The 5th dubium: the conscience

[Ender]

And there is this: “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good” (Genesis 1:31). How then may an object, by it nature, be "incapable of being ordered to the good? What is such an object? Could it be an evil thing God made? Or is it a factor in the act of a person?

The object of an act is not a thing. It is not a noun, it is a verb. It is the action part of the act.

Veritatis splendor says intrinsic evil is the acts that "have been termed ‘intrinsically evil’ ", e.g., abortion, murder and adultery. Thus, the intrinsic evil is not in an external object at all, since object in this sense means the objective (intent) of the act, which is internal and subjective.

No, the object (the action) is separate from the intent. The intent is the second of the three fonts that determine the morality of an act. The object (the thing done) is the first font.

Intrinsic evil is an abstract concept, a component of the act, and if there remain the teaching concerning full knowledge and deliberate consent, how for example would adultery differ from any other sin?

Culpability for a sin is not tied to the nature of the sin itself. A moral act consists of three parts: the object (the action taken), the intent, and the circumstances. Intrinsic evil applies to the object. Certain actions are always wrong, therefore any act that involves an intrinsically evil action is immoral. Whether or not the actor is culpable is an entirely separate question.

Ender

 

[Rau]

The object of an act is not a thing. It is not a noun, it is a verb. It is the action part of the act.

Correct. Thomas - that should go along way to resolving your objections.

There are secular rationales for rejecting the idea of intrinsic evil, but they are quite different from the objections you raised.

 

[Ender]

Full understanding is not requisite for a human action to be called a ‘human action.’ For the reason can be in error or false and this does not simply deprive one of the voluntariness of their action (and the moral quality of the action as good or evil) as neither does ignorance because ignorance can be voluntary.

Yes, it is the voluntariness of an act that makes it a human action. Acting with an end in view is sufficient to make it a human action. Ignorance and understanding may be involved in determining culpability for the act, but it is a human action because it is voluntary and directed at some end.* Damascene says (De Fide Orth. ii) that “the voluntary is an act consisting in a rational operation.” Now such are human acts. Therefore there is something voluntary in **human acts. (Aquinas ST I-II 6,1)
*Ender

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Full understanding is not requisite for a human action to be called a ‘human action.’ For the reason can be in error or false and this does not simply deprive one of the voluntariness of their action (and the moral quality of the action as good or evil) as neither does ignorance because ignorance can be voluntary.

Have you seriously studied Aquinas’s philosophy of man?
This is nonsense.
It is Moral Theology 101 that understanding of the intellect and consent of the will are the sine qua non of a human act. “Intention” is usually shorthand for asserting the substantial presence of the operation of both these two faculties.

You are confusing “loss of understanding” (ie the faculty itself is to some degree not operating fully as in sleepy or psychosis or drunk) with “false understanding”.

In the first a full human act simply does not exist behind the adulterous behaviour, therefore the behaviour itself is not a moral evil, or only venial.

In the second we do have a human act, but the object intended by the agent is different from what actually happened. Thus Oedipus thought he engaged in a marital act, in fact the object of his intent was adultery and incest.

Both the above are blameless for the specific objective behaviour but for very different reasons.

That does not mean the first is without moral fault for getting into a position of being too drunk or sleepy that he could not engage in a truly human act. But that is a different enquiry about a different choice.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The object of an act is not a thing. It is not a noun, it is a verb. It is the action part of the act.

More nonsense, you are still using the thinking of modern secular philosophy.
You have to use the words “action” and “act” in the way Aristotle and Aquinas would use them.

For them the “object” is in fact more like a noun than a verb, more like a mechanical behaviour than an “act”.

It is the very point of their philosophic analysis that, like body and soul, we only have a truly existent human act when object and subject are firmly joined together as a whole.
Neither component actually exists unless conjoined.

Thus, like the soul which acts on the passive body to make it live, so the intent of the agent makes the mechanical objective behaviour (the matter, the object) become alive.

Therefore it is really the intention that is more the act, more the verb.
It is the object of the intention that is passive, receiving, the noun.
That is why it’s an object, a thing.
Like a body it only seems to be the visible action because it’s act is in fact given by the soul, the intention, which is invisible.

But strictly speaking only the conjoining of intention and object may be considered to be the verb, the complete act because it’s all three fonts together that form a true “human act”.
But philosophic analysis shows that each font contributes and shares in this act in different roles.

Thomas is in fact more correct than you guys realise, he is old school Aristotle, you are the moderns and have underestimated and misunderstood his approach methinks.

 

[Richca]

This is not persuasive. And I quote from your comment:

“An intrinsically evil act such as adultery is an act that cannot be ordered to good or made good regardless of circumstances, intention, lack of knowledge, or lack of deliberate or full consent.”

 

[Rau]

More nonsense, you are still using the thinking of modern secular philosophy.
You have to use the words “action” and “act” in the way Aristotle and Aquinas would use them.

For them the “object” is in fact more like a noun than a verb, more like a mechanical behaviour than an “act”.

It is the very point of their philosophic analysis that, like body and soul, we only have a truly existent human act when object and subject are firmly joined together as a whole.
Neither component actually exists unless conjoined.

Thus, like the soul which acts on the passive body to make it live, so the intent of the agent makes the mechanical objective behaviour (the matter, the object) become alive.

Therefore it is really the intention that is more the act, more the verb.
It is the object of the intention that is passive, receiving, the noun.
That is why it’s an object, a thing.
Like a body it only seems to be the visible action because it’s act is in fact given by the soul, the intention, which is invisible.

But strictly speaking only the conjoining of intention and object may be considered to be the verb, the complete act because it’s all three fonts together that form a true “human act”.
But philosophic analysis shows that each font contributes and shares in this act in different roles.

Thomas is in fact more correct than you guys realise, he is old school Aristotle, you are the moderns and have underestimated and misunderstood his approach methinks.

Whether the object is thought of as “the deprivation of life from an innocent” or “deprive life from an innocent” is of little significance. Do not look for complexity when not required.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Whether the object is thought of as “the deprivation of life from an innocent” or “deprive life from an innocent” is of little significance. Do not look for complexity when not required.

I wish I understood the relevance of your comment.
And mine was actually a simplification (or at least my attempt) of 100s of pages of Aquinas on the analysis of a human act. A topic on which tombs have been written over the last 900 years which none have supplanted.

But of course its “simple” .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Full understanding is not requisite for a human action to be called a ‘human action.’ For the reason can be in error or false and this does not simply deprive one of the voluntariness of their action (and the moral quality of the action as good or evil) as neither does ignorance because ignorance can be voluntary.

Its a complex topic - but the starting point, at least for Aquinas, is always that understanding is a necessary component of a human act (ie one that involves the possibility of imputability and moral fault).

Therefore “ignorance diminishes culpability” is the basic principle.
Yes there can be exceptions, as when ignorance is consequent to the act in question.
That is not the case in the usual conscience examples that have been raised so far.

Try this on for size:

*Since it belongs to the nature of sin to be voluntary, ignorance has the ability to excuse
sin in whole or in part insofar as ignorance takes away voluntariness. And we should
consider that ignorance can take away subsequent but not antecedent voluntariness.
And since ignorance rests in the intellect, we can consider the relation of ignorance
to the voluntary by the relation of the intellect to the will. For an act of the intellect necessarily precedes an act of the will, since the understood good is the object of the will.
And so when ignorance takes away knowledge by the intellect, the act of the will is taken
away, and so the voluntary regarding what is unknown is taken away. And so if regarding the same act, one knows something and is ignorant of something else, there can be
something voluntary regarding what is known. But regarding what is unknown, there
is always something involuntary. This may be because the deformity of an act is unknown.
For example, a person who does not know that fornication is a sin indeed voluntarily
commits fornication but does not voluntarily commit sin. Or else there is something involuntary because the circumstance of an act is unknown. For example, a person who
has intercourse with a woman he thinks to be his wife indeed voluntarily has intercourse
with the woman but not voluntarily with a woman not his wife. *

And after noting culpable exceptions he then concludes:

And if ignorance is not voluntary in any of the aforementioned ways, as when the ignorance is invincible and without any disorder of the will, then the ignorance makes a subsequent evil act completely involuntary.

Aquinas, De Malo.

 

[Rau]

I wish I understood the relevance of your comment.
And mine was actually a simplification (or at least my attempt) of 100s of pages of Aquinas on the analysis of a human act. A topic on which tombs have been written over the last 900 years which none have supplanted.

But of course its “simple” .

Nouns and Verbs Blue.
Certainly no need to make it as complex as you do. No tomb need be consulted.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Nouns and Verbs Blue.
Certainly no need to make it as complex as you do. No tomb need be consulted.

Yeah, Aquinas really wasted his life on that one, until the straw. .
But for us who haven’t entered the mystical state … we’re stuck with complicated as his Summa suggests.

 

[Rau]

Yeah, Aquinas really wasted his life on that one, until the straw. .
But for us who haven’t entered the mystical state … we’re stuck with complicated as his Summa suggests.

Complicated to develop the Summa. Yep! Resulting principals and practices? Not as difficult!

 

[Thomas_White]

I don’t believe I’ve made the common error of confusing object and subject. Perhaps, you are making an error and confusing the quite clear and straightforward teaching of the CCC which I’m only restating here. The CCC lists adultery as an act that is always gravely illicit to choose independently of circumstances and intention. Adultery is the object of the act. In the words of Veritatis Spendor, adultery is an intrinsically evil act.

We are talking about the morality of human actions of which there are three sources as the CCC explains and whether they are good or evil, not about the things God has made. The object of human actions is as it were the form of the act thus giving the act its species as the form of natural things gives such things their species. The object chosen specifies what kind of human act we are considering and these are either good, evil, or indifferent. For example, praying, fasting, almsgiving are good human acts in their species; murder, stealing, adultery, blasphemy are evil human acts in species; walking is indifferent in species but can be made good or bad through circumstances and intention. In the concrete, no human action is indifferent but is either good or bad either by circumstance or intention or both. Good human actions according to the object or species can be made evil by circumstance or intention. Evil human actions according to the object or species (intrinsically evil acts) cannot be made good by circumstances or intention.

Now, actions such as murder, stealing, adultery, fornication, almsgiving, walking etc. are external actions (though they proceed interiorly from the intellect and will) so they are not entirely internal and subjective.

Merriam Webster defines intrinsic as: belonging to the essential nature of a thing. As I said above, the object chosen is as the form of a human action through giving it its species - what kind of action are we considering (cf. ST, Pt. I-II, q. 18, art. 2, reply to obj. 2). The form which gives a thing its species belongs to the essential nature of a thing.

Concerning the morality of human actions, there are certain ‘forms’ or species or objects of human actions that are evil in themselves (formally, essentially, objectively) such as murder, stealing, and adultery and thus are also called intrinsically (formal, objective, essentially) evil acts.

What is “formal, essentially, objectively” an evil act is not subjective. It is by definition observable behavior (objective). As you say, “Adultery is the objective of the act. In the words of Veritatis splendor, adultery is an intrinsically evil act” What then is it that is intrinsically evil, the act or its object (as the word object is commonly understood)? I do not believe this is comprehensible in the strict Thomistic sense of a substance, where an object consists of form and matter (act and potency). For Aquinas, it is an external occurrence that actualizes potential (reduces the potency to act). This is an objective description of human behavior. But more than this is evident in Verititis splendor, I think.

In phenomenology, consciousness occurs as the simultaneity of a conscious act and its object. The object of consciousness is called the intentional object, and it is a subjective perception. I think the influence of phenomenological thought is evident in Verititis splendor, and that this is the way to understand what is said.

 

[Ender]

More nonsense, you are still using the thinking of modern secular philosophy.

Actually, I’m thinking of how the church uses the terms.1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just.
The church is pretty clear in distinguishing the behavior (the verbish action) from the intention.* The end does not justify the means.*
This only makes sense if the end is understood as the objective of the intent and the means are the concrete actions take to achieve the end. The “object” referred to as the first of the three fonts of morality is the action - the means - taken to achieve the ends as directed by the intent. Ends and means are intentions and actions.

You have to use the words “action” and “act” in the way Aristotle and Aquinas would use them. For them the “object” is in fact more like a noun than a verb, more like a mechanical behaviour than an “act”.

I am happy to use the terms they way Aquinas does. That, however, does not require me to accept your understanding of his terms. For example, I should like to see your description of a behavior, mechanical or otherwise, that relies only on nouns. Give us an example of a behavior that is “more like a noun than a verb”.

Therefore it is really the intention that is more the act, more the verb.

So, intention is like acting and acting is…not? This is what you’ve gleaned from Aquinas?

It is the object of the intention that is passive, receiving, the noun.
That is why it’s an object, a thing.

Examples, we need examples.

But strictly speaking only the conjoining of intention and object may be considered to be the verb, the complete act because it’s all three fonts together that form a true “human act”.

It is the three fonts together that determine the morality of the act, which is a separate consideration from whether the act can be considered a human act at all.

Ender

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Actually, I’m thinking of how the church uses the terms.1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just.
The church is pretty clear in distinguishing the behavior (the verbish action) from the intention.* The end does not justify the means.*
This only makes sense if the end is understood as the objective of the intent and the means are the concrete actions take to achieve the end. The “object” referred to as the first of the three fonts of morality is the action - the means - taken to achieve the ends as directed by the intent. Ends and means are intentions and actions.
I am happy to use the terms they way Aquinas does. That, however, does not require me to accept your understanding of his terms. For example, I should like to see your description of a behavior, mechanical or otherwise, that relies only on nouns. Give us an example of a behavior that is “more like a noun than a verb”.
So, intention is like acting and acting is…not? This is what you’ve gleaned from Aquinas?
Examples, we need examples.
It is the three fonts together that determine the morality of the act, which is a separate consideration from whether the act can be considered a human act at all.

Ender

Until you have a reasonable grasp of hylomorphism and how the body receives it’s act from the soul this is no more than a child using a calculator to pound nails into a block of wood.
I don’t pretend to be more than a student on these matters myself, but at least the basics do not thunder over my head unheard.

But I do look forward to your responses to my posts below still unanswered…

 

[Thomas_White]

The object of an act is not a thing. It is not a noun, it is a verb. It is the action part of the act.

How is an object the action part of the act? If this is so, then an object is what Aquinas calls a phantasm, which is an abstraction of the intellect.

No, the object (the action) is separate from the intent. The intent is the second of the three fonts that determine the morality of an act. The object (the thing done) is the first font.
Culpability for a sin is not tied to the nature of the sin itself. A moral act consists of three parts: the object (the action taken), the intent, and the circumstances. Intrinsic evil applies to the object. Certain actions are always wrong, therefore any act that involves an intrinsically evil action is immoral. Whether or not the actor is culpable is an entirely separate question.

Ender

The object (the thing done/the action taken) is objectively observable behavior, e.g., Mr. Doe (subject) was murdered (object and noun). What then is the object that is intrinsically evil if it is not the murder (noun) of Mr. Doe? Are we to believe it is his dead body (an observable object and substance of form and matter)? How then is there not a confusion of subject and object in the classically understood definition of these terms?

 

[Richca]

What is “formal, essentially, objectively” an evil act

is not subjective. It is by definition observable behavior (objective).

The will and its acts are primarily the subject of moral good and evil. The interior acts of the intellect and will is where morality begins. The external acts of the body are simply the commands of the will and because the body is a part of man it participates in the moral good or evil of the interior acts of the intellect and will. Accordingly, the moral acts of humans are both interior (or subjective if you will) and exterior. A human action is never entirely exterior because for it to be a human action the action must proceed from the interior acts of intellect and will. The interior act and the exterior act such as eating is considered one complete act.

As you say, “Adultery is the objective of the act. In the words of Veritatis splendor, adultery is an intrinsically evil act” What then is it that is intrinsically evil

 

[Rau]

…The object (the thing done/the action taken) is objectively observable behavior, e.g., Mr. Doe (subject) was murdered (object and noun). What then is the object that is intrinsically evil if it is not the murder (noun) of Mr. Doe?

How all this supports your apparent rejecting of the teaching that there are intrinsically evil acts, I do not know.

It is not right to describe the object as something observable, to the extent that observation by a third party is not definitive as to what is happening.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

How all this supports your apparent rejecting of the teaching that there are intrinsically evil acts, I do not know.

It is not right to describe the object as something observable, to the extent that observation by a third party is not definitive as to what is happening.

You still don’t realise that you confuse the evil of the object (the matter font) with the evil of the three fonts combined as a whole (the evil of the “human act”).

They are two completly different categories/classes of “evil.”
The evil of the object is NOT “moral evil”. That is why its called only a “disorder”
Yes it is intrinsic to the object.

The evil of the “human act”, if grave matter is present, is called “moral evil”.
Is the evil of such a “human act” intrinsically evil?
Well, if it actually is a full human act, then yes it must be also.

However much of the time such deeds are not fully human acts by reason of impaired intent or circumstances.
Therefore its a bit silly to go on about objectively identifying “intrinsic moral evil” simply from the intrinsic disorder of the object. It may not be a fully human act. And there is no objective way to determine how human a “human act” actually is.

Then there is confusion here also about the “acts” or actions" or “behaviour”. Its easy to use these words in English as if they all mean the same thing as the Latin equivs. They DONT. The same with the use of the word evil.

The activity in the object (matter) is also of a different category from the activity re the subject (intent).

Personally I refer to the activity in the matter as “the external deed” or “the behaviour”.
This is fully and objectively definable as most are saying here.
But this activity alone has no moral significance, is in no way a moral activity, until we know what is happening interiorly re interior acts of consent and understanding.

If the interior act is not actually understanding what it has intended in the object then we do not actually have a “human act of adultery.” We only have an “adulterous deed”.

Thus the “moral evil” of Oedipus is not rightly called adultery.
However he did engage in the objective behaviour/deed we define as “adultery” which is an evil, and indeed an intrinsic evil. But in this case not a “moral evil”.

His sin was only in the object, the matter, the material font. That is why we call it “material sin” but not “formal sin.” Formal sin MUST include an intent that matches the object.

That is why Aquinas states in this context (see De Malo) that not all those who do what we call adultery are actually adulterous.

Thus Aquinas defines two types of evil, which are not in the Catechism.
Malum poenae (as found in a disordered object).
Malum culpae (moral evil) when we fully intend exactly the deed, the malum poenae, we do.

 

[Rau]

I stand by my statement Blue.