DEFINITION OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY -- CHARACTER OF THE SCIENCE -- ITS EXCELLENCE -- ITS METHOD. -- ITS DIVISION.
1. Moral philosophy is a science which treats of the free actions of man, and directs them to his final end.
2. Moral philosophy is a practical science, because it serves to direct the will. -- Unlike Logic and Metaphysics, which require only acts of intellect, Moral Philosophy requires, besides, acts of the will. Hence, while they are speculative sciences, it is called a practical science.
3. The excellence of moral philosophy follows from its very nature, and from its relations with the other sciences, particularly with the practical sciences, which it furnishes with their first principles. -- In itself moral philosophy is conversant about all that regulates and relates to man's will. Now, what is of greater importance to man than the proper direction of his will, since it is by this faculty that he is to attain the end of his existence? As to the relations of moral philosophy with the other sciences, on the one hand, it is manifestly the end of the speculative sciences, since the true should be known only with a view of thereby better practising the good; and, on the other hand, it lays down for the practical sciences, like jurisprudence, political economy, and aesthetics, those fundamental principles without which they become deceitful and hurtful.
4. The method of moral philosophy is to seek out the laws of morality by the light of reason guided by faith and history. -- The principles of moral philosophy should be founded on the natural light of reason aided and sustained by the teachings of faith. Revelation, which directs our feeble intelligence in the way of truth, is the more necessary in the study of morals, as the tumult of passions often so disturbs the judgment that the good is not duly esteemed, and the will is weak in putting that good into practice.
Moral science receives great help also from the study of history, which shows that the leading principles of justice and honor, in spite of many errors, have been maintained constant and uniform, throughout all ages and among all people.
There are three principal errors as to the method to be followed in the study of morals. Rationalism will have no other basis than independent reason. Such a pretension is opposed to the native imperfection of reason, and even to affirmations of experience. Traditionalism, going to the other extreme, holds that reason is unable to discover the moral laws, and knows them only by a primitive revelation from God, which has been handed down by tradition. This attacks the natural powers of reason, and thus does injury to God, from whom both reason and revelation proceed. In the last place, the historical school whose principles are illustrated in the writings of Savigny (1779-1861), Niebuhr (1776-1831), Eichhorn 1781-1854), instead of seeking the rule of morality in the nature of things, pretends to find it by induction in the study of history; "and therefore," says Liberatore, "they hold that the equity of all laws is to be judged from the times, inclinations, instincts, and different development of powers, and other circumstances that led to their enactment."{1} By this very fact it gives to morality a basis without consistency, and takes away from justice those characteristics of absolute and eternal which are its distinguishing property.
5. Moral Philosophy is divided into two parts, Ethics and Natural Law; or, according to some, into General Ethics and Special Ethics. -- A human action may be viewed under two aspects, either abstractly and under the general conditions that constitute its morality, or concretely and in relation to the particular obligations that result from the order established by nature. The study of human actions from the former standpoint belongs to Morals or General Ethics; from the latter, to Natural Law or Special Ethics. Although distinct, the two sciences are closely united, standing in the relation of principles to their application.
DIVISION.
6. Ethics examines the moral goodness of human acts, and therefore should study 1, the external objective cause of human action, that is their end; 2, the internal subjective cause, that is, the faculty that elicits them; , 3, the constitutive principles of the morality of human actions; 4, the rule of human actions.
ART. I. -- GOOD IN GENERAL AS THE END OF EVERY BEING, AND THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF ITS OPERATIONS.
7. Every being has an end, which is the first principle of its operations. -- Every being has received from God with its existence a power to operate, a tendency to action, in harmony with its nature. This power cannot exist without an end or term; otherwise it would be a tendency tending to nothing. The term of the operations of a being is called its end. Such a term, such an end, has necessarily been given to every creature by the Supreme Ruler of the world; for He is infinite wisdom, and, therefore, cannot create any thing without fixing its end and giving it the means to attain that end. The end of a being is, therefore, the first principle, the external objective principle, of all its operations.
8. The end of each being is one, as its nature is one. -- Unity is an essential property of every being. Since the end is proportionate to the nature, every being has, strictly speaking, but one end. When a being is thought to have several ends, then its last end has been confounded with the subordinate ends, which are rather to be called means.
9. The operative power of a being is in perfect agreement with its nature; hence, as the nature varies, so will there be a difference in the manner of attaining the end. -- Whatever is destitute of intelligence tends to its end by a blind impulse. Animals tend to it through sensitive perception; but, being unable to abstract, and consequently to know the relations of things, they cannot consider the object of their operation as an end their appetite is moved, not by a judgment on the fitness of the act, but by mere natural inclination. Man, on the contrary, can know the relations of things, considers the object as the end of his operations, and chooses freely the means of attaining his end.
10. The good of each being is in its end. -- The operative power of a being is imperfect so long as the end is not attained; but when that is compassed it is in repose, because it has obtained its natural perfection. The natural perfection of a being is its good; therefore the good of each being is fonnd in its end. But since the idea of good is intimately connected with that of end, the true good of a being does not consist in this or that subordinate end, but in the one end properly so called; and this good is but one, as the end is but one. This, however, is so far as it is objectively considered.{2}
11. Good is honorable, pleasurable, or useful. -- The good if considered as end is called honorable or virtuous if it is sought for its own sake and agrees with right reason; if considered in respect to the satisfaction which it affords its possessor, it is called pleasurable; if considered as the means of attaining the end, it is called useful. Hence the useful is willed as means, the pleasurable as a consequence, but the honorable alone for itself. The same good may under different aspects be at the same time useful, pleasurable, and honorable. A useful good should be sought only as leading to an honorable good; a pleasurable good, only as resulting from an honorable good.
12. Order, as being a participation of the divine intelligence and will, is the last reason explaining the good. -- The true good of a being is always the good of order, because it is this good that befits the being according to its nature, that is, according to the place which God has assigned it in the general order of the universe.{3} Now, the order of the universe which results from the subordination of the special ends of each being to a single end is essentially good because it is the realization of the essentially good idea of the divine intelligence. Thus the last reason for which a being attains good in attaining its end is found in the intelligence and will of God, the infinite Good.{4}
ART. II. -- THE SUPREME GOOD AS THE LAST END OF MAN.
13. Rational good is the good proper to man's nature. -- Man is composed of body and soul, and hence there are for him two kinds of good. By his sensitive appetite he is drawn toward sensible good; by his intellectual appetite, toward spiritual good. But as these goods are often opposed, and as everything should conform to the order established by the Author of nature, the sensitive appetite should be subject to the intellectual appetite. Therefore the good proper to man is intellectual good. The Sensible good is a true good if it is in conformity with reason; otherwise, although it be a good with regard to the body, it is an evil to the whole man, inasmuch as he is a being disposed with order; and if man tends to good not conformable to right reason, he does evil.
14. The supreme good is man's last end. -- The last end of a being is but one; therefore the last end of man and the good that constitutes that end are but one. It is easily seen that this good can be nothing else but the supreme good, since it must be proportioned to man's nature. For as the intellect tends not to the particular true, but to the universal true, so the will tends not to the particular good, but to the universal, unlimited good. This tendency is so powerful in the will, that it always subsists, even when the will seems to follow a particular good. Besides, the repose, the happiness, which results from the end obtained, i.e., the good possessed, shows clearly what that good is whose possession procures perfect happiness. Now, perfect happiness should (1) fully satisfy the innate desires of the heart; (2) be immutable; (3) be eternal. But what good is there the possession of which can confer such happiness except the supreme good, the good than which nothing greater can be conceived?
15. Pleasure cannot be man's supreme good.{5} -- Pleasure is either corporeal or spiritual. Corporeal pleasure is not proportionate to man's intellectual nature. Spiritual pleasure or joy may be either limited and imperfect, or perfect. In the latter case it must result from the possession of the supreme good, but is not the supreme good itself; for pleasure or joy is subjective, the good that causes it objective.
16. Knowledge and virtue attainable in this life cannot be man's supreme good. -- Knowledge and virtue in this life are great blessings and to be sought with diligence, but, aside from the imperfect way in which they are always possessed, they demand much labor and many sacrifices; hence they cannot be man's supreme good.
17. Neither can knowledge and virtue together with pleasure be man's supreme good. -- In the first place, experience proves that this union is never complete and permanent in this life. In the second place, a collection of limited goods can never give more than a limited good, and therefore cannot satisfy the bound. less desires of man.
18. God alone is the supreme good. -- If the supreme good be not an empty abstraction, if man's desire for it be not an illusion of nature, we must admit that the supreme good is God, who alone is infinite, immutable, and eternal, and the knowledge and possession of whom can alone confer upon man supreme and perfect happiness.
19. The supreme good is possessed radically by an act of the intellect. -- The will enjoys the good because it is present and possessed, but it is not possessed because the will takes complacency in it. It is the intellect that directly apprehends and possesses the object that constitutes the good; the enjoyment is the consequence of possession, not the possession itself.
20. The human soul desires to enjoy the supreme good in union with the body. -- The human soul is made to be united to a body; hence it has a natural desire of resuming the body after being separated from it. Therefore, when the soul possesses the sovereign good, though it is then fully satisfied as to the object possessed, it is not so as to the manner in which it desires to possess it, which is in union with the body. And as this desire comes from nature, it will be satisfied. This argues for the resurrection of the body.
ART. III. -- THE SUPREME GOOD IN RELATION TO MAN'S LIFE UPON EARTH.
21. Man cannot possess the supreme good in this life, but he ought to tend to attain it in the life to come. -- The knowledge that man has of God in this life is imperfect; hence his love of God and his happiness are also imperfect. But as his end cannot change its nature, man should so subordinate this life to the future as to attain in the latter the perfect possession of the supreme good.
22. Man in this life must tend to the supreme good by his will. -- In this life man cannot possess the supreme good; but he should tend to it unceasingly, and in this his real perfection consists. But it is chiefly by the will that actions tend and are directed to an end. Therefore it is especially by the will that man attains his perfection in this world; as it is especially by the intellect that he will possess the supreme good in the other.
23. The tendency of the will ought to be directed by the moral law. -- God, having created the world, must have proposed to Himself an end. The realization of this end constitutes the order of the world. This order, which is styled physical or moral, according as it refers to irrational or to rational beings, consists in this, that every being should remain in its place, act according to the laws imposed on it by God, and regulate its motions in harmony with those of other beings. Therefore the observance of this order constitutes the natural perfection of each being. As the physical order is fixed, irrational beings cannot disturb it; but the moral order man can depart from by the free election of his will. But because God cannot but will that the order established by Him be maintained, it follows that if man wishes hereafter to possess God, the supreme good, he ought to direct and regulate his will according to the laws of the moral order.
24. Conformity to the moral order constitutes for man an imperfect happiness in this life.{6} -- Order for man consists chiefly in knowing and loving God. Now, as he will one day enjoy perfect happiness by the perfect knowledge and love of God, so by the knowledge and love of God which he will acquire in this life will he enjoy a sort of participation of the happiness of the other life, a happiness which hope will enable him to possess by anticipation.
{1} Institutiones Philosophica, vol. iii., p. 17. {2} "Good takes the nature of end inasmuch as it objectively moves the will to act. . . . Whence end is oniy mentally distinguished from good" (Russo, Praelectiones Philosophiae, p. 10, 13). But good as a means is not end therefore not every good has the nature of end.
{3} See Metaphysics of the School, vol. i., pp. 500, 501, 506.
{4} The end of a being "depends on the divine wisdom and goodness. For the natures and relations of things are dictated by the divine intellect contemplating the divine essence. Therefore, because the morality of human actions depends immediately on the order of things, it depends mediately on the divine wisdom and goodness." Liberatore. Institutiones Philosophiae, iii., p. 50.
{5} The contrary would be true were there no error in the dictum of Paley, "Pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity."
{6} Yet for the enjoyment of the imperfect happiness attainable in this life man needs also not only a certain perfection of body and external goods as well, but naturally the society of friends. Cf. Zigliara, Summa Philosophica, M. 7, v. vi.