Exceptionless Norms in Aristotle?: Thomas Aquinas and Twentieth-Century Interpreters of the Nicomachean Ethics

EXCEPTIONLESS NORMS IN ARISTOTLE?: THOMAS AQUINAS AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY INTERPRETERS OF THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS CHRISTOPHER KACZOR University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana SCHOLARS HAVE DEBATED a great deal about whether or not Thomas Aquinas taught that there are exceptionless moral norms for human action and, if he did hold that there are such norms, how he understood them.1 Remarkably, however, no study exists treating solely or for the most part Thomas1s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, the Sententia libri ethicorum, 2 in relation to the question of exceptionless norms.3 In what follows I intend to fill that lacuna. 1 The following articles serve as a mere introduction to the vast amount of secondary literature on the subject: Franz Scholz, "Problems on Norms Raised by Ethical Borderline Situations: Beginnings of a Solution in Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure," in Readings in Moral Theology, vol. I: Moral Norms and Catholic Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1979): 158-83; Jean Porter, "Moral Rules and Moral Actions: A Comparison of Aquinas and Modern Moral Theology," The Journal of Religious Ethics 17 (1989): 123-49; Louis Janssens, "A Moral Understanding of Some Arguments of Saint Thomas," Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 63 (1987): 354-60; Louis Janssens, "Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Question of Proportionality," Louvain Studies 9 (1982-83): 26-46; Mark Johnson, "Proportionalism and a Text of the Young Aquinas: Quodlibetum IX, Q. 7, A. 2," Theological Studies 53 (1992): 683-99. 2 I am aware of the contemporary controversy regarding whether Thomas's Aristotelian commentaries represent his own views. A chapter of my dissertation will treat the view that nothing in the commentaries can be taken to represent Thomas's own thought unless substantiated by another text in the Thomistic corpus, a view aptly represented by Mark Jordan's "Thomas Aquinas's Disclaimers in the Aristotelian Commentaries" in Philosophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory ofJames A. Weisheipl, O.P., ed. R. James Long, Papers in Mediaeval Studies 12 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), 99-112. However, even if Jordan is right, Thomas may still be useful as a rival interpreter of Aristotle vis-a-vis modern scholars. .i Cf. John A. Trentman, "Bad Names: A Linguistic Argument in Late Medieval Natural Law Theories" Nous 12 (1978): 29-39. Trentman mentions Aquinas's commentary , but Thomas is hardly the central figure of his treatment. 33 34 CHRISTOPHER KACZOR In Catholic circles, recent debates have been couched in terms of the "deontologists" versus the "proportionalists." Many virtue theorists have prior and more fundamental concerns than proportionalists about how a truly Aristotelian theory can ever be compatible with exceptionless norms. This paper explores those concerns. First, I will bring forward the arguments of several prominent Aristotelian scholars whose theses undermine the possibility of exceptionless moral norms in the Nicomachean Ethics.4 In many places, Thomas's own exegetical remarks seem to support their contentions. Next, I will present the chief textual citations that represent, as it were, a sed contra to these authorities and indicate how these citations were understood by Thomas. I will then argue that exceptionless norms must be a part of Aristotelian or Thomistic virtue ethics. Finally, I will suggest some answers to the arguments of the authorities cited earlier. I. ARGUMENTS AGAINST EXCEPTIONLESS NORMS IN THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Martha Nussbaum, in The Fragility of Goodness, draws a dichotomy between two visions about how norms or "rules" might function in ethical deliberation, justification, and practice. One possibility is that the rules and universal principles are guidelines or rules of thumb: summaries of particular decisions, useful for purposes of economy and aids in identifying the salient features of the particular case.... They [i.e., moral principles] are normative only insofar as they transmit in economical form the normative force of the good concrete decisions of the wise person and because we wish for various reasons to be guided by that person's choices. We note that their very simplicity or economy will be, on this conception, a double-edged 4 Since to my knowledge there exists no secondary literature on the Sententia libri ethicorum and exceptionless norms, my...