Quaeritur: Can Circumstances Change the Species of a Human Act? (Part 2)

Quaeritur: Can Circumstances Change the Species of a Human Act? (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1.)

Quaeritur: The more I delve into the issue of the moral determinants of a human act, the more mind-racking it seems to get.  I ask you to please answer these questions in your kindness.

- Respondeo per partes.

1)  Is the following proposition true or false? "Moral philosophers/theologians in the scholastic tradition teach that what makes a human act intrinsically evil is the object of the human act because it is the object of the human act that gives the human act its species."

- The proposition is true.

2) What does it mean that an act is intrinsically evil?  What acts are some examples of intrinsically evil acts?

- It means that the object is evil, and therefore, because the object of an act is what gives the act its species, it follows that the act is evil in its species.  Examples of acts that are evil due to their object: any act of murder, theft, lying, etc.

3) Is an intrinsically evil act identical to an act that is “bad in itself”?

- Yes.

4) Is the object of an evil human act ALWAYS "intrinsically" evil?  In other words, can the object of a human act be such that it is evil, but not intrinsically evil?  If so, we then have a human act that is intrinsically evil, but which has an object that is not intrinsically evil, but only evil extrinsically.

- Technically, when we say that an act is intrinsically evil, we mean its object is evil (as opposed to its end or circumstances).  It means the act is evil in its species, i.e., due to its object.  It wouldn't be precise to say that the object of the act is intrinsically evil.  

5) It is said that you can have a human act where the object and end that are good, but the circumstances are evil, thereby making the human act evil.  I cannot think of a case that shows this.  Rather, I am under the impression (based on your first post) that if the circumstance is evil, then it is truly not a circumstance, but a condition of the object.  Therefore, there can never be true circumstances that are evil in and of themselves.  If I am wrong, please provide me with an example.

- Yes, you can have circumstances that render evil an act that is otherwise good (that is, if it is good in its object and its end).  The act would not be intrinsically evil, just evil accidentally.  St. Thomas teaches this, but doesn't seem to give examples in Ia-IIae, q. 18. However, we can easily come up with some examples: pursuing legitimate, pleasurable activities in excess (eating, sex, sleeping, vacationing, etc.); or doing any of these, or anything else, really, at the wrong time, or in the wrong place.  In this case, the act would not be evil in its species, or essentially evil, but only accidentally so.  Still, it would be evil.

Quaeritur: Can Circumstances Change the Species of a Human Act? (Part 1)

Quaeritur: Can Circumstances Change the Species of a Human Act? (Part 1)

Quaeritur: Can circumstances change the species (i.e., moral object) of a human act or do they only change the degree of the species of a human act?

Technically, the circumstances in a human act are always accidental to the object of the act; whereas it is the object (the thing that is done) in an act that primarily gives the act its essence or species (see ST I-II.18.2).  For example, suppose I steal some money from someone: who I steal from, how much I steal, etc. are considered circumstances, and therefore are accidental to the object or essence of the act, which was theft.  Whether I steal $5 or $5,000, it's still theft.  And whether I steal from a stranger or from my uncle, it's still theft.  These circumstances do not affect the essence of the act.

However, there are factors in a human act which seem to be circumstantial, but in reality are not circumstances at all, but are "conditions for the object," as St. Thomas calls them (see ST I-II.18.10c).  For example, if you 'steal' a wallet, but that wallet happens to belong to you in the first place, the fact that it belongs to you is not really a circumstance, but a 'condition for the object', and it makes the act not theft at all; rather, the essence of the act is that you're taking what is yours.  Or to use St. Thomas' example, if you steal from a holy place, like a church, you're definitely committing theft, but additionally, the fact that you're doing it from a holy place adds another object to the act, namely, that of sacrilege.  That apparent circumstance is not a circumstance in the sense of an accident; it adds another species to the act.  (And, if you're wondering, yes, a human act can have more than one moral species, unlike a natural thing, like a plant or animal, which can only have one species.)

So stealing from a church is actually two sins, theft and sacrilege? Or is it still one – sacrilegious theft?

Two sins.  And both have to be confessed.  In other words, it's not enough to say merely "I stole something from a building," or "I committed sacrilege at the church"; one has to confess having stolen from the church, both theft and sacrilege.  And so with other acts that involve multiple species of sin, as when one does one bad thing for the sake of another.

In ST I-II.18.6 St. Thomas explains that when one does one evil for the sake of another, the evil that is the end relates to the evil means as form to matter: for example, when one steals in order to commit adultery---which incidentally is the reverse of Aristotle's example in the Ethics: adultery for the sake of theft---the two sins come together in one act.  In St. Thomas' example the theft is material and the adultery is formal, whereas in Aristotle's example, the adultery is material, the theft is formal.  Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, Beatitude (commentary on Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae, available through ITOPL), p. 274: 

One who steals in order to commit adultery is an adulterer rather than [i.e., moreso than] a thief, because adultery, the subjective purpose, is the form of which theft is the material.  In this case there are two sins specifically distinct, to be declared in confession.

Thank you, Doctor!  Clear as usual!

You're welcome!  Also, feel free to use our Quaestiones Disputatae forum.  Your questions can actually help many people in that forum and you can also benefit from the input of other traditional Catholic scholars who join in.

The Finality of Religion in Aquinas' Theory of Human Acts (Doctoral Dissertation)

The Finality of Religion in Aquinas' Theory of Human Acts (Doctoral Dissertation)

by Francisco J Romero Carrasquillo, Marquette University

Download the Marquette University version (PDF) free.

Purchase a hard copy from the publisher (ProQuest Digital Dissertations).

Abstract

The study examines the end or purpose of the acts of the virtue of religion within Thomas Aquinas' ethics of human action. What is the end of religious worship? Is it God, or is it the worshippers themselves? On the one hand, one would presume that God cannot be the end of religion because, from the perspective of Classical Theism (of which Aquinas is a main proponent), God cannot benefit from the activity of creatures. But on the other hand, if the worshipper is the end of religious acts, would not worship be a self-centered or an egotistic act? The standard Thomistic account of the problem, first laid out by Cajetan and later adopted by countless followers, is that God is the finis cuius ("the aim toward which") of the acts of the virtue of religion, whereas the religious worshipper is the finis quo (the beneficiary) of the acts. I argue that this solution, which is based on a single text of Aquinas (ST II-II.81.7c), is insufficient. After examining Aquinas' theory of action (the doctrine of object, end, and circumstances presented in ST I-II.18), I show how the object of a particular human act can be interpreted as the finis operis (the end of the agent's act). Utilizing this principle of the identity between the object and the finis operis, I argue that the finis operis of religion can be summed up as a threefold sequence of ends: the honor, reverence, and glory of God. As a result, the ultimate beneficiary of acts of religious worship is neither God nor the individual worshiper, but rather the totality of the universe, encapsulated by Aquinas in his notion of divine "glory," that is, the extrinsic manifestation of God's intrinsic goodness within the universe.

Recommended Citation

Francisco J Romero, The Finality of Religion in Aquinas' Theory of Human Acts. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Proquest Digital Dissertations, 2009.