexitate.23 Medieval discussions of practical reasoning in the face of inescapable moral wrongdoing were not limited to the Latin West, however. In the work Hayy Ibn Yaqzān, the twelfth-​century Islamic philosopher ibn Tufayl produced a celebrated philosophical tale depicting the character Hayy, who, growing up on an island uninhabited by other humans, flourishes as an autodidact and swiftly advances through the domains of knowledge. After mastering many disciplines and various arts, Hayy turns to ethics, categorizing various duties and identifying basic requirements for happiness. He discovers that his eating of plants and animals is quite destructive insofar as the items he consumes are thereby impeded from attaining their natural ends. This realization generates a moral dilemma for Hayy. On the one hand, it seemed to Hayy that he should give up eating altogether; but on the other hand, doing so would bring about his own death. Ibn Tufayl relates that “Hayy chose the lesser of two evils” by deciding only to eat in a way that would bring about the least disruption in the teleology of nature, and thereafter he consumes only abundant species of plants and avoids eating animals whenever possible.24 Among medieval Latin theologians in the Aristotelian tradition, however, this moral dilemma and the subsequent appeal to the principle of the lesser evil were considered largely unnecessary. Aristotle had argued that nature does nothing in vain, so in some sense plants exist for the sake of animals and animals for the sake of humans, a position later reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas and others.25

10.2.4  Wise and Foolish Agents The debates over moral dilemmas in the Latin West during the 300 years from Gratian up through the time of Antoninus of Florence can be summarized as a series of discussions over the precise sense of the Latin term perplexus and its cognates (perplexitas, perplexio). The term perplexus had an original sense of “entangled,” but also acquired a secondary sense of “confused.”26 This twofold sense of

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Practical Reasoning 229 perplexitas as both entanglement and confusion led the friends and foes of moral dilemmas to privilege, respectively, one sense over the other. Defenders of moral dilemmas emphasized entanglement, while opponents of moral dilemmas emphasized confusion. The characterization of perplexitas as merely confusion by opponents of moral dilemmas reached an intensity with the claim that agents who believe themselves to be entangled among sinful options are not merely ignorant, but they are fools. The canonist Huguccio of Pisa (fl. 1180–​1210) wryly expressed his position in this regard as “the dolt and the idiot seem to themselves to be perplexed, but this is not according to the truth of the matter but according to their opinion.” Huguccio then added, “the wise person, however, never seems to oneself to be in a moral dilemma.”27 Similarly, other opponents of moral dilemmas in the canon law tradition argued that agents who believe themselves forced to select from among sinful options suffer from foolish opinions. Moral dilemmas simply appear to be genuine to the foolish agent’s mind, but are not so in reality.28 That is, there are no moral dilemmas with regard to reality (ad rem), but only moral dilemmas with regard to the mind (ad animum).29 In this way, opponents of moral dilemmas argued that what appear to be ontological impediments to correct action are really only epistemic ones, which are defeasible with an increase of the agent’s knowledge or at least an overcoming of foolishness. Furthermore, the ascription of foolishness to such agents implied that they were somehow negligent in forming their moral knowledge, in the sense that the foolishness could and should be overcome. These opponents of moral dilemmas knew, however, that their denial of the existence of situations of inescapable moral wrongdoing could, in principle, be singlehandedly refuted with the discovery of just one example of a genuine moral dilemma. A common strategy, therefore, was for opponents to engage the longstanding plethora of stock examples of purported moral dilemmas for the sake of showing that foolishness on the part of the agent is the relevant feature in each case. In some texts, the critique of moral dilemmas becomes a parade

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230 M. V. Dougherty of “fools” whose foolishness lies either in assent to mistaken views (e.g. a belief that paying the marital debt is always sinful, or that all oaths are impermissible), or in a failure of stubborn agents to consider alternative courses of action that are permissible. These accusations of foolishness need not be viewed as a rhetorical excess on the part of medieval foes of moral dilemmas, but are best approached as the claim that culpable or vincible ignorance on the part of agents can be overcome. Many held that subjectively perplexed agents ought to avail themselves of the teachings of the Scriptures, the counsel of the wise, the example of saints, and the like, for help in situations of moral unclarity.

10.2.5  Thought Experiments Even though canonists and theologians generally rejected Gratian’s endorsement of moral dilemmas, the topic did not cease to be discussed. Even the strictest opponents of moral dilemmas in the medieval period provided some of the most important discussions of them as thought experiments, perhaps because such cases highlighted the complexity found in some moral situations and at the same time served to illustrate otherwise hidden features of practical reasoning. Evidence for prevalence of the topic is an entry in a thirteenth-​century theological compendium of uncertain authorship, the Declaratio terminorum theologiae, where the following definition is offered: “Perplexity is an entrapment between opposites, so that one seems always to be bound to sin, in whatever side one might choose.”30 The qualifier “seems” in this definition of perplexitas testifies to the ongoing controversy regarding the very existence of such situations of inescapable moral wrongdoing at the time, and the inclusion of the definition in the compendium provides evidence that the topic was well established within medieval ethics. The late twelfth-​and early thirteenth-​ century theologian Master Martinus discusses moral dilemmas extensively in his Compilatio quaestionum theologiae, composed around 1200. He is a good example of a strong opponent of moral dilemmas who

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Practical Reasoning 231 nevertheless discusses them to highlight features of the moral life. In particular, Master Martinus focuses his attention on those purported cases of perplexity that are generated by unwise vows. The occasion for his reflections is the situation faced by the biblical character Jephthah as recounted in Judges 11:29–​40. Jephthah had made a vow to God to offer in sacrifice the first thing he saw upon returning home from victory in battle, and upon returning home first discovered his daughter. As Master Martinus relates, the general presumption that agents should fulfill vows made to God is strong. First, there is the scriptural injunction of Psalm 75:12:  “Make a vow and fulfill it to the Lord your God.”31 Second, Master Martinus references an often-​ cited precept, preserved in Gratian, stating “whatever is against conscience leads to damnation.”32 On the other hand, Master Martinus notes, for Jephthah to fulfill the vow by sacrificing his daughter would be opposed to the law of nature (ius naturae), which demands the preservation of offspring insofar as one is able. Master Martinus initially proposes that Jephthah is in a moral dilemma (perplexus), stating “For whichever of the two he would do, namely to fulfill or to omit the vow, he would incur guilt.”33 Master Martinus also considers other alleged cases of perplexity involving vows throughout the Compilatio quaestionum theologiae, including the following: “A certain man vowed to kill his father. This man is truly perplexed, so that if he wishes to avoid the greater evil, namely, patricide, he necessarily has to sin in the lesser, that is, in perjury.”34 Ultimately, Master Martinus contends that neither Jephthah nor the man who swears to commit patricide is genuinely perplexed. The fulfillment of the respective vows is not obligatory, even though both agents have sinned in uttering the vows. Furthermore, he adds an important precision regarding the precept that states that one who disregards conscience will suffer damnation; according to Master Martinus, the force of the precept should be restricted to those cases where an agent possesses an “upright conscience.”35 It is notable that substantive portions of Master Martinus’s lengthy discussion of purported cases of perplexity, including the

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232 M. V. Dougherty example of the man who takes a vow to kill another, appear to be borrowed nearly verbatim from the Summa decretorum of Rufinus, a canon law commentary on Gratian’s Decretum composed in the 1160s.36 The influence of canon law upon moral theory in the writings of medieval theologians is often unrecognized, and certainly thirteenth-​ century theology is largely indebted to earlier work by canon lawyers on the topic of moral dilemmas. Many of the stock examples of cases of perplexity discussed in major works of theological synthesis (including those composed by William of Auxerre, the authors of the Summa Halesiana, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure) have their origin in the earlier canon law theorizing of the twelfth century.37 Albert the Great is also an opponent of moral dilemmas who appears to recognize the value of discussing them as thought experiments. Perhaps aware of their pedagogical value, he at times relates quite unusual examples of purported moral dilemmas in the objections in his writings, only to show in his replies to the objections that there is no real situation of perplexitas. One striking example occurs in a discussion of whether polygamy is licit: A moral dilemma follows if it is granted that one man has two wives. If both wives should ask for the marital debt within one hour, and the man pays off one, it follows that he is rendered impotent for paying off the other. Therefore, he holds back and defrauds one of them, and if he should pay the marital debt to the other, then by the same reason he defrauds the first. Therefore, the man is in a moral dilemma.38

Albert contends that ultimately no one can be genuinely forced to select from among sinful options, and he relates elsewhere that according to theological authorities, no one can really be in a moral dilemma.39 Perhaps an additional reason why foes of moral dilemmas, such as Albert, discussed such cases as thought experiments was pastoral. They may have been motivated to dismiss moral dilemmas in order to preclude any appeals to them as post hoc justifications for sinful

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Practical Reasoning 233 activity. These medieval analyses of complex and exotic cases for the sake of clarifying practical reasoning anticipate the later practice by early modern casuist moral theologians, who would rival their medieval predecessors in their concern for unusual cases.

10.2.6  The Principle of Double Effect Discussions of cases of perplexitas not only served to highlight features of moral reasoning, but also prompted a clarification of moral principles that were found only piecemeal in earlier traditions. Within medieval debates, for example, the principle of the lesser evil was transformed from a mere proverb to a much-​examined moral principle of disputed value. Even among those who approached the moral dilemmas solely as per impossibile scenarios, their arguments still prompted much reflection on the principle, if only to argue for its complete irrelevance with regard to moral evils, on the view that no one ever needs to choose from among sins. For defenders of moral dilemmas, the structure of lesser-​ evil reasoning was paramount. Additionally, as noted above, these debates generated various medieval formulations of the principle “ought implies can.” Discussions of moral dilemmas also furthered the development of another important principle of ethics:  the principle of double effect. That principle distinguishes what an agent intends from the foreseen but unintended bad side-​effects of an otherwise morally good act. The principle is used to restrict the culpability of an agent for various bad side-​ effects that are properly outside the intention (praeter intentionem) of the agent. The traditional approach to the history of the principle of double effect locates the principle’s discovery and development within theological masters of the thirteenth century, and Aquinas has been identified as the first to employ it with clarity in his Summa theologiae.40 Nevertheless, this traditional account can be modified in two respects:  first, the principle appears earlier in the twelfth-​ century discussions of perplexitas, and second, its appearance in the canon law tradition precedes its appearance in the later theological

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234 M. V. Dougherty tradition. For example, in his late twelfth-​century work the Summa decretorum, the canonist Huguccio of Pisa employs the principle to resolve a stock example of an alleged moral dilemma involving an unjust aggressor who seeks to murder an innocent person. The unjust aggressor asks a third party about the location of the potential victim, and Huguccio replies: If I say that he walked by, I betray him and sin mortally; if I say he did not, I lie and thus sin at least venially … If I am silent, I sin mortally, because from my silence he assesses him to have walked nearby, especially if he knows me to be perfect and for this reason to be unwilling to lie or to betray him, and thus he will follow and kill him. And so it seems I am in a moral dilemma.41

Huguccio then uses the principle of double effect to defend the moral permissibility of silence in this case; the agent is guilty of no moral failure, either mortal or venial, by saying nothing. In what might sound like harsh words today, Huguccio blithely justifies this position by arguing, “it does not need to be charged to me if some evil happens outside my intention (praeter intentionem).”42 In Huguccio’s account, the application of the principle of double effect is used to argue that there is an option that an agent can pursue without sin, since the foreseen but unintended evils that may befall the victim fall entirely outside the agent’s ambit of moral culpability. Any wrongdoing will be on the part of the unjust aggressor, and the agent avoids sinning.

10.3  From Medieval to Early Modern Ethics Ethical theorists of the Middle Ages considered a wide range of moral situations in discussing practical reasoning. Their detailed models of practical reasoning and their meticulous analyses of sometimes unusual cases brought to light many features of the moral life. These discussions furthered the formulation of moral principles, including

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Practical Reasoning 235 the principle of the lesser evil, the principle of double effect, and various formulations of what has come to be known as “ought implies can.” The extensive medieval discussions of both epistemic and metaphysical threats to practical reasoning also framed the issues for the subsequent early modern treatment of the problem of moral uncertainty and moral doubt. Many of the stock medieval examples of purported moral dilemmas were pressed into service to explain the various possibilities for morally uncertain agents. The medieval terminology and the stock examples provided fertile ground for the growth of the casuist tradition, and they reappeared in a new guise with debates over probabilism, the view that any moral opinion could be followed by an agent with an uncertain or doubtful conscience so long as the opinion was endorsed by a suitable authority.43 Furthermore, the pervasive yet oftentimes hidden influence of canon law, which often provided moral theorizing in the Middle Ages with distinctive terminology and many of its stock examples of moral cases, would thereby continue to have an indirect effect on early modern ethics.

Notes 1 E.g. Thomas Aquinas, De malo, q. 1, a. 3, in corp., in Leonine xxiii:16a. 2 For accounts of Aquinas’s appropriation of the Aristotelian doctrine of practical syllogisms, see Westberg 1994, 149–​155, and Flannery 2001, 5–​12, 195–​223. For later medieval appropriations of Aristotle’s doctrines, see Kent 1995. 3 Albert the Great, Summa de creaturis, ii, q. 72, a. 1, sol., in Borgnet xxxviii:599. 4 Ibid. For discussions of medieval views of conscience, see Baylor 1977, Crowe 1956, Langston 2001, Lottin 1942–​1960, vol. iii, and Potts 1980. 5 Jerome, Commentaria in Ezechielem, lib. I, cap. 1, in Jerome 1845, 22b. 6 E.g. Thomas Aquinas, In II librum Sententiarum, d. 24, q. 2, a. 3, in corp., in Aquinas 1929–​1947, ii:610; Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet iii, q. 12, a. 1, in corp.; in Leonine xxv:284b. 7 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 17, a. 2, in corp., in Leonine xxii/​ 2.2:520a.

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236 M. V. Dougherty 8 Walter of Bruges, Quaestiones disputatae, qq. x–​xxii, in Walter of Bruges 1928, 91–​178. 9 See Schenk 1990 for a discussion of this point. 10 For an overview of medieval thinkers on this point, including Aquinas, see Dougherty 2011, 93, 156–​167. 11 Gratian, Decretum, dist. 13, in Gratian 1879, 31. 12 Ibid. 13 Antoninus of Florence, Summa theologica, iv, tit. xi, cap. viii, §iv, in Antoninus 1740, 594. 14 Ibid. 15 Gratian, Decretum, in Gratian 1879, 31. 16 Ibid., 33. See Gregory the Great, Moralia, xxxii, 20. 17 Glossa ordinaria, dist. xiii, in Gratian 1582, 63. 18 Augustine, De vera religione 14.27, in Augustine 1962, 204; De libero arbitrio 3.18.50, in Augustine 1970, 304. 19 Nicolaus Girardi de Waudemonte (Pseudo-​John Buridan), Quaestiones super octo libros Politicorum Aristotelis, vi, q. 7, in de Waudemonte 1513, fol. lxxxxii, ra. 20 William de la Mare, Quodlibet, q. 9, MS 361, Vatican, Borgese, 149va, 3–​4, 7–​9. For a discussion of twelfth-​century thinkers on perplexitas, see Landgraf 1959, 74–​86. See also Geonget 2006, 215–​251. 21 Summa Halesiana, ii, pars 2, inq. 3, tract. 3, sect. 1, q. 3, cap. 4, in Alexander of Hales 1930, 391b–​392a; William of Auxerre, Summa aurea, iii, tract. 54, cap. 1, in William of Auxerre 1980–​1986, iii:1044–​1045. 22 Raymond of Peñafort, Summa, lib. 3, De scandalo, et perplexitate, et notorio, §§6–​7, in Raymond of Peñafort 1603, 352–​363. For an overview of the canon law tradition on perplexitas, see Kuttner 1935, 257–​291. 23 John of Freiburg, Summa confessorum, lib. iii, De perplexitate, in John of Freiburg 1518, f. cxlvii, va–​b. John of Freiburg concludes that “it is not possible for anyone to be in a state of perplexity between two evils.” 24 Ibn Tufayl, Hayy Ibn Yaqzān, in ibn Tufayl 2003, 144. 25 Aristotle, Politics 1.3, 1256b15–​22. See Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum, lec. 1, cap. vi. 26 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae 1998, vol. x, 1, fasc. xi pernumero–​ persuadeo, 1650–​1653. 27 Huguccio of Pisa, Summa decretorum, d. xii, in Huguccio 2006, 215.

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Practical Reasoning 237 28 Glossa ordinaria, d. xiii, in Gratian 1582, 63. The glossators provide a categorical denial of such situations: “In truth, however, there is no perplexity” (65). 29 Glossa ordinaria, d. xiii, in Gratian 1582, 63. 30 An edition of this work is contained in Bonaventure 1866, 232–​239, with the cited text at 237. 31 Master Martinus, Compilatio quaestionum theologiae, MS 209, fol. 21rb. Psalm 75:12. 32 Ibid. See Gratian, Decretum, caus. xxviii, in Gratian 1879, 1088. 33 Master Martinus, Compilatio quaestionum theologiae, MS 209, fol. 21rb. 34 Master Martinus, Compilatio quaestionum theologiae, MS 209, fol. 21va. 35 Ibid. 36 Rufinus, Summa decretorum, d. xiii, in Rufinus 1902, 31–​33. 37 See Dougherty 2013, 225–​258. 38 Albert the Great, In IV Sententiarum, d. 33, a. 7, obj. 3, in Borgnet xxx:298b. 39 Albert the Great, In IV Sententiarum, d. 32, a. 12, obj. 1, in Borgnet xxx:281a. 40 Mangan 1949, 61: “Article seven of question 64 of the Secunda Secundae of St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica is the historical beginning of the principle of the double effect as a principle.” 41 Huguccio of Pisa, Summa decretorum, d. xii, in Huguccio 2006, 212. 42 Huguccio of Pisa, Summa decretorum, d. xiii, in Huguccio 2006, 214. 43 See Kantola 1994, Mahoney 1987, and Schüssler 2003, 2005.

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11 Will and Intellect Thomas Williams

11.1 Introduction What we do depends on three things: what we think, what we want, and what we feel  –​or, in the more technical language of medieval philosophy, on intellect, will, and passions. In this chapter I  first examine the changing conceptions of voluntas, will, from Augustine through Ockham. I then examine views of the relationship between will and intellect in the process of action, concentrating on debates in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The following chapter, by Martin Pickavé, examines different conceptions of the passions across the period, including the nature of their contribution to action and the degree to which they are subject to rational control. Other important aspects of will and intellect are considered elsewhere in this volume. For the extent to which the moral law depends on God’s will or intellect (and, perhaps correlatively, the extent to which it can be discerned by unaided human reason) in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, see, respectively, Eric W. Hagedorn, 3.3.1; Jon McGinnis, 4.4.1; and T.  M. Rudavsky, especially 5.2. For the debate over whether happiness is located primarily in the will or intellect, see Jeff Steele, 6.6. For the functioning of the practical intellect and the various epistemic and metaphysical threats that it faces, see M. V. Dougherty, Chapter 10.

11.2  Changing Conceptions of

VOLUNTAS

Throughout our period, Christian writers talk about voluntas as an important determinant –​in many later writers, as the single ultimate determinant –​of human action. What I argue in this section is that there is no single notion corresponding to the word voluntas; even 238

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Will and Intellect 239 so apparently simple a matter as whether to translate the word as “a will” or rather as “the will” (for Latin has no articles) can be contentious, for “a will” can be a simple wanting or desire, whereas “the will” suggests a unified faculty or power responsible for choice or action.

11.2.1  Augustine and Abelard It is sometimes said that Augustine invented the “faculty” of will (e.g. Dihle 1982), but this notion is a projection on to Augustine of later debates that would take inspiration from him but miss the largely Stoic sources of his ideas. (See especially Byers 2012, Frede 2011, Rist 2014.) The Stoics, as Augustine knew them through Cicero, Varro, and Seneca, taught that experiences bring before us various propositions:  “This is to be feared,” “The proper course of action is to face this difficulty,” and so forth. We can assent to (or dissent from) such propositions, and our assent gives rise to an impulse:  horme in Greek –​Augustine knows the word (e.g. City of God 19.4.2) and translates it as impetus … vel appetitus actionis, “impetus, or the desire for action.” Sarah Byers (2006) has argued that voluntas is for Augustine equivalent to horme, both dispositional and occurrent, and this identification is borne out by the texts. For the sake of space I consider here only the celebrated discussion of the divided will in Confessions 8. Augustine struggles between his desire to continue the sexual relationship to which he is accustomed (addicted, we could even say) and the continence that he has come to envision as a greater good: The enemy held my will in his power and fashioned from it the chains that held me fast. Indeed, a perverse will gives birth to inordinate desire, and when the will serves inordinate desire, a habit is formed; and when the habit is not resisted, it becomes compulsion. By these small hooks, each joined to the one before (this is why I have called them a chain), a brutal enslavement held me in its grip. And yet I knew that a new will had begun to

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240 Thomas Williams arise in me, a will to worship you without desire of reward and to enjoy you, O God, our only sure joy. But this new will was not yet capable of overthrowing my prior will, which had grown stronger and stronger the longer it endured. Thus my two wills, one old and one new, one carnal and the other spiritual, were at war with one another, and by their conflict they laid waste to my soul.1

‘Will’ here consistently translates voluntas.2 That there can be two opposed wills in the same person shows clearly that voluntas is not here a faculty or power, but occurrent horme. There are as many voluntates as there are occurrent desires: someone is deliberating whether to kill someone by poisoning or stabbing; whether to seize this man’s property or that one’s, when he cannot do both; whether to spend money on pleasure in the service of lust or to save money in the service of greed; whether to go to the circus or to the theater, if both have performances on the same day –​and I shall add a third: whether to go into someone else’s house to rob him, if the occasion arises –​even a fourth: to commit adultery, if the opportunity presents itself to do that as well at the same time. If all these things are present at a single moment of time and one desires them all equally but cannot do them all at the same time, what we typically say is that the mind is torn into pieces by these four –​or more –​ mutually opposed wills because it desires so many things; we do not say that the mind is a great multitude of diverse substances. (Conf. 8.10.24)

The difficulty that the “divided will” (really a multiplicity of competing wills) presents is best described as the inability of the mind (animus) to command itself; the resolution, which requires God’s grace, is for the mind to will one thing ex toto, wholly or wholeheartedly: The mind commands the mind to will, and the mind is nothing other than itself, and yet it does not obey. What is the source of

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Will and Intellect 241 this remarkable conflict? How do things come to this pass, so that the mind wills what it would not command unless it willed it, and yet it does not do what it commands? But it does not will it wholeheartedly, so it does not command wholeheartedly. So far as it wills, it commands; so far as it does not will, the command is not carried out. For what the will is commanding is that a certain will should exist: not some other will, but that very will itself. And so the will that commands is not complete (plena), and for this reason what it commands does not come to be. For if it were complete, it would not command such a will to exist, since it would already exist. So it is not remarkable after all when someone is partly willing and partly unwilling: it is an illness of the mind, because it is so weighed down by habit that it cannot wholly rise up in the truth. And the reason that there are two wills is that neither of them is the whole, and something is present in one that is lacking in the other. (Conf. 8.9.21)

Augustine makes it clear in Confessions 8 that his struggle was an affective rather than a cognitive matter:  in the language of the later debate, that the failure was one of will, not of intellect. To be sure, earlier in his life he could have explained or even justified his hesitation on the grounds that he was not yet certain of which was the preferable course of action: “I had formerly thought that I had an excuse for not rejecting the world and serving you: my grasp of the truth was uncertain. But this excuse could no longer serve, for I was certain of your truth” (Conf. 8.5.11). The mind’s knowledge is not enough; it fails to command what it knows is best because it is torn by competing voluntates.3 This is not to say, however, that the only problem besetting fallen human beings is a failure of will. Augustine consistently says that after the fall we are troubled by both ignorance and difficulty: Indeed, all sinful souls have been afflicted with these two punishments: ignorance and difficulty. Because of ignorance, error

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242 Thomas Williams warps our actions; because of difficulty, our lives are a torment and an affliction. But to accept falsehoods as truths, thus erring unwillingly; to struggle against the pain of carnal bondage and not to be able to refrain from acts of inordinate desire: these do not belong to the nature that human beings were created with; they are the penalty of a condemned prisoner.4

He has rather less to say about ignorance, at least about specifically moral ignorance (ignorance of what ought to be done, as opposed to ignorance of the nature of God, though of course the latter kind of ignorance contributes to the former), than he does about difficulty. He treats difficulty independently, but ignorance almost always in conjunction with difficulty, as at De peccatorum meritis et remissione 2.17.26:  “So ignorance and weakness are vices that hinder the will from being moved to do a good deed or abstain from an evil deed. That what is hidden should become known, or what gives no pleasure should become sweet, is a matter of the grace of God, by which he helps the wills of human beings.” In Letter 96.5 he indicates that one cause of ignorance is the great variety of moral codes in different societies. Because we are ignorant we ought to pray for wisdom (De natura et gratia 17.19). Often, however, Augustine speaks as though we have, at least in principle, a secure grasp of the most general moral truths: “rules … and lights of the virtues,” as Augustine calls them in On Free Choice of the Will 2.10.29. We know, for example, that inferior things should be subject to superior things and all people should be given what is rightfully theirs; the challenge comes in having the wisdom to know which inferior things should be subjected to which superior things, and what rightfully belongs to a particular person. As he tells us belatedly in Confessions 8.7.17, even the young Augustine knew the good well enough to ask God for continence and chastity –​just not yet. His problem was not in knowing the good but in wholeheartedly desiring it. Peter Abelard likewise uses voluntas to mean not a faculty or power but simple occurrent desire (on this see also Eileen C. Sweeney, 15.1.2 in this volume). The slave who seeks to escape

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Will and Intellect 243 from his enraged master does not will (that is, does not want) to kill his master to save his own hide; he does so with regret and under duress. Nevertheless he sins, not because his will is bad, but because he consents to an act (killing another human being in self-​defense) to which he ought not consent (Ethica i.11–​20). Abelard recognizes the possibility of ignorance in moral matters: someone might mistakenly marry his sister (Ethica i.53) or believe that the followers of Christ should be persecuted (Ethica i.107). But, much like Augustine, Abelard is not concerned to develop a theory of moral knowledge that explains such ignorance and how it can be remedied.

11.2.2 Anselm In Anselm, writing a generation before Abelard, we see the emergence of the will as a faculty. In his last completed work, De concordia (On the Harmony of God’s Foreknowledge, Predestination, and Grace with Free Choice, 1107–​1108), Anselm sets forth three distinct senses of the word voluntas: “Will,” in fact, appears to be said equivocally. It has three senses: the instrument for willing, the affection of the instrument, and the uses of that instrument. The instrument for willing is the power of the soul that we employ for willing, just as reason is the instrument for reasoning that we employ when we reason and sight is the instrument for seeing that we employ when we see. The affection of this instrument is that by which the instrument itself is disposed in such a way to will something (even when one is not thinking of what it wills) that if that thing comes to mind, the instrument wills it, either immediately or at the appropriate time … By contrast, the use of that instrument is what we have only when we think of the thing we will. (De concordia 3.11; cf. De libertate arbitrii 3, 7; De conceptu virginali et de peccato originali 4.)

The instrument for willing is the power or faculty of will; the uses of that instrument are particular volitions. Affections of the will are dispositional desires. In his account of freedom Anselm identifies

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244 Thomas Williams two such affections: a disposition to will what is right (the affection for justice) and a disposition to will what makes for happiness (the affection for advantage).5 Anselm’s doctrine of the two affections means that the will is not aimed exclusively at happiness. Although every rational nature wills happiness (De casu diaboli 4), justice is also an object of the will, and an object distinguished from happiness. Anselm describes the situation of the primal angelic choice precisely as a choice between happiness and justice:  there was some element of happiness that the angels lacked (Anselm wisely declines to speculate on exactly what that might have been) and their affection for happiness inclined them toward choosing it; there was also God’s will that that aspect of happiness be denied the angels, at least for the time being, and their affection for justice inclined them toward choosing obedience to God. Some angels willed to preserve justice and forgo happiness; other angels willed to seek happiness and forgo justice (De casu diaboli 6). The difference between the angels who fell and those who remained steadfast in the truth is traceable only to their wills, not to any differences in their knowledge, natural endowments, or divine assistance. For any such differences would be ultimately traceable to God, and Anselm is emphatic that the difference between the good angels and the fallen angels must be attributable only to the angels themselves. The will, then, is the faculty by which creatures can make choices the causal origin of which is in themselves and not in anything external.6

11.2.3  Thomas Aquinas Whether Aristotle had a notion of the faculty of will is a contentious matter (Rapp 2017). But medieval Aristotelians certainly thought that they were following Aristotle in ascribing such a faculty to human beings and locating it in the intellectual part of the soul, the part that human beings, alone among the animals, possess. Accounts of what this faculty is, however, continued to

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Will and Intellect 245 vary just as they had before the recovery of the complete corpus of Aristotle’s works. In Thomas Aquinas the will is rational (or intellectual) appetite. As appetite it moves toward an end; as rational it moves toward ends as apprehended by reason. Rational apprehension differs from sensory apprehension in that it is universal, rather than particular; even though of course we will particular things, we will them as falling under the universal concept of goodness. The object of the will is therefore the good in general, and happiness is the ultimate, complete, and sufficient good. So whatever we will, we will either as the ultimate end, happiness, or as in some way ordered to that end (ST i–​ii, q. 1, a. 6). In this way the will for Aquinas is continuous with the rest of nature, all of which is teleologically directed. Things without cognition act as they do from the natural inclination God has bestowed on them by creating them as the sorts of things they are. Things with sensory cognition tend toward the particular objects presented to them as good (or away from the particular objects presented to them as bad) by their sensory cognition. And human beings, with our vastly more complicated capacity for universal understanding, deliberation, and considering one and the same particular under multiple aspects, likewise tend toward the objects presented to us by the intellect. The will, intellectual appetite, is thus in effect the natural appetite of creatures with a rational nature.

11.2.4  John Duns Scotus For John Duns Scotus, by contrast, the will is not identical with intellectual appetite; nor do we will everything we will either as, or for the sake of, happiness.7 Intellectual appetite is only one aspect of the will, though Scotus acknowledges that it is an important aspect: no inclination, natural or acquired, can influence the will more powerfully than its natural appetite for the good. Scotus makes a fundamental distinction between natural powers and rational powers.8 Natural powers have what Scotus

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246 Thomas Williams calls “indeterminacy of insufficiency,” the kind of indeterminacy that requires determination from without; the intellect is a natural power, because although there are in principle any number of things that can actualize the intellect, in a given set of circumstances the intellect can have actual understanding only of what is presented to it. Hence, though “it can have contrary acts … those contrary acts are not in the intellect’s power” (In Metaph. IX, q. 15, n. 36; Williams 2017, 6). A rational power, by contrast, has what Scotus calls “indeterminacy of superabundant sufficiency”:  it can determine itself. The will is such a power, and indeed the only such power. There are therefore only two kinds of powers: natures and wills. Will is sui generis:  “it seems perfectly ridiculous to apply universal propositions about active principles to the will on the grounds that there is no counterexample to those propositions in anything other than the will” (In Metaph. IX, q. 15, n. 44; Williams 2017, 8). If the will were merely intellectual appetite, he argues, it would follow on the deterministic operations of the intellect and therefore would, in turn, operate deterministically itself, leaving no room for freedom as he understands it. Scotus follows Anselm in postulating two affections in the will: an affection for the advantageous, which is the will as intellectual appetite, with its ineliminable desire for happiness, and an affection for justice, which is the will as free.9 In this way Scotus keeps the will rooted in nature and the natural desire for happiness, but insists that the will must also transcend nature if we are to be free.

11.2.5  William of Ockham Where Scotus tries to retain the idea of the will as rooted in nature (though transcending it), William of Ockham goes further. The will for him is arguably “de-​natured,” becoming a neutral steering wheel, an executive power by which we choose what we please. Like Scotus, Ockham holds that the will need not will happiness; but he goes a step further by insisting that the will can even will against happiness.

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Will and Intellect 247 The will can even will something bad qua bad, a very radical view indeed: “the will is able to will something bad that is neither really nor apparently good, and able to will against a good thing that is neither really nor apparently bad” (Quaestiones variae q.  8 [OTh viii:443; see Osborne 2012, esp. 437–​443).

11.3  Will and Intellect in the Genesis of Action As we have seen, even before the emergence of the will as a faculty, there are questions about how we come to have moral knowledge and how ignorance affects our desires and thereby our actions. Once will is identified as a distinct faculty of the soul, the question becomes one of its relationship to another distinct faculty, intellect, in the process of action. This question includes, but is by no means exhausted by, the question whether freedom in action derives ultimately from the will or from the intellect. In the Sentences (ii, d. 24, a. 3) Peter Lombard defines liberum arbitrium (usually translated “free choice”) as “a faculty of reason and will,” and many writers accept this definition and expand upon it. Albert the Great, for example, repeats it in several places in his commentary on the Sentences (Sent. ii, d. 3, aa. 6, 7; d. 24, a. 5; d. 25, a. 1). The role of both intellect and will can be seen clearly in Sent. ii, d. 5, a. 6, where Albert says that “liberum arbitrium was given … so that by reason one might see what is true and what is false, what is true and what is even truer –​not so that one might end one’s journey in either of them, but in one, namely, in the first truth  –​and so that through the will one might test (probet) what is good and what is better, and end one’s journey in what is best of all.”10 Liberum arbitrium “has something of reason and something of the will” (Sent. ii, d. 24, a. 5), though Albert does suggest that the characteristic act of liberum arbitrium is choice, and it is the will’s function to choose (Sent. ii, d.  24, aa. 5, 14). Bonaventure likewise regards liberum arbitrium as including both will and reason; but he is much more emphatic than Albert in making the freedom of liberum arbitrium depend on the will’s capacity for self-​motion, and unlike Albert he

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248 Thomas Williams does not give rational deliberation a role in the production of a free act (Hoffmann 2010, 415). Although Thomas Aquinas also speaks of liberum arbitrium, we can see the vocabulary beginning to change:  where Albert asks whether the stars have power over liberum arbitrium (Sent. ii, d. 15, a. 5), Aquinas asks whether heavenly bodies move the will (ST i–​ii, q.  9, a.  5). (Both give the same answer:  yes, though only insofar as heavenly bodies can cause physical changes that incline us to desire one thing more than another or to be subject to some passion.) The will is what is free, but reason is why the will is free:  as Aquinas puts it, The will is the root of freedom in the sense that it is the subject of freedom; but reason is the root of freedom in the sense that it is the cause of freedom. You see, the reason that the will can be freely drawn to various things is that reason can have various conceptions of the good. And that is why philosophers define liberum arbitrium as free judgment on the part of reason, implying that reason is the cause of freedom. (ST I–​II, q. 17, a. 1, ad 2)

Aquinas’s theory of action is characterized by a complex interplay between reason and will.11 A key distinction is that between the exercise of the will’s act and the specification of the will’s act. Exercise refers to whether a power acts or does not act; specification refers to what sort (species) of act the power performs. For Aquinas, the will moves itself to the exercise of its act; in virtue of willing an end, it moves itself to will what is for the end. The ultimate source of the will’s movement is God, who bestows on the will its general inclination toward the good:  “Without this universal movement, human beings cannot will anything” (ST i–​ii, q. 9, a. 6, ad 3). Reason moves the will to the specification of its act: that is, we will what reason presents to us as good. But the will in turn moves reason to the exercise of its act. We will to deliberate, or to cease deliberation; we will to think about this or that aspect of an object.

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Will and Intellect 249 As we have already seen, it is reason’s capacity to take different views both of the ultimate good and of particular goods that explains the will’s freedom. Nothing moves the will necessarily to the exercise of its act, “because one can just not think about a given object, and consequently one will not actually will it.” As for specification, only an object in which there is no aspect of deficiency or evil  –​ happiness –​moves the will necessarily: “Other particular goods, by contrast, can be regarded as not-​good insofar as they are lacking some good; thus, depending on how one looks at them, the will can either reject them or approve them, since it can be directed to one and the same object under different descriptions” (ST i–​ii, q. 10, a. 2). How to understand Aquinas’s account of the interaction between intellect and will –​and, in particular, how to understand the nature of the freedom that emerges from and characterizes that interaction –​was, and remains, highly contested. If we take seriously the notion of will as rational appetite (see 11.2.4), it seems that the will has no independent power to shape human action.12 Even the fact that the will can divert the intellect from considering a particular object, or command it to consider the object under this description (as good) or that (as lacking in goodness), must, it seems, ultimately rest on the intellect, for if the will is rational appetite, how it directs the intellect’s consideration and deliberation must depend on reason’s judgment. And Aquinas does in fact assert that the will never acts contrary to a particular judgment of reason (ST i–​ii, q. 77, a. 1).13 If reason in turn works deterministically, then it would seem that acts of will inherit that determinism and so are free, if at all, only in a compatibilist sense.14 Certainly many early critics of Aquinas held that on his account acts of will are necessitated by acts of intellect. In 1277 the Franciscan William de la Mare published the Correctorium fratris Thomae, which offered “corrections” to 117 passages in Aquinas; in 1282 the Franciscan order officially endorsed the work and required that any Franciscans who read the Summa theologiae read it with William’s corrections. (The Correctorium in turn inspired several

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250 Thomas Williams “corrections of the corrections” by defenders of Aquinas.) Replying to Aquinas’s claim in ST i–​ii, q. 9, a. 6, ad 3 that “through reason human beings determine themselves to will this or that,” William says: If by the act of determining he means that reason, by inquiring, taking counsel, and judging, offers or presents one of a pair of opposites to the will so that it might will and obtain that one and not its contrary, that doesn’t seem to call for criticism; on the contrary, it is well said. If, however, by the act of determining he means that reason, in concluding that one of a pair of contraries is to be willed and pursued, thereby determines –​that is, necessitates –​the will to that thing in such a way that the will cannot will or pursue its contrary, that is contrary to Bernard, On Grace and Free Choice, ch. 3, and contrary to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 9, and erroneous, and recently condemned along with a number of articles in the ninth chapter, on the will, where the claim that the will does not remain free after the intellect has come to a conclusion about what is to be done is condemned as an error; as is the claim that the human will is necessitated through its cognition in the way that the appetite of the lower animals is; as is the claim that the will follows necessarily what is firmly believed by reason and cannot withdraw from what reason determines. (Glorieux 1927, 232)15

To this the anonymous defender of Aquinas who wrote the Correctorium corruptorii Thomae “Quare” replies: “It never ceases to amaze me how these people twist Thomas’s words to mean what they don’t mean, when the whole drift of Thomas’s argument is to teach the opposite. So I  don’t see any need to respond to this nonsense” (Glorieux 1927, 232). William is insistent that the will must be able to act against the judgment of reason, and this view comes to be generally adopted by later Franciscans, a development perhaps encouraged, but certainly not initiated, by the Condemnation of 1277:  earlier Franciscans

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Will and Intellect 251 such as John of la Rochelle (fl. 1238–​1245) and Walter of Bruges (fl. 1267–​1269) had defended such a view of the freedom of the will (Eardley 2006). Not surprisingly, those who held that the will was the root of freedom found the old language of liberum arbitrium, which designated a faculty of both reason and will, less apt, and were increasingly using the expression libertas voluntatis, freedom of the will. We see this shift in vocabulary in the 1270s, accelerating with the Condemnation of 1277. But even if one accepts that the will is free in its own right and not merely because of its connection with reason, one still needs some account of what reason contributes. The will depends on the intellect to present an object, even if the will is free either to accept or reject the intellect’s judgment about whether that object should be chosen. Henry of Ghent insisted that “the intellect functions simply as a conditio sine qua non of volition” (Eardley 2006, 366): a necessary precondition for willing, but no more than that. Against Henry, Godfrey of Fontaines upheld a strong intellectualist view: the will is passive, causally determined by the cognized object, and it cannot choose contrary to a judgment of reason. When John Duns Scotus, who agreed with his Franciscan predecessors that the will is free in its own right, first considered the question of the respective contributions of will and intellect to action, he presented the views of Henry and Godfrey as two extremes  –​one attributing no causality to the intellect, the other attributing all causality to the intellect  –​and argued for an intermediate view. In his early Lectura on the Sentences (c. 1299), he argued that the will and the object presented by the intellect together constitute the total efficient cause of an act of will. Neither depends on the other for its causal power, and both are required. The will is “the more principal and perfect agent” because it is responsible for the freedom of the act, but the intellect must also exercise an efficient-​causal role (Lect. ii, d.  25, q.  un.). By the time of his last lectures on the Sentences (c. 1303), however, he had come around to Henry’s position that the will is the total cause of its own act and

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252 Thomas Williams the intellect’s presentation of the object is merely a sine qua non condition (Reportatio ii, d. 25, q. un.).16 For all that they disagreed over the causal contributions of intellect and will in action, all the authors discussed so far in this section did at least agree that they were examining the interaction of two distinct faculties. William of Ockham departed from this consensus. On his view, “will” and “intellect” both refer to one and the same thing: the intellectual soul. The terms have different connotations. Connotation is a kind of indirect reference:  when I  use the word “horseman,” for example, I refer directly to a human being but indirectly to a horse.17 According to Ockham, “will” connotes volitional acts and “intellect” connotes intellectual acts, but it is one and the same thing, the intellectual soul, that has both kinds of acts: “When we want to stress [the intellectual soul’s] capacity for intellectual acts, we call it the intellect, and when we want to stress its capacity for volitional acts, we call it the will” (Panaccio 2012, 78–​79). Nevertheless, even though we are talking about a single intellectual soul rather than about two different faculties, we can still ask how intellectual acts are related to volitional acts. Ockham does not hesitate to say that “an act of understanding is a partial efficient cause with respect to an act of willing, and it can exist naturally without an act of willing, but not vice versa” (Reportatio ii, q. 20; OTh v:441–​ 442). Ockham cannot quite uphold the traditional Franciscan view that the will is nobler than the intellect, since strictly speaking the will and the intellect are one and the same thing.18 But he does hold that acts of willing are nobler than acts of understanding, despite the natural priority of acts of understanding, because only acts of willing are fully within our power and therefore only they can be virtuous, praiseworthy, and meritorious.19 Every volition must be preceded by an intellection, but not necessarily a judgment (such as “This ought to be done”) or any deliberation. Scotus, by contrast, had given deliberation a greater role in action: “one does not act in a properly human way unless

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Will and Intellect 253 one understands that for the sake of which one acts:  and that understanding is precisely deliberation” (Ord. iii, d.  33, q.  un., n. 76; Williams 2017, 206). It is perhaps for this reason that Scotus was so concerned to defend the possibility of what he calls “deliberation in a quasi-​imperceptible time”: the virtuous deliberate so quickly and effortlessly that it seems as if they have not deliberated at all (Ord. iii, d.  33, q.  un., nn. 76–​77). For Ockham, however, a simple intellectual apprehension of an object is all the will needs in order to choose or refuse it. Volitions are directly under our control; some intellections are indirectly under our control, because we can will to direct our thoughts in a certain way, though some intellections arise unbidden or “mechanically,” just because of our interaction with our environment (Panaccio 2012, 83–​84). It is always possible for us to will as right reason dictates, but likewise it is always possible for us to will the opposite of what right reason dictates –​and experience makes it perfectly clear that we in fact do so, not just in haste or under the influence of passion, but deliberately and with our eyes wide open.20

11.4 Conclusion It has long been the practice of historians of medieval philosophy to classify various thinkers as either voluntarists or intellectualists, depending on whether they give primacy to the will (voluntas) or the intellect. What I have tried to show in this chapter is that such classifications, though undoubtedly useful for certain purposes, can easily obscure important differences. The meaning of voluntas is not stable across the period, and the contribution of the intellect to the genesis of action is as much a matter of debate among voluntarists (such as Scotus and Ockham) as it is between voluntarists and intellectualists. And some thinkers, most notably Thomas Aquinas, may not belong unambiguously to either camp.21 The inventiveness of medieval thinkers resists such easy dichotomies, and that is precisely why the medieval debates repay careful study.

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254 Thomas Williams

Notes 1 Confessions 8.5.10. All translations in this chapter are my own. 2 Translators of the Confessions into English often obscure the nature of voluntas in Augustine by translating the word variously as “whim,” “volition,” “will,” “urge,” “inclination,” “impulse,” and so forth. (I take all these translations from just four paragraphs of book 8 in one of the most widely used English translations, which compounds the difficulty by speaking of “our will,” as if it were a single faculty, where the word voluntas does not even appear in Latin.) 3 For that reason I hesitate to follow Sarah Byers, to whom my account is otherwise greatly indebted, in calling this a “cognitive dissonance model of acrasia” or “ ‘warring thoughts’ model of acrasia” (Byers 2012, 42). For although it is true that Augustine describes himself as having competing impressions –​the dignitas of continence, the habit-​enhanced pleasure of sex –​it is only because both of these impressions have motivational force, because both are “hormetic impressions” or wills, that Augustine is torn between the two incompatible kinds of life that he is envisioning. 4 He continues the discussion of ignorance and difficulty through De lib. arb. 3.20.58 and returns to it at 3.22.64 and 3.23.70. He repeats it in his treatment of De lib. arb. in Retractationes 1.9.6. See also De natura et gratia 17.19, 67.81 (quoting his earlier treatment in De lib. arb.); De dono perseverantiae 11.27 (quoting Retract.), 12.29 (quoting De lib. arb.), and De peccatorum meritis et remissione 2.17.26. 5 See especially De casu diaboli 12–​14. The account of the two affections given here, as two competing first-​order dispositional desires, is consistent with Brower 2004, 243–​249, and Williams and Visser 2001, 230–​238. Rogers 2005 argues instead for taking the affection for justice as a second-​order desire for desiring advantage in the right way. Against this reading of Frankfurtian hierarchy into Anselm, see Williams 2014a. 6 Unlike Augustine and Abelard, Anselm downplays the possibility of ignorance in moral matters, and to the extent that he does acknowledge it, he attributes it ultimately to a failure of the will. See Williams and Visser 2008, 204–​207. 7 See Ord. i, d. 1, part 2, q. 2, nn. 91–​99, 134–​158 (Williams 2017, 56–​66) and Reportatio iva, d. 49, qq. 8–​9, which in default of a critical edition is translated at ethicascoti.com/​Reportatio iv 49 8-​9.pdf.

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Will and Intellect 255 8 See especially Questions on the Metaphysics ix.15, but also Ord. i, d. 1, part 2, n. 80; Ord. ii, d. 6. q. 2, nn. 54–​62; Ord. ii, d. 39, qq. 1–​2, nn. 23–​ 25; Ord. iii, d. 17, q. un., nn. 5–​18 (translated in Williams 2017, 1–​15, 53–​54, 116–​118, 142, 156–​160). 9 The story here is complicated: with each successive set of lectures on the Sentences Scotus moves further away from Anselm, to the point that there seems to be nothing left of the two affections but their names. See King 2011. Though the point requires much more argument than I can give it here, I would insist that Scotus’s final understanding of the two affections is precisely a way of talking about the will as both free and yet still rooted in nature. 10 Albert perhaps intends an echo here of Romans 12:2, “that you might prove (probetis) what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” 11 I can offer only an overview here; for extensive commentary, see Williams 2016. 12 This is the view defended by Jeffrey Hause (2007). 13 For the role that this claim plays in Aquinas’s account of what we call weakness of will but he calls incontinence, see Kent 1989. 14 Pasnau 2002, 221–​233, argues that Aquinas was a compatibilist. For the case against intellectual determinism in Aquinas, see Hoffmann and Michon 2017. 15 This is a later revision of William’s text; I include it here because it is the version to which the defender of Aquinas quoted next is responding. The earlier version likewise invokes the fact that the view was recently condemned; the reference is to the Condemnation of 1277. 16 I discuss this development in greater detail in Williams 2013. 17 I take the example from Panaccio 2012, 77. Another example he gives is “father,” which refers directly to a human being and indirectly to offspring (since no one is a father without having offspring). 18 For the debate over the relative nobility of will and intellect, see Jeff Steele in this volume, 6.6. 19 So Panaccio (2012, 82) argues, but the text he cites (Quaestiones variae q. 7, a. 1; OTh viii:329) does not actually say that volitional acts are nobler than intellectual acts, and the only unambiguous affirmation of that thesis that I can find in Ockham occurs in a passage in which he is setting forth other people’s views (Ordinatio i, prol. q. 12; OTh i:327).

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256 Thomas Williams Ockham does, however, say explicitly that if the intellect and the will were distinct powers, the will would be nobler (Ordinatio i, d. 1, q. 2; OTh i:402); he also affirms there that “enjoyment, which is an act of will, is nobler than an act of intellect” –​a view that even Thomas Aquinas, “as if compelled by the truth,” affirms in one place, though in many others he says the opposite, “following the errors of his own head” (OTh i:402–​403). 20 See Williams 2013, 176 (from which I have borrowed some language here), and Panaccio 2012, 89–​90. 21 Tobias Hoffmann (2010) makes this point well, though (for what it’s worth) I stand by my view in Williams 2012 that Jeffrey Hause (2007) is right to regard Aquinas as an intellectualist in the sense that he does not think the will has any power independent of the intellect to shape human action. What is important in the present context is that merely calling Aquinas an intellectualist gives no indication of the complex interplay of intellect and will that generates human action.

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12 Emotions Martin Pickavé

The emotions are an important topic in medieval ethical thought. Although we do not possess any scholastic works that are specifically dedicated to the emotions  –​as is the case for the virtues, which received treatment in several “sums of virtues and vices” –​ medieval philosophers and theologians, particularly those in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, paid significant attention to questions regarding the nature of the emotions, the basic types of emotions, the relationship between emotions and beliefs as well as other cognitive states, and the moral importance of the emotions. After all, emotions play a crucial role in everyday human life, for human behavior not only is the outcome of choice and rational practical deliberation but more often than not results directly from our emotional attitudes toward objects and persons. And even if for some medieval authors our emotions belong to a part of our nature that we share with non-​ rational animals, our emotions remain important for the understanding of human virtues, especially those virtues, such as moderation and courage, that are said to moderate our emotions. In addition to philosophical questions about the emotions, medieval thinkers were also interested in the theological dimensions of the emotions. Indeed, the fact that philosophical discussions of emotions often come up in theological contexts seems to make it sometimes hard to distinguish philosophical and theological teachings on the emotions. Theological treatments of Christ’s passion on the cross, on the one hand, and the beatific vision in the afterlife, on the other hand, are two such contexts that with a certain regularity provided medieval authors with occasions to dwell 257

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258 Martin Pickavé on questions about the nature of the emotions in general and the emotions of sadness and joy in particular.1 This chapter will highlight some of the issues at the center of medieval debates about the emotions, although I will have to limit myself to three main questions.2 The first question I  shall turn to is what exactly emotions are and how they fit into models of the human soul. As we will see, there is a remarkable consensus among medieval philosophers that emotions belong to the so-​called appetitive part of the soul. However, there is much less agreement about everything else. In the second section, I will turn to the question of whether there are any basic emotions, and, if so, how many basic types of emotions there are. In the third and final part, I shall address the moral significance of our emotions and ask whether emotions are good or bad. Here I will also examine if and how we are responsible for our emotions. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of the emotions will serve as a guide in this survey. There are two reasons for this way of proceeding. First, Aquinas’s treatment of the emotions in what is known as the Prima secundae of the Summa theologiae is one of the most comprehensive philosophical explorations of the emotions before the early modern period. In a total of twenty-​seven questions (qq. 22–​48) he deals with all aspects of the emotions and also engages with a wide variety of sources available to him, including ancient philosophers and the Church Fathers.3 No other medieval treatment of the emotions even comes close to matching Aquinas’s in terms of breadth and detail.4 Second, Aquinas’s presentation of several of the topics discussed in this chapter allows us better to understand the philosophical issues underlying some of the disagreements about the emotions. It is also true that many of the authors writing after Aquinas developed their own views in contrast to his. However, it would be wrong to view Aquinas’s teaching on the emotions as the medieval approach to the emotions, as is sometimes done. Why this is wrong will hopefully become clear in the following pages.

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Emotions 259

12.1  What are Emotions? The term “emotion” is a modern term and not one employed by ancient and medieval philosophers. They refer to psychological phenomena such as love, hate, anger, sadness, and the like as “passions of the soul” (passiones animae), although “passions” is not the only term used. Medieval authors also call these phenomena “affections” (affectus), and sometimes they even use the pejorative terms “perturbances” (perturbationes) and “sicknesses of the soul” (morbi animae) that they encountered in Cicero.5 For Aquinas the term “passion” is a particularly apt one when it comes to the emotions, since in his view they all involve a common form of passivity or receptivity. Thus, exploring the sense in which we are passive when we have an emotion will be a good guide in finding out something about their nature. Now, when we experience an emotion, we experience that we are in the grip of the object of an emotion. We often have the impression that we are either drawn toward the object of an emotion or repelled by it. Just think of anger, hate, love, or hope. In all these cases we do not just experience ourselves as passive in the sense of taking in something of the objects of our attitudes, as happens in perceptual acts. In the present cases, we are more strongly in the grip of the objects of our attitudes.6 Moreover, emotions come along with changes in our body. Our heartbeat picks up when we are angry or afraid, people blush when they are ashamed and pale when afraid, and so on. For Aquinas, the relationship between these bodily changes and the emotions is not just accidental; they are essentially connected. In some cases, an occurrent emotion may not be intense enough for us to consciously register the accompanying bodily change. However, this does not show that emotions and bodily changes are not related. In this respect, emotions are again different from other mental phenomena. Although perception and even, to some degree, thought are impossible without bodily organs, and some of their objects may bring about a bodily change in the relevant organs, these bodily changes are not related to cognitive

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260 Martin Pickavé acts in the same way as they are to the emotions.7 Both considerations lead Aquinas to conclude that emotions strictly speaking are “acts of the sensitive appetite” (actus appetitus sensitivi) and not of the parts of the soul responsible for perception and cognition. The first aspect of their phenomenology, i.e. that they directly involve occurrent positive or negative attitudes, points for Aquinas to the fact that they belong to the appetites, i.e. the psychological capacities that allow us to entertain such attitudes. The second aspect shows, according to Aquinas, that emotions belong moreover to the sensitive appetite, i.e. the appetitive capacity that we have in common with non-​rational animals. For only the sensitive appetite is for Aquinas directly linked to bodily experience.8 To get a clearer picture of what Aquinas has in mind, think of an actual emotional experience. Take anger as an example. Imagine someone slights you in front of your friends. You hear what he is saying and you realize that he is slighting you. Once you come to judge the utterance as a slight you become angry and your blood pressure goes up. Moreover, you start to feel a certain way and you storm out of the room or shout at him. One might say that an episode of anger consists of many elements. This is true. But for Aquinas some of these elements are antecedent to the emotion proper and some follow upon it. Hearing words (perception) and forming a judgment (thought) are antecedent to the emotion. They trigger the emotion, without being identical with it. The feeling, at which we arrive through proprio-​perception and which gives the emotional experience its particular phenomenal quality, follows the change in the body, and the consequent action too is a result of anger. For Aquinas only the element in the middle, i.e. the occurrent affective attitude, i.e. the appetitive act, caused by the awareness that you have been slighted, together with its accompanying bodily change, is the emotion in the strict sense.9 Because of the close relation between appetitive acts and their corresponding bodily changes, emotions can be described from two perspectives. As appetitive acts, emotions can be described and

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Emotions 261 individuated in terms of the objects at which they are directed. In this sense, anger, for instance, is the desire for revenge. However, from the point of view of the characteristic bodily change, anger is a kindling of the blood around the heart. Aquinas considers these two ways of describing emotions as complementary, and he sometimes emphasizes that one refers to the formal aspect of an emotion, the other to its material aspect. In a complete definition of an emotion, both aspects need to be considered.10 As we can gather from what has just been said, human emotions are rooted for Aquinas in our corporeal nature. At least from a theological perspective, this may seem wrong. Are immaterial beings such as the angels incapable of emotions? And does the Bible not attribute emotions to God, for instance, when God is said to be angry? Aquinas responds to these objections with an important distinction. God and the angels have no emotions in the strict sense of passions of the soul. But since they have appetitive acts that from a formal point of view correspond to the acts of the sensitive appetite in human beings, we can attribute some emotions also to God and the angels, and not just in a metaphorical sense.11 According to Aquinas, human beings too possess these “higher” emotions, as he often makes clear using the example of love. For in addition to love as a passion of the soul, there is also a love that is an act of the will, an act of the higher appetitive power. To distinguish these “higher” emotions –​or “dispassionate passions” –​from the common ones, Aquinas reserves the expression “passion of the soul” to the acts of the sensitive appetite and refers to the higher ones as “affections” (affectus) or simply “acts of the will” (actus voluntatis).12 However, there can be no doubt that Aquinas considers the “passions of the soul” in the sensitive appetite as the properly human emotions. For it is these which give our lives and our experiences color and it is through these that our sentiments are primarily expressed. Note that understanding emotions in terms of appetitive acts, rather than perceptions or other cognitive acts, is by no means peculiar to Aquinas. On the contrary, as far as I  can see, this view is

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262 Martin Pickavé shared by all medieval philosophers and theologians. In City of God, Augustine presents perhaps the clearest articulation of this view when he writes: For what is desire (cupiditas) or joy (laetitia) but an act of willing (voluntas) in agreement with what we wish for? And what is fear (metus) or sadness (tristitia) but an act of willing in disagreement with what we reject? We use the term “desire” when this agreement takes the form of pursuit of what we wish for, while “joy” describes our satisfaction in the attainment. In the same way, when we disagree with something we do not wish to happen, such an act of willing is fear; but when we disagree with something which happens against our will, that act of willing is sadness.13

Writing approximately 900  years after Augustine, William of Ockham is still committed to the same basic idea when he writes about the emotions  –​now in a decidedly more scholastic vocabulary: I state that by “passion” I mean any form that exists in an appetitive power, is naturally apt to be regulated by right reason so as to be well-​ordered, and requires an actual cognition for its own existence. Or, in short, a passion is a form that (i) is distinct from a cognition, (ii) exists subjectively in an appetitive power, and (iii) requires an actual cognition for its own existence. Condition (i) excludes actual cognition, since an actual cognition is not a passion; condition (ii) excludes all intellectual habits and vegetative operations; condition (iii) excludes habits in the will, since they can exist in the absence of any actual cognition, as is evident in the case of someone who is sleeping. From this it follows that the passions include acts of the sensitive appetite and, in short, all acts of the will as well as the pleasure and sadness that exist in the will.14

That Ockham replaces the earlier talk about “acts of willing” or “appetitive acts” with “forms existing in an appetitive power” does

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Emotions 263 not indicate anything more than that he conceives of the acts of a psychological power in terms of forms inhering in it. The main lines of thought are the same. However, in neither Augustine nor Ockham do we detect Aquinas’s insistence that emotions are primarily in the sensitive appetite. Indeed, many authors in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries locate the properly human emotions rather in the will, the higher appetitive power and one that we do not share with non-​rational animals. One of the driving arguments behind this shift toward locating emotions in the will has to do with a change in the understanding of the moral virtues. According to Aquinas, moral virtues, such as the virtues of courage and moderation, reside in the sensitive appetite, for they are nothing other than acquired habitual dispositions of the sensitive appetite. However, for later authors, such as John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, virtues reside in the will. For Scotus, there is no “operation of a human being qua human” in the sensitive appetite, which after all we share with non-​rational animals. Hence, there is nothing in the activity of the sensitive appetite that is either morally good or bad and thus in need of being moderated or strengthened. Only in the will do we find the sort of human operations in need of virtuous dispositions.15 This does not mean that there aren’t emotion-​like phenomena in the sensitive appetite, but these simply do not count as human emotions. Locating emotions in the will may sound wrongheaded. After all, the will is the power by which we make choices. But no one chooses to be sad, angry, or despairing; and it would be too good to be true if love and joy were simply a matter of choice. It is for this reason that Scotus and others distinguish between those operations of the will in which the will is an efficient cause (as in the case of choice) and those in which the will is passive. Writing about the emotion of sadness, Scotus explains: This passion is not in the will through the will’s being its efficient cause, because then it would be immediately under the

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264 Martin Pickavé power of the will, as volitions and nolitions are. But this is not the case, for when one wills against something and it happens, it is seen that the subject does not have sadness under one’s immediate power. If it had the will as its efficient cause, it would be an operation of the will, as a volition is caused by the will and is in the will.16

This passage not only explains how emotions can be in the will despite not being full-​blown acts of the will, such as acts of willing (velle) or willing-​against (nolle); it also hints at how emotions are aroused in the will. An emotion is caused not by the will itself, but by the presence of an object together with a standing volitional attitude. My sadness, say, about the loss of a close family member depends on my willing not to lose this family member, an antecedent act of willing-​ against, and the occurrence of this loss. What triggers this sadness is the loss itself or, better, the awareness of the loss. For obviously I can’t be sad about something I don’t know. The last passage also shows that Scotus and those who follow him in this respect have an understanding of the passivity of our emotions that is different from Aquinas’s. For both sides emotions are instances in which our agency is diminished. But whereas for Aquinas emotions are passions insofar as they bring about a change in the body and insofar as through them we are in the grip of the emotion’s object, for Scotus the passivity of the emotions consists in the fact that they are acts of the will that are not in our power, but are triggered by some external factor or the awareness thereof. At this point someone might object that it is misguided to identify what medieval philosophers call “passions of the soul” (passiones animae) with the emotions. “Medieval” passions belong to the appetitive powers of the soul; emotions, however, are something more cognitive. Emotions have intentional objects at which they are directed and they seem to involve value judgments. Some modern interpreters thus insist that “what we call emotion consists, for Aquinas, in two separate acts: an act of cognition and a passion.”17

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Emotions 265 I consider this criticism not only anachronistic, but also wrong. Obviously, Aquinas never uses the expression “emotion” (or the corresponding Latin form), so there is no textual basis to decide this issue. However, we ascribe to emotions certain roles and functions, which for Aquinas are fulfilled by the “passions of the soul.” We say, for instance, that virtues moderate our emotions, and that emotions may influence our perceptions. These are just two random examples. However, when Aquinas speaks about both cases, he always has the “passions of the soul” in mind. As we have already learned, according to him, the virtues moderate the acts of the sensitive appetites.18 And it is the “passions of the soul” that  –​through the bodily changes connected with them –​interfere to such an extent with our perceptual capacities that the resulting perceptions and beliefs are said to be “colored” by our emotions.19 Moreover, there is no reason to believe, as the opponent seems to assume, that Aquinas has only a limited aspect of emotions in mind when he refers to love, hate, anger, hope, despair, and the like as “passions of the soul.” Aquinas and the other medieval philosophers and theologians simply seem to have a different understanding of what exactly emotions are, and this in itself might actually be an important lesson to learn. However, there is at least one medieval author who maintains that emotions are cognitive acts:  Adam Wodeham, a student of William of Ockham. In his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences he writes: Second, I say –​not by way of expressing an assertion, but by way of expressing an opinion –​that every act of desiring (actus appetendi) and hating (odiendi), and so enjoyment (frui), is a cognition of some sort (quaedam cognitio) and an apprehension of some sort (quaedam apprehensio), because every experience of some object is also a cognition (cognitio) of that same object. But every appetitive act (actus appetitivus) is an experience of some sort of its object; that is, it is that by which such an object is experienced, because every vital act is an experience of some sort.20

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266 Martin Pickavé Although Wodeham’s remark focuses on very specific appetitive acts (i.e. desire, hate, enjoyment), his “opinion” is clearly about all appetitive acts, for all such acts are “experiences of some sort” and thus cognitions and apprehensions “of some sort.” It is not hard to see the idea behind Wodeham’s statement. Appetitive acts, regardless of whether they belong to the sensitive appetite or to the will, are caused by cognitions. My active desire for chocolate is caused by the awareness that I have some of it right here in my bag. However, the desire that is caused by this sort of knowledge seems not to be “blind”; it is directed at something and it even represents its object, and this it has in common with ordinary cognitive acts. Note that Wodeham does not reject the commonly shared view that emotions are appetitive acts. What he rejects is that being an appetitive act precludes the appetitive act from being a cognition “of some sort.” Wodeham’s remark raises an important question: how can we account for the intentionality of the emotions if they are in themselves mere appetitive acts? To respond to this question in detail would lead us beyond the limits of this survey. But maybe there is a quick way to circumvent the worry. For it is obviously based on an understanding of appetitive acts as somewhat separate mental items, whereas in reality these acts always occur together with the perceptions, beliefs, or thoughts that trigger them. It would thus not be strange to assume that for thinkers like Aquinas emotions inherit their intentionality from the cognitions that cause them.21

12.2  The Basic Emotions I have already mentioned various emotions in passing:  love, hate, anger, fear, hope, pleasure, sadness, and the like. This leads us to the question as to whether there is a fixed number of basic emotions from which all other emotions are composed, as, for instance, for Descartes, or whether there is a determinate number of generic emotions under which all specific emotions can be subsumed. To

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Emotions 267 address this question we have to turn our attention to the sensitive appetite, to which emotions, at least for authors like Aquinas, belong. According to Aquinas, our emotions can be divided into two groups:  those belonging to the so-​ called “concupiscible appetite” (appetitus concupiscibilis) and those belonging to the “irascible appetite” (appetitus irascibilis). The human sensitive appetite is thus not one single psychological capacity, but consists strictly speaking of two distinct capacities. To understand why this is so, we have to keep in mind that every natural object has two basic tendencies. Every natural object (a)  tends to what is beneficial for it and (b) tends to “fight” what impedes it in its pursuit of what is beneficial. Aquinas explains this using the example of fire: fire has a natural tendency to move upward and a second tendency to resist everything that thwarts its upward movement. On account of the second tendency fire destroys impediments. However, the existence of these two basic tendencies or drives are not yet sufficient to establish the existence of two distinct sensitive appetites. To achieve this Aquinas has to show that they cannot be reduced to one and the same appetite in higher-​level animals. That they cannot be reduced to a single appetitive power can be made clear using another example. Take the example of a dog that desires to grab and eat a piece of food currently in the possession of another dog. As dogs sometimes do, this situation leads to them fighting over the food. The first dog’s desire for the piece of food can be understood as an act of the appetite for what is beneficial and pleasurable for itself. If the animal possessed only one appetite, then presumably it would be this appetite for the beneficial and pleasurable. Since appetites motivate their possessors to act, it would follow that all actions of such an animal could be reduced to a simple pleasure–​displeasure scheme. This doesn’t look very convincing. For if the dog has to fight in order to obtain the food, it will tolerate something displeasing. On the view that the dog is only motivated by what is beneficial and pleasurable, the experience of displeasure should lead to a quick cessation of the fighting. But

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268 Martin Pickavé that is not always what we observe. It is not strange to think that sometimes the displeasure incurred by the fighting far exceeds the anticipated pleasure of the possession and eating of the food. But if that is so and animal behavior is more complex, then this suggests the existence of separate appetites in the part of the soul we have in common with non-​rational animals. In particular, this scenario suggests that animals possess another appetite through which they are motivated to overcome difficult situations.22 Although Aquinas maintains that concupiscible and irascible appetites are distinct appetitive powers, they are not distinct in the way, say, sight and hearing are distinct, which can both operate separately. The irascible appetite is subordinate to the concupiscible appetite, because its role is to support the latter in achieving its fulfillment. Their relation becomes clearer when we look at Aquinas’s division of the basic emotions. For Aquinas, the different basic emotions can best be understood when we think of them in relation to movement. Some emotions, such as joy or pleasure (gaudium/​ delectatio) and sadness (tristitia/​dolor), are like the endpoints of a movement; others, such as desire (desiderium) and aversion (aversio/​ fuga), are like the beginning. We can think of the relationship between these emotions as that of different moments in a continuous range of behavior: the perception of a pleasant object causes in us a desire, which leads to pleasure or joy when we manage to attain the object. Similarly, the awareness of a displeasing object causes aversion, and when it cannot be avoided this may lead to sadness. The emotions of love (amor) and hate (odium) are related to movement only in the sense that they precede any emotional movement. For it is the love and hate which cause in us desire and aversion in the first place. So much about the emotions of the concupiscible appetite. All the emotions belonging to the irascible appetite have to do with the movement toward something (motus ad aliquid), i.e. the stage between desire and aversion on the one hand and pleasure and sadness on the other. In this way they are integrated with the emotions of the concupiscible appetite. If the object of desire is

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Emotions 269 something pleasing, this may lead to hope (spes) or despair (desperatio) depending on whether the subject considers the object attainable or not. If the object is something we want to avoid, this may lead to confidence (audacia) or fear (timor/​metus).23 Desire, aversion, hope, despair, confidence, and fear are all future-​ directed, whereas pleasure and sadness are caused by the presence of an object or, better, the awareness thereof. (Whether the objects are actually present or not does not matter as long as we hold the object to be present.) Love and hate are directed neither at something in the future nor at something present. From what has been said, it should be clear why there cannot be an emotion of the irascible appetite with respect to a present pleasing object. We possess the irascible appetite primarily to realize arduous tasks. But a pleasing object that is already present is not something that requires us to overcome difficulty.24 Just as the concupiscible emotions give rise to the irascible ones, so do the irascible emotions resolve into the concupiscible ones. When you desire an object the pursuit of which exceeds your abilities, your despair will turn into sadness, just as the avoidance of an evil that did not exceed your abilities turns your confidence into pleasure or joy. Anger (ira), however, is a special irascible emotion. It is caused in the irascible appetite by the perception of a present evil. However, unlike sadness, which is also experienced in the presence of an evil, anger is not the end of a movement, but a desire for revenge. Moreover, anger seems to comprise other emotions as well, such as sadness about a present evil.25 According to Aquinas there are thus eleven basic passions (passiones principales), which he takes to represent eleven classes of emotions. All possible acts of the sensitive appetites fall into one of these eleven classes.26 At first sight it looks as though Aquinas’s division of basic emotions is meant to oppose the popular Stoic doctrine of the four fundamental emotions of joy, sadness, hope, and fear. However, Aquinas does not see a fundamental disagreement between his classification of basic emotions and that of the Stoics.27 According to Aquinas, the Stoic division into four fundamental emotions is

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270 Martin Pickavé based on a different principle than his own, namely the opposite pairs of present vs. future and good vs. evil. Joy and sadness are about a present good or evil; hope and fear concern future goods and evils. Moreover, joy and sadness are states into which all other emotions resolve. It is for this reason that even Aristotle emphasized these four emotions.28 The four fundamental emotions of the Stoics are for Aquinas just those emotions to which all the other emotions are directed as if they are completing them (completive). For hope and fear too are emotions to which other emotions are ordered as if they are completing them (completive). In the latter two cases, they complete desire and aversion. Because Aquinas does not think that the Stoic list of fundamental emotions was ever intended as a complete classification of basic emotions, there is ultimately no real disagreement. Aquinas’s list of basic emotions may depend on a clear deductive principle. It raises, however, the question of whether Aquinas’s list is complete. Envy or jealousy (invidia), for instance, belongs among the emotions most familiar to us; yet it does not appear on Aquinas’s list. Why is that? The answer is simple: for Aquinas envy or jealousy falls under sadness; it is nothing more than a specific form of sadness, i.e. sadness about someone else’s achievement or possession.29 Other emotions may similarly be subsumed under one of the eleven classes. Shame, to mention another common emotion, is a form of fear, namely the fear of disgrace.30 And to give a final example: the passion of wonder (admiratio), which will later play such an important role in Descartes’s account of the emotions, is for Aquinas simply a certain form of desire.31 Not all medieval authors follow Aquinas in his account of the eleven basic emotions. One of his critics in this respect is Giles of Rome, whose discussion of emotions at the beginning of his commentary on the second book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is in general a good example of Aquinas’s influence. Despite following Aquinas in many details, Giles tries to give a more coherent derivation of the basic emotions, for he considers Aquinas’s method too ad hoc.

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Emotions 271 Moreover, Giles maintains that we have to add a twelfth emotion to Aquinas’s list:  the emotion of gentleness (mansuetudo). This emotion is the opposite of anger, which in Aquinas’s classification –​ in contrast to all the other basic emotions  –​has no corresponding opposite.32 Deriving basic emotions becomes trickier when emotions are located in the will. Aquinas does not think that the will is divided into a concupiscible and an irascible part,33 nor do those for whom human emotions are primarily in the will. It is thus less clear whether they acknowledge a determinate number of basic emotions or if so, how they arrive at this conclusion. Some fourteenth-​century authors disagree with Aquinas’s eleven basic emotions. For Peter Auriol, for example, the list of Aquinas’s basic emotions can in one sense be reduced to nine. For him, love and hate are not separate emotions. Love manifests itself either as desire, when the loved object is not yet possessed, or as pleasure or joy, when the object is attained. The same is true for hate with respect to aversion and sadness. However, Auriol then goes on to argue for the inclusion of two further basic emotions. For he thinks it necessary to distinguish sadness from pain (dolor) and joy (gaudium) from the more carnal pleasure.34

12.3  Emotions, Morality, and Control In the preceding sections I have already mentioned the connection between emotions and virtues, which turned out to be relevant for determining the location of emotions in our soul. If emotions at least sometimes have to be moderated by virtues, then this implies that they can have moral value and that their use can be either good or bad. In this sense medieval philosophers do not agree with the Stoic view that all emotions are bad. However, at least for someone like Aquinas, for whom the emotions are acts of the sensitive appetite, which we share with non-​rational animals, emotions do not have intrinsic moral value. Their moral quality depends entirely on whether they are in accordance with what is rationally required.35

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272 Martin Pickavé Now, in everyday life, we not only acknowledge the goodness or badness of certain emotions, we also hold our fellow human beings and even ourselves responsible for our emotions. We criticize someone who grieves excessively, and we praise others for their courage, which is nothing other than an appropriate degree of fear and confidence. How is this possible? Emotions are psychological acts that are in an important sense not in our power. But how then can we hold a subject responsible for something that is not in her power? Aquinas thinks it is wrong to maintain that we do not have control (dominium or imperium) over our emotions.36 Since our emotions are acts of the sensitive appetites and the sensitive appetites have bodily organs, there are obvious limits to our control. For the disposition of our psychological capacities depends to some extent on the corporeal disposition of the corresponding organ. And just as visual activity is affected by a defect in the eye, so some disposition of the body may contribute to the unruliness of the sensitive appetites. Yet this does not rule out that there are other ways in which we can exercise control over our emotions. For keep in mind that emotions are triggered by cognitive acts:  not by any cognitive act, but by those through which we grasp a “sensory good” (bonum sensibile) or its opposite.37 According to Aquinas, emotions can be triggered by many types of sensory cognition.38 Some emotions, however, require more complex cognitions. “Cogitative power” (vis cogitativa) is Aquinas’s name for the sensory power through which emotions are primarily triggered in human beings. He sometimes also calls it “particular reason” (ratio particularis). Higher-​ level non-​ rational animals are endowed with a somewhat similar power, the “estimative power” (vis aestimativa). In non-​rational animals it too is responsible for the arousal of emotions, for not all the animal’s emotions can be explained by recourse to the exterior senses or the imagination. A  sheep, in Aquinas’s example, is capable of being afraid when it perceives a wolf. But the harmfulness of the wolf is not a property

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Emotions 273 the sheep can grasp through its external senses or any internal sense. Note that the sheep’s judgment is instinctive, and whereas human beings also sometimes act on instinct, our instincts can be influenced by reason. It is for this reason that the corresponding human power has a different name, which indicates a difference in nature. The alternative expression “particular reason” should not lead us to believe that this higher sensory capacity belongs to the intellectual part of the soul. Rather, it sits at the interface between sensibility and reason and mediates between the two, for instance, by making it possible for reason to influence sensory cognition so as to strengthen or weaken occurrent emotional experiences. And in some cases the cogitative power is the very reason why higher-​level cognitive acts lead to emotions in the lower parts of the soul in the first place.39 Because of its cognitive penetrability, the cogitative power (vis cogitativa) provides us with a direct way to control our emotions.40 It is through this way that you might be able to mitigate your fear of flying by thinking about air travel safety statistics, or we may get rid of our anger by thinking about the evidence for the judgment that we have been slighted. As Aquinas says himself: “This is something everyone can experience in himself, for by referring to some general considerations, anger, fear, and the like are mitigated or also incited.”41 However, not all emotions can be controlled in this way, for some emotions are immediately triggered by the perception of the senses or by the imagination.42 Certain objects are naturally pleasing or displeasing. Just think of sweet or bitter tastes. A  sensory perception of those will immediately lead to a corresponding emotion. In many of those cases we only have indirect control over our emotions. Emotions naturally lead to action, but our will always has the power to intervene and block the resulting action. Moreover, our will and reason can make us avoid situations in which we are prone to certain emotions. It is, for instance, always in my power to avoid romantic Hollywood comedies, if they make me sad. If I then become sad while watching such a movie, I  am indirectly responsible for my sadness.

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274 Martin Pickavé This last indirect form of control is also relevant in those extreme cases where our emotions are so strong that neither will nor reason can exercise direct control, because they are as it were momentarily switched off. Think of Medea and similar literary examples. The actions performed in such situations and the accompanying emotions have, taken in themselves, no moral value, since they no longer count as properly human actions. But we may still be held responsible for them insofar as it was in our power to avoid the situation antecedently. The case is different when the cause of such a situation is beyond the subject’s control, as for instance in the case of a disease. Then even the subsequent state is not one for which she is responsible.43 Last but not least, the will can also control the emotions “by means of overflow” (per modum redundantiae). For the will and the sensitive appetites are interrelated, so that a strong activity of one of the powers affects the other. Just as a strong emotion will incline the will toward the object of the emotion, so an intense act of volition will lead to a strong emotion. And the latter even more so, since the will is the higher power.44 Not all medieval philosophers were equally optimistic about our ability to control our emotions. John Duns Scotus, for instance, thought that Aquinas’s idea of a direct rational control of our emotions in the sensitive appetite was simply mistaken. As he writes: [M]‌oderating a passion can be understood in two ways: moderating a present passion, or moderating a future passion. There are two ways in which a present passion can be moderated. One is by diminishing the passion that is apt to be caused by the object in itself, so that the passion is not immoderate in the way that the object would be apt to please the sensory power if that power were left to itself. The other is to refer that pleasure to an end that is suitable according to right reason, and to which that pleasure would not be referred simply

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Emotions 275 in virtue of the absolute character of the object of the sensory appetite. Moderating a future passion can be understood as either avoiding an object that is apt to give immoderate pleasure or as having dealings only with objects that are apt to give moderate pleasure. In these cases a future passion is not moderated in itself; rather, one takes precautions so that no immoderate passion comes to be present.45

We do not need to examine all the different cases in detail. What matters in this passage is that Scotus has a somewhat necessitarian view of the emotions of the sensitive appetite; these emotions are just irrational reactions. Their moderation consists mainly in avoiding them completely or in referring their unavoidable occurrence to some higher end; and, we might say, the moderation of passions is something that happens to them from outside. As Scotus notes later in the same text, this moderation pertains to the will alone.46 William of Ockham shares Scotus’s skepticism regarding the possibility of direct rational control of the sensitive appetite’s emotions. Like Scotus, he ultimately thinks they are nothing we can be praised or blamed for.47 Yet this is not a big problem for someone for whom the real emotions are located in the will. That the emotions in the will are something we are responsible for is much easier to understand. They are voluntary not only in being in the will (voluntas), but also –​as we saw earlier –​in depending on antecedent habitual dispositional volitions, which the will could not have acquired other than through its own free acts.

12.4 Conclusion The philosophical engagement with the emotions in the Middle Ages is naturally much broader than I have been able to show in this short chapter. I  have, for instance, not dealt with the early medieval period or even with Latin authors of the twelfth century, nor with the authors of works in philosophical psychology from the early

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276 Martin Pickavé thirteenth century (such as Jean de la Rochelle) or with Albert the Great, who wrote extensively on the emotions.48 Nor have I been able to mention treatments of the emotions in adjacent disciplines, most notably medieval medicine. However, I hope this brief survey of some central issues in the later medieval debates about the emotions has given a glimpse of the sophisticated level of debate that philosophical theorizing about the emotions had reached at that time. Future research and the growing number of modern editions of late medieval commentaries on Lombard’s Sentences have the potential to produce an even more detailed picture in the future.

Notes 1 It is for this reason that thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences are one of the main sources for medieval theories of the emotions. Christ’s passion is the topic of book iii, distinction 15; the beatific vision is treated in book i, distinction 1. 2 For a more extensive treatment, see Knuuttila 2004 and Perler 2011. Some key texts are assembled in Knuuttila 2014. See also Schäfer and Thurner 2013. 3 Meier 1912 is still the best treatment of Aquinas’s sources. 4 For detailed discussions of Aquinas’s account of the emotions, see King 2002 and Miner 2011. Of course, Aquinas also deals with the emotions in many of his other works. 5 Aquinas discusses the different expressions in ST i–​ii, q. 24, a. 2. For Cicero, see Tusculan Disputations 4.5. See also Augustine, City of God ix.4 6 ST i–​ii, q. 22, a. 2. 7 ST i–​ii, q. 22, a. 1; ST i–​ii, q. 22, a. 2 ad 3; ST iii, q. 15, a. 4; In III Sententiarum, d. 15, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 2; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 26, aa.  1–​2. 8 ST i–​ii, q. 22, a. 3; ST i, q. 20, a. 1 ad 1; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 26, a. 3. 9 Note that the different aspects and effects associated with an emotion give rise to different names for one and the same emotion. See, for instance, Aquinas’s discussion of the different names for pleasure in ST i–​ii, q. 31, a. 3 ad 3. Aquinas makes similar remarks on many other emotions.

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Emotions 277 10 For this hylomorphic account of the emotions see ST i, q. 20, a. 1 ad 2; ST i–​ii, q. 44, a. 1. The idea goes back to Aristotle (On the Soul i.1). 11 ST i, q. 20, ad 2; ST i, q. 59, a. 4 ad 2; ST i, q. 64, a. 3; SCG i, c. 89. For more about the “dispassionate passions” and the historical background of this idea, see King 2012. Negative emotions, such as anger, are only metaphorically speaking in God and the angels. See ST i, q. 19, a. 1; ST ii–​ii, q. 162, a. 3. 12 See, for instance, ST i, q. 82, a. 5 ad 1; ST i–​ii, q. 22, a. 3 ad 3; ST i–​ii, q. 31, a. 4; Sententia libri de anima i, c. 10. 13 City of God xiv.6; Augustine 2003, trans. Bettenson, 555–​556 (with minor modifications). 14 Quodlibet ii, q. 17 (OTh ix:186–​187); William of Ockham 1991, trans. Freddoso and Kelley, 156–​157. 15 See, for instance, Ord. iii, d. 33, q. un. See also Boulnois 2003. 16 Ord. iii, d. 15, q. un. (Vat. ix:498–​499); trans. Knuuttila 2014, 488 (with minor modifications). See also Drummond 2012. For the same distinction in William of Ockham see his Quodlibet ii, q. 17. For more details about Ockham’s account of the emotions see Hirvonen 2004. 17 Floyd 1998, 161–​162; see also C. Murphy 1999, 168. 18 See, e.g., ST i–​ii, q. 56, a. 3; In III Sententiarum, d. 33, q. 2, a. 4, qc. 2. 19 ST i–​ii, q. 9, a. 2. 20 Lectura secunda in librum primum Sententiarum, d. 1, q. 5, n. 4. See also Pickavé 2012a. 21 For more on this issue, see Pickavé 2010 and Drost 1991. 22 See ST i, q. 81, a. 2; In III Sententiarum, d. 26, q. 1, a. 2; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 25, a. 2. For the distinction between irascible and concupiscible appetites, see also Jacobi 1998 and Zimmermann 1986. 23 ST i–​ii, q. 23, a. 2 and q. 25. 24 ST i–​ii, q. 23, a. 4. 25 ST i–​ii, q. 46. For other texts in which Aquinas presents a deduction of the basis emotions, see In III Sententiarum, d. 26, q. 1, a. 3; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 26, a. 4. 26 ST i–​ii, q. 23, a. 4. 27 For the following, see ST i–​ii, q. 25, a. 4; In III Sententiarum, d. 26, q. 1, a. 4; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 26, a. 5. 28 This also explains for Aquinas why Aristotle’s enumerations often end with the phrase “and other states that are followed by pleasure and

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278 Martin Pickavé sadness” (see NE 2.4, 1105b21–​23; Rhetoric 2.1, 1378a21–​22). According to Aquinas, this does not mean that pleasure and sadness do not count as emotions or, on the contrary, that all other emotions are either species of pleasure or species of sadness. Rather, Aristotle’s point is to highlight that all other emotions lead to these two. 29 ST ii–​ii, q. 36, a. 1. 30 ST i–​ii, q. 41, a. 4. 31 ST i–​ii, q. 32, a. 8. See Les passions de l’âme, a. 53 (Descartes 1996, xi:373). 32 Commentaria in Rhetoricam Aristotelis, fols. 49–​51. See Marmo 1991. 33 ST i, q. 82, a. 5. 34 In III Sententiarum, d. 15, a. 2, 442b–​445b. In this text (and in the preceding question) Auriol also engages with other aspects of Aquinas’s teaching on the emotions. He criticizes, for instance, Aquinas’s hylomorphic understanding of the emotions. Although he agrees that emotions are acts of the sensitive appetites, he does not think that the bodily change is an essential part of the emotion. For medieval taxonomical discussions predating Aquinas, see Knuuttila 2014, 481–​485. 35 ST i–​ii, q. 24. See also ST i–​ii, q. 74, aa. 3 and 4; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 25, a. 5; q. 26, a. 6. 36 For the following, see also C. Murphy 1999 and Perler 2017. 37 See ST i, q. 80, a. 2. 38 ST i, q. 81, a. 3 ad 2; ST i–​ii, q. 17, a. 7. 39 ST i, q. 78, a. 4; ST i, q. 81, a. 3. Aquinas inherits the sheep example as well as the notion of vis aestimativa/​cogitativa from Avicenna. For background, see Black 2000 and Perler 2012. 40 For the following, see ST i, q. 81, a. 3; ST i–​ii, q. 9, a. 2; ST i–​ii, q. 10, a. 3; ST i–​ii, q. 17, a. 7; ST i–​ii, q. 77, aa. 1 and 2; Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 25, a. 4. 41 ST i, q. 81, a. 3. 42 See above n. 38. 43 ST i–​ii, q. 77, a. 7. 44 Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 25, a. 4. 45 Ord. iii, d. 33, q. un., n. 35 (Vat. x:158); trans. Williams 2017, 197.

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Emotions 279 46 Ord. iii, d. 33, q. un., n. 44 (Vat. x:162). Strictly speaking, Scotus notes that reason affects the sensitive appetite only through the will. But what matters here is that Scotus denies that reason can have the direct moderating role that it had in Aquinas’s account. 47 See Quodlibet ii, q. 17; Perler 2017. 48 For some of this, see Knuuttila 2004 and King 2010.

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13 Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism and the Problem of a “Mystical Ethics” Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi 13.1 Introduction The relationship between medieval mysticism and medieval ethics is a complex one for several reasons. First, the texts and figures to which the label “mystical” has been applied are wide-​ranging and diverse. They thus not surprisingly exhibit a range of attitudes toward the role of ethics and morality. Second, mysticism is often viewed as being centrally oriented around certain kinds of experiential states, which are not directly subject to the will and thus appear unlikely candidates for moral evaluation. Third, the apophatic and antinomian tendencies of some mystical traditions lend the appearance of a kind of antipathy toward positive moral prescription, leaving one to wonder whether such traditions reflect concerns that can properly be called “ethical.” At the same time, discussions of goodness and perfection, virtue and vice, will and practice, abound in medieval mystical texts. Most if not all mystical traditions propose some end associated with human perfection or the achievement of what is most worthy of pursuit  –​one that can be achieved through the development of various habits and traits acquired through practice. Indeed, there is good reason to characterize mystical traditions as fundamentally practical, even where they are also epistemic and/​or contemplative (see Hollywood 2012, 8). In this chapter, we will explore in detail a few challenges that threaten to undermine the understanding of medieval Christian and Islamic mystical traditions as putting forward anything resembling a systematic ethics, and we will discuss how certain Christian and 280

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 281 Islamic figures grapple with these issues within their respective traditions. In so doing, we will also examine the roles that love, suffering, and mystical union play in these traditions and the relevance of these phenomena for understanding the ethical import of mystical practice in medieval Christianity and Islam.

13.2  Terminological and Methodological Concerns: Mysticism and Comparative Philosophy Before turning to the various theoretical worries concerning the question of a “mystical ethics,” it is important to first address some significant terminological and methodological issues concerning how we are to understand the term “mysticism,” and how investigations in the domain of “comparative philosophy” with respect to mysticism should proceed. From a terminological standpoint, it is important to note from the outset that the labels “mysticism” and “mystical” as used in contemporary scholarship are relatively late additions to the scholarly conceptual repertoire and were not employed by the medieval persons under discussion here to describe themselves (see Hollywood 2012, 5; Van Dyke 2010). Moreover, the application of these terms in contemporary Western philosophical scholarship has often served to (further) marginalize and exclude certain figures and traditions from the realm of “serious” philosophical investigation. Indeed, the common coupling of “mysticism” with modifiers like “esoteric,” “unsophisticated,” or “unsystematic” often betrays certain widespread philosophical biases against historical thinkers who write for (or as) members of gender and social minorities, or who tend, for example, to emphasize the affective and experiential over the cognitive and speculative, to express themselves in the vernacular as opposed to the language of scholars, or to utilize literary forms of expression that depart from traditional scholastic genres.1 Still, the question remains as to what we should understand by the term “mysticism,” especially as concerns comparative undertakings between Christianity and Islam. While remaining

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282 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi aware that the term may serve various functions in the scholarly literature, in what follows we will adapt and extend Christina Van Dyke’s working definition of late Christian mysticism for our own comparative purposes by understanding a “mystical tradition” most generally as a series of teachings and practices embedded within a particular religious context that are aimed at both understanding and achieving the appropriate relationship of the human to the divine in this life, where this relationship is assumed to go “beyond the realm of normal earthly experience” and to represent “the ultimate fulfillment of human nature.”2 This approach incorporates both the epistemic and practical aspects of mysticism, while also allowing it to take apophatic or affective, contemplative or performative, discursive or lyrical forms to greater and lesser degrees. Additionally important for our purposes is the fact that mystical texts generally serve an essentially didactic or “mystagogical” function (see Bruijn 1997; Haas 1989, 34ff.). They aim to cultivate and impart behavior-​guiding knowledge, whether via explicit instruction, the presentation of exemplars, the crafting of allegories, or some other means. Such texts are not mere “esoteric expressions” of affect or experience and thus should not, indeed cannot, be neatly divorced from their theoretical and practical philosophical and theological underpinnings. In this sense, then, although the term “mystical” is often employed to sideline or dismiss certain figures and texts as irrelevant to the philosophical tradition, we think that mysticism is rife with fodder for philosophical exploration. However, even with this general understanding of mysticism at our disposal, a methodological worry arises regarding how one is to productively undertake comparative research on mysticism. On the one hand, one must be wary of over-​essentializing mystical traditions, reducing them implausibly to some basic experiential or theoretical core, while glossing over relevant cultural, historical, and religious differences. On the other hand, one must be careful not to over-​particularize such traditions to the point that there is nothing

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 283 left to compare. Thus, while we agree it is bad practice to try to reduce the voluminous works of, say, ibn ‘Arabi and Meister Eckhart to some more “basic” form of mysticism common to both of them, we also think that there can be fruitful points of resonance between mystical traditions, especially when seeking illumination on a particular scholarly question or issue. We therefore intend to follow Saeed Zarrabi-​Zadeh (2014, 290) in viewing the particular texts and ideas to be compared here as “ ‘mirrors’ reflecting and revealing various facets of one another,” such that “comparison becomes a tool of clarification and comprehension rather than of assimilation or differentiation.” In what follows, then, we intend to set the ideas of particular Christian and Islamic mystical thinkers side by side to shed some light on the question of whether the category of “medieval mystical ethics” can be a theoretically fruitful one. Indeed, although much mystical literature is intended to provide instruction, edification, and practical guidance on the mystical path to right relationship with God, such texts rarely spell out a comprehensive ethical system, especially in cases in which mystagogical education is supplied through allegory or poetic metaphor. This less discursive aspect of mysticism raises the question of whether the ethical themes in these traditions are conducive to systematization along the lines of normative ethical theory. We will thus raise some theoretical concerns for the formulation of a coherent “mystical ethics” within such traditions and discuss a few ways in which particular medieval Christian and Islamic mystics grappled with these or related concerns. While we understand that many of the ideas we will use in raising these worries stem from contemporary moral theory and are thus perhaps anachronistic when applied to medieval mysticism, this fact only serves to sharpen the tensions between medieval mystical traditions and normative ethics. Do such traditions provide us with something that we could recognize today as an ethical theory? Or should we find another way to talk about the practical and normative aspects of medieval mysticism?

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284 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi

13.3  Theoretical Concerns I: Do Mystical Traditions Provide a Coherent Theory of Value? “How can one imaginatively construct [gebilden] that which is imageless [bildlos] or methodically demonstrate [bewisen] without methods [wiselos] that which is beyond all the senses and human reason? For whichever simile [glichnust] one selects, it is a thousand times more dissimilar [ungelicher] than similar [glich].”3 Here, in a lovely bit of Middle-​High-​German wordplay, Heinrich Seuse (d. 1366), also known as Henry Suso, responds to the request of his “spiritual daughter,” Elsbeth Stagel (d. 1360), for a more comprehensible summary of the divine nature. The apophatic tendency Suso displays here is one that runs through many medieval Christian mystical traditions and stems in a large part from the fifth-​to sixth-​ century Dionysian corpus (which itself draws heavily on the works of the classical Neoplatonists). On this approach, the divine is wholly transcendent and beyond all limitation, including that of being discursively knowable or describable through language. (For more on the challenges posed by Pseudo-​Dionysius, see Erik Kenyon in this volume, 1.4.) The mystical Sufi corpus, too, draws heavily on Neoplatonic sources in emphasizing the unknowability and indescribability of the divine. Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240), for example, claims that the divine never discloses itself as it is in its essence, since the latter is, given its absolute illimitability, unknowable by the necessarily limited human intellect, which comes to know things precisely by demarcating (“de-​limiting”) them:  “We have nothing of knowledge other than attributes of declaring incomparability and attributes of acts,” he writes. “He who supposes that he possesses knowledge of a positive attribute of [God] has supposed wrongly, for such attributes would limit him, while his Essence has no limits.”4 There are at least two related theological reasons for the apophatic tendency in these traditions. From a metaphysical standpoint, placing God beyond all delimitation or conceptualization ensures the

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 285 radical ontological distinction between creator and creature, thereby affirming the utter transcendence and non-​imperfection of the divine. From a moral standpoint, it protects human beings from the sin of idolatry by asserting that, strictly speaking, nothing can be properly thought, said, or (discursively) known of the divine construed in such a way. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of ethical theory, we might be left to wonder whether the apophatic approach is capable of providing a coherent theory of value that could form the basis for a normative mystical ethics. Most straightforwardly, it would seem that the ultimate “object” of value (or, what turns out to be the same, the illimitable source and expression of all value itself) is not the kind of “thing” that can be an object of theorizing at all, for even to say that God is the “Ultimate Good” is to predicate something of the divine that, strictly speaking, cannot be legitimately predicated of it. Of course, we might think that if we restrict our theorizing about value to outlining the ultimate good or goal for human beings in this life, we can actually say something positive about the good life in a way that would provide us with a satisfactory theory of value for a mystical ethics. But even here, assuming as we have that mystical traditions represent the ultimate good for human beings as involving uniting with, being annihilated in, or otherwise entering into some particular relationship with the divine, it would seem that one relatum of the relevant theoretical relation remains necessarily inaccessible to human reasoning or systematization, leaving any potential theory of value unfortunately incomplete.

13.4  To “See the World Aright”: Climbing the Apophatic Ladder Yet perhaps we should not be too hasty to jettison all talk of value –​ even ultimate value –​in apophatic medieval mysticism. To begin, not every mystical tradition adopts such a radically apophatic approach to the divine. For example, many thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century female Christian mystics in the Beguine tradition were remarkably

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286 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi cataphatic. Further, many mystical authors relied on the very tension between the apophatic and cataphatic to bring their mystagogical ideas to expression. Indeed, the fact that even the figures discussed above persisted in attempting to describe, illustrate, or otherwise express the reality of the divine and the individual’s path to relation with it demonstrates their commitment to the idea that such an endeavor is a crucial component in the pursuit of the highest end. At the same time, the requirement in both Christian and Islamic apophatic traditions that, as part of this journey, the soul radically “de-​ image” itself and rid itself of its attachment to illusory and idolatrous conceptions of God still seems to stand in tension with the positive assertion of God-​qua-​ultimate-​value, especially on the assumption that any positive conception of the divine whatsoever is necessarily idolatrous. The dominant position here seems to be the idea that what cannot be said can nevertheless be “shown”  –​or at least gestured at. For example, in the passage immediately following Suso’s retort to Stagel quoted above, instead of falling into apophatic silence, the Dominican continues with his wordplay: “But listen, in order to exorcise the image [bild] through imagery [mit bilden], I want to show you figuratively [biltlich] with figurative [gleichnusgebender] speech  –​ as far as it is possible  –​these same imageless meanings [bildlosen sinnen] as they are to be taken in truth and close a long speech with short words.”5 Elsbeth is then asked to imagine the ripples on a pond into which a stone has been forcefully thrown as the effect of the “unfathomable” power of the “deep abyss” that is the Godhead as it flows out into creation, as Suso describes the Neoplatonic ontological exitus in great lyrical detail. In increasingly concrete and visual terms, he then lays out step by step the path by which the soul undertakes its affective and epistemic reditus back to God through Christ. Indeed, it is likely that Suso himself employed visual imagery, both in his own devotional practices and in his instruction of female nuns, and that he commissioned a variety of illustrations to accompany his written works, indicating the contemplative and didactic

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 287 potential he saw in such imagery.6 Similar pedagogical ideas come to expression in the Sufi poet Rumi (d. 1273), who –​despite claiming that outward “form” and appearance are impediments to reality  –​ wrote volumes of parables and fables rich with imagery, advising his readers that “Although its inner meaning is the bait, /​First listen to this story’s form, then wait” (Rumi 2008, [2635]). Ultimately, however, the goal is to leave such images behind:  “You worship idols when fixed in form’s realm, /​Leave form behind, find meaning inside them!” (Rumi 2008, [2906]). Suso’s discussion of exorcising images through imagery, and Rumi’s insistence on arriving at inner meaning by paying close attention to outer form, point us to one way in which apophatic medieval mystics may have grappled productively with the tension inherent in positing an ultimate value that cannot be appropriately expressed. Images and metaphors are employed as a means for making spiritual progress, one which initially serves an edifying and illustrative purpose, but which finally culminates in an understanding of their ultimate meaninglessness. In other words, images for these mystics are akin to a kind of “Wittgensteinian ladder” that must be thrown away after one has climbed up on it (see Wittgenstein 2005, §6.54). Thus, if viewed as a quasi-​eudaimonistic ethics aimed at elucidating the pursuit of the ideal telos for the human individual, apophatic mysticism can provide a theory of value  –​namely, right relationship with the divine –​but insofar as it remains a discursive theory involving some characterization of what is finally ineffable, such a theory can only serve an initial heuristic or guiding function. Ultimately, it itself must be discarded as a theory. To really be in relationship with God is to have moved beyond the idea of God as the upper bound in some definable value function. It involves, as Michael Sells notes in his discussion of ibn ‘Arabi’s apophaticism, “a perspective shift … through which normal reference, predication, logic, metaphor, and myth narration are transformed into the language of realization, manifestation” (Sells 1988, 134).

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288 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi Importantly,

the

apophatic

doctrine

itself

plays

an

ineliminable practical role in this transformation. As Sameer Yadav has aptly demonstrated, doctrines of divine ineffability serve an essential function in ordering individuals to their proper end: not only do they set out “the sense in which we can and cannot get God right in theology,” they also provide “a normative practical guide to spiritually unite us with God by way of our successful and failed attempts to get God right.”7 This “practical apophaticism” can, for instance, assist the spiritual traveler in struggling with the challenge of divine hiddenness as she makes progress on her mystical journey. The Sufi emphasis on speaking of God as a “hidden treasure,”8 the poetic laments of Attar (d. 1220)  and Hafez (d. 1389) about the lost Beloved, the Dark Night of the Soul traditions of Teresa of Avila (d. 1582)  and John of the Cross (d. 1591), the fifteenth-​ century Upper Rhineland depictions of Christ hiding behind a curtain from his love-​inflamed bride9  –​all these illustrious expressions of divine inaccessibility serve to remind mystical wayfarers that, while they may have made progress on their spiritual journey, they have not yet reached their goal. In this vein, Marguerite Porete (d. 1310)  writes in her Mirror of Simple Souls that the “sad souls” who have achieved a kind of second-​ order understanding of their own ignorance with respect to the divine are wiser and more praiseworthy than their ignorant counterparts:  “they understand well that they do not have understanding of this better thing which they believe” (Porete 1993, §57.) Likewise, Ebrahim Azadegan points out that the sense of divine hiddenness awakened by such conceptual failures may serve as a kind of invitation to continue the apophatic struggle as one seeks the “hidden treasure” that is God (see Azadegan 2015). Or, as John of the Cross (1994) advises, they might indicate that one should give oneself over completely to trust in God and quiet inactivity in which the soul is left “free and disencumbered and at rest from all knowledge and thought … with merely a peaceful and loving attentiveness toward God.”

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 289 Yet this latter “call to inaction” points to a further worry regarding the possibility of formulating a coherent mystical ethics –​ namely, whether medieval mystical traditions can really provide an adequate theory of right action, let alone be action-​guiding, especially given their unique virtue-​theoretic approaches and the tendency in some traditions toward antinomianism, passivity, and the loss of self. It is to a discussion of these issues that we now turn.

13.5  Theoretical Concerns II: Do Mystical Traditions Provide a Coherent Theory of Right Action? The large majority of the mystical traditions under discussion here are situated within a virtue-​theoretic framework, and Sufism is no exception. In many Sufi traditions, the connection between virtuousness and making progress on the mystical path is so tight some have claimed that there is no real distinction between ethics and Sufism (see Kashani 1992, 174). In this vein, Abu-​Nasr al-​Sarraj (d. 988) cites Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910) as answering the question “What is Sufism?” by claiming that “Sufism is good morals possessed at a good time by a good person in the company of other good people.”10 At the same time, even if it is not entirely incorrect to say that all stations on the Sufi mystical path display some moral concern or other, the achievement of moral excellence itself is often taken to represent merely the first stage in the individual’s spiritual growth, namely that of the so-​called “journey from the world to the Truth,”11 in which the soul is freed from attachment to the world and “breaks through” to experiential annihilation in God. It is here that the development of moral character is most emphasized. This stage is one of immense difficulty:  Sufis point to nafs, or the “carnal soul,” as the inner “enemy” that represents the main obstacle to embarking upon the spiritual journey. Combating and breaking away from the creaturely and carnal desires of nafs is necessary to achieve transcendence, and this struggle represents the core of Sufi ethics.12 Here, moral progress proceeds according

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290 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi to two closely intertwined phases: first, the struggle to cleanse the soul of vice and, second, the effort of obtaining certain virtues. Rumi likens vice to a mouse that has made a hole in the grain sack of the soul: any good feature of character obtained will continue to spill out of it unless the mouse is dealt with and the hole patched. He thus advises, “Defend against the mouse first, that’s the plan /​Then come and gather all the wheat you can!” (Rumi 2008, [381]). On this and similar approaches, the more one is freed of vice and evil and adorned with virtue and merit, the closer one comes to the divine  – ​in the sense both of approaching God and of mirroring or imaging the divine nature through virtuous action. Among the most important vices to be purged are pride, envy, and hypocrisy. From here, the virtues are acquired in stages, each of which builds upon those prior to it. While the order and number of these stages differ among various mystics, almost all Sufi thinkers are in agreement that the highest virtue and/​ or the aim of all other virtues is that which creates the possibility of intimate proximity to and/​or genuine annihilation in the divine, namely love (see Chittick 2014). A similar emphasis on the preparatory purgation of vice and the soul-​building acquisition of virtue in the service of love can be found in various Christian mystical traditions. Indeed, the emphasis on unitive love as the sum or culmination of all virtue is found throughout the Middle Ages in the Christian world, especially in those traditions of “bridal” and “love” mysticism, as exemplified by Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), the thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​ century Beguines, Henry Suso, Catherine of Siena (d. 1380), Julian of Norwich (d. 1416), and many others (see, e.g., Dickens 2009). A particularly striking example is found in the devotional image-​and-​verse program, Christ and the Loving Soul, which was popular in the Upper Rhineland in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Here, the soul, represented as the sponsa Christi (bride of Christ), is depicted (both visually and in rhyme) as being violently beaten, blinded, lamed, stripped, and ultimately hanged by her heavenly bridegroom.13 This brutal (and admittedly quite misogynistic) allegorical

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 291 scene, however, represents the initial “purgation” of vicious bodily attachment to the world that serves to activate the soul’s “inner” (spiritual) senses, allowing her not only to pursue the acquisition of “virtue great and small” but ultimately to actively seek out genuinely loving union with her bridegroom (which she does by hunting him down and wounding him with her “arrow of love”).14 Thus, in both Christian and Islamic mystical traditions a central pattern emerges according to which the acquisition of virtue goes hand in hand with the spiritual wayfarer’s making a spiritual movement from the outer to the inner. The completion of this movement results in a radical affective and volitional shift involving a loss of the selfish, worldly ego and the first steps toward attainment of a closeness to the divine manifested in love and wisdom. However, it is also here that medieval Christian and Islamic traditions encounter a first difficulty when it comes to providing anything resembling a systematic theory of right action. Although the acquisition of moral virtue is necessary for the subjective turn inward, there is a sense in many of these traditions in which the achievement of genuine proximity or union with the divine requires moving beyond common morality in some relevant way, such that the religious and moral laws –​as well as the virtues and vices associated with these laws  –​no longer apply in the way they did before. For this reason, such traditions have often come under fire for supposedly promoting various kinds of antinomianism regarding moral action. Marguerite Porete (who was subsequently burned at the stake for heresy), for example, notes that the soul who has acquired the virtues in the service of reason and lives her life in service to God and neighbor at some point “considers that God counsels His special lovers to go beyond what He commands” (Porete 1993, §118). She understands that spiritual progress demands that she sacrifice that which is now most dear to her, namely her love of good works, and thus takes leave of the virtues to whose constancy she was a “slave” (Porete 1993, §6). Meister Eckhart, upon whom Porete’s writings likely exercised some influence (see McGinn, 1994, 2001, 9), makes

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292 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi similar claims: “You should traverse and transcend all the virtues,” he writes, “drawing virtue solely from its source in that ground where it is one with the divine nature” (Meister Eckhart 2009, 117). He even goes so far as to claim that “Whatever a man’s vows to manifold things, by entering into true inwardness he is released from them” –​a shocking statement for a fourteenth-​century Dominican friar (Meister Eckhart 2009, 52–​53.) Many Sufi mystics were also historically accused of heresy by their contemporaries for endorsing and practicing various kinds of antinomian policies, which were seen to violate the divinely ordained commands of sharıʿa law (see Karamustafa 2015). In the section of his Book of Flashes titled “On those who erred in fundamentals and were led to misbelieve,” al-​Sarraj lists several types of such “heretical” antinomians (see Renard 2009, 54). Yet such positions were not just occupied by “fringe” sects of Sufism. Rumi famously dedicated one of his most celebrated works, the Divan, to his beloved antinomian qalandar (or “wandering dervish”), Shams-​i Tabrizi (see Nasr 2007, 294.). He also commonly avails himself of what Leonard Lewisohn (2015, 78)  calls a “poetic symbolism drawn from a bacchanalian lexicon couched in an antinomian Sufi tavern slang,” employing metaphors of wine and drunkenness to describe the ecstasy of the mystic. Yet even apart from his reliance on images of intoxication, Rumi also makes some surprising statements in a few more “well-​ tempered” passages of the Masnavi. In his tale of the Old Harpist, he writes: “Why still repent about a state that’s passed? /​Repent of your repentance now at last!” (Rumi 2008, [1717–​1720]). And in speaking of the fresh, hidden “waters” of God’s unseen wisdom, he seems to claim that the very categories of virtue and vice are tied up with our fundamental ignorance of the divine nature: “If such rains that are hidden should increase /​Both vice and virtue in this world would cease” (Rumi 2008, [2082–​2083]). It therefore appears that any normative ethical system embedded in such Christian and Islamic mystical traditions is going to encounter serious difficulty in providing a satisfactory account of

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 293 right action, insofar as the mystic who has acquired the basic moral virtues must necessarily transcend the stage according to which action is understood as right or wrong, morally required or forbidden, permissible or impermissible. At the same time, many of these traditions place an alternative set of “mystical virtues” at the very center of their accounts –​dispositions of character which are thought to either lead to or exemplify the ideal mystical attitude. However, these mystical virtues correspond less to the traditional Aristotelian “doctrine of the mean,” occupying a temperate “middle ground” between two moral excesses. Rather, they tend to locate themselves at the extreme negative end of the relevant continuum, one essentially characterized by the ideal of utter passivity on the part of the mystically virtuous subject. Indeed, the goal of complete and total submission to God lies behind many of the mystical virtues extolled by Christian and Islamic mystics and, as we shall see, represents another challenge to the idea that a “mystical ethics” can provide an adequate theory of right action. One such “negative virtue” emphasized by mystics in both traditions is that of total humility, a virtue without which it is impossible to be united to God, whether the relevant union take the form of total annihilation or a relation of intimate proximity culminating in mutual love. Teresa of Avila, for example, claims that genuine humility is that which requires no volitional effort on the part of the individual and “which causes an embarrassment that undoes one.” It is common knowledge, she writes, “that God gives a knowledge that makes us realize we have no good of ourselves; and the greater the favors, the greater is this knowledge” (Teresa of Avila 1976, 146). The significance of this kind of humility is not to be overlooked, since it has interlinked moral and epistemic aspects. As Nasr (2007, 126)  notes, in the Sufi context “humility is not simply the sentimental attitude of humbling our egos before God and the neighbor. It is the metaphysical awareness that before the Absolute we are nothing.” This metaphysical awareness of its absolute nothingness in the face of the divine primes the penitent soul for the ultimate

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294 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi affective and volitional purgation of self-​love and prideful willfulness and prepares it to be filled with divine grace. Meister Eckhart and Henry Suso, for their part, place abgescheidenheit

(“detachment”)

and

gelâzenheit

(“serenity,”

“releasement”) at the center of the mystical life. For Eckhart, detachment represents the highest mystical virtue to which one can attain in this life, higher even than the virtues of love, humility, or compassion.15 Whereas the latter virtues may still “constrain” the agent volitionally in some way, true detachment makes one wholly unconstrained and responsive to God. Yet such detachment is characterized, not by virtuous activity, but by total receptivity: the soul cannot be attached to anything whatsoever or have any objects that might improperly occupy it with anything other than God. It is, in some sense, fully sufficient in its pure potentiality. In Suso, on the other hand, it is gelâzenheit or “releasement” that receives the most attention. Those who see the outward but not the inward aspect of things may live “strict” and “scrupulous” lives, but they overlook the inner aspect that requires “taking leave of the self,” “losing grasp of one’s nature,” and “the loss of the things that preserve and protect the will.” Only in this state of “having-​let-​go” can one come to the genuine negative virtues of “obedience, compliance, tolerance, and the like.”16 In all these cases, genuine mystical virtue is only possible from the perspective of a subject who has given herself over to that with respect to which she experiences her own impotence and dependence, namely to the divine. Certainly such virtue can be developed or cultivated, e.g. by engaging in practices of asceticism or self-​denial, but –​like the Wittgensteinian ladder of the previous section –​these practices, too, as operations of the individual will, must ultimately be left behind.17 Thus, for example, in Mechthild von Magdeburg’s (d. 1282) Flowing Light of the Godhead, the soul initially clothes herself in the “holy cloak of good reputation,” which is “gilded with all the virtues,” only to be later told by Christ that she must disrobe and “cast off all outward virtues.” The soul then stands “naked” before

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 295 her Beloved, allowing a “blessed silence” to enter between them that both desire.18 What the mystical life ultimately demands, then, is not action but rather inaction  –​or, perhaps better put, an absence of action. Genuine mystical virtue is exemplified, not by a habituated disposition toward certain kinds of acts or omissions, but rather by an overarching disposition not to act at all. The question concerning a “mystical ethics” thus becomes not merely whether some mystical traditions recommend an antinomian move beyond actions understood as right or wrong, but whether they can provide any theory of action at all, at least once the mystical wayfarer has reached this stage on her journey. This worry becomes even more troublesome when we consider that not only is the truly exemplary life of the mystic characterized by stillness and non-​ action, but that many of these quietistic traditions actually endorse a loss of the ethical subject altogether. Thus, Abu Sa’id al-​Kharraz (d. c. 895) is reported to have claimed that “the servant” befriended by God, who is lifted up to “the assemblies of Intimacy” and set “on the throne of Oneness,” “remains without [individual] inclination,” becoming “chronically lost [in God]” and wholly “free from the claims of his self.”19 Likewise, the poet Hafez writes, “No path can be taken, unless you see yourself not.”20 But if this is right, and one must become wholly devoid of egocentric interest and desire, completely detached from self and world, and passive even to the point of relinquishing one’s own identity, it appears to be not only the case that one cannot act morally but rather that there is no subject, deliberator, or agent left who could effectively act at all, let alone act for practical or moral reasons. Nonetheless, we maintain that if we take these three related worries (concerning antinomianism, passivity, and loss of agency) together, what emerges is not best understood as non-​or even trans-​ethical. After all, such forms of mysticism do provide a comprehensive picture of the Good Life and the fulfillment of human nature –​one which admittedly goes beyond morality in a restricted

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296 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi sense, yet which nevertheless provides a view of the ultimate telos of human beings and which strongly endorses two further values embraced by contemporary moral theory, namely freedom and autonomy, though in a sense perhaps somewhat foreign to modern thought. To see how this is so, it will be instructive to examine more closely the work that the negative virtues are doing in this system and how the practice and acquisition of such virtues are supposed to lead –​not to unlawful behavior, apathetic inactivity, or total loss of self –​but paradoxically to a kind of self-​actualization that results in genuinely free, autonomous, hypernomian action.

13.6  “Becoming What One Is”: Suffering, Fulfillment, and Self-​A ctualization Given what we have said above, it should come as no surprise that suffering plays an important role in medieval mystical contexts. Although a common criticism of many medieval mystics is that they appear to endorse a perverted glorification of asceticism and self-​ mortification, such criticisms fail to appreciate the complex function that suffering serves in mystical thought. First, suffering is a universal phenomenon –​an inescapable part of our existential condition, as it were. Second, it is not something we do but rather something we undergo, and thus involves a kind of passivity that lends itself well to mystical discourse concerning the acquisition of the negative virtues we have mentioned above. Finally, suffering often has a dramatic effect on us in ways that can serve to shape, alter, or even transform our wills, whether for better or for worse. Together, these three aspects of suffering –​its universality, its passivity, and its transformative power –​can help explain why it plays such a significant role in many Christian and Islamic mystical traditions and why it is relevant for our discussion of mystical ethics. Returning to Suso may be instructive here. Although he recommends that the mystical wayfarer become entbildet (“de-​ imaged” or “un-​formed”) through the kinds of apophatic practices discussed above, this is only the beginning of the mystical journey.

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 297 Suso maintains that two further stages are necessary for human fulfillment, namely becoming gebildet, or “[re-​]formed,” through Christ and ultimately úberbildet, or “trans-​ formed,” in the Godhead.21 Whereas the stage of un-​formation corresponds roughly to the virtue of detachment extolled by Eckhart, for Suso being re-​formed through Christ occurs through the acquisition of the aforementioned virtue of releasement, which is itself best attained, he maintains, by learning to suffer: in a vision, Christ instructs “the Servant” (Suso), first, to “receive suffering willingly,” second, to “bear suffering patiently,” and third, to “learn to suffer in the manner of Christ.”22 For Suso, suffering is universal both insofar as we all necessarily experience it in some form or other and insofar as it represents the means by which embodied human creatures participate in the life of the Incarnate God, whose passion and death represent the ultimate expression of divine love. The three steps of “learning to suffer” move the individual progressively from activity to passivity via a process of “un-​ becoming” –​of “letting go.” While suffering can be received willingly, one is ultimately passive with respect to its effects. Yet in practicing the patient toleration of suffering, Suso thinks, one puts oneself in a better position to suffer in the manner of Christ, who is the ultimate exemplar of negative virtuosity. In “learning” how to suffer, then, the subject learns not only how to patiently imitate Christ’s moral example (imitatio) but also to realize that, as the imago Dei, she also suffers with Christ (compassio). This kenotic “emptying” of the soul by learning to suffer is thus part and parcel of what it is to become formed in Christ, and it is only via such an emptying that the soul can be truly fulfilled –​“trans-​formed” –​in the love of divine union. Suffering also plays a significant role in Rumi’s thought. Here, suffering is symptomatic of the immense gulf between all creatures and the divine, and of the longing every soul experiences to return to its origin: “When kept from their true origin, all yearn /​For union on the day they can return” (Rumi 2008, [1–​4]). As the individual makes spiritual progress, then, and comes to realize her true nature, her awareness of the distance between her and the divine increases

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298 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi and thus leads to a more intense sense of suffering: “That being sick can heal you thus makes sense, /​It wakes you with increased intelligence! … The more awake they are the worse their plight, /​Their suffering turns their tortured faces white!” (Rumi 2008, [628, 631–​ 633]). Yet unlike illusory suffering, which often stems from improper attachments to self and the world, this “tortured,” reflective suffering is authentic –​it stems from a genuine (and correctly perceived) ontological and epistemic divide with respect to which the subject is completely passive. And, as with Suso, it is also therapeutic, insofar as the suffering engendered by enlightened love serves a transformative soul-​building function. In this sense, the disease can be a source of its own cure. The instrumental value of suffering and self-​emptying in these traditions can clue us in to the roles that action and agency play in the service of the negative virtues. First, the acquisition of the virtues of humility, detachment, releasement, and the like requires a significant degree of practice on the part of the soul, and this is something that does involve activity of the will. One engages in activities that have as their end an “emptying” of the intentional objects that can occupy the soul and distract it from the proper object of its love, namely the divine. Here, following the religious laws of Christianity or Islam represents the first stage of “impoverishing” the soul in this manner. Yet to truly become prepared for being filled with divine love, one must move beyond blind rule-​following, for to perform actions by the movements of one’s individual will is still to be bound by the strictures of the moral law and the confines of prudence –​to be a “slave” to reason and virtue, as Porete would put it. Thus, one must be given over to suffering as a patient rather than insisting on willing as an agent. Indeed, there is a very real sense in these traditions that the self qua individual moral agent is never fully free. She may “pseudo-​autonomously” will the moral law for herself, but genuine autonomy  –​and true freedom  –​can only be exercised by God, the freely giving divine legislator. Therefore, to experience this kind of

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 299 autonomy, the human individual must give herself over to God completely  –​to “suffer” God, as it were. She becomes a vessel for the divine, who may be rightfully said to “fill” and “complete” her –​to actualize her by working through her. In this sense, willful human “action” properly aims at giving way to overriding divine acts of grace, which in turn serve to perfect the individual’s deficient human nature, thereby conferring genuine agency upon her in and through divine love. When we view the mystical journey as one of self-​actualization through alignment with the divine will, we can see why Sufi mystics have traditionally been so fond of the Qur’anic verse that “you [Muhammad] threw not when you threw, but it was Allah who threw” (Surah Al-​Anfal 8:17). Here, theological occasionalism takes on mystical significance by expressing the idea that all action, properly understood, is divine action. The enlightened soul who has been “annihilated” in God is in a special position to understand and accept that his actions are only really his in the sense that they flow from the divine will. Thus, Rumi writes: “When we fire arrows don’t give us the blame  –​/​We’re just the bow, it’s God who’s taking aim!” (Rumi 2008, [619–​20]). Yet Rumi does not resign himself dejectedly to fatalism. Since human action is an expression of the alignment of the soul with God’s designs, freedom and necessity are two sides of the same coin. When we shift our perspective from our own wills to God’s in humility, we see our actions as manifestations of God’s power, not as the result of unfree coercion: “Don’t dwell on our compulsion, but His might, /​To know humility keep this in sight” (Rumi 2008, [621]). Indeed, for Rumi, freedom appears to be a largely negative notion: we only feel unfree when our wills stubbornly and egotistically resist the divine will, yet where our wills are aligned we experience no compulsion. In this sense, these mystical authors and texts do not, strictly speaking, endorse the loss of the ethical self but rather see themselves as promoting the attainment of genuine self-​fulfillment. It involves a cognitive, affective, and volitional shift away from the self sinfully

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300 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi and idolatrously understood as a wholly self-​sufficient entity –​as a causa sui in its own right  –​and toward the divine will. This may occur through the acquisition and practice of virtuous suffering, which ultimately allows the soul to “empty itself” or “forget itself” in the sea of divine love. The ultimate resignation of the will to the divine, then, results in the actualization and perfection of the individual by transforming it into the kind of thing through and/​or with which the genuine (and uniquely singular) causa sui exercises its divine will.

13.7  “In But Not of the World”: The Journey Back However, we cannot forget that for medieval Christian and Islamic mystical traditions as we have characterized them here, namely as involving coming to both understand and achieve the appropriate relationship of the human to the divine in this life, the spiritual journey does not end with unitive experience. So long as the soul remains attached to a body, she cannot escape the world. And although some mystics recommend a hermitic life of voluntary seclusion, for many others spiritual enlightenment involves a return to a divinely pre-​ordained social and embodied existence. Indeed, the mystic may ultimately acquire a further duty to instruct beginners in the mystical path –​either by virtuous exemplification or as a kind of spiritual “master.” In this sense, the turn from outer to inner is followed by a social turn back outward, but this time from a wholly different perspective. In a sermon on Luke 10, Eckhart underscores this idea via a unique interpretation of the story of Mary and Martha. Here, Eckhart rather surprisingly interprets Martha’s busied activity and her irritation at Mary’s contemplative ardor for Christ as an indication of her spiritual superiority to her sister. He interprets Martha’s plea to Christ that he bid Mary help her as a well-​intentioned expression of her concern that the latter’s affective devotion to Christ is more for her own sake than for his. Martha, Eckhart claims, is concerned

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 301 that Mary might become “stuck” in the pleasurable feelings brought about by Christ’s company and thereby fail to make further spiritual progress –​progress she herself, through life experience, has already made. Eckhart goes on to note that while mystical experience allows one to know oneself together with God, embodied existence with others allows us to know ourselves as we are apart from God, making us aware of distinctions  –​including distinctions in virtue  –​that cannot be made when one is focusing on unity over separation, on proximity over distance. Eckhart goes so far as to say that the “pagan masters,” by practicing the virtues, came to “such profound discernment that they recognized the nature of each virtue more clearly than Paul or any saint in his first rapture” (see Meister Eckhart 2009, 84). It is this wisdom that Martha has achieved, transcended, and then come (back) to embody. What makes Martha so praiseworthy for Eckhart is her “continuous state of non-​absorptive union with God” –​a habituated detachment that is nevertheless both necessarily active and inherently worldly. This enables her “to enjoy union with God and identify with the divine in the ground, while she lives in the world and permanently brings her inwardness and inner virtue into practice” (Zarrabi-​Zadeh 2016, 27). Thus, like Aristotelian eudaimonia, the highest good for the mystic is, in some sense, an activity –​or, perhaps better put, a way of life. Whereas the acquisition of virtue is initially cultivated for instrumental reasons related to making spiritual progress, the Good Life involves virtue performed in concurrence with the divine will. Thus, whereas the virtuous agent pre-​union strives to do God’s will herself, the virtuous agent post-​union represents both an exemplar and expression of that divine will. And insofar as being acted through (or with) is distinct from merely being acted on, the individual here is not a mere passive subject: she is an agent who acts freely in the world –​more freely, according to these traditions, than those “pseudo-​ agents” who remain sinfully attached to their own wills. This also provides us with a possible answer to our initial worry concerning antinomianism:  the mystical journey, properly

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302 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi understood, is not an antinomian enterprise but rather, as Paul Heck (2006, 256, 274) suggests with respect to Sufism, a hypernomian one. It is a “force for surpassing, without abandoning, legal rulings,” in which “abandonment of self does not lead to moral apathy or withdrawal from society but constitutes the condition for a truly moral relation with others without interest in personal comfort or gain or demand for reciprocation.” Or, as Peter J. Awn (1983, 247) suggests, although the Sufi occupies a “different plane of existence, above the legal structures (shari‘ah) and institutions that specify for the majority of Muslims the path of righteousness,” it is ultimately “the relationship of lover–​ Beloved [human–​ divine] that specifies right action for the mystic, not the shari‘ah-​based structures delineating Islamic praxis.” This corresponds to the way in which, for Marguerite Porete, although the soul must take leave of the virtues to be unified with and annihilated in the divine, this soul nevertheless “gives to Nature all that is necessary, without remorse of conscience. But such nature is so well ordered through the transformation by unity of Love, to whom the will of this Soul is conjoined, that nature demands nothing which is prohibited” (Porete 1993, §9). The annihilated soul, although radically free, will not but act as virtue would dictate. Yet she acts, not as a “slave” to virtue, but in a way in which the virtues now serve her.

13.8  Concluding Remarks Although medieval Christian and Islamic mysticism offers accounts of the spiritual life that initially appear to be in tension with contemporary understandings of what a normative ethical theory should provide, it is not clear that the project of providing a coherent “mystical ethics” is a hopeless one. Mystical writings have often been marginalized in discussions of ethics  –​and of practical philosophy in general –​yet the traditions in which these texts arise are, at their very core, inherently practical. Their detailed depictions of moral and religious exemplars and their complex picture of the Good Life aim to instruct spiritual beginners on a path to right relationship with

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 303 and in the divine. Indeed, in contrast to the strands of medieval theology and philosophy conventionally described as more “scholastic” and “systematic,” these mystical traditions are much more intimately bound up with individual and social practice and are ultimately inseparable from the particular ways of life that both ground and are shaped by them. While the “solutions” we have proposed to the problems in providing a sufficient theory of value and an adequate theory of right action might not satisfy the demands of many contemporary ethical theorists, we hope to have at least shown that the Christian and Islamic mystical authors under discussion here weave nuanced understandings of the ultimate end of human existence into a complex theological and religious tapestry in fascinating ways that demand further philosophical exploration.23

Notes 1 Thus, for example, many female Christian mystics employed and extended sophisticated theological and philosophical tropes in creative ways that exercised influence on their male peers, yet most wrote in the vernacular, often using poetry or allegory to convey their thoughts, and the relegation of their work to the “mystical” domain has largely functioned to diminish their intellectual and historical significance. For various treatments of the intellectual erudition and influence of female mysticism, see, e.g., Bynum 1994, Dickens 2009, Keller 2000, McGinn 1994, Van Dyke 2016. 2 See Van Dyke 2010, 722. We depart from Van Dyke insofar as we do not insist that “the ultimate fulfillment of human nature” always be a matter of union with the divine, nor that it always be direct or immediate. If, for example, a mere “close proximity” to the divine is the most we can achieve in this life, as some Sufi thinkers maintain, then direct union might be, strictly speaking, impossible. Further, it might be the case that, for the enlightened individual, the appropriate relationship with God is materially mediated in an extraordinary way through the everyday experience of God’s creation, thus being neither direct nor immediate. Finally, as we discuss below, if embodied existence requires the individual to return from union with the divine to live an enlightened social existence in right relationship to God,

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304 Amber Griffioen and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi such experiential union or annihilation might not itself represent the “ultimate fulfillment of human nature,” even if it turns out to be a necessary component of such fulfillment. 3 From Seuses Leben (§liii). In Seuse 1907, 191 (translation ALG). 4 Ibn ‘Arabi, Al-​Futūhāt al-​Makkiyya ii 619.11, quoted in Chittick 1989, 155. 5 From Seuses Leben (§liii). In Seuse 1907, 191 (trans. ALG). 6 See Hamburger 1989. To explore these illustrations, see one of the earliest extant manuscripts of Suso’s Exemplar (c. 1370), available at http://​gallica.bnf.fr/​ark:/​12148/​btv1b10224795t. (The illustration of the mystical journey can be found on fol. 82r.) 7 Yadav 2016, 18. For a comparative discussion of practical apophaticism in Rumi and Eckhart, see also Zarrabi-​Zadeh 2016. 8 See the famous hadith qudsi cited by many Sufi mystics: “I was a Hidden Treasure, so I loved to be known. Hence I created the creatures that I might be known” (quoted in Chittick 1989, 391, n.14). 9 See https://​digital.blb-​karlsruhe.de/​blbhs/​content/​pageview/​1234337. 10 Sarraj 1960, 45 (trans. MSZ). 11 The three stages that progressively follow this station are known as the “journey with Truth in Truth,” “the journey back to the world with Truth,” and “the journey in the world with Truth” (see Nasr 2007, 128–​ 129; Esposito 2004, 26). 12 For a discussion of the transformation of nafs in Sufi traditions, see Sviri 2002. 13 See https://​digital.blb-​karlsruhe.de/​blbhs/​content/​pageview/​1234326. 14 See https://​digital.blb-​karlsruhe.de/​blbhs/​content/​pageview/​1234341. For more on the philosophical and theological relevance of this mystical tradition, see Gebauer 2010; Griffioen 2017. 15 See the Eckhartian treatise On Detachment, in Meister Eckhart 2009, 566–​574. 16 From Büchlein der Wahrheit (§v), in Seuse 1907, 340 (trans. ALG). 17 See the response Suso receives from Eternal Wisdom concerning his self-​mortification: “Until now you struck yourself with your own hands, had mercy on yourself [by] stopping when you wanted to. I want to give you over to [suffering] without any defenses.” This passage is followed by Suso’s vision of a dog tossing a foot-​cloth from side to side and tearing it apart with its teeth. “So you shall be in your brothers’

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Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism 305 mouths,” he reminds himself with an “inward sigh”  (from Seuses Leben, §xx, in Seuse 1907, 57ff. [trans. ALG]). 18 See Mechthild von Magdeburg 2010, i.44 (trans. ALG). 19 Al-​Qushayri, quoted in Sviri 2002, 205. 20 Hafez 1983, 434–​5 (trans. MSZ). 21 See Seuses Leben (§il), in Seuse 1907, 168. 22 Seuses Leben (§xliii), 145 (trans. ALG). 23 This chapter represents the output of a Collaborative International Research Grant from the American Academy of Religion for a project on “Longing, Suffering, and Love in Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism.” We are very grateful to the AAR for its support, as well as to the countless scholars who commented on the various workshop and conference papers that gave rise to many of the ideas found herein.

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14 Economic  Ethics Roberto Lambertini

14.1  Introduction: Economic Ethics, Economic Thought, Economics In recent decades, specialists of the Middle Ages have devoted a growing interest to medieval interpretations and representations of economic activities. Most of them abandoned the purpose of investigating whether medieval thinkers foreshadowed or not some basic tenets of economics in the sense that the word has acquired today. They rather focused their attention on reconstructing medieval approaches to economic phenomena in their own terms. Some of them, such as Langholm (1992), are more interested in theories and write about “economics” in the Middle Ages; others, such as Evangelisti (2016), prefer to speak of “economic thought,” while others, among them Giacomo Todeschini (1994), overtly reject the idea that there existed a medieval economic theory (or theories, for that matter), using instead expressions such as “medieval economic vocabulary” or “medieval economic language.” Diana Wood (2002) thinks that “medieval economic thought,” although present in the title of her book, is, properly speaking, a misnomer. All of them substantially share the persuasion that the attitude of the texts they are studying is an attempt not to describe (let alone explain) economic mechanisms, but to argue in favor of or against some actions in the economic sphere on the basis of moral considerations. Even those who are in search of economic theories (or fragments thereof) are fully aware of the circumstance that they are not the proper object of medieval discussions, but emerge implicitly or indirectly from debates concerning whether a certain economic practice is morally just. To put it simply, what most medieval authors thought of economy was 306

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Economic Ethics 307 handed down to us in the form of ethics. Not by chance, therefore, have some Italian scholars (Capitani 1974) coined the expression “etica economica medievale,” while German-​speaking scholarship uses the phrase “Wirtschaftsethik” (e.g. Ott 1966). In what follows, while profiting from the achievements in the broader field of economic thought, I shall highlight what was already paramount in the writings of the medieval authors: the ethical concern with economic practices. (For the debate over Franciscan poverty, see Eric W. Hagedorn, 3.3.3 in this volume.)

14.2  Patristic Prelude In the past, many scholars were partly misled by the assumption that, before the revolution brought about by Adam Smith, the fundamentals of economic thought could be found in Greek philosophy alone, and in particular in Aristotle, while theology had little to say about economic phenomena. Consequently, the most important medieval texts in this respect were commentaries on Aristotle, where thinkers could develop their rational analysis, free from theological prejudices. The history of medieval economic thought could be practically identified with the eclipse of Aristotelian ideas and their rediscovery in the mid-​thirteenth century. In recent decades, scholars have reevaluated the specific Christian contribution to medieval economic thinking (Langholm 1998), so that one can speak of “theological economy” without negative connotations (D. Wood 2002, 1–​2). It is well known that the multi-​faceted attitude of the first Christian communities toward worldly goods and wealth found expression already in patristic literature. One of the most quoted examples is Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 215), who in the second century ad discussed in a famous text the possibility of salvation for a rich man. Clement gives a positive answer when commenting on Mark 10:17–​31, arguing that true poverty does not mean lack of wealth, but spiritual detachment from its possession and freedom from the passions that usually accompany riches, such as arrogance and contempt of the rest of humankind. In addition, the rich man

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308 Roberto Lambertini who desires to be saved possesses for the sake of others and is ready to donate. He does not relinquish his riches once for all, but uses them properly (Clement of Alexandria 2011). More influential on the Latin Christian tradition were the works of Church Fathers who were active in a later period of time when Christianity had ceased to be a marginalized phenomenon, as in Clement’s times, and the Roman Empire had adopted, albeit not without resistance, Christianity as its official religion. Ambrose of Milan (d. 393) is well known for his excoriating sermons against the greed of the rich of his time, who are openly accused of exploiting the poor and being morally responsible for their desperate situation. Usury is one of the ways in which the rich take advantage of the weakness of the poor. Ambrose is a supporter of the idea that at the origin, humankind possessed all earthly goods in common; only with the following decadence did private property take over. From this point of view, property has a sort of evil root in an unjust appropriation. By donating to those in need, the generous are also fulfilling a kind of duty of restitution (Brown 2012, 135–​147). In his De officiis ministrorum, Ambrose cast his ideas in the framework of a virtue ethics admittedly taken from Cicero’s De officiis. The vice of avarice, which corrupts the way human beings use wordly goods, is contrasted with the cardinal virtue of justice, which counts beneficence among its sub-​virtues. Beneficence in turn is divided into benevolence and liberality. The Bishop of Milan found such terminology in Cicero, but added to it a special flavor, writing for example that caritas also is derived from justice. Not every donation, however, is an act of generosity:  first of all, one should not give what can damage the receiver, or help him to commit crimes against his fatherland, against the church, or against the poor. On the part of the donor, what is given away must have been acquired in a lawful and just way. The truly generous person is expected to keep her promises and exercise her virtue without boasting, almost secretly. Finally, giving should not be done in an indiscriminate way, but by selecting persons who are in real need and respecting priorities: relatives and

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Economic Ethics 309 members of the religious community should come first (Ambrose of Milan 2000, 121–​127) Liberalitas (generosity), the typical virtue of sovereigns and high-​ ranking personalities according to the Greek and Roman traditions, became in the hands of Ambrose also a Christian virtue or, more precisely, one sub-​virtue of justice interpreted in Christian terms. A  close connection between justice and generosity can be found also in Augustine, who, among the many descriptions of justice present in his works, in his De Trinitate (10.9.12) writes that justice consists in helping the unfortunate (Augustine 1968, 439).

14.3  Economy, Virtue, and Aristotle The so-​called twelfth-​century renaissance shows a growing attention to the economic aspects of virtues, a development that cannot be separated from the dramatic changes occurring in the economic situation of the West from the eleventh century onwards. The rise of a money economy based on liquid wealth weakened the hegemony of a model based on land possession and restriction of the personal freedom of people working in agriculture. It is only understandable that in the former context the emphasis was put more on the ethics of giving on the part of the landed aristocracy to the benefit of the wretched or of ecclesiastical institutions. It is not surprising that, in describing the ethical ideal of the Christian ruler, Carolingian “mirrors for princes” were used to underline their generosity. With the substantial increase of social fluidity in the following centuries, however, the attention focused not only on giving, but also on licit and illicit ways of acquiring wealth (Little 1971; Murray 1978). Ethical questioning was not limited to modes of distribution of an existing wealth, but was extended to the means by which wealth was acquired. Against this background the renewed generally critical attitude toward money and trade becomes more understandable (Le Goff 1986; Grabmüller and Stock 2005), but also a growing attention to the activities of merchants emerges. In his perceptive contributions, Richard Newhauser (2000, 2005b) has shown that the

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310 Roberto Lambertini twelfth century witnesses a renewed interest in the vice of avarice, and, consequently, in the virtues that can counteract it. Some virtues act as counterweight to the aspect of avarice that consists in keeping for oneself more than is sufficient, refusing to share it with others and, in particular, with persons in need. Often liberalitas (also called largitas) plays this role, but sometimes also misericordia (mercy) is invoked. Avarice, however, has also a second aspect:  an insatiable desire to possess more and more, even violating the rules of fairness and committing crimes. According to some authors, the virtue of justice can be an antidote to avarice. In the very well-​known compendium Moralium dogma philosophorum, composed by an unidentified author in the twelfth century, liberalitas is a component of justice, the other being severity (Holmberg 1929, 14–​16). Another moral treatise of the twelfth century, attributed to Alan of Lille, lists largitas among the species of temperance, while misericordia belongs to those of justice (Lottin 1960, 32). This overview is sufficient to show that when Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics became part of the “library” of the Latin West, in a process that culminated in Grosseteste’s translation (Brams 1994; Zavattero 2007), a rich conceptual and terminological tradition was already available. Some of the similarities, however, proved to be only superficial, and the medieval interpreters had to work very hard to find a mediation. For example, book iv of the Nicomachean Ethics, in Grosseteste’s translation, also speaks of a virtue called liberalitas. Its main object is money and it consists in giving in a moderate way, avoiding the vices of illiberality and prodigality. In his Summa theologiae (ii–​ii, q.  117, a.1), choosing to follow Aristotle, Aquinas parts company with Ambrose, denying that generosity can be a part of justice. Generosity concerns –​Aquinas remarks –​the goods of the subject, while justice consists in giving to everybody what is his (or hers). Therefore, they have different objects and should be treated as different habits, some similarities notwithstanding. A traditional tendency to connect generosity and justice is therefore weakened by the influence of the Aristotelian theory of virtues.

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Economic Ethics 311 A further problem arises from the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics, namely, that Aristotle includes another virtue in his list: magnificence. This virtue differs from generosity especially because it concerns great amounts of money. Aristotle is thinking here of very expensive initiatives mainly concerning the public civic and religious spheres, such as banquets offered to the whole populace, construction of religious buildings, or maintenance of a warship. It is not surprising that Albert the Great, in his first commentary on the Ethics (iv, 5), raises the question whether every person can be magnificent (Albert the Great 1951–​, xiv:243–​244). From the point of view of the Nicomachean Ethics, the answer seems to be negative, because the exercise of this virtue requires expenses that only very wealthy people can afford. At the same time, this reveals the social bias underlying Aristotle’s doctrine and causes difficulties to his medieval commentators, who are unwilling to accept the consequence of this interpretation of magnificence. Together with Aristotle’s claim that the possession of one virtue, if true, implies the possession of all the others (scholastic authors spoke of the “connection of the virtues”), the insertion of magnificence brings about a substantial reduction of the persons who can be virtuous:  only the wealthy can be virtuous. Albert and Aquinas tried to solve the problem by distinguishing between habit and use, arguing that some virtuous persons are potentially magnificent, and would actualize this disposition as soon as they had enough wealth at their disposal (see Lambertini 1991, 260–​268; 2015, 42–​44). Radulphus Brito (d. c.1320) is fully aware of the objections that can be raised against this solution: the idea of a habit that is never exercised seems incompatible with the main tenets of Aristotelian philosophy, and this would be precisely the case for persons who remain poor for their whole life. The Parisian Arts master answers that those who are said to be poor in comparison to others can perform magnificent acts the cost of which is proportionate to the wealth at their disposition. The absolutely poor, on the contrary, can possess only an internal disposition to this virtue (Costa 2008, 388–​390).

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312 Roberto Lambertini The process of reception of the virtues concerning wealth and money does not therefore take place in a void, but rather in the context of a tradition that influences the process, and in turn is affected by it. Through the adoption of the Aristotelian model, generosity is understood as the midpoint of two vices: one is prodigality, the other, although called illiberalitas in the Latin translation, is then identified with avarice, the traditional vice which opposes this virtue. Magnificence is also added by Aristotle, causing more than one difficulty for interpreters, who tend to reduce it to generosity. In the end, both are concerned mostly with giving, which should happen in a reasonable way, concerning quantity, that is, not jeopardizing the possibility of giving also in the future, and quality, that is, for appropriate purposes. Giving it away, however, is not the only way to use money. Trivially, money is used in exchange for other goods. The virtue concerning exchange is justice, or better, after the reception of book V of the Nicomachean Ethics, particular justice. In turn, it is divided into distributive and rectificatory (also often called commutative) in transactions:  among voluntary transactions, Aristotle includes selling, buying, and the like. In these chapters Aristotle uses examples taken from the marketplace, arguing that justice in this context means equality in exchange; such equality, however, is proportional. The goods that are exchanged are in fact at the same time different in nature but comparable. Since Aristotle uses (in the Latin translation) indigentia to name what makes goods comparable among themselves, these passages gave occasion to discussion among medieval commentators, but also among present-day scholars. In fact, some of the most delicate matters of economic thinking can be at stake here: basic conceptions of value and price. It is only understandable that authors interested in reconstructing elements of economic thought have devoted a great deal of attention to medieval commentaries on this section of the Nicomachean Ethics (Kaye 1998, 37–​78; Langholm 1979, 1992; Piron 2010). For the purpose of the present chapter, however, it is not necessary to delve into such

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Economic Ethics 313 complex discussions. It is sufficient to emphasize that the virtue of justice entails both respect for equality in exchange and also the capacity to restore equality in case of an unjust exchange.

14.4  Usury in the Confessional As we have seen, generosity is defined mainly by giving in an appropriate way, but fairness in acquiring goods is also essential to it. Following Aristotle, Aquinas lists among the typical practices of the vice of illiberality shameful ways of earning money, from pimping to playing dice, to usury. In his portrait of the liberal prince, Giles of Rome, mentioning Frederick II as a good example, insists on the fact that the best way to ensure a princely income is to live on the products of one’s estates, reducing to a minimum buying what is necessary. Other economic practices, such as the exchange of currencies, although licit in themselves, are deemed not to be fitting to the social status of a prince. To nobody, regardless of their social position, however, is usury permitted (Lambertini 2015). Giles’s De regimine principum was most probably completed at the end of the 1270s. It represents a successful application of the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics to the “mirrors of princes” (Lambertini 1991). Giles’s treatment of generosity shows an interesting convergence between this virtue ethics and a different trend of medieval ethical thought. When the De regimine was written, usury had been a long-​ discussed issue among canonists and theologians, and by the turn of the thirteenth century the attention became even greater, as witnessed by two important figures of the school of Peter the Chanter (Baldwin 1970), Robert of Courson and Thomas of Chobham. Both inserted their discussions of usury and related issues in the literary genre known as the penitential handbook, used as an aid for confessors. The approach to the problem is therefore theological applied ethics, focused on the identification of some actions as sinful. The sacramental context of the treatment of usury connects it strictly to the penance to be imposed on the repentant sinner. This point of view is clearly recognizable in

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314 Roberto Lambertini independent treatises devoted to the issue and also in commentaries on the Sentences, where usury is often discussed in the section of book iv dealing with the sacrament of penitence (as it is, for example, in John Duns Scotus). It is worth noting that in the enormous amount of texts produced on this subject in the thirteenth century (and also in the fourteenth), there is a consensus that usury is not licit (see Noonan 1957). The discussion centers on the precise meaning of the word and on which economic practices should be condemned as usurious. Todeschini (1994) and Evangelisti (2016) have shown clearly that already in patristic times “usura” is condemned, but the meaning of the expression remained rather vague, encompassing various ways in which the rich and powerful profited from the economic weakness of others. Moreover, in the early Middle Ages, the prohibition of lending money at interest (to use a modern, anachronistic expression for the sake of clarity) is limited to the clergy (Siems 1992). Between the twelfth and the thirteenth century, as the prohibition is extended to all Christians, the definition of usury becomes narrower. Other ways of earning money can also be morally unacceptable or controversial, but the sin of usury happens exclusively in connection with a loan. More precisely, the moneylender has the right to the restitution of the sum (the capital) he has lent and to nothing more. At variance with our contemporary use of the word “usury,” which is connected with an excessive rate of interest, the medieval definition does not regard quantity, but quality. Even a negligible amount added to the capital represents usury. These important specifications notwithstanding, it remains open which kind of economic practices can entail a usurious aspect, even though they are not straight loans. Credit sales are the best-​known example of this discussion:  many authors maintained that an increase in the price of goods due to the fact that the contractors agree on a deferred payment is indeed usurious (Capitani 1958). A further debated issue was why usury is prohibited. As mentioned before, there is a virtually undisputed consensus on the

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Economic Ethics 315 condemnation of usury, but this still leaves open the possibility that such a negative moral judgment may be founded on scriptural evidence alone, or also on unaided reason. Together with some passages of the Old Testament, one of the most cited being Deuteronomy 23:19–​20, containing the prohibition against charging interest to the Israelites (Nelson 1949), Luke 6:35 –​“But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again,” according to the King James Version  –​was considered decisive. Especially at the beginning of the fourteenth century, some theologians, such as Francis of Mayronnes (d. 1328), maintained that no conclusive rational argument against usury had been formulated (Langholm 1992, 420–​429). A  century before, on the contrary, many authors were more optimistic about the capacity of natural reason to prove this revealed truth. Langholm (1992) speaks of the “natural law case against usury,” and his important monograph consists mostly in the individuation of different rational arguments against usury and in a reconstruction of the debates about them. Dissent in fact arose among authors as to which arguments could be considered sound and which not. One of the most famous among them, called by Langholm “from the sale of time,” did not go unchallenged and was squarely rejected by, for example, Peter of John Olivi. It was in fact argued that, by charging interest, the usurer sells the time in which the sum is available to the borrower, but time cannot be sold, since it belongs to God. Olivi counters that the usurer does not sell time in itself, but a specific time on the part of the borrower (Peter of John Olivi 2012, 204–​207). It goes without saying that the acceptance or rejection of an argument often reveals an underlying, sometimes even implicit, interpretation of economic phenomena. This is the main object of investigation for Langholm and other scholars mainly interested in medieval “economics.” More relevant for an ethical approach to the issue is the fact that many authors appeal to conscience and make the usurious character of an economic action dependent on intention, especially in doubtful cases. For example, Gilles of Lessines maintains that if

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316 Roberto Lambertini one lends wheat or wine and receives it back when its price has risen, the contract is usurious if the lender entered the agreement with the purpose of gaining from it (Langholm 1992, 299–​321). Such solutions seem odd only if one disregards the fact that the discussion is not purely juridical, but arises from a penitential context. Similar considerations hold true also for restitution: from a modern point of view, this issue seems to be irrelevant to economy and economics. In the penitential medieval setting, on the contrary, returning ill-​gotten gains is essential to authentic repentance. It is also important to establish to whom restitution should be made, since it is not always possible to trace back such gains precisely to a damaged person. In such a case the poor should benefit from the restitution that has to take place (Todeschini 2002, 133–​185). One of the first treatises devoted to restitution, dating back to the 1260s and attributed to the Franciscan Manfredi di Tortona, has been recently edited (Ceccarelli and Frigeni 2018; Chiaro de Florence 2017). It contains a very detailed analysis of the duty of restitution and of the possible beneficiaries of this reparatory act. It has been argued that the practice of restitution can be inserted in a more general idea of economy where circulation of goods is fundamental for the wellbeing of the community; restitution would be, in this case, a way to reintroduce goods in a virtuous circle, from which they had been subtracted by illicit economic practices (Todeschini 2002). In general, the thirteenth century witnesses also to a change of attitude toward the activity of merchants. A text from late antiquity inserted at a later stage in Gratian’s Decretum (that is, around 1150), the palea known as Eiciens (Gratian 1879, i, 88; XI, 308–​309), attacked usurers, asserting that they are even worse than merchants. Progressively, the activity of merchants is acknowledged as essential for the wellbeing of the community, to which they contribute with their skills. The circumstance that merchants often expose themselves and their investments to risk likewise undergoes a process of reevaluation: it can be seen as a contribution to the common good of the community and therefore licit (Ceccarelli 2001, 2003).

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Economic Ethics 317 The merchant in the confessional (Langholm 2003) is therefore not merely the greedy man who repents of the sins he committed because of his avarice, but has become a professional looking for moral guidance in his activity. He represents a challenge for the confessor, who is expected to show him the path to becoming a mercator christianus, a Christian merchant.

14.5  Franciscans and Economic Ethics Robert of Courson and Thomas of Chobham (to mention only two of the outstanding authors from the first decades of the thirteenth century) belonged to the secular clergy. The diffusion of the mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, and the like) in the following decades, the establishment of their educational network, and their integration into the universities made them protagonists of cultural life also in economic ethics. Their literary output on the subject, directly connected to their involvement in pastoral care, soon outnumbered by far that of the secular clergy. Among the mendicant orders, the Friars Minor (Franciscans) played an outstanding role. Seen from the point of view of the number of texts and authors, this is an undisputed state of affairs. Questions have been raised about the apparent paradox of an order that is characterized by poverty yet still devoted so much attention to economic ethics. Among specialists there has been discussion concerning the existence of a peculiar “Franciscan approach” to the issue. Already in the past century, Todeschini (1980) advanced the claim that the Franciscans had developed their own “political economy.” At the beginning, this position was met with some skepticism (Lo Prete and Kirshner 1984; but cf. Lambertini 2016), but now is recognized –​although cast in different terms –​as an important contribution in this field of studies. Albeit striking a different note, Langholm entitled many of the chapters of his monograph “Franciscan Economics” (Langholm 1992; Lambertini 2016). At the present stage of knowledge, it is fair to state that in the thirteenth century (and also at the beginning of the fourteenth) the Friars Minor were far from being a monolithic school of thought, although

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318 Roberto Lambertini a certain “family resemblance” can be recognized especially among a number of Franciscan authors. A key figure beyond doubt is Peter of John Olivi (d. 1298), at the same time a highly controversial and extremely influential Franciscan theologian whose most important contribution to economic ethics consists in his Tractatus de contractibus, de usuris, de restitutionibus, recently critically edited by Sylvain Piron (Peter of John Olivi 2012). Piron has located this text in the last years of Olivi’s activity, when he was lector at the Franciscan convent of Narbonne: the Minorite community in the economically very lively city of the Midi was very close to social groups active in trade and craftsmanship, so that the treatise can be interpreted as an answer to the problems emerging in the spiritual care of such groups. Olivi’s at least partial rebuttal of the argument from the sale of time has been already mentioned, but the position for which he is mostly known is his claim that the lender is entitled to charge something more than the capital because with that amount of money, invested, say, in trade, he could have had some gain. This position of Olivi’s is indebted to the canonistic tradition, which, while rejecting usury altogether, discussed what are technically called extrinsic titles to interest: the “loss arising” (damnum emergens) and the “profit forgone” (lucrum cessans). The first phrase refers to the possibility of being indemnified for the losses caused, for example, by a delay in the restitution of the loan. While this principle was widely accepted, the second was considered dubious. Aquinas, for example, accepted the first, but rejected the second. Olivi, for his part, claims that money that is to be invested possesses not only its face value but also “a similar reason of profitability which we usually call capital” (translation by Langholm 1992, 371). It is only understandable that some historians of economic thought have seen anticipations of much later, modern approaches to loan contracts. For our present purposes it is relevant to emphasize that Olivi’s criterion is based on a state of affairs that can be evident only to conscience:  the intention to invest marks the difference between licit indemnification and usury. According

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Economic Ethics 319 to Olivi, the good Christian merchant uses money to finance further enterprises and makes it circulate, contributing thereby to the virtuous circle of economy that benefits the whole community (Todeschini 2002). At first glance, one can perceive a similarity to the view of economy that is implicit in the practice of restitution. Still, the repentant sinner restores the equality of justice he himself has violated; the good Christian merchant invests in the hope of licit gain. As far as restitution is concerned, Olivi defends the claim that the usurer is obliged to refund usurious profits, but not what he has earned reinvesting in a licit way gains originally obtained from usury. Like Aquinas before him, the Franciscan friar does not accept the so-​called root argument, according to which corruption at the beginning necessarily infects all further developments. When he finances licit business with usurious money, the profit depends essentially on his own industry and labor, and does not require restitution (Peter of John Olivi 2012, 256–​264). John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) is one of the most renowned thinkers of the Middle Ages. He tackled economic issues in a question of his commentary on the Sentences, book iv, dealing with restitution. The first part of this text has been often commented upon, since here Scotus develops his theory of the origins of private property, a necessary precondition  –​he remarks  –​to the whole issue of restitution (Lambertini 2000, 111–​139). Here Scotus denies the possibility of tracing back private property arrangements, and even the institution itself, to natural law. On the contrary, the norms regulating appropriation depend on agreements among human beings that in this way tried to cope with the terrible consequences of the greed originating from original sin. This holds true also for transfer of ownership, which Scotus divides into two main categories:  acts of pure generosity, which are the same as gifts, and acts in which generosity is accompanied by the expectation of something in return. The choice itself of unifying all transfers under the single heading of generosity gives a peculiar flavor to Scotus’s analysis, which is centered around the owner’s will to give away something that belongs to him. In

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320 Roberto Lambertini exchange, equality is the most important criterion. According to the Scottish Franciscan, however, equality allows for a certain latitude, so that it cannot be fixed in a rigid way. It is rather left to the parties involved in the exchange to find an agreement, and this would not be possible, Scotus remarks, if the buyer and the seller do not in part renounce their claims. As a matter of fact, “to some extent a gift accompanies every contract.” These remarks are sufficient to show Scotus’s positive attitude toward trade and its agents; he considers honest merchants as essential to the wellbeing of the community. Their profits can be seen as the adequate remuneration of their service, for which, in the absence of merchants, the political community would have to hire someone else. Although it is difficult to avoid the risk of generalization, the “family resemblance” of the Franciscan approach seems to lie in a greater emphasis put on the interplay of the parties involved in economic relations. In comparison to the positions held by authors belonging to the Dominican Order, the appeal to principles of natural law to establish rules of equity is less frequent, where there is more confidence in the results of the agreements reached by the parties involved. A recent comparison between two lectors active in Florence in the decades around 1300, the Franciscan Peter of Trabibus and the Dominican Remigio de’ Girolami, showed that the latter focused his treatment of usury on the denunciation that this economic practice is contrary to nature in manifold ways, while the Franciscan concentrated on the issue of restitution, criticizing the already mentioned “root argument.” In his opinion, the usurer is in fact not bound to the restitution of further profits on usurious money, since they derive from the industry of the person managing it. The answer can be different if the usurer has acquired goods that are fruitful in themselves, such as cattle or a vineyard. In this case, once he has deducted the expenses incurred in taking care of the animals or of the grapevine, he is bound to restitution. It must be recognized, however, that the two authors expressed themselves in different literary genres:  Peter in quodlibetal questions, Remigio in a short treatise

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Economic Ethics 321 that also bears resemblance to collections of materials for preaching. This circumstance could have increased the divergence between the two approaches (Lambertini, forthcoming).

14.6  The Debate over the Prestanze In Florence, some decades later, theologians from the two main mendicant orders found themselves again on opposite fronts. The issue at stake was the practice, diffused in many cities of northern and central Italy, of raising funds for the Comune, compelling the citizens to lend money to the community, often on the basis of a previous assessment of family income. Such compulsory loans were interest-​bearing, usually with a 5 percent annual rate. The restitution of the principal was, in principle or de facto, excluded, so that the lender was left with the right of receiving a certain sum every year. There was a market for these rights; they could be exchanged for a price different from their face value, depending on various factors (Kirshner 1984). The question arose as to whether receiving a percentage amount of money above the principal was usury, and whether buying and selling the rights should be condemned as usurious. Julius Kirshner (e.g. 2004) has devoted groundbreaking studies to the debate that took place, in Florence and in other Italian cities, on this issue. Leaving apart technical analysis of the contract (or contracts) implied in these compulsory loans, which are nevertheless of great interest for the history of economic thought, the approaches of the participants diverge already at the level of the ethical interpretation of the annual percentage the lender was entitled to cash. According to the Franciscan Francis of Empoli (d. 1370; Armstrong 1999), it is a case of indemnification for the coercive character of the loan. Applying the criterion of “profit forgone,” the citizen compelled to lend money that could have been invested otherwise acquires a title to interesse (not to be confused with interest in the contemporary sense). The Dominican Pietro Strozzi heavily criticizes Francis of Empoli, maintaining that the annual rate is nothing but a gift made by the Comune out of generosity. Another Dominican, Domenico Pantaleoni, writing shortly

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322 Roberto Lambertini after, likewise holds a similar position (Kirshner 1973). The practice of donating something to the lender had been mentioned with approval by Aquinas. In Strozzi’s case, it has apparently the function of defending the Florentine Comune from the reproach of promoting a usurious practice. The fact that the Dominicans do not accept Empoli’s position (although both solutions seem to have the same result in practice) points to an underlying different ethical evaluation of the act of lending to one’s community under constraint: for the Franciscan it implies suffering a damage, for the Dominican it can be assimilated to a sort of duty:  by complying with the requests of the Comune the citizen does not acquire any right whatsoever. Dominicans and Franciscans, however, did not exhaust the spectrum of solutions proposed for the problem: canonists and civilists also took the floor (Armstrong 2003; Conetti 2010; Kirshner 1976). Exponents of a third influential mendicant order, the Hermits of Saint Augustine, also intervened in the debate. One of the most authoritative among them is Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358). Although the exact date of his disputed quaestio on the subject is still under discussion and scholars have been waiting for decades for its critical edition from Julius Kirshner, already at the present stage of knowledge it represents a significant alternative to other positions. Discussing not the Florentine case, but an analogous situation in Venice, Gregory insists on the duty of the citizen to lend to his community in view of the common good; conversely, exacting usury from the community is ethically much worse than lending at interest to a private person. Only personal conscience can establish, however, whether the lender has acted in the hope of illicit gain or not. In the case at stake Gregory tends to a negative judgment and warns against the illusion of deceiving one’s own conscience and, above all, God (Kirshner 2015, but also Lambertini 2000).

14.7  Monti di Pietà In the second half of the fifteenth century the Observant Franciscans promoted an institution known as Monti di Pietà that lent small amounts of money, functioning as a pawn shop. The friars preached

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Economic Ethics 323 in favor of the Monti, arguing that they could help persons in need of credit and supposedly able to repay the loan. As security, the borrower was required to leave a pawn. The Monti should also prevent Christians from falling prey to Jewish usurers (Todeschini 2016). Supported by the Observant wing of the Friars Minor, the new institutions were established, funded, and managed by local communities. In the first decades of their existence, some of the Monti contented themselves with the restitution of the principal; others, on the contrary, charged an additional amount of money that was by far below the cost of money on the market (Muzzarelli 2001, 189–​244). In an important general chapter held in Florence in 1493, the Observant Franciscans took the decision not to support any more foundations that did not foresee a surplus (often called merito) with respect to the principal. According to their majority, in fact, experience had shown so far that the institution was not sustainable without this “merito.” Precisely on this point the Monti had to face strong criticism especially from adherents of other mendicant orders. Most opponents objected that, while professing to fight usury, the Monti in fact institutionalized it. One of the most famous attacks was leveled by the Augustinian Hermit Nicolò Bariani with a treatise bearing the corrosive title De monte impietatis (1496); the Franciscan Bernardino Busti published a defense in 1497, but the following year the influential Dominican theologian Tommaso de Vio Caetani attacked Busti (Muzzarelli 2001, 145–​187). It required papal intervention in 1515 to put an end to the controversy. Issuing a decision of the Fifth Lateran Council, Leo X declared that the Monti did not commit usury if they received, in addition to the capital, a moderate sum for their expenses as a sort of compensation (D. Wood 2002, 204–​205). Besides these controversies and their solution, from an ethical point of view it is worth noting that individual Christians were also supposed to be involved in some manner in funding them. One of the most famous Observant Franciscans active in the diffusion of the Monti, Bernardino da Feltre, used to praise donations in favor of the Monti as a profitable investment for the salvation of souls

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324 Roberto Lambertini (Muzzarelli 2001, 229–​234). A  papal bull of 1515 likewise insisted that the faithful should be prompted even by indulgences to provide the Monti with the financial resources they needed, because in this way they helped the poor. Once it was established that the Monti were not only licit but even meritorious, supporting them became for each Christian an exercise of virtue.

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15 Self-​Interest, Self-​Sacrifice, and the Common Good John Marenbon The closely connected topics of self-​sacrifice, self-​interest, and the common good raise questions that contemporary philosophers discuss in connection with egoism. Is there any truth in psychological egoism  –​the view that people always make their own perceived best interests the ultimate aim of their acts? Or in ethical egoism, according to which an action is morally right, if and only if it is in the agent’s own best interests? They also bring into contention a diametrically opposed view (also familiar in more recent discussions, such as Kant’s) –​what might be called “ethical anti-​egoism” –​which holds that actions chosen out of self-​interest are for that reason not morally valuable. These positions were all discussed by medieval thinkers, just as by philosophers today. There are, however, two important differences which might seem to make any such comparison superficial or misleading. First, ancient and medieval egoism usually takes the form of “eudaimonism.” Self-​interest or self-​love is to consist in flourishing (eudaimonia) according to our nature as human beings, and this flourishing is then explained wholly or mainly as virtuous activity. The eudaimonist, living a life marked out by the virtues, many of which are intrinsically other-​directed, cuts a very different figure from the egoist of modern philosophy. Nonetheless, many of the underlying questions remain the same. Moreover, eudaimonism was not simply adopted, but subjected to critical scrutiny in the Middle Ages; nor was it the only type of egoism discussed at the time. The second difference seems to be even deeper. Medieval ethical thinkers, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, belonged to cultures in which it was generally accepted that humans are rewarded or punished after death for their conduct during their lives. Such 325

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326 John Marenbon beliefs, it might be thought, apparently endorse psychological egoism and make ethical egoism uninterestingly true, since any self-​sacrifice made for good moral reasons will ultimately be rewarded. But, in fact, the idea of reward or punishment after death did not affect the discussions in this straightforward way, partly because, once they could read the Nicomachean Ethics, medieval thinkers often wished to tackle the issue in the pagan context in which Aristotle had raised it, and partly because some urged a more sophisticated idea of divine remuneration. Although, therefore, religious doctrine is intrinsic to the medieval debate, its role is complex and sometimes unexpected. The pages which follow can provide only a very selective guide to aspects of the medieval debate on what can, therefore, in spite of these differences, be called egoism.1 The first section is a prelude, examining the discussions about self-​interest and the common good in the twelfth century, before Aristotle’s Ethics was known; the main texts are ones by Abelard, his wife Heloise, and a short but powerful passage, probably by Walter of Mortagne, which proposes an ethical anti-​egoism. The following sections look at the discussions in roughly the first century after the complete Ethics was known (c. 1250–​c. 1350). They take as their starting point Aristotle’s discussion of self-​sacrifice, which also raises questions about the common good and, in a striking and unexpected way, self-​interest (seen in terms of self-​love). The writers examined include both commentators on the Ethics (Albert the Great, Aquinas, Giraldus Odensis, Buridan) and theologians writing independently (Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, Duns Scotus). The last, brief section looks, by way of epilogue, at the themes of this chapter in a fifteenth-​century author, Valla, and a sixteenth-​century one, Pomponazzi.

15.1  Prelude: Self-​I nterest and the Common Good in Abelard and his Contemporaries In the twelfth century, before Aristotle’s Ethics was available in the Latin world, writers looked to especially Augustine as the starting point for thinking about self-​interest, self-​sacrifice, and the common

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 327 good.2 Augustine accepted the framework of ancient eudaimonism, but he rejected the view held by Aristotle, and by the Stoics even more absolutely, that human happiness consists in the virtues. For Augustine the virtues are means to the end of happiness, which will be gained only in the afterlife (see especially City of God xix.4). He does not shy away from presenting this happiness as a reward, for which people’s self-​interest should make them aim: so that humans know how to love themselves, an end has been set up for them, to which they may refer everything that they do, so that they may be happy; for those who love themselves do not wish for anything other than to be happy. This end is to be united with God (adhaerere Deo). (City of God x.3)3

As he puts it in On Christian Doctrine (iii.10.16), the highest of the virtues, charity, “is the soul’s movement to enjoying God for himself, and oneself and one’s neighbor for the sake of God.” Twelfth-​century thinkers were ready to challenge this view. Consider the passage De caritate, written in the mid-​1120s, probably by Walter of Mortagne.4 Walter begins by making a small but very important change to Augustine’s definition of charity in De doctrina christiana (quoted above), substituting “to love” (ad diligendum) for “to enjoy” (ad fruendum). He immediately underlines this altruistic twist: “For we should love God not for the sake of any prize that we expect from him, but for the sake of himself alone” (Wielockx 1982/​ 1983, 58:69, ll. 2–​3). He goes even further when he distinguishes between those who serve God through fear, and are called slaves; those who serve him for reward, and are called hired servants (mercenarii); and those who serve him for love, and are called sons and daughters. Walter roundly condemns not just those who serve God for earthly reward, but also those who serve him because they desire to see Christ and wish to be in paradise. Such people seek the things that are their own, not Jesus Christ’s. And for this reason they will not have the reward they want. We ought, says Walter, to desire

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328 John Marenbon the kingdom of Christ not for our delight or as something profitable for us, but so that we can serve him better and more perfectly (Wielockx 1982/​1983, 58:72–​73, ll. 5–​11). In his commentary on Romans written in the early 1130s, Abelard follows a similar line of argument. If I  love God truly and sincerely, Abelard insists, I love him not because he loves me “but, whatever he might do to me, he is such that he should be loved above all things” (iii, comment on vii, 13; Peter Abelard 1969, 202:518–​522). He goes on, like Walter, to suggest that those who love God in hope of reward will not in fact be rewarded, and to compare them to hired servants; true love, he says, is directed entirely toward its object, not to the profit the lover gains from it. Yet Abelard is careful to find quotations from Augustine which, at least in isolation, support his view, and he also cites Augustine’s point that, since God is our reward, by acting for our reward, we are acting for God. He does not reject this point, but turns it round: so long as we act for God alone, not for our own benefit, then we are indeed loving God (who is in fact our reward) purely and sincerely (iii, comment on vii, 13; Peter Abelard 1969, 203:542–​559; cf. Marenbon 1997, 301–​303; Perkams 2001, 130–​ 134). In the theory of love he develops in the Theologia scholarium (i.3–​7; Peter Abelard 1987, 319–​321; cf. Marenbon 1997, 288–​291), written in the mid-​1130s, Abelard develops this line of thought more explicitly. Although he still insists that any sort of genuine love must be altruistic, he concentrates even more on the object of love: right love (amor honestus) is directed toward God for His own sake, or to our neighbor for the sake of God. In De sacramentis, also written in the mid-​1130s, Hugh of St. Victor, like Abelard, reacts to De caritate (ii.13.8; Patrologia latina 176, 534–​535), treating Walter’s position with scorn –​how can a person love something without seeking for it, he asks –​but reaching a position not unlike Abelard’s final one: so long as what we desire as our good is God Himself, we are not loving Him in a mercenary way but as we should. The most unusual contributor to this twelfth-​century debate (both for her sex, and for the turn she gives it) is Heloise, Abelard’s

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 329 wife and, at the time of her writing (c. 1131), abbess of the Paraclete, founded by Abelard and handed over to her. In the first of her letters to Abelard, Heloise describes her love for him using, though more eloquently, the language of altruism of the De caritate: “God knows, I sought in you nothing but you yourself, desiring purely you, not anything of yours. I did not look for the bonds of marriage or a dowry, and as you know I tried to satisfy not my pleasures but yours” (Letter ii.10; Peter Abelard and Heloise 2013, 132). Étienne Gilson (1947, 186–​188) suggested that Abelard based his account of pure love of God on these ideas of Heloise’s. It is more probable that he was led to it by the theological debate surrounding De caritate, but reading Heloise’s letter may have incited him (cf. Marenbon 1997, 300–​302; Perkams 2001, 266–​268). What makes Heloise’s treatment of selfless love unique in these discussions is that it is directed toward another human, not God. However much an agent discounts any thought of a reward in loving God, there is always a certain unreality to this altruism –​the agent must suppose that there will be no reward, whilst yet knowing that God is supremely good, just, and powerful. But in Heloise’s human case the altruism is complete, and she cannot even justify her actions through the intrinsic value of virtue  –​a theme which would become central once Aristotle’s treatment of self-​sacrifice and friendship became available. She is not, then, using hyperbole when, describing her sacrifice, she speaks of her love “having turned into such madness that it took from itself, without hope of recovery, what alone it desired” (Letter ii.9; Peter Abelard and Heloise 2013, 130).

15.2 

Self-​S acrifice: Aristotle

Heloise sacrificed what she most cherished  –​her life with Abelard as his wife; but she lived on for many years, running her convent very successfully. It was, rather, self-​ sacrifice in the more absolute sense of giving up one’s life that proved controversial from the mid-​thirteenth century onwards. Aristotle’s Ethics, known in part from the beginning of the century, became available in full only after Grosseteste’s translation of the whole Nicomachean Ethics in

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330 John Marenbon 1246–​1247, and self-​sacrifice has a central role both in Aristotle’s account of courage in book iii, and in his treatment of self-​love and altruism in book ix. The medieval debates can be understood only in the light of Aristotle’s discussion. According to Aristotle, courage is the virtue of following the mean with respect to fear and audacity (1115a7), but it is fully demonstrated only in face of the greatest of all fears, that of death, and only when it is death in battle (1115a25–​b6). Death, Aristotle says, “is the end, and there seems to be nothing more good or bad for the dead” (1115a26–​ 27).5 (Here Aristotle apparently identifies himself as a “mortalist”  –​someone who denies that humans have any individual postmortem existence.) Why, then, does the courageous man sacrifice his life? On one level, the explanation is simply that, if he is courageous, he feels only the correct amount of fear for the occasion, which is not enough to hold him back when his fatal action is required (1115b19–​22). But Aristotle adds (1115b22–​24; cf. 1116b31) that, in so doing, the man is acting for the sake of the kalon (beautiful/​noble –​rendered by Grosseteste just as “the good” [bonum]). It might seem, then, that Aristotle is contrasting the courageous man’s self-​interest with an unself-​interested goal, the noble or the good, for which he acts when he sacrifices himself –​especially since Aristotle insists (1117a31–​b12) that the courageous man is sad to die, and all the sadder because the greater his virtues, the happier (eudaimonesteros/​felicior) his life. For Aristotle, however, the good for humans is happiness (eudaimonia), which is gained by activity in accord with virtue. In being courageous, a man thus gains for himself the good of acting virtuously. In book ix, Aristotle returns to the question of self-​sacrifice, precisely in the context of self-​ love. Self-​ love, says Aristotle, is usually thought of as directed toward acquiring money, honors, or bodily pleasures for oneself, and it is generally censured (1168a28–​ 35, 1168b15–​25). By contrast, those intent on acting virtuously and gaining the good (so Grosseteste:  to kalon in the Greek) for themselves are not reproached but, Aristotle points out, they are in fact

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 331 the greatest self-​lovers because they are taking for themselves what is best of all. They show this self-​love by always following dictates of reason, since reason is the dominant part in a human being, and our reasoned acts are most fully our own (1168b25–​1169a11). Aristotle then (1169a18) raises the apparent counterexample of a virtuous person’s self-​sacrifice (for a friend or for the fatherland). He shows, however, that it is not a counterexample (1169a20–​b2). Such a person forgoes money, honors, and all that most people struggle to acquire in order to gain to kalon/​the good: by seeking the largest share of to kalon/​the good, virtuous people show that even in self-​sacrifice they are self-​lovers –​and, says Aristotle, it is right to be so. In one passage (the “intense pleasure passage”) he also remarks that those who sacrifice themselves prefer to enjoy intense pleasure (delectari valde) for a short period than to live quietly for a long time, to live well (bene; Greek: kalôs) for a year, than in some way or another for many years, and one good (Greek:  kalos) and great action to many little ones (1169a20–​24). Aristotle, then, here and in most of the Nicomachean Ethics is an ethical egoist, but of the eudaimonist variety. Indeed, his egoism is intrinsically altruistic. In order to follow their true best interests, people must act in accord with virtues such as courage, temperance, liberality, and justice, and many of these are ones designed to benefit others –​such as the sacrifice of one’s life, when needed, in battle. And from his overall position, it seems that he was also a psychological egoist. Certainly, from the discussion in books iii and ix, he explains the behavior of the virtuous egoistically, and, although he usually presents them as identifying their best interests as acting in accord with virtue, in the intense pleasure passage he explains self-​ sacrifice in terms of maximizing pleasure.

15.3  Self-​S acrifice: The First Commentaries on the  ETHICS The two earliest surviving commentaries on the Ethics are both by Albert the Great: one, known as Super ethica, containing literal

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332 John Marenbon commentary along with questions, dates from c. 1250; the other, the Ethica, a paraphrase commentary, is from c. 1262.6 Albert is clear that Aristotle treats the problem of self-​sacrifice from the perspective of political virtue (civiliter) without any consideration of postmortem reward or punishment:  “considering whether there is any non-​political (non-​civile) good or evil for the soul after death is not part of Aristotle’s plan,” he states (Super ethica iii, viii; Albert the Great 1951–​, vol. xiv (1968), 179:77–​79; cf. xi, 196:172–​176). Albert thinks that it is harder to explain such self-​sacrifice than in the case of a Christian who dies for God (Super ethica iii, xi; Albert the Great 1951–​, vol. xiv (1968), 196:9–​91). He repeats enthusiastically Aristotle’s argument that true self-​love consists in being virtuous, even when it requires sacrifice of one’s life, and he develops the idea that a person’s real self is the intellect and that intellectual self-​love is not private: rather, in its nature my intellectual self-​love is not distinct from anyone else’s, so that I love in others what I love in myself (Super ethica ix, ix; Albert the Great 1951–​, vol. xiv (1987), 65:81–​92; cf. Ethica ix, iii, 1; Borgnet vii, 586). Nonetheless, he suggests other motivations for self-​sacrifice. In reply to the challenge that everyone acts according to what is good for him or her, he admits that self-​ sacrifice is good for people not insofar as they are human beings, but insofar as they are citizens, so that the city remains in a state of virtue (Super ethica iii, xi; Albert the Great 1951–​, vol. xiv (1968), 196:84–​90). Later in the same commentary, Albert suggests –​perhaps under the influence of Michael of Ephesus’s commentary, which had been translated by Grosseteste  –​that it is, rather, the prospect of being remembered and glorified that leads those who do not believe in an afterlife to self-​sacrifice, but then goes on to give two other motives. One is negative:  that of avoiding the shame of living on after not making the self-​sacrifice. The other reverts to Albert’s central theme, picking up Aristotle’s remark about preferring one great action to many little ones, but not the preceding comment about intensity of pleasure: “in his death,” says Albert, the self-​sacrificer “has what he

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 333 has sought most of all, that is to say, the greatest action according to virtue” (ix, ix; Albert the Great 1951–​, vol. xiv (1987), 687:19–​ 36).7 Altogether, although he is not completely consistent, in the two commentaries Albert accepts Aristotle’s views on self-​sacrifice as a self-​love which is love of virtue, but placing more stress than Aristotle himself on the impersonal aspect of virtue.8 Albert’s pupil, Thomas Aquinas, wrote his commentary on the Ethics in 1271–​1272. Since it is a section–​by-​section analysis and explanation of the text, Aquinas does not give himself great scope to develop his own reactions or views. He makes it clear, however, that for him Aristotle is not a mortalist. He reads the passage saying that “there is nothing more good or bad for the dead” to mean that there is nothing more “good or bad of those things which pertain to the present life, which are known to us. For those things that pertain to the state of souls after death are not visible to us –​it is most terrifying for people to lose all the good things they know” (Sententia ethicae iii, lectio 14, n. 9). When he comes to gloss the discussion of self-​love in book ix, he introduces the distinction that the self-​lover in the commonly understood, pejorative sense loves what seems to be good by being useful, though it is in fact harmful, whereas the virtuous self-​ lover “loves himself in that he desires what is good without qualification”  –​a neater way of putting Albert’s view that the ends of virtuous self-​love are not private (Sententia ethicae ix, lectio 9, n. 8).

15.4  Self-​S acrifice in Thirteenth-​C entury Theology Aquinas also discussed self-​sacrifice within the context of his theology. In ii–​ii of the Summa theologiae, which he was writing at much the same time as his Ethics commentary, he also showed his tendency to minimize differences between Christianity and Aristotle’s pagan world, bringing (q. 124, a. 2) martyrdom within the ambit of Aristotelian courage and, at the same time, extending the range of this virtue well beyond the battlefield, to include, for example, taking in a friend suffering from an infectious and deadly disease (q. 123,

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334 John Marenbon a. 3). The emphasis on the impersonal aspect of the virtuous decision to die for the common good, rather than the pleasure from one’s own virtue, is brought out clearly by his decision to concentrate on the material from book iii of the Ethics:  he includes an article (q. 123, a.  8)  on whether brave people take pleasure in their acts where he goes beyond Aristotle’s position that those about to sacrifice themselves are sad. He argues that because of their bodily suffering they do not feel mental pleasure (delectatio animalis) in their virtue, but the attractiveness (delectatio) of virtue overcomes bodily suffering insofar as they choose the good of virtue over bodily life. Aquinas’s most interesting and influential treatment of self-​ sacrifice comes, however, in a different context:  the question of whether we can love God more than ourselves.9 All the theologians agreed that Christians in a state of grace do indeed love God more than themselves, but what about people acting without the help of grace? Aquinas tackles the question within a framework suggested by Abelard’s and other twelfth-​ century accounts of love, which looked to Cicero, but was only fully established in the light of Aristotle’s treatment of friendship. Love is of two sorts, that of desire (concupiscentia) and that of friendship or benevolence. Desiring love (as when I love wine, because of its taste) is self-​interested, whereas benevolent love is directed to the object of my love for itself, as when I am happy that you have the good things you do, and wish you to have more of them. It was accepted that people can naturally love God more than themselves with desiring love, because of what they hope to gain from him. But some theologians said that only by grace can people benevolently love God more than themselves. Aquinas disagreed. He speaks of a natural inclination toward God not just in humans, but in all creatures. In the case of humans, however, Aquinas points to the principle that “each person wants that good most to be preserved which pleases him or her most” (Sent. iii, d. 29, q. 1, a. 3). On this basis, we naturally benevolently love the good which we see as outstanding –​God. As examples of the general principle, Aquinas cites the way that we put the good

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 335 of the whole before that of the part, because it is more perfect, as when someone faces death for the sake of the common good. The use of such an example reveals that, although strictly speaking Aquinas’s discussion concerns only the state of nature uncorrupted by sin, in fact he considers that the natural inclination and its basis have existed in real, postlapsarian non-​Christians. The treatment of self-​sacrifice itself goes much farther from Aristotelian ideas of self-​love than Aquinas’s changes of emphasis when dealing more directly with the material from the Ethics. Here self-​sacrifice for the good of the fatherland is seen as coming from benevolent love (and so, even if the agents, though not Christians, hope for reward in the afterlife, this has nothing to do with the sort of love which motivates them). This benevolent love is founded, not on anything to do with the agents themselves, but on their perception that the good of the whole is more perfect and so more lovable than their own individual good. Henry of Ghent, the most influential theologian of the generation after Aquinas, was unusual in addressing a complete quaestio to the problem of self-​ sacrifice. Moreover, in Quodlibet xii, 13 (Henry of Ghent 1987), written in 1288, he explicitly limits himself to the case of a pagan mortalist: “ought someone who does not hope for a future life according to right reason choose to die for the sake of the commonwealth (respublica)?”10 To this question itself, Henry’s answer is a straightforward “yes.” Whether or not the people concerned hope for a future life does not affect whether they should sacrifice their lives for the commonwealth. According to right reason, virtuous actions should always be chosen in preference to vicious ones, and so, when right reason requires self-​sacrifice  –​when it is genuinely necessary for the commonwealth –​the mortalist as much as the Christian is obliged to make it. Aristotle, says Henry, citing Ethics iii and ix, agrees with this view. Moreover, citing the intense pleasure passage, Henry says (Henry of Ghent 1987, 71:9–​72:17) that, according to Aristotle, for the person seeking “political happiness” necessary self-​sacrifice is not merely “better without qualification,

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336 John Marenbon because it benefits many, but also better for the agent himself or herself.” Political happiness is achieved through the flourishing life, according to the different virtues of behavior, that Aristotle discusses throughout books i–​ix of the Ethics. But in book X of the Ethics, he explains that the very best life for humans is a quite different one: it is a life devoted as far as possible to the activity of the highest virtue, that of intellectual contemplation of unchanging things. Contemplators, those who enjoy this contemplative happiness, are –​ according to Henry and, Henry believes, Aristotle –​under the same without qualification obligation according to right reason to sacrifice themselves for the commonwealth. But is there a reason why it is a good thing for themselves? The followers of political virtue aim to have the virtues of behavior to the highest degree, and so for them to perform one great act of virtue and experience intense pleasure as they prepare to do so makes self-​sacrifice a good. There is, however, Henry goes on, no sort of political virtue, according to Aristotle, that gives equal pleasure to that of contemplation. For the contemplator, then, it “would not be a good thing for him, for he would fall from a greater and more permanent pleasure to a lesser and shorter one” (Henry of Ghent 1987, 72:33–​73:34). There is, though, a negative reason why contemplators should choose self-​sacrifice, not just because it is better without qualification, but because it is better for them. Not to do what is morally required by natural law is sinful, and so those who refuse to sacrifice themselves for the commonwealth sin and therefore live shamefully. But it is better for a person to die than to live a shameful life. Even for contemplators, then, self-​sacrifice is good both without qualification and for themselves in order to avoid something evil, the guilt (culpa) of having sinned (Henry of Ghent 1987, 73:44–​46). Where both Albert and Aquinas interpret Aristotle’s altruistic egoism so as to bring together what is good for the virtuous agent and what is good without qualification, Henry emphasizes their difference. He may seem, though, to render the difference unimportant,

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 337 since self-​sacrifice for the commonwealth turns out to be best not just without qualification but for the agent. Yet Henry’s position is rather qualified so far as the contemplator is concerned. He is speaking only about morally obligatory acts of self-​sacrifice, but what about supererogatory ones? Henry does not discuss such cases, but from his position it follows that here seekers of political virtue would have good reason for self-​sacrifice for themselves, but not contemplators, since they would incur no guilt by refusing the self-​sacrifice and continuing to enjoy the supreme pleasure of contemplation. Moreover, Henry accepts (Henry of Ghent 1987, 77:48–​56) that, if it were the case (which he thinks impossible) that a contemplator were entirely independent of a commonwealth, then he or she would have no obligation to self-​sacrifice for it. Other theologians at the end of the thirteenth century discussed the mortalist’s self-​sacrifice, as Aquinas had done, in answering the question whether we are naturally able to love God more than ourselves. For Aquinas, the fact that people outside Christianity sacrifice their lives for the common good seems to be strong evidence for a positive reply. But if their sacrifice is explained in Aristotle’s way as an example of self-​love, it no longer has this implication, and it suggests, indeed, that we will always naturally love ourselves most of all. James of Viterbo took the Augustinian view, that naturally, even before original sin, humans love themselves primarily, and God only on account of their self-​love. It is no surprise, then, that (Quodlibet ii.20 –​mid-​1290s; James of Viterbo 1968–​1975, ii:202–​214) he accepts completely Aristotle’s account of self-​sacrifice as explicable in egoistic terms:  the self-​ sacrificers love the common good, but only because, by doing so, they can increase their own good of virtue. Godfrey of Fontaines, a secular theologian and strong admirer of both Aristotle and Aquinas, argued for the opposite solution in a quodlibet from the same time (x, 6; Godfrey of Fontaines 1924–​1931, 318–​326). We are capable, through natural reason, of choosing to love God more than ourselves. Godfrey quotes (Godfrey of Fontaines 1924–​1931, 319–​320) Aristotle’s description of self-​sacrifice in Ethics

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338 John Marenbon ix as an apparent argument against the view: even those sacrificing themselves for God would, according to it, be aiming at virtuous activity and so be loving themselves more than God. Godfrey rejects this reasoning, however. Those making such a self-​ sacrifice love both God and themselves: “no one can love or desire any good thing except in so far as his or her own good or well-​being is included in it.” And, since any act, such as this self-​sacrifice, is given its form and perfection by its object, and the object here, God, is better than the self-​sacrificer perfected in virtue by the sacrifice, God is more loved than the self. Here Godfrey is very close to Aquinas’s way of thinking about the natural inclination to love God, in its human version. Godfrey goes on (Godfrey of Fontaines 1924–​1931, 320–​321) to refine and qualify this position. The good of virtue is intrinsic, but that for which the self-​sacrifice is made –​God (or the common good)  –​is extrinsic. If the two can be compared  –​something over which Godfrey hesitates  –​then (Godfrey of Fontaines 1924–​1931, 322)  self-​sacrificers love the extrinsic good more than the intrinsic one, which is what they give up for the sake of the extrinsic good. The extrinsic good is that through which the intrinsic good has its goodness, and so it is the primary per se object of my will. Although Duns Scotus was perhaps the most original, inventive, and influential theologian of the Middle Ages, his argument about self-​sacrifice (Ord. iii, d. 27, q. un., nn. 48–​50; Vat. x: 69:340–​71:369) moves in much the same direction as Godfrey’s.11 The description of self-​sacrifice in battle in Nicomachean Ethics ix provides evidence that we are naturally able to love something more than ourselves –​a point that is especially clear for Scotus, since he believes Aristotle himself rejected or at least doubted the immortality of the soul. But he has to meet the obvious objection that Aristotle argues that we choose to sacrifice ourselves because it makes us supremely virtuous, and not because we place the common good above our own continued existence. Scotus answers that, if we will that x should not exist so that y is preserved, then without any qualification we love y more than x. Therefore, without any qualification the self-​sacrificer

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 339 “loves his country more than himself or his act of virtue –​it is not to save it that he exposes himself to death, but to save the commonwealth” (71:367–3​68). Scotus does not think he needs to allow, as Godfrey does, that self-​sacrificers love their own good as part of the common good. His view is simple. People without hope of an afterlife do sacrifice themselves (as Aristotle’s testimony shows) and, whatever their motivation, the very fact they choose to give up the existence of themselves in order to preserve something else shows they are capable of loving something else more than themselves. Given this reading, he does not need to disagree with Aristotle, and he would presumably accept that such heroic actions do indeed show love for self, but greater love for the commonwealth.

15.5  ETHICS

Self-​S acrifice: Two Fourteenth-​C entury Commentaries

The two most influential Ethics commentaries of the fourteenth century were those by the Franciscan Geraldus Odonis and by the leading Paris Arts Master, John Buridan. Geraldus wrote his commentary probably in the early or mid-​ 1320s.12 He takes a radically different view from all the previous thinkers discussed on the question of self-​sacrifice without belief in an afterlife (Sententia … super libros Ethicorum iv, q. 9; Geraldus Odonis 1500, 61v). In his view, the virtue of courage would not lead such a person to sacrifice their life for the commonwealth, even if this sacrifice were obligatory and the person would lose their virtue by not making it. Such a sacrifice differs from activity according to virtue in three ways: it does not lead to happiness, it consists in choosing a greater evil to avoid a lesser one, and it does not complement any natural inclination, since we have no natural inclination to cease existing altogether. Someone now, says Geraldus, who expects the salvation of his soul, should indeed choose to die to save his virtue, since he can also save his soul: he can therefore “choose to be without his body and with virtue rather than with his body and without virtue.” But for the mortalist “it would be foolish to die in order to save virtue,

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340 John Marenbon since virtue would not be saved by doing so.” Indeed, according to Geraldus, mortalists ought not –​indeed, as he says at one point, cannot –​ sacrifice their lives. Such a sacrifice must be chosen either for one’s own good or for one’s neighbor’s. But it cannot be chosen for one’s own good, because in dying one loses all good (on the supposition of mortalism). Nor can it be chosen for the sake of one’s neighbor because, according to Geraldus, “everyone naturally loves himself more than his neighbor.” Geraldus supports his position by referring to the generally accepted doctrine that people ought not to sacrifice their own salvation in order to ensure their neighbor’s: for someone who does not believe in an afterlife, choosing to die for the sake of another (or others) amounts to the same. There might seem to be an obvious and crushing objection to Geraldus’s position: people without hope of an afterlife have in fact sacrificed their lives for another or for the common good. Geraldus has an answer, however:  many humans have and do sacrifice their lives –​just as some non-​human animals do to save their offspring. But they do so not out of a rational choice, but from passion. Like all his contemporaries, Geraldus accepts that what humans ought to do is to follow the dictates of reason, and he believes that, for a mortalist, self-​sacrifice is never a rational choice. So a mortalist might, driven by rage, go to his death in battle, but he cannot rationally choose to do so, and cannot, therefore, do so courageously. To the narrower objection that, according to Aristotle himself, the virtue of courage is exhibited most of all by self-​sacrifice in battle, Geraldus also has an answer. Aristotle, he says, took human immortality as an assumption, but he left it implicit, because he lacked a clear conception of the afterlife. His comment about there being nothing good or evil for the dead was not supposed to give his own view, but that of most people. Geraldus even refers to the passage in book IX about the choice to die courageously instead of enjoying a long life as if Aristotle had the afterlife in mind when he refers there to choosing a great good. John Buridan, the most celebrated master of the Paris Arts faculty, where he taught from the mid-​1320s until near to his death, c.

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 341 1360, drew heavily on Geraldus in his own Ethics commentary. With regard to self-​sacrifice, however, he uses the arguments Geraldus proposes, cited almost verbatim, though not by name, as the ones against his own position. (iv, q. 19; John Buridan 1489, 69r–​70r). Buridan believes that, despite them, he can show that even those who do not believe in an afterlife ought to give their lives for the commonwealth, though he limits himself to cases where running away from the danger would cause great harm to the common good. He bases his position on three suppositions (John Buridan 1489, 69v). The first is that it is necessary that the agent in question dies sometime: running away would prolong life, but only for a certain measure. The second supposition is that life is brief. The third is that, although all things being equal a longer-​lasting good is better than a shorter one, where good A  is superior in species to good B, then it is better than B, even if B is longer-​lasting than A.  For example, “a worm that lasts just for a day is better and more noble by goodness of nature than a stone that lasts a thousand years.” On this basis Buridan can show that, whether it is a matter of choosing the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils, self-​sacrifice where required to prevent great harm to the common good wins over continued life, even for the mortalist. The goodness of virtue is different in species from the goodness of nature and perfects it, and so, Buridan implies, it is superior. Through avoiding self-​sacrifice and continuing to live, we prolong natural good but lose the good of virtue; by self-​sacrifice we lose this prolongation but gain the good of the supreme act of courage. Therefore, on Buridan’s suppositions, the better choice is self-​sacrifice. But do we not thereby lose the chance for further virtuous activity? Buridan meets this objection by explaining that death is uncertain and so we cannot be sure how much chance we shall have for such activity; only if the same sort of circumstance arises again will we have the chance to do so much; and, even if we were not to lose our virtue by running away, our doing so would cause more evil than our future virtuous acts could counterbalance.

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342 John Marenbon As his line of argument indicates, Buridan accepts Aristotelian eudaimonism almost completely. Discussing the passage on self-​ love in Ethics ix, he does indeed argue that humans naturally can and ought to love God more than themselves (ix, q. 7; John Buridan 1489, 246v–​249r). But otherwise we ought to prefer our own good (cf. Grellard 2002, 2012). “It seems to me,” he says (John Buridan 1489, 248vb), “that we should never procure worldly (temporale) common good unless our good is included in it –​and not if our own worldly good is lost through it, unless because in place of the worldly good of our own that is lost, there is gained for ourselves another greater good –​that of virtue.” Buridan’s original stroke is his answer to those who say that self-​sacrifice can never be eudaimonistically justified, if there is no afterlife. Their position seems strong because of the immediateness of death, after which there is no more good or evil for the agent. But Buridan points out that those deciding whether to sacrifice their lives or run away should, rather, be comparing two spans of life with regard to their total goodness: that up to and including the self-​sacrifice, and the longer (but perhaps not much longer) span if they run away. In this light, it is easy to see how the somewhat shorter span may have greater goodness and be the best eudaimonistic choice.

15.6  Epilogue: Egoism and Anti-​E goism in the Later Medieval Tradition Lorenzo Valla (1407–​1457) lived just a century after Buridan, but the style and setting of his work was very different. Valla was a humanist. He presented his discussion of ethics, De voluptate, as a Ciceronian-​ type dialog, in which the interlocutors are Cato, a Stoic, Vegius, an Epicurean, and Antonius, a Franciscan priest and theologian, who concludes the discussion from the Christian perspective. Cato considers that the only goods are those attained through moral rectitude (honestas), which consists in following the virtues (i.2.1; Lorenzo Valla 1970, 5). By contrast, Vegius does not merely, like Epicurus himself, identify pleasure as the good, but he also

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 343 includes among the pleasures such activities as wine-​drinking and adultery. He accepts that the virtues are valuable, but only as means for gaining pleasure, and he proceeds to keep their names but change their descriptions, making continence, for example, the sacrifice of one pleasure to gain a greater one. Honestas, he says (ii.15.2; Lorenzo Valla 1970, 62:17–​18), is “an empty and useless word” and “nothing should be done for the sake of it.” Vegius’s view seems to be a type of egoism in which a person’s best interests are seen as the maximization of his or her own pleasure  –​an egoism far removed from the Aristotelian eudaimonism which many thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​ century writers followed, at least in modified form. Vegius’s egoism is ethical  –​he claims that people ought to pursue pleasure  –​and there are suggestions that it is also psychological: people are in fact motivated by pleasure.13 Given the widespread acceptance of the kinship between Stoic and Christian ethics, and Vegius’s enthusiastic acceptance of behavior generally considered vicious, it might be expected that Valla is presenting a critique of this speaker’s egoism. Yet Antonius, representing the Christian view and, probably, Valla’s own, finds common ground with Vegius rather than Cato. Like Vegius, Antonius believes that humans are made so that they seek pleasure. Pagans, he thinks, were therefore unable to resist the debauched Epicureanism described by Vegius (iii.11.2; Lorenzo Valla 1970, 111:34–​ 37). Christians are equally pleasure-​seeking, and they ought to seek their greatest pleasure –​but that greatest pleasure is the joy of the beatific vision in the world to come. Antonius even insists that we should not say that God is to be loved for his own sake. The end for which we do all things is “pleasure or happiness or felicity or charity,” and we can say that we love God only because he is the cause of this pleasure (iii.13.2–​3; Lorenzo Valla 1970, 113:39–​114:24). Although he lived more than a century later, Pietro Pomponazzi is far closer to the thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century Aristotelian tradition than Valla. He was concerned with self-​sacrifice because it could be used to make an argument against mortalism –​a position

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344 John Marenbon which he defended as being both Aristotle’s and well-​founded rationally, although he also steadfastly denied its truth and declared his own allegiance to Christian teaching. His opponents could argue that mortalism should be rejected because it destroys courage, since mortalists will do anything to avoid death, such as refusing self-​ sacrifice in battle for their country. In the widely read De immortalitate animae (published 1516: xiv.22; Pomponazzi 2013, 1066), he answers that, even for the mortalist, dying under such circumstances is the lesser evil, or indeed a good, because “in choosing death for the fatherland, for friends or to avoid vice great virtue is acquired” and “by acquiring this virtue, there follows happiness or a great part of happiness.” Here he is clearly looking back to Aristotle through both Scotus and Buridan.14 He moves further, however, when a little later in the same chapter he makes a distinction (xiv.25–​27; Pomponazzi 2013, 1071–​1072) between two sorts of rewards and punishments, accidental and essential ones. Any sort of external reward, such as money or punishment, is accidental; virtue itself is the only essential reward and guilt (culpa) the only essential punishment. Accidental rewards or punishments are far less than essential ones. Moreover, he says that when something good is rewarded accidentally, it seems that the essential good is diminished. For instance, if A  acts virtuously without hope of a reward, and B in hope of a reward, then B’s act is in this way not so virtuous as A’s. And so the person who is not accidentally rewarded will be rewarded more essentially than the one who is accidentally rewarded. The consequence of this position, which Pomponazzi does not draw out, but of which he must have been aware, is that it is less virtuous for Christians, who believe in an afterlife, than for mortalists, to sacrifice themselves. Indeed, more than ten years earlier, he had written that “the holy fathers cause me no amazement, because they firmly believed that after death they would possess eternity. But there is greater virtue when a philosopher, not led on by hope, undergoes death and many other things” (Utrum anima sit immortalis in Pomponazzi 1970, 23:8–​26).

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 345 When, however, in 1518–​ 1519, Pomponazzi was answering the critics of De immortalitate animae, he took his ideas in a new direction, maintaining his previous emphasis on virtue for its own sake, but extending it to Christian thought too. In his Apologia (i.9; Pomponazzi 2013, 1384), he says that, “even supposing that the soul were mortal, according to Catholic faith we should prefer to be nothing than to transgress the commandments of the Saviour.” Those who perform an action only because they fear hell or hope for heaven are, he says, guilty of very grave sin and will be damned as a result. In the Defensorium, Pomponazzi once more places Christian authorities alongside pagan philosophers insisting that virtue should be pursued for its own sake and he cites a passage, attributed to St. Basil, which distinguishes between those who serve God from fear, like slaves, from hope or reward, like hired servants, and from love, like sons and daughters (xvi.13; Pomponazzi 2013, 1740–​1742). This is the very same division found in De caritate, and Pomponazzi seems, by a different route, to have reached a very similar view about disinterested love and reward to that Walter of Mortagne had championed almost four centuries earlier.

Notes 1 I have chosen to focus on self-​sacrifice, which Aristotle links to self-​love, and which also involves the common good as that for which self-​sacrifice is made. There is also an intricate discussion of the common good in connection with medieval political philosophy: for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see Kempshall 1999. 2 Cicero (e.g. De amicitia 9.13; De inventione ii.166) was important as a source for an idea of disinterested love, which contrasted with Augustine’s view –​certainly for Abelard, though probably not for Walter of Mortagne. 3 It can be argued that Augustine also has a notion of selfless love (cf. O’Donovan 1980), but it involves the reward of God himself. 4 For the probable attribution of De caritate (ed. in Wielockx 1982/​1983, 58:69–​83), see Wielockx 1982/​1983, 59:26–​43. Wielockx’s dating (1982/​ 1983, 58:334–​355) of the piece to the mid-​1130s is wrong, because

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346 John Marenbon Abelard uses it, though just in passing, in the Theologia christiana (Wielockx 1982/​1983, 58:337–​341), now thought to have been written c. 1126–​1127 (see Marenbon 1997, 299, n.4). I shall call the author “Walter of Mortagne,” but this is not supposed to imply that his identity is certain. 5 Quotations from Aristotle are my own translations of Grosseteste’s version, as revised by William of Moerbeke (recensio recognita): Aristotle 1973. 6 For the different medieval commentaries on the Ethics, their form, dissemination, and relation to university teaching, see Lines 2002, 54–​166, and Sère 2007, 31–​65; for an overview of medieval Ethics commentaries, see Bejczy 2011. There is not space in this chapter to consider all the commentaries: among the important ones not treated are those by Radulphus Brito (which has little on the area in question), Walter Burley, and John Versor. 7 Interestingly, Siger of Brabant, who discusses this passage of Aristotle in the fifth of his Quaestiones morales (Siger of Brabant 1974, 103–​ 105), remains even closer to Aristotle, even though he confuses the discussions in books iii and ix of the Ethics, declaring (104:52–​54) that “the good man prefers to have one great pleasure (delectatio) in the activity of virtue for a little time than many small pleasures for a long time, and one great good thing than many small ones” (emending veritatis in the edition and MS to virtutis). 8 For a careful discussion of Albert’s views on self-​sacrifice, see Kempshall 1999, 47–​49. 9 Aquinas’s views on this subject have been much debated: see Osborne 2005, 87–​112 for a full discussion of the different texts and the scholarly controversy. My account is based mainly on Sent. iii, d. 29, q. 1, a. 3; ST ii–​ii, q. 26, a. 3 (on loving God in a state of charity, but making comparisons with natural love); Quod. i, q. 4, a. 3. 10 This quodlibet, along with those discussed below by James of Viterbo and Godfrey of Fontaines, is translated in full in McGrade et al. 2001, 257–​300 (see also 301–​306 for a translation of part of Godfrey’s Quodlibet xiii.1, where he replies to James of Viterbo). On the debate between Henry, Godfrey, and James, see Kempshall 1999, 170–​178, 207–​218; Osborne 2005, 119–​170. On Henry’s quodlibet, see Fioravanti 2002.

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Self-Interest, Self-Sacrifice, and the Common Good 347 11 Some writers, such as Osborne 2005, 171–​214, and Delahoussaye 2010, link Scotus’s discussion of self-​sacrifice to his distinction between two wills and his break from an Aristotelian tradition of eudaimonism (discussed by Jeff Steele in 6.5 of this volume). According to my analysis, however, Scotus’s treatment of this question takes place within the Aristotelian framework. 12 C. Porter 2009, 247. This article gives full information about the MSS and background of the commentary. 13 Marenbon (2015, 267) describes Vegius as “a moral non-​realist.” But the text could also be read so that he is a naturalist, understanding moral vocabulary as referring to pleasure and the means of gaining it. 14 For his use of Scotus, see Poppi 2010. Buridan’s commentary was widely used in later medieval arts faculties, and Pomponazzi’s remark in his Quaestio de immortalitate animae (Kristeller 1955, 90) that “it is more perfect to be a human for a year than an oak tree for ten thousand” is fairly clearly his transposed version of Buridan’s comparison (see above, 15.5) of a worm that lasts a day and a stone a thousand years, and he also adopts Buridan’s argument about self-​sacrifice as merely a shortening of a life: see Defensorium xvi.12; Pomponazzi 2013, 1738). For more detailed discussion of the whole problem, see Marenbon 2017.

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16 Sin and Grace Eileen C. Sweeney

There is an obvious problem inherent in the notion of “medieval ethics” since “ethics” as a separate area of philosophical reflection in a modern sense did not exist in the period in any of the three traditions, Christian, Jewish, or Islamic. One of the most obvious differences is that medieval thinkers must take account of the notion that wrongdoing is an act against God’s written law. This issue is thematized most explicitly in the Latin tradition as the category of sin as distinct from vice as writers must work to bring these two categories into some kind of relationship. Additionally, but only explicitly in the Christian tradition, there is a notion of grace as a God-​given and unmerited gift that repairs the corruption of nature in original sin and makes possible meritorious action and salvation. What follows is not a theological account of sin and grace in the medieval Latin tradition but a philosophical one. These notions are at the center of important metaethical questions about the nature of moral action and the source of moral obligation. The presence or necessity of grace raises questions about moral responsibility and merit. There are also differences in what is considered vicious on classical models as opposed to what counts as sin, that is, differences in content and not just form. All these elements adumbrate a particular philosophical anthropology, since sin and grace describe what falls below and rises above human nature and its natural ends, as well as a moral psychology, since sin is located in the will rather than the reason or passions. This study is divided into three parts. It takes up first the role of sin as it affects the formal character of moral action, in the nature of moral obligation, as internal standards of natural fulfillment vs. external standards in divine law, and in the location of moral worth 348

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Sin and Grace 349 and its opposite in internal and/​or in external acts. Second, I  will turn to the content or matter of moral action:  understanding what kinds of actions or states of character are considered wrong, and how and where what counts as sin diverges from vice. Third, the study takes up the consideration of the ways in which grace raises questions about agency and responsibility.

16.1  Defining Sin and Locating Obligation and Moral Worth 16.1.1  Two Models of Sin: Offending God and Forsaking the Fulfillment of Virtue We begin in medias res with Peter Lombard’s Sentences. The Sentences lays out the issues that will occupy thinkers for the next couple of centuries and displays the differences and tensions between philosophical ethics and the theological tradition. It gives a vantage point from which to look both backward, to the origins of positions or conflicts in the earlier theological tradition, and forward, to the way these issues continue to develop with the assimilation of Aristotle’s Ethics. In book ii, distinction 35, Peter cites a number of definitions of sin: that it is “word, deed, or desire contrary to the law of God,” that sin is the will to retain or pursue what justice forbids, that sin is “transgression of divine law and disobedience to heavenly precepts.” Within his short discussion, Peter notes that the second definition, with its focus on the will’s pursuit or avoidance, locates sin in the interior act, while the first includes both internal and exterior acts. In addition, the third definition raises the question as to whether it is the transgression that is the core of sin, rather than the inherent wrongness of the act. With this Peter sets out a series of issues which form the basis for a set of questions taken up subsequently. Albert the Great, for example, notes the distinction between things being forbidden because they are evil and vice versa, but refuses to choose one of the horns of the dilemma. He argues that because “law” is understood

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350 Eileen C. Sweeney to include both the external and internal law, both the law explicitly given in revelation, as well as the internal sense of what is right and wrong, sin as transgression of divine law can mean either or both something being wrong because it is against God’s law and being against God’s law because it is wrong (Sent. ii, d. 35, a. 3, obj. 5/ad 5 [v. 27, 563, 565]). Albert also notes that there are two senses of obedience: obeying a command because it is commanded, and the fulfillment of what is commanded because it is right (Sent. ii, d. 35, a. 3, def. 3, ad 2 [v. 27, 566]). And though Albert finds that there is a virtue in obeying because something is commanded, he rejects the view that moral/​good action consists in doing what is commanded because it is commanded. Like Albert, Bonaventure rejects the choice between God’s law and the per se wrongness of some act as the source of its sinfulness. Bonaventure’s way of harmonizing philosophical and religious language is to subordinate both to the notion of sin as the rejection of/​ movement away from the highest good (Sent. ii, d. 34, dubia 4 [v. 4, 837–​838]) This Augustinian/​Neoplatonic notion encompasses both sides of the Euthyphro dilemma, since in the relationship to the highest good, it supports the relationship of sin to God’s law, and in the opposition between sin and goodness, the lack or rejection of the true good, it locates the ground of sin in its inherent evil. Aquinas also tries to maintain that there is no conflict between the religious notion of sin and the philosophical notion of vice. He argues that the two definitions come to the same thing: to be against human nature, i.e. reason, is to be against the law of God (ST i–​ii, q.  71, a.  2, ad 4). Aquinas explains that there are two rules of the human will: one “proximate and homogeneous” (human reason) and another which is “first” (eternal law, which is “God’s reason”) (ST i–​ii, q. 71, a. 6). He also distinguishes between the theologian, who considers sin as offense against God, and the moral philosopher, for whom it is against reason; the theological definition is “more fitting” because eternal law also encompasses many things that go beyond reason (ST i–​ii, q. 71, a. 6, ad 5).

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Sin and Grace 351 Aquinas goes on to consider distinguishing types of sin as against God, against self, or against neighbor (ST i–​ii, q.  72, a.  4). Aquinas’s response makes of these modes of acting against the threefold order existing in a human being. Thus, the external is made internal. Second, he makes of the three orders concentric circles, sin against neighbor, the smallest, sin against self or reason the second, and sin against God encompassing the others. Thus, all sins are in a sense against God but are still distinguished in that God’s law both includes and goes beyond the others (cf. ST i–​ii, q. 71, a. 4, ad 2 and 3). In all these passages Aquinas attempts, as Albert and Bonaventure do in their own terms, to prioritize the notion of sin as against God’s law while maximizing the overlap and harmony between it and the philosophical view.

16.1.2  Sin and the Will Scotus and Ockham make the issue a matter of the motive for action. Scotus argues for three levels of moral goodness. Generic goodness, the basis for the act as moral and for any further goodness, is an act done “according to the dictates of right reason”; the second level is when “the act is elicited by the will under such circumstances as right reason approves of it in full.” The third level, presupposing these other two, is when an act is “elicited in conformity with the principle or source of merit, which is grace or charity” (Ord. ii, d. 7, nn. 11–​13 [Vat. xii:386–​387]). Scotus does not here oppose the grounds of obligation, but he does distinguish moral goodness (done from right reason) from merit (done from charity), making a class of actions which are good but without merit. In De connexione virtutum, Ockham redescribes the levels of virtuous action by locating the morality of action even more rigorously in the will and in ways that tie moral value to acting on God’s command. The first two levels require willing in conformity with right reason, and willing not to waver even under threat of death. In the third degree, the will wills the performance of the work precisely and solely because it is dictated by right reason. The fourth level

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352 Eileen C. Sweeney is when the will wills an act precisely on account of love of God. The fifth and last level is heroic virtue, when the will wills to do or undergo something that naturally exceeds the common human state, and/​or contrary to his or her individual inclination, either for the sake of God or virtue (De connex. vir. a. 2, ll. 116–​167). The question is how Ockham understands the relationship between willing from right reason and willing from the love/​command of God. Ockham asserts that the only necessarily and intrinsically virtuous act that can never be rendered vicious is “willing to do something because it is divinely commanded” (De connex. vir., a. 1, ll. 125–​128). In the Quodlibetal Questions he adds, “because on the one hand, everyone, no matter where or when, is obligated to love God above all else … and, on the other hand, because this act is the first of all good acts” (Quod. q.  3, a.  14). Yet, in a later quodlibet Ockham asserts that willing in conformity with right reason (rather than as commanded by or out of the love of God) makes an act intrinsically virtuous (Quod. q.  3, a.  16). And in De connexione he says that acts done from right reason are “true” virtue, and he implies that action from charity and right reason are equally capable of being heroic. Ockham is struggling with the same issue embedded in Peter Lombard’s questions about the definition of sin, and he, like the Lombard and Albert, Bonaventure, and Aquinas, wants in some way to harmonize the notion of wrongdoing as willing against reason or nature and willing against God’s law or command (see Adams 1986, 1–​5). Ockham does it differently than earlier figures, going further, both in granting independent and “true” virtue status to those pagans acting on account of right reason and in locating the source of moral goodness or badness finally and completely in the love/​command of God. Ockham also asserts more starkly that the moral character of the act rests in the act of the will. Ockham draws attention to what he claims is Peter Lombard’s identical claim (Sent. ii, d. 40, c. 1), but the Lombard argues that while good acts are always good from their

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Sin and Grace 353 intention, not every evil act is evil from its end and intention (Sent. ii, d. 40, c. 12). Ockham argues that if, from God’s absolute power, adultery or theft were commanded, those acts would not be evil acts done for a good end, but that such acts would be no longer “adultery” or “theft,” as those names themselves contain the aspect of sin, but good acts for a good end, love of God (Sent. ii, d.  15 [OTh V, 352]). Ockham argues that not only could God have done away with the commandments having to do with others such that they did not belong to natural law, as Scotus had argued, but also that God could have abolished even the precepts commanding love of God, commanding instead that we hate him (Scotus, Ord. iv, d. 17, n. 19; Ockham, Sent. iv, d. 16 [OTh VII, 352]) Though writing some two centuries before William of Ockham (c. 1285–​1347), Abelard (1079–​1142) sets up in an extremely clear and almost equally stark way the link between the notion of sin and the location of moral worth in the will (what Abelard calls “consent”). Abelard begins his short text Ethica, or Scito te ipsum, with a reflection on the difference between sin and vice. He is quick to point out that people do not sin by having a vice, but rather they “get from [vice] material for a fight” so that they might win over temptation (Ethica i.5). Vice makes us prone to sin, but sin is consent to what is inappropriate. Consent is not the same as “willing,” which for Abelard seems to mean something closer to wanting. Consent to sin Abelard defines as “contempt for the creator… not to do for his sake what we believe we ought to do for his sake, or not to renounce for his sake what we believe ought to be renounced” (Ethica i.7). It is noteworthy that Abelard includes both the element of acting for God’s sake but also that the standard is based on what we believe or understand as right or wrong. This view of sin yields surprising results, as Abelard separates sin not just from the external act, but also from the bad will. One can sin without a bad will by consenting to the evil one does not want/​ will; and one can avoid sin with a bad will by resisting that will; desiring and getting the pleasure from sin is not sin if one has not

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354 Eileen C. Sweeney consented. Moreover, Abelard is able to defend those who do wrong but with the best intentions, e.g. those who reject the Gospel, persecute martyrs, or even crucify Christ; if they act based on conscience, they do not do well, but would do worse if they acted against their conscience, even to do the right thing (Ethica i.110–​112,  126) A consequence of the location of sin in the internal act of contempt for God is that only God can judge sin, while human law is left to judge the deed without access to guilt, falling back on principles of utility and deterrence (Ethica i.77–​83). The gap this opens is between sin (what God judges) and crime (crimen) (what is judged by human courts).1 We are at this point about as far as we can get from the view of virtue and vice presented by Boethius’s Consolation, where Lady Philosophy argues that the orders of good and evil, reward and punishment, coincide perfectly and that vice is its own punishment and doing good, our deepest and most natural inclination. We also find the link between the will and sin in Anselm of Canterbury. Anselm defines free choice as “the ability to keep uprightness of will for the sake of this uprightness itself” (De lib. arb. 4 [v. i, 214]). Anselm argues that finite rational creatures have been given two wills: the will for benefit or happiness (commoditas) and the will for justice (De casu diab. 13, [v. i, 257; 258]). If there are two wills, both given by God, an act can be free and per se because the choice between which to will genuinely belongs to the creature. Whether Anselm’s view is ultimately libertarian or compatibilist is debated, but the key issue in this context is how this notion of the will connects to that of sin. Justice is refraining from willing some benefit which is more than one ought to have and willing uprightness for its own sake (De casu diab. 14 [v. i, 258]; 23 [v. 1, 270]). In De casu diaboli, Anselm defines Satan’s sin as willing “by his own will (propria voluntate) not subject to anyone” (De casu diab. 4 [v. i, 242]). For Anselm, then, justice is a response to a fittingness and rightness outside and beyond the self. It is not necessarily in conflict with self-​interest, but in the face of justice self-​interest is mute and irrelevant.

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Sin and Grace 355

16.1.3  Willing against God’s Law The clear and consistent location of sin in voluntas in all these thinkers is connected to the notion of sin as against divine law. If the full extent of virtue’s appeal to us is that virtue is what is in our true interest, as it is for Aristotle and Plato, then it does not really make sense to think of willfully resisting its direction. There is no self-​interest to hold against self-​interest; moral failure can only be a lack of understanding or habituation, and the cures, education and training. But because sin is the failure to meet an obligation to another, the rejection of an order transcending self-​interest, sin is a problem of the will in a way vice cannot be for Plato or Aristotle. In Socrates’s argument against Callicles in the Gorgias or Thrasymachus in the Republic, there is no appeal to what they owe another but what leads to self-​mastery. In Ockham we see especially sharply this absolute obligation to another, to God, who, Ockham repeats regularly, is “a debtor to no one,” and to whom Ockham attributes power only limited by logical contradiction (De connex. a. 4, 322). God is to be loved beyond all other things and for His sake, and thus Ockham “renounces all claims to power over the beloved [God]” (McGrade 1999, 288). For Ockham all obligation is on the creature’s side of the ledger, and none on God’s side (De connex. a. 4, 322–​330). Moral obligation is without limit, without recompense, and without possibility of appeal or mitigation.

16.2  Sins vs. Vices 16.2.1  “Splendid Vices” and “Deadly Sins” Besides this set of what we today call “metaethical” or formal issues, there are questions raised about the actual acts or character traits that count as vice in the ancient philosophical tradition vs. sin for Christian thinkers. There is a strong tradition, expressed most forcefully, but not only, by Augustine, in which pagan virtues are not only not the same as Christian virtues but are even vices. Other thinkers try to work out areas of overlap and common ground, and then argue

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356 Eileen C. Sweeney for a list of virtues (and vices/​sins) which go beyond though do not contradict the requirements of philosophical ethics. Though there are many rich areas for exploration, I just want to point to three main areas: (1) critique of pagan virtue, (2) the tradition of the “seven deadly sins” and how it differs from the philosophical lists of virtues and vices, and (3) some specific areas of difference: pride as a sin, acedia or sloth as a sin without a real counterpart (in vice or virtue) in Greek or Roman ethics, differences on sins/​vices like lust and avarice. Augustine launches the most powerful critique of “pagan virtue” in the City of God. The cardinal virtues are unable to do much more than forcibly restrain evil, in their very acts witnessing to their own defeat: temperance is nothing more than “internal warfare,” fortitude “bears the most witness to human evils, because it is precisely these evils that it is compelled to endure with patience,” while prudence teaches about evil but fails to remove it from life, and justice labors continually but does not achieve its end of giving each their due (De civ. xix:4). They do not just fail but become vices when not directed toward service of God but for oneself (De civ. xix:25). Augustine describes the Roman Empire as fueled by the desire for glory and honor, and criticizes Cicero for praising glory as a motive for virtue (De civ. v:12–​13). Moreover, Augustine argues that the desire for glory is the sin of pride; it degrades to one for domination, since it rejects the notion of human beings as equal before God (De civ. xix:12). In the twelfth century there are extreme versions of critiques and defenses of secular/​ pagan virtue, with, for example, Abelard coming to the defense of the virtuous pagans, more virtuous, he argues, than the Jews of the Old Testament, and Alan of Lille excoriating pagan virtues as counterfeit (ThSumB sec. 63–​64; ThChr sec. 109–​116). Alan of Lille’s allegorical poems portray all the virtues as just barely holding in check contrary vices, showing the weakness of nature without grace (De pl. nat. 16, ll. 89–​94; Anticl. i, ll. 271–​276; ii, ll. 163–​165, 310–​311), as a critique of more positive notions of nature in, for example, Bernard of Silvestris’s Cosmographia.

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Sin and Grace 357 In the scholastic context, this question becomes whether there can ever be a truly virtuous act without grace. Peter Lombard asks whether the intention and action of those without faith is always evil; his affirmative answer is qualified on the basis of a distinction between doing good and doing it well; one can do a good thing without faith but it is not “done well” or it is good but not “worthy of reward” (Sent. ii, d.  41). Ockham, as we saw above, allows for virtuous acts done for the sake of virtue (rather than for God/​from charity), albeit at a lower level than those done from the love of God. Aquinas asserts, on the one hand, that nature is not so completely corrupted by the fall that we cannot do good, but then his examples do not include explicitly morally good acts but rather such things as “to work in the field, to drink, to eat, to have friends, and other similar things” (ST i–​ii, q. 109, a. 5; q. 109, a. 2; cf. Lombard, Sent. ii, d. 26, 7). Further, Aquinas argues that without grace human beings can avoid individual mortal sins, but not continually and over the long haul (ST i–​ii, q. 109, a. 8). However, this is not a claim that acts of pagan virtue and the virtues themselves are sinful, but rather that complete virtue is not possible for human nature unaided by grace.

16.2.2  The Sins, Deadly and Otherwise Before the reintroduction of Aristotle’s Ethics the most important book for ethical thinking in the Latin medieval world was Gregory the Great’s Morals on the Book of Job; its importance here is in its articulation of the tradition of the “seven deadly (or capital) sins.” The list (usually pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust) derives from a list of eight by Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345–​399) (Bloomfield 1952, 1–​67; Stewart 2005). Evagrius devised the system for monastic life in Egypt. The crucial feature of the list of sins is not that they are the worst sins but that they lead one on to other sins, great and small. Cassian (c. 365–​c. 435)  brought the scheme to Latin monasticism in Gaul, and Gregory the Great (c. 540–​604) broadened its appeal still further in his influential Moralia in Job. In the Latin West, the scheme gave rise to treatises on the virtues

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358 Eileen C. Sweeney and vices and had an important influence on medieval preaching and confessional practice. The early appropriations of the seven deadly or capital sins seem predicated on two assumptions about moral life. The first is the notion that moral life is essentially a struggle against evil, expressed by personifying the seven sins as the forces of evil or demons attacking either the person or the virtues (Bloomfield 1952, 63–​65; Straw 2005). According to Straw, for Cassian, in the extreme asceticism of his monastic spirituality, any small expression of desire is feared as setting loose the unrestrained desire for more (pleonexia), as the sins take on the character of demons, spirits, forces which come in to take over the soul (Straw 2005, 40–​45). The second assumption is that the goal of moral life is not Aristotelian moderation but asceticism, the rejection of the body, the world, and its pleasures (Straw 2005, 42; Cassian, Institutes, 73–​74). Patristic and monastic writers seemed to use the account of the sins and their offspring as a warning; their descriptions of the dehumanizing disintegration and degradation of the descent into sin is designed to frighten men and women away from taking the first step toward sin (Bloomfield 1952, 55–​80; cf. Gregory the Great, Moralia 31.45.90). In the scholastic context, the stage for the discussion of sin and the seven deadly sins is Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Peter raises the issue of the seven sins and discusses their ordering, but does not consider the particular sins separately or in any depth (Sent. ii, d.  42). William of Auvergne has a small treatise on the vices and sins that mentions some of the sins in Gregory’s list individually, but only briefly and not as the group of seven (De virtutibus, ch. 17). On the other hand, very popular treatises on the vices, like those of John of Rupella (John of la Rochelle) and William Peraldus, make the seven deadly sins the core of their ethical views (Newhauser 1993, 121–​130; Vecchio 2005). Peraldus ranked preaching on the sins with the obligation to preach on the Creed and the Ten Commandments (Wenzel 2005). Further, the seven sins or vices do make their way into some scholastic summae, for example the Summa fratris

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Sin and Grace 359 Alexandri (which, according to Lottin, contains large portions of John of Rupella’s Summa de viciis) and William of Auxerre’s Summa aurea (Lottin 1929). Though Peraldus’s very popular Summa de vitiis was a pastoral work, John of Rupella’s work occupies a kind of middle ground, organized around the seven sins but using scholastic methods (Vecchio 2005, 109–​110; Wenzel 1992).2 Vecchio explains John’s achievement in synthesizing all the different definitions of sin and also arguing for the sufficiency of the system of seven sins by associating them with the powers of the soul: vegetative (gluttony and lust for the nutritive and generative functions); sensitive (avarice and anger for the concupiscible and irascible appetites); and rational (pride, envy, and sloth for what is above, next to, and within the self) (Vecchio 2005, 118–​119). John’s answer for why this scheme is better than Aristotle’s scheme of two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, opposing the mean of each virtue, is that the much greater human propensity is toward excess rather than deficiency; hence, vice is excess and, it is at least implied, virtue is the opposite, a disciplined lack of desire for too much (Vecchio 2005, 120). In one sense, Aristotle agrees; while there are two vices opposed to, for example, temperance and courage, human beings are more prone to excess than deficiency in regard to appetite and fear. But the scheme of seven sins’ origins in the monastic life tips toward a notion of virtue as the lack of desire, and of the dangers of desire overwhelming reason and will. Aquinas spends a great deal of time exploring each sin or vice from Gregory’s list in both the Summa theologiae and Disputed Questions on Evil, while most other scholastic authors do not. While in De malo (q. 8, a. 1) Aquinas takes up the seven capital sins in order and derives them from the threefold good for human beings (of the soul, body, and external things), in the Summa theologiae the deadly sins only appear sporadically placed under and alongside other vices listed under one of the four cardinal or three theological virtues. Four of the seven –​avarice, anger, vainglory, and pride –​are subordinated to minor virtues (liberality, meekness, magnanimity, and humility,

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360 Eileen C. Sweeney respectively). Aquinas leads with the positive, ordering the vices under the virtues, always explaining the right response to a desirable object before moving on to the various wrong ones. Thus, it is virtue that defines vice, and vice or sin is subjected to the logic of desire and actions toward good and away from evil. Moreover, even when Aquinas takes up the seven sins in their traditional Gregorian order in De malo, he casts the sins as opposed to certain virtues and wherever possible as means between extremes (e.g. De malo q. 12, a. 5, ad 2, 3; q. 13, a. 1; q. 15, a. 1, ad 1). The same tendency is true in an even more overt way of Aquinas’s consideration of sin in the Summa theologiae. The goods these sins promise (though they are false promises), Aquinas argues, are the elements of happiness:  pride promises perfection, avarice promises satiety, and gluttony and lust promise pleasure. The remaining three involve not the direct pursuit of good, but evil for the sake of good. So anger seeks the evil of harming another for the good of vengeance; envy is sorrow at or avoidance of the good of another as harming one’s own good of excellence; and sloth or acedia is sorrow or avoidance of one’s own spiritual good because of the difficulty it involves (ST i–​ii, q. 84, a. 4). When Aquinas asks for each of the vices whether it is a sin, the answer always involves some kind of qualification, that wanting whatever the vice generally seeks is not always a sin and might even under some circumstances be a virtue (e.g. vainglory:  ST ii–​ii q.  132, a.  1; acedia:  ST ii–​ii, q.  35, a.  1; see Sweeney 2012). One of the scholastic questions taken up by Peter Lombard and those that followed around the seven sins is about this story of origin:  what is the root or beginning of sin? The most common answers are pride or avarice/​ concupiscence. Most seem to argue, as Peter does, that a case can be made for both; all types of sin can come from pride and from cupidity/​avarice, and each can motivate the other (Sent. ii, d. 42, c. 8). John of Rupella opts for pride, because pride desires preference and the other goods, riches, delicacies, etc. are ways of getting that preference for the self.3 Aquinas makes a

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Sin and Grace 361 similar argument, that we desire the goods the other sins aim at so that, through them, we may acquire some perfection (ST i–​ii, q. 84, a. 2; cf. ST ii–​ii, q. 132, a. 4).4 Thus, pride is the “beginning of sin,” yet avarice, as a special sin, the desire for money, is the root of sin since money can be the means to satisfying any sinful desire (ST i–​ii, q.  84, a.  1; cf. Albert the Great, Sent. ii, d.  42, a.  7). We can trace some of this ambivalence about the origin of all sin in pride vs. avarice/​concupiscence back to the differences between Gregory and Cassian. According to Straw, for Cassian sin is desire and originates in concupiscentia, as desire expands further from gluttony toward displacing God in pride (Straw 2005, 37). In Gregory, by contrast, the other sins grow from the basic will to defy authority, to be one’s own ruler in pride (Straw 2005, 49). In Bernard of Clairvaux’s De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae tractatus, the point of humility (and the problem with pride) is not just its effects vertically between the individual and their God (or other superior) but its horizontal consequences across the community. Humility is a recognition of one’s own failings, which then makes it possible to see others’ failings with understanding and a willingness to help. Pride is an impediment to seeing the truth about oneself and, hence, the proud, focusing on the failings of others but not their own, are moved to anger and judgment of others, without any inclination to pity or assist them (De gradibus, cc. 3–​4). Bernard backs this view up with a long account of Jesus’ life and suffering as the experience of humility as a way toward empathy for human sufferings and failings. In this sense Bernard carries forward the strand in Gregory’s versions of the sins in which “carnal adversities,” whether in the form of temptation, service to others, or sin, can restore humility and bring one to charity (Straw 2005, 48). Avarice is crucially important as well. All these thinkers take seriously St. Paul’s warning that avarice is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). This is a world where the contrasting virtue, the model of the perfect life, is the complete lack of possessions in monastic

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362 Eileen C. Sweeney and mendicant orders, and where there are deep misgivings about amassing money. It is not until the work of Giles of Rome that we find ethical justifications for more “capitalistic” notions of value and price, tolerance for making money, etc. (Lambertini 2015; Langholm 1992). In the different positions on whether pride motivates avarice/​ cupidity or vice versa, these medieval thinkers cover the same ground as Hobbes and Rousseau. Hobbes makes the infinite desire for one thing after another the origin which brings in its wake the desire for “glory” (pride), while Rousseau finds that amour propre, the desire to be seen as better (pride), motivates the desire for things that feed the desire for self-​aggrandizement. These different answers on the root or origin of sin as pride, avarice, or concupiscence are different perspectives on the same claim:  the human failing is wanting more. Humans want to be more than they are, to be God rather than creature, and want more possessions, more pleasures, more excellence, more control over others. The core of what it is to be human is in those desires for more. This is not true in Aristotle or Plato. Bloomfield speculates that the importance of pride as the source of all sins is a result of the “disciplined, corporate society” of the Middle Ages and its worries about “the dangers of independent thinking,” but this causal chain makes more sense reversed (Bloomfield 1952, 75). For the location of pride as the first and worst sin, and of avarice as the path to feed the desire for more and more, flows out of the definition of sin as a rejection of divine law, a rejection of one’s status as creature (equal to other creatures) rather than creator. Such a notion of sin would yield a less individualistic, more corporatist culture. Two other sins are worth commenting on because they fit into the topos of sin rather than classical vice: lust and acedia. Acedia, sometimes translated as sloth, is not laziness or sloppiness, but a kind of sadness/​ lethargy about pursuing spiritual goods. Though for Aquinas acedia occurs “when love of the flesh is dominant,” acedia is the loathing of those spiritual goods “as something contrary to [one]self,” not the desire of some other earthly good instead

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Sin and Grace 363 (De malo, q. 11, a. 2). Aquinas makes clear that it is not the direct rejection of God (in whose presence one could not be sad) but that of “some good pertaining to him which is divine by participation” (De malo, q. 11, a. 3 ad 3). Paradoxically, neglecting the central concern of divine things makes one “busy” in a myriad of other ways, searching endlessly for distractions. Albert the Great does some work to integrate acedia with other ethical notions, that, for example, the commandment to honor the Sabbath prohibits acedia and the sacrament of confirmation is meant to combat it (Sent. iii, d. 37, 4; iv, d. 2, 1). Albert also associates an extreme form of acedia with the more serious sin, despair, a sin against the Holy Spirit, but also distinguishes it from another extreme, the sadness about the spiritual and physical trials experienced by Job and Jesus, which were not only not vicious but “beyond” virtue (supra virtutem) (ST ii, tr. 18, q. 118, m. 1; a. 2). Josef Pieper’s classic Leisure:  The Basis of Culture suggested that acedia is the rejection of Aristotelian leisure (schole) (Pieper 1998, 27–​30, 32–​33, 54).5 Leisure is the freedom from which to pursue the good of contemplation, and acedia, then, is the rejection of this pursuit. However, acedia seems to break with the Aristotelian picture in two ways: first, insofar as it involves the rejection of a true good as good in a way that is not consequent on any kind of lack of knowledge; second, insofar as acedia as a sin is predicated on a life whose single direction is the transcendent good. There is a level of difficulty and weariness about this task because that good is so far from this world that it can even become, as it is for Job and Christ, an act beyond mere virtue in the face of which even the very best experience anguish rather than natural inclination. This connection in Albert to what looks like acedia but is really extraordinary virtue in Job and Christ is the same as Ockham’s highest level of virtue, virtue which goes against every natural instinct. This notion of the good that is beyond nature, and of acedia as a different way of neglecting that good than mere immersion in lower goods, makes its way into existentialist thinkers, like Pascal in his notion of “diversion” and Kierkegaard in the notions of “anxiety” and “despair.”

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364 Eileen C. Sweeney Though the topic is vast and complex, something must also be said about lust. As Bonnie Kent points out, lust continued to be an important scholastic topic even amidst the waning importance of the seven deadly sins. According to Kent, it is a fairly standard scholastic view that lust is the most dangerous of the appetites (Kent 2005). Aquinas, though something of a moderate, repeats versions of this claim many times in the Summa theologiae (ST ii–​ii, q. 153, aa. 1–​5). Aquinas makes the peculiar argument that because sexual activity is “more necessary” (as preserving the species), it requires the order of reason more than other passions and becomes more sinful if that order is forsaken (ST ii–​ii, q. 153, a. 3). Anselm’s tortured Meditation on Lost Virginity and his admonishment of Gundhilda, a noblewoman with whom he corresponded, that intercourse is commingling with a rotting, worm-​infested corpse give us some sense of the extreme anxiety and repulsion around sexuality (Meditatio ii; Epistolae, 168, 169). Alan of Lille’s late twelfth-​century De planctu naturae is a diatribe against sexual sin especially, allegorizing various versions of “unnatural” couplings as grammatical errors. Augustine’s defense of sex within marriage represents a moderation of more extreme views in Jerome and Ambrose (Salisbury 1986). However, it is hard not to see a somewhat Freudian pattern of the return of the repressed through the scholastic period, insofar as the vindication of sex within marriage seems to result in a more extreme reaction to other types of sexual sin, notably but not exclusively homosexual sex (Albert the Great, ST ii, tr. 18; q. 122, m. 1, a. 4; Jordan 1997). On the other hand, as Kent notes, in later scholastic accounts there is some qualification to Augustine’s view of sexual desire’s unruliness as punishment for original sin in the physiological accounts of sexual desire, combined with the more exclusive location of sin in the will rather than the bodily passions and appetites. In Ockham, any universal natural propensity to vice (or virtue) is transmuted into differences of individual bodily dispositions (Sent. iii, dd. 11–​12; Sweeney forthcoming). Given these views, Ockham struggles with the view that continence is merely imperfect virtue,

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Sin and Grace 365 since, first, the intensity of desire seems to be a bodily matter rather than one of the will, and, second, since (just as Abelard claims) the harder the continent person has to work to resist his or her stronger desire, the more it seems to make their act just as worthy or perhaps worthier than the person who feels no inordinate desire (Sent. iii, 12, Quaest. var., 7, 3; Kent 2005, 365–​366). Ockham goes so far as to make the fomes of sin a quality of the body, not even of the bodily appetites, asserting that as such, even the incarnate Christ would have been subject to them (Sent. iii, 5; Kent 2005, 369–​370). In the end Ockham’s views on lust are not that different from his views on virtue and vice in general. Ockham comes close to rejecting Aristotle’s notion of virtue as a kind of internal harmony where the virtuous person “wants” to do the virtuous thing, for the notion of continence, the strength to resist desires. The strength of desires, sexual or otherwise, Ockham thinks, is a matter of physiological luck. This view on lust and the other vices fits with his account of the levels of moral action. As we saw, the higher the level of the act, the more distant from and even opposed to that to which nature inclines. Hence, for Ockham, conflict is a condition of moral life at the lower end but also at the higher end. There is an important ethical/​ moral principle to be found here, one so obvious it might be overlooked. It is that sin and the temptation to sin are ubiquitous, not the exception but the rule of human moral life, that self-​knowledge is largely a process of finding one’s failings, and, as Bernard makes clear, recognizing them makes possible our relationships and our compassion for others. Thus, pain and difficulty are seen as unavoidable and even necessary for moral and spiritual development. This is both because of a notion of human nature as flawed as a consequence of original sin, but also because the good at which human beings are aimed is transcendent, and thus nature (naturally) pulls back from this goal. In this moral universe, struggle is the moral condition, whether for those who are weaker than Aristotle’s virtuous man (which includes everyone without the benefit of grace), but also for those who are striving for

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366 Eileen C. Sweeney what is beyond immanent fulfillment. There is both contrast and continuity between Ockham’s notion of heroic virtue and Aquinas on the beatitudes. Though Aquinas describes moving through the stage of Aristotelian virtue/​moderation, he also notes that “perfection” involves surpassing that standard, moving beyond moderate pleasure for example, to no passion to the “deliberate choice of sorrow” (blessed are they who mourn), from virtuous honor to contempt of wealth and honor (blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek) (ST i–​ii, q. 69 a. 3). One transcends moderation, however, “by a gift,” rather than by one’s own power, and that brings us to the topic of grace.

16.3 Grace Given, then, the predicament of sin, what is to be done? The answer is that actions become good and meritorious with the help of God, i.e. through grace. Grace is of interest to philosophers in that it outlines a philosophical anthropology, both in the problem that it solves and in the new reality it creates, and second, insofar as the types and operations of grace shed light on action theory, with different types of grace functioning in the role of the elements of human action while preserving some place for free choice and responsibility within actions only made possible by grace. Going back to Augustine, there is a distinction between two types of grace, one that heals the wound of original sin, and a second which elevates human beings to salvation (De natura et gratia 31.35). In high scholasticism, the language to express this regeneration becomes “created grace,” the indwelling of God in the creature which effects an ontological change in the creature (McGrath 1998, 48–​49). Aquinas insists that the Aristotelian principle of nature which specifies the end beyond which any being cannot go is not broken by the doctrine of grace but made good by it, as grace is a kind of “second nature” making us capable of a further end than the one given at birth (ST i–​ii, q. 109, a. 2). Aquinas understands grace as analogous to the “natural light of reason”; thus grace is distinct from the theological

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Sin and Grace 367 virtues just as reason is different from the acquired virtues (ST i–​ii, q.  109, a.  1). Bonaventure argues for the same continuity between nature and grace but from the other end, in a sense. For he points out that all creatures require God’s grace, in the sense of His constant presence and support, to maintain them in existence, and the gift of grace making human beings worthy of salvation is added to grace already present (Breviloquium v, 2 [v, 254a]). Of course Aquinas agrees with this, but argues from the structure of nature to grace; Bonaventure begins with grace, as the gifts which all creatures have, to see nature as a form of grace rather than grace as a quasi-​nature. Thus, insofar as grace creates a new nature, the theologians set about duplicating the conditions for natural action at the level of graced action. The first order of business is to preserve the role and hence responsibility for the individual in graced action. Augustine, having emphasized against Pelagius the notion that we can on our own perform fully good, meritorious action, describes the will and grace as co-​causes of action (De gratia et libero arbitrio 7.17). In Aquinas and others this becomes the distinction between operating and cooperating grace (ST i–​ii, q.  111, a.  2). For Aquinas both healing and elevating grace are subdivided into operative and cooperative grace. The role of operative grace is to give the person the graced end (either healing or elevating), just as nature gives the end of human (rather than supernatural) happiness. In neither case is that end chosen; rather, it is given. For the choice of the means and the completing of the action, there is cooperation (cooperative grace) between human beings and God (Wawrykow 2005, 198). To explain, Bonaventure draws analogy to a horse which is capable of walking and carrying a rider; its aptitude can be developed through habituation or through the training of the rider or both. Like horse and horserider, God and human beings are co-​causes (Sent.iii, d. 33, a. 1, q. 5 ad 1). Peter Lombard attributes a different analogy to Augustine: grace is like the rain poured on the earth, bathing the will to germinate and produce fruit. It is healed and prepared by operating grace, and assisted in doing good by cooperating grace (Sent. ii, d. 27, c. 2; cf. d. 26).

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368 Eileen C. Sweeney While Peter Lombard is happy to call it the same gift/​grace which operates and cooperates and also not to sharply distinguish between grace and the infused virtues, in later thinkers both different types of grace and grace vs. infused virtue are maintained as distinct (Sent. ii, d. 26, c. 8; d. 27, c. 2; cf. ST i–​ii q. 111, a. 5). Bonaventure and Aquinas, for example, speak of the theological virtues as branching out from grace as healing and elevating capacity, actualizations of that capacity, not through habituation as in the natural virtues, but as infused by God (Bonaventure, Breviloquium v, 4; Aquinas, ST i–​ii, q. 70, a. 1). Not just the theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are infused, but there are also infused versions of the natural virtues to counteract the consequences of original sin (prudence for ignorance, temperance for concupiscence, fortitude for weakness, and justice for malice) (Bonaventure, Sent. iii, d. 33, a. 1, q. 4). It is a given that human beings cannot merit without grace, yet  also that there must be some voluntary act on the part of the sinner and also that God does not deny grace to those who do whatever they can, in some sense preparing themselves for grace. What this means and how much action or passivity there is in the human soul or will shifts over time. Human action cannot be the efficient cause of justification by preparing for grace, so theologians moved to the view that in desisting from sin or in natural acts of virtue, the person removed the obstacle to grace, like opening a shutter allows in light (McGrath 1998, 83–​85). For the Franciscans and Thomas Aquinas by the time of the Summa theologiae, this was too close to allowing the creature to merit justification, in Aristotelian terms letting the person move themselves toward salvation when whatever is moved is moved by another. When Ockham, Holcot, and others confront this question, they shift the issue from an understanding based on the model of natural motion; the act or disposition is not from its own nature able to cause justification but only from the value God gives to the act; just as a small lead coin can by the value ascribed to it purchase much more

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Sin and Grace 369 than its inherent value, so God can by covenant give grace to an act not inherently meritorious of it (McGrath 1998, 87–​89). For Scotus and Ockham the distinction to be made is between God’s acceptance/​love of the person and the form of grace infused and inhering as a habit; both argue that as a matter of God’s absolute power, only the first is necessary for the person to be saved (Scotus, Ord. i, d.  17, pars 1, q.  1; Ockham, Sent. i, d.  17, q.  1). Ockham is explicitly concerned about the account given by Peter Auriol, who claimed that if a person had received the infused habit of grace making them pleasing to God, God would necessarily save that person, which seems to impinge on God’s freedom and in some sense give the creature control of creation (Sent. i, d. 17, q. 1 [OTh iii, 441–​442]). Ockham also explicitly disagrees with Aquinas’s view of the efficacy of the sacraments as infused grace. For Ockham the infused habit of grace (also called “created grace”) is necessary by God’s ordained power, but Ockham says that this is evident from not reason but the “testimony of the saints” (Sent. i, d. 17, aa. 1 and 3). Paradoxically these views seem to move both away from and toward Pelagianism. For insofar as God’s power and prerogative is fully and totally the cause of salvation, all power to merit salvation on the part of the creature is taken away; on the other hand, insofar as God can, in terms of His absolute power, save without grace, this seems to imply that the creature can be saved without grace (see Adams 1989 and Wood 1999). But we are still a long way from Luther in that the structures of created grace as an infused habit as well as the sacraments remain, though only as contingent causes of salvation.

16.4 Conclusion Philosophers might have a tendency to ignore or deplore the thinkers from this period when they appeal to the notions of sin and grace as taking a fundamentalist and anti-​philosophical position that locates morality in the command of God which reason can neither understand nor question. The importance and influence of the notions of sin and grace in the Latin medieval tradition spring from the basic

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370 Eileen C. Sweeney difference of the nature of moral obligation in the notions of vice vs. sin:  obligation to self or other. They are exploring obligation as to another, but it is not heteronomy in Kant’s sense, an abdication of ethical obligation, but the recognition of it, in the realization that one’s own standards do not constitute the whole of the world of value, that one’s grasp of the good and the right is limited not only by one’s ability to act ethically but even to imagine it. Moreover, these thinkers are engaged in the complex project of trying to recognize this kind of obligation which transcends human abilities and also to make sense of it on human terms, to reconcile the two sides of the Euthyphro dilemma. This is a difficult, perhaps impossible, but surely engaging, philosophical project. Philosophers might also have a tendency to disdain the catalog of sins insofar as they do not correspond to the classical vices: benighted notions of “deadly sins,” the suspicion and rejection of earthly/​bodily pleasures, and excessive emphasis on humility to the detriment of self-​esteem. But there is a compelling psychology of sin which must be understood in its origins even if flawed. In the emphasis on pride and the desire for more in avarice/​concupiscence we see the roots of modern political theory on the sources of conflict in society. Bernard of Clairvaux’s admonishments against pride and for humility are based on the effects of both on the monastic community; humility makes for equality and compassion, and pride for domination and cruelty. Descartes’s virtue of generosité shares a great deal with humility since it is a recognition of equality with all others; one is no better or worse than those who share one’s only point of pride: free will. The result of this humility in both Descartes and Bernard is an attitude of forbearance toward others. There is in these accounts of sin a critique and counterbalance to virtue as enlightened self-​interest, and a recognition of the conflicts of moral life as more than occasional. The result is a more negative (and perhaps also more realistic) picture of the moral condition of most of us than we find in ancient and Roman authors. One might say that Aristotle and Plato are well aware, as Aristotle says explicitly, that

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Sin and Grace 371 most people choose the life of pleasure and reap its conflicts and vicissitudes, but Aristotle and Plato are not writing for these many but for the elite. And even if one could say that scholastic authors are writing more for their fellow monks and brothers than the secular person, in the spirit of humility (and Cartesian generosité), they do not assume that they are better than the average person. But it is not just that the lows of medieval ethical life are lower, the highs are also higher. The standard for full and complete moral worth/​merit takes us far beyond the mean of moderation and the natural fulfillment of virtue. Ockham’s heroic virtue and Aquinas’s account of the beatitudes, different as they are, share a standard of going beyond nature and moderation. Further, the standard of going beyond is understood as an imperative but not one the individual can fulfill on his/​her own but for which grace is required. And grace, perhaps even more than notions of obligation and the character of sin, presents obstacles to philosophers, either (or both) because it seems to completely contradict the idea of moral responsibility and still mirror natural psychology and action at a higher level (with a parallel world of graced faculties and virtues). And it does seem that on the issue of grace more than sin, the explanatory apparatus seems to borrow from natural philosophy and philosophical ethics such that philosophy influences theology more than vice versa; still there are some things philosophers might want to explore. First, the parallel world of graced faculties and virtues might by likeness and unlikeness shed light on their natural counterparts. Second, there are ideas about how activity and passivity can be mixed and complex, how there can be responsibility even without full control, influence from more powerful sources that do not (or at least they struggle to show how they do not) completely eclipse the action and worth of the finite and even failing individual.

Notes 1 On Abelard’s distinction between sin and crime as linked to a similar distinction in Gratian and the decretists, see Kuttner 1935, 4–​22.

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372 Eileen C. Sweeney 2 Neither Peraldus’s nor John of Rupella’s texts exist yet in a modern edition, though scholars are working on an edition and English translation of Peraldus and have made available their ongoing work online at www.unc.edu/​~swenzel/​peraldus.html. 3 John of Rupella, Summa de vitiis, fol. 114vb, cited in Vecchio 2005, 122. 4 This is the same phenomenon made much of by David Hume centuries later. See A Treatise of Human Nature, book ii, sections 2–​3 (Hume 1978). 5 Thanks to Carlin Menzin for this reference and for the work on acedia she did in a research paper.

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Index

Latin authors are alphabetized according to their given names. For Arabic authors, the definite article al-​is disregarded for purposes of alphabetization. ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, 78, 92–96, 98 Abū l-​ʿAlı al-​Jubbāʾ  ı, 94 Abū Ḥusayn al-​Baṣrı, 92 Abū l-​Hāshim, 94 Abū l-​Hudhayl, 94 Abu Sa’id al-​Kharraz, 295 Abu-​Nasr al-​Sarraj,  289 acedia, 356, 357, 359, 360, 362, 363 acts, 56, 61, 69, 78, 79, 82, 248, 366 generically good or bad, 36, 39, 41, 43, 46, 49, 57 indifferent, 39, 217 morally indifferent, 57, 58 structure of, 32, 46, 58 Adam Wodeham, 265, 266 adultery, 39, 50, 62, 63, 66, 219, 223, 240, 343, 353 Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, 92 Ahmad ibn Muhammad Miskawayh, 78, 85, 86, 89, 90 Alan of Lille, 39–41, 310, 356, 364 Albert the Great, 32, 43, 48–​52, 152, 154, 159, 163, 182, 197, 200, 220, 221, 223, 232, 247, 276, 311, 326, 331, 333, 336, 349, 352, 361, 363, 364 Alcuin of York, 10, 25–27, 30 Alexander of Hales, 158 almsgiving, 26, 43, 45, 49, 176, 183, 190 altruism, 329–330 Ambrose, 10, 19, 151, 157, 174, 308–310, 364 angels, 63, 195–197, 199, 200, 213, 244, 261 anger, 26, 38, 79, 84–85, 102–103, 105, 107, 259–261, 265–266, 269, 271, 273, 357, 359–361 annihilation, 289–290, 293, 302 Anselm of Canterbury, 32–34, 137, 195, 243–244, 246, 354, 364

Anselm of Laon, 34–​36, 37 Anthony of Egypt, 19 antinomianism, 77, 114, 280, 289, 291, 292, 295, 302 Antoninus of Florence, 224, 228 apophaticism, 280, 282, 284–288, 296 appetite concupiscible, 69, 164, 165, 267–269, 271, 359 irascible, 69, 164–165, 267–269, 271, 359 sensitive, 59, 69, 70, 151, 164–167, 210, 260–263, 265–267, 269, 271, 272, 274, 275 Aristotle, 20, 22, 23, 35, 41, 42, 45, 47–49, 51, 52, 55, 56, 60, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 89, 96, 101, 102, 106, 107, 115, 117, 118, 120, 138, 142, 150, 158, 162, 173, 179, 200, 210, 212, 220, 228, 244, 250, 270, 293, 307, 310–312, 329–331, 333, 335, 337, 342, 343, 349, 355, 358, 362, 363, 365, 366, 370 asceticism, 18, 71, 84, 107, 294, 296, 358 Ashʿarıtes, 81 Attar, 288 Augustine, 9, 10–​20, 23, 27, 28, 30, 33, 47, 52, 130–​135, 139, 142, 146, 150, 158, 194, 195, 201, 212, 226, 238, 239, 262, 263, 309, 326, 328, 355, 364, 366, 367 avarice, 26, 35, 308, 310, 312, 317, 356–357, 359–362, 370 Averroes, 80, 85, 96, 202, 204 Avicenna, 78, 82, 85, 86, 89 Baḥya ibn Paquda, 102–105 al-​Balkhı, Abū Zayd, 84 Basil of Caesarea, 345 Beguines, 285, 290

405

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406 Index Bernard of Clairvaux, 152, 156, 195, 250, 290, 361, 365, 370 Bernardino Busti, 323 Bernardino da Feltre, 323 Boethius, 9, 10, 20–​25, 27, 28, 30, 130, 135–​138, 139, 142, 354 Bonaventure, 154, 156–159, 164, 166, 177, 197, 200, 201, 223, 232, 247, 350, 352, 367, 368 Carolingian renaissance, 10, 25 Catherine of Siena, 290 charity, 26, 35, 37, 39, 40, 43, 45, 46, 56, 67, 68, 70, 145, 152–157, 201, 308, 327, 343, 351, 352, 357, 361, 368 chastity, 26, 35, 167, 179–180, 242 choice, 34, 47, 65, 82, 154, 165, 194, 199, 204, 209, 211, 213, 215, 239, 244, 257, 263, 367 Cicero, 10, 16, 37, 49–51, 157, 173, 179, 239, 259, 308, 334, 356 circumstances, 43, 46, 49, 58–59, 162, 199, 217, 351 Clement of Alexandria, 307 coercion, 187, 196, 197, 199, 200, 202–204, 206, 214, 299 Cohen, Hermann, 122 common good, 41, 316, 322, 325–345 Condemnation of 1277, 60–61, 71, 250 conscience, 47, 220–223, 231, 318, 322, 354 erroneous, 223–224 consent, 34, 36, 37, 38, 219, 243, 353 consequences, 58, 59 consequentialism, 56, 90, 91, 100 contemplation, 16, 27, 29, 30, 60, 89, 91, 115, 117–120, 141, 144, 153, 213, 336, 337, 363 contempt for God, 37, 38, 39, 40, 353, 354 continence, 161, 166, 167, 239, 242, 343, 364, 365 courage, 26, 38, 48, 51, 67, 69, 70, 85, 86, 105, 106, 133, 134, 151–153, 159, 160, 163–165, 257, 263, 272, 330, 331, 333, 339, 340, 341, 344, 356, 359, 368 creation, 15, 16, 20, 28–30, 61, 64, 96, 97, 104, 119, 180, 286 al-​Dawānı, 85, 86 Decalogue, 35, 37, 44, 50, 65, 174, 219, 358 deliberation, 47, 82, 87, 174, 245, 248–250, 252, 257

Denis the Carthusian, 224 deontology, 56, 91 Descartes, René, 370 desire, 47, 48 inordinate, 13, 14, 239, 242, 365 despair, 265, 269, 363 difficulty (in doing what is good), 15, 19, 241 Domenico Pantaleoni, 321 Dominicans, 143, 156, 220, 317, 320, 322 double effect, principle of, 233–234 Durandus of Saint-​Pourçain, 156 duties, 40, 78, 92, 93, 95, 96, 104–106, 187, 188, 227, 228, 300, 308, 316, 322 Ebrahim Azadegan, 288 economics, 306–324 egoism, 325, 326, 331, 337, 343 Elsbeth Stagel, 284, 286 emotion, 47, 48, 83, 85, 104, 161, 166, 167, 238, 257–​276, 307, 340, 348, 364 emotivism, 100 end, 59, 138 of an act, 58 envy, 84, 270, 290, 357, 359–360 Epicureanism, 22, 342, 343 Evagrius Ponticus, 357 evil lesser, 225–226, 228, 339, 344 problem of, 10, 14, 15, 17, 17t1.1, 18, 20, 23, 30 faith, 26, 39, 67, 68, 150, 152, 153, 156, 157, 357, 368 falsafa (Islamic philosophy), 77, 78, 83, 92, 100 al-​Fārābı, 78, 80, 85, 88, 89, 106, 107, 119 fasting, 45, 94, 95 fate, 10, 23, 129, 134 fear, 39, 79, 84, 85, 102, 105, 200, 262, 266, 269, 270, 272, 273, 327, 330, 359 foreknowledge, 13, 23, 24 fornication, 26, 43, 50, 219 Francis of Empoli, 321 Francis of Mayronnes, 315 Franciscans, 71–​73, 143, 144, 158, 162, 163, 167, 220, 249, 250, 317–​321, 322, 323, 368 Frederick II, 313 free will, 10, 13–15, 24, 66, 79, 194, 195, 198–201, 204, 247, 251, 354, 366 freedom, 143, 194–215, 247, 249, 251, 296, 298–299

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Index 407 Gabriel Biel, 164 Galen, 83, 84 generosity/​liberality, 103, 105–107, 153, 308–313, 319, 321, 331, 359 Geraldus Odonis, 326, 339 al-​Ghazālı, 78, 81, 82, 86, 87, 93, 99, 100 Gilbert of Poitiers, 150 Giles of Rome, 223, 270, 313, 362 Gilles of Lessines, 315 gluttony, 357, 359–361 God as Being, 19, 27 as first cause, 28 as happiness, 23 knowledge of, 27, 28, 119, 144, 284 as supreme good, 129, 135, 137–139, 145, 285 union with, 27, 29, 120, 140, 290–291, 293, 302 Godfrey of Fontaines, 155, 162, 166, 205–206, 251, 326, 337 Godfrey of Poitiers, 154, 157 Golden Rule, 35, 36, 42, 44, 50, 174 goods ranked in value, 12, 14, 18, 30 grace, 37, 46, 48, 49, 51, 56, 68, 69, 87, 93, 98, 142, 150, 154, 175, 195, 207, 213, 240, 242, 294, 299, 334, 348, 349, 351, 356, 357, 365–369, 371 Gratian, 41, 42, 44, 225–228, 230–232, 316 Gregory the Great, 156, 226, 357, 361 Gregory of Rimini, 68, 322 habituation, 35, 45, 48–51, 67, 69, 70, 85, 102, 106, 166, 355, 367–368 Hafez, 288 halakha, 101, 109, 111, see also law, divine happiness, 9, 13, 21–23, 27, 56, 58–60, 62, 66, 78, 83, 87–91, 101, 104, 108, 115– 122, 127–147, 207, 213, 217, 228, 238, 246, 249, 287, 301, 325, 327, 330, 339, 342, 343, 354 formal conditions for, 128, 131, 133, 134, 136, 139, 140 imperfect vs perfect, 23, 60, 68, 140, 141 Ḥasdai Crescas, 102, 115, 120–122 hate, 66, 67, 68, 103, 105, 213, 214, 259, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 353 Heinrich Seuse (Henry Suso), 284, 286, 287, 290, 294, 296–298 Heloise, 326, 328, 329

Henry of Ghent, 67, 155, 157, 161, 163, 166, 168, 201–​205, 208, 210, 211, 223, 251, 326, 335 Henry of Harclay, 67 Hervaeus Natalis, 72 Hobbes, Thomas, 362 homicide, 37, 38, 43, 46, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 95, 219, 234, 243 hope, 26, 39, 56, 67, 68, 105, 153, 156, 157, 259, 265, 266, 269, 270, 368 Hugh of St. Cher, 197, 200 Hugh of St. Victor, 36–​37, 41, 47, 328 Huguccio of Pisa, 176, 177, 229, 234 humility, 26, 86, 103, 105–107, 152, 153, 293, 294, 298, 299, 359, 361, 370 ibn Abı l-​Dunyā, 92 ibn ‘Arabi, 283, 284, 287 ibn Bājja, 118, 119 ibn Hazm, 92 ibn Tufayl, 228 ignorance, 15, 19, 217, 218–​220, 241 vincible vs invincible, 219 image of God, 10, 29, 44, 45, 144, 174, 175, 183 imagination, 24, 82, 99, 120, 272, 273 imitation of God, 118, 121, 122, 297 immortality, 21, 23, 25, 80, 119, 194, 338, 340 incontinence, 220 Inquisition, 72 intellect, 28, 59, 64, 66, 69, 70, 79, 87, 104, 116, 119, 121, 130, 139, 143–145, 163, 166, 202, 205, 206, 238, 241, 245–247, 249–253, 332 divine, 64, 65, 203, 238 practical, 79, 86, 88, 238 theoretical, 79, 80, 86, 88, 106 intellectualism, 253 intention, 33, 41, 43, 46, 49, 52, 59, 66, 105, 138, 233, 234, 315, 318, 353, 357 James of Viterbo, 155, 162, 166, 337 jealousy, 103, 270 Jean Gerson, 223 Jerome, 158, 174, 221, 364 Jesus Christ, 17, 29, 35, 39, 40, 44, 71, 150, 197, 243, 257, 286, 288, 290, 294, 297, 300, 301, 327, 354, 361, 363, 365 John XXII, Pope, 72 John Buridan, 67, 164, 326, 339, 340, 342, 344

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408 Index John Capreolus, 164, 167 John Cassian, 357, 361 John of the Cross, 288 John of Damascus, 203 John Duns Scotus, 55, 63, 65–68, 70, 130, 142–​143, 145–147, 156, 163, 164, 167, 206–​209, 211–213, 223, 245–​246, 251–253, 263, 264, 274, 275, 314, 319, 320, 326, 338, 344, 351, 353, 369 John of Freiburg, 228 John of la Rochelle (John of Rupella), 251, 276, 358–360 John Scottus Eriugena, 10, 27–​30 Joseph Albo, 102, 109, 110 joy, 26, 103, 105, 117, 121, 132, 240, 258, 262, 263, 268, 269, 271, 343 Judah ibn Tibbon, 103, 104 Julian of Norwich, 290 Junayd of Baghdad, 289 justice, 26, 32–35, 39, 40, 48, 51, 67, 69, 70, 71, 80, 85, 86, 96, 106, 110, 133, 143, 145, 151–153, 165, 166, 167, 175, 206, 244, 246, 308–310, 312, 319, 331, 349, 354, 356, 368 Justinian, 173 kalām (Islamic theology), 77–79, 92, 100, 111 Kierkegaard, Søren, 363 al-​Kindı, 78, 83, 84 Laurentius, 189 law, 32, 52, 56, 172–​191 canon, 42, 172, 176, 187–189, 225–227, 229, 232, 233, 235, 318 divine, 42, 101, 109, 110, 172, 177, 187, 218, 223, 348–350, 355, 362 eternal, 13, 18, 20, 109, 350 human, 110, 354 Islamic, 77 natural, 32, 35–38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47, 50, 57, 63, 65, 78, 93, 94, 96–​100, 109–​115, 145, 172, 173–​187, 190, 223, 225, 226, 315, 319, 320, 336, 353 temporal vs eternal, 10, 18, 20 Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), 102, 108, 115, 119–121 Lorenzo Valla, 326, 342 Louis of Bavaria, 72 love, 66, 68, 103, 105, 121, 210, 259, 261, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 290, 294, 329, 334

of God, 18, 27, 35, 37, 38, 65, 66, 68, 71, 117, 120, 122, 132, 145, 146, 150, 162, 176, 204, 206, 207, 209, 213, 298, 327–329, 334, 337, 342, 343, 352, 353, 355, 357 God’s, 121, 297 of neighbor, 18, 27, 35, 37, 65, 105, 150, 327, 328 lust, 107, 186, 240, 356, 357, 359–364, 365 Luther, Martin, 369 lying, 59, 65, 66, 95, 96, 100, 112, 234 Manfredi di Tortona, 316 Manicheanism, 17, 18, 19, 20 Marguerite Porete, 288, 291, 298, 302 Marsilius of Padua, 72 martyrs, 13, 333, 354 Master Martinus, 230, 231 mean (in virtue), 35, 45, 48, 51, 85, 102, 103, 107, 293, 371 Mechthild von Magdeburg, 294 Meister Eckhart, 283, 291, 294, 297, 300 Mendelssohn, Moses, 122 merit, 38–40, 42, 44, 46, 66, 69, 154, 155, 165, 201, 207, 214, 252, 324, 348, 351, 366–369 Michael Cesena, 72 Michael of Ephesus, 332 Monnica, 19 Monti di Pietà, 322–​324 moral psychology, 47, 78, 79, 99, 165, 167, 198, 348 moral realism, 78 moral truths knowledge of, 47, 62, 78, 87, 92–95, 109–​ 115, 218–​220, 238, 242, 247, 315 modal status of, 61, 62–​67 mortalism, 330, 333, 335, 339, 341, 343 Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), 102, 103, 106–108, 113–115, 117, 118, 120, 121 Muhammad, 77, 91, 93, 299 Muʿtazilites, 78, 80, 82, 92–94, 96–99 mysticism, 280–​303 nature human, 9, 12, 21, 28, 29, 52, 56, 62, 111, 127, 140–142, 146, 173, 174, 179, 180, 282, 295, 299, 325, 348, 350, 357, 365 necessity 24, 61, 195, 196, 198, 201, 202, 204, 205, 209, 211–214, 250, 299 of immutability, 203, 206 of inevitability, 196

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Index 409 negative (apophatic) theology, 10, 27, 284 Nicolaus Girardi de Waudemonte, 227 Nicolò Bariani, 323 Nissim ben Reuben Girondi, 120 obedience, 45, 244, 294, 350 obligation, 55, 57, 63, 66, 112, 189, 227, 336, 337, 348, 351, 355, 370, 371 occasionalism, 81, 299 Odo Rigaldus, 158 omnipotence, 64, 80–82, 98, 353, 355, 369 Origen, 174 ought implies can, 226–​227 pain, 24, 79, 89–91, 95, 96, 242, 271, 365 Pascal, Blaise, 363 Pelagius, 367 perjury, 34, 231 perplexity, 224–​225, 227–233 Peter Abelard, 37–​39, 41, 186, 219, 242, 326, 328, 353, 356, 365 Peter Auriol, 167, 209–​212, 223, 271, 369 Peter the Chanter, 152, 313 Peter John Olivi, 71, 72, 161, 163, 201, 315, 318, 319 Peter Lombard, 41, 46, 150, 157, 196, 220, 221, 247, 265, 349, 352, 357, 358, 360, 367, 368 Peter of Trabibus, 320 Philip the Chancellor, 43, 46–​48, 51, 152, 154, 157, 197 Pietro Pomponazzi, 343 Pietro Strozzi, 321 piety, 13–15, 20, 35 Plato, 20, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 89, 151, 355, 362, 370 Platonism, 9, 10, 15, 18, 21–23, 27, 28, 86, 119, 132, 137, 138 pleasure, 22, 24, 34, 79, 88–90, 118, 129, 133, 134, 136, 139, 152, 165, 166, 185, 186, 240, 242, 262, 266–269, 271, 274, 275, 331, 332, 334–337, 342, 343, 353, 358, 360, 366, 371 polygamy, 18, 232 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 326 positive (cataphatic) theology, 286 poverty, 71–​73, 317 practical reasoning, 94–97, 160, 217–235 practical syllogism, 96, 102, 220–222 Praepositinus, 154 praise and blame, 4, 94, 95, 99, 146, 206, 272

Prestanze, 321–​322 pride, 15, 26, 33, 103, 105, 107, 290, 356, 357, 359–362, 370 property, private, 44, 181, 182, 308, 319 providence, 19, 23, 96, 97, 109, 183 prudence, 26, 38, 48, 51, 67, 69, 70, 133, 151–154, 156, 158–166, 168, 220, 298, 356, 368 Pseudo-​Dionysius the Areopagite, 10, 27, 29, 30, 46, 284 punishment, 13, 14, 29, 38, 80, 121, 184, 207, 213, 214, 325, 326, 332, 344, 354, 364 Radulphus Brito, 311 Raymond of Peñafort, 227 al-​Rāzı, Abū Bakr, 84 al-​Rāzı, Fakhr al-​Dın, 78, 90, 93, 99 reason, 12, 24, 29, 47, 48, 51, 78, 85, 101, 111–113, 173, 176, 177, 273, 348, 350 natural, 35, 92, 94, 177, 182, 219, 315, 337 right, 65, 71, 162, 163, 253, 262, 274, 335, 336, 351, 352 rectitude, 33, 195, 197, 354 Remigio de’ Girolami, 320 responsibility, 80, 81, 143, 215, 348, 349, 366, 367, 371 resurrection, 79, 121 reward, 33, 35, 36, 79, 80, 116, 121, 207, 240, 325–329, 332, 335, 344, 345, 354, 357 right (ius), 40 natural, 172, 173–​184, 186–​190 Robert of Courson, 313, 317 Robert Grosseteste, 43, 150, 310, 332 Robert Holcot, 368 Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques, 362 Rufinus, 232 Rumi, 287, 292, 297, 299 Saadiah Gaon, 111–113 sadness, 26, 258, 259, 262–264, 266, 268–271, 273, 362 self-​defense, 44, 243 self-​interest, 325–​345,  370 self-​love, 142, 204, 209, 294, 325, 326, 330, 332, 333, 335, 337, 342 self-​sacrifice, 325–​345 Seneca, 239 sense, 24, 29 sexual intercourse, 34, 184–​186, 219, 222, 232, 239, 364

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410 Index sin, 32, 36, 37, 52, 56, 61, 348, 349–​351 against divine law, 355 original, 174, 185, 186, 218, 319, 337, 348, 364–366, 368 stages of, 34 and the will, 351–​354 Solomon ibn Gabirol, 102–105 soul immateriality of, 79, 91, 206 immortality of, 80, 338 parts of, 79, 82 therapies for, 83–​85 Spinoza, Baruch, 122 Stephen Langton, 154 Stephen Tempier, 60 Stoicism, 9, 22, 23, 37, 38, 41, 48, 56, 78, 83, 129, 134, 150, 152, 156, 158, 188, 239, 269, 270, 271, 327, 342, 343 suffering, 296–​300 Sufism, 77, 284, 287–290, 292, 293, 299, 302 Symmachus, 10, 20 synderesis, 44, 47, 50, 95, 174, 220–​223 temperance, 26, 38, 48, 51, 67, 69, 70, 85, 86, 106, 107, 133, 151–153, 155, 159–161, 163–167, 257, 263, 310, 331, 356, 358, 359, 368 Teresa of Avila, 288, 293 theft, 50, 58, 59, 63, 66, 183, 220, 353 Theoderic, 21, 135 theological voluntarism, 78, 92, 93 Thomas Aquinas, 30, 48, 55, 56–​60, 62, 63, 66–70, 109, 110, 130, 138–146, 152, 154–156, 159, 160, 163–168, 182, 186, 198–​201, 206, 207, 210, 212, 217–223, 228, 232, 233, 245, 248–250, 253, 258–261, 263–274, 310, 311, 313, 318, 319, 322, 326, 333–338, 350–352, 357, 359, 360, 362–364, 366–369, 371 Thomas of Chobham, 313, 317 time vs eternity, 9, 12, 23, 25 Tommaso de Vio Caetani (Cajetan), 323 al-​Ṭūsı, 85, 86 usury, 308, 313–318, 320–322 vainglory, 26, 43, 359, 360 Varro, 239 vice(s), 26, 35, 36, 60, 106, 133, 134, 157, 242, 290, 291, 310, 312, 355, 356, 365, 370 capital, 226, 366–​369 Victorinus, 19

virtue(s), 9, 14, 26, 27, 32, 35, 37, 43, 52, 56, 57, 59, 61, 66–71, 78, 79, 83, 85–​87, 101, 106, 114, 127–​147, 265, 289–​296, 301, 327, 330, 343 cardinal, 26, 27, 35, 38, 40, 45, 48, 50, 51, 56, 67–70, 85–87, 151–154, 156–158, 164–167, 356, 359 civic, 15, 16, 29 classification of, 56, 60, 67, 68, 85, 127, 151 connection of, 41, 48, 51, 70, 151, 311 contemplative, 16, 29 economic aspects of, 309–​313 grades (degrees) of, 10, 15, 20, 70, 351 heroic, 161, 162, 352, 363, 366, 371 imperfect vs perfect, 159, 160 infused, 50, 60, 68–70, 157, 158, 168, 368 kathartic, 15, 16, 20, 25 location of, 69, 86 natural, 60 pagan, 356, 357 political, 40, 45, 48, 153–155, 157–159, 332, 336, 337 psychological location of, 164–​168, 263 theological, 45, 67–70, 87, 142, 155–157, 359, 367, 368 voluntariness, 199, 204, 206, 220 voluntarism, 253 Walter of Bruges, 223, 251 Walter Chatton, 164 Walter of Mortagne, 326, 327, 345 wealth, 12, 13, 21, 22, 128, 134, 136, 139, 190, 307, 309, 311, 312, 366 will, 17, 19, 32, 34, 39, 59, 65, 69, 70, 78, 80–​83, 116, 130, 139, 143, 145, 151, 164, 166, 167, 198, 210, 238–​253, 263, 266, 271, 274, 348, 355, 364, 367 divine, 55, 64, 65, 67, 93, 111, 113, 121, 202–205, 211, 212, 238, 244, 299–301 as the subject of virtue, 70, 263 vs nature, 207, 208 William of Auvergne, 358 William of Auxerre, 43–​45, 47, 157, 181, 186, 194, 196, 197, 200, 223, 227, 232, 359 William of Champeaux, 34, 36, 37 William de la Mare, 227, 249 William of Ockham, 66–70, 72, 162–164, 167, 194, 212–​214, 238, 246, 252, 253, 262, 263, 265, 275, 351–353, 355, 357, 363–368, 369, 371 William Peraldus, 358 wisdom (theoretical), 87, 88, 115

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