A Brief Disquisition Regarding The Nature of The Object of The Moral Act According to St. Thomas Aquinas

The Thomist 67 (2003): 45-71 A BRIEF DISQUISITION REGARDING THE NATURE OF THE OBJECT OF THE MORAL ACT ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS STEVEN A. LONG University of St. Thomas St. Paul, Minnesota PREFACE HIS ESSAY PROPOSES a reconsideration of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas regarding the nature of moral intention, and of the object of the moral act. The occasion for rethinking this doctrine is what I consider to be errors about intention and the moral object latent within Cajetan's account of self-defense by private citizens in his commentary on the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas--errors that have recently become a full-fledged explicit doctrine in the works of John Finnis, Germain Grisez, and Joseph Boyle. In a recent article in The Thomist, 1 these authors seek to illustrate their action theory with the prime example of craniotomy . I will first briefly consider craniotomy, and indicate two criticisms that I will pursue through the rest of the paper. Then I will follow the thread of these authors' argument back to John Finnis's account of killing in self-defense, and even further to the standard account of double effect and killing in self-defense most prominently articulated by Cajetan in his commentary on St. Thomas's treatment of the matter in STh II-II, question 64, article 7. Following this I will set forth the outline of an account of 1 John Finnis, Germain Grisez, and Joseph Boyle," 'Direct"' and 'Indirect': A Reply to Critics of Our Action Theory," The Thomist 65 (2001): 1-44. 45 46 STEVEN A. LONG intention, the moral object, and double effect contrasts sharply both with the standard schema derived from Cajetan with new law theory. Both as a systematic account, and as an interpretation of the teaching of Aquinas, this outline seems to me to be superior. L THE ARTICLE To illustrate their analysis of intention and the moral object, Finnis, Grisez, Boyle select the case of craniotomy. They write: "What matters is whether the kiHing is brought about as an end sought (obviously not) or as a chosen means-in other words, whether it is the object, in the sense defined in Veritatis splendor, of the act of the surgeon who performs the craniotomy." They point out that the species of the object is distinct from the merely natural species of an because the moral character of an act cannot be reduced to its merely physical character. Here the authors rightly cite Thomas: As Aquinas regularly puts it, the species of a human act, which (when measured reason's requirements) settles the moral character of the act as good or right or wrong, is not its species in genere naturae the order of nature) but its species in genere moris (in the order of human deliberating and choosing).2 As the saying has the man who pushes an elderly lady into the way of an oncoming motor car and the one who pushes her out of the way are both men who push ladies around. The physical character act isn't enough to provide us its moral type or species. But here the authors press even further. They quote Stephen Brock's criticism of their teaching in a footnote. Brock writes as follows: Thomas's view would allow us to suppose that the surgeon is not aiming at the fetus's death, not crushing the skull in order that the fetus die. But~also on Thoma.s's view-regardless of his aim, his act is aimed at producing the crushed skull of an innocent person; and surely it is to that extent unjust.... 2 fuid., 23. THE NATURE OF THE OBJECT OF THE MORAL ACT 47 How unjust is it? Well, what is the value of an intact skull? The person's life depends on it.3 The authors comment: But Brock fails to show that the object of the surgeon's chosen act is better described as "producing the crushed skull of an innocent person" than as "cranium-narrowing for the purposes of removal from the birth-canal"-a description he set aside as "a merely abstract description" or "redescribing.'"' Yet how we describe...