Morality Vis-à-vis Reason in Aquinas Philosophy: A Critical Analysis
CHAPTER ONE
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The main purpose of this research/work study is to critically analyze the various notion of morality and reason, also, see how morality is been guided by reason, in respect to “Thomas Aquinas.” It is also intended towards serving as an impetus for improving the level of understanding of morality and reason by upcoming students of Nigeria University and tertiary institutions alike.
This work-study is also intended to throw more light on reason and moral ideas, principles and benefits.
CHAPTER TWO
REASON AND MORALITY
Aquinas holds that reason is rational in the sense that it is responsive to the individual’s apprehension of what is the good to be pursued.1 He holds that there are normative reasons for reason based upon the value of the one reasond and according to which reason is rationally and morally evaluable as appropriate or inappropriate with regard to what one reasons. I shall argue that Aquinas’s account of the relation between reason and rationality is more compelling than that of Harry Frankfurt who denies that reason is a response to the perceived value of the one reasond and that our reasons are normatively evaluable. On Frankfurt’s view, reason is a higher order desire to support and sustain a first order desire, which is evaluable only in terms of one’s more basic desires and, as such, is not subject to rational or moral evaluation. Aquinas, on the other hand, holds that in beings capable of cognition, reason (amor) generally speaking entails the apprehension of some object or end as somehow suitable or fitting to the one who reasons. Moreover, in rational or intellective beings, reason pertaining to the will (dilectio) has as its formal object the good universally considered or some particular individual considered under the aspect of the good. According to Aquinas, the one who reasons apprehends what is reasond as good to be pursued, and reason is deemed appropriate or not according to whether or not the object or end actually is good to be pursued and whether or not this reason should occupy the place in the agent’s motivational structure that it does.
In this chapter I will explain Frankfurt’s account of reason as a sort of desire which at the most basic level has no reasons other than the fact that loving itself is important to us as human beings insofar as it gives our lives meaning and purpose. After suggesting what I take to be some of the most compelling features of his account of reason, I will argue that his account of reason is ultimately unsatisfactory—reason is responsive to reasons, and is hence rationally and morally evaluable, even at its most basic level. Then I will explicate Aquinas’s descriptive account of reason between persons (i.e. rational or intellective beings), focusing in particular on the reason characteristic of friendship (amor amicitiae), which constitutes the paradigmatic case of reason for another person indicating how, contra Frankfurt, such reason is not ultimately rooted in desire, but is an appetitive response to what the agent’s intellect presents as good to be pursue. Finally, I will argue that Aquinas provides a more satisfactory account of reason as something which is rationally and morally evaluable in terms of the value of the one reasond and the place that reason occupies in the moral agent’s motivational structure.2 Unlike Frankfurt, Aquinas holds that there are normative reasons for loving persons, and for ordering our reasons in a particular way. Two of the central questions I intend to address are 1) what makes reason normatively appropriate? And 2) what sorts of reason relationships are to be prioritized in one’s motivational structure and why?
FRANKFURT ON REASON
Frankfurt’s descriptive account of reason is rooted in a Humean understanding of the will according to which human motivation is ultimately to be explained in terms of an agent’s beliefs and desires. Frankfurt, of course, is well known for his analysis of the self in terms of hierarchically ordered desires; his work on reason is an extension of this understanding of the nature of our wills and our motivational essences. Reason, he suggests, plays an essential role in the lives of human beings as that which sets our final ends, defines our volitional boundaries and hence constitutes our very identities as individuals. Frankfurt argues for a desire-based account of reason according to which it plays a foundational role in the motivational structure of human beings.
CHAPTER THREE
AQUINAS ON REASON AND MORALITY
According to Velleman, reason is impartial, and hence moral, in the sense that it is a response to the value shared by all persons qua rational beings. Both Whiting and Velleman agree that certain contingent circumstances or particular qualities play an explanatory role in determining whether one chooses this as opposed to that particular person as the object of concern. Nevertheless, both philosophers hold that it is the appreciation of the generic features of the other that provide normative or justificatory reasons which ground one’s concern.
In the first part of this chapter, we rehearse the most significant features of Whiting’s and Velleman’s generic accounts of reason and morality arguing that such views are mistaken in the general assumption that reason and friendship must be grounded in or a response to some impersonal feature in order to be justified. This is not to deny that there is an important connection between impersonal features of the
one reasond and the best forms of friendship. No doubt certain generic features provide the background conditions for the sort of reason or concern constitutive of friendship. Still, it is not the case that one’s concern for another qua virtuous or qua rational being is what makes the kind of reason characteristic of friendship morally praiseworthy.3
After considering Whiting and Velleman’s generic accounts of what justifies or grounds reason, I argue that Aquinas, in keeping with the Aristotelian tradition, presents.
CHAPTER FOUR
LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON, PRUDENCE AND RIGHT REASON
The bulk of this dissertation has been devoted to understanding how on Aquinas’s account, there is an important sense in which certain forms of reason can be essentially self-interested and partial and yet at once deeply moral. In particular, my intent has been to show how Aquinas’s account of reason developed in the right way, provides compelling reasons to think that certain forms of reason, in particular amor amicitiae, can at once be interested and yet other-directed in such a way that may even involve great personal sacrifice. As a eudaimonist, Aquinas’s moral psychology entails that all desires of a rational agent are ultimately rooted in the agent’s desire for her own perfection or completion as a human being—that is, her objective good. Further, this good entails desiring the good of other persons independently, without direct reference to the agent’s own good.
Moreover, I have shown how Aquinas’s moral theory entails partiality insofar as amor amicitiae plays a central role providing the rational agent with reasons for prioritizing her own good and that of the persons to whom she has certain commitments and with whom she has a shared history. But although Aquinas’s moral theory, as specified in his account of the order of caritas, entails partiality, it is nevertheless impartial in the sense that it provides the agent with reasons for, and in fact positively requires, loving all persons, including one’s enemies. But this seems problematic insofar as it allows for a potential conflict of interest between prioritizing the persons one reasons and loving all persons as is proscribed by the greatest commandment of Christianity. My aim in this chapter is to show how the partiality and impartiality required by Aquinas’s moral theory can be reconciled into a coherent account of human motivation.
A striking feature of caritas as understood in the Christian tradition is that all persons, even one’s enemies, are properly included within its scope. The greatest commandment of Christianity is twofold requiring that one reason God with all her heart, soul and mind, and that she reason her neighbor as herself.1 Since the term
“neighbor” is inclusive, extending to all persons as actual or potential sharers of the everlasting happiness found in relationship with God, Christian reason requires loving all persons with amor amicitiae.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
- Aquinas, Thomas. Operia Omnia. 25 vols. 1852–1873. Reprint, New York: Misurgia, 1948–1950. Scriptum super libros sententiarum. Edited by Pierre Mandonnet and M. F. Moos.
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- In librum beati Dionysii de divinis nominibus expositio. Edited by Ceslaus Pera.
- Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1950 In decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum exposition. Edited by R. M. Spiazzi. Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1964.
- Summa Theologica. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1948, 1981.
- Summa Contra Gentiles. Translated by Anton C. Pegis. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.
- On Reason and Charity: Readings from the “Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.” Translated by Peter A. Kwasniewski. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008.
- Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.
- Augustine. De doctrina Christiana. Edited by Joseph Martin. Corpus Christianorum.
- Series Latina 32. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1955.
- Butler, Joseph. Five Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and a Dissertation upon the Nature of Virtue. Edited by Stephen Darwall. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.
- Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by H. J. Paton. Reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
- Mill, John Stewart. Utilitarianism. Edited by M. Warnock. 1861. Reprint, London: Fontana, 1962.
- Sigwick, Henry. The Methods of Ethics. 1907. Reprint, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981.
