AQUINAS ELABORATION OF VIRTUE

INTRODUTION

Thomas Aquinas in the ‘Disputed Questions on the Virtues’ sought out to encapsulate the whole idea of virtue. Aquinas answered the questions in thirteen articles of the first question on Disputed Questions on the Virtues. Nevertheless, the objective of this work is to expose Aquinas answer on article eight where it is asked ‘Are the virtues in us by nature?

In order to make a proper exposition, we shall take a perfunctory look on the articles that led to the development of the eighth article.

AQUINAS ELABORATION OF VIRTUE

Aquinas in elaborating the notion of virtue earnestly posited that virtue is a habit for rational being which specify the completion of a power. Virtues are abiding form in the subject that is good and also makes the subject good.[1] Furthermore, Aquinas takes Augustine’s definition of virtue into assessment. Augustine defined virtue as a good quality of mind whereby we live rightly, which no one misuses and that God works in us without. Aquinas upholds this definition by Augustine is adequate. He strengthens his agreement with Augustine by building on his answer to the first article and further identifying three criteria necessary for virtue to make a subject good which are the subject itself, the perfection of the intellect and the mode of inherence. These criteria are suitable for moral and intellectual virtues but not theological virtues.[2]

Going further in the elaboration of virtue, Aquinas determined that the power of the soul can be a subject of virtue in certain respect. He arrived at this determination by pointing out how subject relates to accident in three ways. The first way is by providing its sustaining power, the second way as relationship of potency to act and the last way by relationship of cause and effect. Aquinas posits that given the second and third relations of subjects and accidents, the power of the soul can be a subject of virtue.[3] Moreover, he also illustrates how the irascible and concupiscible appetite can be the subject of virtue. He achieved this by positing of human acts which are certain actions that proceed from the good and which man has dominion over them. Reason governs such human actions as it relates to sense appetite whose good operation requires a disposition which is virtue.[4]

Aquinas further determined that the will is not a subject of virtue since the will by its very nature tends to the good therefore it needs no disposition to tend towards end proper to it. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that some goods exceed the proportion of the human will. A good like the divine goods exceeds the human will and thus the will needs the virtue of charity and hope to tend towards it. Also, in seeking someone else good, the will needs the virtue of justice to tend towards it.[5]

 Moreover, Aquinas also ascertained that practical reason has the virtue of prudence as its subject. He arrived at this idea by examining the numerous natural appetites to which humans are inclined and the insufficiency of natural judgment to determine a particular good from the various goods. Therefore, the practical reason is perfected by a habit in order that it might rightly judge the human good with respect to all the things that must be done.[6] Having determined that, Aquinas went further to posit that faith is the virtue that perfects the speculative intellect insofar it is commanded by the will.

ARE VIRTUES IN US BY NATURE?

The objections which were presented purport to the fact virtues are natural to man. It makes this assertion from reason that the law commands the act of virtue but men who have not the law naturally do what is of the law. Therefore, men naturally perform virtuous acts and thus have virtue by nature. Also, nothing more is needed in doing virtuous work other than being capable of the good. However, Augustine says that to be capable of the good is in man naturally since the will has dominion over his acts.

Aquinas in responding to the question above invokes Aristotle’s idea that forms pre-exist potentially in matter and are brought to act by an external agent. In this light, he progresses to maintain that virtues are in us as an aptitude from nature but their perfection is not in us from nature. By this above assertion, Aquinas upholds the invaluable contribution of the agent in study and exercise of virtue in order to bring it to perfection. However, there are two ways of aptitude for perfection; the first ways is according to passive potency while the second way is according to both active and passive potency. The aptitude for perfection found in man is suitable in the second way because of the nature of the specie which is common to all men and partly due to the nature of the individual inasmuch as some are more apt than others in virtue.

Aquinas buttresses his point by reckoning to the three ways in which man can be a subject of virtue namely intellect, will and the lower appetites which is divided into concupiscible and irascible. More so, Aquinas outlines the active and passive potency in the intellect whereby the agent intellect actualizes the possible intellect. This also he applies to the will whose inclination is an active natural principle to every disposition acquired by the affective part through exercise. The affective part being made visible in the irascible and the concupiscible naturally heed to the dictates of reason and thus have a natural receptivity to virtue which is brought to perfection in them insofar they are disposed to follow the good of reason.

Therefore, the beginning of virtue follows on the nature of human species which is common to all. Nevertheless, there is another beginning of virtue which designates to particular individual inclination to the act of a given virtue. This inclination is not the perfection of virtue thus it needs the governance of reason to direct the irascible and the concupiscible appetite. Hence, reason works for the perfection of every virtue and although it is an operative principle just like nature, it differs from it because reason relates to opposites while nature is ordered to one.[7]

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Aquinas systematic development of the concept of virtue has finally led us to the target of this work whereby Aquinas ascertained that virtues are in us as an aptitude from nature but their perfection is achieved through the exercise of the governance of reason to direct the irascible and the concupiscible appetites.  

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[1] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 1

[2] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 2

[3] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 3

[4] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 4

[5] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 5

[6] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 6

[7] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputattae De Virtutibus, translated by Raph Mclnerny (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1999) Q. 1, A. 8