Good and evil actions : a journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas PDF
Preview Good and evil actions : a journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas
Steven J. Jensen GOOD & EVIL ACTIONS A Journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas GOOD & EVIL ACTIONS GOOD & EVIL ACTIONS A Journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas Steven J. Jensen The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C. Copyright © 2010 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jensen, Steven J., 1964– Good and evil actions : a journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas / Steven J. Jensen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8132-1727-7 (paperback : alk. paper) 1. Good and evil. 2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. 3. Good and evil—History of doctrines—Middle Ages, 600–1500. I. Title. BJ1401.J46 2010 171΄.2092—dc22 2009036241 For my parents Parentibus non potest secundum aequalitatem recompensari quod eis debetur. (II-II, 80, 1) CONTENTS Foreword by Ralph McInerny ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1. Human Actions 8 2. Intention 44 3. Exterior Actions 73 4. Love of Others 132 5. Difficulties 180 6. Teleology 225 7. Moral Species 279 Bibliography 311 Index 319 FOREWORD It is inescapably true that we should do good and avoid evil, but how are we to know the difference between them? Whenever St. Thomas faces this question, he quotes the Psalmist in the Vul- gate (Ps. 4, 6): Quis ostendit nobis bona? The answer is: Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine. Who will show us what is good? The light of the countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord. That is, by a participation in the divine wisdom, men have a natural ca- pacity to discern good and evil. One becomes a good person by performing good deeds; a pri- mary task of moral philosophy, accordingly, is getting clear on the nature of the human act. Human acts are acts that humans per- form, of course, and it is important to begin with such resounding truisms. But difficulties arise and one learns to appreciate Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between the human act and the act of a man. Not every activity truly ascribed to a man counts as a human act, the mark of the latter being that it is deliberate and voluntary. In- haling and exhaling, dreaming, and the like thus do not count as human acts. One must know what he is doing and freely do it in order for the act to be human. Thus one is drawn into a consider- ation of the constituents of the human act, the contributions of rea- son on the one hand and of will on the other. There is the inner act as well as the external action and moral appraisal of the one or the ix
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