Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía ISSN: 0188-6649 [email protected] Universidad Panamericana México Stump, Eleonore The Non-Aristotelian Character of Aquinas’s Ethics: Aquinas on the Passions Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía, núm. 42, 2012, pp. 27-50 Universidad Panamericana Distrito Federal, México Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=323028515001 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 27 --- #27 i i T N-A C  A’ E: A   P EleonoreStump SaintLouisUniversity [email protected] Abstract Although Thomistic philosophy has often been equaled to a Christianized Aristotelianism, Eleonore Stumpweakensthiscommonconceptionthroughtheun- raveling of the notions of virtue and passion within the Thomistic ethics, and comparing these with their Aris- toteliancounterparts.TheexpositionoftheThomisticthe- oryofvirtueservesasastartingpointtothedevelopment ofthe classification of the passions thatThomas Aquinas presents. Given their different cultures, one pagan and the other Christian, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas con- struct two different theoretical apparatus, dependant on their own fundamental final realities: non-personal meta- physics for the former, and Trinity for the latter. In the caseofAquinas,theperfectionofvirtuesandthepassions do not only depend on rationality, but God plays a main roleinthisrespect. Keywords:ethics,virtue,passions,Aquinas,Aristotle. Recibido:03-12-2010.Aceptado:28-08-2011. Tópicos42(2012),27-50 i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 28 --- #28 i i 28 ES Resumen Aunque en muchas ocasiones se ha llegado a equipa- rar la filosofía tomista con un aristotelismo cristianizado, Eleonore Stump debilita este lugar común a través del desarrollo de las nociones de virtud y pasión dentro de la éticatomista,ycomparándolasanálogamenteconsuscon- trapartes aristotélicas. La exposición de la teoría tomista de la virtud sirve como antesala para desarrollar la clasifi- cacióndelaspasionesquesantoTomáspresenta.Debido a sus diferentes culturas, una pagana y la otra cristiana, Aristóteles y Tomás de Aquino construyen dos aparatos teóricos diferentes dependientes de sus respectivas reali- dades fundamentales últimas: una metafísica no personal para el primero, y la Trinidad para el segundo. En el caso de Aquino, el perfeccionamiento de las virtudes y las pa- siones no sólo depende de la racionalidad, sino que Dios juegaunpapelcentralaesterespecto. Palabras clave: ética, virtud, pasiones, Aquino, Aristó- teles. Introduction ScholarsdiscussingAquinas’sethicstypicallyunderstanditaslargely Aristotelian, though with some differences accounted for by the differ- ences in worldview between Aristotle and Aquinas. T. I. Irwin, for ex- ample, summarizes his discussion of moral virtue in Aquinas’s thought thisway: [Aquinas’s]accountofmoralvirtueemphasizestheaspect of Aristotle’s account that connects virtue with correct election.AquinashasnotonlyAristotle’sreasons,butalso some reasons of his own, for emphasizing this feature of the virtues… Aquinas’ claims about action and freedom Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 29 --- #29 i i TN-ACA’E. 29 agreewithAristotle’sclaimthatcorrectelectionisthemark ofmoralvirtue.1 Ralph McInerny highlights what he sees as the Aristotelianism of Aquinas’sethicsintheSummatheologiaethisway: The dominant voice in these questions is that of Aristo- tle…Itisfairtosaythatthesediscussionswouldhavebeen unthinkableapartfromtheinfluenceofAristotle,particu- larly,thoughbynomeansexclusively,ofhisNicomachean Ethics.2 AnthonyKennyexplainsAquinas’sattempttoweavethebeatitudes into his discussion of what Kenny takes to be fundamentally an Aris- totelianethicsbysaying, The endeavor to bring together the evangelical and the Nicomacheantextscanhardlyberegardedassuccessful… Whatisremarkableaboutthisrapprochementisnotthatit isdonesuccessfullybutthatitisdoneatall.Moreover,itis noteworthythattheChristiantextsaredistortedtofitthe Aristoteliancontext,ratherthantheotherwayaround.3 Taking Aquinas’s ethics as fundamentally Aristotelian has become almostscholarlydogmabynow,andthereissomereasonforit.Aquinas’s ethicsisavirtueethics,centeredaroundalistofthevirtuesthatincludes some which, at least on the surface, appear to be identical to those on Aristotle’slist:wisdom,justice,courage,andtemperance. 1See,forexample,T.I.Irwin’streatmentofvirtueinAquinas’sthoughtin Irwin’s, (2007), The Development of Ethics. A Historical and Critical Study, Oxford,OxfordUniversityPress,vol.1,544[footnotesomittedinquotation]. 2McInerny, Ralph, (1993), The Question of Christian Ethics, Washington, D.C.,CatholicUniversityofAmericaPress,25-26. 3Kenny, Anthony, (1999), “Aquinas on Aristotelian Happiness”, Aquinas’s MoralTheory,ed.ScottMacDonaldandEleonoreStump,Ithaca,NY,Cornell UniversityPress,15-27. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 30 --- #30 i i 30 ES On the Aristotelian ethics that many scholars suppose Aquinas ac- cepts, a moral virtue is a habit which is acquired through practice and which disposes the will to act in accordance with reason in varying cir- cumstances.Giventhisstrongconnectionbetweenvirtueandreason,the passionsareatbestanancillarytomoralvirtueandatworstanobstacle toit.AsIrwininterpretswhathetakestobeAquinas’sAristotelianview ofthepassions, Passions are constituents of a virtue in so far as they are subjecttoreasonandmovedbyreason.4 Adoptingasimilarview,PeterKingsays, Aquinas holds contra Hume, that reason is and ought to betherulerofthepassions;sincethepassionscanbecon- trolledbyreasontheyshouldbecontrolledbyreason…5 For some contemporary thinkers, the Aristotelian focus on reason andtheapparentlyconcomitantrejectionofasignificantroleforemotion is necessary for any ethics able to guide human life. So, for example, in a recent New York Times article,6 the influential Princeton scholar Robert George is quoted as praising an Aristotelian ethics of this sort, which he attributes to Aquinas. For George, “moral philosophy… is a contest between… Aristotle and… David Hume.”7 On George’s view, an ethics such as that of Hume, which centers ethics in the passions, cannevergiveusanobjectiveethics.ForGeorge,theAristotelianethics of Aquinas is preferable to that of Hume because, on George’s view, Aquinas’s Aristotelian ethics grounds all virtue, all moral excellence, in 4Irwin,(2007),522. 5King,Peter,(1999),“AquinasonthePassions”,inAquinas’sMoralTheory, ed.ScottMacDonaldandEleonoreStump,Ithaca,NY,CornellUniversityPress, 126. 6TheNewYorkTimesMagazine,Dec.20,2009,24-29. 7Ibid.,27. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 31 --- #31 i i TN-ACA’E. 31 reason. “In a well-ordered soul,” George says, “reason’s got the whip handoveremotion.”8 Whatever the truth of this view may be as regards Aristotle’s own ethics, it is certainly false, in its central claims, as regards the ethics of Aquinas;andsomeoppositiontoithasalreadybeguntofindavoicein thescholarlyliterature.So,forexample,JeanPortersays [There is] a… tendency among Aquinas scholars,… mis- leading and… prevalent,… to read Aquinas as if he not onlybaptizedAristotle,butishimselflittlemorethanAris- totlebaptized.9 But I would make the point more strongly. Aquinas recognizes the Aristotelian virtues, but he thinks that they are not real virtues. In fact, Aquinas goes so far as to maintain that the passions – or the suitably formulatedintellectualandvolitionalanaloguestothepassions–arenot onlythefoundationofanyrealethicallifebutalsothefloweringofwhat isbestinit.10 8Ibid.,27. 9Porter,Jean,(2005),“RightReasonandtheLoveofGod:TheParameters ofAquinas’MoralTheology”,TheTheologyofThomasAquinas,ed.Rikvan Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow, Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 167-191. See also her essay Porter, Jean, (2011), “Virtues and Vices”,inTheOxfordHandbookofAquinas,ed.BrianDaviesandEleonore Stump,Oxford,OxfordUniversityPress. 10ForathoroughandpersuasiveargumentthatAquinas’sethicsisnotAris- totelian but in fact takes the second-personal as foundational for ethics, see Pinsent, Andrew, (2011), “Gifts and Fruits”, in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Seealsohis(2009),JointAttentionandtheSecond-PersonalFoundation of Aquinas’s Virtue Ethics, PhD Dissertation, St Louis University, June; and hisreview(2010)ofRobertMiner’s,ThomasAquinasonthePassions,Notre DamePhilosophicalReview,February. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 32 --- #32 i i 32 ES 1 ThevastdifferenceinculturebetweenAristotle and Aquinas Before I give the evidence for this conclusion, I want to step back and call attention to the context for this debate about Aquinas’s ethics. Aristotle and Aquinas inhabit vastly different cultures, one pagan and oneChristian,andtheirmetaphysicsarecorrespondinglydifferent.The ultimatefoundationofrealityforAquinasistheTrinity,andthisisclearly not theultimatefoundationofrealityforAristotle.AsAristotleseesthe categories of things in the world, they are categories of being, which is transcendental to everything there is. On Aristotle’s view and also on the secular worldview pervading much of contemporary Western cul- ture, persons are reducible to something non-personal – in physics, to fundamentalbitsofmatter,inmetaphysics,toamodeofbeing.Onthe doctrineoftheTrinity,however,Godisbeing,ANDGodexistsinthree persons. And so persons and relations among persons are the ultimate foundationofallreality,ontheChristianworldview.Thepersonsofthe Trinityarenotreducibletoanythingelseatall. ThedifferenceofworldviewsintheChristianandpaganculturescan beseeninaniconicwayintheinscriptionsontheoracleatDelphi,which encapsulatethewisdomoftheGreeks. ConsiderjusttheinscriptionattributedtothewisemanfromSparta (Chilon): Nothinginexcess(ChilonofSparta)[medenagan].11 The maxim clearly highlights the value of temperance, but it seems muchlessapplicabletorelationalgoodssuchaslove.Ofcourse,Aristotle recognizedthattherearesomethingswhichcannotbehadinmoderation because the names of those things are such as to imply either what is virtuous or what is vicious.12 Temperance itself is an example; there is noexcessoftemperance.ButAristotlewasnotwillingtomakethesame 11SeeAristotle,Rhetoric1389b14. 12Aristotle,NicomacheanEthicsII.vi.18. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 33 --- #33 i i TN-ACA’E. 33 kindofexceptiontotheDelphicmaximforrelationalgoods.Oneofthe problems with the young, on his view, is that they ignore the Delphic maxim“Nothinginexcess”;andthatiswhy,hesays,theyloveinexcess, not in moderation.13 But, on the Christian worldview Aquinas accepts, thereisnoexcessoflove,anditisnotgoodtoloveinmoderation.And love is not the only relational good for which moderation is ill-suited. Therearemanyothers.Considerforgiveness,forexample.OnAquinas’s Christianworldview,forgivenessismeanttobeunstinting,notmoderate. The difference in culture between Aristotle’s pagan worldview and Aquinas’sChristianworldviewabouttheultimatefoundationofallreality has far-ranging effects in many areas of philosophy, and most notably ethics.ItshouldthereforenotbeasurprisethatAquinas’sethicsisnon- Aristotelian.Whatwouldbegenuinelysurprisingisif,withthisdifferent in metaphysical worldview, the ethics of the two philosophers were the same. 2 Aquinas’s ethics is not Aristotelian Withthesereflectionsascontext,wecannowconsidertheevidence forrejectingtheclaimthatAquinasholdsanAristotelianvirtueethics. AsAquinasrightlyseesit,eachofthedispositionsonAristotle’slist of ethical excellences – wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance – is meanttobebothavirtueandanacquiredcharacteristic.Thatis,aperson getsanAristotelianvirtueormoralexcellencebypracticingit,bydoing acts of the sort that yield the disposition of the virtue when those acts have been done often enough. Furthermore, each Aristotelian virtue is anintrinsiccharacteristic,apropertythatcanbegottenandpreservedby anindividualactingbyhimselfasanagentinhisownright.Theproblem with thinking of Aquinas’s ethics as Aristotelian is that none of these things true of the items on Aristotle’s list of the virtues is true of the thingsAquinastakestoberealvirtues. SpeakingofAquinas’svirtuetheory,RobertPasnauandChristopher ShieldsdefinevirtueforAquinasthisway: 13Aristotle,Rhetoric1389b14. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 34 --- #34 i i 34 ES Avirtueisahabitus[adisposition]thatinformsareason- governedpowerinsuchawayastoperfecttheactivityof thatpower.14 ThisisperhapsanacceptabledefinitionofanAristotelianvirtue,but itisnotAquinas’sdefinitionofwhathetakestobeavirtue. AquinashimselfaffirmsAugustine’sdefinitionofavirtue: A virtue is a good quality of the mind by which one lives righteously,ofwhichnoonecanmakebaduse,andwhich Godworksinuswithoutus.15 This is manifestly an un-Aristotelian definition, not least because it is impossible to acquire for oneself by practice a disposition that God worksinapersonwithoutthatperson.16Commentingonthisdefinition, Aquinassays, This definition comprises perfectly the whole formula of virtue.17 Aquinas recognizes that the Aristotelian virtues, acquired through practice of the acts correlated with a virtue, do not fit this definition becauseofitslastclause:“whichGodworksinuswithoutus”.Hesays, 14Pasnau, Robert and Shields, Christopher, (2004), The Philosophy of Aquinas,Boulder,CO,WestviewPress,229. 15Aquinas, ST I-II q. 55 a. 4. In this paper, with a very few alterations, I am using the translation of the Fathers of the Dominican English Province, Westminster,MD,ChristianClassics,1981,becauseithasbecomestandardand becausetherearefewcasesinwhichIthinkIcouldimproveonitsubstantially. TherearesomequotationswhereIhavealteredtheDominicantranslationin minor ways (as in the quotation to which this footnote is appended) or even significantly;butIhaveleftthosealterationsgenerallyunmarked,therebyerring onthesideofgivingmorecreditthanisduetotheDominicantranslation. 16Aquinas thinks that God gives such grace without in any way precluding thefreedomofaperson’swill.Fordetaileddiscussionofthewayinwhich,on Aquinas’sviews,Goddoesso,seeChapter13,ongraceandfreewill,inmytext (2003),Aquinas,London,Routledge. 17ST I-IIq.55a.4. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i i i ``topicos42'' --- 2012/8/6 --- 20:01 --- page 35 --- #35 i i TN-ACA’E. 35 acquiredvirtue,towhichthesewordsdonotapply,isnot ofthesamespeciesasinfusedvirtue.18 Andso,unliketheinfusedvirtues,acquiredvirtuesarenothabitsthat contain,asAquinassays,thewholeformulaofvirtue. Whatever benefits the Aristotelian virtues, with their source in hu- manreason,mighthavefortheirpossessor,onAquinas’sviews,aperson who has only the Aristotelian virtues is not yet in accord with the true moralgood,whosemeasureisthedivinelaw.Hesays, human virtue directed to the good which is governed ac- cording to the rule of human reason can be caused by human acts… But virtue which directs a person to good as governed by the divine law, and not by human reason, cannot be caused by human acts, the principle of which is reason, but is produced in us by the divine operation alone. That is why Augustine in giving the definition of suchvirtueinsertsthewords‘whichGodworksinuswith- outus’.19 Indiscussingthethesisoftheunityofthevirtues,Aquinasmaintains thatthethesisdoesnotholdoftheAristotelianvirtuesbutdoesholdof theinfusedvirtues.Explainingthisdistinction,hesays, Moral virtue may be considered either in its perfect or in itsimperfectstate.Animperfectmoralvirtue,temperance forinstanceorfortitude,isnothingbutaninclinationinus to do some kind of good deed, whether such inclination be in us by nature or by habituation. If we take the moral virtues in this way, they are not connected… But perfect moral virtue is a habit that inclines us to do a good deed well;andifwetakemoralvirtuesinthisway,wemustsay thattheyareconnected…20 18ST I-II q. 63 a. 4 s.c.; cf. also, for example, Quaestiones Disputatae de VirtutibusinCommuniq.unaa.9-10andST I-IIq.55a.4. 19ST I-IIq.63a.2. 20ST I-IIq.65a.1. Tópicos42(2012) i i i i