Ockham on the Virtues

ARTICLE IV

ARTICLE IV IDoubts Here there are eight doubts, or rather eight objections against Ockham's position. Only the first two get significant treatment, though a number of the other doubts are answered implicitly in the course of the reply to doubt 1. A rather miscellaneous list, these eight doubts probably represent objections actually raised at Oxford when Ockham was speaking. Doubt 1 raises objections against Ockham's position that would be raised by a Scotist. Scotus believed that moral virtue depended on appropriate external circumstances, and he regarded time, place, and purpose as external circumstances; an act is virtuous if it is done for the right reason at the right time. Ockham agrees, of course, but argues that time, place, and purpose are intrinsic to virtuous acts; they are not external circumstances. Instead of speaking about circumstances , he speaks of secondary partial objects (a.2 185), and he argues further that acts with different partial objects are specifically distinct. Going to church to worship is specifically distinct from going to church to gossip. The purpose of the action is essential to its description; it is not an external circumstance. 3. Both Ockham and Scotus posit indifferent acts. But for Ockham, there are also intrinsically virtuous acts. The first doubt challenges Ockham to explain how an act can first be morally indifferent and subsequently be morally virtuous, or how it can even go from being virtuous to being vicious. In answer to the first doubt, Ockham sets out the differences between his and Scotus 's positions. 18. The second doubt also pertains directly to Ockham's dispute with Scotus. It suggests that an act's purpose, its time, its place, and whether it conforms to right reason should be described I 252 253 I Article IV as the circumstances of that act, not as partial objects. Less importantly , it raises the question of how the same act can be described as an act of love and as an act of hate-a problem that arises when we hate sin for the sake of God because we love God. 30. Doubt 3 again raises Scotistic objections to Ockham. If exterior acts are no more than automatic consequences ofunimpeded internal acts, why are they separately prohibited in the Decalogue and other legal systems? Why is it worse actually to commit a crime than merely to contemplate it? 36. Doubt 4 points out a respect in which Ockham's account of moral virtue differs from that of Aristotle, who believed that we could describe irrational as well as rational excellences. In medieval terms, he held that there were virtues in the sensitive as well as the intellectual soul. Ockham does, of course, allow that there are habits in other faculties, rational and irrational. But he denies that they have moral significance, and he opposes Aristotle's views more than other Scholastics, since he holds that moral virtues pertain only to the will. 40. The fifth doubt asks for a defense ofOckham's distinction' between third- and fourth-degree virtues, between pagan virtue and Christian virtue. It suggests that since moral virtue deals with people and things encountered on earth and in this life-as Ockham himselfconcedes for the first three degrees ofvirtue (a.3 388-89)-mention ofa supernatural deity is inappropriate in discussing morality. This doubt forces Ockham once more (a.2 143) to defend the claim that Christian virtue is moral virtue properly speaking. It suggests that Christian virtue is supernatural, not moral. 48. Doubt 6 returns to the dispute with Scotus. It challenges Ockham's claim that acts with different partial objects differ specifically . A counterexample similar to Ockham's argument for specific distinctions is suggested: loving Plato does not differ specifically from loving Socrates, and yet love of Plato is compatible with hatred of Socrates. 58. The seventh doubt asks Ockham to explain why the distinctions that he draws between the virtues are different from those ofAristotle. Unlike the grades ofvirtue posited by Henry of Ghent, Ockham's degrees of virtue do not correspond to the distinctions drawn by Aristotle. In reply to doubt 7, Ockham will have to clarify his understanding of temperance, perseverance, and continence. 64. Again a challenge to Ockham's departures from Aristotle, the eighth doubt objects to the second and fifth degrees 254 leo M MEN TAR Y ofvirtue as defined by Ockham. Why should we allow resolute or heroic degrees of honesty...