Similarities and Differences Between Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas’s Thought

The Thomist 65 (2001): 45-65 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUMAN AND ANIMAL EMOTION IN AQUINAS'S THOUGHT STEPHEN LOUGHLIN De Sales University Allentown, Pennsylvania 0 ne ofthe striking features ofAquinas's thought concerning the emotions1 is his attribution of them to the animal lacking reason.2 His argument in this respect is direct and simple: since the emotions constitute the various actualizations of the sensitive appetite in relation to some sensible thing considered as good or bad, whatever possesses a sensitive appetite will likewise experience the emotions. Since the animals lacking 1 The translation of the term passio as "emotion" acts here as a placeholder, so to speak, and does not intend to cover the broad usage it has in modern thought. In fact, no word in English properly signifies Aquinas's understanding of passio. In this regard, see Amelie 0. Rorty, "Aristotle on the Metaphysical Status of Pathe," Review ofMetaphysics 38 (1984): 521-22, 539-46, which outlines the many problems facing the modern philosopher's approach to ancient theories concerning the pathe, particularly his "abandonment" of the metaphysical basis upon which these theories are based, a problem which is compounded by the fact that contemporary discussions of the emotions "have retained the distinctions and preoccupations which were embedded in that metaphysical setting" (522). Furthermore, as B. Inwood states: "No translation of the term is adequate, for pathos is a technical term whose meaning is determined by the theory in which it functions" (Ethics andHuman Action in Early Stoicism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 127). Although these comments are directed specifically at the Aristotelian and Stoic understanding of pathos, they apply equally well to Aquinas's doctrine of passio, given the similarity of his metaphysics with respect to the former, and his clearly technical use of passio with respect to the latter. For a discussion concerningthedifficulties oftranslatingpassio into an equivalentEnglish term, see St.Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 19,The Emotions (1a2te. 22-30), ed. and trans. Eric D'Arcy (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 1967), xix-xxvi. 2 This attribution is striking given the predominant view among contemporary philosophers that the emotions are essentially rational in nature. 45 46 STEPHEN LOUGHLIN reason possess a sensitive appetite, the emotions are not peculiar to human beings.3 This position raises a number of questions. Aquinas holds that every emotion of the sensitive appetite is preceded by some kind of assessment of the sensible thing with respect to its suitability (or lack thereof) for the being apprehending it. In animals lacking reason, this assessment is performed by the estimative power, while in human beings it is accomplished by the cogitative or particular reason. This assessment is vital for emotion, for by it the sensible thing is brought under the ratio of the conveniens or inconveniens and thereby becomes the proper object of the sensitive appetite itself. Without this assessment, the sensitive appetite lacks its proper or formal object, and is thus not moved, which is to say that there is no experience of the emotions in such a situation; the simple presentation of an object apart from evaluation does not move the appetite.4 3 For the definition of passio as a movement or actualization of the sensitive appetite, see STh 1-11, q. 22; that they are shared in common with animals lacking reason, see STh 1-11, q. 24, a. 1, ad 1; 1-11, q. 6, prol.; that the emotions are experienced by human and animal alike by reason of the sensitive appetite, see STh I, q. 80, a. 1. 4 The clearest presentation of this point is found at De anima III, leer. 4, §§634-35. The basic argument is this: the sensitive appetite is a passive power in that it is immediately moved or actualized in the presence ofits proper object. This object is not the simple appearance of the sensible thing as such, but rather this as it has been assessed as conveniens or not to the being as such. This estimation is performed not by the imagination (or for that matter by the external senses, the sensus communis, or memory, although the latter could store previously made assessments), but rather by the estimative power...