The Field of Moral Action According to Thomas Aquinas

The Thomist 69 (2005): 1-30 THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION ACCORDING TO THOMAS AQUINAS1 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. Pontifical Gregorian Universiry Rome, Italy S ONE STUDIES what Thomas Aquinas wrote over his career about human-that is, moral-action, one gradually realizes that he held to a general methodological principle: namely, that the field of moral action is to be extended as widely as possible, that is, as widely as it is possible to find even the most minimal involvement of the will. There is good reason for this. Involvement of the will means the field of moral action: if we do not include within this field something that exists only by virtue of the wiH's operation (however flickering such operation might be), where else are we to put it? If this is not a logical principle, it comes very dose to being such. The purpose of this essay is to show, first of aH, that Thomas does indeed hold to this methodological principle, and then to show how this bears upon his characterization of particular human actions. Section 1 is devoted primarily to establishing that Thomas adheres to the principle; it gives special attention to the first movements of the will. Section 2 is a look at Thomas's use of ideas presented in the first few pages of the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle explains that certain factors make an action-or, at least, an aspect of an action-involuntary. Section 3 picks up on a remark in this same section of the 1 I am very grateful to the Dominican community at the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, D.C.), whose hospitality I enjoyed while researching and writing this essay. I thank Basil Cole, O.P., of the Dominican House of Studies, and also Fr. Stephen Brock and William E. May for their helpful remarks and criticisms. 1 2 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle presents his list of the socalled circumstances that can have a bearing upon the moral character of an action. How he understands these things is important for establishing the extent and the nature of moral responsibility for particular human actions. Section 4 continues this discussion, arguing that various passages in which Thomas uses the expression "besides the intention" (praeter intentionem) are less important for determining moral responsibility than the use he makes of the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics-in other words, that the voluntary, the analysis of which depends upon the methodological principle identified in section 1, is more important than the intentional. Section 5 is a very brief conclusion. I. THE WIDE EXTENT OF THE MORAL Medieval editions of Peter Lombard's Sentences included no footnotes or quotation marks. So it was often not easy for medieval commentators to differentiate between the numerous references to and quotations from the Church Fathers and Lombard's commentary. This was the case with respect to a phrase that comes at the end of Lombard's discussion of a section of the twelfth book of Augustine's De Trinitate that treats of the different levels of sin. Augustine associates the superior part of reason with Adam, the inferior part with Eve, and the sense appetites with the serpent.2 When we commit a mortal sin, it is as 2 Augustine, De Trinitate 12.12.1-10: "Sicut enim in illo manifesto coniugio duorurn hominum qui primi facti sunt, non manducavit serpens de arbore vetita, sed tantummodo manducandum persuasit; mulier autem non manducavit sola, sed viro suo dedit, et simul manducaverunt; quamvis cum serpente sola locuta, et ab eo sola seducta sit; ita et in hoc quod etiam in homine uno geritur et dignoscitur, occulto quodam secretoque coniugio carnalis, vel, utita dicam, qui in corporis sensus intenditur, sensualis animae motus, qui nobis pecoribusque communis est, seclusus est a ratione sapientiae." See also De Trin. 12.3.14-20: "Et sicut una caro est duorurn in masculo et femina, sic intellectum nostrum et actionem, vel consilium et exsecutionem, vel rationem et appetitum rationalem, vel si quo alio modo significatius dici possunt, una mentis natura complectitur; ut quemadmodum de illis dictum est: 'Erunt duo in came una...