VANDEMIATI, Aldo. in The First Person: An Outline of General Ethics

Aldo Vendemiati
http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2006-10/20-13/...
Aldo Vendemiati
In the First Person

An Outline of General Ethics
- Expanded Second Edition -
Translated by
Cynthia R. Nicolosi
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Contents
Prologue
Preface
1. What is Ethics?
1. 1. Why Study Ethics?
1. 2. Isnt Faith Enough?
1. 2. 1. Handmaiden Philosophy in the House of Theology
1. 2. 2. Philosophy as Mistress of Her Own House
1. 3. Philosophical Method
1. 3. 1. Fundamental Attitudes
1. 3. 1. 1. Wonder
1. 3. 1. 2. Reverence
1. 3. 1. 3. Desire
1. 3. 2. Starting from Experience
1. 3. 3. Awareness of Conditioning
1. 3. 4. The Obvious and The Evident
1. 4. Specific Characteristics of Philosophical Ethics
1. 4. 1. Ethics is Concerned with Moral Experience
1. 4. 2. Is Ethics merely a Descriptive Science?
1. 4. 2. 1. Positivism and Weak Thought
1. 4. 2. 2. Critique
1. 4. 3. Ethics is a Normative-Categorical Science
1. 4. 4. Ethics and Happiness
2. The Phenomenology of Morality
2. 1. Moral Experiences
2. 1. 1. Attempts at Negation
2. 1. 2. Judging the Behavior of Others
2. 1. 2. 1. Scandal
2. 1. 2. 2. Admiration
2. 1. 3. Judging Our Own Behavior
2. 1. 3. 1. Remorse
2. 1. 3. 2. Gratification
2. 2. Essential Characteristics of Moral Experience
2. 2. 1. Experiences that Concern the Will
2. 2. 2. Experiences that Obligate the Will
2. 2. 3. Duty, Freedom, and Responsibility
2. 2. 4. Duty and Happiness
2. 2. 4. 1. Living Fully
2. 2. 4. 2. Positive and Negative Values
2. 2. 4. 3. Good, Useful, and Delightful
2. 2. 4. 4. And What about Evil?
3. Voluntary Behavior
3. 1. Conditions of Voluntary Behavior
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3. 1. 1. Acts of Man and Human Acts

3. 1. 2. Phenomenology of Voluntary Action
3. 1. 3. Intelligence in the Human Act
3. 1. 4. The Will in the Human Act
3. 1. 4. 1. Voluntary and Involuntary
3. 1. 4. 2. Simple Voluntary and Relative Voluntary
3. 1. 4. 3. Willed Voluntary and Tolerated Voluntary
3. 2. Emotions and Feelings in Human Action
3. 3. Freedom in Human Action
3. 4. Human Action as Immanent Activity
3. 4. 1. Human Acts Modify the Personality of the Acting
Subject
3. 4. 2. Habitus
4. The Virtues in General
4. 1. Importance of the Virtues in Ethical Discourse
4. 1. 1. Acting Manifests Being
4. 1. 2. The Discourse on Virtues
4. 2. Virtues and Vices
4. 2. 1. Good Habitus and Bad Habitus
4. 2. 2. The Mean
4. 3. Classification of the Virtues
4. 3. 1. Intellectual Virtues and Moral Virtues
4. 3. 2. The Cardinal Virtues
4. 3. 2. 1. Reason, Will, and the Irascible and
Concupiscible Appetites
4. 3. 2. 2. Practical Wisdom
4. 3. 2. 3. Justice
4. 3. 2. 4. Fortitude or Courage
4. 3. 2. 5. Temperance
4. 3. 2. 6. Annexed Virtues
4. 3. 3. The Connection between the Virtues and Love
4. 4. Virtue, Freedom, and Happiness
5. Wisdom
5. 1. Terminology
5. 2. Primacy of Wisdom
5. 3. The Operations of Wisdom
5. 4. Wisdoms Presuppositions and Their Opposites
5. 4. 1. Wisdom as a Cognitive Virtue
5. 4. 2. Wisdom as a Commanding Virtue
6. Justice
6. 1. The Concept of Justice
6. 2. Rights
6. 3. General Justice and Particular Justice
6. 4. The Parts of Justice
6. 4. 1. Commutative Justice
6. 4. 2. Distributive Justice
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6. 5. Injustice
7. Fortitude or Courage
7. 1. Terminology
7. 1. 1. Courage
7. 1. 2. Tenacity and Patience
7. 1. 3. Magnanimity
7. 2. Cultural Aspects
7. 3. Fortitude and Vulnerability
7. 4. Endurance and Aggression
8. Temperance
8. 1. Terminology
8. 2. The Essence of Temperance
8. 3. Virtue of Personal Integration
Excursus 1. Historical/Philosophical Panorama on Corporeality
A. Materialistic Monism
B. Spiritualistic Dualism
C. Ontologically Based Personalism
8. 3. 1. Division between Body and Person
8. 3. 2. A Unified Whole
9. The Foundation of Morality
9. 1. The Good: Objective or Subjective?
Excursus 2. Morality and Contemporary Thought
A. Universalisms
A. 1. The State of Nature
A. 2. Reason and the Passions
A. 3. Pure Duty
A. 4. The State
A. 5. Utility and Consequences
B. Relativism
B. 1. Emotivism
B. 2. Historicism, Sociologism, Psychologism
B. 3. Genesis, Evolution, and the Dissolution of
Relativism
9. 2. The True Good
9. 2. 1. Mans Humanity as Source
9. 2. 2. Natural Inclinations
9. 2. 3. Mans Ultimate End
9. 2. 3. 1. Happiness and the Good
9. 2. 3. 2. Perfect and Imperfect Happiness
9. 3. The Basis of Human Rights
9. 3. 1. Nature and Reason
9. 3. 2. Human Rights and Their Order
9. 4. Sources of Morality
9. 4. 1. The Objective Structure of the Act
9. 4. 2. The Motive
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9. 4. 3. The Circumstances
10. The Moral Law
10. 1. Attitudes toward Law
10. 2. The Essence of Moral Law
10. 2. 1. Law as Rational Order
10. 2. 2. Law and the Common Good
10. 2. 3. Law and Legitimate Authority
10. 2. 4. The Laws Promulgation
10. 2. 5. Effects of the Law
10. 3. The Natural Law
10. 3. 1. Precepts of the Natural Law
10. 3. 2. Universality and Immutability of the Natural Law
10. 3. 2. 1. The Unity and Mutability of Human Nature
10. 3. 2. 2. Mutability of Some Precepts of the Natural
Law
10. 3. 3. Relationship between Natural Law and Human Law
10. 3. 4. Natural Law and Eternal Law
10. 4. The Laws Limits
10. 4. 1. Unjust Law
10. 4. 2. Exceptions to the Law
10. 4. 3. Epikia (Equity)
11. Conscience
11. 1. Anthropological Value of the Moral Conscience
11. 2. The Judgement of Conscience
11. 2. 1. Potential Conscience
11. 2. 1. 1. Synderesis
11. 2. 1. 2. Moral Knowledge
11. 2. 2. Actual Conscience
11. 3. Types or Forms of Conscience
11. 3. 1. Types of Potential Conscience
11. 3. 2. Types of Actual Conscience
11. 3. 2. 1. In Respect to the Act: Antecedent,
Concomitant, and Consequent Conscience
11. 3. 2. 2. In Respect to Moral Quality:
Right or Negligent
11. 3. 2. 3. In Respect to Subjective Certitude:
Certain, Sufficient, Doubtful
11. 3. 2. 4. In Respect to Objective Truth:
True or Erroneous
11. 4. Law, Virtue, and Conscience
Epilogue
Bibliography
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Prologue
This volume is the second, expanded edition of a book that appeared in this series in Autumn
1999, crowned by a publishing success for which I would like now to thank the readers.
The book was born from my experience in the chair of moral philosophy at the Pontifical
University Urbaniana in Rome. Several years ago, upon being asked to teach a course on general
ethics, I felt it necessary to suggest to my students a handbook that would respect two conditions:
first, that it be adapted to the students needs, and second, that it be consistent with the perennially
valid philosophical inheritance that would serve as the constant reference point for our activity.
While texts were not lacking with respect to the second condition (the reader will find a
minimal listing at the end of this volume), I did not find a similar concordance with respect to the
first.
Our students, in fact, hailed from the most diverse cultures and formative experiences. Some
had studies of a western variety behind them, while others came from completely different horizons.
As a young professor of philosophy, I thought that my first duty was to examine these different
cultures in order to incarnate my teaching into the lives of the students . . . But my students came
from every continent on earth and more than a hundred different countries. Further, as is well
known, a single country can be home to multiple cultures and traditions. Where was a philosophy
teacher to start?
Clearly, there had to be another way: the phenomenological option. This meant not beginning
with theories (even the most important ethical notions elaborated over the long course of the history of
philosophical thought), and not stopping short at cultures (while nevertheless admiring their richness),
but going behind all this, back to the things themselves, concentrating on the moral experience of
every human being, soliciting from it the moral principles that can serve as its guide. The challenge,
then, was to describe the humanum in terms comprehensible to every person.
In doing this, I also wanted to be of help to other philosophical and theological institutes in
which the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural dimension of our globalized society is beginning to
manifest itself. Such institutes, which up until a few decades ago were attended by students formed in
the classical tradition of the lyceum, now welcome students from very different kinds of educational
backgrounds. These students, though commonly lacking in historical-philosophical instruction, are
nonetheless very motivated to learn. Hence, this book was conceived to be useful to students with a
classical formation, as well as those who do not possess such a background but greatly desire to learn.
Such considerations led me to give this exposition a rather midwifery style. The book has a
very conversational tone, like a dialogue. I believe this to be the best method, not only for an
introductory text such as this one, but also as a philosophical approach tout-court. I want to involve
readers in a kind of Socratic dialogue by calling forth that minimum-of-philosophy within every
person. I want to move readers to reflect on their own experience by encouraging a critical awareness
of their own thoughts without ever uprooting them from the life-world.[1] Consequently, this text
humbly seeks to insert itself within that multi-millennial tradition that, from Socrates to Kierkegaard,
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from St. Augustine to G. Marcel, has been at the service of the concrete human being, putting such a
one in contact with the truth that dwells in the intimacy of his or her own heart.
For this reason, on nearly every page of this book, I have sought to highlight the necessary
existential meaning of moral-philosophical research: I am, in fact, deeply convinced that philosophy is
sapientia vitae and, precisely for this reason, can and should be cultivated with love.
All this is intrinsically connected to the formulation of moral philosophy as an ethics of the
first person, as the title of this volume attests.
In this regard, a decisive contribution has been made by the work of Giuseppe Abb,[2] who
has shown how classical and modern ethics are separated by a distinguishing difference due to an
alteration in the principle point of view from which the discipline was developed. In classical ethics
a paradigm of which can be found in the thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas the principle
point of view is that of the acting subject who seeks the good or virtuous life in which true
happiness consists. In modern ethics for which we can take as a paradigm the morality of Hobbes
the point of view moves to an external observer, legislator, or judge, who seeks criteria, principles, and
the norms of just action. Modern ethics, then, is an ethics of the third person, while classical ethics is
an ethics of the first person.
Ethics of the third person aims at creating a social order where man as a being of desires or as
autonomous subject can do what he wants without hurting others, or hurting them only with a
better end in mind. Concerning what each person does to satisfy his own desires, or the use that
each person makes of his own freedoms, modern ethics refuses to speak, since this is supposed
to be a purely private and subjective question. Everybody can manage his own life however he
wants. In this way, however, a system of principles and norms is tacitly at the service of the
interests of individual, free subjects, for whom one wishes to guarantee satisfaction the
maximum satisfaction. This is tantamount to recognizing that the importance of individual
subjects of their freedom and their desires is primary. But silence reigns concerning the
meaning of the life of these free subjects. If no consideration is given to this subject, the
question Why be moral? remains without an answer. Why, should the utilitarian rules of
justice be observed? . . .
The principle of the intelligibility of a normative ethics of the third person must be located in
the ethics of the first person. Human conduct, in fact, in as much as it is constructed and
produced by the acting subject, contains an original, practical knowledge that is not reducible
to the knowledge of the legislator, the judge, or the critic; an operative knowledge that has its
own logic. It was exactly this practical knowledge that Aristotle in his Ethics and Aquinas in
the II Pars [of the Summa Theologiae] explicitly intended. Such practical knowledge focuses
on the problem of the meaning a person should give to his own life.[3]
Hence, the option for a first person ethics is justified primarily not so much by fidelity to a
tradition (the argument ex auctoritate is first in theology but last in philosophy), as by the exigency of
moral discourse itself, by its very essence. This has not only theoretical consequences (in the sense of
a moral science that is theoretical-practical), but also existential, pedagogical, didactic, and social.
The division of the material presented here serves this approach. Chapter 1 constitutes a
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presentation of the discipline, its ends, and its method. In chapter 2, we proceed to a close,
phenomenological examination of moral experience presented in such a way as to grasp its
constitutive elements. Chapter 3 continues with a study of voluntary behavior, shedding light on the
structure of human action. Chapter 4 presents the central theme of the good life: virtue. After an
explanation of the general characteristics of virtue, there follows an in-depth study of each cardinal
virtue. Hence, chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 are dedicated respectively to wisdom, justice, fortitude, and
temperance.[4] Only at this point, in chapter 9, does the discussion take a more theoretical turn
(without, however, abandoning its aim to remain rooted in experience), concentrating on the
determination of the foundation of morality, in dialogue with contemporary thought. Chapter 10
then presents the essence and function of the moral law, with particular reference to natural law.
Finally, in chapter 11, we examine the role and dynamics of the conscience in morality.
It should be added that the expository style of this work the fact that the I of the author is
clearly in evidence and calls repeatedly upon the you of the reader, pressing him with questions and
provoking him to react is the direct consequence of our option for the first person which, I hope,
will find its ultimate justification from the text as a whole.
The objective I have pursued here is clarity and essentiality, simultaneously combined with
the exigency of the thoroughness expected in a course of instruction.
Perhaps it would have been easier to adopt sophisticated language for those who are adepts
in this subject. But I would then be speaking to colleagues rather than students. Certainly, using a
cryptic, esoteric tone, I would be better able to avoid objections . . . but I would have betrayed my
professional conscience (my human conscience, in the final analysis). I preferred, rather, to put my
own thought at stake, without dissimulation.
Perhaps with double the number of pages the book would seem more important and
paradoxically I would have spent less time writing it. I preferred, however, to submit myself to the
effort of synthesis, to the thankless work of slicing and filing down, so as to place in the hands of
my students a flexible and really useful instrument, without ever renouncing the rigor of
argumentation, scientific effort, and completeness. Obviously, it is up to the reader to judge if and to
what extent I have succeeded in reaching my goal.
My gratitude remains the same for all those who have contributed to the publication of this
Outline of General Ethics in both the first and second editions: my colleagues, for their precious
suggestions (special thanks to professors G. Mazzotta and L. Congiunti), the Urbaniana University
Press, the academic authority of the Pontifical University Urbaniana, and my students, thanks to whom
I have been able to focus on the themes here delineated with an ever more profound understanding of
the necessity of anchoring moral reflection in the life-world.
Last but not least, I want express my appreciation to the translator, Cynthia Nicolosi.
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Preface
References to and citations from classical texts in the history of thought are given in essential
form in the footnotes. The bibliography printed at the conclusion of this volume suggests specific
editions of these sources.[5]
Contemporary texts to which I refer have sometimes been very helpful instruments in the
understanding and exposition of the different themes treated here. In citing them, I recognize my debt
to their authors and, at the same time, invite the reader desirous of further study to have direct contact
with them.
Many cross-references appear in the course of this volume. I hope that these will not weigh
down the reading of the book, but rather, will serve to highlight the unity of ethical discourse as a
whole.
The text also includes two excursus. The first, in chapter 8, constitutes a brief digression into
anthropology, motivated by the awareness that sometimes students of ethics have not yet encountered
the study of the philosophy of man. The second, in chapter 9, is an historical synthesis of ethical
thought from the Enlightenment to our own time. In the event it should be necessary to abbreviate the
reading of these pages, these excursus can be skipped without prejudice to the understanding of the
whole.
A very brief reading is also possible by skimming over chapters 5-8, given that the essential
traits of the cardinal virtues are explained in extreme synthesis in chapter 4.
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1. What is Ethics?
Dear Reader,
For the first time, perhaps, you have stumbled upon a book about ethics. Do you remember
Raphaels splendid fresco entitled The School of Athens? At the center of the painting, surrounded by
all the major philosophers of antiquity, are the figures of two men walking. On the left is the old Plato
(428-347 B.C.) with his finger pointed toward heaven; on the right is the young Aristotle (384-322
B.C.) with his hand extended, palm turned down toward the earth. Each has a book with him. Under his
arm, Plato carries the Timeus, the work that more than any other represents his vision of heaven and
the world; Aristotle holds a volume marked ETHICA. It is significant that the artist chose these two
figures and these two volumes to depict the summit of philosophy.
I am not trying to compare the present volume to the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle which, I
hope, you will soon have the chance to study)! I only wish to introduce you to this discipline. To do
so, I will begin by asking what interest guides ethical research (1.1). Secondly, we will define the
relations between this study and faith (1.2). We will then describe our method (1.3). And lastly, we
will concentrate on the object of our research (1.4).
1. 1. Why Study Ethics?
Allow me to proceed from a presumption: I presume I am engaged in a discourse that
interests you very concretely, very closely. In fact, philosophical ethics (or moral philosophy) is
commonly understood as the science that indicates what man must do to be good, that is, worthy of
his own humanity. This already opens up an interesting perspective. But maybe it would be more
appropriate to define our discipline as the science of what man should be, since the moral life does
not consist only in doing in a strict sense, but in the orientation of all our activities . . . in a determined
way, toward a determined human ideal.[6] This approach is decidedly exciting: to seek a meaning for
human existence.
Perhaps, like me, upon leaving childhood behind, you had a certain intuitive sense of being
an unrepeatable subject. Certainly, the number of men and women is in the billions and billions but
only you are you. Its true that the lives of all these people follow the same rigid clich: we are born,
we go to school, we work, we get married, we have children, we grow old, we die . . . But is your
existence obliged to submit to a clich? Is your personal identity reducible to that of everyone else?
Dont you feel the desire to take your own life in hand, to be the protagonist of your own personal
development, to realize your own desires? Well, these are the questions and desires from which the
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study of morality proceeds. They are questions that can be synthesized into one single question:
How must we be to fully realize our human personality?
1. 2. Isnt Faith Enough?

At this point, you might be asking yourself: What does posing these questions mean for a
Christian? Didnt Jesus Christ give us every answer necessary? From the point of view of morality,
isnt the law of the Old and New Testaments enough? What else can philosophy add?[7]
1. 2. 1. Handmaiden Philosophy in the House of Theology
Certainly, philosophy cant add anything to Revelation. It can, however, help us understand
Revelation better and penetrate its meaning more profoundly. In this regard, Christian tradition has
taught that philosophy is at the service of theology (philosophia ancilla theologiae). This concerns a
service rendered on two fronts: on the one hand, philosophy discovers certain truths that facilitate the
reception of the Gospel; on the other hand, philosophy unmasks certain errors that impede this
reception.
To do philosophy means to embark on a rational investigation of man, the world, and God,
seeking to know the truth. Now, some truths discovered through reason serve to prepare the road so
that other truths, those revealed by God through Jesus Christ, can be better received (hence, these
preliminary truths are called preambula fidei). Let us recall, for example, Platos great discovery that
there must be a supra-sensible reality, that is, something beyond the world grasped by the senses.
This is a philosophical discovery rational yet, very helpful to understanding and accepting Gods
revealed message.
Clearly, knowing a single truth opens the road to knowing other truths. But it is equally clear
that error blocks the road to knowledge of the truth and leads inevitably to other errors. Let us take,
for example, the idea, rather prevalent today, that each persons individual freedom is the source of
every value (there is even a philosophical movement subjectivism based on this belief).
According to this view, good and evil are simply ways of seeing things: To me, a certain behavior
looks good, to you it looks evil. I must leave you free to do what seems good to you, and you must
leave me free to do what seems good to me. Assuredly, whoever thinks like this, as along as they
continue to think this way, cannot receive the Christian moral message. If my freedom is the only
criteria of good and evil, why would I ever submit to the law of God? Its understandable, then, how a
philosophical error can close the road to faith.
Our task, therefore, is to push rational knowledge onward in the search for truth and the
refutation of error. In so doing, we also render a service to theology. As it is, we feel ourselves invited
by faith toward a profound exercise of our reason. A classic theological axiom says: Grace does not
destroy nature, but supposes it. For our purposes, we could express the same notion thus: Faith does
not destroy reason, but supposes it. Faith does not substitute for reason, but rather, completes and
elevates it; hence, it is necessary that there be something to complete and elevate: a rational activity
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that is not replaced by faith.

1. 2. 2. Philosophy as Mistress of Her Own House
But does this mean, then, that philosophy should content herself with serving theology,
furnishing her with tools and preparing the road before her? Or that theology lays down the obligatory
routes which philosophy must follow?
Not at all. Philosophical knowledge has its own specificity which can never be diminished.
This is particularly evident today in the complex and secularized society in which we move. In the
debate on subjects that are tearing to pieces the consciences of nations, indeed, of the whole world
(e.g., euthanasia, abortion, political economy, etc.), we Christians cannot argue on the basis of Gospel
authority since we find ourselves in dialogue with people (the majority) who do not recognize this
authority. As a result, we must learn to give our arguments a philosophical basis.
This can be rather challenging considering that some secular thinkers (it would be better to
say secularists) deny Christians the right to call themselves philosophers. These people maintain
that our faith obstructs the freedom and scientific nature of research because it is a collection of
prejudices (that is, judgements formulated before rational investigation) that corrupt the
comprehension of things.
Other thinkers concede to Christians the right to be philosophers, but on the condition that
they put their faith between parenthesis and do neutral philosophy.
What can we make of these criticisms? For my part, before declaring that Christians can or
cannot do philosophy, I believe we should ask ourselves what it means to be a philosopher.[8] What is
a philosopher?
The philosopher is a thinker who seeks a rational basis for his judgements without making an
appeal to myth, faith, or majority opinion. As long as his judgements are founded on rational
arguments, his discourse is scientific. A philosopher does not have to bracket his faith (be it Christian,
Muslim, Buddhist, or any other). The only thing required is that he not draw arguments from the truth
of faith, that is, that he keep his discussion on a rigorously rational plane.[9]
Therefore, the Christian (like every other person) can be a philosopher.
Its true that we Christians consider philosophy the handmaiden of theology. But, to be a
good handmaiden, philosophy must first be good philosophy, that is, an in depth philosophy that
avails itself exclusively of its own method without casting a sidelong glance toward theology and its
exigencies, and without falling into the mistaken idea of having to reach, at all costs, the same place
where the philosopher, as a believer, already finds himself.[10]
As for what concerns us here, it should be noted that there does exist a discipline called moral
theology or ethical theology. However, philosophical ethics is an autonomous discipline in respect
to moral theology. Though it can be integrated with moral theology, it nonetheless possesses its own
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validity, a validity which theology must recognize. In other words, philosophical ethics is mistress of
her own house.
1. 3. Philosophical Method
Having thus defined the relationship between philosophy and moral theology, we may now
occupy ourselves more closely with the method of our philosophical research. How should we conduct
our study in order to be true philosophers? First of all, we must cultivate certain fundamental attitudes,
specific virtues, which dispose us adequately toward our work (1.3.1). We must then identify the
point of departure for our investigation (1.3.2), all the while remaining aware of the prior conditioning
we carry along with us (1.3.3). Finally, we will define the objectives and method of our research
(1.3.4).
1. 3. 1. Fundamental Attitudes
Among the basic attitudes or virtues that allow us to dispose ourselves in a way consonant with
moral/philosophical work, three seem to me absolutely indispensable: wonder, reverence, and desire.
Lets look at these in order.
1. 3. 1. 1. Wonder
Many Ancient Greek philosophers taught that philosophy is born from the experience of
wonder in front of being.[11] Natural phenomena, with its explosive power, its sublime beauty, its
delicate tenderness, the order of the cosmos, the precision of the astral movements, the miracle of life,
the mystery of the heart of man . . . All this makes the mind marvel and gives birth to the
philosophical question: Why is there something and not nothing?
While the experience of wonder can be very exciting, it can also lead to excessive stress. To be
amazed means not being able to explain the why and how of certain phenomena. When it comes to the
universe, being, or man himself, I must confess that I cannot understand everything about myself or
my surroundings. This is rather frustrating! Not only frustrating it can produce a true and proper
anguish. The unknown, the mysterious, attracts and frightens me at the same time.
At this level, the greatest temptation is to try to tame our anguish by taking mental
shortcuts, that is, by reducing reality to something already known. Mental shortcuts are
pre-constructed schemes on the basis of which we seek to explain everything, including what we do
not know. Following such a plan, we can avoid the always hard confrontation with reality. We can
side-step the sometimes disquieting path we must walk with the object we wish to know. In so doing,
we may escape anguish . . . but we would cease to do philosophy. Instead, we would be devoting
ourselves to that most dangerous of human mental activities: ideology.[12]
If the philosophical question is born from wonder, its answer will not be found by fleeing or
denying wonder. On the contrary, we must continue in a state of wonder!
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1. 3. 1. 2. Reverence
For wonder to be possible, we must cultivate in ourselves the virtue of reverence for reality.
We must have a kind of respect for the objects of our thoughts, a respect that allows things to
manifest themselves in all their richness. Reverence implies the availability to listen thoroughly, the
effort to be quiet in order to understand (rather than prepare our own discourse while the other is still
trying to speak), and the renouncement of any attempt to imprison an object in something already
known.
The greatest enemy in this regard is represented by the will to power, to borrow a phrase
from the German thinker F. Nietzsche (1844-1900). Such an attitude aims at dominating reality in
order to enslave it to oneself.
In the Bible, we find a commandment on which there has been silence for centuries: You shall
not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.[13] It seems to me that it is possible to read
this text in a philosophical key: You must not construct for yourselves an image of reality that
substitutes for reality, such that you would have the misfortune to connect, not with things, but with
your own mental images, with your own fantasies, with your own ideas. All this assumes an enormous
gravity when it concerns not just inanimate things, but human beings. As a profound contemporary
novelist has said: . . . it is a sign of non-love, that is to say a sin, to form a finished image of ones
neighbor or of any person, to say You are thus and thus, and thats all there is to it.[14]
The philosopher must maintain himself in an attitude of delicate and sensitive reverence for
reality in itself.
1. 3. 1. 3. Desire
The third virtue we must cultivate in our training for philosophy is firmly joined to wonder and
reverence: loving desire.
The Greeks spoke of philosophical eros. This expression probably sounds a bit strong and
scarcely comprehensible to our modern mentality. We are used to understanding eros as a kind of
longing for enjoyment. Clearly, this is not what we mean here, nor do we take the word to indicate an
intellectual concupiscence tending toward the possession of an object. Such thinking would be
opposed to wonder and respect!
What is meant, rather, is a thirst for truth, an interior yearning that could almost be
described as visceral, toward the mysterious message enclosed in reality.
1. 3. 2. Starting from Experience
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So, wonder in front of reality, reverence for reality, and a loving desire for the truth constitute
the fundamental attitudes of philosophical inquiry.
We must now ask ourselves what the point of departure for our investigation should be. Where
does philosophy begin? With philosophers books? Should we start with the Pre-Socratics and then
work our way up to our own time to see how the problem of morality has been treated in the history of
Western thought? This is a legitimate kind of study. . . but we would then be doing the history of
philosophy and not philosophy!
Someone has said that philosophy does not dwell in books because it cant fit into so tight a
space. Clearly, philosophy does not begin with books. Books themselves are the product of the activity
of human beings who have put their thoughts into writing. But these thoughts are not born out of thin
air; they are the result of a reflection on experience.
The point is this: Philosophy can proceed from no other place than what is immediately given,
that is, from the data of experience.[15]
Each of us has life experience in particular, moral experience something personal and yet
common to others. From childhood, we have reflected on these experiences and formed certain ideas
concerning what is right and what is wrong, what is beautiful and what is ugly, on good and evil, on
man, the world, and God . . . Now, all this together constitutes that minimum-of-philosophy[16]
which each human being more or less consciously carries within himself. It is from this minimum
that we begin, reworking our experience to reach the clarifications and the in-depth study proper to
ethical/philosophical research.[17]
But no man is an island. None of us can live in a truly human way if not inserted within a
social context: a family, a group of friends, a city . . . a web of relations and contacts with other people
like us. And these contacts are realized in dialogue. So, philosophical reflection on our own life is
enriched and enlivened thanks to dialogue with our neighbor, be it spoken or written.
1. 3. 3. Awareness of Conditioning
Lets reflect a moment. We have said that we should let ourselves be guided by wonder,
reverence, and loving desire; we have said that it is necessary to proceed from experience and that we
ought to re-work the minimum-of-philosophy that each of us has within himself. But then, if we
think about it, couldnt this minimum-of-philosophy detract from our wonder, transforming it into
ideology? Couldnt it lead us to lose respect for reality by imprisoning it in a pre-conceived schema?
Couldnt this minimum-of-philosophy extinguish the love and desire for truth?
In some cases, yes. But not necessarily.
Its clear that we dont begin our ethical/philosophical reflection as tabulae rasae or blank
sheets of paper on which nothing is yet written. In the shaping of that minimum-of-philosophy, each
of us has been conditioned by his own cultural formation in a wide sense according to the education he
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has received, the social models that have been proposed to him, his religious tradition, the language he
speaks, the economic situations in which he has lived, etc.
In addition, such conditioning is the stronger for not being recognized. If someone deceives
himself into thinking that he is totally free, that he has a pure and virginal intelligence of things as they
are . . . well, then, he is inevitably destined to remain a slave to prejudices, ideologies, and
mythologies that he does not recognize but nonetheless work within him. Plato describes the condition
of such a man with the image of a prisoner chained in a cave who sees shadows projected on the back
wall and believes that the whole world is there before him.[18]
No prisoner can free himself if he does not first understand that he is a prisoner! If you want to
be free from conditioning, you first have to admit that you have been conditioned. You must first of all
recognize the traditions in which you have lived. I myself grew up in a context marked by a western,
neo-Latin, Italian mentality; I am a Catholic Christian and I live in a country that declares itself to be
Catholic in majority; I was brought up in a family where some behaviors were applauded and others
stigmatized; I attended certain schools, etc. What is required is a critical examination of these
traditions in their components, at times homogeneous, sometimes contradictory, confronting the way
in which they link certain elements to the things themselves, to the objective reality of our
experience.
Proceeding in this way, we can attain an ever greater level of objectivity. Whoever is aware of
the risk of being conditioned is already potentially free from conditioning.
1. 3. 4. The Obvious and The Evident
To free ourselves from conditioning, to be as objective as possible, we must distinguish
between two concepts that are very often confused and confusing: the obvious and the evident.[19]
In every tradition, there are elements that are often taken for granted, the so-called obvious
notions commonly admitted in an uncritical way without reasoning about them, without even asking if
they are the fruit of knowledge, fantasy, or prejudice . . . For men who lived before Copernicus, for
example, it was obvious that the sun traveled around the earth. Obvious for them, but mistaken in
itself! From the moral point of view, its easy to find past examples of obviousness that are today
repulsive to our thinking: the idea that there exist superior or inferior human races, that women ought
to be subject to men, that it is licit to hold some human beings in a state of slavery, and so forth. All
these obvious truths are recognized now as obviously false! How many things are obvious to us
today that people of the next century will find repugnant?
Clearly, the fact that a certain position is held to be obvious is not alone sufficient criteria for
admitting that it is true. Knowing becomes worthy of the name when it abandons obviousness and
turns toward evidence.
Something is evident to me when it is present to my act of knowing. What I know, I know in
as much as it is present to me. I will explain: It is true that there are craters on the moon, but this is not
evident to me because I have never had the chance to see them. I know that there are craters on the
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moon because I trust other men who have seen them. Therefore, for me, the proposition:
1. There are craters on the moon.
is not evident, since I do not know it in as much as the craters of the moon are present to me, but as
they are present to others in whom I trust. On the other hand, the same proposition is evident to an
astronomer because craters for him are present to the act of knowing thanks to the telescopic
observations he has made.
In the case of craters observed with the telescope, this concerns sensible evidence, as in the
case of the proposition:
2. This page has printing on it.
This is evident to your senses, to your vision. But there also exists evidence of an intelligible kind, as
for example the proposition:
3. Every closed polygon of three sides necessarily has three angles.
This is evident to your intellect.
Examples 2 and 3 are cases of immediate evidence, that is, of evidence gathered directly from
reality (sensible in the case of the printed page, intelligible in the case of the triangle). There also
exists, however, mediated evidence which is attainable thanks to the mediation of a defined series of
immediate evidence. To understand this, think of the theorems of mathematics: you know that the sum
of squares constructed on the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square constructed on the
hypotenuse. Is this evident? Certainly! Is it immediately evident? Certainly not. It must be
demonstrated. I can demonstrate a theorem because I proceed from an immediately evident
proposition from which other evidence is obtained, and then other evidence . . . until I arrive at a
conclusion. This conclusion at the end is also evident, but thanks to the demonstration, that is to say, in
a mediated way.
Thus, in philosophy, there are some kinds of evidence that are immediate, for example, that
moral values can be realized only by persons (can you imagine an honest brick or a prudent salad?),
and there are some kinds of evidence that are mediated, for example, that humility is a virtue (it can be
demonstrated, but some rather complex reasoning is required).
In synthesis, to embark on our moral/philosophical inquiry, we need to open ourselves to
wonder in front of being, respect reality, and have a loving desire for the truth. The point of departure
for our investigation can be nothing other than experience and that minimum-of-philosophy which
each of us carries within himself. Nevertheless, so that our work be scientific, we must be aware of the
conditioning deriving from our culture and education. Hence, the task of philosophy is that of
dismantling the obvious to gain access to the evident.
1. 4. Specific Characteristics of Philosophical Ethics
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We have seen in what relation philosophical research stands to faith, and we have explained the
salient characteristics of philosophical method. At this point, we must apply what has been said to the
specifically ethical research that we are doing.
1. 4. 1. Ethics is Concerned with Moral Experience

The term ethics comes from the Greek thos, thous, meaning use, custom, way of
behaving, character,[20] and corresponds to the Latin mos, moris. For this reason, we make no
distinction here between the terms ethics and morality but retain them as synonymous. As we have
done already, we will use both words indifferently, moved only by stylistic exigency.
Lets try now to better define the task of philosophical ethics. We have said above (1.3.2) that
experience is the object of all philosophical reflection. The specific experience of moral/philosophical
reflection lies in moral experience. The first step of our research, then, will be to discover in ourselves
and in dialogue with our neighbor if an experience of this type exists, essentially distinct from all other
types of experience and irreducible to them. We will then describe this experience, penetrating into its
essential nucleus, so that we may begin to draw from it the first consequences for human action.
So, we are to occupy ourselves with moral experience. But from what point of view? What
type of knowledge do we intend to have of this object? Do we limit ourselves to describing it? Or do
we extract certain practical indications for our way of living, that is to say, certain regulations and
norms? And, if so, what type of norms will these be?
1. 4. 2. Is Ethics merely a Descriptive Science?
There are various currents of thought which hold that ethics is a merely descriptive science
and, consequently, non-proscriptive. Lets take a brief look at the two principle representatives of this
thinking: positivism and weak thought.
1. 4. 2. 1. Positivism and Weak Thought

Positivism is a current of thought that arose in the 19th century following the enormous
progress achieved by the experimental sciences. As the positivists saw it, the method of the
experimental sciences so valid and fruitful had to be extended to all other branches of knowledge.
However, the experimental sciences limit themselves to describing reality without proscribing
anything. Therefore, in positivist systems, there is no room for a proscriptive science: ethics does
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not teach how a person should behave, but only how people do behave. Moral science has no other
end than the description of the practices and customs of different peoples. Ethics is thus transformed
into human ethology or cultural anthropology.
Weak Thought, a very recent movement and still rather prolific, has little or nothing to do with
positivism. And yet, in its encounter with ethics, it reaches strangely similar conclusions. According to
the proponents of this position, philosophys role is that of describing different models of behavior:
different cultures, different religions, different political orientations, different opinions on good and
evil, etc. This description has the end of facilitating dialogue between different models so that we can
pass from one to the other in a sort of round table that does not arrive at (and cannot arrive at) any
conclusion. It seems that the presuppositions of this kind of thinking have been carried away by the
exigency of being democratic. There is diversity of thinking, diversity of customs, diversity of
opinions . . . but, since all men are equal, it appears anti-democratic or politically incorrect to
affirm that one person is right and another person wrong. Further, many exponents of this way of
thinking define themselves as libertarian, that is to say, they believe that individual freedom is the
highest value, or precisely, the source of all values. As a result, every normative ethic is defined as
liberty-cide because it imposes norms to which the freedom of the individual must submit.
Though originating in different interests, both positivism and weak thought negate the
possibility of constructing a normative ethics. As to the question with which we began our inquiry
(How must we be to fully realize our human personality?), both these positions would maintain that
no answer is possible. What can we make of this kind of thinking? I think, Dear Reader, it gives us the
opportunity to start using our heads in a critical way!
1. 4. 2. 2. Critique
Lets critically examine, therefore, the arguments of both positions.
Beginning with the positivists, we can schematize their way of arguing thus:
a) The experimental sciences are descriptive and non-normative.
b) Every science (ethics included) must conform itself to the model of the experimental
sciences.
c) Therefore, ethics also must be descriptive and non-normative.
Anyone who knows a minimum of logic will recognize here a formally correct syllogism.[21]
But . . . is it true?
Is the minor premise of this syllogism (the b) true? I would say that it is taken arbitrarily for
truth. Why should ethics (or philosophy in general) conform itself to the model of the experimental
sciences? How can one justify the choice of a determined type of science (experimental) as a paradigm
and model for all the sciences? Such an affirmation implies a philosophical position (and, precisely, an
epistemological affirmation, that is, of the philosophy of science), which is not discussed by those
who insist on imposing it. Note well, too, that this affirmation cannot be justified in any way with the
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methods of experimental science, the supposedly only valid methods available. I mean to say: there
does not exist any experimental, scientific procedure which can demonstrate that every science must
conform itself to the model of experimental science.[22]
The conclusion of the syllogism (the c), arising thus from an arbitrary premise, is arbitrary in
itself. Moreover, it is clearly false because it is self-contradictory (that is, it simultaneously affirms
and negates the same thing). It affirms that science must be non-normative while at the same time
imposing a norm: the norm of not imposing norms! This norm, thus declared, negates the norm itself.
Its as if someone said: Its prohibited to prohibit. If its prohibited to prohibit, how can you prohibit
prohibiting? If its prohibited to prohibit, its also prohibited to prohibit prohibiting!
As a sharp thinker has noted: As a matter of fact, positivism in its various guises is not a
wrong philosophy for the simple reason that it is not a philosophy at all.[23]
Let us pass now to examining the attitude of weak thought. Here, also, the reasoning proposed
can be schematized thus:
A) We are all equal.
B) You and I have different opinions.
C) Hence, your opinions are as worth as mine.
This time, the syllogism does not work even at a formal level. In order for it to work, it would
be necessary to insert an intermediate demonstration (probatio media), admitting:
B1) Opinions are worth as much as the man who expresses them.
But I do not see how this affirmation can be acceptable. Frankly, it seems absurd to consider as
criteria for evaluating an opinion, not the relationship between thought and the reality of the object of
thought, but the relationship between thought and the subject thinking.
And what of a proof for A? Is it really true that you and I are equal? If you are a saint and I
am a vicious pervert, do we really have the same worth? Was the wise Socrates as valuable as the
brutish despots who condemned him? Was Adolph Hitler as precious as Mahatma Gandhi?
We noted above that libertarians are the self-appointed advocates of these ways of thinking, in
the name of the democratic spirit. Alas, they do not take into consideration that democracy itself is put
in serious danger by this type of reasoning. To cite again the sharp thinker noted above: Democracy
as a form of political and social life implies not only the recognition of certain objective values put
above every discussion, but also immutable obligations. True democracy is conditioned by the clear
distinction between freedom and arbitrary act.[24]
Hence, the arguments of positivism and weak thought, claiming that ethics must be a merely
descriptive and non-normative science, are fallacious.
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1. 4. 3. Ethics is a Normative-Categorical Science

We can assert, therefore, that moral philosophy is not a descriptive science (even if description
plays an important part within it). It is fundamentally a normative science: it prescribes certain
obligations and imposes certain prohibitions.
Certainly, there are other normative sciences (maybe it would be better to call them
technologies), such as engineering or medicine. The engineer says: if you want the roof to stay up,
you must support it with beams of these dimensions. The doctor says: if you do not want to die of
cirrhosis of the liver, you must stop drinking alcohol. In short, if you want to obtain such an end (and
its not necessary that you want it), you must have recourse to certain means.
What distinguishes science or technology from morality is that the former regard certain
particular ends that man can choose for himself or not. Morality, on the other hand, concerns itself
with the end of human action as such, that is, the end which man cannot determine for himself.
Thus, technologies express hypothetical norms: If you want x, then you must y. If you want
the roof to hold, you have to . . . But it isnt required that I construct a roof that holds: If Im building
the set for a comic film, for instance, and must prepare a gag in which a fat man breaks through the
floor, I have to build a roof that doesnt hold! If I do not want to die of cirrhosis of the liver, I have to .
. . But why should I try to avoid death? Cant I commit suicide, albeit slowly?
Morality, on the contrary, expresses categorical norms: you must behave in this or that manner,
not only to obtain a particular end, but to realize the end of human existence as such.
Technologies prescribe how someone should act to be a good engineer, a good doctor, etc.
Morality prescribes how someone should act to be a good human being, that is, to be worthy of ones
own humanity.
1. 4. 4. Ethics and Happiness
From what we have said, it should be clear that moral philosophy is not limited to furnishing a
list of norms, proscriptions, and prohibitions. An ethics reduced in this manner immediately provokes
a radical question: Why should I submit myself to such norms? The usual response to such a query is:
Because this is the way to be morally good. To which it is easy to reply: But why should I be morally
good?
Hence, before arriving at the formulation of norms, moral philosophy is called upon to reflect
on the foundation of the norms themselves. Moral norms are indications; by following them, we can
guide our life, we can govern our existence in such as way as to develop our personality in relation
to God, other people, and the world.
Thus, the exigency of developing our human personality is the basis of morality. As we will
see, the full realization of this development constitutes a happy life, while the means of this
development are the virtues.[25]
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In synthesis, we can say that moral philosophy is the science of the good or virtuous life, and
therefore, precisely for this reason, it is the art of happiness.
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2. Phenomenology of Morality
The term phenomenology may sound strange to someone who has never studied philosophy.
Anyone who has followed a course of philosophy in high school, however, will find the sound of this
word familiar . . . though very likely its meaning remains somewhat confused. For this reason, I will
begin right away with clarifying the meaning of phenomenology for us. I intend to take very seriously
the invitation of the founder of the phenomenological school, the German philosopher E. Husserl
(1859-1938), who responded to the extreme abstraction of the philosophical debate at the beginning of
the 20th century by launching the appeal: Back to the things themselves! (Zurck, zu den Sachen
selbst!). In my opinion, then, phenomenology consists in letting the object which concerns us speak
for itself so that we may discover what it is, its essential nucleus, and gather truths rooted in its
essence.[26]
As was noted in the previous chapter, the object which concerns us here is moral experience.
We must ask ourselves, then, if specifically moral experiences, distinct from every other type of
human experience, actually exist (2.1) and, if so, how they are different from other experiences (2.2).
2. 1. Moral Experiences
We will begin, first of all, by discussing the positions of those thinkers who negate moral
experience, asserting that it can be reduced to other spheres of human experience (2.1.1). We will then
take into consideration various moral phenomena, such as our judgement of others behavior (2.1.2)
and our judgement of our own behavior (2.1.3).
2. 1. 1. Attempts at Negation
A few decades ago, the trend was to refute any kind of morality, labeling it with the pejorative
term moralism. This cultural attitude received its impetus from the thinking of the so-called
masters of suspicion: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud.
According to Marx (1818-1883), morality is nothing other than a superstructure that depends
on the economic power relations. The only real structure for Marx is the relationship of production and
work. This structure necessarily generates a complex of superstructures capable of supporting and
defending the structure itself, such as religion, morality, metaphysics, law, the forms of government,
etc.[27] Morality, therefore, would have no other end than the defense of the establishment,
prohibiting anything that disturbs the economic order (e. g., if this order is based on private property,
theft will be considered a sin) and imposing whatever supports it (e. g., work, submission to
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employers, etc.). On the horizon of Marxist thought, then, moral experience analogous to religious
experience is seen as a sort of alienation (man seeks himself in a mistaken direction) or mystification
(power invests with mystical significance that which is purely and simply instrumental for the
conservation of existing relationships).
Nietzsche (1844-1900), for his part, held that traditional morality what he called ascetic
morality or the morality of slaves, identifying it with Christian morality is a consequence of the
resentment of the weak and powerless. Humiliated by the very existence of the strong, unable to
redeem themselves by the force of arms, the weak and powerless overturn the perception of values
calling what is good, evil (i. e., strength, pleasure, earthly attachments . . .), and what is evil, good
(i. e., humility, temperance, renouncement . . .).[28] Though Nietzsche theorized his own morality,
what he called an aristocratic morality, culturally his thought led to the belief that moral experience
as such is nothing other than the product of the resentment of the weak toward the strong.
Freud (1856-1939) was the great discoverer of the unconscious. He revealed that a great part of
what happens at the level of our awareness is the result of something inside us, in our depths, of which
we are unaware. Consequently, moral experience, in particular, is the result of unconscious
mechanisms of repression and censure, above all regarding sexual desire (or libido).[29] Our ego is
determined by the conflict between, on the one hand, an instinctive part, called the Id, regulated by
the pleasure principle (that is, oriented compulsively toward what is pleasurable) and, on the other
hand, a rational part, called the super-ego, regulated by the reality principle (that is, by the
consideration that determined pleasures cannot be pursued here and now). The Id is man in his
natural state the child that pursues pleasure without remorse. The Super-ego takes shape primarily
through the intervention of the father figure when the child is prohibited the pleasure deriving from the
possession of the mother. The libido is thus repressed, sublimated, and censured. Morality (the entire
ensemble of rules, norms, and models of behavior) is the result of this repression and its consequent
identification with the father figure. With such a schema, its easy to conclude that moral experience is
nothing other than the product of repressed sexuality.
On the basis of ideas such as these, some thinkers have theorized the end of any kind of
morality.
Nevertheless, morality is not dead. A good observer has noted: The critique of morality has
often been maintained by militant attitudes that in their turn uncovered the moral inspiration at the
base of the moral criticism itself.[30] This is tantamount to saying that, in their effort to destroy
morality, protesters have demonstrated a notable amount of . . . moralizing! Its as if they thought (if I
may make use of a play on words): Its immoral to impose morality, therefore, we have the moral duty
to impose amorality.
While traditional models of behavior have been put in crisis, other no less moralistic models
have entered in to take their place. In the unconscious, taboos tied to sexuality have been supplanted
by other taboos, for example, that of death or suffering. In place of a resentment against life and
strength, there has been substituted a resentment against the weak which seeks their liquidation, be
they fetuses, deformed children, the sick, the aged, etc. Moreover, the economic structures of society
continue to produce their super-structural models, making use of the powerful means of mass
communication to impose rules of behavior that serve the system.
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Yet, notwithstanding all this, there persist true moral attitudes that bear witness to how much
moral experience is rooted in the essence of human life. We will examine these experiences first in
reference to our judgement on the behavior of others, and then in reference to the judgement we make
on our own behavior.
2. 1. 2. Judging the Behavior of Others
In front of the behavior of others, spontaneous reactions of approval or disapproval arise within
us.
2. 1. 2. 1. Scandal
A first phenomenon to take into consideration is that of scandal. The word (French: scandale;
Spanish: escandalo; Italian: scandalo) derives from the Greek skndalon meaning an obstacle that
causes someone to fall. In current language, the word expresses a reaction of indignation and vibrant
moral protest against situations or events viewed as intolerable. The sense of irritation and resentment
implicit in scandal is expressed clearly by the German term rgernis.
In the past, people were scandalized by an action that transgressed the dominant canons of
behavior.[31] Later, paradoxically, such a transgression could come into fashion. I say
paradoxically because fashion itself is constituted by canons (rules) of behavior. Hence, to suggest a
fashion of transgression is a contradiction in terms, like a canon calling for the refutation of all
canons or a custom denying custom. As a matter of fact, however, this is just how things are
proceeding. You would think that nothing could scandalize us anymore. Yet, in reality, we continue to
be scandalized by many things. We express this experience more or less explicitly by saying: No one
should ever act that way! It shouldnt be allowed!
Clearly, the existence of scandal affirms the permanence of moral sense. To be scandalized, in
fact, means still being able to be surprised that certain deeds can happen. It means bestowing on these
deeds, even implicitly, a negative value judgement. This not only supposes that there is no moral
apathy; it implies reference to an axiological horizon [i. e., a framework of values] in the light of
which some deeds provoke scandal differently than others.[32] In the past, libertinism scandalized;
today, intolerance scandalizes. The framework of values has changed (this mutation must be examined
critically), but moral sense remains. This is to say that the attitude persists by which we judge a certain
type of behavior inadmissible because it is incompatible with human dignity or unworthy of
man.
2. 1. 2. 2. Admiration
Another phenomenon to consider is admiration. The term (visually identical in French and
English: admiration; in Spanish: admiracin; in Italian ammirazione) derives from the Latin
ad-mirari: to behold. The Latin word expresses the esteem and wonder that is felt in front of things
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that are both beautiful and extraordinary. This sense of wonder is underlined by the German
expression Bewunderung, from Wunder: marvel, wonder.
We feel admiration before very different objects. In fact, our admiration changes essentially
according to the type of object eliciting it. In classical terms, we can say that the concept of admiration
is not univocal, but analogical. I can admire a natural spectacle (an alpine panorama, a sunset on the
sea, etc.), or I can admire a work of human hands. Clearly, the meaning of admiration is different in
both cases: in the first, it turns exclusively on the consideration of the beauty or sublimity of natural
scenery; in the second, there also enters in esteem for a person or his accomplishment. [33]
Let us concentrate, then, on the second case. Admiration for a human work includes
appreciation for its author. We can call this appreciation an admiration-of-esteem.
Nevertheless, this admiration-of-esteem does not have a univocal meaning, either. For
example, I can admire the work of an artist and appreciate him in as much as he is an artist without
admiring and esteeming him as a man. Indeed, a man can be a great painter and at the same time be
given to violence and thievery! The same can be said of the work of a technician, a scientist, a man of
letters, etc. I can say: John is great in his field, but as a human being he doesnt amount to anything.
But a persons conduct can also elicit admiration for its originator as a man. When we read
Platos Crito or the Apology of Socrates, for example, we feel esteem not only for Socratess behavior
as someone accused, imprisoned, and condemned, but for Socrates as a man.
This admiration-of-esteem for a man as a man is a moral experience. We have said (1.1) that
morality is born from the question: How must we be to fully realize our human personality? Well,
when we admire someone as a human being, we are implicitly on the way to responding to this
question since we are in front of the concrete evidence of a human personality fully realized.
Clearly, we cannot be scandalized by something or admire someone if we have no idea, even if
only embryonic, of how a human being should be and behave. Such a sentiment would be impossible
if we did not have a framework of values on the basis of which to judge. But let us proceed with our
analysis.
2. 1. 3. Judging Our Own Behavior
Not only our neighbors behavior can give rise in us to reactions of approval of disapproval.
Our own behavior is also subject to the judgement we make of ourselves and generates diverse
phenomena.
2. 1. 3. 1. Remorse
Let us begin with the phenomenon of remorse. The word (French: remords; Spanish:
remordimiento; Italian: rimorso) derives from the Latin remordere, to bite again, signifying the interior
torment consequent on the awareness of an evil that has been committed. The Jewish Dutch
philosopher B. Spinoza (1632-1677) called remorse the bite of conscience with a Latin expression
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(conscientiae morsus) which translates literally in German as Gewissensbiss.

The feeling of interior suffering . . . is so profound as to subtend, condition, and bring about a
complex range of other sentiments, such as anguish, sadness, fear, awe, despair, etc., so well
expressed in the biblical narration of the fratricide of Cain at the dawn of guilty humanity
(Genesis 4:9-12) and in the vast literary production of every time period, from Euripidess
Orestes (vv. 385-447) to Shakespeares Macbeth, to Dostoevskijs Crime and Punishment.[34]
Remorse is the tragic experience par excellence in which a guilty past raises itself against the
present, creating fractures in the soul of the subject. What is it that creates this inner division? The
awareness of having done evil, that is, of having broken, by ones own actions, the right order of
things; of having contradicted pleas and appeals of value that resound strongly within us.[35]
Implicit in the experience of remorse is a sense of absoluteness: accusation comes from the intimate
depths of our soul and yet transcends us. We cannot manipulate or eliminate it. The right order that we
have broken is not posed by us, but im-posed upon us, that is to say, from on high. In fact, if I
myself had determined this order, I would be able to change it, adapting it to what I have done in such
a way as to no longer stand condemned by it . . . Yet, despite whatever I do, judgement is rendered in
virtue of a law that I do not give myself a law which transcends me.[36]
2. 1. 3. 2. Gratification
The experience opposite to remorse is that of gratification. We feel this in ourselves when we
are aware of having acted (or of acting) rightly. We commonly express this experience with words
such as serenity, satisfaction, or joy. Perhaps the action for which I now feel gratified was rather
difficult; perhaps it cost me fatigue or pain. Probably I have lost some benefit by behaving in this
way . . . But it was worth it! The price paid has bought me an incomparable good: I was myself. I
did not sell myself. I continued to direct my life toward the ideals in which I believe. I can walk with
my head held high. I can return my own gaze when I look in the mirror.
The significance of this experience emerges by contrast when someone accuses us falsely. For
example, if someone tries to lay the blame on me for a fault I have not committed, I might be bothered
by the accusation, but it cannot rob me of my deepest interior serenity because I know that I didnt do
anything wrong. And again, if someone maliciously interprets my innocent behavior, I still do not lose
my peace of mind because I know that I have acted honestly. When Socrates was accused of impiety
and corrupting the youth, he responded: What do I deserve for behaving in this way? Some reward,
gentlemen, if I am bound to suggest what I really deserve, and what is more, a reward which would be
appropriate for myself.[37] And then he asked to be maintained as a champion, with room and board
at the expense of the city!
2. 2. Essential Characteristics of Moral Experience
Lets go deeper now into the meaning of these experiences, examining their essential contents.
First of all, we will look at how these experiences always have some voluntary behavior as their object
(2.2.1). We will than see that in these experiences the will is moved in a very special way: it is
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obligated by duty (2.2.2). We will then explain how this duty, far from being against mans freedom,
presupposes and involves it. Consequently, we will consider the dimension of responsibility inherent
in duty (2.2.3). Finally, we will describe the rapport between duty and happiness (2.2.4).
2. 2. 1. Experiences that Concern the Will
A first, evident characteristic of moral experience is that it regards the will. This becomes clear
if we reflect on the positive experiences described above: admiration and gratification.
The object of moral admiration is precisely the will of the admired subject.
We can admire someone because they have beautiful eyes but clearly this is not an
admiration-of-esteem since there is nothing meritorious in having beautiful eyes. Possessing a
beautiful quality does not depend on the will of the subject; hence, there can be no merit attached to it.
A quality can be appreciated, but not esteemed in a moral sense.
Similarly, I can admire and appreciate someones intelligence. Yet, if this intelligence is simply
a gift of nature, something the person himself has never cultivated or put at the service of the
community, my esteem which perhaps here would better be called appreciation regards only the
intelligence and not the person. There is no merit in having a gift of nature.
I can admire and esteem someone who is very capable in his work or art. But here, even if my
esteem should not extend to the whole personality of the subject, it is clear that admiration also regards
what the subject, through his voluntary behavior, has accomplished to become the professional or
artist that he is. It is for this that he deserves merit.
In the case of genuine moral admiration, the kind we experience when we consider the actions
of Socrates, or M. Atilius Regulus,[38] or Maximilian Kolbe,[39] etc., what we esteem as has
already been said is the person of these heroes as such. The motivation for our admiration, if we
reflect well on it, is nothing other than their voluntary conduct.
Socrates could have escaped his condemnation by means of the flight prepared for him by his
disciples, or by agreeing to compromise with his accusers. He did neither. To his disciples, he offered
this explanation:
Gentlemen, I am your very grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God
than to you, and so long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall never stop practicing
philosophy and exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet.[40]
He draws an admission out of the friend who proposed flight to him:
SOCRATES: Do we say that one must never willingly do wrong, or does it depend upon
circumstances? Is it true, as we have often agreed before, that there is no sense in which
wrongdoing is good or honorable? Or have we jettisoned all our former convictions in these
last few days? Can you and I at our age, Crito, have spent all these years in serious discussions
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without realizing that we were no better than a pair of children? Surely the truth is just what we
have always said. Whatever the popular view is, and whether the alternative is pleasanter than
the present one or even harder to bear, the fact remains that to do wrong is in every sense bad
and dishonorable for the person who does it. Is that our view, or not?
CRITO: Yes, it is.
SOCRATES: Then in no circumstances must one do wrong. . . . Well, here is my next point, or
rather question. Ought one to fulfill all ones agreements, provided that they are right, or break
them?
CRITO: One ought to fulfill them.[41]
Hence, Socratess greatness, the thing that moves us to admiration, lies in his will not to betray
his mission for wisdom and justice.
In the same way, M. Atilius Regulus could have escaped the horrendous torture that his
enemies prepared for him either by encouraging the Roman Senate to accept terms favorable to
Carthage, or by not returning to the city of his imprisonment. But he willed to remain faithful to the
oath he had made.
Maximilian Kolbe could have avoided the starvation bunker of Auschwitz if he hadnt
offered himself voluntarily to die in the place of his fellow prisoner.
An analogous discourse could be made for the experience of gratification of conscience: we
feel good because we have willed to act one way rather than another. Our will was stronger than the
flattery and seduction of improper behavior.
We can conclude, then, that moral experience arises only in the presence of voluntary behavior.
2. 2. 2. Experiences that Obligate the Will
Moral experience also has to do with a peculiar movement of the will. We can see this more
clearly by comparing it with other kinds of experience.
There are human experiences that do not move the will. Knowing some truth of mathematics
or natural science, for example, can leave the will completely indifferent. Does knowing that the
square root of 196 is 14 move you to want or not want something? And when you know that water
reaches its greatest density at 4 centigrade, is there any movement of your will? Probably not.
Now, compare these experiences with some others. Take, for example, the aesthetic experience
of contemplating something beautiful. Looking at a landscape or work of art, or listening to music,
does not only involve the senses (vision, hearing) or the intelligence (understanding the meaning, the
message of what the senses perceive), but also the will. In fact, the experience of the beautiful gives
rise to a desire to prolong or extend the experience.
Its not difficult to see that this involvement of the will is very different from what happens in
moral experience. In aesthetic experience, the will is attracted by pleasure, while in moral experience,
it is obligated by duty.
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This becomes clear if we compare these positive moral experiences with the negative
moral experiences described above, particularly scandal, remorse, and the objection of conscience. We
are scandalized by deeds that should not happen, that cannot be permitted, that someone (society, the
authorities, etc.) has an obligation to stop. We feel remorse when we understand that we have
betrayed our duty to do or to avoid something. We were obligated to do something, but we willfully
fled from this obligation. Before the prospect of consenting to an injustice, a voice rises within us that
shouts firmly: You must not! You are obligated to deny yourself no matter what the cost!
The drama and fascination of ethical experience consist precisely in this appeal of duty to the
will, an appeal we call moral obligation.
2. 2. 3. Duty, Freedom, and Responsibility
Let us concentrate now on the phenomenon of moral obligation. In appearance, obligation or
duty seem to be realities that exclude the freedom of the subject: I am free if I am not obligated. I feel
free when I have no duty to fulfill.
In reality, this is a very superficial way of looking at things.
Let us consider our experience somewhat more attentively. In what circumstances do we
perceive a duty? I have no sense of duty in regard to being tall, or being born on such and such a day,
or having had these parents . . . I cannot perceive these things as duties because I am not free in their
regard!
We see easily enough that the perception of a duty obligating us to behave in a certain way
would be impossible if we were not simultaneously aware of our capacity to behave in another way.
Let us take a banal example: On a deserted street, I find a wallet containing a notable sum of
money and the identifying documents of the owner. I know very well that I have a duty to return the
wallet, a duty that startles me because I realize I also have the power to keep the money for myself. I
must do something, but I must to it freely meaning that I could just as well not do it.
Hence, the experience of moral obligation involves freedom. Where freedom is lacking, there
is no moral experience.
Moral duty presents itself, then, as an appeal, a call that we must freely answer. This means
that moral experience is always an experience of responsibility (from the Latin respondere, to answer).
Responsibility, however, makes sense only insofar as it regards a subject who calls and asks
an accounting in the form of determined behavior. For believers, moral responsibility is distinguished
first of all before God, to whom we must answer for our actions. But we are also aware that our
lives unfold in a context of relations with other people, in a society. Hence, we must all render account
for our conduct to other human subjects and to the community as such. And finally, each of us is
ultimately responsible to himself, to his own conscience, with regard to the outcome of his own life,
to the attainment of that exceedingly desirable end which we may call the good life or happiness.
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2. 2. 4. Duty and Happiness

If it is true that duty obliges my will, it is also true that I can perceive a duty only if a good is
presented to me. I mean to say that a certain action (for example, to return the wallet to the legitimate
owner) presents itself as good, and therefore, I feel that I must do it.
Everything depends on understanding why some actions present themselves as good (and their
contraries as bad). We must take this discourse a little further, entering again into the depth of the
conscience, asking ourselves about our desires, our aspirations, our hopes, and our plans (2.2.4.1). We
can then clarify the concept of good in view of moral action (2.2.4.3). Lastly, we will consider what
approach to take to the problem of moral evil (2.2.4.4).
2. 2. 4. 1. Living Fully
Its possible to spend our days in boring, banal monotony with nothing to engage us, nothing
worth it to which we can devote ourselves just existing.[42] Living this way makes it easy for the
will to be moved by the attraction of the moment, by the desire for immediate pleasure.
There are those, in fact, whose sole aim is to satisfy every impulse as quickly as possible. After
a while, however, this way of life ends up being . . . unsatisfying! I cant help but think of the future:
How long can I keep living like this? What do I have to look forward to when Im old? Why live at
all? The search for an end begins, and many hopes come to mind.
The fact is that behind the many kinds of desires we have there is one fundamental desire that
motivates them all and gives sense to our very capacity to aspire to something: the desire to be
happy. But the concept of happiness is one of the most vague and undetermined to appear on the
horizon of our minds. What does it mean to be happy? For some, it means simply to enjoy, to go in
search of pleasure wherever it is found. From this perspective, the good life is simply the
pleasurable life, the dolce vita (sweet life). Sren Kierkegaard described this kind of life with the
theatrical image of Don Giovanni, the seducer who always succeeds in his libertine pursuits but is
forced to fulfill them again and again in different ways because as soon as he grasps the object of his
desire, it dies in his hands, leaving him with an always greater void to fill.[43] In effect, pleasure is
fleeting, and when it is sought for itself, inevitably disappears, leaving us a profound sense of
frustration that leads to a disgust for life, as well as mental illness as clinical psychology
demonstrates.[44]
On the other hand, as everyone knows, technology today has made possible the virtual
experience: A subject is linked to a certain machine that stimulates him in such a way as to transmit
all the sensations he desires without the presence of that reality which normally procures them for him.
Let us imagine that someone suggests we live out our existence in a very pleasurable virtual
reality.[45] Would we consider this a happy life? I dont think so.
The fact is that the object of our desire is not pleasure but the thing that procures pleasure!
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Certainly, we want to enjoy . . . but enjoy something! Or better said, we want something, and we
welcome the pleasure that it brings. We can define this something that we desire as the good.
What we hope for is something desirable. But even something scarcely desirable in itself can
be considered attractive in view of a further end. For example, a long journey on a train can be boring
in itself, but very desirable if it leads me to the embrace of someone I love.
And you, Dear Reader, as you read these pages, perhaps you are finding it a bit tiring or boring
. . . What keeps you going? Maybe the desire to learn or the fear of exams? But why learn or why
pass exams? Perhaps to carry out a certain service? You see, we return to the central question: Why
live at all? I can face an experience that is unpleasant (having a cavity filled) or tiring (getting up
early in the morning to study) or boring (reading certain books . . .), provided that it forms part of the
global end of my life.
In effect, there is something for which I must desire and hope, something which represents the
meaning of every one of my desires: I want to be happy. I want to realize fully my existence, that is, to
develop completely my personality. All that I desire, all that I hope for, I desire and hope for because I
believe that it can contribute to my true happiness.[46]
2. 2. 4. 2. Positive and Negative Values
If we think about it, the things that we know and the things that we do appear to us as desirable
and attractive, as positive values, when we find some merit in them that attracts our desire. In other
words, something presents itself to me as a value by appearing to me as an end or goal of a certain
tendency of mine. This end is desirable if I dont have it yet, or satisfying if I possess it already. In
every case, it in some way contributes to my happiness.
Something presents itself as a negative value if it constitutes an impediment to the acquisition
of a positive value, or if I recognize it as repugnant to one of my tendencies or plans. A negative value
foreseen in the future elicits fear; experienced in the present, it entails disablement or pain.
At this point, we can formulate some first definitions:
Whoever acts does so in view of an end. This indicates the intentionality of human action.
What appears as an end manifests some good which attracts my desires (a value).
What we desire, we call good. This good presents itself as the end of action. We call its
contrary evil.
We should note that the concept good we are describing here is slightly different from that of
everyday language. For example, the goal of an assassin is murder. Objectively, such an end is evil,
but the assassin could not desire it if it did not appear to him (hence, subjectively) as a good for him
(that is, he hopes to profit from it). In effect, everything that is desired, that moves the will, must
necessarily appear, at least under some aspects, as a good.
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2. 2. 4. 3. Good, Useful, and Delightful

From what we have said above, it is clear that the concept good is not univocal, but
analogous.[47] It indicates something that corresponds to desire . . . but we can desire something in
very different ways. This is evident in the example described above: I can desire to track down the
owner of a wallet that I have found. I can desire to return to him what he has lost. I can desire the
gratification of my conscience which will come out of this act of restitution.
To track down the wallets owner is a useful good, that is to say, a means through which I
realize a further end: the end of returning the wallet. Therefore, whatever is useful is called good in
function of some other good.
On the other hand, to experience the gratification of my conscience is a delightful good. Here
also, the gratification arises from the presence of another good, that is, the returning of the wallet.
Therefore, whatever is delightful is called good in function of some other good.
However, to return the wallet is a good in itself, that is, a good not as a means or a consequence
of something else. It is good in itself as an action that corresponds to the truth of things, to the dignity
of the human person. For this reason, this action is a duty: it elicits in the conscience the obligation
to submit to it. As soon as an action concerns a true and proper good, it is designated a virtuous good.
We have, then, some definitions:
A useful good is a means to reaching a further end.
A delightful good is that which procures pleasure.
A virtuous good is that which is an end in itself.
Furthermore, its evident that among these three analogues there is a hierarchical and
dependent relationship:
We can be delighted by something. It follows that whatever procures delight is more important
(= it is good in a stronger sense) than the delight itself.
A thing can be useful for another thing. Hence, the end is more important (= it is a good in a
stronger sense) than the means of reaching it.
Consequently, the good in a full sense is the virtuous good that which is desired for itself
and not in relation to anything else.
2. 2. 4. 4. And What about Evil?
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But if everything we want is wanted because it represents a good for us, what then is evil?
We must distinguish two levels: that of being (the ontic level) and that of acting (the moral
level).
On the plane of being, everything, in as much as it is, is good in itself. Its being, in fact,
constitutes its perfection. The in-depth investigation of this concept is the job of metaphysics; here we
can only give a brief illustration of it.
What kinds of things can be defined bad? Can a material object (a stone, a liquid, a gas) be
bad? Certainly, a stone can be a bad conductor of electricity, that is, bad in as much as it is little or no
use for a determined end. But this end (to conduct electricity well) is a finality that we ourselves
impose on the stone. It is not that of the stone itself! A liquid can be bad as a drink; a gas can be bad
because it is toxic for man but neither of these material objects is bad in itself in as much as it is.
Perhaps, then, a living being (an animal, a plant, a virus) can be bad? Our fables our full of
big, bad wolves, for example . . . But why are these creatures bad? Because they are damaging for
man, or for sheep, but certainly not because in themselves and for themselves they constitute any evil.
If fables were written by wolves, they would be full of big, bad hunters!
Assuredly, we can express certain value judgements (which are not, however, moral
judgements) on objects. For example, we can say that a chair is a bad chair if it has one leg shorter
than the others; or that an eye is a bad eye if it does not see well. But let us understand in what the
evil of these objects consists: in a privation of order, form, or measure that renders them in some
way lacking or deficient.[48] At this level, moralists speak of ontic evil, not in the sense that evil is
something, but that it is the privation of some element that contributes to the perfection of a
determined being. Illness and death are evils in this sense.
Returning again to the moral plane, we should recall that the good and evil we are considering
regard mans voluntary behavior. We have said that everything we want and choose, we want and
choose because it appears to us as a good, that is, as desirable. Consequently, bad human behavior
does not consist in choosing what is bad, but in choosing badly. We have observed that there is an
analogy and a hierarchy among goods. Evil, then, consists in choosing an inferior good instead of a
superior good, that is, in giving priority to the useful or the pleasurable to the detriment of the true
good, since the good of man, the good of life, consists precisely in a virtuous life.
From this perspective, it is clear that an action which involves an ontic evil can be good (for
example, Socrates drinking the Hemlock). In fact, in the qualification of human behavior as good or
bad, it is completely misleading to limit oneself to the consideration of the ontic goods involved.
At this point, we have described the essential elements of moral experience. We are still very
far, however, from determining what constitutes a good and virtuous life, a life that realizes true and
proper happiness. This will be the theme of the chapters to follow.
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3. Voluntary Behavior
The phenomenology of moral experience described in chapter two has shown us that moral
experience arises before voluntary behavior. We must now take a close look at this latter notion. We
will do so first of all by asking ourselves under what conditions we can define a behavior as
voluntary and by studying the role intelligence and will in our behavior (3. 1). Since our being
cannot be reduced to intelligence and will alone, important though they may be, we will also examine
the role of emotions and feelings in our actions (3. 2). At this point of our investigation, we will be
able to tackle the fascinating and complex theme of freedom (3. 3), a freedom that builds itself up, act
after act, through our own action, thus enabling us to change not only the world around us, but our
very own personality (3. 4).
3. 1. Conditions of Voluntary Behavior
Under what conditions can our actions be defined as voluntary? This might appear to be an idle
question with an all too easy tautological response: A behavior is voluntary when we want to do it!
This is true . . . but not enough. We will try to bring some light to the subject by first of all introducing
a classical, terminological distinction between acts of man and human acts (3. 1. 1). We will then do a
phenomenological analysis of voluntary action (3. 1. 2) in order to prepare ourselves to examine the
respective roles that intelligence (3. 1. 3) and will (3. 1. 4) play in it.
3. 1. 1. Acts of Man and Human Acts
Its very easy to see that not everything we do depends on our will. Think, for example, of all
the operations relating to vegetative life (digestion, respiration, sleep, dreams, etc.), the neuro-motor
reflexes, the tic (which is precisely an uncontrolled movement), and so forth. I am truly the subject
of these processes insofar as I am the one who digests, who dreams, etc. However, such processes
occur in me without the cooperation of my will. On the same plane, though in a qualified sense, we
can speak of acts performed under psychological compulsion (sleep walking, hallucinations, raptus,
hypnosis, etc.) or pharmacological influence (drugs, alcohol). A person who is not himself can
perform determined acts, but precisely because he is not himself he performs them without
having any real power over the acts themselves.
We have seen in the preceding chapter that one of the characteristics of moral experience is the
possibility of judging behavior as worthy or not worthy of the human person. Let us consider, then, the
case of a sleepwalker who, in his sleep, throws himself from a balcony and dies. Would we say that he
committed suicide? Obviously not! He really killed himself, but he did not do it voluntarily.
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With this we reach a first terminological and conceptual clarification:
Only voluntary acts are moral acts (that is, morally qualifiable as good or evil.)
Properly speaking, non-voluntary acts, even though accomplished by a human being, are not
qualifiable as human. We can make two classical distinctions in this regard:
acts of man = every act of a human subject (thus including non-voluntary acts).
human acts = every act in which man expresses himself as man, that is, every act that bears the
specific imprint of humanity.
But what is the specific imprint of humanity? What renders man different from all other
beings? Man is a rational animal: animal is the proximate genus to which man belongs (it indicates
that man is not mineral or vegetable or pure spirit); rational is the specific difference that
distinguishes the human species from all other animal species.
Now, by saying man is rational, we basically want to affirm that he is endowed with those
characteristics that are called, in everyday language, intelligence and will. This is to say that man is
capable of understanding and willing. Hence, we can conclude:
When an action is performed with both intelligence and will, it is a human act, that is, a
moral act.
In the preceding chapter (2. 2. 4), we said that our actions aim at something, and it is precisely
from this fact that the concept good is born: the good is that to which a person tends or aspires.
This aspiration or willing is defined as intentionality (from in-tend = to tend towards).
Good is something that appears worthy of being desired, worthy of being an object of
aspiration, insofar as it is judged such by the acting subject. Clearly, this judgement is correct when it
is rational.
We have, then, the two sides of the question: on the one hand, the human faculty of aspiration
(will); on the other, that of judging (intelligence). We must now look at the relationship between these
two realities.
3. 1. 2. Phenomenology of Voluntary Action
If I reflect on my actions, I notice some constant characteristics[49]:
1. Before acting, I more or less represent to myself what I am about to do. For example, if I
think about getting a degree in philosophy, this goal appears to my mind as a good.
2. My will adheres to this good: obtaining a degree in philosophy seems to me desirable. But I
have not yet decided anything in its regard.
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3. I then ask myself if it is effectively possible that I pursue such a degree. I reason about it,
asking myself if I am up to it, if I have the means, and so forth. If I make a positive judgement
on the possibility of attaining my goal, then I proceed.
4. I decide to earn my degree in philosophy: I am seriously bent on doing it.
5. I think of all the steps I have to take to graduate (applying, getting registered, attending
classes, studying, taking exams, writing the dissertation, etc.), that is, I look into the necessary
means for reaching the end I have set for myself, the actions that will permit me to acquire the
degree.
6. In the face of all that must be done, I could be discouraged . . . But, I express my consent: I
commit myself to making the effort.
7. Then comes the moment when I must get down to work. Where do I begin? I have to think
about it. Of the different possibilities before me I judge one better than the others.
8. I choose, then, to put the preceding judgement into practice.
9. In front of the means chosen (to attend lessons on these certain days, to study at these hours,
etc.), reason then commands me to make use of them.
10. I use the means necessary to obtain my end.
11. At last, I obtain the degree and I enjoy the results of my efforts.
In the first part of this process (1-4), the acts performed regard the end; in the intermediate part
(5-10), they regard the means. The final act (11) is the accomplishment of the end that which was
willed from the beginning and set the entire process in motion.
What is first in intention is last in execution.
Note that in the acts listed above there is an alternation between intelligence and will. This is
represented in the following schema[50]:
INTELLIGENCE
1. Simple thought of the good
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2. Simple inefficacious will of the good
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3. Judgement by which the end is presented as 4. Efficacious intention of this end

possible
5. Deliberation
6. Consent
7. Practical judgement on the most suitable means
8. Choice of such means
9. Command of the reason
10. Use of the means
11. Enjoyment of the good
Lets go deeper now into the specific role of the intelligence and the will in human action.
3. 1. 3. Intelligence in the Human Act
Intelligence contributes to the realization of the human act in as much as it allows us to know
both the end of an action and the means to pursue it. A principle of classical ethics says:
Nothing is willed that is not first known (nil volitum nisi praecognitum).
This is a self-evident principle that has no need of demonstration; in fact, a demonstration in

the strict sense would be impossible. On the other hand, it is possible to present some evidence in
support of this principle. Take the case of finding yourself in a foreign restaurant. You are given a
menu written in a language that you do not understand. The waiter asks you to choose among the
dishes indicated. Can you really make a choice? Clearly not, since you do not know the items from
which you are asked to choose. You could want this dish rather than that dish only if you received
some explanation, even summarily, on their composition. It is clear, then, that the will wants
something in response to the intelligence that knows this something and recognizes it as a good.
To clarify the moral relevance of this principle, lets look at some examples. It can happen that
a woman is sterilized under different conditions:
a) The woman herself submits to the operation knowing what it will mean for her and knowing
also that such an action in itself is gravely disordered. Nevertheless, she judges that in her
condition it would be convenient to be sterilized.
b) The woman submits to the operation knowing its end, but without any awareness that it is a
morally disordered act.
c) The woman submits to the operation without knowing the end, simply trusting in her doctors
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who profess they have her best interests at heart.

d) The woman is sterilized without her knowledge after having been given narcotics.
In cases a and b, the subject performs a human act because she knows what she is doing,
that is, she understands the physical nature of the act. Hence, she acts knowingly. Full moral
responsibility, however, is present only in example a since the subject understands the moral quality
of the act, something lacking to the subject in example b.
In cases c and d, the subject does not perform a human act at all and clearly cannot be
considered morally responsible for her own sterilization. In example c, the womans condition is one
of ignorance: she does not know what the operation will mean for her. In example d, the womans
condition may be called inadvertent since she is not aware of being sterilized.
We can give the following definitions:
Knowledge = the awareness of an act in its physical consistency and its end, as well as its moral
quality, that is, its rightness or wrongness. The opposite of knowledge is ignorance or doubt.
Advertence = the awareness of accomplishing a determined act, an awareness that appears and
disappears together with the act itself. The opposite of advertence is inadvertence.
A human act necessarily requires both knowledge and advertence.
3. 1. 4. The Will in the Human Act

We have said that the will acts in response to a known good. It should be stressed, however,
that the will has its own way of responding and its own characteristics in responding which are not to
be confused with the acts of intelligence. As we can easily verify, its one thing to see and know the
good, and quite another to want that good and tend toward it with the appropriate action. As Ovid said:
I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong (Video meliora proboque, deteriora
sequor).[51] I know, for example, that it is good to study . . . but that doesnt necessarily mean that I
want to study!
We have said that an act can be called moral or human only in so far as it is voluntary. We
must now define this concept more precisely by first of all distinguishing what is voluntary from its
contrary (the involuntary), and then by distinguishing the different species of the voluntary (simple or
relative, willed or tolerated).
3. 1. 4. 1. Voluntary and Involuntary
The will guarantees that an act I perform is mine, that is, that my behavior proceeds from me
myself, from within me. It ensures that I am the author and protagonist of my actions and not the
passive object of the actions of others.
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To return to the preceding example of the woman being sterilized, lets take the case of the
woman who fully understands the nature of the operation she is having but is compelled by force to
submit to it. Who would say that such a woman has committed a human act? Who would consider her
responsible for being sterilized? She is not, in fact, the one acting; she is only submitting to an action,
and doing so against her will. We can speak of voluntary sterilization (hence, a human act), only when
the woman herself asks for such an operation because that is precisely what she wants.
But what about this case: Due to an operation, a woman is rendered sterile in a non-voluntary
way. Once aware of her condition, however, she approves it with her own will. In this case, the
sterilization, even though involuntary, is nevertheless willed. Such would be the case for a husband
who wishes his wife to be sterilized but does nothing to induce her to submit to the operation. In this
instance, the wifes sterilization is willed by the husband, but it is certainly not voluntary on the
husbands part because he has not acted.
Hence, we can formulate the following definitions[52]:
An act is called voluntary when it is caused by the will of the subject.
An act is willed when it is approved by the will (even when not caused by it).
An act is involuntary when performed against the will of the subject.
An act is non-voluntary when it is done without the approval of the subjects will.
3. 1. 4. 2. Simple Voluntary and Relative Voluntary

We have arrived, then, at a definition of voluntary action. However, we should note that in
the realm of this category of acts important differences exist.
Lets consider two cases:
a) A man meets a child, the son of his worst enemy. On whatever pretext, he slaps him in the
face.
b) A father sees his son do something wrong, something for which the child has been
admonished many times. To correct him, he feels compelled to give him a slap though he
does so with a heavy heart.
We have here two voluntary actions, but there is a substantial difference.
In the first case, the mans will tends directly to striking the child. In his senseless anger, he
wants to slap this boy whom he takes for an enemy. In the second case, however, the father does not
want to hit his son since this means suffering for both the child and the parent; nevertheless, given the
unfavorable circumstances, the father wants to strike the boy because otherwise, uncorrected, the child
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would be on the path to even greater suffering.

In the first case, we are looking at the simple voluntary, that is, an action to which the will of
the subject fully adheres. The second case, on the other hand, illustrates the limited voluntary, that is,
an action to which the will of the subject adheres only in relation to a determined, unwilled
circumstance.
We can define, then:
the simple voluntary as an act that constitutes in itself the object of the tendency of the will of
the subject;
the relative or limited voluntary as an act to which the will of the subject tends, much to his
regret, in order to respond to a particular situation.
3. 1. 4. 3. Willed Voluntary and Tolerated Voluntary

Lets examine two other cases, very similar in appearance, but very different in substance:
a) A pregnant woman with serious health problems procures an abortion so as not to aggravate
her condition (an act rather incorrectly labeled therapeutic abortion).
b) A pregnant woman discovers that she has cancer of the uterus and has her uterus surgically
removed, with the consequent death of the fetus.
These cases seem similar because the effects are analogous: the health of the mother and the
death of the child. In reality, however, they are very different in terms of the central point. In the first
case, the will of the woman tends directly to the killing of the fetus. One could say that it concerns a
relative voluntary because the abortion is willed as a means to obtaining a further end, that is, the
improvement of the womans health.[53] Nevertheless in fact, exactly for this reason the abortion
is willed and procured in a direct way on a healthy fetus and not the sick organs of the mother.
In the second case, on the other hand, the will of the woman tends directly to the removal of
the cancer. The removal of the uterus has no other end than this: it is an infected organ that cannot be
cured and must be taken out. The death of the fetus is foreseen from the start as the result of a
voluntary action (the removal of the uterus); however, the fetuss death is not pursued by the will,
neither as a means nor much less as an end. It is tolerated as a collateral effect. In the language of
moralists, this collateral effect is called the indirect voluntary. Such a designation may cause some
perplexity since the will of the surgeon removing the cancerous uterus does not intend to kill the fetus!
For this reason, I propose to qualify this effect unwilled voluntary or tolerated.
Hence, we can state the following definitions:
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In the direct voluntary, the effect constitutes the true end of the will either as an end or as a
means to an end that is willed.
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In the indirect voluntary, the will tends directly to another end and is limited to tolerating the
collateral effects of its action.
We have, thus, given some precision to the concept of voluntary according to the principle
shades of meaning it assumes. This treatment has resulted in certain distinctions which may seem a
little too technical; nevertheless, Dear Reader, you will find them useful when you examine the
problems of special ethics.
For now, I am content with having given you a sufficient overview of the role of intelligence
and will in human behavior.
3. 2. Emotions and Feelings in Human Action
Intelligence and will manifest the rational nature specific to man. But we should remember that
man is not an angel! I mean to say, we are not reducible to our rationality alone. Our intelligence and
will are incarnate in a body with structures and operations that in varying degrees work in synergy
with the faculties of the spiritual/rational order. As the great French thinker, Blaise Pascal
(1623-1662), has remarked: Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that
anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast.[54]
Consequently, when we place ourselves in front of a good to perform or an evil to avoid, not
only intelligence and will enter into play, but also our sensibility. For a comprehension of the human
act, therefore, we must take into account the interaction between our sensible, corporeal life and the
life of the spirit. Such interaction is called psychicism and its most important natural components for
the comprehension of the human act are the feelings or emotions (in classical language these are called
sensible motions or passions).
Consider, for example, the decision made by Gianna Beretta Molla, a mother who, though ill
with a uterine tumor, renounced her own healing so as not to damage the child she carried in her
womb. She died a short time after giving birth.[55] Can a person humanly make a choice of this kind
only on the basis of rational considerations? I think it is nearly impossible. An emotional, sensitive I
would almost say visceral in the noble sense of the word component enters into play: a profound
love for the child in the womb and a desire that it live (though, of course, this is not the only
component that determines behavior).
We can see this in some other common examples: Can the choice to marry this person be
dictated exclusively by rational considerations? Clearly, the sentimental component plays an important
role! Would we say that the act of defending our life or the lives of those we love is motivated only by
reason and not also by fear, which is precisely an emotion?
Feelings and emotions act as go betweens assuring the link between sensible life and the life of
the spirit. They influence action to various degrees. They can enjoin and contribute to some kinds of
behavior while restraining and obstructing others.
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Emotions, sentiments, and the movements of our sensibility are many and varied; yet, they can
be traced back to two common roots: love and hate.
Love concerns something presented to us as a good. When this good is absent, we experience
desire; when present, we feel joy. Hate concerns something presented to us as an evil. When this
evil is imminent, we are afraid; when present, sad or angry. A very varied range of nuances articulates
these fundamental passions.
Ordinarily, emotions and feelings are accompanied by somatic alterations in blood circulation,
neuro-motor reflexes, hormonal secretions (the famous rush of adrenaline), and so forth. These are
spontaneous responses in front of determined objects and, as such, are not voluntary in themselves.
Nevertheless, they can become voluntary either because they are commanded by the will or because
the will does not resist them.
But lets look at some examples of passions commanded by the will. Whoever makes use of
pornographic materials wants nothing other than to procure sexual excitement. Certainly, the
excitement in itself is an involuntary motion of sensibility; nevertheless, to the measure in which it is
sought, it becomes voluntary. Another example is music played beyond a certain number of decibels,
marked by frenetic rhythms, and accompanied by psychedelic lights and dancing (in addition to the
consumption of alcohol or other substances). What is sought in this environment if not emotion? We
could continue to multiply examples, as you like.
Lets also take into consideration an example of passion which the will does not want to resist:
I know that I am getting angry, but I let my anger increase without stopping myself to think until
finally I give vent to it without restraint . . . The anger itself, in origin, was not voluntary, but my
choleric behavior is voluntary because I do nothing to oppose my accumulating wrath.
In what way do emotions, sentiments, and the movements of our sensibility influence
voluntary behavior? Clearly, when these states of soul arise without the will, or precisely against the
will, they can diminish the voluntariness of an act even to the point of eliminating it completely. Take,
for example, a soldier who has decided to obey the order to defend his position. In the heat of battle,
however, seeing himself assailed by the enemy, he panics and, gripped by terror, flees. Is his flight
voluntary? In a certain sense, yes, because the action depends on him, but in another sense no,
because the terrorized subject is not fully master of his actions. This kind of behavior could be
called semi-voluntary. What if this soldier loses consciousness from terror? Such a faint, and the
following omission of duty, are clearly involuntary!
It is very different in the case of passions that a subject wants to procure or decides not to
oppose. Whoever decides to make use of psychotropic substances to provoke particular emotions and
then, on the wave of these emotions, accomplishes acts of vandalism is afterward responsible for these
acts because he has performed them and because he has voluntarily put himself in the condition to act
in a rash way. Therefore:
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When the passions arise without or against the will, they can render the acts of the subject
semi-voluntary or even involuntary.
When the passions are commanded by the will, they make the voluntary act more complete,
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that is, they augment the voluntariness.

Human maturity requires discernment and control of ones emotions and feelings though
certainly not their indiscriminate repression. An individual who lets himself be guided blindly by
passion does not behave in a manner worthy of his humanity; but neither is it truly human to behave
with cold rationality alone, deprived of feeling. We must differentiate and choose between those
emotions and sentiments that incline us toward behavior worthy of a human being and those that do
not. In this way, we can direct the proper emotions and sentiments to the true good of the person.
3. 3. Freedom in Human Action
Having discussed passion, we can now pose the problem of freedom. First of all, it should be
said that an essential characteristic of human volition is that it can become the object of reflection.
This fact distinguishes human behavior from that of irrational animals who cannot reflect on their own
inclinations. A hungry wolf finds some food and tends immediately toward eating it with a simple and
un-reflected act which it does not have the power to oppose. On the contrary, man has the power of
reflection, that is, of returning by an act of the will to acts previously posed by the will itself.
Lets take an example. At first, on the basis of certain criteria, I make an act of the will:
1a) I see something sweet that delights me and I want to eat it.
2a) I smell the odor of bitter medicine and I do not want to take it.
In a second moment of reflection, on the basis of other criteria, I persist in my previous act of will or I
do not will it anymore. For example:
1b) I know that this sweet will not be good for me, so I renounce my desire to eat it: I do not
want to want it!
2b) I know that this medicine is good for me, so I want to take it notwithstanding its bitterness:
I do not want my not-wanting it, that is, I want to want it!
This capacity of reflection is the foundation of human freedom. Yet, such freedom is exercised
in different forms and grades. Lets look at some other examples[56]:
I break a pen in three different ways:
a) I inadvertently step on the pen and break it.
b) Yesterday, I noticed that the pen was used up, so today I decide to throw it out, and do so.
c) I want to write quickly, but the pen doesnt work well. In a fit of rage, I break the pen.
By now it should be clear that case a does not represent a human act since the breaking of
the pen does not proceed from my intelligence or my will.
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Case b does represent a human act because my intelligence moves me to judge it better to
throw the pen out. Thus, I decide with my will and I do it. My decision is, therefore, entirely free; so
also is my gesture of throwing out the pen.
Case c also represents a human act since the breaking of the pen is determined according to
my will (it is a voluntary act) and my intelligence is aware that, using my hands in a certain way, the
pen will be broken. Is this still a free act? Yes, but only in part. It is a free act because it springs from
my interiority without any constrictions. Nevertheless, my anger (a passion) is, so to speak, blinding
my intelligence and dragging my will along with it. Consequently, this act is rather less free than
others which, on the contrary, are fully dependent on the respective acts of judging and willing.
It can also happen that I lose my patience unexpectedly but then succeed in putting a break
on my reaction. In a second instance, as soon as I reflect on the situation, I master my emotion by an
act of will. The first, sudden movement escaped my thought and will and was not, then, a human act in
as much as it was not willed by me. Hence, I am not responsible for it. Classical morality speaks of
these movements as moti primi primi which in themselves do not represent morally qualifiable
behavior.
However, it is also possible that I have allowed myself to be dragged along by the tendency to
lose my patience and have thus acquired an uncontested tendency to wrath. For my preceding acts, I
am, yes, responsible. I am responsible for this present fury also, but as a cause, since I have allowed
the cause, the motive, to be produced.
Recapitulating, we can say:
The human act is always free, though it can be more or less free.
The level of freedom in a human act is directly proportional to the lucidity of the intelligence
and the dominion of the will.
Freedom implies responsibility: the subject can be asked to give a response for his acts.
The responsibility for a determined action can be in act or in cause of an act.
3. 4. Human Action as Immanent Activity

Reflecting on our behavior, we begin to see that a human act does not end at the object of its
action but bounces back on the subject.
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Moral action is not the way we behave with objects, realizing something outside of us,
producing, but the realization of that which we can be, the realization of our own human
being. Acting well makes the agent a good man . . . Through moral action, we first of all and
above all transform that part of the world which we are ourselves.[57]
We will now focus on the first of the phenomena included in this transformation of the self (3.
4. 1); then, we will make explicit its extent by clarifying the concept of habitus or stable disposition as
a thing in itself and in the order of moral action (3. 4. 2).
3. 4. 1. Human Acts Modify the Personality of the Acting Subject
Every human act even certain acts of man that are not fully human leaves a trace in us and
modifies to a certain degree our tendencies, will, thinking, and even our bodies.[58]
If, for example, I eat and drink something that I like, I am inclined to eat and drink it again. If I
always follow through on a series of gestures under the same circumstances (e. g., making myself a
cup of coffee as soon as I get up in the morning), I take on the habit of these gestures even to the point
that it is difficult for me not to repeat them. Think of what has happened to many people in regards to
the television: as soon as they enter a room, they pop in a video without even thinking precisely by
habit. These people would probably find it difficult to recognize that at bottom they themselves are
the ones wanting to turn on the television. And when we imagine something or someone that attracts
us and give ourselves up to the thought and desire of that object, this desire and the image that
provokes it will come back to us again easily, influencing our successive decisions.
Why and how does all this happen? Every one of my acts of thinking, sensing (seeing, hearing,
touching . . .), and imagining expresses a certain meaning (an idea, an image, etc.). This meaning is in
me, in my thinking or imagining, in such a way that it can present itself to my memory and be
remembered. And if, with a human act, I will to give myself up to that idea or that image, then my
tendencies toward the meaningful object presented to me are reinforced.
It is clear, then, that my acts flow back on the very faculties that set those acts in motion.
There is a kind of retro-activity, a feed-back, that shapes me and causes my faculties to acquire a stable
orientation to act in one way or another.
3. 4. 2. Habitus
These modifications are not only inevitable, they are also indispensable for existence.
Experience teaches us that human activity would not be possible without the adequate training of
different faculties.
The word training makes us think immediately of sports. Everybody knows that when
someone begins regular athletic activity, his muscular strength increases, eventually putting him in a
condition to do things he could not do previously.
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We can also speak of the training of the senses. If an experienced musician and a non-musician
hear an orchestra play, they will both take in the same sounds, but the first will perceive the shadings
of timbre, along with any embellishments or mistakes, while all of this will be lost on the other. Its
merely a question of training! The same can be said of a painter regarding colors, etc.
But we can also speak of training in regard to our intellectual capacity. Consider what
happens when we study arithmetic or the grammar of a foreign language. At first, we learn certain
rules and try to apply them. Our early efforts require a lot of time, and we often make mistakes. But
then we pick up the rhythm of what we are doing: we can go more quickly, with greater facility and
precision.
The same can be said of our will. If we are not habituated to sitting in a room and studying, the
first few days of doing so will seem long and unbearable. We will have to make hard and repeated
efforts of will to resist ourselves and not go wandering. With perseverance, however, we will acquire
the capacity of self-domination and, in time, self-control will become easy even pleasurable.
To what can we owe this greater facility of action? It is commonly said that it depends on
habit. But what is habit?
On the experiential plane, from the phenomenological (descriptive) point of view, we can only
say that something exists that is beyond singular repeated acts, but comes from them and
prepares other similar successive acts easier to follow with respect to the preceding. To call this
something habit is not enough. In our lives, in fact, we notice a vast typology of what are
usually called habits. We often experience a certain conflict between habit and freedom.
Consider such statements as: What do you want? Im used to using obscene language. I
couldnt control myself even if I wanted to. Moreover, we judge various habits on the basis of
their utility and morality. Hence, there are useful habits and damaging habits, good habits and
bad habits.[59]
On this subject, contemporary psychology prefers to speak of aptitudes rather than habits to
designate what we are describing. This is certainly a fortunate choice of words. We could also call
them stable dispositions of the subject (or better: of the faculties of the subject, that is, his senses,
intelligence, will . . .) to effect this or that operation. In classical terms, such an aptitude or stable
disposition is called a habitus.
A habitus is an aptitude or stable disposition of the faculties of the subject toward a determined
type of act.
A habitus is acquired through the repetition of a determined type of act.
This being the case, it is clear that science, art, technical ability, and so forth, are also habitus.
Scholastic, Latin language designates these habitus with the word virtutes (virtue). We have preserved
a trace of this notion in common parlance when we say, for example, that Paganini was a virtuoso
violinist, that is, that he was very good at playing the violin. Still, in modern language we use the term
virtue to refer only to good moral habitus.
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It is clear, in fact, that science, art, technical ability, and so forth, are not moral virtues since in
these disciplines habitus perfects only specific faculties of man, finalizing them to a limited and
particular good (right judgement in a branch of science, artistic expression, etc.). In other words, they
render the subject a good scientist or artist. But a good scientist or artist is not necessarily a good man!
It is also evident that not every habitus perfects our personality. If a certain behavior
damages our personality, yet we nonetheless have procured for ourselves the stable disposition to
behave in that way, clearly we have acquired a bad habitus, or vice.
In summary, by our actions we construct our own personality, that is, we acquire certain
habitus that stabilize us to behave in a certain way. It is clear that if we habituate ourselves to
acting freely, responding with the will to a known good, we become ever more free, ever more capable
of knowing the good, and ever more resolved to pursue it. Virtue is an aptitude that develops the
personality in a way worthy of being human. On the contrary, if we habituate ourselves to loose
living, to letting ourselves be guided by irrational motives, to not exercising control over our actions,
then we become ever less free, ever less able to recognize the good, and ever more lethargic in tending
toward it. This is what is meant by vice.
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4. The Virtues in General

At this point in our journey, Dear Reader, I would like to remind you of the question with
which we began: How should we be to fully realize our human personality? In light of our discussion
in the preceding chapter, I think we can give a first answer to this question: we must be virtuous.
On its own, this affirmation doesnt get us very far in our inquiry. As a matter of fact, it sounds
almost tautological since we have already defined virtue as a habitus that develops our personality in
a way worthy of a human being.
And yet, if you think about it, we have taken a substantial step forward. We have seen that
human behavior is worthy of man insofar as it responds to the exigencies of reason and is controlled
by the will. Moreover, we have shown that it is precisely because of these elements that human action
can rightly be called free.
In light of all this, we have come to see virtue as an attitude or stable disposition of
authentically free behavior, that is, of action that responds to the exigencies of reason through the
willful mastery of ones own conduct.
In this chapter, then, we will look at this subject in more detail. First of all, we will underline
the importance of virtue in ethical discourse (4. 1). We will then point out the essential elements of
virtue and vice (4. 2) and classify individual virtues (4. 3). Lastly, we will see how the virtues enter
operatively into human action, thus reinforcing freedom and leading to happiness (4. 4).
4. 1. Importance of the Virtues in Ethical Discourse
In the not-too-distant past, there existed a somewhat juridical way of presenting morality
which tended to concentrate on singular human acts alone, classifying them as licit or illicit, good or
bad. But, as the great thinkers have always noted, human acts are incomprehensible in isolation and
abstracted from the whole life of the acting subject.
4. 1. 1. Acting Manifests Being
A classical principle affirms that acting manifests being. This can be taken in at least two ways
relative either to the choice of actions to be carried out or to the fulfillment itself of these actions.
Choice, says Aristotle, is a deliberate desire.[60] We choose to behave in one way rather than
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another because we are disposed to recognize and give precedence to certain values rather than others.
For example, we choose to earn a living working rather than stealing because we recognize the value
of honest earnings and the idea of theft revolts us. When such a disposition is deeply rooted in us, even
if the chance to earn ourselves an illicit living should come along, we easily recognize such a deed as
dishonest and not to be undertaken.
Ethics scholars can sometimes expend rivers of ink demonstrating that a certain kind of
behavior is or is not licit, while a virtuous person can reach the same conclusion at once without any
great study or argument. He does so by means of a certain connatural knowledge: being good
himself, he recognizes the good when he sees it.
On the other hand, as we have seen, to choose to behave in a certain way does not yet mean to
perform the actions we have chosen! To accomplish a known good (or resist a known evil) requires
interior strength, determination, and tenacity to help us overcome the inevitable difficulties and
temptations involved.
From what we said in the preceding chapter, it is clear that the repetition of certain acts
reinforces our tendency to behave in a particular way. If we have habituated ourselves to eating in a
disorderly and excessive fashion, and are then forced to follow a strict diet, we will suffer a great deal
and face many difficulties in our efforts to realize our goal. If, on the other hand, we are used to eating
with moderation, mastering our desire for more food, it will not be difficult to resist the temptations of
gluttony. In fact, it will be more difficult for us to overeat and thus abandon the wise equilibrium we
are accustomed to following.
Hence, the best and worst of our dispositions in regard to moral values, as well as the degree of
interior effort we show in tending toward a recognized value, depend on how we are inside, that is,
on the habitus, good or bad, that we have acquired.
4. 1. 2. The Discourse on Virtues
Now, as we have seen, the habitual interior dispositions that allow for the appearance of
particular acts in the course of our moral life, enabling us to choose the good and follow through on it,
are classically called virtues.
We will continue to use this word, though we should be mindful of an erroneous idea that has
crept into common language. This is the notion that the virtuous person is someone who doesnt
someone who doesnt drink, doesnt smoke, doesnt betray his or her spouse, doesnt give in to
gluttony, etc. Taken in this sense, virtue means putting the break on disordered passions.
Certainly, virtue entails not doing some things but this is not its principle function. The
Latin term virtus derives from vis which means strength. Hence, virtue is first and foremost the
motor of the moral life, rather than its break!
Furthermore, common opinion tends to think of virtue as a possession, that is, something you
have and can use. Virtue, rather, is a way of being. It is our most intimate way of being as far as our
morality is concerned.
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When we act virtuously, we relive our past and anticipate our future. In fact, we act in a certain
way because we are a certain way. We have become what we are thanks to the actions we have
performed up to this very moment. Moreover, with the action we undertake now, we further dispose
ourselves to become a certain way and to repeat a certain kind of action.
4. 2. Virtues and Vices
In light of what we have said above, we can understand the definition of virtue inspired by St.
Augustine:
Virtue is a good spiritual quality, by which we live rightly, and which no one can put to
bad use (virtus est bona qualitas mentis, qua recte vivitur et qua nemo male utitur).[61]
We already know that such a quality is a habitus. We must now distinguish between good
and bad habitus and then ask ourselves on the basis of what criteria such discernment is possible.
4. 2. 1. Good Habitus and Bad Habitus
Of themselves, mans natural faculties are indeterminate, that is, they can be directed toward
good or bad behavior. Thus, we can use our intelligence to promote our humanity and the humanity of
others, or drag it down; we can use our will to build up or to destroy; we can allow our passions to
incite us toward the good with enthusiasm and energy, or toward evil . . .
Virtue is a habitus that perfects our operative faculties, orienting them toward the good. It is, so
to speak, a supplementary inclination, almost a second nature, that makes these faculties able to tend
habitually toward the good, simplifying its performance. Vice, on the other hand, is a markedly
contrary habitus which orients the faculties toward evil, rendering it more attractive and easier.
But and with this we come to the central point of our inquiry on the basis of what criteria
can we discern what is good and what is evil? How can we distinguish between virtue and vice?
We have already seen how reason is the criteria of human good. We have also seen how the
will, illumined by this criteria, must exercise dominion over human behavior in order for it to be free
(and, therefore, worthy of man). Hence, virtues task is to put reason and will in a position to govern
the passions and the sensitive realm, notwithstanding the conditioning that can be derived from this.
. . . [S]ince moral virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, and choice is a deliberate
desire, therefore both the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to be
good, and the latter must pursue just what the former asserts.[62]
4. 2. 2. The Mean
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To say virtue, then, is tantamount to saying governance by the reason. This already gives
us a first point of reference.
Nevertheless, to govern you need some kind of criteria, a plan. According to classical
tradition, the plan for the moral life is found in the just mean. To better understand this reality, lets
go back to the Aristotelian definition of virtue:
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean
relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which
the man of practical wisdom would determine it.[63]
This definition indicates that bad behavior is such because of excess or defect, for example,
eating too much or too little, while virtue, on the other hand, consists in eating in the right measure.
Similarly, you can be fearful (refusing any kind of risk) or reckless (exposing oneself to excessive
risk), whereas virtue lies in courage the just mean between fear and recklessness.
Further, Aristotle emphasizes that the mean is not something abstract since it must be
determined in relation to us. What does it mean to eat according to a just measure? If, by hypothesis,
5000 calories a day are too much and 500 are too little, this doesnt mean that everyone should
consume 2750 calories daily (that is, the mathematical mean between 500 and 5000). Such a quantity
might be too little for an athlete and too much for a sedentary person.[64]
Moreover, reliance on the mean as the criteria of moral action must not be confused with that
of a mediocre, bourgeois morality that advocates the avoidance of extremes. In some cases, a lot
cannot be too much (for example, to desire ones own wife a lot), while in other cases a little
can be too much (for example, to desire someone elses wife a little!).
We should note here that the concept of the mean doesnt get us very far in our inquiry. In fact,
Aristotelian ethics ends in a kind of vicious circle: the mean relative to us is determined by a
rational principle not just any kind of reasoning. Aristotle tells us that it must be the reasoning of a
man of practical wisdom. But wisdom is the virtue of the reason. Consequently, its as if Aristotle
were saying, virtue consists in being guided by virtue or, in other words, the virtuous person is
guided by right reason and what does right mean? It means . . . virtuous!
This inconsistency in Aristotelian ethics was revealed by St. Thomas Aquinas. He closed the
circle by affirming that right reason points out the appropriate means for attaining the end (i.e., the
good life). Moreover, the meaning of the good life is not arbitrarily determined by human reason,
but established by nature. Reason, then, does not make arbitrary judgements concerning means, but
bases itself on certain indications present in a persons humanity.[65]
We will consider the above notions in detail in chapter 9. For the moment, it is enough to say
that, thanks to Aristotle, we have reached an understanding of virtue as equilibrium or harmony,
understood in a rational way. In other words, virtue is a state of harmony, under the guidance of the
reason, which makes for a balanced relationship with the object of our actions.
Vice, on the other hand, is disharmony and a lack of equilibrium because it consists in an
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habitual usurpation of the rule of right reason. Consequently, vices are often at odds with themselves
(for example, avarice vs. prodigality, or recklessness vs. cowardice), while the virtues, directed by
reason and finalized to the good of the person as such, are always in accord with each other.
Thus, the harmony produced by virtue constitutes the good life, that is, the realization of the
human person.
4. 3. Classification of the Virtues

We should now take a closer look at the different virtues.
We have said that the essence of ethical virtue consists in the dominion of reason over the
inferior faculties. Does this mean, perhaps, that it is enough to have a strong, well-trained intellect in
order to possess the moral virtues? Certainly not. Its not enough to know the good to carry it out.
Knowledge is a necessary condition, but in itself it is not sufficient.
To clarify this point, we will first separate the intellectual virtues from the moral virtues (4. 3.
1); then, we will concentrate on the most important moral virtues: the cardinal virtues (4. 3. 2);
finally, we will see how these virtues are intrinsically connected among themselves, and how they find
their full coordination in love (4. 3. 3).
4. 3. 1. Intellectual Virtues and Moral Virtues
Lets begin by recalling Ovids words: I see the right way and approve it, but follow the
wrong. As you will remember, we used this quote to point out that it is not enough to know the good
we must also want it (3. 1. 4). This means that there can be a conflict between the reason and the
will. To understand how this is possible, let us take a somewhat distant example.
When the mind orders bodily movement, the muscles obey without offering any resistance
other than that of their physical limitations. Aristotle says that the mind governs the body with
despotic power, that is, as a tyrant who commands subjects who do not have the power to contradict
his orders, only to follow them.
Some philosophers, Socrates among them, held that the reason can exercise this despotic rule
over all the operative faculties of man, that is, the will and the sensitive appetites (i. e., sensual
desires). From this perspective, if a mans reason were perfect, his behavior would necessarily be
good. As is well known, Socrates believed that a man in possession of knowledge cannot sin. Anyone
who sins does so out of ignorance. A conclusion of this way of thinking is that there exist only
intellectual virtues.
This affirmation presupposes an insufficient anthropology since, in reality, our desires do not
promptly and blindly obey the reason the way the body obeys the mind. As Aristotle says, the power
of the reason over the desires is of a political and not a despotic kind. The situation is similar to
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that of a governor who rules over free citizens who can contradict his measures. The governor must
persuade and educate the citizens to follow his directives.[66] In other words, the intellectual virtues
are not sufficient. We also need moral virtues, that is, the good dispositions of our desiring
faculties.[67]
The intellectual virtues are not in themselves moral virtues but simply habitus of the reason
by which it tends correctly to its own object, that is, the truth. Intellectual habits can be called virtues
not in as much as they themselves bring about the good, because that is properly of the will, but in as
much as they procure the capacity to realize the good.[68]
All of this is evident in St. Thomass classification of the intellectual virtues. First of all, St.
Thomas distinguishes the virtues of the speculative intellect from those of the practical intellect: the
former are oriented to the contemplation of truth, the latter to the knowledge of the principles suitable
for guiding action. It is clear that the virtues of the speculative intellect (intelligence, knowledge, and
speculative wisdom), not being oriented to action, are not moral virtues. As for the virtues of the
practical intellect, St. Thomas distinguishes between art (or technique) and practical wisdom. Clearly,
art is not a moral virtue since it can be abused. As we have noted (1. 4. 3), art and technology can
either promote or degrade human dignity. But practical wisdom (as we will soon see) is a moral virtue
since it occupies itself not so much with the conformity of the intellect with things known (that is,
with truth), as with conformity to right desire.[69]
In conclusion, we can say that the criteria for distinguishing moral virtues derives from this
aspect of willing rightly, that is, as habitual dispositions to choose and pursue what is worthy of
man.
4. 3. 2. The Cardinal Virtues
Classical philosophical tradition has specified certain moral virtues as the cardinal virtues
(from the Latin word cardo, cardinis = hinge) because all our actions turn upon them like a door on its
hinges. In fact, our actions are more or less good in so far as they are governed by these virtues. There
are four such cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, fortitude (or courage), and temperance. We can also
speak of annexed virtues which constitute a kind of offshoot or articulation of the virtuous life. In
the following chapters, we will examine these virtues in detail. Here, we will take a first look at them,
beginning with the reason for this subdivision in relation to the human faculties that render action
possible.
4. 3. 2. 1. Reason, Will, and the Irascible and Concupiscible Appetites
The reason for the four-part division of the cardinal virtues becomes clear if we consider the
faculties that render us capable of moral action. On the one hand, we have reason and will which
express our specifically human potential; on the other hand, we have a passionate component called
the sensibility or the sensitive appetite.
But the sensitive appetite, in its turn, includes two, distinct appetitive powers: the
concupiscible appetite which directs us to pursue what is suitable to our senses and to flee that which
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appears harmful, and the irascible appetite which moves us to resist whatever may inflict harm on us
or hinder or deprive us of the things we find pleasant.[70] These powers cannot be reduced to one
principle in as much as they can sometimes oppose each other. For example, we can compel ourselves
to accept suffering (contrary to the inclination of the concupiscible appetite) in order to triumph over
something hindering us (in accord with the irascible appetite). Also, we can observe that on some
occasions when the powers of concupiscence are aroused, wrath (the typical passion of the irascible
appetite) diminishes and, vice versa, when wrath is aroused, concupiscible desire diminishes.
The irascible appetite is usually defined as a tendency toward goods which are difficult to
obtain, thus requiring of us both struggle and commitment. The concupiscible appetite, on the other
hand, is defined as a tendency toward goods that are easily attainable.
We have, therefore, four faculties that make action possible: reason, will, irascible appetite and
concupiscible appetite.
Now, virtuous action lies in the harmonic inclination to the good of all these four faculties
under the guidance of reason. In common experience, however, the passions of the sensitive appetite
tend to follow their own impulses to the detriment of the governance of reason and will. The will, for
its part, always tends to what is (or, at least, what the reason presents as) good for the subject and can
have notable difficulty in promoting the good of others. Passion, moreover, can overcome reason and
will, distracting or even opposing the higher faculties, swaying and disturbing the organism to such a
point that a person can lose his head.
Thus, each of these faculties must be regulated by a special virtue. All these virtues, working
together, lead us to the good life.
4. 3. 2. 2. Practical Wisdom
Reason must be firmly oriented toward the true good. It must also have the capacity the
aptitude for choosing the appropriate and concretely available means for achieving its end in any
given situation. This capacity or aptitude is called practical wisdom. Practical wisdom ensures that
man acts rightly in the choice of those means that serve the end.[71]
Virtues are virtues because they are guided by wisdom and oriented by it to concrete acts. For
example, paying back a loan is a just act (hence, virtuous) in as much as wisdom (the right orientation
of the reason) tells me that I must perform this act, here and now, to realize a just end. Indeed, the acts
of all the virtues can be labeled virtuous only if and in so far as they are directed by wisdom. For
this reason, practical wisdom has been defined as the forma virtutum (the form of the virtues).
If we recall what we said in chapter three (3.1.2) concerning the phenomenology of voluntary
action, it will be clear that practical wisdom consists in right deliberation, in the right practical
judgement concerning the most suitable means available, and in the command to act. Deliberation
prepares judgement, and judgement leads to action. Whoever judges rightly but does not act is not
really wise. The wise person is the one who puts what is appropriate and right into effect.
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4. 3. 2. 3. Justice
The will is spontaneously oriented to a good that is known. By nature, it possesses an habitual
orientation toward a persons own good. This is not a problem as long as the pursuit of ones own good
does not conflict with the good of others. The fact is that the wills spontaneous direction entails the
preference of ones own good to that of another. And yet, a more profound analysis reveals that it is
not worthy of man (= it is not good) to prefer ones own good if in so doing an evil (= the privation of
a good) may result for another person. St. Thomas speaks of a natural instinct that leads us toward
others and urges us to support each other.[72] But it is above all the reason that enables us to recognize
the good of others as something to do and to realize as much as our own good (Do unto others what
you would have done to yourself; Love your neighbor as yourself). While the will does not need a
special habitus to tend toward ones own good, it does need one to tend toward the good of the other.
The virtue that renders the will firm, constant, and joyful in giving to each his own, that is, the good
that is due to each person, is called justice.
If practical wisdom is the virtue par excellence, one can say that injustice is the vice par
excellence, the perversion of the will itself. And since the will is always interacting with the reason,
and can condition it profoundly, then the unjust man is not only one who habitually inclines to
committing unjust actions, but also to considering good that which is unjust . . . True wickedness is
injustice.[73]
4. 3. 2. 4. Fortitude or Courage
The irascible appetite, for its part, tends toward a particular good with two types of actions. On
the one hand, it faces up to the work to be done, putting the hand to the plow, so to speak. On the
other hand, it steels itself to the hard work and difficulties that arise in the realization of the good. The
task of fortitude or courage consists in perfecting these actions. It is manifest in the habitual readiness
to avoid both fear of effort and cowardice, as well as the recklessness that exposes an individual to
unnecessary or disproportionate dangers. Patience and perseverance are two essential dimensions of
this virtue.
The strong person is characterized by serenity. He is capable of giving support and assurance
to other people. He can control his imagination, which sometimes induces fear, and maintain himself
calm and above trifles so as not to be distracted from the essential. He does not act to win eulogies and
praise, but because he wants what is truly good.[74] Fortitude protects a person from despair and
keeps him open to hope; it distances him from anger and leads him toward meekness.
Without the virtue of fortitude, a person cannot become wise, just, and temperate. In fact, if a
wise person is someone who effectively does the good, anyone who is fearful and impatient cannot be
wise. Moreover, it should be noted that not every form of courage or perseverance is virtuous. A
person who has no fear of danger while committing injustices might be a hero in the eyes of many,
but he is not a good person. True fortitude will always be found in the company of courage and justice.
4. 3. 2. 5. Temperance
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The concupiscible appetite needs to be disciplined in such a way that it submits to the measure
of reason and does not take the upper hand over the will. This is the task of temperance. The
concupiscible appetite directs itself to that which, according to the estimation of the senses, appears
pleasurable. Temperance consists in the stable disposition to maintain the order of desire in the entirety
of mans personal unity, both corporal and spiritual. If this equilibrium is conserved, the passions are
not repressed, but ordered. Thus, the enjoyment of pleasure has its place in a truly satisfying life.
On the contrary, intemperance destroys pleasure itself. The fact is that human reason is
characterized by a desire for the infinite. In letting ourselves be dragged down by sensuality, we seek
the infinite where it cannot be found: in the experience of sensible pleasure, which by its very nature is
always limited. We go from one desire to another, from one pleasure to another, in an endless spiral
where desire increases while pleasure constantly diminishes. We seek out ever more intense
experiences, even perverse experiences, at the same time deriving less and less enjoyment from them.
The inevitable outcome of this process is an abyss of despair.
Aristotle defined temperance as the custodian of wisdom[75] because sensibility, left to itself,
can corrupt reason, dragging it into the vortex of the passions. Whoever is truly, viciously
intemperate will finally be convinced that it is good in principle to follow the purely sensible
appearance of the good even at the level of principles. Thus, he also becomes unjust.[76] And clearly,
the intemperate person, being habitually oriented toward easy pleasure, will be incapable of courage
and fortitude.
4. 3. 2. 6. Annexed Virtues
The cardinal virtues are the principle virtues to which all the other moral virtues can be traced
back. However, the expression to trace back can be understood in three ways[77]:
a) Some virtues are subjective parts of a cardinal virtue, that is, they constitute different
aspects of that virtue. For example, practical wisdom is the virtue of good governance, but
clearly it is one thing to govern oneself, another to govern ones family, and still another to
govern a people. We can say, therefore, that self-governance, the good administration of a
home, and political prudence are subjective parts of the cardinal virtue of wisdom. The same
thing can be said of sobriety (which concerns the use of alcoholic beverages) and chastity
(which concerns the enjoyment of sexual pleasure) in that they are both subjective parts of
temperance, and so forth.
b) Some virtues are integral parts of a cardinal virtue in as much as they constitute elements of
its essential structure to such a degree that, if lacking, the virtue itself would not exist. For
example, docility (the capacity to learn and the humility to accept the judgements of those who
have more experience than we do) and diligence (the capacity to welcome with promptness the
good to be realized) are intrinsic dimensions of wisdom. A man who is lazy or lacking in
docility will never be wise! In the same way, magnanimity, patience, and perseverance are
integral parts of fortitude, and so forth.
c) Finally, some virtues are potential parts of a cardinal virtue, that is, they are ordered to
certain behaviors which have some connection with that virtue, though they do not entirely
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realize its essence. For example, the capacity of giving good advice (called eubulia) is
strictly linked with practical wisdom, even though it is not necessary that a wise man be a good
counselor. Also, piety as a virtuous attitude toward parents is a potential part of justice in as
much as it concerns, so to speak, reciprocation to those who have given us life . . . But clearly
our relationship with our father and mother cannot be reduced simply to give and take.
While having something to do with justice, this relationship at the same time greatly surpasses
it.
4. 3. 3. The Connection between the Virtues and Love
From what we have said, it is clear that a connection exists between the virtues. In fact, it is not
possible to cultivate one of the virtues without cultivating the others; it is not possible to neglect one
of the virtues without neglecting the others. For this reason, the singular word virtue is used very
often in ethical discourse to indicate the entire spectrum of virtuous dispositions and practices.
But maybe we can give a name to this single virtue which embraces every virtue. St.
Augustine teaches that what orders the virtues the very principle and substance of their connection
is love. We can say, then, that the virtues themselves are nothing other than the order of love. [78]
Virtue, as an ordered love of self and neighbor, makes us worthy and able to live in harmony
with others and with God, knowing how to be in their presence, communicate with them, and receive
from them those experiential and substantial goods which, beyond being appreciated and desirable in
themselves, are even more so when they are gifts of true love between persons and on the part of God,
and when they are understood, appreciated, and desired as such.[79]
4. 4. Virtue, Freedom, and Happiness
We never see virtues in their pure state. No one walking along the road has ever met Mrs.
Wisdom or Mr. Courage. It happens, however, that some peoples actions can make wisdom and
courage visible. When we realize that these actions are performed with habitual readiness, with a
certain facility notwithstanding the difficulty they involve and with joy, we know that we have
found a virtuous person. This experience provides us with a direct route to knowing virtue: proceeding
from virtuous behavior to recover the fundamental attitude from which it springs.
As we have said, virtuous habitus are the result of choices and actions that leave a mark on the
subject. They orient a persons faculties to function in a certain way; hence, they constitute that
persons moral character, assuring the prompt, safe, joyful, and regular execution of good acts. In
this wider view of virtue, a single act is no longer just a one shot deal. Rather, it is inserted into the
whole of a subjects moral life as the fruit of his past and seed of his future. The virtues as stable
dispositions permit human behavior to remain one and continuous through the incessant variations of a
diversity of choices in concrete circumstances.[80]
We can see, then, the difference between habitus and habit: a habit is the tendency to repeat
certain actions in an almost automatic way. Anyone acting by habit does not stop to consider the
reasons for his behavior. Habit leads directly to thoughtless acts, thereby making those acts less free.
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A virtuous habitus, on the contrary, strengthens the subjects awareness, his capacity for
choice, and his comprehension of the reasons for his choice. First of all, it orients the intentions
toward good and responsible ends (to act wisely, to realize justice, to behave oneself in a strong and
courageous way, to be temperate, etc.). Then, it enables us to specify the acts that will realize these
ends in concrete circumstances and to choose them for exactly this purpose. The result is a good and
virtuous life.
The stability realized by virtue, then, far from diminishing freedom (and responsibility),
augments it.[81] On the other hand, true freedom does not consist in doing whatever you want but in
tending unrestrictedly toward the true good. From this perspective, it is clear that virtue, as a
disposition for the good, constitutes a reinforcement of freedom, while vice constitutes a true and
proper slavery.[82]
Man is free when he knows the end for which he acts and directs himself fully toward its
realization. Man is fully free when he knows the ultimate end of all his actions, of his whole life, and
when all his faculties are mobilized in readiness to act in view of that end: To live a truly good life
does not require only the exercise of reason and free will, but also the exercise of educated passions. A
truly good life is that of a subject who not only knows how to choose rightly, but participates
emotionally in good conduct, who is passionate about moral good and evil, desiring or refusing it
passionately, for he feels love or hatred, pleasure or sadness, hope or fear, etc.[83]
We can understand, then, the link between happiness and the good life. The virtuous man is
happy because, realizing the good in his life, he obtains exactly what he wants, what he desires in the
depths of his being what he really loves.
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5. Wisdom
We have said that practical wisdom is a habitus that firmly orients the reason toward the true
good, conferring on it an aptitude to choose the suitable and concretely available means for reaching
the end in a given situation. After some terminological clarification (5. 1), we will examine the reasons
for the primacy of wisdom in the order of the cardinal virtues (5. 2), its operations (5. 3), and, finally,
its presuppositions and opposing vices (5. 4).[84]
5. 1. Terminology
We are using the term practical wisdom for that virtue which Aristotle called phrnesis, and
Latin tradition has denominated prudentia, a term often translated simply as prudence.[85] I prefer to
speak of practical wisdom because the meaning of the word prudence has unfortunately suffered
many alterations. In everyday language, prudence has come to be synonymous with caution,
circumspection the propensity to avoid risks . . . The expression excessive prudence is a clear
indication of the misunderstanding of which I speak. From the perspective of an ethics of virtue, such
an expression has no meaning whatsoever. True prudence cannot be excessive if it is excessive, it
is not prudence! Virtue, as we have said above (4. 2. 2), is the aptitude for choosing the just mean,
which is, by definition, contrary to every excess.
Even a great philosopher like Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) fell prey to serious equivocation
concerning prudence. He defined it as the maxim of self-love and confused it with that ability or
dexterity of the reason (which all of us more or less possess by nature) to find ways of reaching the
ends we desire.[86] From this perspective, we could call prudent the behavior of a very clever thief
who pulls off a job without getting caught. But this use of the word is clearly absurd. The thiefs
natural ability or dexterity of mind is not prudence because it is not a virtue, that is, it does not make
the acting subject a good person. What I mean to say is, although such ability can improve a persons
performance in a particular area (i.e., as a good musician, a worthy builder, an excellent . . . thief!), it
does not improve him as a man.
For this reason, I prefer to use the term practical wisdom to indicate the true virtue of
prudence as that which makes us capable of choosing the means adapted to the attainment of those
ends by which we realize our personality in a way worthy of our humanity. To put it more simply,
practical wisdom is the virtue that guides our choices, orienting them toward the full realization of a
meaningful life.
5. 2. Primacy of Wisdom
There is an end that gives meaning to all the other ends of our life an essential good for
which all other goods are sought. This end, this essential good, is nothing other than to live humanly
or, to put it another way, to be truly human.
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Reflecting on this statement, we may notice that it implies reason twice: at the level of being
and at the level of knowing. Reason is implied at the level of being because it constitutes the specific
characteristic of the animal-man; hence, we can say that human good consists in living according to
reason. Further, at the level of knowing, reason allows us access to truth in general and the truth of the
human being in particular.
What, then, is the behavior that is good and worthy of man?
The good of man as man is: that reason be perfect in the knowledge of the truth, and the
inferior desires be regulated according to the rule of reason; in fact, the essential characteristic
in force of which man is man, consists precisely in his being rational.[87]
This phrase basically says two things: first of all, for the good of man, human reason must
perfect itself in the knowledge of truth; second, reason thus perfected must be the rule of the lower
desires. Lets examine these two ideas in order:
1. Reason must perfect itself in the knowledge of the truth. Why? Because this is precisely the
essence of reason! Reason is the specifically human regard on reality; it is an openness to
reality. And truth reveals reality. The necessary premise of every morally good action is the
truth. How can someone be just, for example, if he rejects the truth? It is only in virtue of a
true right that we can render true justice (that is to say, justice tout court, because untrue
justice or false justice is simply injustice). Reason is measured by reality: the wise
person is the one who conforms his mind to objective reality.[88]
2. Reason, improved by the knowledge of the truth, must become the form and intimate rule of
the desires. Consequently, practical wisdom the virtue of the practical reason is the first
cause thanks to which the other virtues are truly virtues. In other words, the acts of all the
virtues can be called virtuous only if and in as much as they are directed by wisdom. For this
reason, as we noted before, practical wisdom is called the form of the virtues (forma
virtutum). Virtue in general, as well as every single virtue, is a perfection of man as a rational
being. Justice, fortitude (or courage), and temperance reach such perfection (that is, they are
properly virtues) only when they are founded on wisdom.
For example, the sensitive appetite for food and the tendency to eat in sufficient quantity and
not to excess is undoubtedly a spontaneous inclination toward the good that is present even in
irrational animals. This tendency, however, is elevated to a spiritual dimension when it enters into the
dynamic of human acts by way of mans rational decision. Thus, we can speak of the virtue of
temperance only when wisdom embraces the instinctively just and impulsive predisposition of the
sensitive appetite in order to complete it in a specifically human that is, rational way.
The analogy between moral act and artistic creation is instructive in this regard. [89] At the
beginning of a work of art, an artist elaborates on an idea in his mind. It is precisely this idea that gives
to the work its form. The form that exists in the creative mind of the artist is the model and the
archetype of the work to be made. Hence, we can say that the work is true and real when it accords
with the prototype image that is in the mind of the artist. Similarly, the command of wisdom is the idea
in virtue of which the moral act is what it is. The command of wisdom is the model and the archetype
of every morally good action. An action becomes just, courageous, or temperate only in view of the
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fundamental resolve of wisdom.

Wisdom gives form to the other virtues by conferring on them that measure (Aristotles
mean relative to us) without which virtue is unthinkable. It is understandable, then, why classical
tradition has said: Prudentia auriga virtutum, meaning that the virtues are such because they are
guided by wisdom, receiving from wisdom their orientation to the concrete act.
5. 3. The Operations of Wisdom
Wisdom is primary because you have to know reality before you can do what is good. As we
said above, practical wisdom is essentially an intellectual virtue. But its object choice touches
directly on the moral virtues. In short, we can say that practical wisdoms task is that of finding the
just mean in the moral virtues.[90]
We have said that it is not possible to want something (an object, an activity, a relationship,
etc.) if we dont know it first. We can want this something as an end in itself or as a means. [91]
When something attracts us, presenting itself to our reason as an end in itself, desirable for itself,
wisdom enters into play concerning the means necessary to obtain it (deliberation), as well as the most
suitable means presently available (practical judgement concerning means). Practical wisdoms
principal act, then, is commanding the effective use of these means.[92] Hence, deliberation prepares
judgement, and judgement leads to action. As we have said, whoever judges rightly but then does not
act is not really wise. The truly wise person is the one who puts what is right and appropriate into
effect. Consequently, it is practical wisdoms final act that is decisive, that is, the command to act.
Wisdom reveals herself in the command of the practical reason that tells us, This is good. This must
be done here and now.
Wisdom shows us the means that we should desire and use. And what about the end? Certainly,
some ends are merely means ordered to greater ends (for example, graduation is an end for a student,
but also a means to the further end of getting a job). Since, however, we cant go on to infinity with
ends and means, there must inevitably be some ends that are desirable in themselves: virtuous
goods, as we noted above.[93] This concerns the ends of virtue: just, courageous, and temperate
behavior. These exist before wisdom itself and are recognized habitually thanks to the intelligence:
The end belongs to the moral virtues not because they establish it, but because they tend to the
end pre-established by the natural reason. In this they are helped by [practical] wisdom that
prepares their way, disposing the opportune means. Therefore, wisdom is more noble than the
moral virtues and puts them in motion. But the practical intellect puts wisdom in motion. [94]
The material on which wisdom works is precisely the indication of the mean which
comprises virtue, as well as the use of the opportune means for its fulfillment. Therefore
paradoxically wisdom does not have its own matter, but is applied to the matter of the other moral
virtues that are regulated and measured by it.[95]
5. 4. Wisdoms Presuppositions and Their Opposites
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Wisdom has, thus, an essentially cognitive yet immediately practical dimension in regard to the
concrete realization of a possible good.[96] In order to exercise properly these two dimensions,
wisdom requires certain dispositions which we can better understand if we contrast them with their
opposing vices.
5. 4. 1. Wisdom as a Cognitive Virtue
To properly understand a situation and identify the concrete means available for reaching the
virtuous ends it entails, there must be reflection, silence, a patient questioning of the reality involved,
and an acceptance of the effort required. The contrary disposition would be that of recklessness, that
is, the thoughtless attitude of someone who rushes headlong into action, exposing himself to every
kind of disorder and failure.
But take note! Another contrary disposition is possible: irresoluteness, a very neglected form
of imprudence that consists in prolonging indefinitely the estimation of problems and putting off their
solutions, resulting in overdue and, consequently, fruitless decisions. The speedy evaluation of a
situation and its requirements is, in fact, an eminent form of wisdom called in Latin solertia. This
activity implies a capacity for clear headedness in front of unforeseen events that can happen
without warning. In such instances, the fool flees or falls into paralysis, or closes his eyes and decides
for the first thing that comes into his mind without any consideration. On the contrary, the diligent,
wise person maintains objectivity, knowing how to decide quickly for a concretely realizable good.
The objective knowledge of concrete, workable reality must become the norm of action; the
truth of things must become the criteria for orienting our lives. For this reason, we need what is
commonly called experience. Aristotle says:
Nor is practical wisdom concerned with universals only it must also recognize the
particulars; for it is practical, and practice is concerned with particulars. This is why some who
do not know, and especially those who have experience, are more practical than others who
know . . .[97]
A science that has only universals for objects (mathematics, for example) can be practiced
brilliantly by the young if they possess mental agility and intelligence. But when a knowledge of
particulars is required, the young will inevitably be found lacking. Wisdom requires a knowledge that
is accumulated over time. Hence, it is an eminently senior virtue.
On the other hand, the simple passage of time is not enough to transform an imprudent person
into a wise person. Expertise consists in conserving the memory of past experiences, authentically
storing them up in their truth. This is not an easy thing to do since memory can be altered: We may
have some unrevealed interest in deforming our memory of the facts; we may be victims of an
uncontrollable mechanism that brings about slight retouches, displacements, discolorations,
omissions, shifts of accent.[98] Vigilance over the truth of ones own memories is an indispensable
premise to becoming wise. As a corollary, the habitual practice of the examination of conscience is a
very valuable means of ensuring such fidelity.
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The great number of situations we must face, and the almost infinite diversity of particulars we
must take into account before acting, mean that no one can presume to be self-sufficient in acquiring
wisdom:
Hence in matters of prudence [practical wisdom] man stands in very great need of being taught
by others, especially by old folk who have acquired a sane understanding of the ends in
practical matters. Wherefore the Philosopher says: It is right to pay no less attention to the
undemonstrated assertions and opinions of such persons as are experienced, older than we are,
and prudent, than to their demonstrations, for their experience gives them an insight into
principles.[99]
Therefore, whoever wishes to become wise must begin by showing some proof of . . . being
wise! This is to say that a person must let himself be taught. He must renounce self-conceit (the
presumption of already knowing everything) and cultivate the virtue of docility an integral part of
the very wisdom he is seeking.
5. 4. 2. Wisdom as a Commanding Virtue
The cognitive dimension of practical wisdom regards the past and the present as already being
real. This virtues imperative dimension, however, looks to the future, that is, to the not-yet-existing
from the point of view of having-to-be-realized.
From this perspective, wisdom consists essentially in farsightedness. The far-sighted person is
one who pre-sees future necessities and provides in the present what he will need to obtain
pre-determined ends. Farsightedness is undoubtedly the principle aspect of practical wisdom since all
the dimensions enumerated above (reflection, diligence, memory, docility, etc.) are necessary to reach
this goal: pre-disposing means ordered to ends:
For it is the chief part of prudence, to which two other parts are directed namely,
remembrance of the past, and understanding of the present; inasmuch as from the
remembrance of what is past and the understanding of what is present, we gather how to
provide for the future. Now it belongs to prudence, according to the Philosopher, to direct other
things towards an end whether in regard to oneself as for instance, a man is said to be
prudent, who orders well his acts towards the end of life or in regard to others subject to him,
in a family, city or kingdom; in which sense it is said, a faithful and wise servant, whom his
lord hath appointed over his family.[100]
We must remember, however, that from a moral perspective the means are always actions.
The farsighted person is capable of predisposing suitable actions for the attainment of specific ends.
It is precisely here that farsightedness shows its dramatic side since it regards concrete,
contingent, future objects around which we can never have absolute certainty such that we can avoid
every worry.[101] In these matters, to expect a kind of mathematical certainty clear and distinct ideas
is the sign of foolishness and leads to indecisiveness. The wise man does not expect certainty where
it cannot exist, nor on the other hand does he deceive himself by false certainties. [102]
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The type of certitude required by practical wisdom is moral certainty. In some cases, this
certainty can be total (as happens primarily in cases where we know what we should not do: kill, steal,
etc.). In other cases (more numerous), we must be content with only relative probability. Even in these
cases, however, the sage acts in a secure and decisive way, drawing confirmations from his life
experience, personal vigilance, and awareness of the uprightness of his own inquiry into the true good.
Im-prudence and in-decision are defects that oppose the virtue of wisdom. Moreover, this
virtue is also opposed to excesses, that is, to dispositions bearing an apparent similarity to wisdom, but
only as a caricature resembles the original by greatly distorting its substance. St. Thomas gives us an
interesting description of this false wisdom at work:
Even so a sin may be against prudence, through having some resemblance thereto, in two
ways. First, when the purpose of the reason is directed to an end which is good not in truth but
in appearance, and this pertains to prudence of the flesh; secondly, when in order to obtain a
certain end, whether good or evil, a man uses means that are not true but fictitious and
counterfeit, and this belongs to the sin of craftiness.[103]
Hence, there can be a pseudo-wisdom that consists in cleverly seeking means for the
attainment of dishonest ends. The means themselves could even be good; nevertheless, the action as a
whole will be evil. There also exists a pseudo-wisdom that pretends to be obtaining a good end, but
with bad means. In this case also, the action is necessarily bad. Not only the ends of an action, but also
the means of its realization must conform to the truth of the subject and the actual situation.
It is interesting to note how, according to St. Thomas, faults by defect against wisdom are the
fruit of the uncontrolled desire for sensible goods which dulls our rational capacities. This is
particularly true of lust; hence, chastity is necessary in the cultivation of wisdom. [104] Moreover, the
defects of the young are opposed to the excesses of prudence typical of older people. These excesses
arise primarily from avarice, from that surplus of farsightedness that tends to the anxious conservation
of ones goods.[105] Therefore, wisdom requires the experience, memory, and chastity of the older
person, as well as a youthful spirit of brave trust and, as it were, a reckless tossing away of anxious
self-preservation . . .[106] Wisdom, then, requires the virtue of courage.
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6. Justice
As for wisdom in the preceding chapter, we will start our consideration of justice with a
premise of a conceptual kind and then go into detail on the principle parts of this virtue.
6. 1. The Concept of Justice
Few words generate so strong a positive feeling as the word justice. This should not make us
forget, however, that justice is not a univocal, but an analogical concept.
The root of the word justice embraces notions of fairness, proportion, and equality
which are well represented in traditional iconography by the image of a balanced scale. St. Thomas
notes that in everyday language things are said to be adjusted to each other when they are made
equal.[107] Everything depends on our understanding of this adjustment.
In the Platonic system, the just man is someone who conforms in the greatest way possible to
the perfect idea of man, in other words, someone who fully realizes his humanity. Plato teaches that
justice consists in a harmonic relation in the soul of the good man between temperance, fortitude (or
courage), and wisdom. In a parallel way, Plato sees the city as composed of three social classes, each
with their own proper virtue. In the productive class (i.e., farmers, artisans, and merchants), the
concupiscible element is predominant; thus, the virtue of temperance must be cultivated. The guardian
class, in which the irascible element prevails, must be guided by fortitude or courage. Lastly, the
governing class must operate according to wisdom. The good society is one in which every citizen acts
according to the virtue that is proper to him, while justice consists in the harmonic orientation of every
social component to the common good.[108]
If we consider that the rule or norm of this ideal should be expressed by the law, we can say,
with Aristotle, that justice consists in conformity to the law. Now, the end of the law is the common
good, but sometimes the common good requires the practice of personal virtue:
And the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g., not to desert our post nor take to
flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a temperate man (e. g., not to commit adultery
nor to gratify ones lust), and those of a good-tempered man (e. g., not to strike another nor to
speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and forms of wickedness,
commanding some acts and forbidding others; and the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and
the hastily conceived one less well. This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not
absolutely but in relation to our neighbor. And therefore justice is often thought to be the
greatest of virtues, and neither evening nor morning star is so wonderful; and proverbially
in justice is every virtue comprehended. And it is complete virtue in its fullest sense, because
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it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it can
exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbor also . . . [109]
Now, it is exactly this relation to our neighbor that brings Aristotle to recognize, along with
the general concept of justice as the application of all the virtues within society, the particular virtue of
justice which regulates the fair distribution of goods and their peaceful exchange between men.
In the Latin world, the most famous definition of justice, subsequently adopted by St. Thomas,
was that of Cicero: . . . justice is a habit whereby a man renders to each his due by a constant and
perpetual will.[110]
From this perspective, right (ius) appears prior to and more fundamental than justice (iustitia).
For this reason, we will look first at rights (6. 2); then, we will consider the virtue of justice in general
(6. 3), the kinds of justice (6. 4), and lastly, the vices opposed to justice (6. 5).
6. 2. Rights
Right is a primordial notion impossible to define in the full sense of the word.[111]
Nevertheless, we can describe it as the consonant relationship between a certain good and the person
entitled to that good, who is said to have the moral faculty to claim it as his own.
In the first place, the notion of right indicates a particular relationship between a person (or
community of persons) and a thing or service. This thing or service constitutes the object of the right
(passive right) as that for which the entitled subject has an active right. Considered from this
perspective, right consists in the moral faculty of claiming a thing as ones own (possessing it,
disposing of it), of acting in a certain way, or of requesting a service from others. This schema can be
represented thus:
Person (or Community)

Subject of Right
Active Right
Thing/Service
Object of Right
Passive Right
Moral Faculty of Claiming Ownership

In this sense, it is easy to understand that only persons can be holders of rights, whether as
individuals or associated in community, since only persons have moral faculty. Animals, for instance,
do not have rights in a proper sense. Certainly, we can recognize that in our dealings with animals we
have specific duties; however, these duties are always in relation to persons: the abuse of animals
damages the dignity of the person who inflicts it; the uncontrolled extermination of certain species
infringes on the right of future human generations to a beautiful, complete world, etc.
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It should be noted that the existence of a right implies the existence of a subject (a person or
community) who holds that right, as well as a subject (a person or community) from whom the right
may be demanded and who is capable of delivering it. From this perspective, a right appears as the
vital space necessary for the development of the person.
Person/Community
Holder of the Right
Person/Community
Holder of What is Due
Vital Space Necessary for Personal Development

Society exists to create, conserve, and develop, with the help of all its members, the conditions
necessary for every person to live well and reach his end, that is, perfection or happiness. We can
define the common good as the matrix of conditions by which each person, if he so desires, can reach
his end.[112] The different conditions or situations to which I refer constitute the objects of rights. At
the worst, an individual could choose not to avail himself of these objects and renounce his own
attainment of the good, but he cannot and must not damage the personal and communal goods which
are the rights of others.
By logical necessity, a subjects right corresponds symmetrically with another subjects duty.
6. 3. General Justice and Particular Justice
A just person is someone who has a duty and fulfills it. Having clarified the notion of right, we
can now take a closer look at justice as the virtue which makes possible the habitual performance of
duty as respect for other peoples rights: It is proper to justice, as compared with the other virtues, to
direct man in his relations with others . . . On the other hand the other virtues perfect man in those
matters only which befit him in relation to himself.[113]
Justice constitutes an openness to others in as much as it brings order to my relationship with
them and their rights. This has a double significance since the other can be an individual or the
whole community of which I am a part. In the first case, the virtue of justice consists simply in giving
to each person what is owed to him. In the second case, things are more complicated because I myself
am part of the whole toward which I have duties. These duties concern me also as a member of the
community since my good is ordered to the common good. This means that my private virtues . . .
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are not so private!

It follows therefore that the good of any virtue, whether such virtue directs man in relation to
himself, or in relation to certain other individual persons, is referable to the common good, to
which justice directs: so that all acts of virtue can pertain to justice, in so far as it directs man
to the common good.[114]
As we said at the beginning of this chapter, Plato and Aristotle had in mind this general
dimension of justice which, as St. Thomas says, comprehends together every virtue, and is itself the
maximally perfect virtue.[115] Taken in this sense, justice has a global dimension which cannot be
inserted next to fortitude and temperance as a cardinal virtue since it enfolds these virtues, ordering
their acts to the common good.[116]
This does not mean, however, that general justice can substitute for the other virtues which are
necessary for man to be ordered directly to particular goods, both in regard to himself, through
temperance and fortitude, and in regard to the rights of others, intended here as other people, by way
of particular justice.
In synthesis:
General justice includes all the moral virtues (including particular justice) and
directs them to the common good.
Particular justice gives to each his due, taking into consideration the common
good.[117]
The special importance of justice emerges in the phenomenon of moral obligation. Certainly,
all the virtues oblige us to specific kinds of behavior in as much as they create a moral duty. This is to
say that I must act in a wise, strong, courageous, and temperate way in order to realize my human
personality and live well. I have, then, a responsibility first of all to myself in the fulfillment of these
duties. This reality has a certain resonance at the social level in the construction of a better and more
humane community. But particular justice also adds to this duty another element: I must act justly also
because my neighbor is entitled to it; he has a right that creates in me a responsibility toward him
whereby he can ask me to act in a certain way. My moral duty to be just corresponds to a juridical debt
in regard to another person.
To clarify this concept, lets compare two different cases of duty in relation to our neighbor:
a) A friend has treated me badly, but then repents and asks me to accept his apology. I know, in
conscience, that I must pardon him.
b) In a moment of financial difficulty, I receive a loan from a friend. The crisis is now behind
me and I know that I must repay the loan.
Certainly, in both cases a and b, I perceive a moral duty. The difference is that the friend in
case a can ask for my pardon, but he cannot demand it. In fact, he has no deed of ownership that
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allows him to claim pardon as something owed. Not by chance, the word pardon comes from the
Latin per-donare, to give a great gift, indicating the dimension of gratuity and love in the act of
pardon. Thus, I have a duty to pardon my friend, but he does not have properly speaking the right
to be pardoned. If I do not forgive him, I commit a moral fault against the order of friendship, but I do
not infringe on the order of justice.[118]
In case b, however, the friend can not only ask me to return the sum I have borrowed, but he is
also juridically entitled to demand the money as his. Therefore, I must restore the loan not only
because I am his friend, but because the money is his and due to him. If I do not restore the loan, I
infringe on the order of justice in addition to that of friendship.
We can see, then, that in considerations of justice exterior things (e.g., merchandise exchanged)
and exterior actions (e.g., the performance of a service to which I am held by contract) play a role of
fundamental significance. Respecting the rights of others implies a certain measurability: I must be
able to determine if and in what measure I have respected someones right and what I must still do or
give to fulfill its exigencies. The material nature of the action to be performed or the things to be given
provide an objective reference point for what is just.
Notwithstanding this, at the base of just action there must be respect for the other person, an
attentiveness in his regard without which the virtue of justice does not subsist. If I lack respect for
another person, even though I perform just acts towards him (externally conforming to what is right), I
myself would not be just! Justice, in fact, is a virtue of interpersonal relationship; consequently, though
external things and actions are the immediate object of just behavior, respect for the other person is its
formal cause.
The matter of justice consists of external things and actions which constitute the object of a
right or debt.
The form of justice is respect for another person.
This regard is classically called aequitas and is a constitutive part of the virtue of justice.
Further on (10. 4. 3), we will see that equity entails the right interpretation of the law and, from this
point of view, is linked in a particular way with general justice. For the moment, we will limit
ourselves to considering the formal aspect of respecting and caring for another person, without which
justice cannot subsist. In this sense, considerations of equity may demand surpassing the rigorous
materiality of the exigencies of rights. This could mean, for example, postponing the deadline for
repayment of a loan when strict observance of the terms agreed upon would place the debtor in great
difficulty. The consideration of rights alone, without aequitas, necessarily translates into injustice:
summum ius summa iniuria.
6. 4. The Parts of Justice
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From what has been said, it is clear that particular justice indicates three conditions:
a) First of all, there must be at least two subjects facing each other. To the first belongs a right
to the second a corresponding duty.
b) The object must be an authentic right, creating in the correspondent a juridical debt.
c) It must be possible to give what is owed.
Where all three of these conditions are met, we can speak of the subjective parts of justice,
commutative justice and distributive justice, which we will examine in the following paragraphs. If
one of these conditions is lacking, however, we have what may be called the potential parts of
justice. For example, as we noted earlier (4. 3. 2. 3), there is a certain exigency of justice in the duty of
assisting aged parents. They have the right to our help since they brought us into the world, nourished
us, and educated us. Nevertheless, the parent-child relationship lacks the first condition in as much as
the link uniting the subjects goes beyond mere otherness. We can say that in the regulation of this
relationship, piety is only a potential part of justice. To give another example, in the case of
gratitude, the second condition is lacking. Certainly, there exists a moral duty to show gratitude to
those who do us good since in a certain sense they have the right to expect our gratitude . . .
Nonetheless, if gratitude does not arise freely, it cannot be demanded on the juridical level. Here also,
then, we can speak of a potential part of justice.
6. 4. 1. Commutative Justice
Lets examine now the subjective parts of this virtue, beginning with the most basic:
commutative justice. We can say basic because this form of justice is strictly dependent on the
one-to-one relationship in which subjects exchange (commute) something (the first condition of
justice). Some common examples of this relationship are loans, trades, sales, and services.
The aspect of exchange makes it fairly simple to identify the object of a right and the measure
of a debt. At issue is a relation of giving/having in which what is given must equal exactly what is
received or owed. The measurement of this relation can be figured in terms of arithmetic equality. It is
usually evident right from the beginning of a transaction, making clear the duty of restitutioncompensation when it is not respected.
In fact, rights persist even when injustice is committed. If I steal something, I have a duty to
make restitution equal in value to what I have stolen. If I damage someones property, I have the duty
of compensating the owner. In this regard, St. Thomas maintains an apparently paradoxical thesis:
restitution is the most perfect act of commutative justice.[119] The reason for this is that, in a world
marked by the struggle between competing interests, injustice seems the most prevalent condition. As
a result, justice inevitably assumes the connotation of a reparation or restoration of equal value.
This means that the dynamic character of mans communal life finds its image within the very
structure of every act of justice. If the basic act of commutative justice is called restitution,
the very word implies that it is never possible for men to realize an ideal and definitive
condition. What it means is, rather, that the fundamental condition of man and his world is
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provisory, temporary, non-definitive, tentative, as is proved by the patchwork character of all

historical activity, and that, consequently, any claim to erect a definitive and unalterable order
in the world must of necessity lead to something inhuman.[120]
6. 4. 2. Distributive Justice
Distributive justice regulates the relationship between the community and its members.
Consequently, its subject is the ruler, that is, the administrator of the common good. What is
distributed is that portion of the common good which touches the individual. Social organizations,
professional bodies, and individuals collaborate with each other so that a people, a social whole, has
access to nourishment, clothing, lodging, the possibility of transport and communication, health care,
education, schools, etc. Distributive justice requires that all these goods be divided and distributed
equally among all the members of the community.[121]
Distributive justice is commonly understood as impartial, equal, and appropriate behavior that
takes into account what is owed to each person. In fact, the concept of distributive justice was
developed to resolve problems due to a scarcity of resources in competitive situations, problems of a
political and organizational nature at the level of both macro-division (the distribution of resources
on a large scale) and micro-division (the distribution of resources to some people rather than others).
Different criteria have been proposed for the solution of these problems.
Distributive justice has been the focus of different, even rival, theories which have,
nonetheless, commonly maintained the formal Aristotelian principle that equals must be treated
equally and un-equals treated un-equally.
The problem lies in determining who is equal and who unequal, and how inequality is to be
treated.
Numerous material principles have been proposed for distributive justice:
1. To each person an equal share
2. To each person according to need
3. To each person according to effort
4. To each person according to contribution
5. To each person according to merit
6. To each person according to free market exchanges[122]
Some contemporary authors maintain that each of these material principles indicates prima
facie duties that always apply, except in those cases where they conflict with greater or equal duties.
Hence, the effective duty of a subject is determined by balancing the weight of these juxtaposed prima
facie duties.[123]
Material principles specify what properties a subject must have to enjoy some part of the
available resources. Many people are skeptical about the necessity (or even the possibility) of adhering
to a single criteria: No obvious barrier prevents acceptance of more than one of these principles, and
some theories of justice accept all six as valid.[124]
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Different theories of distributive justice have been elaborated with a view to specifying and
making coherent different principles, rules, and judgements. These have tried to connect properties of
persons with morally justifiable distributions of benefits and burdens.[125]
This is not the place to go into depth on the different models available for understanding this
form of justice. It is enough for us to note that these theories have meaning only in as much as they
preserve an essential regard for the person and his dignity. Such a regard provides an objective base
that is equal for everyone. Hence, it is just that each person be guaranteed an equal portion of essential
goods (principle 1). Where this is threatened, special concern must be shown (principle 2). Worthiness
is increased by subjective effort (principle 3), objective contribution to the common good (principle
4), and special qualification for an office (principle 5). These differences must be recognized and
adequately prized. With all this assured, there must yet remain a free margin in which contractual
exchanges can take place, regulated by commutative justice (principle 6).
6. 5. Injustice
As we noted above (4. 3. 2. 3), injustice is the vice par excellence because it is the perversion
of the will itself. But the story does not end there. By its continual interaction with reason, the will can
so condition reason that the unjust person becomes inclined to consider good what is really
unjust.
This is clear if we recall that general justice commands the acts of all the virtues, maintaining
them and coordinating them. Where general justice is lacking, for that very reason, the virtues are
lacking.
But an analogous discourse must also be made on the subject of particular justice, that is, on
our relationship with the rights of others. A right is something owed to another. Whoever keeps for
himself what he should give to another, or takes from another what rightfully belongs to him, ends up
by damaging himself. He perverts his own will the intimate core of his own being. Such a person
becomes unjust, that is to say, inadequate in terms of his own human dignity. By his own actions, he
bars himself from the road that leads to the right development of his own personality.[126] For this
reason, Socrates insisted that it is a greater evil to commit injustice, than to suffer it:
I would not wish either, but if I had either to do or to suffer wrong, I would choose rather to
suffer than to do it . . . I maintain, Callicles, that it is not the most shameful of things to be
wrongfully boxed on the ears, nor again to have either my purse or my person cut, but it is both
more disgraceful and more wicked to strike or to cut me or what is mine wrongfully, and,
further, theft and kidnapping and burglary and in a word any wrong done to me and mine is at
once more shameful and worse for the wrongdoer than for me the sufferer.[127]
Injustice emerges from the egoistic search for ones own good and the consequent incapacity to
see the good of others. It is often born from intemperance, which leads to satisfying ones own desires
without considering the wrong that others might suffer. Sometimes injustice springs from a lack of
courage and fortitude. But there is a special type of injustice, very prevalent today, which stems from a
lack of wisdom. Justice, in fact, presupposes the truth: the truth about rights, duties, and restitution.
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Thanks to wisdom, the truth about these things is translated into decision. When, however, we lose this
link with truth, we no longer try to understand whether someone has a right to something or not, or if
he is mistaken or not. As a result, injustice reaches a profoundly inhuman level.[128]
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7. Fortitude or Courage
The fact that the title of this chapter requires two words instead of one for the virtue in
question tells us that we must once again begin with a clarification of concepts and terms (7. 1).
Following, we will take a look at the cultural aspects of this virtue in contemporary society (7. 2). We
will then consider the essential link between this virtue and vulnerability (7. 3). Lastly, we will present
the acts of fortitude: the endurance of evil and aggression against evil (7. 4).
7. 1. Terminology
The word fortitude comes from the Latin fortitudo, a word associated with physical force,
strength, and energy.[129] On this basis, it takes on psychological significance, being used to indicate
constancy of soul, particularly in the face of effort and danger. As such, it is called courage (7. 1. 1),
tenacity (7. 2. 1), and magnanimity (7. 2. 3).
7. 1. 1. Courage
Andria is the Greek word for courage. Literally translated, it means virility, the virtue by
which someone acts as a man. The summit of this virtue is a firm spirit in the face of death in battle:
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the
enemy.[130] Obviously, this kind of terminology is limited by its ties to an essentially chauvinistic and
warlike culture. In reality, women must be no less strong and courageous then men; in fact, they have
often succeeded in being more so!
Plato took a step forward in determining this virtue by defining it as the knowledge of what
should and should not be feared.[131] This definition has both limitations and merit. On the one hand,
it suffers from a Socratic intellectualism that holds knowledge to be a moral rather than intellectual
virtue (cf. 4. 3. 1). Furthermore, the meaning of the expressions should and should not requires
some clarification. Aristotle noted that this definition can give rise to confusion between courage
properly so-called and the special skill of someone, for example, a mercenary soldier, who doesnt
experience fear because he recognizes a false alarm when he sees one. When a real and difficult
danger presents itself, a danger that should be bravely faced, such a one is usually the first to run
away![132]
On the other hand, Platos definition succeeds in establishing a boundary between what we
should and should not fear and avoid. For instance, a person should fear and avoid dishonor and
should not be afraid of the heroic sacrifice of his own life. Thus, as with every virtue, courage must
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submit to the command of wisdom which orders flight from certain evils and the pursuit of certain
goods even to the point of enduring evil and forsaking flight in order to obtain those goods.
7. 1. 2. Tenacity and Patience
Along with this virtue, we can speak of the constancy of the man of character in front of
difficulties. The Latins called this virtue perseverantia, though we would do better to translate it
tenacity, a word that implies a kind of toughness, a capacity for temporal endurance in the prolonged
application of oneself to a difficult task. It goes without saying that tenacity presupposes the
judgement of wisdom concerning the suitability of persevering in a certain kind of action.
Consequently, tenacity is opposed to pertinacity, that is, the impudent tenacity of the stubbornly
obstinate person who seeks to persevere in his own opinion out of duty, pigheadedness, or pride.
Contrariwise, a defect of tenacity shows itself as a kind of weakness, we could even say
sluggishness or fragility, which tends to give in at the smallest impact or abandon the good in the
face of the pain caused by a lack of satisfaction.[133]
Perseverance includes the modest, daily virtue of patience, the capacity to bear without
perturbation the inevitable sufferings connected with our everyday realization of the good. It should be
noted that whoever is brave is patient, but the converse does not hold, for patience is a part of
fortitude.[134] Further, the strong person does not only passively bear the evil that befalls him, but
is also ready to act, to jump into the fray, so to speak, whenever necessary.
7. 1. 3. Magnanimity
In a positive sense, fortitude (or courage) requires the ability to think big, to formulate
demanding objectives and pursue them with energy and decision. This virtue is called magnanimity.
It denotes stretching for the mind to great things toward difficult goods, rather than easy evils. [135]
Magnanimity is a desire for excellence measured by the accomplishment of grand deeds, or the
excellent execution of ordinary deeds, even the smallest. Clearly, wisdom plays an important role in
this virtue since it allows us to avoid the excesses due to overestimation of our own strength
(presumption), disordered ambition, or vain glory. It also keeps us from falling into that meanness of
spirit (pusillanimity) which leads to underestimating ourselves or refusing the inclination toward an
involvement that, though difficult, is nonetheless proportionate to our strength.
We should take a moment to consider the vice of pusillanimity, which someone has described
as the error of an eagle who thinks he is a chicken. This vice manifests itself in the scattering of ones
energies into many little areas, to the detriment of what is really important, and in a quarrelsomeness
that disputes everything, attributing relevance to every trifle and losing sight of the ends worthy of
pursuit.
7. 2. Cultural Aspects
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If we examine classical and modern literature, up to and including Romanticism, we will find
that fortitude was perhaps the most exalted and recommended virtue, so much so that that poetry and
the figurative arts were believed to exist primarily to celebrate the deeds of the strong, thus presenting
them as examples for future generations.[136]
In more recent times, however, a decadent attitude has emerged which exalts cowardice and
pusillanimity and derides the courage of the strong. Josef Piepers explanation of this phenomenon is
suggestive: The bourgeois man of industrial civilization believes he has explained the world. He feels
himself at home in the universe, and cannot fathom that existence implies a struggle against evil, a
struggle marked by the double dimension of fault and penalty, that is, the evil we do and the evil we
suffer.[137]
From the ideology of progress and the myth of indefinite growth toward ever brighter horizons,
an obtuse and disenchanting optimism has sprung up, based on the presumption that every evil can be
resolved with technology. The well-being realized in industrial society has habituated people to
abundance and ease, making them ever more dependent on pleasure and comfort, incapable of
sacrifice or the acceptance of the smallest privation or discomfort. A soft society is necessarily
impatient.
Though contemporary culture boasts an uninhibited mentality, it has as yet retained one
taboo that preserves every ancestral prohibition and fear: the taboo against suffering. Some young
people have rebelled against this leveling off of human experience by torturing their own bodies with
piercing and tattoos. They have created an aesthetic of ugliness and decay expressed most acutely in
the hard, desperate life of what in Italy are called the punkabbestia (wandering bands of young people,
tattered and torn, who live with their animals on the streets). Official culture pretends ignorance of the
messages behind these realities. Instead, it continues to declare war on what it sees to be the only real
evil for society: physical suffering. The attack on pain has two dimensions: first, the use of drugs
painkillers, anti-depressants, tranquilizers, etc. which leads eventually to abuse and dependency, and
second, where drugs fail, eugenic (therapeutic[138]) abortion and euthanasia.
The immediate satisfaction of needs and the search for ephemeral pleasure Horaces carpe
diem are the only criteria for action which our soft, impatient culture will accept. This manifests
itself in a pusillanimous spirit whose highest ideal is not virtue or happiness but, far more banally,
amusement and consumption. Vice receives public recognition and favor even to the point of being
worshipped.[139]
But the enthusiasm for science and technology, an enthusiasm which up until some decades
ago seemed carved in stone, is giving way to a pessimistic disquiet: the indiscriminate exploitation
of natural resources required by a consumer culture has lead humanity to the brink of the abyss.
Phenomena such as the hole in the ozone layer with its consequent climactic catastrophe, as well as
the pollution of air, water, and earth, demand that we take stock of our place in time. We cannot
continue to think in brief intervals; we must have the courage to face our responsibility to the future.
We must recover the ability to think big and be magnanimous.
The ecological bent of our culture is post-modern humanitys first and clearest expression of
its widespread sense of uneasiness. Awareness is growing that our actions produce irreversible effects.
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Consequently, the pure impulse for possible pleasure can no longer serve as the basis of our actions.
Philosophy can contribute by ensuring that education develop the sense to foresee the long term
effects of human action on the very delicate equilibrium between human pretenses and natures
efficiency.[140] This means that philosophers today must be concretely engaged in a reflection on the
virtue of fortitude and its authentic practice.
In past epochs, the call to terrestrial fortitude was powerfully sounded whenever a people
were in danger and their young were mobilized, prepared to die in the defense of their country.
Clearly, the willingness to face the supreme sacrifice carried with it the readiness to face every sort of
difficulty. At the origins of Christianity we find fortitude in the martyrs who gave their lives for their
faith, and the ascetics who, for the love of eternal life, submitted themselves to a demanding regime of
worldly life. We can hope that the recovery of this virtue in our own time will be assisted by the
awareness of our responsibility for planet earth and her future generations. We can hope that a healthy
fear in front of foreseeable catastrophe will give rise to the courage to change our soft,
pusillanimous lifestyle and lead us to acquire firm habits more worthy of our humanity.
Also, on the aesthetic level, we can hope that the twilight whining on its own little pains will
be abandoned and the moral beauty of courage will once again shine forth to the shame of cowards
easy ironies sprung forth from their own resentment.[141]
7. 3. Fortitude and Vulnerability
Whoever has meditated in depth on fortitude and courage is immune from the temptation to see
them as titanic virtues. On the contrary, they presuppose vulnerability.[142] A person who cant be
wounded doesnt need to be brave! The strong person is one who can suffer a wound in both the
physical and moral sense. By wound we mean here any kind of damage to our integrity, anything
that causes pain, anguish, oppression reaching its maximum degree in death.
The concept of vulnerability presupposes a weakness of an ontic character. The virtue of
fortitude assumes such weakness and overcomes it on the moral plane. On this subject, the stories of
the martyrdoms of young Christians can be very enlightening. Even those who do not share the
Catholic faith can profit from these accounts if they read them in the spirit of phenomenological
research. We may recall, for example, the well known text of St. Ambrose on the martyrdom of Agnes,
a child of twelve years of age:
Was there room for a wound in that small body? And she who had no room for the blow of the
steel had that wherewith to conquer the steel. But maidens of that age are unable to bear even
the angry looks of parents, and are wont to cry at the pricks of a needle as though they were
wounds. She was fearless under the cruel hands of the executioners, she was unmoved by the
heavy weight of the creaking chains, offering her whole body to the sword of the raging
soldier, as yet ignorant of death, but ready for it . . . she filled the office of teaching valour
while having the disadvantage of youth.[143]
It is clear that the suffering here was not accepted for itself as if it were a good. Such a love of
suffering would be contradictory; it would be pathological. Wounds are accepted willingly only
because to escape them would mean suffering even greater damage. In this situation, suffering allowed
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the person to preserve an integrity of a different and more profound character.

We have already said that the strong do not despise life; on the contrary, they love it
profoundly, surely more than the fearful do. But this love resides not only in their sensibility, which is
inclined to self-preservation, but also in the moral forces of their rationality. This covers everything
that comprises the integrity of the person: joy, health, success, etc. The strong man recognizes all these
things as good. He loves them and naturally seeks them. Nevertheless, he is disposed to go without
them rather than renounce the higher goods, the loss of which would be a far more serious wound.
This means that the truly courageous person knows a natural mans fear and overcomes it not
by instinctive optimism (fortune aids the daring), or presumptuous faith in his own capacities, or
because he fears losing face and being considered vile, but because he remembers a greater and
stronger good.
Putting all this together, we can say that the specific character of fortitude consists in
suffering injuries in the battle for the realization of the good.[144] From this perspective, we are not to
seek after death or wounds, or even danger, but rather, the realization of a rational good. From this it
follows that only the fortitude of someone guided by wisdom and justice can truly be called
virtuous.
Moreover, we can see that fortitude and courage are not only opposed to vileness or fear (an
excessive and disordered fear), but they also stand opposed to that vice which is the insensibility to
fear. Hence it may happen, says St. Thomas, that a man fears death and other temporal evils less
than he ought, for the reason that he loves the contrary goods less than he ought [i.e., he loves himself
less than he ought].[145]
This happens for different reasons. You may think, for example, that suicide is the extreme act
of courage. In reality, its being extreme reveals its vicious and contradictory character: Wherefore
even those that slay themselves do so from love of their own flesh, which they desire to free from
present stress.[146]
Some people demonstrate an insensibility to fear when they think that the evils the wise person
fears will not happen to them. For example, anyone who drives a car in a dangerous way is convinced
that accidents only happen to other people! Pride and presumption are often at the root of this attitude,
though sometimes it is just stupidity, pure and simple. Aristotle speaks of barbarians who fear neither
earthquake nor a storm at sea because they are incapable of recognizing what is fearful. [147]
The worst excess of audacity, however, is not to fear doing evil. The bandit guilty of heinous
crimes, the cruel warrior, the suicide terrorist all these may appear courageous to some people, but
this appearance is nothing other than the corruption of true virtue. As the saying goes, the corruption
of the best produces the worst (corruptio optimi pessima).
In sum, anyone who is really courageous and authentically prudent is aware of his own
vulnerability. Such a person does not throw himself into danger without first reflecting and wisely
discerning if it is necessary. On the other hand, a man does not expose his person to dangers of death
except in order to safeguard justice; wherefore the praise awarded to fortitude depends somewhat on
justice.[148]
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7. 4. Endurance and Aggression

In our discussion of the passions (3. 2), we said that fear arises in the face of a foreseeable evil.
When such an evil is present, on the other hand, we feel sadness and anger. The strong person is the
one who succeeds in governing these passions in the right way, enduring the right measure of sadness
and attacking evil with the right measure of wrath.
Not to be sad over evil means not to love the good, to be dangerously insensible. To be strong
(in a patient way) means not losing ones interior peace even in the event of great sadness. It means
keeping a clear head, not losing heart and becoming depressed, even under intense duress. As always,
virtue is found in the just mean, not in the excess or absence of sadness, but in the measure appropriate
to the present evil and compatible with the exigencies of a wise and composed dominion over self.
Very rightly, St. Thomas affirms that endurance is the principle act of fortitude.[149] The
essence of this virtue emerges in its entirety when a subject has no practicable alternatives and must
simply have the spirit to resist until the end. Endurance, however, must not be taken in a purely
passive sense: Enduring comprises a strong activity of the soul, namely, a vigorous grasping of and
clinging to the good; and only from this stouthearted activity can the strength to support the physical
and spiritual suffering of injury and death be nourished.[150]
A strong person is not limited to putting up with evil. When it is wise to do so, he
courageously attacks evil with all the energy required, as well as faith in the resources authentically
available to him and the hope of success. In this regard, St. Thomas affirms that a strong person makes
use of anger and wrath in his assault on evil, since it is proper to wrath to hurl itself against that
which saddens it, and, thence, in the attack cooperate directly with fortitude. [151] We should
remember here that wrath is not of itself a vice or a virtue, but a passion. It becomes a vice when it
precedes the choice of the will; it becomes a virtue when the action deriving from it is deliberated and
ordered to a just end.[152]
These considerations should move us to reconsider the bourgeois model of behavior centered
on a spineless mediocrity, on a passive resignation deprived of assertiveness in the real world. The
classical view of fortitude presents us with an ideal that is at once wise and youthful, vital and
reasonable. It can and must exercise a renewed interest in our formation.
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8. Temperance
As with the other cardinal virtues, the modern context requires us to approach temperance first
from a terminological standpoint (8. 1). We will then consider the essence of this virtue in itself (8. 2)
and its importance for personal integration (8. 3).
8. 1. Terminology
Undoubtedly, the word temperance is out of style. Our culture of transgression seems bent
on destroying the concept of temperance with its suggestion of regulation, measure, moderation, and
sobriety. In no other area does virtue seem so much like putting a break on our desires, inhibiting
and repressing them. The temperate person is thought to be lukewarm and incapable of great
feeling someone who doesnt enjoy anything.
Now, certainly, the root of the Latin term temperantia is linked to the verb temperare (to keep
the right measure, to moderate) and, thus, to the substantive temperatura (the right blend, a good
composition). Temperate zones are characterized by a climate that is neither too hot nor too cold.
But this certainly shouldnt lead to the conclusion that temperance equals tepidity! Theres really no
comparison. In fact, another verbal root of this word can enlighten us on its real meaning: to temper, a
material (e.g., glass or steel) is called tempered after it has been submitted to a thermal treatment
that makes it unbreakable. The word temperance belongs precisely in this semantic realm where it
indicates the connatural and in a certain way unchangeable dispositions that form the basis of
character. These dispositions, as the words character or temper suggest, indicate a particular,
personal energy that we describe in everyday language when we say someone has character or a
strong temperament.
However, the Greek word for this virtue, sophrosne, reaches even further dimensions.
Literally, it means directing reason,[153] and concerns a con-tempering of different parts into a
harmonic and well-ordered whole. In Latin, temperatio indicates such a proportioned arrangement
(e.g., the tempered tuning of musical instruments adjusts the commas between semitones to bring
about a correspondence of notes at different octaves), while a temperator is someone who orders and
governs.
In human beings, the job of tempering belongs to the reason; the elements that are
tempered are the desires arising from our natural inclinations:
Nature inclines everything to whatever is becoming to it. Wherefore man naturally desires
pleasures that are becoming to him. Since, however, man as such is a rational being, it follows
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that those pleasures are becoming to man which are in accordance with reason. From such
pleasures temperance does not withdraw him, but from those which are contrary to reason.
Wherefore it is clear that temperance is not contrary to the inclination of human nature, but is
in accord with it.[154]
From this, it follows that temperance can be called a virtue only in so far as it is ruled by the
virtue of the reason: wisdom. A person who avoids pleasure because of a certain temperamental
disposition or psychological inhibition may manifest external behavior that is materially temperate,
but he does not possess the virtue of temperance.[155]
8. 2. The Essence of Temperance
Temperance consists, then, in the rational moderation of human actions and passions. Its
essence becomes clear if we compare it with fortitude: both have to do with the passions, but as we
have seen (3. 2) the passions themselves can be traced back to two fundamental roots: repulsion and
attraction. Repulsion arises in front of something we perceive as disagreeable. Fear, sadness and anger
are its fundamental expressions. As we know, the virtue of fortitude is necessary to keep us from being
overcome by these feelings as we tend toward the realization of the true good according to reason.
Contrariwise, attraction is aroused by what we perceive to be pleasant or agreeable. Desire and
enjoyment are its fundamental expressions. Temperance allows the rational management of these
experiences, resisting anything that attracts the senses in a direction contrary to the dictates of reason.
In his treatment of virtue, St. Thomas does not weary of repeating that the sensible and
corporeal goods considered in themselves do not at all repel reason. On the contrary, they serve reason
as the instruments it uses to reach its proper end: a good and happy life. Hence, the goal of temperance
is not to hold off evil, but to regulate (temper) the desire for the good.[156]
Now, among the goods we desire, those pertaining to the preservation of an individuals life
(eating, drinking) and the species (mating) have a greater power of attraction. Certainly, we have a
natural instinct to sensible enjoyment, particularly in the pleasure of eating and drinking and sex,
instincts born of the most powerful forces for human lifes preservation. It is precisely because these
energies are so strictly joined to our most radical impulses that they vehemently overcome all our
other powers when they degenerate into egoism.[157]
Consequently, the principle task of temperance lies in these areas of human life where it
manifests itself primarily as moderation in eating, sobriety in drinking, and sexual chastity. Yet, the
exigency of moderation tied to temperance has even greater depths. In all areas of human action, in
fact, the desires must be tempered according to reason. For example, instinctive pride must be
moderated by humility; the natural need to avenge injustice requires the control of meekness and
mildness; the natural inclination to knowledge must be disciplined by genuine studiousness so as to
avoid degenerating into mere curiosity. This said, it is clear why temperance is a cardinal virtue: its
activity is required in every dimension of personal virtue.[158]
As with all the virtues, though in a more excellent way, temperance aims at that serenity which
St. Ambrose calls tranquillitas animi [159]:
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It is obvious that this proposition does not imply a purely subjective state of mental calm or the
tranquil satisfaction which is the by-product of an unassuming, leisurely life in a narrow circle.
Nor does it mean a mere absence of irritation, or dispassionate equanimity. All this need not go
deeper than the surface of the intellectual and spiritual life. What is meant is the serenity that
fills the inmost recesses of the human being, and is the seal and fruit of order.[160]
Temperance permits us the self-possession necessary to give ourselves in a free and altruistic
way. Intemperance, on the other hand, is an egoistic attitude that paradoxically brings about the
subjects own destruction. This becomes clear if we recall that mans interior equilibrium is not static,
but dynamic. Our natural inclinations, whose aim is self-preservation, become the vehicle of
self-destruction when they are inordinately indulged: The things about which temperance is
concerned have a most disturbing effect on the soul, for the reason that they are natural to man. [161]
You may be wondering how it is that these powers of self-preservation can become so
destructive. The answer lies in the dynamism of the human will. As we saw earlier (4. 3. 2. 5), the will
is not made to be centered on itself, but to transcend itself and adhere to the good as such. The will is
open to the infinite but the goods that attract our sensitive appetites, precisely because of their
sensible nature, are necessarily finite in number and duration. It is not possible to satisfy an infinite
desire with a finite satisfaction![162] Temperance keeps us from getting stuck on the particular so that
we can stay open to the good presented by reason.
8. 3. Virtue of Personal Integration
The virtue of temperance, then, contributes to the integration of corporeal life with all its
desires and pleasures into the whole life of the person. To better understand this fact, it will be helpful
to recall some fundamental anthropological notions that shed light on the distinction between the body,
with its desires, and the person (8. 3. 1). We will then return to the concept of virtue with a greater
awareness of its dimensions.
Excursus 1. Historical/Philosophical Panorama on Corporeality
In the history of thought, we can identify two fundamental views on man which have
profoundly influenced ethics: materialistic monism and spiritualistic dualism. The following is a very
brief description of these two positions.
A. Materialistic Monism
That man has corporeal existence is evident to everyone. According to the thesis of
materialistic monism, however, the human person exists only as a material body. This theory evolved
in the wake of positivist evolutionism from the 19th century onward. Its presuppositions were present
already in antiquity in the thought of atomists such as the Greeks Democritus (5th century B.C.) and
Epicurus (ca. 342-270 B.C.) and the Latin Lucretius (ca. 99-55 B.C.). It appeared again in the Middle
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Ages and early Renaissance in the work of the Latin Averroists and continued into modernity, above
all with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). It passed through the philosophers of the Enlightenment to find
its most theoretically articulate expression in the work of the left Hegelians, finally winding up with
Marx and the Neo-Marxists.
In the existentialism of J. P. Sartre (1905-1980), man and body are one and the same thing.
There is no such thing as an experience or relationship that is not exclusively corporeal. Radical
thinkers have aligned materialism with the message of liberation: H. Marcuse (1898-1979) thought
that by making the body the site of pleasure and play he would pick the lock of a bourgeois hold on
the organization of society, a hold based on salaried work and marriage. Historical feminism runs
along the same lines (for example, S. de Beauvoir, 1908-1986) in its battle for sexual liberation,
contraception, abortion, etc. We should note that the materialism of these positions is a presupposition
that is taken for granted and almost never discussed theoretically. Hence, we can speak of materialistic
ideology rather than philosophy.
B. Spiritualistic Dualism
Notwithstanding cultural trends, the evidence for a reality that is fully human and irreducible to
matter has never been lacking in the history of thought. Man knows many activities of a material
order, such as nutrition, growth, etc., which can be understood according to material principles. But he
also engages in activities of a superior order, such as the knowledge of universal ideas, freedom, and
the capacity to love in a spiritual sense. If every effect presupposes a cause proportioned to it, then it is
clear that there is a principle of a spiritual order in man.
In the attempt to understand the rapport between mans spiritual and material components, the
most banal consists in seeing them as two substances, one next to (or within) the other. The classic
example of this dualism can be found in the thought of Plato, who considered the union between soul
and body completely accidental and, further, the fruit of an original fall by which the body became a
kind of prison for the soul. The dualistic conception, attenuated by unitarian thinking such as
Aristotelianism, never disappeared from the history of thought and re-emerged powerfully in the
modern epoch. Descartes (1596-1650) maintained that man is constituted of two things: the res
cogitans, that is, a thinking spirit, and the res extensa, that is, a body organized in every way like a
machine. Putting this idea in the simplest terms, we can say that man is a robot with an indwelling
angel. However, the contact between these res is rather difficult to understand: Descartes hypothesized
that it happens in the pineal gland, the epiphysis, though he did not succeed in explaining how matter
touches spirit. Malebranche (1638-1715) thought that God intervenes in every corporeal sensation to
communicate the corresponding idea to the soul. Leibnizs (1646-1716) solution was a pre-established
harmony fixed by a creator God (a clockmaker God) between the sensations of the body and the
thoughts of the soul.
Sad to say, spiritualistic dualism has in some measure infiltrated Christian thought. Through
Platonism, a legacy of contempt for the body came to influence much of Christian asceticism, as well
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as Cartesianism, leading with grave consequences to conceiving the rapport between body and
soul in an extrinsic fashion. Platonism led to a distorted vision of sexuality as a negative reality that is
intrinsically sinful. Cartesianism, for its part, resulted in a disincarnated vision of Christianity as
something essentially passive and indifferent in the face of temporal realities.
C. Ontologically Based Personalism

The writings of the Church Fathers manifest a certain polarity in their consideration of the
problem of man. The Antiochian Fathers underlined unity, while the Alexandrians emphasized duality.
The latter notion is to be found in St. Augustine:
The real overcoming of the Neoplatonic-Augustinian conception of man happens only in
Thomas who gathers and transforms Aristotelian categories. Truly, his conception, which
corresponds to the biblical idea of the unity of man, does not automatically accept Aristotelian
anthropology, which remains in the sphere of Greek dualism, but corrects and radically
surpasses it.[163]
It is well known that St. Thomas viewed man as a single substance with the soul as the form of the
body, but what this means exactly is not always clear to everyone.[164] Lets try, then, to give a brief
explanation of it.
First of all, we must ask ourselves what substance means. In Aristotelian terms, substance is
defined as that which is seperate from every other thing though unseparated in itself. Looking at
myself, I can see the color of my skin, I feel the beating of my heart, I am aware of my own thoughts,
etc. My skin color is in me, the heartbeats are in me, my thoughts are in me . . . but the me, that is,
my I where is it? It isnt in something else, but in itself. This being in itself means being a real
substance, while the color, the heartbeats, and the thinking are merely accidents of this substance. By
accident we mean something that causes secondary changes in a substance already constituted in its
essence. We can call these accidents accessories to substance. My skin color can change (I can be
tan, tattooed, etc.). My heartbeat changes continually and my thinking even more so. But I remain.
Moreover, I see an enormous complexity in the substance of this I. My body consists of numerous
organs constituted by countless cells. My mind manifests an even great complexity. But both body and
mind are me, that is, they make up the unique substance that is my I.
But what gives unity to this substance? There must be a principle that unifies substance,
organizing its components and effecting its operations.[165] This principle, in Aristotelian
terminology, is called substantial form.[166]
Now, the substance of my I is constituted by different components which are material (i.e.,
bodily organs) and immaterial (i.e., my thoughts). Since the I that feels cold feet and has a headache is
the same I that entertains the concepts of justice and infinity, there must be a unique substantial form
that serves as the organizing principle of these spiritual and material components of my I, as well as its
operations, both material (e. g., eating, drinking, sexual relations) and spiritual (e. g., acts of thought
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and will).
Other living organisms are capable of material operations analogous to ours (e.g., digestion and
reproduction), but they are incapable of spiritual activity. Their substantial form can be called soul (in
as much as it concerns living organisms), but only a vegetative or sensitive soul destined to dissolve
with the death of the living thing.[167] The living organism that I am, on the contrary, is capable of
spiritual activity; therefore, my substantial form must be a principle adequate not only for the
maintenance of vegetative and animal life, but also (and above all, since this is what constitutes the
specific characteristic of man) for the exigencies of spiritual life. This principle is a spiritual soul
which includes in itself animal functions, too.
All of this leaves us with a very important point for our inquiry: Since the human soul is the
form of the body, corporeal action involves the soul; hence, when a man acts, it is the whole man as
such who acts.
8. 3. 1. Division between Body and Person

When the link between the body and the person, between physicality and spirituality, is broken,
we fall into different, equally dangerous errors. On the one hand, the body will be understood as an
inferior reality so that sex is seen as something dirty and tolerable only in view of procreation (the
error of gnosticism and puritanism). On the other hand, there will be the risk of reducing the spirit to a
more or less accidental manifestation of physical reality.
This last notion lies behind the work of Freud and others who drew analogies between the
physical manifestation of sexuality and other spheres of the person. These analogies were given the
value of cause-effect with the result that all forms of religious devotion, enthusiasm, and ecstasy, no
matter what their origin, were thought to constitute only a sublimation of sex. Such a view was
destined to lead to an idolatry of corporeal pleasure detached from its profound, mysterious dimension
and uprooted from the total reality of the human person. Love, every kind of love, was reduced to sex
appeal.
In the final analysis, the Freudian position can be classified as a form of materialistic monism,
while gnosticism and puritanism are markedly dualistic. In our time, however, dualism has come to
have different connotations. We have but to think of the contemporary practice of self-manipulation,
the negation of determined human, biological realities, and extreme vitalism. When man intervenes in
his own corporeality by altering sexual characteristics (sterilization, transsexual operations), when he
excludes one of the poles of the sexual act (love and fecundity, sex and generation), when he pursues
physical pleasure in a unilateral way as if it were an end in itself without any reference to his own
spiritual component what is he doing if not rejecting totally the link between sex and the person,
between the spiritual I and the physical I? Isnt this the same thing that happens in pathologies
tied to conflicts with food, for instance, anorexia and bulimia? Isnt it this link that is tragically
ruptured in toxic dependence and alcoholism?
In the light of an integral view of the human person as a unified whole of soul and body, we
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can appreciate two things: Corporeality does not exhaust the essence of the person, and the person
does not arbitrate the corporeality of his pleasures.
We use the expression body language to describe a means of communication between
people. We can accept the meaning of this expression on condition that we understand language in a
derived sense. In fact, language, primarily and properly, is a system of signs. Hence, a language is the
more perfect for possessing the adaptability and transparency of pure signs that perform in the best
way possible their instrumental function in relation to the spirit.[168]
Now, corporeality cannot be reduced to this function of pure sign and linguistic instrument
because it has its own natural finality. It is guided by powerful instincts over which the spirit is always
at risk of losing control since the unconscious also plays an important part. Nevertheless, human
beings have a profound desire to realize their corporeal life with its desires, its goods, and its
pleasures, without obstacle or opacity, in the transparency of the moment. To this end two lives are
possible. The first is that of virtue. The second an aberration full of illusions consists in treating the
body as if it were in itself the totally transparent language of the spirit. From this perspective, which
ignores elementary and evident data, there is a tendency to go to extremes in the negation of every
similarity between animal corporeality and human corporeality.
8. 3. 2. A Unified Whole
Let us turn to virtue, then, as the only organic means of integrating corporeality and
spirituality. In this regard, we can define temperance as the stable and growing submission of the
sphere of the senses and instincts to the influence of the will,[169] provided that we do not mean by
submission the subjection of one element (the sensual and instinctual sphere) to another (the will)
which is extraneous to it. In such a case, we would not have integration but only obedience, perhaps
heroic obedience, but rife with moralism and, ultimately, frustration.
On the contrary, when we speak of virtue, we mean the stable dispositions that orient the
intimate center of the person toward the moral good. In this way, the moral subject himself is rendered
integrally good.
Temperances task is the full integration of the sensual, instinctual sphere into the life of the
person, thereby revealing corporeality as a specifically human reality and not just a generically animal
reality. The innate, consuming power of sensuality can take hold of the spiritual person, swallowing
him up in the body. In the face of this threat, the will may manage to preserve itself from fault, but it
cannot transform this negative being swallowed up into positive growth or self-giving. Such a
transformation is the special work of virtue which orients the person to total self-giving without
self-dissipation.[170]
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9. The Foundation of Morality

We have turned a corner, so to speak, in our search for an answer to the question with which
we started: How must we be to fully realize our human personality?
So far, we have seen that virtue is the key concept in our response to this question. Virtue, we
have discovered, is the stable disposition of free behavior, that is, behavior ordered by the will and
responding to the exigencies of right reason.
As you may remember, Dear Reader, further back (4. 2. 2) we saw that the concept right
reason constitutes a problem: On the basis of what criteria can we judge that reason is right or not so
right? We have already indicated one attempt at an answer to this question: Right reason indicates the
means necessary to reach the end of a fully realized human personality, i.e., the good life.
Even so, it doesnt seem as if we have taken a great step forward since we still dont know in
what the good life consists! We know it must represent the fullness of life, that is, happiness (cf. 2.
2. 4 and 4. 4), but even this doesnt seem sufficient. Pascal once remarked that everyone wants to be
happy even people who hang themselves.[171] We might add to this those who want to hang other
people! So, are we to conclude that the good life consists in hanging ourselves and others?[172]
Clearly, the good life consists in realizing what is good. But we have seen that the concept
good is used analogously according to what is useful, delightful, or good. When we talk about the
good life, then, we mean a life desirable for itself and not in view of something else.
We have learned that a good life is characterized by the repetition of morally good acts, guided
by right reason, that express, generate, and reinforce the virtue of the acting subject. Nevertheless, we
still do not know what constitutes this good life, that is, in what way it is moral, right, and virtuous.
The moment has arrived to face this problem. We will begin by asking ourselves if the
foundation of morality, the good, is something objective and, thus, valid for every human person or
if it is something every person determines for himself on the basis of subjective choices (9. 1). This
reflection will put us on the trail of the true good (9. 2). We can then introduce a subject of capital
importance in moral research: human rights (9. 3). Lastly, in the light of all this, we will be able to
understand how a human act can be judged good or bad (9. 4).
9. 1. The Good: Objective or Subjective?
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Moral theories can be divided into two large camps: On the one hand, we have the view that
good and evil are valid categories for all men and all times (i.e., universalist theories). On the other
hand, and to the contrary, we find the notion that good and evil are categories depending on the
historical, social, and cultural context (i.e., relativist theories).
*
Excursus 2. Morality and Contemporary Thought

A. Universalisms
Modern philosophy, in its maturity, took a strongly universalistic approach to the question of
morality. It is enough to remember the great manifestos of the Enlightenment, the Bill of Rights of the
American Revolution (1776), and the Dclaration Universelle des Droits de lHomme et du Citoyen of
the French Revolution (1789). These documents affirmed that all man have the same rights. From this
belief, a series of ethical and juridical norms could be deduced to regulate human behavior.
The problem is that in reality not everyone enjoys these rights. Some people are slaves; others
live without a roof over their heads or food to eat . . . Since this is so often the case, on what basis
can we assert that it should be otherwise?
A. 1. The State of Nature
In their reflections on morality, Enlightenment philosophers usually referred to a state of
nature which, in their opinion, existed prior to the construction of society and the establishment of
juridical systems. According to this view, in their natural state all men are equal and guided by the
same moral norms.[173]
What is good, then? It is however a natural man would behave! We have here the famous
myth of the noble savage which gave birth to many an ethnographic study seeking to prove that
so-called primitive societies (certain tribes of sub-Sahara Africa, the indigenous peoples of America,
the aborigines of Oceania, etc.) were guided by the same moral norms and were good.
Unfortunately, anthropological-cultural research destroyed this illusion. In reality, its not true
that these societies teach and practice the same moral norms, or that the same rights are accorded to
everyone.
A. 2. Reason and the Passions
A foundation for morality was then sought for in reason. Reason would stand guard over the
desires of our spontaneous nature, allowing the fulfillment of those which lead to social order and
rejecting others that lead to social disorder.[174]
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But what is the criteria for this discernment? How should social life be ordered? In the manner
of Louis XIV . . . of Robespierre . . . of Napoleon . . .? The fact is that there are different systems,
each claiming its own perspective on justice and legitimacy. How do we opt for one or the other? Such
a choice risks being motivated by personal interest alone in as much as preference would go to that
social system which better promises to realize our individual desires.
We see, then, the vicious circle behind this approach. We must choose which desires should
legitimately govern behavior and which should be repressed or re-educated. Clearly, the desires
themselves cannot act as criteria for this choice!
Just because all of us have, actually or potentially, numerous desires, many of them conflicting
and mutually incompatible, we have to decide between the rival claims of rival desires. We
have to decide in what direction to educate our desires, how to order a variety of impulses, felt
needs, emotions and purposes. Hence those rules which enable us to decide between the claims
of, and so to order, our desires including the rules of morality cannot themselves be derived
from or justified by reference to the desires among which they have to arbitrate.[175]
A. 3. Pure Duty
A third approach completely excludes desire and passion from the foundation of morality. Such
is the plan inaugurated by Immanuel Kant.[176] The key concepts of his moral thought are: disinterest,
autonomy, duty, and the universality of the law.
1. The idea of disinterest is fundamental in Kant. He writes: It is impossible to think of
anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation
except a good will.[177] Hence, Kant is not interested in a good human being endowed with body
and spirit, intelligence and will, as well as sensibility and sentiments. He is only interested in good
will. The sacredness of good will and moral intention is such that any thought of happiness, any
desire for happiness entering into the motivation of our acts can only soil that intention, and cause it to
fall off from the order of morality.[178] The moral subject is a pure agent, who acts rightly without
needing to perfect or fulfill his being.
2. The sensible world is the reign of necessity, governed by the inexorable laws of nature. To
this world belong the body, the passions, and the desire for happiness and realization. Contrariwise,
the moral world is the reign of freedom since the will cannot be submitted to any law except that
which it gives itself and with which it is totally identified. The will is absolutely autonomous. This
totally excludes the possibility of a legislator God who would render human will heteronomous. But
it also excludes love as moral motivation, because love, so it seems, is irremediably heteronomous. Is
there any worse heteronomy than to do the will of another, and to say to another whom one loves: thy
will be done, not mine? [179]
3. The will so-conceived is autonomous and disinterested. It can be called good only when
it adheres to duty without any other motive than duty itself. Hence, the moral life is not founded on the
good, but on pure duty. At the most, one could say that the good is founded on duty. With this
approach, you cant say that you have a duty to do something because it is good; rather, you have to
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say that something is good because you have a duty to do it! Duty is the necessity of an action from
respect for the law.[180] And what is the law? Kant calls practical law a categorical imperative,
that is, an imperative that does not say: If you want to obtain this result you must . . ., but rather,
You must, and thats all there is to it you must because you must. Duty cannot arise from anything
other than itself, and the law cannot arise from anything other than the will itself: Hence the will is
not merely subject to the law but subject to it in such a way that it must be viewed as also giving the
law to itself and just because of this as first subject to the law (of which it can regard itself as the
author).[181] Kants duty is a form without content. It can not be otherwise since any kind of content
would have to be drawn either from the sensible world (i.e., nature, the world, the body) or from God
in any case, not from the pure and autonomous will of the subject.
4. Nevertheless, pure duty must claim some content for itself, otherwise it says nothing in
regard to action. I must, but what must I? The first formula of Kants categorical imperative says:
Act in accordance with a maxim that can at the same time make itself a universal law.[182] If, for
example, I am thinking about repaying a loan, I see that it is logically impossible, or contradictory, to
raise to the level of a universal law the maxim that says, It is never necessary to pay back loans. In
effect, if this maxim were held universally, there would no longer be any loans! But lets take another
example: I am deciding whether or not to kill a man who has offended me. In this case, there is no
logical impossibility involved in making a universal law out of the maxim that says, It is always
necessary to kill people who offend us. Nevertheless, according to Kant, it is a logical impossibility
to want that such a maxim become universal law because I would myself one day offend someone and
then I would have to want to be killed. The contradiction is in wanting a law that includes the death of
the one who wants it. In one case as in the other Kant deduces the content of the moral law from its
pure universality: an act is forbidden, or contrary to the moral law, because it is logically impossible,
or contradictory, either to universalize its maxim, or to will to universalize its maxim. [183]
Consistent with his theory of knowledge, Kant believed that morality could only be saved by
removing it from the order of finality. Human beings should not act in view of an end. They should not
seek happiness. They should not tend to anything . . . But this hyper-disinterest, beyond being literally
inhuman, does not reach any other end than to cut morality off from existence. In fact, as we have
already noted (2. 2. 4. 2), anyone who acts, acts for an end.
We can illustrate the difficulty in Kants argument thus:
-
If I have no intention of repaying the loan, or if I intend to kill the person who offends me .
. . why should I behave differently?
Kant would respond: Because otherwise you are not fulfilling your duty.
And why must I fulfill my duty if Im interested in doing something else?
Because otherwise you would be immoral.
But why should I be moral?
Because its your duty . . .
As is clear, such thinking forms a vicious circle. The solution lies in showing that the content of duty,
not only its form, corresponds to the true interest of the subject because it indicates a good in itself.
But it is exactly this notion of the good in itself that Kants morality refutes, just as the thing in
itself is refuted by his theory of knowledge.
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A. 4. The State
With the total separation between the world of morality and the world of nature, ethics
becomes an a priori system. The philosopher deludes himself into thinking that he no longer needs to
reflect on human moral experience to discover the principles of morality (cf. 1. 3). He presumes to
dictate for men the articles of a legislation of Pure Reason despotically imposed on their life. [184]
This is Idealism in full swing. The individual person is considered irrelevant since he is the
bearer of all the miseries of needs, interests, and ends.[185] The morality of the individual is
abstract, empty, and unreal because it is egoistic. Individuality must be overcome by acceding to the
universality that is realized in the ethicity (German: Sittlichkeit) of the State: The State is ethical
substance aware of itself.[186] The individual disappears, his only task being to adapt himself to the
will of the State as expressed by the laws.
We can discern easily enough in the history of the 20th century the tragic outcome of this
conception. On the one hand, it led to Nazism, and on the other, to Marxist-Leninism. In both systems,
the human person serves only to advance the cause of the State.
But on what basis are the States laws determined? In vain would we seek a response to this
question! Such criteria have been taken from the feeling of the Arian race, the future of the proletarian
revolution, the consent of the majority, the interests of lobbies . . Given such vacillating criteria, the
only important thing is that the laws be promulgated in a formally correct way. First, the State orders
me to exterminate the prisoners of a concentration camp; then it orders me to execute the person who
ordered their extermination. Hence, we pass from idealism to juridical positivism. If we ask whether
euthanasia is good or evil, the response must be that in State X it is an evil but in State Y it is a
good. Since the legislator can change, this order can be reversed: from tomorrow onward euthanasia
could be a good in State X and an evil in State Y. This marks the end of universalism in ethics.
A. 5. Utility and Consequences
The last bastion of modern universalism is to be found in the consequentialist approach. This
theory has its roots in classical positivism and utilitarian morality. Utilitarianism asserts that the good
is that which brings about the advantage of the greatest number of people while creating the minimum
amount of disadvantage. A good act, therefore, is a useful act, that is, one that produces good
consequences. Universal moral duty means seeking a maximization of the good.[187]
We should note, first of all, a vicious circle in this formulation. An act is said to be good when
it produces good consequences. But what are good consequences? On the basis of what parameters are
they defined as such? Classical utilitarianism speaks of the greatest amount of happiness for the
greatest number of people, thus identifying ethics with a kind of social arithmetic. The fascination
that utilitarianism has exercised on contemporary culture depends precisely on this presumption that
moral values can be treated as if they are goods for exchange. But soon enough it becomes clear that
happiness is a concept that does not fall under additions and subtractions. What makes one person
happy can be an object of absolute indifference to another person. Even for the same person, what he
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values and what he enjoys may lie on very different, incommensurable planes. And if we succeed in
coming up with a preference, the criteria on the basis of which this is done is certainly not that of
utility, but something else which escapes utilitarians.
Moreover, if we apply the consequentialist theory consistently, we soon see how untenable it
is. For example, let us imagine that in village X a horrible crime is committed. The identity of the
guilty party is unknown, but he is believed to come from village Y. The population of village X
threatens heavy reprisals on village Y. There is risk of civil war with hundreds of dead. Hence, the
rulers of villages X and Y randomly select a citizen, declare him guilty of the crime, and hang him
in the public square thereby restoring calm among the population. Their action, though resulting in the
death of an innocent man, has as a consequence the saving of hundreds of other people. Is such
behavior acceptable? It would take some kind of courage to say yes since everyone of us
spontaneously puts himself in the shoes of the innocent scapegoat. What if he were our father, our
brother, our son . . .? Moreover, we cant allow anything to happen to someone else that we wouldnt
want to happen to us. But its exactly this that puts a check on consequentialist arithmetic.
Numerically speaking, a hundred is more than one. For ethics, however, things are rather more
complicated.
B. Relativism
We are well aware these days of the complexity of moral reflection. The mass media has
habituated us to debates between experts of various cultural extractions who hold contradictory
positions on the same subjects. They build their arguments on concepts and references to values or
norms that are very different, even incommensurable, with each other. Anyone listening to these
exchanges can get the impression that no objectively valid position on the matter exists. As a result,
the question of what to do is relegated to criteria relative to every individual. [188]
If you analyze these discourses, however, tracing their arguments back from conclusion to
premises, you will find that they come apart at a certain point. Take the case of euthanasia, for
instance. In a televised talk-show, two experts face each other. The first one, on the side of
euthanasia, bases his arguments on the right to choose. The other one, on the contrary, founds his
discourse on the sacredness of life. While the latter affirms that in questions of life no one has the
right to choose, the former maintains that in questions of choice no one has the right to interfere.
Neither party seems to have reasons that can convince his adversary his founding premise is the
correct one. In the end, it looks to us as if the choice of the premises themselves is essentially
arbitrary.
B. 1. Emotivism
In fact, the use of moral language today is emotivistic.[189] It sends out messages that purport
to be impersonal and objective but are in reality nothing more than expressions of subjective approval
or disapproval. To say: This behavior is bad is the same as saying: I disapprove of this behavior
and you should disapprove of it, too! Since I do not have any rational argument capable of
convincing you to disapprove of the behavior in question, I will try to bring you around with the most
emotionally suggestive appeal possible, using subliminal messages to condition you.
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The tendency to manipulate the interlocutor (and, above all, the great mass of the public) is
one of the most dangerous social implications of emotivism. From this perspective, there is no
substantial difference between a commercial spot and an ethical argument.
To dialogue on the basis of rational arguments means accepting the bi-lateral nature of
confrontation (i.e., you speak and I listen, then I speak and you listen). This procedure appeals to the
intelligence and respects the freedom of others in a reciprocal contest. On the contrary, to condition
someone through emotional suggestions is a unilateral procedure intended to coerce the freedom of
others and deprive an opponent of the chance to examine a message critically and respond to it. In
short, we are dealing with a real act of violence.
And thats not the end of it. From psychological violence we pass next to physical violence:
terrorism. When it is believed that no objective truth exists as a basis for ethical judgements, brute
force necessarily takes the place of law, oppression is substituted for conviction, and terror supplants
truth.
B. 2. Historicism, Sociologism, and Psychologism
Historicism is the classic relativistic theory. Its advocates maintain that every moral choice and
its justifying reasons are only the expressions of a determined historical epoch. Theres no point in
asking whether a certain behavior is good or bad or a certain moral judgement true or false. Rather,
enormous amounts of intellectual energy are spent in pursuit of the historical background of these
behaviors and judgements, that is, the factors that went into influencing them . . . But the question of
truth and good is drastically eliminated.
The form of historicism that is most in vogue today is sociologism which attempts to make
every choice and every moral judgement dependent on the sociological structure in which it evolves.
Here also we do not ask what is chosen and how such a choice is justified, but only what are the
social-historical motives for which a choice is made.
This attitude also informs the mentality of contemporary Psychologism, preoccupied with
finding the connection between choices, judgements, and the lived psychological experiences of which
a subject is more or less aware, while at the same time distancing itself totally from the truth or good
implied by these experiences.
This is not to negate the importance of history, the study of the socio-cultural ambience, or the
lived psychological experiences that underlie specific moral attitudes. Certainly, every choice and
every judgement is a child of its history since every person is a child of his time. However, we
cant help but notice that the great figures of history, such as Socrates, M. Attilius Regulus, and
Maximilian Kolbe, proved their worth by breaking free of the mediocre morality of their epoch,
rising far above it to reach a higher level of good.[190] It is this epoch-transcending criteria that
interests us here.
B. 3. Genesis, Evolution, and the Dissolution of Relativism
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How did contemporary ethical relativism come into existence? The answer lies within the
complex history of the passage from modernity to post-modernity.
Until the 19th century, western culture was marked by a stable, strongly centralized social
system. The center of this system might have been the small polis or commune, or the capital of the
empire; it was represented by the temple or the cathedral, or by the municipality, the royal palace or
parliament . . . In any case, there was a clear center around which life gravitated and in virtue of
which every person had his own identity: noble, knight, cleric, middle class, servant, etc. Such identity
carried with it a clear framework of rights and duties and regulated life down to the smallest
particulars. We can describe this system as an ethical totality founded on great, shared,
metaphysical-religious conceptions.
In the nearly unanimous judgement of sociologists,[191] modernity grew out of a process of
differentiation and individualization. On the one hand, society was differentiated into innumerable,
partial systems (not only family-village-state-church, but companies, schools, agencies, organizations,
parties, associations, unions, etc.); on the other hand, individual interests and needs began to infringe
on community concerns.
Our society, at least in the industrialized countries, is now a-centric. It is characterized by
weak ties, rapid changes, individualism, shifts and fluctuations in roles, instability, and the need to
adapt to ever new conditions. With no recognized center, and no shared metaphysical-religious
conceptions, we have seen the dissolution of ethical totality and the absolutizing of the singular,
individual conscience: No one can tell me what I should do (no one has the knowledge or authority to
teach me). I myself must invent my life, my plan, my rules.
No one believes any more that an objective sense of the world exists, that there is a rational,
objective order that human reason can understand, even if with difficulty, and realize at the personal
level. Society is divided into many spheres of separate values, and neither faith nor reason has any
longer the cultural resources to unify these values into a single, coherent meaning. An individual
subscribes to the values of the workplace while at work (e. g., primacy of profit, competition,
ambition, servility . . .), another completely different set of values when at church, and still other, even
contrary, values for what concerns his leisure activities, the schools his children attend, etc. We may
call the ethical framework thus erected a polytheism of values.
It makes no sense to pine after the ethical totality of the past. Yes, that system guaranteed a
certain order and security, but often at a very high price. The unity and irrepeatability of each person
was strongly compromised since behavior tended toward an homologous agreement with dominant
canons and, often, social hypocrisy.
In the face of this ethical dissolution, culture at first fell prey to the wild exaltation of
difference, fragmentation, and the birth of a new individualism. Horizons of potentially unlimited
meaning opened up for everyone and any choice became comparable with any other. There was
nothing that could not be overhauled. Whatever we used to do, we could now do differently. It no
longer made any sense to distinguish truth from falsehood since everyone lived in a hypothetical
condition: I think like this today, but tomorrow I may think differently. I wont commit myself to
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anything or put too much at stake.

But the intoxication of infinite possibility, as Kierkegaard noted,[192] generates anguish. In
fact, the most prevalent sentiments of postmodern culture are disorientation, identity crises, and loss.
Instead of freedom, we find disorder and an incapacity to manage ourselves or our relationships with
others and the world.
Moreover, the enthusiasm for science and technology, which up until some decades ago
seemed carved in stone, has given way to a worrisome pessimism. Science and technology have
ceased to be instruments in mens hands as they become more and more ends in themselves. We could
say the same, perhaps in even stronger terms, of the economy. We wanted more freedom, but have
become part of anonymous processes instead . . . More and more we have the impression that things
just happen on their own.[193]
The current ecological turn is a first, clear expression of a prevalent sense of uneasiness.
Everyone can see that nature is rebelling, that she does not accept being treated as a mere object of
arbitrary exploitation, and that to treat her in such a way results in serious injury to the population of
this planet. The conviction is spreading that we must recognize a specific finality in natural things, a
finality whose importance surpasses the usefulness man makes of it.
All this has lead to the rediscovery of the ethical category of responsibility.[194] Awareness is
growing that our actions produce irreversible effects; hence, we cannot operate on the basis of
hypothetical, fallible theories of a relative kind. When action departs from hypothesis, failure is
always possible. But it is one thing for a scientific experiment to fail in a laboratory and another for it
to fail in the world of life where failure has serious repercussions!
The conclusion is that we cannot move forward on the basis of flimsy, hypothetical thinking.
What we need are strong convictions, a spirit of truth, and the capacity to bear witness with firmness
and without fanaticism.[195]
*
The cultural-philosophical tendency that is most wide-spread today radically contests the
notion that an objective response to moral questions can be given at all. There is little belief in the
existence of universal and valid criteria on the basis of which we can establish what is right and
wrong. Good and evil are taken to be purely subjective categories. The virtuous good is a value
attributed to any kind of behavior whatever by free individuals.
But is human freedom really the source of values? In keeping with the method we have
pursued thus far, lets go back to the things themselves.
Consider, for example, propositions such as these:
a) We must defend the weak from the aggression of the strong.
b) Rape is never permissible.
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c) Motor vehicles must drive on the right.

We may feel that such a list offends our intelligence. For one thing, it is incongruent to put
proposition c on the same level as a and b. Why? Because proposition c is based on a simple
convention created by human law. We would not be perturbed if the legislator had decided differently.
We drive on the right because it is prescribed by law; if the contrary had been prescribed, we would
drive on the left.
Propositions a and b, on the other hand, do not depend on human convention. If there are
(and there must be!) human laws that prescribe in various ways what propositions a and b affirm,
it is not the laws themselves that give a positive value to the defense of the weak and a negative value
to rape. On the contrary, the laws must require defense of the weak because it is good and prohibit
rape because it is bad. The ideas good and bad are rooted in the essence of the human person
and the nature of the actions addressed.
When the weak are oppressed by the strong, my freedom does not establish that it is good to
help them. I can only decide to realize this good or not. Where rape is concerned, I am not free to say:
Its permissible. The source of these values lies outside of me, that is, it is transcendent. I do not
create these values. I find them. I am in the truth when my thinking accords with reality. The truth of
all this is evident from moral experience itself and the moral terms used in everyday language.
However, the manner in which we know and discern the true good is a much more complex
question.
9. 2. The True Good
We have already said that anyone who acts, acts for an end. The desired end of an action is
what we have called good. At this point of our journey, we must ask ourselves what is the true good
to which our actions should tend.
Since we are speaking of our actions of human acts it is clear that the end to which these
acts tend must be an end for man, that is, a good for man. Now, we should remember that the actions
of man are singular and concrete, and human only in so far as they are directed by reason. Thus, the
exigencies of both rationality and the concrete situation have to be reconciled.
In the light of what we have said in preceding chapters, it should be clear that good action is
rational action; hence, we must entrust our behavior to the guidance of reason. As we have often
repeated, a person acts in a way worthy of his humanity when his passions are controlled by his will,
and the will is right when it adheres to the good indicated by the intelligence.
But how does the intelligence grasp what is truly good? We have seen that this good is not
created by human reason, but simply discovered. Yes, but discovered where? And how?
9. 2. 1. Mans Humanity as Source
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The response that comes from the phenomenology of moral action and from traditional,
classical philosophy is that the good is discovered in man himself, in the being-such of man, in his
edos, in his most profound identity. In a word, the good is rooted in our humanity.
Now, our humanity is something we find actualized in ourselves and others, but not in a static
way. Humanity consists in being-human, but this in itself means becoming-human, making oneselfhuman, drawing ever closer and better to what we are.
We need to dwell on this for a moment because the foundations of classical ethics, often
misunderstood by modern thinkers, can be found right here.
Its easy to see that human beings need many things: food, a home, company, culture . . . Man
is a structurally indigent creature.
Now, this indigence is a fact; it is an empirically observable lack of something. But to
identify a lack means to discover in the being as it is the should be that points to the removal of
such a lack. Man finds himself to be imperfect both physically and spiritually. In discovering this
imperfection, however, he also discovers what direction he should take to realize his perfection.
This truth is commonly passed over by many contemporary authors who accept as an axiom
the so-called Law of Hume (1711-1776) which affirms the impossibility of deriving moral
judgements from judgements of fact: Having-to-be does not derive from being (you cant derive
ought from is).[196] But mans needy condition is precisely a data of fact (an is) from which a
having to be (an ought) rigorously follows. We are human beings, and this is a fact; but we are
imperfect, and this is also a fact. Consequently, our being-human is not simply a fact: it is a task!
Our end is to realize the potential implicit in our humanity by developing ourselves in the direction
indicated by our humanity. Our indigence, our imperfection, our humanity directs us toward certain
goals, certain finishing lines, if you will, by inclining us toward specific goods.[197]
9. 2. 2. Natural Inclinations
What is man? He is first of all a being something that is. But a rock is also said to be. So
is God said to be. We have to distinguish things beyond mere being. Man, then, is a particular
being of an animal kind. Within this kind, however, man can be even further distinguished by a
specific characteristic: he is a rational animal.
Now, we can recognize in man three types of tendency or inclination: those which are common
to all beings, those which are common only to animals, and those which are specific to man.
A reader who is unfamiliar with classical philosophical terminology might feel perplexed:
What does it mean to speak of tendencies common to all beings? Can an inanimate being a stone
have a tendency?! Modern language creates a problem for us here because expressions such as
tendency or inclination have assumed a mostly psychological connotation. Of themselves,
however, they do not have this sense. They are, rather, derived from the language of physics: tendency
comes from to tend, that is, to draw; inclination comes from to incline, that is, to bend toward a
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direction. The way we are using them here, however, goes beyond the physical. For us, they have a
meta-physical meaning.
First of all, every being tends to continue being according to its own nature. If beings did not
have this tendency, they would not persist. A stone remains identical with itself as long as an external
cause does not interfere to modify it. We could say that in inanimate beings this tendency is a passive,
static inclination.
Animals as beings also have the tendency to persist in being according to their own nature.
However, they realize this inclination in a typically animal way. In common language, we call this
survival instinct. Beyond the inclination to being, animals possess other inclinations proper to
animal kind, such as that of reproduction and, in many species, the care of their young.
As a rational animal, man participates in the inclinations common to all beings and all animals,
but in a specifically human, or rational, manner. The inclination to preserve his being and to procreate
and educate his children are manifested not only at the static or instinctive level, but at the
particularly rational level. Further, in man we find certain specifically human inclinations, such as the
tendency to know the truth (above all, the Supreme Truth) and to live in society.
If, then, we ask what is the good to which all human existence tends, the response must be
sought at the level of human rationality. This answer does not exclude but includes the level of being
an animal. In other words, the preservation of life, procreation, and the education of offspring, the
knowledge of the truth, social life, and all the other ends to which our humanity inclines us are
human goods.
The task inherent in our humanity, therefore, is to pursue the goods to which our humanity
itself is inclined.
9. 2. 3. Mans Ultimate End

In this way, we can come to understand that human goods are ordered to the good of man.
The finalities we discover in our bodies and minds are in their turn finalized by the total good of the
person.
What is this good? It is the perfection of man as such, that is, the state in which we no longer
desire anything because we are fully enjoying the good obtained: complete happiness.
At this point, someone might wonder: So, have we worked our way back to basing the good on
happiness? Didnt we excluded such an idea at the beginning of this journey? In reality, we are not
founding the good on happiness, but rather, authentic happiness on the good! We can do this once we
show that the concept of authentic good is founded on the nature of man.
9. 2. 3. 1. Happiness and the Good
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Undoubtedly, if we had no desire for happiness we wouldnt act at all (cf. 2. 2. 4). We would
have no reason for qualifying anything as good or bad.
To put it in philosophically precise terms, we can say that happiness constitutes the ultimate,
formal motivation of choices, and precisely for this reason cannot itself be the criteria of right choice,
nor can the criteria of right choice be deduced from it. Happiness, the formal end of conduct, cannot
be the rule of conduct.[198]
In other words, everything we want, we want because we desire to be happy. But this does not
mean that the concrete objects of our choices and actions should be considered as mere means to
procure happiness! We do not decide, for example, to help a needy person because it will make us
happy, but because it is good to help him. Certainly, to realize the good means making our lives
good and, hence, happy; nevertheless, good remains an end in itself, something desired and
pursued for itself and not as a means to anything else. It belongs to the category of the virtuous and not
the useful good.
9. 2. 3. 2. Perfect and Imperfect Happiness
Every realization of the good constitutes a partial realization of true happiness. At this point,
however, we run into that disproportion where (to borrow a notion from Pascal) man infinitely
transcends man.[199] This is to say that the human heart is characterized by a thirst for total, absolute
happiness which can never be satisfied by any relative, terrestrial good as are our actions and human
virtues since every relative good, by definition, still leaves room for desire. The absolute, beatific
Good can be nothing other than God alone.[200]
This truth, about which the pages of St. Augustine and many of the mystics overflow, can be
phenomenologically noted by anyone who reflects dispassionately on human existence. Even atheists
and unbelievers catch a glimpse of it. I cannot help thinking of the poet G. Leopardi (1798-1837) who
expressed the feeling of the nullity of all things, the insufficiency of all pleasure to fill the heart, and
our tendency toward an infinite that we do not understand.[201]
Do we conclude, then, that we must believe in the existence of God to understand that rape is
an evil and helping the poor a good? Obviously not. Our study has taken us in the opposite direction:
inquiring into what is good or evil for human beings has lead us to recognize that their supreme good
and perfect happiness is in God!
Certainly, for anyone who refuses the notion of God or, in the spirit of fideism, leaves Him
outside the boundaries of rational knowledge, the desire for happiness is absurd. It comes to be seen
as a kind of curse that impedes the taste for pleasure and leads to disquiet. But isnt this, perhaps, an
intrinsic sanction to remain obstinate and closed to the truth out of self-sufficient pride? Man is made
to know the truth (above all, the highest Truth) with his intelligence and adhere to the true-good
(above all, the highest Good) with his will. When he refuses the truth, he deviates not only from his
own dignity, but also from happiness. The evil of living (to cite the poet Montale), despair with its
train of violence, mental illness, toxic-dependency and suicide all this finds here its essential
motivation.
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Openness to the truth, on the other hand, in keeping with the essential structure of our nature,
disposes us to recognize mans end because it has a certain connaturality with it. Beatitude, says
St. Thomas, is nothing other than the joy that comes from the truth.[202]
Obviously, the revelation of God in Christ opens new horizons at this level while denying
nothing of what has been gained by rational reflection. On the contrary, it helps to clarify it.
The happiness of the wise man who does not know God is the joy that comes from a virtuous
life ordered by reason. It reaches its summit in human friendship and the knowledge of God through
His works. This can be called imperfect beatitude, in contrast with perfect, supernatural
beatitude.[203] But we should note right away that the concept imperfect beatitude is problematic
since with the name of beatitude one means only the perfect good of the intellectual nature. [204]
Imperfect beatitude, then, would be imperfect perfection! We might say that we find ourselves in
front of a dialectical concept, at once full of assertion and negation, inviting us to overcome it.
Undoubtedly, the concept of natural happiness is clearer for us as something proportioned to human
nature. Man can pursue this happiness by his own effort (though not without the help of God), using
his natural faculties correctly to arrive at the knowledge of humanly accessible truth. But the man who
is happy in this way still lacks something. And lets not forget that the natural human faculties are in
a state of habitual disorder because of concupiscence, causing us to stop at transitory goods to the
neglect of the ultimate good.[205]
Perfect beatitude, or beatitude pure and simple, infinitely surpasses the capacities of human
nature, making them only anticipations. Thus, happiness can only be a gift of God, that is,
supernatural. Philosophy can illustrate the desire for and suitability of happiness, but only theology
can describe its essence and modality.
9. 3. The Basis of Human Rights

Our inquiry now stands on solid ground:
Reason grasps as human goods the objects of the inclinations (common and specific)
inscribed on human nature.
9. 3. 1. Nature and Reason

Reason enables us to know the good. To live well, then, means to live according to
reason.[206] But this is not to say that reason draws the value and meaning of things from itself. It
finds the aim of duty, the good, in human nature as a whole: corporeal and spiritual, animal and
rational.
It is nature that inclines us toward the good. But this nature is not a hypothetical stage prior to
the development of society, nor is it simply the animal, biological dimension of the human being.
True, the natural basis of ethics must be sought in the natural inclinations inherent in every
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person. But beware! These natural inclinations should not be confused with spontaneous, subjective
desires or with individual taste.
Natural inclinations are connected first of all with the anatomical structure of the body: the eye
is made for seeing, the digestive system for assimilating food, the genital organs for reproduction, etc.
Our somatic structure bears an intrinsic finality: to survive and propagate the species. At a higher
level, we discover in ourselves the exigency of knowing the truth, forming bonds of friendship, and
living in peace. These finalities or exigencies constitute inclinations whose objects are present to the
reason as goods to pursue, while their contraries (death, extinction of the species, ignorance, enmity,
etc.) are understood as evils to avoid.
Thus, the pursuit of these goods is adequate to and consonant with human existence not
because someone has arbitrarily decided upon them, but because human nature is made in this way.
Obviously, it is reason that grasps this consonance but it is not reason that constitutes it.
9. 3. 2. Human Rights and Their Order
In classical terms, the consonant relationship between a good and a person is called justice. It
is just that a person be allowed to seek and obtain a certain good. He has a right to that good (cf. 6. 2).
And since this does not concern a relationship that is established or put in place by any authority, but
one that is inherent in nature, we can speak of natural justice or a natural right.
This is the foundation of the famous rights of man which contemporary thought exalts but
cannot justify! Man has the right to life and to the integrity of his members because nature inclines
him to the possession of these things. The same can be said for the right to truth, to freedom of
conscience and religious liberty, to the free choice of a state of life, etc. On this basis arise the precepts
of natural law requiring us to respect others rights and avoid whatever is contrary to them (as we will
see in the next chapter).
In the notion of natural right, reason can also apprehend that there exists an order to the
inclinations and the precepts flowing from them. This order is founded ultimately on the fact that the
subject of these inclinations is one, that is, the same person who has the right to life and physical
integrity also has the right to live in society and freely practice his religion. On the basis of this
objective order of inclinations and precepts, it makes no sense to speak of a so-called quality of life
(i.e., comfort, ease, health, etc.) when life itself is at risk. What shall a man give in return for his
life?[207] Moreover, this order tells us that it is also possible to renounce an inferior good (e. g., a
certain food) for a superior good (e. g., to help a friend), etc.
9. 4. Sources of Morality
Clearly, our singular choices (and the concrete actions that follow them) do not have the
beatific good for their object, but rather, singular concrete goods. This is why we are free to choose. In
the face of the absolute Good, our will could not NOT adhere totally; whereas, before a plurality of
relative goods, it is always possible to choose one and refuse another on the basis of our own
estimation and evaluation.
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If we ask ourselves at this point in our inquiry what renders a human act good or bad, we can
already give a response: A good act is one that tends to a human good according to the order of natural
inclinations. But what is our criteria for determining if a good is ordered or not?
Human existence should be considered a succession of acts that have successive character
thanks to a particular subset of acts which permit these different moments to hold together. That is to
say linguistic acts that prepare, represent, and recount action. Now, to describe action, minimally we
need to consider three elements: the objective structure of the act, its motivation, and the
circumstances. These elements are known as the sources of morality because they permit us to
specify the essence of a moral act.
9. 4. 1. The Objective Structure of the Act
The first element required for the qualification of an act is its objective structure: What has
been done? This is an extremely important point that is not always expressed with due clarity.
An action can be described in impersonal terms that consider only its physical aspects (its
ontic elements). For example: Jim draws a banknote from his pocket and hands it to Bob who then
puts it in his pocket.
It is clear that a description of this type tells us almost nothing about the identity of the action
itself! It could be payment if the money is given in exchange for goods; or compensation if it is in
exchange for services rendered; or an act of corruption if it is in exchange for an illicit favor; or a gift
if it is given spontaneously with nothing in return; or an act of extortion if it is given to avoid
blackmail . . .
The mere description of an acts ontic elements does not qualify the acts structure. We know,
in fact, that an act is a human act only when it is voluntary, guided by a chosen action and object. This
means that the human act is always intentional. A description in terms of physical categories (i.e.,
handing-over-a-banknote) does not make an act human if it does not proceed from a will that in the
accomplishment of these movements intends something.
We need to know why Jim gives Bob the banknote: as payment, gift, restitution . . . ? Once we
know, the objective structure of the act as payment or gift or restitution will be revealed. It
would never suffice to mention only the ontic aspects of the act.
The objective structure of an act is its fundamental intentionality, in classical terms, the finis
operis (the aim of the operation). The actions described can be called base intentional-actions. [208]
This constitutes the first level of intention. We can add a further level by asking again, What
for? For example, what does Jim makes this gift for? Is it a gift out of friendship? Is it to fulfill a
social duty? Is it to win over someones sympathies? As we will see, this constitutes what we call the
motive, though others have designated it intention in a stricter sense. Classically, it is known as the
finis operantis (the aim of the acting person).
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In this sense, human acts can be described as means ordered to the attainment of an end. If the
end (the motive) is to win over someones sympathy, the means may be the giving of a gift (base
intentional-action). The money, then, is not a means, but only an ontic element that enters into the base
intentional-actions of the gift, as do the material objects and physical movements that constitute the
action. The means, then, are always human actions defined on the intentional plane: actions that are
chosen, and as such are objects of acts of choice, that is, in as much as they are born from a will
guided by the reason.[209]
We should note right away that there are acts that correspond to the inclinations of human
nature and respect its objective order (e. g., eating), and other acts that oppose these inclinations and
contradict their order (e. g., suicide). Moreover, there are acts that in themselves neither contradict nor
correspond to natural inclinations (e. g., painting). An act, then, must be considered from its
fundamental intentionality as a species of morality that can be good or bad.[210]
9.4. 2. The Motive
To the fundamental intentionality of an act we may add the motive, or finis operantis, which
indicates the interior attitudes or personal finalities that lead a subject to perform one action rather
than another. Motive determines the ultimate finality of an act and allows us to qualify it on the basis
of its fundamental intentionality as a means to obtaining something.
Motives can be good or bad in themselves. Good motives are those that allow man to realize
the end of a virtuous life. Bad motives, on the contrary, subordinate the considerations of a virtuous
life to what is useful or pleasurable.
As we have seen (3. 1. 2), choice is an act of the will directed toward a means. In this
chapter, we have said that intention is an act which tends toward an ulterior end. In reality, these two
elements form one object of action (or one object of the will). We choose to give a gift because we
have the intention of expressing friendship. Hence, the object of the will is one: to-give-a-giftfor-friendship.
Now, since to-choose-a-means-in-view-of-an-end is a single act of the will which constitutes
a unique intentional action, it is understandable why not every means is compatible with every end.
Let us suppose that my intention concerns a just end, for example, to help the poor but I choose to
perform robbery as a means to obtain this end . . . The action taken as a whole is contradictory in
respect to the global end since justice cannot be obtained by an act of injustice!
With this we have arrived at a point of extreme importance for the comprehension of ethical
discourse: An action whose objective structure conflicts with a fundamental human good can never
become good. No motive and no circumstance will ever be able to justify it. To choose a behavior of
this kind is always evil. Killing, stealing, betraying, and lying are a few examples of intrinsically evil
acts which, not respecting the human person in his constitutive nature, can never become good.
If the objective structure of an act is good or indifferent, a good motive will augment the
goodness of the act and make it subjectively good. For example, it is objectively good to help our
neighbor; however, I might have to help a family whose house is burning simply because I am a
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fireman. If I act only according to the obligations imposed on me by my superiors, only caring to keep
my job and without any interest in the people I am helping, I would objectively (or materially) be
doing what is good, but such an action would not enrich me personally nor contribute to making me a
good person. If, on the other hand, my intention includes love for these poor people and concern for
the common good, my action also becomes subjectively (or formally) good. I will then be not only a
good fireman, but a good man.[211]
In the same way, it can happen that an objectively good action becomes subjectively bad if
performed with a bad intention, for example, out of vainglory or hypocrisy.
Thus, if the objective structure of an act is bad, no good motive can modify its intrinsic
badness. Let us take the case of a pregnant woman who is gravely ill and chooses to abort her baby to
save her own life (the so-called therapeutic abortion). The intention may be good, but the objective
structure of the action undertaken is intrinsically bad. Consequently, the act is bad, not only materially,
but also formally, because a person cannot perform direct abortion without wanting to kill the fetus,
that is, without committing voluntary homicide which is always a formally bad act. The end does not
justify the means.
9. 4. 3. The Circumstances
To describe an action fully, we need to take into consideration the elements surrounding the
act, that is, the circumstances. Without modifying fundamental intentionality, circumstances
nevertheless help us to specify and qualify an act more precisely.
In the case of theft, for example, it is clear that the moral gravity of the act will be greater if the
thief is rich rather than poor. Moreover, to steal from a poor man is more serious than to steal from a
rich man. Hence, the identity of the subjects involved is an important circumstance.
Further, to steal an apple is very different from stealing a crown of jewels. Thus, the material
object of the action is also very significant!
We could also consider the place where an action is carried out. Breaking into a house for the
purpose of robbery adds violation of domicile to the crime of theft.
Penal codes attribute particular gravity to associative actions, that is, to those actions in
which two or more people reciprocally assist each other to commit an evil. If a theft is done with the
help of someone, this aspect must also be taken into consideration among the relevant circumstances.
A man can steal because he is hungry, because of a challenge, out of avarice for money . . .
These aspects are normally part of the motive, but they also constitute circumstances which must be
taken into account.
The way an action is performed also makes a difference and must be taken into consideration.
A person can rob others with violence or with cleverness; a theft can happen by force or by
dexterity.
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Lastly, we must take into account the time in which an action is undertaken. Theft is
particularly vile if perpetrated in a house that is in mourning for the death of a loved one . . . [212]
When it concerns bad actions, we also speak of aggravating or attenuating circumstances. But
the moral weight of a good act can also vary depending on circumstances. For example, it is
objectively good to help a needy neighbor, but if this help is particularly difficult the goodness of the
act increases. We should note that an act good in itself can become bad if done in the wrong
circumstances, just as an act indifferent in itself can become good or bad, again depending on the
circumstances.
From what we have just said, I think the meaning of this classical saying should be clear:
Evil results from any single defect, but good from the complete cause [213]
In order that a human act be good, all three elements that characterize it must be good: the
objective structure of the action must be good, or at least indifferent; the circumstances must tend to
the good; and the intention must be good.
If the objective structure of the action is intrinsically bad, no circumstance and no intention can
make it good.
If the motive is bad, even an action that is objectively good in structure and undertaken in
appropriate circumstances becomes bad.
If the circumstances are inappropriate, even an action that is objectively good in structure and
pursued for good motives becomes bad.
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10. The Moral Law

In the preceding chapter, we determined the criterion for distinguishing good (i.e., virtue) from
evil (i.e., vice). Now it remains for us to see how this criterion becomes the rule of conduct by being
transformed into law.
Since the concept of moral law is problematic in contemporary culture, we will begin with a
brief examination of the most prevalent attitudes about it (10.1). After this introduction, we will probe
the essence of moral law (10.2) and then concentrate on the concept of natural moral law and its
dimensions (10.3). Finally, we will cast light on the intrinsic limitations of the law in regard to moral
behavior (10.4).
10. 1. Attitudes toward Law
In our time, ethical discourse, like contemporary language, is recovering the terms law and
legality. This is so despite what could be described as an allergic reaction to such notions that arose
not too many years ago in a climate of protest. One such reaction found theoretical expression in
situation ethics, a moral theory which denies the value of universal norms so as to make the subject
and the situation the only criteria of right action.
Looking beyond ideology for a moment, we can find some justification for a hostile attitude
toward law. In fact, in the not-too-distant past, the importance of human law in moral theory was
emphasized to such a point that ethics became a kind of appendix to law or state theory (see above,
9. 1, Excursus 2, A. 4). That this situation would have provoked such a strong reaction is
understandable. Though unacceptable in substance, theories directed against this notion of law were
motivated by a noble desire to exalt personal freedom and the dignity of the conscience.
Ultimately, however, this effort failed to adequately express the relationship between law and
freedom. If freedom means doing whatever you want, law can have no other aspect than that of an
odious constriction or limitation. For the sake of what or whom is such a limit imposed? Many times
the answer to this question is to be found in the will of the prince, a will unconstrained by law and
free to command whatever it wants and whatever it likes. This scenario is known as
voluntarism (i.e., law as the will of the legislator), a strain of thought traceable from the nominalism
of certain medieval philosophers right up to the juridical positivism of our own time.
We do not understand freedom in this way. On the contrary, we are convinced that true
freedom consists in the capacity to tend to the good without constrictions (cf. 4. 4). From this
perspective, law is not reduced to the arbitrary will of the powerful but places itself at the service of
true freedom and, therefore, personal virtue.
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We have said that law today is making a come back given the open challenge of ethical
questions concerning life, politics, and the economy (to name only a few). We sense the need to
recover the notion of law but we must be very careful. If this recovery takes the direction of
voluntarism and juridical positivism (as is often the case in deontological codices and selfregulation codices), its not too difficult to foresee that the next generation, feeling the weight of law,
will once again wish to shrug it off their backs and return to the self as point of departure.
Consequently, the best way to rediscover the value of law is to rediscover the concept of law.
This is precisely what we will attempt to do in this chapter.
10. 2. The Essence of Moral Law
The concept of law is clearly analogical. We speak of chemical laws and physical laws,
sociological laws, state laws, and Gods laws. . . Clearly, the word law concerns very
different realities. What is the common element in all these uses that allows us to call something a
law? We can say that it is the reference to rules or norms according to which an event happens or
should happen.
However, law for the particular sciences (chemistry, physical, sociology, economics, etc.) is
different from moral law. This is so for two reasons: First of all, scientific laws are partial, that is,
they regard particular aspects and ends and not the global end of human existence. Secondly,
scientific laws do not create a duty in the subject, that is, they do not appeal to a persons free will.
As we have repeated many times, morality is occupied with human acts. What concerns us
here, then, are only those laws that regard human acts. Hence, we can propose a first definition:
Moral law is a kind of rule and measure of human acts.
Throughout our lives, we encounter many kinds of laws, from the juridical ordinances of the
State to those of the Church, from school regulations to those governing our leisure activities, from
codified norms to the unwritten laws on which friendship, family life, and so forth, are based. In all
these instances, law concerns the rule and measure of human acts. But can we consider all these sic et
simpliciter moral laws? Clearly not! We know that we are dealing with an authentic moral law when
it presents the following characteristics:
1. It concerns an order of reason.
2. It is an order directed to the common good.
3. It proceeds from a legitimate authority that guides the community.
4. It is promulgated.
Lets examine each of these points in order; afterward, we will be able to determine the effects of the
law.
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10. 2. 1. Law as Rational Order

We know that moral acts bear the specific imprint of humanity: rationality (see 3. 1). It
belongs to the reason, in fact, to order actions to their proper end. Consequently, the moral law, as the
rule and measure of human acts, must be of the rational order.
St. Thomas affirms that the law is something that pertains to reason (aliquid rationis)[214]
and specifies that it concerns a universal proposition of the practical reason aimed at directing action.
We can make this clear with an example: A man in difficulty asks for my help. I recognize that
it is my duty to help him. But I also recognize that in this concrete situation this specific man, with
his specific difficulty, requesting help specifically from me I am in front of a form that is realized
not only here and now, but always and everywhere whenever someone asks for help. I am aware of an
appeal to the realization of a value that can be rationally formulated in a universal proposition: We
should always help someone in difficulty. Following Aristotle, St. Thomas speaks of action as the
result of a practical syllogism (syllogismus in operabilibus) in which the law serves as a premise
alongside a description of a concrete situation. The logic of practical reasoning can be schematized
thus:
a) We should always help a neighbor in difficulty.
b) This man in difficulty is now asking for my help.
c) I must help this man now.
Conclusion c of this argument (which in the next chapter we will describe as the judgement of
conscience) arises from the application of the universal proposition a, which constitutes the law, to
the particular and concrete situation b.
In maintaining that law is of the rational order, we do not mean to exclude the role of the will;
in fact, if the reason succeeds in moving a person to act, it does so by virtue of the will.[215] We want
to be clear, however, that the laws formal aspect derives from the practical reason and not the will.
This is because the will cannot be the rule and measure of its own acts. Speaking metaphorically, we
can say that reason without will is paralytic, while will without reason is blind. A blind man cannot
find the road, and a paralytic cannot follow it.
10. 2. 2. Law and the Common Good

Reasons task, then, is to formulate a universal proposition that serves as a rule for action. This
constitutes the formal element of the law. But if we stop there, we fall into the Kantian error of
holding the law as an empty form, deprived of material content (cf. 9. 1, Excursus 2, A. 3). We would
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content ourselves with defining law as an order of the reason, but without understanding from where
and to where the reason orders us to move. This is the great question of the material element of the
law.
If, as we have seen (2. 2. 4), every action is in view of an end a good the laws task is to
indicate the right relationship between human actions and the ends of the virtuous life.
Man is a person, that is, an individual-in-relation. His social, political nature indicates that he
cannot reach his end, his true good, except with other people, in community. By devoting himself to
the realization of his authentic good, a person at the same time realizes the good of his community.
Vice versa, pledging himself to the good of the community, a person also realizes his own personal
good.
The community, in fact, is more than the simple sum of individuals who comprise it.
Community is essentially characterized by the order that reigns between the parts in view of the end to
be reached. As we have already shown, in ethics the end is configured as the good. Thus, the
common good is something more than the simple sum of goods for individuals in a community. It is
that to which all individual goods tend in an ordered way.
Now, since the law says order-to-the-good, this must necessarily mean also the common good.
10. 2. 3. Law and Legitimate Authority
If the law is concerned with ordering things to the common good, it must proceed from the
subject of the common good, that is, from the community or from someone who legitimately exercises
the function of caring for the community.
This idea might seem rather banal, but it can help us understand better the relationship between
rationality and law. Certainly, we could say that every rational being is a law unto himself, that he is
autonomous. But this autonomy can be meant in two completely different ways.
For some, autonomy means that an individuals reason operates as an independent, absolute,
regulating principle. Such autonomy would clearly lead to anarchy and chaos in short, the
destruction of the community.
On the contrary, the principle of autonomy must be understood in the sense that each person,
by virtue of his reason, is called to direct himself toward the good life in such a way as to participate
freely in the attainment of the common good. He is further called to a better understanding of that
good and the order that serves it. Into this realm enters both the activity of the legislator and the
obligatory critique of the order constituted by law a critique that must be exercised by every
competent citizen to keep watch over any possible discord with the common good and to collaborate
in the working out of solutions.
10. 2. 4. The Laws Promulgation
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It is evident that an unknown precept cannot obligate.

Juridical obligation follows a formal act of promulgation, that is, when the law is inserted into
the official body of ordinances.
Moral obligation, however, is linked with the complex dynamic of conscience (which we will
examine in chapter 11). In this sense, the law must be interiorized within the moral experience of the
subject, while its content must appear in the light of the fundamental principle to do good and avoid
evil.
10. 2. 5. Effects of the Law
The effect of the moral law of a law that is really worthy of the name is to make men good,
that is, to make them virtuous.
As we said in chapter 4, virtue is characterized by full submission to reason. The law is
precisely an instruction addressed to reason to help it regulate action.
This matters as much for the individual as for society. The individual is virtuous when all his
faculties tend harmoniously to the good under the guidance of legislating reason. Society is virtuous
when all its components tend harmoniously to the common good under the guidance of the legislator.
The legislator of the common good, then, must show a superior degree of virtue in a more profound
submission to the dictate of right practical reason for the common good.
10. 3. The Natural Law
Its very important to keep repeating that reason, not being an absolute principle, does not
create the moral law according to its own pleasure. From the inclinations written in human nature
itself, reason discovers the good as an end and formulates the law on the basis of this end. We have
defined just (iustum) or right (ius) as an ordered relation to an appropriate good that is consonant
with human existence and man himself (9. 3). Its up to reason to recognize this consonance and
formulate it in a practical, universal proposition. Thus, we can say that:
Law is the rational formulation of a right.[216]
If a right derives not from man but from nature (e.g., the right to life), its rational formulation is
known as natural law (e.g., Do not kill). If, however, a right derives from human beings on the
basis of convention (e.g., the right to elect representatives in assembly), its rational formulation is
known as human positive law (e.g., an electoral law).
10. 3. 1. Precepts of the Natural Law
At this point, we should recall what we said in the previous chapter concerning natural rights
and their order (9. 3. 2). Since what is good has the aspect of an end, practical reason naturally
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apprehends as good to do everything for which man has a natural inclination and evil to avoid
everything which is contrary to him. For this reason:
According to the order of natural inclinations is the order of the precepts of natural
law.[217]
We have seen that the natural inclinations are an ordered system of relations harmoniously
directed toward mans good.
Inclinations inscribed in irrational animals are activated in an unconscious way and do not
constitute true and proper laws. Wolves raise their young spontaneously following the law of
nature within them and certainly not the moral law! In man, however, reason grasps what is just in an
inclination and, on this basis, formulates a natural moral law: Parents should take care of their
children. This law holds even for a parent who has no spontaneous parental feeling. It is valid
because it is inscribed in human nature and, by virtue of its rationality, it must be respected.
We have already spoken of mans three inherent, natural inclinations: the preservation of his
being (common to all substances), the preservation of his species (common to all animals), and the
inclination to knowledge of the truth and social life (specific to man). Such inclinations have moral
relevance in so far as they are recognized and commanded by the reason.[218]
However, as regards the common inclinations of animals, reason can begin with the material
and corporeal indications of anatomically defined organs. For example, the anatomy and physiology of
the human body tells us that nature has ordered sexual relations to take place between a man and a
woman (i.e., heterosexual, not homosexual or auto-erotic sexual activity). The natural right
indicated by these inclinations has a stability and universality dependent on the biological structure of
man. We can say that this structure manifests the material element of the natural law, while the
intervention of reason expresses its formal element.
On the other hand, those inclinations which are specific to man lack these somatic indications
and reveal mans spiritual dimension (i.e., his intelligence and will) which tends to knowledge of the
truth and social life.
Clearly, within the order of precepts based on the order of inclinations, higher levels
presuppose inferior levels. The preservation of being, for instance, is the foundation of every value
and necessarily presupposed in every well-being. But this does not concern a simple juxtaposition of
levels. As we know (cf. 8. 3, Excursus 1), the human person is not a body in which a spirit dwells.
On the contrary, man is a substantial unity of material and spiritual principles. The spiritual principle
(i.e., the rational soul) gives unity to the composite and makes it a human being.
As a rational, spiritual animal, man has certain inclinations specific to him. At the same time,
he assumes all the functions and perfections of vegetative and sensitive souls, as well as inclinations of
a generic nature. This does not constitute a mere overlapping of powers, but a true and proper
transfiguration of the inferior powers by those that are superior.[219]
At this point, it should be clear to us what is meant by the statement, According to the order
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of natural inclinations is the order of the precepts of natural law. There is a hierarchical order among
the inclinations and, thus, between the precepts of the natural law: The hierarchy consists in the fact
that one function serves another in the measure in which the spirit regulates them. [220]
We can understand, then, the meaning of the affirmation that appears so often in St. Thomas:
The good of man is to be in accord with reason.[221] The term reason in this statement has two
senses:
a. a gnoseological sense by which we can affirm that man, reflecting on his own inclinations,
discovers what goods he should pursue and deduces in a rational way the precepts of the
natural law which tell him what means he should use to reach these ends;
b. an ontological sense, since reason is at the base of this activity as that which specifically
differentiates man from all the other animals.
To live according to reason, then, does not mean simply that the precepts of action must be
deduced in a formally correct way, but above all, that human beings live in a way that conforms to the
exigencies of their human existence and its perfection.
10. 3. 2. Universality and Immutability of the Natural Law
Is the natural law one and valid for every person in every age? Or does it change according to
epochs, individuals, and socio-cultural contexts?
The concept itself of natural law as a law inscribed in human nature would indicate that
wherever you find human beings the same and identical law applies to everyone.
However, history and cultural anthropology illustrate an extreme variety of uses and costumes,
enough to cast doubt on the conviction that the same moral law is valid for everyone. We can be
scandalized today by a practice that was commonly accepted a few centuries ago, for example, slavery
or the use of torture. On the other hand, the people of the Middle Ages would be scandalized by the
way our banks lend money at interest a practice they considered absolutely illicit. We could multiply
examples.
Moreover, these objections stand on even more radical foundations. Certain currents of
thought, as old as nominalism and as recent as existentialism, deny the existence of a nature
common to all men and, consequently, any moral law that would depend on such a nature.
We must ask ourselves, then, if there is a nature common to all men and if it is mutable or
perennial (10. 3. 2. 1). Having settled this, we will then consider in what way the natural law can be
said to change (10. 3. 2. 2).
10. 3. 2. 1. The Unity and Mutability of Human Nature
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It is the task of philosophical anthropology to show the unity of human nature.[222] For our
purposes, I will merely point out that even a child watching animated cartoons not only readily
distinguishes Charlie Brown from Snoopy and Woodstock, but also recognizes that Charlie Brown is a
human being like Lucy and Linus, while Snoopy is a dog like Pluto and Woodstock is a bird like
Tweety. On the basis of their sensible form alone, each of these characters is presented to us with
immediate clarity as belonging to determined species different from all other species. Each individual
is perceived not only according to his own individuality, but also according to his own species which,
in turn, comprehends other individuals. We will call this specific determination of individuals
nature.
It is clear, therefore, that there is such a thing as human nature by virtue of which we call
human anyone who manifests specific, characteristic properties, relations, and operations that we
can each perceive in ourselves. Natural law is founded on this human nature.
But at this point another problem opens up: Is human nature immutable, or can it change? The
question arises because we can observe that man, unlike animals, is a being capable of history and of
culture. This is to say that man can consciously modify his own vital ambiance and, consequently,
himself. While horses are born, live, and die today as they did five thousand years ago, men of the
computer age think and act differently from those who lived in the age of the printing press . . . not to
mention the great divide that separates us from the men of the stone age!
This fact has caused some thinkers to maintain that human nature itself is changeable, that
there does not exist anything fixed and stable, and that everything in man is open to change. On the
basis of this, they deduce that everything in the moral law is mutable and there is no such thing as a
permanent precept. At its very foundations, this is a manifestly absurd thesis for at least two reasons:
1. We have said that man is capable of history because he has the capacity to change. Now,
this capacity itself is founded on certain immutable characteristics of human nature which
persist despite the changes man experiences. Without these elements, man could not change at
all! Briefly put, mans power to change is itself founded on the unchanging characteristics of
human nature.
2. That we can even speak of history and evolution implies a permanent subject who
remains identical to himself throughout history. Certainly, man has changed since Paleolithic
times but he is always man!
We can conclude, then, that natural law contains both permanent and mutable elements, but
what is subject to change touches only the accidental and not the substantial aspects of the human
being.
10. 3. 2. 2. Mutability of Some Precepts of the Natural Law
The natural law requires that we act according to reason. Thus, following its own proper
procedure, reason passes from the knowledge of common principles to their consequences. We see
here an important difference between the speculative and practical realms.
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Speculative reason is occupied principally with necessary realities which cannot be otherwise.
For this reason, in the speculative field, the truth contained in the principles passes without alteration
to the conclusions. For instance:
1) The sum of the internal angles of a plane triangle are equal to 180.
2) The angles A and B of this triangle equal 50 each.
3) Therefore, angle C of this triangle necessarily equals 80.
There are no exceptions in this kind of reasoning.
Practical reason, however, concerns human action, which is not necessary, but contingent.
Certainly, here also reason begins with common necessary principles: the first principle it is
necessary to do the good and the precepts that follow immediately from the natural inclinations.
However, the closer we get to reality, the more the necessity of these principles is thrown into crisis.
Human actions, in fact, are contingent, not only in regard to their ground, which depends on an act of
the free will, but also in regard to their value, to the form they assume for moral judgement. [223]
Because human actions are concrete and develop in changing circumstances, exceptions are
possible. St. Thomas affirms:
That which is natural to one whose nature is unchangeable, must needs be such always and
everywhere. But mans nature is changeable, wherefore that which is natural to man may
sometimes fail. Thus the restitution of a deposit to the depositor is in accordance with natural
equality, and if human nature were always right, this would always have to be observed; but
since it happens sometimes that mans will is unrighteous there are cases in which a deposit
should not be restored, lest a man of unrighteous will make evil use of the thing deposited: as
when a madman or an enemy of the common weal demands the return of his weapons.[224]
What is at issue here is an inherent alteration of the content of the law. The truth or rightness
of the precept that commands restitution no longer holds in this situation because human nature has
changed by reason of a defect consequent to the depravation of the will. Obviously, there are some
limits to this mutability. Human nature has a stable, perennial nucleus that is expressed by the first
common principles. On the basis of this immutable nucleus, exceptions can be recognized. We could
say that, at bottom, you shouldnt return a weapon to a dangerous person because such an act would be
irrational, that is, contrary to the natural law!
The common first principles of natural law, then, are immutable. They do not admit exceptions
and are recognized by everyone. However, the conclusions derived and deduced from these common
principles, even beyond the fact that they can vary on occasion, are not acknowledged equally by
everyone. For example, Julius Caesar noted that the ancient Germans did not consider robbery
something manifestly contrary to the natural law a criminal act.[225] In cases like this, the truth or
rectitude of the precept is not at fault, but the knowledge certain men have of it. The explanation for
such deficiency is again ascribable to the depravity of human nature since in some the reason is
perverted by passion, or evil habit, or an evil disposition of nature . . .[226]
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St. Thomas tells us that nothing can erase the universal principles of the natural law from the
human heart. They are habitually present in the practical intellect (as we will see in 11. 2. 1. 1). But it
can sometimes happen that the reason is impeded from applying these principles to particular cases
because of concupiscence or passion. In this sense, we can speak of the erasure of the natural law
due to fallacious reasoning or habitually corrupt behavior.
10. 3. 3. Relationship between Natural Law and Human Law
We have often repeated that human nature, by virtue of its rationality, inclines toward social
life. Hence, the exigency of organizing society around the common good derives from human nature
itself. Herein lies the natural foundation of mans legislative activity.
In every society there must be someone, an individual or collegial body, who has the task of
guiding the community and, consequently, promulgating specific laws by which communal life can
realize its end, the common good.
With his habitual realism, St. Thomas considers this exigency also from what we might call a
pedagogical point of view. We have said that by nature man is inclined to the good. At the same time,
however, we are all affected by concupiscence and the passions. Hence, we must practice discipline in
order to bring the passions under the guidance of right reason. For those who possess good natural
endowments and the support of a good environment, paternal counsel is discipline enough. On the
other hand, those inclined to bad behavior require something that will keep them away from evil by
force or fear so that they do no harm to themselves and others:
Now this kind of training, which compels through fear of punishment, is the discipline of laws.
Therefore in order that man might have peace and virtue, it was necessary for laws to be
framed: for, as the Philosopher says as man is the most noble of animals if he be perfect in
virtue, so is he the lowest of all, if he be severed from law and righteousness; because man
can use his reason to devise means of satisfying his lusts and evil passions, which other
animals are unable to do.[227]
Here again it is affirmed that the natural law requires living according to reason because mans
perfection and happiness depend upon it. To abdicate this task means to reduce human and social
existence to a state worse than that of animals since animals are at least passively guided by the
ineluctable laws inscribed in their nature. Man is furnished with the light of reason for his own
guidance and that of those entrusted to him.[228] The natural law, then, imposes the making of laws.
Does this mean that every human law derives from natural law? In principle, they should. Law,
in fact, should manifest the just relations expressed in natural law, according to right reason:
Consequently every human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of
nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of
law.[229]
This derivation is realized concretely in two very different ways:
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a. In some cases, a necessary conclusion can be deduced from the principles of natural law. For
example, from the principle do not kill, it follows that whoever kills must be punished by
society.
b. In other cases, a relatively free estimation can be reached which is then subject to change
according to historical/social circumstances, for example, how a particular society punishes
murderers (prison time, kind of imprisonment, etc.).
Determinations of the second type have only the force of human law and vary among different
legal systems. Those of the first type, however, preserve something of the vigor of natural law.
Human law is less extended than natural law and cannot prohibit all the things that natural law
prohibits. Nonetheless, as St. Augustine notes, because it does not do all things, it does not thereby
follow that what it does do is to be condemned.[230]
Moreover, as we saw a few lines up, the natural law remains immutable in its first principles
and their immediate consequences. Human law, on the other hand, is changeable because it suffers the
imperfection of practical human reason. Also, to the degree it contains particular precepts, it is bound
to change in relation to circumstances.[231]
10. 3. 4. Natural Law and Eternal Law
We have said many times that human reason does not create value, but discovers it in
reality. It grasps the order of the natural inclinations and the order of the precepts of the natural law
corresponding to them. Now, if man did not create this order, who did? There must be an ordering
reason that is the rule and measure of all things, a criteria of order independent of everything (i.e.,
absolute) and on which everything depends. This reality is what everyone calls God.
Gods rational plan, the project on the basis of which He orders and governs everything, is
called the eternal law. On the basis of this plan, God provides that each creature can reach the end
proper to it, that is, the good.
Now, this project is realized in everything. If, therefore, we find in things natural inclinations
on the basis of which they tend in an ordered way to their end, this happens in virtue of the eternal law.
All creatures participate in the eternal law by their orientation to their respective ends. The
kind of participation changes, however, when we consider the rational creature in whom there is a true
similitude with divine providence. A rational creature is led by divine providence in a special,
excellent way. While irrational beings remain the passive objects of divine providence, human
beings can participate as active subjects. God provides for man by endowing him with reason so that
he can provide for himself and his neighbor.
The plan on the basis of which God exercises his Providence is eternal law. The plan on the
basis of which man must provide for himself and those entrusted to him is natural law.
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It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creatures
participation of the eternal law.[232]
10. 4. The Laws Limits
Understood in this way, law does not rule over the moral life. It is, rather, an instrument at the
service of the person in view of the good life. From this perspective, we can also understand the
obligation that law entails.
It is clear that we are bound to obey the law in so far as it points the way toward the common
good. But when a law is unjust, we are morally obligated to disobey it. Also, it is possible for a person
to be excused from obedience to a just law. And sometimes the letter of the law must be disobeyed for
the sake of something better. Lets examine these situations in order.
10. 4. 1. Unjust Law
Law enacted by human authority does not have so vast and profound a reach as moral law.
Nonetheless, it has the task of assuring the common good by recognizing the defense of fundamental
human rights, the promotion of peace, and the care of those conditions which permit anyone who so
wishes to live as he should (cf. 6. 2).
For this to happen, civil law must be in harmony with natural law, and hence, with eternal law.
When, however, human law opposes right reason, it is for that very reason unjust and, consequently,
deprived of juridical validity.
Clearly, a laws juridical validity (from the Latin: iuridica) derives from a right (ius, iuris),
while a law that is unjust (from the Latin: in = not and iustum = just, an adjective derived from the
substantive ius, iuris) is, by definition, a law that violates a right and, hence, has no juridical validity.
Lets think for a moment of those human laws which have erred in regard to the fundamental
and primordial right to life, a right belonging to every person, for example, those laws concerning
abortion and euthanasia, which have legalized the deliberate killing of innocent human beings. These
laws are in total and irrational contradiction with the inviolable right to life of every person, thereby
negating the notion of equality before the law.
Not only are we not obligated to obey laws of this kind, we are positively bound to disobey
them. Minimally, we can object in conscience to these laws and seek to limit the damage deriving
from them.
10. 4. 2. Exceptions to the Law

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In special circumstances, and for a certain period of time, a person can be exempt from
obedience to a just law. To determine the validity of such a case, we need to keep two factors in mind:
first, the reason for requesting such exoneration from the law, and second, the type of law it concerns.
In regards to the first factor, common sense recognizes the truth of the classical saying: No
one is bound by the impossible (ad impossibilia nemo tenetur). In the context of our discussion, this
means that a person can be exempted from the law if it is impossible for him to keep it. This
impossibility can be of two kinds: physical, or moral.
a) Physical impossibility occurs when an impediment takes from someone whatever possibility
he has of fulfilling the law, for example, when mechanical failure takes the controls away from
an airline pilot such that he cannot save the lives of his passengers, or when a man is gravely ill
and cannot fulfill his work obligations, etc.
b) Moral impossibility occurs when observance of the law, though possible, requires an
excessively burdensome effort. For example, it is not absolutely impossible to go to work with
a fever of 38 centigrade, but it is difficult and risky. Or, to take a different kind of case, it is
not absolutely impossible to correct all the errors in a typed manuscript, but in reality no one
can do so perfectly.
Physical impossibility exempts from any kind of law. Modern psychology teaches us that
inhibitions and psychological conditioning, when they are really and gravely pathological, are to be
considered in this light.
While Moral impossibility does not exempt us from the negative precepts of the natural law, it
can exempt us from a positive precept. To clarify this point we must examine the different types of law
with which we have to deal.
As regards the second factor, we cannot be morally exempt from obedience to laws that
express essential exigencies of the human being. If this could happen, it would mean that we can be
exempt from being human! These laws from which we can never be exempted are precepts of the
natural law expressed in a negative form, that is, as prohibitions (e.g., do not lie, do not steal,
etc.). Prohibitions, in fact, mark the extreme limit beyond which moral value is shattered. On the other
hand, precepts expressed in positive form (e.g., always tell the truth, give alms, etc.) set no limits.
They point behavior in a certain direction and allow for exceptions. In classical terms, we would say
that prohibitions oblige us always and in every situation (semper et pro semper), while positive
prohibitions always oblige us, but not in every situation (semper, sed non pro semper). Compare the
negative precept do not lie with the positive precept always tell the truth. If I have a secret, and
someone interrogates me about it, I certainly cannot lie, but neither do I have to tell the truth. It is
enough for me to remain silent! Whoever is silent does not tell the truth but he doesnt lie either.
10. 4. 3. Epikia (Equity)
Moral theories of a juridical kind are greatly embarrassed by these evident limits connected to
the essence of law itself. How can we establish a body of norms to determine in what circumstances a
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concrete subject can be exonerated from the observance of a particular norm?

Historically, in the modern epoch, this has lead to two sorts of approaches. On the one hand,
law is formulated with extreme meticulousness in an attempt to include every possible eventuality
within it (hypertrophy of the law). On the other hand, rather than departing from law to find the
life-world, numerous examples of moral cases are collected so that the world, rather than law,
serves as the point of departure. In this approach, a situation and a moral dilemma are described,
leading to the resolution of the problem in the light of law (casuistic).
But these efforts, though meritorious, fell apart on both fronts since law is by nature destined to
remain an indication of a general character, while the life-world in which concrete human actions take
place manifests a complexity of ever new, unrecorded facets.
In reality, all these approaches manifest the impotence of law when it is separated from virtue.
To rightly understand the moral obligation contained in the law and to grasp its appeal in a given
situation, a person must be habitually well disposed toward the good. Clearly, this is the work of
virtue. The classical tradition gave the name equity to the specific virtue that permits the right
interpretation and application of the law. In the technical language of moralists, equity preserves the
Greek term epikia with which Aristotle introduced it.
The law, general by nature, needs to be corrected and completed according to the equity of the
one interpreting it.
Equity as we know (6. 3) is an aspect of justice.[233] Among other things, it permits the
interpretation of norms according to justice and common usefulness. This can lead to an authorization
to abandon the letter of the code in order to better fulfill its spirit.
A good example of this is Jesus attitude concerning the Sabbath laws. In the face of detractors
who reproved him for transgressing the commandment because he cured (work!) on the day of rest,
Jesus responded: I ask you: is it licit on the Sabbath day to do good or to do evil, to save life or to
take it?[234] Clearly, the commandment was given to do good; consequently, to cure someone (a
good) on the Sabbath day does not violate the spirit of the precept even if, in fact, it violates the letter:
The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.[235]
But this doesnt only mean that in specific cases a person is not obliged by a certain law. It also
means that in other cases a person can be obligated to do something even if the laws actual
formulation does not impose it on him.
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11. Conscience
Lets review for a moment the route we have traversed so far. In chapter 1, we said that ethics
asks how we should act, or better, how we should be to fully realize our personality in a way worthy of
our humanity. To respond to this question, we examined our moral experience. As we have seen, these
experiences are characterized by among other things a judgement about behavior expressing
approval or disapproval of certain acts or types of conduct which are held to be worthy or unworthy of
man (chapter 2).
The successive stages of our journey were dedicated to the study of voluntary behavior
(chapter 3) and virtue as a habitus that perfects our personality, leading us to a good and happy life
(chapters 4-8).
We then entered into an inquiry on the foundation of morality, that is, on the criteria that allow
us to qualify a certain kind of behavior as good or bad (chapter 9). We then saw how law makes this
criteria the rule of our conduct (chapter 10).
At the same time, we noted that law, because of its universality, always remains at a certain
distance, so to speak, from concrete action. In classical terms, this is described as the remote rule of
human action. We must now inquire how the universal plane of law and the concrete plane of behavior
necessarily interact. In other words, we must take a look at conscience as the proximate rule of human
action.
As we proceed, we should remember that law, conscience, and virtue are closely intertwined,
as St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) tells us:
Human acts are regulated by two principles: a proximate rule and a remote rule. The remote
rule, or the material rule, is divine law; the proximate rule, or formal rule, is the conscience. In
fact, the conscience, on the one hand, must conform itself in everything to the divine law; on
the other hand, it must make us aware of the goodness or evil of human acts in as much as
these are apprehended by conscience, as St. Thomas teaches . . . : The human act is judged
virtuous or vicious on the basis of the known good to which the will tends, and not according
to the material object of the act.[236]
11. 1. Anthropological Value of the Moral Conscience
In our outline of the phenomenology of moral experience (2.1), we identified in ourselves an
activity of judgement which expresses approval (e.g., admiration, self-gratification) or disapproval
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(e.g., scandal, remorse) of certain kinds of behavior. Now, the existence of an activity in a person
indicates that the same person has the capacity to fulfill such an activity. The capacity to which I refer
is commonly called conscience.
Nevertheless, we would greatly impoverish the reality we are describing if we reduced it
merely to the act of judgement. The conscience is much more. In the fullest sense, conscience is the
organ of moral experience, the place where we stand before ourselves, where we are aware of our
identity as unique and unrepeatable subjects. Conscience puts us in rapport with ourselves (cf. 1. 1; 2.
2).
In this experience, we perceive that our existence is not simply a given (I am this way), but
also a task (I must be, I must become . . .). We discover that what we are indicates a path to travel, a
task to take up the germ of a plan that must grow and bear fruit (cf. 9. 2). We discover a project
inscribed deep within us which we did not assign to ourselves, a project that puts us in relation with
other people living experiences analogous to ours. We feel responsible for others, and this feeling
gives rise to the experience of moral obligation (cf. 2. 2. 4; 10. 3. 4).
The conscience is the place where man feels simultaneously called to do good and avoid evil;
where he seeks the specific and operative content of this good and this evil; where he is
accompanied and conditioned in his inquiry by education and ideas assimilated since
childhood; where he decides freely for one direction or another and experiences joy in the
performance of the good or remorse for having done evil.[237]
Our whole personality: our intelligence, our will as the capacity of self-determination, our memory,
our feelings, our emotions . . . our whole being is involved in this human reality known as
conscience. It reveals itself, then, as the authentic center of the person, that which biblical
language has denominated the heart.
It is the role of the conscience to response to the moral questions: How should we act? How
should we be? What is good and what is evil? At the same time, we cannot insist enough on
consciences essentially receptive character. It doesnt create the good; it can only discover it,
become aware of it and make it explicit.
In synthesis, we can say:
The conscience is the awareness of our own identity and our own duty deriving from our
openness to the world, others, and God.
11. 2. The Judgement of Conscience

Conscience, therefore, is a marvelous and very complex anthropological reality. It cannot be
reduced only to the capacity of formulating moral judgements. Nevertheless, the formulation of such
judgements is one of its most important tasks, so much so that sometimes the term conscience is
taken to mean simply moral judgement.[238]
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We must now consider this last point, though we will do so correctly only if we remember that
it concerns a partial aspect of a partial question.[239]
Lets ask ourselves, then, how a judgement on the good or evil of a concrete action actually
comes into being. In this regard, some terminology will be helpful. In classical terms, the faculty of
formulating a moral judgement is called the potential conscience, while the judgement that is
formulated is called the actual conscience. We will examine these two terms in order.
11. 2. 1. Potential Conscience
We can formulate judgements because we have specific criteria, that is, rules, norms,
parameters, concepts, or intuitions on the basis of which we make a judgement.
From where does this criteria come? A common response is that it comes from the culture in
which we are educated. But this answer is too simplistic. Certainly, culture and education are very
important in the formation of conscience since they carry and transmit moral knowledge (11. 2. 1. 2).
There is, however, a level even deeper than this, a fundamental level that is classically called
synderesis. Without synderesis, moral education (and moral experience as such) would not be
possible; thanks to synderesis, we can even critique the moral knowledge transmitted to us.
11. 2. 1. 1. Synderesis
We judge something on the basis of certain premises. In themselves, premises can be
demonstrated on the basis of other premises, which can be demonstrated on the basis of still other
premises, and so forth. But this process cannot continue into infinity. At some point, there must be
some first, undemonstrable premises which are recognized by the intellect, not through a rational,
discursive process, but by immediate intuition.
These premises are called self-evident (cf. 1. 3. 4), that is, they are known in themselves and
not because of something else. They are propositions in which the predicate is implied in the notion of
the subject. For example, if I understand the notions all and part, I cannot help but admit that the
whole is greater than the part.
But the concepts all and part are certainly not the first objects of our knowledge.
In the theoretical order, which concerns speculative knowledge and the contemplation of
reality, the first object known is being and the first principle recognized is that of non-contradiction,
which is based on the notion of being and not-being: It is impossible that the same thing, under the
same aspect and at the same time, be and not be. This first principle and other such self-evident
principles are an habitual possession of the mind.
In the practical order, the order of the moral conscience, the first object is the good. But
implied in the notion of the good is the predicate to do good. The first principle of the practical
order, then, is:
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Do good and avoid evil.
In fact, the notion good means what all things desire. Hence, it is the good which must be
accomplished or obtained to fulfill our being.
By its very nature, this first principle of the practical order is empty, that is, it does not tell us
what the good is or what should be done. Nevertheless, it is a principle that everyone indubitably
and undeniably recognizes. To say that it is undeniable, however, does not mean that it cannot be
negated in words, but rather, that it is impossible to negate it conceptually without contradicting
oneself. Verbally, someone could say, We must do what is evil, but if you ask this person to explain
why we must do what is evil, he would be forced to say, Because it is good to do so!
This first principle is followed by others with more content though less noted and more often
put into doubt, for example, everyones rights must be respected, or we must not do to others what
we do not want done to ourselves, etc.
Scholastic philosophers gave the name synderesis to the habitual possession of first
principles in the practical order. Synderesis is a habitus of the practical intellect. As such, its function
is not exclusively cognitive since its task is not only to inform about good and evil, but also to
incite to good, and to murmur at evil.[240]
11. 2. 1. 2. Moral Knowledge
These first principles are joined to the moral knowledge that each individual gains by
experience, as well as that which peoples and communities elaborate and transmit in their culture. At
issue is the whole collection of values, virtues, norms, rules, laws, customs, and moral codes that
comprise what we call an ethos.
Clearly, having had different experiences and coming from different cultures, human beings
also have different kinds of moral awareness.
There are those who have broader moral knowledge and those who whose scope is more
narrow. Such vastness is first of all the fruit of study, reading, travel, and human contacts. Some
people have a profound moral knowledge, while others remain at a superficial level. It depends above
all on a persons lived experience and the degree to which he has reflected and meditated on that
experience.
We must, however, underline the importance of instruction and the guidance of others in
learning values and moral norms. This is essential, above all in the formative years of life (lasting
somewhat longer today than in the past), and should tend toward the formation of people capable of
autonomously formulating their own judgements. At the same time, this autonomy cannot be intended
presumptuously, as if a person can proceed only from his own opinions, excluding the possibility that
others, wiser and better people than himself, can show him a better way. To grow in moral knowledge,
we must be humble and open to dialogue (cf. 1. 3). It is here that culture and the ethos of a people play
their role, serving the formation of conscience by an extension and deepening of moral knowledge.
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We must be very attentive in this area since errors insinuate themselves very easily. The history
of moral thought offers us plenty of examples. In some cultures of the past, the majority of people
believed human sacrifice or slavery were licit. Today, abortion and contraception are believed to be
licit . . . The error, as we have seen (10. 3. 2), derives first of all from the characteristics of practical
reasoning, which deals with concrete actions formulated in changeable circumstances where
exceptions can be confused for rules, etc. But it can also depend, as often happens, on the pride and
concupiscence of human beings who voluntarily blind themselves to the exigencies of the good in
order to follow their own disordered desires.
We should be cognizant, therefore, that moral knowledge does not involve only the intellect,
but the whole man, that is, his concrete behavior and personal realization. For this reason (among
others), discussions about morality are often carried out with such ardor and passion that they can
obscure lucidity of judgement.
11. 2. 2. Actual Conscience
The possession of synderesis and moral knowledge, though a necessary condition for the act of
conscience, is still not the act itself. The conscience is said to act only when it takes a position
concerning an action that has been or is about to be undertaken, judging this action as good or bad.
This judgement consists in the application of general principles habitually present in the conscience to
a concrete situation.
Evidently, several currents come together in the judgement of conscience: the principles of
synderesis, moral knowledge, the subjects virtues, and his awareness of the situation. It is
understandable, therefore, that the judgement of conscience can err. There are two sources of such
error. The first arises from mistaken moral convictions:
Example 1 In the past, many peoples approved human sacrifice.
The second comes from poor knowledge of the concrete situation:
Example 2 A judge in a tribunal forms the conviction that the accused is a thief. He
condemns him, though in reality the man is innocent.
When an error of knowledge arises, the action that follows this judgement is in itself bad while
the person who performs the action is not necessarily bad. In Example 2, for instance, the judge does
everything to ascertain the truth but, in all honesty, becomes invincibly convinced of the guilt of the
accused. He is not a bad judge, then, if he condemns the man. His action is bad at a material level, but
not at a formal level. This is to say that he does wrong (condemning an innocent man) without wanting
to do wrong, but rather, wanting to do good (he believes he is condemning a thief an act of justice).
Hence, he is not himself bad.
Analogously, in Example 1, a man, one of a people who practiced human sacrifice, educated
from his childhood in a religion that requires sacrificial acts of this type, might find himself killing his
own children. In itself, this is clearly an evil action. But the subject of this evil is convinced he is
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performing a deed of profound piety, in good conscience! He is materially a murderer, though

formally innocent.
Error can also arise from a subjects lack of virtue. We have seen how a man of vice is inclined
not only to commit evil, but also to hold in principle that such action is just (cf. 4. 3; 5. 4). A man of
this kind is formally bad and not just materially bad.
It must be said, finally, that the judgement of conscience is not the last stage of the process of
the moral act. In response to a conscience that tells me, It is good to do thus, I can say: I want to do
it or I do not want to do it. Moral evil, at the formal level, consists precisely in going against the
judgement of our conscience, that is, in voluntarily performing an action or an omission knowing that
it is bad.
In synthesis:
Material morality consists in the just relation between an action and the objective moral order
(that is, an action that effectively realizes a good is materially good, while an action that
effectively damages a good is materially bad).
Formal morality consists in the just relation between an action and the moral conscience of the
subject (that is, a formally good action conforms to the judgement of the conscience of the
acting subject; a formally bad action is that in which the subject acts against the judgement of
his own conscience).
11. 3. Types or Forms of Conscience

Having examined the structure of the conscience as a faculty and as act, lets now consider the
different types of conscience that intertwine both potentially and actually.
11. 3. 1. Types of Potential Conscience
We know that in respect to moral judgements not everyone manifests the same sensitivity.
There is the superficial kind of person for whom anything goes, and the scrupulous person who sees
evil everywhere. There are those who condemn others in order to acquit themselves, and those who
think everyone else is better than they are . . .
In traditional terms, a delicate conscience indicates a high degree of sensitivity to moral
values. Someone of delicate conscience is keenly focused on moral values and pursues them with
determination. We could say that such a person possesses a virtuous conscience.
On the contrary, a lax conscience belongs to the superficial person who cares little about
knowing the good, and little or nothing about doing good and avoiding evil. It goes without saying that
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the lax conscience has difficulty grasping what is truly good. As long as it remains lax, it manifests a
disturbing acquiescence with evil, so much so as to appear habitually bad, that is, vicious.
We should mention also the strict conscience of someone who cannot get beyond the letter of
the law. Such a person does not concern himself with knowing if a certain behavior is good or bad, or
whether it produces the fruits of virtue or vice. Rather, the strict conscience reduces everything to
categories of commanded/licit, prohibited/illicit. The root of the strict conscience lies in legalism,
which can overflow with tutiorist maximalism (from the Latin tutior = more secure). Such thinking
extends the boundaries of evil beyond measure, leading to the illness of scruples of conscience. It
can also lead into minimalism which considers permissible everything that is not prohibited and
interprets the law not as a stimulus to do good, but simply as a code to be known and quibbled over
so that loopholes can be found wherever possible.
Finally, let us remember that curious blend between tutiorism and minimalism represented by
the pharisaical conscience, so called from the attitude of certain Pharisees stigmatized in the Gospel.
The blind Pharisee filters the gnat and swallows the camel (cf. Mt. 23: 23-32), that is, he shows
great rigorism on things of little importance while he is lax on the things that matter. This condition
can depend on the perversity of the culture and the kind of education someone has received, but also
and above all on the hypocrisy of the persons own moral attitude which is not properly motivated in
the pursuit of the true good.
11. 3. 2. Types of Actual Conscience
Regarding the act of conscience, we must first consider it chronologically in respect to action
(11. 3. 2. 1). We can then evaluate its moral rectitude (11. 3. 2. 2) and inquire into its subjective
certitude (11. 3. 2. 3) and objective truth (11. 3. 2. 4).
11. 3. 2. 1. In Respect to the Act: Antecedent, Concomitant, and Consequent Conscience
Before I act, my conscience judges the action I am about to perform and tells me whether it is
good or bad, presenting it to me as right, licit, or prohibited. This judgement is known as antecedent
conscience.
During an action, I can feel the confirmation or consolation of a conscience that approves what
I am doing as good, or I can feel the reprobation and resistance of a conscience that disapproves of my
actions because they are evil. The judgement that accompanies action is called concomitant
conscience.
After an action, I can experience the gratification or remorse of a conscience (cf. 2. 1. 3) that
judges what I have done saying, You acted rightly or You acted wrongly. This after-the-fact
judgement is called consequent conscience.
Clearly, the development of a virtuous conscience must lead the subject to maturity in such a
way that a moral judgement can be formulated before an action and not only after when the goose is
cooked, so to speak.
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11. 3. 2. 2. In Respect to Moral Quality: Right or Negligent

The conscience has the task of directing action. Consequently, it must scrutinize attentively
both the moral law and the situation to arrive at a valid judgement. A conscience seriously engaged in
the effort to know and conform to the truth is called a right conscience.
On the contrary, a lazy and superficial conscience that makes little or no effort to know the
truth is called negligent.
The qualifiers right and negligent do not pertain only to the judgement of conscience, but also
(and above all) to the effort of forming ones conscience in the truth. Clearly, only a right conscience
can legitimately guide action.
11. 3. 2. 3. In Respect to Subjective Certitude: Certain, Sufficient, Doubtful
The judgement of conscience is certain when the subject, having examined both the law and
the situation, has no valid reasons for doubting the conclusion which he has reached. For example,
someone proposes to me a plan for not paying taxes. I know that tax evasion, though financially
convenient, is a moral evil. Hence, my conscience declares a just and certain no!
But things are not always so clear. I could be uncertain about the application of a moral norm
in this case. For example, if a tax is unjust, am I morally obligated to pay it? Certainly not! But can I
in conscience consider this particular tax to be unjust? And what if I find myself before opposing
values? What if, in paying this tax, I am forced to lay off one of my employees. Do I evade the tax, or
put a family into difficult straits?
In order to be able to act, we must have at least sufficient reason that will render the judgement,
if not certain, than at least probable.
The state of the doubtful conscience, however, of itself does not even constitute a judgement.
Doubt is rather a suspension of judgement. Clearly, anyone who doubts who does not know if an
action is good or evil cannot act. As long as someone lacks sufficient grounds for judgement, he
must continue to seek the truth, reflect more carefully, gather more information, seek the counsel of
someone more competent, etc.
11. 3. 2. 4. In Respect to Objective Truth: True or Erroneous
The concept of certitude regards the relationship between judgement and the subject himself.
The concept truth, however, regards the relationship between the subjects judgement and the
objective moral order.
A true conscience calls good that which is objectively good and evil that which is objectively
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evil. On the contrary, an erroneous conscience holds that an objectively bad action is good, or an
objectively good action is bad (see examples 1 and 2 in 11. 2. 2).
An error is invincible when the one who errs does not have or has not had a chance to
recognize the truth and is, thus, forced to make a mistake. This could be the result of ignorance, bad
education, or socio-cultural, psychological, or religious conditions, etc.
On the other hand, an error is vincible when the one who errs has or has had the chance to
recognize the truth but has not exhausted his efforts to do so. He would not have erred, but has done so
from laziness, superficiality, presumption, concupiscence or some other vice.
We should be aware that there are numerous possible interconnections among the various kinds
of actual conscience because they move on different planes.
Hence, a conscience can be both right and erroneous, provided it is certain or at least probable
and the error is invincible. Above all, we should remember that:
A right or certain conscience must always be followed.
An erroneous conscience can also be right (if the error is invincible).
We must try to arrive at a judgement that is not only certain but also true.
We should not act in cases of doubt.
11. 4. Law, Virtue, and Conscience

To conclude this chapter, and bring our discourse to an end, we will consider the reciprocal
relationship between the roles of law, virtue, and conscience. In so doing, we will be better able to
understand the meaning of moral experience.
How must we be to realize fully our human personality? We find this question in the depths of
our conscience, in that place where we discover ourselves to be engaged in a project that we did not
give ourselves, but which nevertheless we must realize: a project for which we are responsible.
In a confused way, we are aware that a successful life a happy life depends on the
realization of this plan.
To say a successful life is the same as saying a good life, that is, a life expressed in a
succession of good acts proceeding from our intelligence and free will.
Our will as we have said many times cannot NOT will its end (a successful life or
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happiness). We tend to this end by necessity. If we ever met an object that presented itself to us in all
clarity as the Good that would perfectly realize our happiness (that is, the Absolute Good), we
would not be free to refuse it. We would inevitably tend toward it. But such a meeting will not take
place in this world. Rather, the goods that we meet are always singular, concrete, partial, and relative.
They are the objects of our acts, and in front of them we are free and undetermined.
This means that from the singular goods we encounter we must choose and choose well, that
is, choose that good that is better more suitable to our life project. Such a choice, as we have seen, is
effected by the will, illumined by the reason, and can be conditioned by the passions.
This is why we have been concerned to illustrate not only how the voluntary act remains free
that is to say, in our power at every moment, but also how it can crumble into a multiplicity of
choices, influenced by a plurality of factors, that make our conduct something extremely unstable,
precarious, fragile, and otherwise oriented. The nature of the human act causes us to focus attention on
those factors that can stabilize our conduct and its orientation without diminishing its freedom.
This is precisely the role of the virtues as stable attitudes (habitus) on the basis of which the
human faculties are oriented to the good act. It is the role of law to instruct and lead us to virtue and,
hence, the good. The immediate task of the law, as a work of reason, is to show man his true end and
instruct him in the relationship of means to ends, commanding that which is suitable and prohibiting
that which is contradictory.
Now, as we have seen, a law issuing from the conscience creates a moral obligation. But
consciences ability to grasp the law depends on its better or worse dispositions in front of moral value
(i.e., a conscience that is delicate, lax, strict, etc.) In the final analysis, it depends on virtue: the more
virtuous a person is, the better he will grasp the law.
We have said, however, that the aim of law is to lead us to virtue. Note the paradox: the more
virtuous we are, the less we need the law, though we are better disposed in conscience to accept it. On
the other hand, the less virtuous we are, the more we need the law and the worse we are disposed to
accept it! We have here two circles, one vicious and one virtuous. We can exit from these circles only
by affirming, as we have done already (4. 4), that mans freedom remains intact as long as he still
possesses a glimmer of reason. Hence, even the person least disposed to responding to the exigencies
of the good has the power of grasping, albeit with difficulty, the exigencies expressed by the law.
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Epilogue
We have reached the end of our journey, Dear Reader. This book can now start collecting dust
on a shelf somewhere, though I hope that the ideas contained in it will continue to work inside of
you.
I have tried to show you that the ethical question is not an optional accessory, that it is not a
subject only for sophisticated minds who can think about it whenever and if ever they are so inclined.
The ethical question inevitably arises in the heart of every human being who wakes up to life. Though
it is certainly a question of duty (what should I do? and, above all, why should I do it?), it is first
of all a question about the meaning of life, about happiness something which always concerns our
relationship with God and others.
If we look for happiness in pleasure and the satisfaction of our needs, if the meaning of our
lives rests only in these things (and for many people, it does indeed!), then we will be subject to
frustration, failure, and a heteronomy that leaves our happiness dependent on too many factors, none
of which are in our own power (wealth, success, the good will of others, good luck, etc.).
In these pages, I have sought to demonstrate that the meaning of life lies elsewhere. Certainly,
pleasure contributes to a successful life. We could say it is the cherry on the cake, an excellent
complement but certainly not the substance of what we want. Living well demands the satisfaction of
primary needs, but this alone is not sufficient. A really successful life consists in virtue, that is, in the
love of the good and the ability to do it. The virtuous person is truly happy because he really loves and
does what he will (to borrow St. Augustines words). By his own actions, he realizes the order of love.
He can be happy even when fortune is against him and pleasure is at a minimum even in the
renunciation of primary needs and in suffering torments. A virtuous person, like Socrates, prefers to
suffer injustice than commit it. Consequently, his happiness cannot be damaged from without.
For this reason, I have insisted on saying that the virtuous person is really free. No one can
force a virtuous person to do evil, and as far as good action is concerned, he is a law unto himself. A
virtuous person does the good because he loves it, not because he is commanded to do it.
It is clear, then, that the cultivation of the virtues is the road to happiness. If, Dear Reader, at
the end of this discourse, you and I feel more motivated to follow this path, and more hopeful about
reaching its end, then this book has achieved its goal.
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Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
[1] See E. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to
Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970; orig. German,
1936).
[2] See Giuseppe Abb, Felicit, vita buona e virt. Saggio di filosofia morale, 2nd ed. (Rome: LAS, 1995) and Quale
impostazione per la filosofia morale? Ricerche di filosofia morale 1 (Rome: LAS, 1996).
[3] Abb, Felicit, vita buona et virt, 105.
[4] This constitutes the most striking structural novelty of this second edition.
[5] Translators note: For English translations of quoted material, I have sought wherever possible to use authorized
sources readily available to students in libraries, bookstores, or online. Publishing details are given in the footnotes and
bibliography. In all other instances, I have translated directly from the Italian edition of this volume.
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[6] Sofia Vanni Rovighi, Elementi di filosofia, 3 vols., 9th ed. (Brescia, Italy: La Scuola, 1985), 3rd vol., 189.
[7] On these topics, see John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Relationship between Faith and Reason Fides et ratio,
14-09-1998.
[8] Socrates (469-399 B.C.) taught humanity this method of reasoning: Before making a judgement (that is, before affirming
or negating something), we should define the terms we use by returning to the concept, or better still, to the essence of the
thing about which we are speaking.
[9] A saint and doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) wrote a work in four volumes entitled Summa contra
Gentiles perhaps intended for a dialectical confrontation with intellectual Muslims. In the first three books, St. Thomas
moves on a rigorously rational plane: We have to debate with people who do not share our faith. Hence, arguments based
on the authority of the Bible or the Fathers of the Church will not be convincing. What we do have in common, however, is
natural reason. We may, then, argue on that basis. At the end, in the fourth book, St. Thomas treats subjects that cannot be
known by human reason, such as the Trinity of God or the Incarnation of the Word, which necessitate faith in Divine
Revelation.
[10] Martin Rhonheimer, La prospettiva della morale. Fondamenti delletica filosofica (Rome: Armando, 1994), 19. On
this topic, see Rhonheimers entire section, 16-21.
[11]
On this subject, see Aldo Vendemiati, Fenomenologia e realismo. Introduzione al pensiero di Dietrich von
Hildebrand (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1992), 137-150.
[12] By ideology, I mean a scheme of thought worked out on the basis of a pre-established theory and purporting to explain
all of reality. A characteristic of ideological thought is that it would rather do violence to reality than admit the inadequacy
of its schema. Marxism, for example, is an ideology founded on the presupposition that all human reality is reducible to
economic structures; hence, all human phenomena (including feelings, art, religion, etc.) are nothing other than projections
of such structures. Ultimately, Marxism renounces the knowledge of human phenomena since it has already decided,
even before looking at different aspects of human experience, that these are nothing other than projections of an
economic structure.
[13] Exodus 20:4; cf. Deuteronomy 5:8.
[14] Max Frisch, Im not Stiller, trans. Michael Bullock (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1983), 100.
[15] Dietrich von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics (New York, NY: David McKay Company, 1953), 2.
[16] Francesca Rivetti Barb, Philosophy of Man: An Outline (Rome: Hortus Conclusus, 2001), 27-28.
[17] Let us remember the noted aphorism: Primum est vivere, deinde philosophari. This should be taken in the sense
indicated: Life experience comes first. Philosophical reflection can only arise from this experience.
[18] Plato, Republic, VII, 514a-515d.

[19] See Francesca Rivetti Barb, Semantica bidimensionale. Fondazione filosofica, con un progetto di teoria del
significato (Rome: Elia, 1974), 28-29.
[20] The Greek language, to tell the truth, has two terms: 1. e;qoj, -ouj, that means people, nation, class; from which
derives the adjective evqiko,j, -h,, -o,n, that means habitual, usual; 2. h=qoj, -ouj, which means dwelling, but also
consuetude, use, habit, custom, institution; it is from this term that the adjective hvqiko,j, -h,, -o,n, derives in the sense
of moral, ethic and also the substantive plural ta. hvqika, to indicate ethics.
[21] This is a classical syllogism of the first type which can be schematized thus: Every M is P; S is an M; therefore, S is P.
[22] See Vendemiati, Fenomenologia e realismo, 29-36.
[23] Dietrich von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, 3rd ed. (Chicago, IL: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), 2.
[24] Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Dethronement of Truth, in The New Tower of Babel, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL: Franciscan
Herald Press, 1977), 67.
[25] See Abb, Felicit, vita buona e virt, especially 13-78.
[26] See Vendemiati, Fenomenologia e realismo, especially 146-148. By phenomenology, then, I do not mean a
reduction of reality to pure appearance, nor a mere description of subjective experiences, nor even less a conscious grasp of
the meaning of our concepts. I intend phenomenology as noumenology, that is, the science of the thing in itself in as much
as it is intelligible (literally, nomenon). On this subject, see Josef Seifert, Back to Things in Themselves (New York, NY:
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Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1987).

[27] In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their
will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.
The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which
arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of
production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness
of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. Karl Marx, preface
to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, trans. S. W. Ryazanskaya (New York, NY: International Publishers,
1999), 20-21, emphasis added.
[28] The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of resentment becoming creative and giving birth to
values a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find
their compensation in an imaginary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its
own demands, the slave morality says no from the very outset to what is outside itself, different from itself, and not
itself: and this no is its creative deed. This volte-face [about face] of the valuing standpoint this inevitable gravitation
to the objective instead of back to the subjective is typical of resentment . . . Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of
Morals, 1, 10, trans. Horace B. Samuel (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003, reprint of 1913 edition), 19, original
emphasis.
[29] See Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1920, and The Ego and The Id, 1923.
[30] Giancarlo Vendrame, Il problema morale oggi, in Corso di morale, I, ed. T. Goffi and G. Piana, 2nd ed. (Brescia,
Italy: Queriniana, 1989), 16.
[31] In this sense, the New Testament speaks of the scandal of the Cross (cf. Mt 9:6; I Cor 1:23). Sren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855) also expresses this idea, for instance, in Practice in Christianity, part II, where he exalts scandal as a healthy
spiritual crisis that brings reason to the point of understanding that it can no longer understand.
[32] Vendrame, 17.
[33] The contemplation of natures beauty can be a prelude to religious experience by giving rise to admiration for the
Author of nature. Nevertheless, the religious outcome of the admiration of a natural spectacle is not necessarily connected
with the admiration itself. On the other hand, it is not possible to admire a human work without admiring the author as
author.
[34] S. Pignagnoli, Rimorso, in Enciclopedia filosofica, vol. 7 (Florence, Italy: Sansoni, 1979), col. 125.
[35] Sabatino Majorano, La coscienza. Per una lettura cristiana (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: San Paolo, 1994), 18.
[36] I will leave in suspense for the moment the problem of this transcendence in the conscience as, to use the language of
Husserl, a transcendent transcendence or an immanent transcendence, that is to say, the question if moral values are
objective in the strong sense or if they are simply perceived as objective. Let us content ourselves for now with this
suspension of judgement (epoch) which is not to be taken as the last word since the subject is merely postponed. We
will take it up again in the following chapters, particularly chapter 9.
[37] Plato, Apology, 36b-37a. This and subsequent citations are taken from the translation by High Tredennick in The
Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
[38] M. Atilius Regulus (died 247 B.C.) was a Roman consul in 267 and 256 B.C. St. Augustine records:
M. Atilius Regulus, a Roman general, was held in captivity by the Carthaginians. As they preferred to have
their own men liberated from Roman bondage rather than to hold Romans in their prisons, they dispatched to
Rome no less a man than Regulus, accompanied by their own legates to negotiate the exchange. At the same
time, they bound him under oath to return to Carthage, in case he failed to accomplish what they proposed.
Regulus set out on his mission, but, on reaching Rome, he persuaded the Senate not to accede, urging his
view that the exchange of prisoners would not be to the advantage of the Roman republic. Having made his
plea, he did not have to be compelled to return to the enemy. Of his own accord, Regulus kept the word he
had sworn and returned to Carthage. There, Romes enemies slew him, after subjecting him to fiendish
torture. St. Augustine, City of God, bk. 1 chap. 15, in The Writings of St. Augustine, vol. 6, trans. Demetrius
B. Zema and Gerald G. Walsh, in the series The Fathers of the Church (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 1990), 42-43.
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[39] Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941), a Franciscan priest proclaimed a saint by John Paul II in 1982, was imprisoned in the
Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. He offered his own life to save that of the father of a family who was condemned
to die of starvation as retaliation for the escape of a prisoner.
[40] Plato, Apology, 29d.
[41] Plato, Crito, 49a-e, trans. High Tredennick, in The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
[42] For this paragraph and those that follow, see Francesca Rivetti Barb, Essere nel tempo. Introduzione alla filosofia
dellessere come fondamento di libert (Milan: Jaca Book, 1990), 185-213.
[43] See Sren Kierkegaard, Either-Or (1843).
[44] On this subject, see the fundamental research of Victor Frankl, On the Theory and Therapy of Mental Disorders: An
Introduction to Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, trans. James M. DuBois with Kateryna Cuddeback (New York, NY:
Brunner-Routledge, 2005).
[45] A mental experiment with an experience machine was proposed by Robert Nozick when virtual reality was still
only science fiction. See Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974; repr., Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 42-45. Pages refer to
the 1995 edition.
[46] Nota bene: Even someone who spends his life just drifting along from day to day does so because he thinks that in
this way he will find happiness. He believes that by doing this he is realizing his personality. He acts miserably because he
has a miserable conception of himself!
[47] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 5, a. 6.
[48] Cf. St. Augustine, De natura boni.
[49] See Joseph de Finance, An Ethical Inquiry, trans. and adapted by Michael OBrien (Rome: Editrice Pontificia
Universit Gregoriana, 1991), 35-43.
[50] Ibid., 45.
[51] Ovid, Metamorphosis, 7, 20, trans. David Raeburn (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 249.
[52] Anyone wishing to go deeper into these topics is warmly invited to read Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 3.1, a
splendid example of the phenomenology of voluntary action.
[53] See below, chapter 9, section 4. 2.
[54] Blaise Pascal, Penses, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1995), 215 (#678).
[55] See Pietro Molla and Elio Guerriero, Gianna la donna forte. La beata Gianna Beretta Molla nel ricordo del marito
(Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: San Paolo, 1995).
[56] See Rivetti Barb, Philosophy of Man, 176-177.
[57] Rhonheimer, 43.
[58] On this subject, see Rivetti Barb, Philosophy of Man, 188ff.
[59] Mario Pangallo, Habitus e vita morale. Fenomenologia e fondazione ontologica (Naples-Rome: LER, 1988), 13.
Anyone wishing to go deeper into this subject would benefit greatly from reading Pangallos entire book.
[60] See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 6.2.1139a23.
[61] St. Augustine develops this subject extensively in De libero arbitrio, bk. II, chap. 19.
[62] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 6.2.1139a22-26. This and subsequent citations are taken from the translation by W. D.
Ross in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York, NY: The Modern Library, 2001).
[63] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2.6.1106b36-1107a2.
[64] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2.6.1106a14-1106b5.
[65] See St. Thomas Aquinas, In Ethicorum, bk. VI, 1. 2.
[66] Aristotle, Politics, 2.1.
[67] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 58, a. 2, c.
[68] Battista Mondin, Virt, in Dizionario enciclopedico del pensiero di san Tommaso dAquino (Bologna, Italy:
Edizioni Studio Domenicano, 1991), 654, with reference to St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 57, a. 1.
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[69] Mondin, 655; cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 58, a. 5.
[70] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 81, a. 2.
[71] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, III, c. 35. On this point and what follows, I invite you to see
Rhonheimer, 183-221.
[72] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, III, c. 117.
[74] Ibid., 214.
[75] See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 6.5.
[77] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 48, a. 1, c.
[78] See St. Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus manicheorum, I, 15.
[79] Abb, Felicit, vita buona e virt, 66.
[80] On this point and the following, see Abb, Felicit, vita buona e virt, 174-181.
[81] St. Thomas Aquinas affirms: . . . [T]he habit that resides in the soul, does not, of necessity, produce its operations,
but is used by man when he wills. Consequently man, while possessing a habit, may either fail to use the habit, or produce
a contrary act . . . Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 71, a. 4. A virtuous person, then, cannot presume to being impeccable even
if he is firmly oriented to the good, and even if it is easier for him to do good than evil. He must always be vigilant and
attentive. Such vigilance is a dimension of wisdom itself! (Note: This and subsequent citations from the Summa theologiae
in English are from the 1947 Benzinger Brothers edition available online at www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/home.html).
[82] A person habituated to vice is really less free in as much as vice is an inclination against reason, a weak attitude of the
will. Nevertheless, such a person is not totally irrecoverable as long as a glimmer of reason remains in him. There is a
difference between a sin committed by one who has the habit, and a sin committed by habit: for it is not necessary to use a
habit, since it is subject to the will of the person who has that habit. Hence habit is defined as being something we use when
we will . . . And thus, even as it may happen that one who has a vicious habit may break forth into a virtuous act, because a
bad habit does not corrupt reason altogether, something of which remains unimpaired, the result being that a sinner does
some works which are generically good; so too it may happen sometimes that one who has a vicious habit, acts, not from
that habit, but through the uprising of a passion, or again through ignorance. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II,
q. 78, a. 2.
[83] Abb, Felicit, vita buona e virt, 176-177.
[84] My treatment of these themes is inspired by (among others) Josef Piepers The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), keeping ever in mind Book VI of Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics.
[85] In English, we must add the adjective practical since the substantive wisdom translates two different Greek terms:
sophia, corresponding to the Latin sapientia, which we can qualify as theoretical wisdom, and phrnesis.
[86] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, P. I, L. I, c. I, 8, note II.
[87] St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio disputata de virtutibus in communi, a. 9, c.
[88] At this point, I think we should give an ear to those professional philosophers who make a display of their skepticism
asking, Who in the world can claim that he knows the truth? or How can one presume to speak of objective reality? In
turn, I would like to ask these people, Would you want to be judged by a jury that has no interest at all in the objective
reality of facts? And what would you say if you found in your pay envelope, instead of your usual salary, a note from the
administration citing Schopenhauer to the effect that the world is nothing but will and representation?
[89] Cf. Pieper, 29-30.
[90] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 47, a. 7.
[91] At this point, Dear Reader, you would do well to have in front of you the phenomenology of voluntary action that we
outlined above in chapter 3, section 3. 1. 2.
[92] In the table presented in chapter 3, section 3. 1. 2, the acts mentioned correspond respectively to numbers 5, 7, and 9.
[93] See above, chapter 2, section 2. 2. 4. 3.
[94] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 47, a. 6, ad 3m. Aristotle affirms: . . . virtue makes us aim at the
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right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. Nicomachean Ethics, 6.12.1144a7-9.
[95] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 64, a. 2; II-II, q. 47, a. 7.
[97] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 6.7.1141b14-18.
[98] Pieper, 15.
[99] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 49, a. 3, c., citing Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 6.11.1143b11-13.
[100] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 22, a. 1, c., citing Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI, chapters 5 and
12, and Mt 24:45. See also St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 49, a. 6, ad 1m, wherein St. Thomas maintains that the
word prudentia itself derives from providence.
[101] See St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 47, a. 9, ad 2m.
[102] Pieper, 18.
[103] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 55, a. 3, c.
[104] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 53, a. 6.
[106] Pieper, 21.
[108] Cf. Plato, Republic, bks. I-IV.
[109] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 5.1.1129b14-33.
[110] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 58, a. 1. This idea is present in Greek culture though scarcely
articulated. Plato refers to it by quoting Simonidess statement that justice consists in giving to each what is owed, but
then acknowledges that Simonides was speaking in riddles just like a poet! Republic, I, 331d-332c, trans. G. M. A.
Grube, rev. C. D. C. Reeve, in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing, 1977).
[111] See Pieper, 47.
[112] See above, chapter 1, section 1. 5. 2.
[115] St. Thomas Aquinas, In Ethicorum, V, 1. 2.
[117] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 58, a. 12, ad 1m.
[118] Nota bene: Such a sin against friendship does not infringe on the order of particular justice, but rather on that of
general justice since the common good of society depends mostly on peace, which is the tranquillity of order (St.
Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XIX, 13), and there can be no tranquillity without pardon (see John Paul II, Message for the
Celebration of the World Day of Peace, 01/01/2002).
[119] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 61, pr.; q. 62, a. 1.
[120] Pieper, 80.
[121] Cf. Ibid., 96. On this subject, see also Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics,
5th ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 226-230.
[122] Beauchamp and Childress, 228.
[123] Cf. Walter D. Ross, The Right and the Good (1930; repr., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988),
19-36. Pages here refer to the 1930 edition. See also Rosss The Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939).
[124] Beauchamp and Childress, 228.
[125] Ibid., 230.
[126] Cf. Pieper, 47-48.
[127] Plato, Gorgias, 469c; 508d-e, trans. W. D. Woodhead, in The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and
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Huntington Cairns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).

[128] Cf. Pieper, 52-53.
[129] Cf. T. S. Centi, Introduzione e note, in S. Tommaso dAquino, La somma teologica. Traduzione e commento a cura
dei domenicani italiani, XX, La Fortezza (II-II, qq. 123-140) (Bologna, Italy: Edizioni Studio Domenicano, 1984).
[130] Plato, Laches, 190e, trans. Benjamin Jowett, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington
Cairns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
[131] Plato, Protagoras, 160d, trans. W. K. C. Guthrie, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and
Huntington Cairns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). Emphasis added.
[132] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 3.8.1116b4-22.
[133] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 138.
[134] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 66, a. 4, ad 2m.
[136] Cf. Centi, 7.
[137] Pieper, 130.
[138] Properly speaking, the so-called therapeutic abortion is motivated by concern for the health of the mother, while
the deliberate killing of a deformed fetus is called eugenic abortion. Here, we are speaking of the latter.
[139] Cf. Hans Jonas, Sullorlo dellabisso. Conversazioni sul rapporto tra uomo e natura (Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 2000;
orig. German: 1993), 42.
[140] Ibid., 16.
[141] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 3.7.1115b7-15.
[142] Cf. Pieper, 117.
[143] St. Ambrose, De virginibus, bk. I, chap. 2, 7-8. Cite taken from the English translation online at www.ccel.org.
[144] Pieper, 122.
[146] Ibid.
[147] Ibid.; cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 3.7.1115b18.
[148] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 123, a. 12, ad 3m.
[150] Pieper, 128.
[151] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 123, a. 10, ad 3m (Do read the entire article!).
[152] Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 3.8.1117a5.
[153] See Pieper, 146.
[155] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 141, a. 1, ad 2m.
[157] Cf. Pieper, 149.
[158] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 141, a. 7; also, II-II q. 123, a. 2; I-II, q. 61, aa. 3-4.
[159] Cf. St. Ambrose, De officiis, bk. I, chap. 43, 210.
[160] Pieper, 147.
[162] See above, chapter 2, section 2. 2. 4. 1.
[163] Francis P. Fiorenza and Johann B. Metz, Luomo come unit di corpo e di anima, in Mysterium salutis, ed. J.
Feiner and M. Lhrer, vol. 4, 4th ed. (Brescia, Italy: Queriniana, 1985; orig. German: 1967), 274.
[164] St. Thomas elaborates extensively on this subject in Quaestio de anima. Also interesting in this regard is his In
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Aristotelis librum de anima commentarium. For a synthetic exposition, see Summa theologiae, I, qq. 75-93.
[165] Rivetti Barb, Essere nel tempo, 148. On this subject, the entire section of Barbs book is very illuminating (pp.
145-160). For a theoretical treatment of an anthropological nature, see also Rivetti Barbs Philosophy of Man.
[166] This must not be confused with the sensible form we know through the senses. Though the sensible form of our
substance has changed enormously from the moment of conception until this present instant, we are still ourselves!
Sensible form, then, is also an accident. Substantial form, which is unchanging, is not accessible to the senses, but only to
metaphysical investigation.
[167] The substantial forms of composites, though simple and, hence, incorruptible per se, are nevertheless corruptible per
accidens in the sense that they cease to exist when the composite of which they are the form is corrupted (cf. St. Thomas
Aquinas, In II Sent., d. 19, q. 4, c.).
[168] Georges Cottier, Scritti di etica (Casale Monferrato [Al], Italy: Piemme 1994), 30.
[169] Ibid.
[170] Cf. Vendemiati, Fenomenologia and realismo, 189-190.
[171] Pascal, Penses, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1995), 45 (#148).
[172] Cf. Sofia Vanni Rovighi, Introduzione allo studio di Kant (Brescia, Italy: La Scuola, 1968), 244.
[173] Paradigmatic in this regard is the thought of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) whose theories are best formulated
in Discours sur les sciences et les arts and Discours sur lorigine et les fondements de lingalit parmi les hommes.
[174] The tension between reason and passions is well represented by Denis Diderot (1713-1784) in Le neveu de Rameau.
[175] Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1985), 48.
[176] For anyone who would like to go into depth on Kants thinking, I would advise reading S. Vanni Rovighi,
Introduzione allo studio di Kant, cited above. For a careful examination of Kantian morality that is also specific, critical,
and systematic, I refer you to Jacques Maritain, Moral Philosophy: An Historical and Critical Survey of the Great Systems
(New York, NY: Charles Scribners Sons, 1964; orig. French, 1960).
[177] Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), 7.
[178] Maritain, Moral Philosophy, 99.
[179] Ibid., 104.
[180] Kant, Groundwork, 13.
[181] Ibid., 64.
[182] Ibid., 44.
[183] Maritain, Moral Philosophy, 110.
[184] Ibid., 112.
[185] We touch here on some aspects of the thought of Georg W. F. Hegel as illustrated in Encyclopedia of the
Philosophical Sciences in Outline, P. III, sec. II, 503-552.
[186] Ibid., 535.
[187] See John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government.
[188] Alasdair MacIntyre furnishes an interesting examination of contemporary relativism in After Virtue although,
unfortunately, he himself is not immune. For a critique of relativism, see D. von Hildebrand, The Dethronement of Truth,
in The New Tower of Babel (Chicago, IL: Franciscan Herald Press, 1977), 57-100.
[189] A clear example of the emotive theory of moral evaluations can be found in the work of the American empiricist
philosopher Charles L. Stevenson (Ethics and Language, 1946).
[190] See above, chapter 2, sections 2. 1. 2 and 2. 2. 1.
[191] On these themes, cf. Sergio Belardinelli, Il gioco delle parti (Rome: AVE, 1996), 15-41.
[192] See Sren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety (1844) and The Fatal Disease (1849).
[193] Belardinelli, 32.
[194] Cf. Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, trans. Hans Jonas
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with David Herr (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984; orig. German: 1979).
[195] Belardinelli, 36.
[196] See David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, III, I, sect. I.
[197] For what follows, see A. Vendemiati, La legge naturale nella Summa Theologiae di S. Tommaso dAquino (Rome:
Dehoniane, 1995), 148-150.
[198] Abb, Felicit, vita buona e virt, 52.
[199] Pascal, Penses, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1995), 35 (#434).
[200] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 2, particularly a. 8, c.
[201] Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone, 165.
[202] St. Thomas Aquinas, In Evangelium S. Iohannis, c. X, lect. I; cf. Summa theologiae I-II, q. 3, a. 4, c., citing St.
Augustine, Confessions, X, c. 23.
[203] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 62, a. 1.
[204] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 26, a. 1.
[205] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 82, aa. 1 and 3. Christian revelation teaches that this
anthropological situation which philosophy can only describe is the consequence of original sin.
[206] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 4..
[207] Mt 16:26.
[208] See Rhonheimer, 85-94.
[209] Ibid., 91.
[210] In fact, all the moral realities get their species from their end. Good action and good habitus are specified by their
order to the obligatory end; by virtue of this good the specific difference of the habitus and the moral action is determined;
bad action, however, is specified by its order to an end that is not obligatory, in which is mixed the privation of the
obligatory end, by virtue of which the concept of evil enters in. St. Thomas Aquinas, In II Sententiarum, d. 34, q. 1, a. 3,
ad 3m. One should note that moral acts take their species from the proximate end that is their object, not from the acts
remote end. St. Thomas Aquinas, De malo, q. 2, a. 6, ad 9m; cf. q. 8, a. 1, ad 14m. Since moral acts take their species or
are assigned to a genus by reason of their object, we can know that a moral act is evil by reason of its kind if the very act is
not properly related to its matter or object. Ibid., q. 10, a. 1, c; cf. q. 12, a. 3, c. (Citations taken from On Evil, trans. by
Richard Regan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[211] The good man is the one who does good because it is good and not because he hopes to draw any advantage from it.
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 19, a. 7, ad 3m.
[212] With these examples we have intended to present the seven classical circumstances enumerated in the noted verse of
Cicero: Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando (cf. De Inventione Rethorica, I, 24).
[213] Bonum ex integris causis, malum ex quocumque defectu. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a. 4,
ad 3m, citing Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, iv.
[214] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 90, a. 1.
[215] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 90, a. 1, ad 3m.
[216] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 57, a. 1.
[217] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 2, c.
[218] All the inclinations of any parts whatsoever of human nature, e.g. of the concupiscible and irascible parts, in so far
as they are ruled by reason, belong to the natural law. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 2, ad 2m.
[219] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 15, a. 1, ad 2m.
[220] Dario Composta, Rapporti tra diritto naturale e biologia in Atti del IX congresso tomistico internazionale, vol. 1
(Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1991), 258.
[221] St. Thomas Aquinas, De Virtutibus in communi, a. 13; cf. Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 64, a. 1.
[222] Cf. Rivetti Barb, Philosophy of Man. 57-63.
[223] Joseph de Finance, Droit naturel et historie chez saint Thomas, in S. Tommaso e la filosofia del diritto oggi
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(Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1975), 111.

[224] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 57, a. 2, ad 1m; cf., I-II, q. 94, a. 4 c.; In Ethicorum, L. V, 1. 12.
[225] C. Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico, bk. VI, chap. 23.
[226] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 4, c; cf. In III Sententiarum, d. 37, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1m.
[227] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 95, a. 1, c., citing Aristotle, Politics, 1.2.
[228] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 91, a. 2.
[229] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 95, a. 2.
[230] St. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will (De Libero Arbitrio), I, 5, trans. Anna S. Benjamin and L. H. Hackstaff
(Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1964), 13.
[231] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 97, a. 1, ad 1m.
[232] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 91, a. 2, c.
[233] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 120, a. 2.
[234] Mk 3:4.
[235] Mk 2:27.
[236] St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologiae moralis, bk. I, tr. I, 1, citing St. Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet II, q. 12, a. 2 (or III,
a. 27).
[237] Massimo Cassani, La coscienza morale nella riflessione teological contemporanea, in La coscienza morale e
levangelizzazione oggi. Tra valori obiettivi e techniche di persuasione (Bologna, Italy: Edizioni Studio Domenicano,
1992), 89.
[238] The conscience is defined thus: It is the judgement or the practical rule of the reason by which we judge what must
be done here and now because it is good, or avoided because it is evil. St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis, bk. I, tr.
I, 2.
[239] In saying this, I mean to avoid furnishing arguments to anyone who thinks that the function of the conscience would
be reduced . . . to the simple application of general moral norms to singular cases in the life of the person, as John Paul II
remarks in his encyclical letter Veritatis splendor, 06-08-1993, n. 55.
[240] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 79, a. 12, c.; cf. I-II, q. 94, a. 2, c. and De malo, q. 3, a. 12, ad 13m.
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VANDEMIATI, Aldo. in The First Person: An Outline of General Ethics

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Aldo Vendemiati

In the First Person

- Expanded Second Edition -

3. 1. 1. Acts of Man and Human Acts

How must we be to fully realize our human personality?

1. 2. Isnt Faith Enough?

that is not replaced by faith.

1. 4. 1. Ethics is Concerned with Moral Experience

1. 4. 2. 1. Positivism and Weak Thought

1. 4. 3. Ethics is a Normative-Categorical Science

(conscientiae morsus) which translates literally in German as Gewissensbiss.

2. 2. 4. Duty and Happiness

2. 2. 4. 3. Good, Useful, and Delightful

A useful good is a means to reaching a further end.

A delightful good is that which procures pleasure.

A virtuous good is that which is an end in itself.

With this we reach a first terminological and conceptual clarification:

What is first in intention is last in execution.

3. Judgement by which the end is presented as 4. Efficacious intention of this end

7. Practical judgement on the most suitable means

8. Choice of such means

9. Command of the reason

10. Use of the means

11. Enjoyment of the good

This is a self-evident principle that has no need of demonstration; in fact, a demonstration in

who profess they have her best interests at heart.

A human act necessarily requires both knowledge and advertence.

3. 1. 4. The Will in the Human Act

An act is called voluntary when it is caused by the will of the subject.

An act is involuntary when performed against the will of the subject.

3. 1. 4. 2. Simple Voluntary and Relative Voluntary

would be on the path to even greater suffering.

3. 1. 4. 3. Willed Voluntary and Tolerated Voluntary

that is, they augment the voluntariness.

The responsibility for a determined action can be in act or in cause of an act.

3. 4. Human Action as Immanent Activity

A habitus is acquired through the repetition of a determined type of act.

4. The Virtues in General

4. 3. Classification of the Virtues

fundamental resolve of wisdom.

Person (or Community)

Moral Faculty of Claiming Ownership

Vital Space Necessary for Personal Development

are not so private!

The form of justice is respect for another person.

6. 4. The Parts of Justice

provisory, temporary, non-definitive, tentative, as is proved by the patchwork character of all

the person to preserve an integrity of a different and more profound character.

7. 4. Endurance and Aggression

C. Ontologically Based Personalism

8. 3. 1. Division between Body and Person

9. The Foundation of Morality

Excursus 2. Morality and Contemporary Thought

anything or put too much at stake.

c) Motor vehicles must drive on the right.

9. 2. 3. Mans Ultimate End

9. 2. 3. 1. Happiness and the Good

9. 3. The Basis of Human Rights

9. 3. 1. Nature and Reason

10. The Moral Law

Moral law is a kind of rule and measure of human acts.

10. 2. 1. Law as Rational Order

10. 2. 2. Law and the Common Good