Good and Goods According to Aristotle

b" Ernesto La Croce

T HE CRITICISMS 01 the Platonic Good found in NiC'o-

m.achea,n Ethics 1.6 and Eudemia·n Eth,ics 1.8 provide
without any doubt valuable help in reconstructing Aristotle's
doctrine of the good. In his commelltary on the first of these
works, Thomas Aquinas, evaluating the sense and scope of the
Aristot.elian reject.ion, writes:
It should he noted that Aristotle does not intend to disprove Plato's
view insofar as it posits one separate good on which all goods
depend. Aristotle himself, in the 12th hook of the Metaphysics,
posits a certain good separate from the whole universe to which
the universe as a whole is ordered as an army Eis ordered] to the
good of its leader. Rather he rej ects the opinion of Plato insofar
as he held the separate good to he an idea common to all goods.1.
It can he seell that in the Thomistic interpretation the dif-
ference .between the two Greek philosophers does not lie in the
manner of conceiving the relation hetween the absolute good
and other goods hut rather in the fact that, in the case 01 Plato,
the Good is seen as a generic Idea. As Cornelio Fahro has
rightly pointed out, St. Thomas here "diminishes the inten-
sity" of the force of the Aristotelian criticism of Plato.
In this essay, I propose to examine the strictly Aristotelian
way 01 articulating the relation ohtaining hetween the goods 01
the universe, by considering their mode of dependence on the
supreme good. What I intend substantially to maintain is that
Aristotle, besides affirming the a.nalogical unity 01 the concept

1In I FJthico'l"um, lectio 6, D. 79.

1
2 Ernesto La Oroce

(or concepts) of good, supposes a logieal artieulation based on a

common reference to a sup'reme good, although this relation is
not verified on all agathological levels but only in the practical
realm. Moreover, we will take the opportunity, by ,vay of an
excursus, to refer to St. Thomas's reply to this crucial question,
in the conviction that the doctrine of Aristotle is further clari-
fied by comparison with the Thomistic synthesis. This eompari-
son is sometimes necessary insofar as the perspeetive of St.
Thomas inspired and influenced, directly 01' indireetly, a good
many studies and interpretations of Aristotle. Finally, we are
not unaware that difIe:r,ent ways of understanding the unity of
goods, especially the supreme practical good and the supreme
nonpractieal good, neces:sarily affect the way in which the rela-
tion between ethics and metaphysics is understood.

Ir
A first reading of NE 1.6 and EE 1.8 could lead one to
think that these chapters eontain a particular instance of the
general eritieism of the Platonic Ideas. Strictly speaking, this
is not the case. In most of his arguments (the exeeption is
the fourth given in NE at 1094a34-b8), Aristotle does not
judge the Idea of the Good in the same way he judges any other
Idea, for example, the Idea of Man. In the latter case, what is
rejected is the chorismos, the " independent and separate exist-
enee" of the Idea, both its generic character and the unity of
its meaning. In the case of the Good, on the contrary, Aris-
totle objects to a common universality, that is, to univocal
signification. The hypostasis of a universal of this type would
have resulted in the Idea of the Good, but Aristotle, though
questioning secondarily this hypostasis, has as his first objec..
tive to eliminate the preconditions: in the case of the good
"there can be no common and unique universal" (koinon ti
ka.lholou ka,i hen~ l096a27-28).
l\.ristotle affirms the homonymy of " good " in his early works
 Good an·d Goods AccoTding to A1'istotle 3

(Topics l07a3-12). That" good" is a word used homony-

mously means that we use the same word to speak of goods
whose es:sences or definitions (logoi) are diverse. This becomes
clear in a more radical way when we notice that the diverse
goods are included in the final instance in irreducible genera,
that is, in substance, quality, quantity, relations, etc. 2
This plurality of goods doe:s not exclude, llonetheles.s, a cer-
tain kind of conceptual unity, whether specific or generic,
which is not indeed numerical unity. In this respect, Aristotle
holds that the goods do not seem to be " fortuitous homonyms ",
that is, the common term " good" with which we denominate
them is not used randomly but for a pertinent reason. "Are
goods one, then, by being derived from one good or by all con-
tributing to one good or are they rather one by analogy~" (NE
l096b27-28).
I think that "derived from one good" and "referring to
one good" (the two possibilities mentioned) are hut two ways
of speaking of the sanle relation from different angles, which
is the way most eontemporary specialists understand them,3
correspond grosso 1nodo to what in the ~1:iddle Ages are called
respectively a,nalogi,a propor'iionis (or attributionis) and ana,l-
ogia pr'oporti.onalitat'is-, although Aristotle never used the term
a,na.loga, in this enlarged seIls€'. 4

2 vVllen in }lE 1096a23-24 Aristotle says that "the good is said in as

many ways as being is" it is not exact to take this to be ,a doctrine on
the transcendality of the good, but only that it can be predicated in each
of the categories, in that, in each of them, we have at least one instance
that is good. Cf. K. Baerthelein, Die Traszendentalienlehre in Oorpus
Aristotelioum ( Berlin, 1972), esp. p. 95.
3 An exception is W. W. Fortenbaugh, "Nicomaohean Ethios 1096b26-
29. " Phronesis XI (1966) 185-194. The ancient commentators on Aristotle
occasionally take 'pros hen to express dependence with respect to final
cause and aph'henos on the other hand, with respect to efficient cause.
It is interesting to observe that the Philoponos adds that aph'henos also
designates the relation to exemplar cause (paradeigma). Cf. in Oateg'.
17,6 Busse. St. Thomas accepts these distinctions.
4 On the change of meaning of analog'ia from Aristotle (for whom it
nleant only proportion) to St. Thomas, see P. Grenet, "Saint Thomas
4 Ernesto La Croc'e
In favor of the second solution, that of proportionality ap-
pears to be the adverbial expression "or rather " (e mallon)
put before kat' a.nalogia,n. But there are not lacking reasons to
think that the goods are primordially pros hen legomena"
above all because the first book of NE" which provides the full
context of the passage, has the aim of showing that there exists
a supreme good, "more perfeet " or " final" and autosufficient,
which unifies the diversity of man's practical goods, "an end
of actions that we seek for its own sake although we seek all
the others for it." (1094a18-19)
Indeed, we must acknowledge that the two possihilities are
not incompatible, 5 that is, that there can coexist a unity of all
goods based on the analogy with a unity pr"OS hen or of a focal
meaning as it is usually called since the celebrated article of
G. E. L. Owen. 6 We will see later how this comes about.

111
That the diverse goods of the practical order are found to
be ordered in a teleological hierarchy is clear from the first
pages of the NE. The same ordering is evident in the non-
practical realm as weIl and in fact Aristotle recognizes that
over and above the supreme practical good (happiness, eudai-
monia) there exists another superior good, sepa.rate and im-
mutable, the divine substance.
According to adefinition accepted by Aristotle (NE 1094a3;
Rhetoric" 1362a23, 1363b14) the good is "that which all
things desire." In Ohapter 7 of NE I, Aristotle characterizes

d'Aquin a-t-il trouve dans Aristote l'analogia entis?" in L'attualita della

problematica aristotelica. Ati deI Convegno franco-italiano su AristotIe,
ed. C. Diano (Padova, 1970), pp. 153-175.
5 Cf. W. LeszI, Logic and M etaphysic8 in Aristotle (Padova), pp. 421
and 313 fr.
6 G. E. L. Owen, "Logic and Metaphysics in Some Earlier Works of
AristotIe" (1960) now in J. Barnes, et al., Articles on Aristotle 3
(London, 1979), 13-32.
 Good and Goods According: to Aristotle 5

the concept of the good as "end." (1097a18-22). On the other

hand, an important passage of EE affirms that " To say that all
things seek a single good is not true since each thing seeks its
proper good: the eye, sight, the body, health, and so with each
thing" (1218a30-32).
The equality of relations existing among the diverse goods
and the different things to which each of them tendsa.s to its
end d,etermines a proportion which serves as the basis for an
a1~alogical unity of the eoncep,t of good. But it is a matter, so
to put it, of a minimal unity. That beyond this unity (and
coexistent with it) there ean be detected an ordination of the
goods ad unum is something we will treat later. But we hope
to show that this ad un,um unity is not equally verified in all
agathological realms. For that, we will examine separately and
in ascendent order the diverse levels of ordination of goods.

IV
a. Instru,menta.l and Final Goods. In a contribution pre-
sented to the 1969 Symposium Aristotelicum, Enrico Berti
maintained that in EE (and not only in NE), Aristotle con-
ceived the articulation of goods of the practical order by ap-
plying the model of pros hen homonymy or focal meaning to
the end/means schema. 7
The distinction between instrumental or means goods and
final goods is Platonic or Socratic in origin and was introduced
in, for example, NE 1096b13-14 in the following words:
"Clearly, then, goods must he spoken of in two ways, and
some must be good in themselves, the others by reason of
these." As examples of the first type of good Aristotle men-
tions thought, sight, certain pleasures and honors, which "if
we pursue these also for the sake of something else, yet one

7 E. Berti, "Multiplicite et unite du bien selon EE 1.8," in Unter-

suchungen zur Eudemische Ethik, ed. by P. Moraux and D. Harlfinger
(Berlin, 1971), 157-184.
6 E1"nestO La Croce

would plaee them among things good in themselves" (1096b18..

19).
It is obvious that per se goods are prior to instrumental
goods, inasmueh as the removal of the first necessarily entails
the elimination of the seeond, hut beyond this "natural prior-
ity " we ean also reeognize a " logieal priority" :8 the definition
of per se goods must be ineluded in the definitions of corres-
ponding instrumental goods, (included, clearly, in a way differ-
ent from the vvay we say the genus is eontailled in the logos of
the species). There are various texts in NE and EE that sug-
gest what Aristotle meant by this mode, 9 espeeially a passage
in the seeond of these works which explieitly formulates it.
And that the End stands in a causal relation to the means sub-
ordinate to it is shown by the method of teachers; they prove that
the various means are each good by first defining the End, because
the End aimed at is a cause: for example, since to be in health is
s6-and-so, what contributes to health must necessarily be so-and-so
•.. (1218b16-20)
Let us reeall in passing that the example of health given here
by Aristotle is the preferred ease he uses on those occasions
when he seeks. to illustrate the doctrine of foeal meaning.

v
b. Fina,l Goods and Finalizing Good. Oan we also postulate
a relation of pros h,en homonymy to obtain between distinct
per se goods ~ If this should be the ease, eudaimonilr-the
supreme practieal good-v/ould have to he the foeal meaning to
which the essence of the goodness of honor, pleasure, thought
and every other virtue ,vould be referred.
It has been p'reeisely on this level that the interpretation of
Berti just mentioned met its ehief resistanee. Some seholars,

8 Cf. Metaphysics, 1019al-4 (natural priority) and 1028a-34-36 (logi-

cal priority). See G. E. L. Owen, art. eit., pp. 18-19.
9 Cf. Berti, art. eit., pp. 177 ff.
 Good and Goods According to Aristotle 7
in fact, who do not hesitate to recognize a referential unity
among merely instrumental practical goods, enlphatically 1"e-
ject the possibility of admitting that kind of unity on the level
of per se goods. 10 There is not absent from the objection to
Berti's thesis the belief that it gives sup'port to an "intel-
lectualistic " vision of Aristotelian ethics ullacceptable to many
authors. From this point of view, the unity with 1"eference to
happiness (pros hen euda,imDn,ia,1~) of per se goods. would re-
sult in the sacrifice of the axiological independence ofmoral
acts in favor of theol'etical activity considered as the supreme
good (as if one took eudaimoni·a to be all exclusive end).
In NE 1097b2-5, I'tristotle asserts that WH purslle this class
of goods (the final but not perfect) "for themselves (for if
nothing resulted from theIn we should still choose each of
them), but we choose them also for the sake of hap'piness, judg-
ing that by means of them we shal1 be hap'py." The second
p,art of the phrase seems to speak in favor of the assimilation
of the distinction "final good/finalizing good" to the distinc-
tion betweel'l "mediating good/finalizing good" (an assimila-
tion that we find, for example, in Alexander of Aphrodisias's
interpretation (cf. in Top'.~ 238, 3-17, Walles), and in the
latter case we do not hesitate to recognize the existence of a
relation of " logical priority." On the other hand, however, the
first· part oi the phrase seems to speak against such a relation:
it treats. of goods p,ursued for themselves, whose goodness can
be determined without need of referring them to the supreme
perfect good.
Some authors try to dissipate this anlbiguous. status of im-
perfect final goods thanks: to' an interpretation of euda,imonia
as a " seconcl order end" which " includes a variety of activi-

10 Above aU D. B. Robinson, "Ends and Means and Logieal Priority,"

in Untersuohungen already eited, pp. 185-193 and, eloser to horne, O. N.
Guariglia, "E,l eoneepto de bien en Aristotele.s, A proposito de un artieulo
deI prof. E. Berti," Revista latinoamerioana de filosofia (1975), pp.
152-163.
8 Ern,esto La Croce
ties and independent interests as fundamental values" among
which a:r.e precisely those imperfect final goods. This is the
position of J ohn Cooper. In this way, in thc case of such goods
as virtuous actions, pleasure, honor, etc., the value they posit
per se coincides with the value they posit "with respect to
eudaimonia n inasmuch as this last expression would indicate
that they are integral parts of it and not external instruments
or means.1.1
N onetheless, we think it right to interpret the passage that
interests us by presupposing a concrete content for the notion
of euda,imon,ia,. In our judgment, the characterization of the
supreme human good which finally emerges from the first
book-at least up to the ergon argument-is formal in char~
acter and neutral with respect to the question as to whether it
is an exclusive end or, on the other hand, a complex end which
includes a certain number of goods.
Final imperfect ends ar,e choosable for themselves and this
means that they possess an intrinsic value which is not para-
sitic on anything else. This intrinsic value suffices to motivate
the choice of the moral agent, who then acts while keeping in
view the nohility of the act itself Ctou kalou heneka) without
ulterior or more englohing considerations. But on occasion the
choice of this moral good can be made within a totalizing per-
spective which subordinates particular values in relation to a
superior skopos which orients a plan of life. For that reason
Aristotle can say that we also choose such goods with an eye
to or because of eudaimonia.
Insofar as we transcend the limited perspective of the im-
mediate motivation of the moral agent, we can agree that in the
logoi hei a,ga.tha of final imperfect goods (which differ one from

11 Cf. J. M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge,

MA), 1975, p. 82. Cooper's interpretation has been criticized by T. Eng-
berg-Pedersen, AristotZe's Theory 01 Moral Insight (Oxford, 1983), pp.
20-21. In this regard, we share the objection made by the latter.
 Good a,nd Goods According to Aristotle
another: cf. NE 1096a24) is contained a reference pros hen
eudaimonian. The amhiguity, then, ap'pears to be overcome to
the degree that we consider the act of moral choice and the
particular final good in a totalizing context. 12

VI
c. Practical a,nd Non-Pr"actica,l Goods. To establish sharply
the division between goods which can and those which cannot
be· the object or practical realization, Aristotle, distancing him-
self rrom his master, made a decisive step in the direction of
ethics' autonomy relative to metaphysics. Thus we read in
EE 1217a31-34:
At the present let us say that among things good some are within
the range of action for a human being (anthropoi prakta) and
others are not. And we make this distinction for the reason that
some existing things do not participate in change at all. 1S
In the Thomistic text cited at the heginning of this essay it
is suggested that Aristotle, having dethroned the Platonic Idea
of Good rrom having the widest range in the hierarchy of
(practical) goods, put in its place aseparate good, the unmoved
mover of Book XII or the M eta,physics. But, in reality, if the

12 Cf. in this regard, D. J. Allan, "The Fine and the Good in the
Eudemeian Ethics, in Untersuchungen, op. cit., p. 70.
13 In some other texts (e.g. EE 1218b4-7 and Metaphysics 1078a31-b6)
the distinction bet,veen the practical and non practical good ia made to
correspond with the semantic difference between the terms agathon and
kaIon, the latter being reserved for the good pertaining to the realm of
"changeless heings." But Aristotle is not too regular in his use of these
terms: thus the first of the texts we just mentioned uses agathon for the
generic good that covers practical and the non-practical, whereas in the
second text he restriets this word by tying it to the good that is aei en
praxei. Moreover, in many passages he speaks of the practical good, taking
praxis in a broad sense, applicable not only to human activity but to
any movement tending to an end. Finally, remember that in the ethical
writings kalon is used to aUude to the moral value of praxis, Le. to the
"nobility" of moral acts, the perception of which motivates the moral
agent.
10 Ernesto La Croce
teleiotaton good sought in the ethical writings. mus.t be suscep-
tible to p,raxis, the unmoved mover can fulfill this role no bet-
ter than the Platonic Idea.
All in all, the text of the ][etaphysics invoked by St. Thomas
establishes the divine substance not only as the supreme good
in the non practical order, hut also and necessarily as supreme
among the totality of goods of the universe.
We are speaking of Ohapter 10 of Jfetaphysics XII. There
Aristotle introduces the question about the way in whieh "the
nature of the universe contains the good and the highest good,"
that is, " whether as something separate and by itself or as the
order of the parts." Immediately he shows his preference for
a third possibility, the sum of the others. "Prohably in both
ways, as an army does; for its good is found 10th in its order
and in its leader, and more in the latter; for he does not deo.
pend on the order but it depends on hirn" (1075a13-15).
Through the metaphor of the army, Aristotle ascrihes to the
unmoved mover the task of causing the order constituted by
the goods. of the universe and, a little later, making use of a
comparison with domestic organization, sa.ys that all beings
.are ordered to a single end: pros men ga·r hen ha,p,anta sunte-
ta,ktai (1075a18-19).
Are these sufficient indications to judge that all the goods of
the uni\T.erse are connected, according to a unity of focal sig-
nification, with the divine suhstance as pri.nceps analoga.tum?
We resist admitting it. Aristotle does not say that God ia the
cause of the goodness of each good, but only that he is the cause
of ,the ordering of the goods. In any case, the function of the
causality p'roper to the sup,rerne good 8eems rather restricted:
he is not the cause in a formal sense (as the One-Good of Plato
would be, as appears in Metaphysics 988a7 ff.), but it .seems
difficult that he might he a eause in an exemplary sense (Pla-
tonic exemplarity, which Aristotle knew and rejeeted, sup-
poses" participation "), and ean only be a (ultimate and in-
 Good a.nd Goods According to Aristotle 11
direct) motor eause of goods in the measure that he lS the
source of the systems of movements whieh permit each heing
to achieve the realization of its proper end. In effect, each
being aspires to a p,articular end, which in the ease of sub-
stances is the perlective realization of the essential form. Syn-
tetakta,i pros hen suggests a hierarehy in the order or finality
given by a unique direction; there is no reason to take it in
the sense of a " logical priority" of the first good with respect
to the rest of the goods oi the world.
Finally, we must avoid the notion that pros hen homonymy
in the realm of the good ean be immediately projeeted into the
ontological realm. This "shortcut" to being is rendered im-
possible for reasons ,vhich go far beyond that based on the (ap-
p,arent) non existenee oi an Aristotelian doetrine that omne
ens est bonum. In the first plaee, it should be noted that, when
Aristotle recurs to the doctrine of the eategories of being in
EE 1.8 and NE 1.6, he does not do so in order to demonstrate
the pros hen unity of the good from the logical priority of sub-
stanee, but fundamentally in order to sho,v the equivocity of
the eoneept of "good." In any ease, the unity among the goods
of the practical order is sought by vvay 01 the end/means
scheme whieh links in teleological ehains good pertaining to
distinet categories. 14 In the seeond plaee, the indieatiolls are
insufficient to suppose Aristotle had extended the relation of
logieal priority proper to the predieamentallevel of being (that
js, between substanee and the seeondary eategories) to the di-
verse types- of substance mentioned i11 MetaphyS'l~cs XII.1. 15
N onetheless, there exists a special kind of tie or bond 00-
tween the supreme praetical good and the supreme non prac-

14 Goods belonging to the same eategory have different definitions ac-

eording to the ends they serve. For example, the " just mean" will have
a different definition in the ease of health in medieine, or of vietory, in
the ease of strategy. Cf. NE 1096a31-34 and E. Berti, art. cit., p. 166.
15 Cf. E. Berti, "Priorita logiea e priorita ontologiea fra i generi di
sostanza in Aristotele," in Jgttldi Aristotelici (Aquila, 1975), p. 261-273.
12 Ernesto La Groce
tical good to which Aristotle clearly enough refers in the final
stretches of NE and EE. In fact, eudaimonia in its primary
form (NE X.7) is the highest exercise of virtue, the activity
of sophia~ that is, intellectual contemplation, theoria. This has
as object, or at least as its highest object, the Principle of the
universe. At the end of EE is mentioned the theoria tou theou
as criterion or term of reference for the choice oi natural
human goods (1249b17-20).16 But it must remain very clear
that it is not the supreme non practical good who regulates the
moralIife. "For God is not a ruler in the sense of issuing
commands," says Aristotle, "hut is the End as a means to
which wisdom gives commands" (1249b15). Between meta-
physics and ethics there is a relation of subordination without
dependence, given the particular relation obtaining between the
two supreme goods of each order, the practical and non prac-
tical. God is the object of theoria and is, for his part, the one
with an eye to whom practical wisdom orders and directs the
morallife. 17

VII
The reader of the Thomistic commentary on NE is struck
by the unequivocal way Thomas backs Aristotle's criticisms of
the Platonic Idea of the Good. Why then do various Platonic
positions that he, as commentator on Aristotle, seeks- to reject
emp,hatically, seem so like the doctrines on the good that show
up in works oi his other than the commentary ~ Because Book I
of the N E-that Saint Thomas commented on and approved-
does not exclude a universal Good (koin,on to kalholou kai hen:
1096a28) that constitutes the bonum pier se~ in which all the
good things. of this world participate ~ Oompared with that, we
find in the Summa theologia,e such phrases as this.: Bonum

1.6 On thispa,ssage, see my article "Etica. e metafisica nelI' Etica

Eudemia di Aristotele," ElenchQs 6 (1985), pp. 19-41.
11. Cf. E. Berti, "Multiplicite . . . ", pp. 183-184.
 Good a,nd, Goods According to Aristotle 13
autem un·iversale est quod est per se et pier sua,m essentiam
bonum (Ia~ q. 103, a. 2). This situation has heen noticed by
many interpreters of Saint Thomas 18 and the experts ean :find
aseries of reasons to explain the ap,parent ineonsistency, rea-
sons that inelude the perspeetive in whieh a medieval philos-
opher considers Aristotle and the proper charaeter of scholastie
eommentaries, whieh neither were nor p,retended to be historical
exegesis in the sense understood today.
Although the Thomistic doetrine of the good is highly com-
plex in all its details/ 9 our eons,ideration of it (whieh will ce1"-
tainly be quite limited) ean he simplified hecause in comp'ari-
son with the Aristotelian position. it possesses a highly unified
and synthetic eharaeter, whereas the latter as:sumes diverse mo-
dalities of unification among goods, eorresponding to the dis-
tinet realms in whieh they are articulated (end/means" final
goodsjfinalized goods, practieal good/non practical good. In
Thomas Aquinas as weIl, various modes and levels of artieulat-
ing the goods. exist, but we want to say that all end in some way
subordinated to one unity (analogica~ in the Thomistie sense)
eonsidered on the most p,rofound level, the transcendental. Con-
sider, for examp,le, these texts from the Sum,ma contra Gentiles.
What is called something hy way of participation has some simi-
larity with that which is called that essentially, as iron is said to he
fired insofar as it participates some likene'ss of fire. But God is
essentially good; all other things are good hy participation. There-
fore 110thing will he called good unless lt has some likeness to the
divine goodness. God, therefore, is the good of every good (I, 40).
What is the maximum in any genus is the cause of the other things
which pertain to the genus; for the cause is greater than the eHect.
It is from God that all things have the character of good. Conse-
quently, He himself is the highest good (I, 41).

18 Cf. R. J. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism (The Hague, 1956),

espe pp. 411 ff.
19 The article of Guido Soaje Ramos, "Esbozo de Un& respuesta tomista

al problema deI valor," Ethos 8 (1980), pp. 69-106, provides a valuable

synthesis of the principal aspects.
14 Ernesto La Croce
In the last text, Thomas applies to the good an argument for
whieh he shows, a great predilection in that he uses it many
times in his works. It is the argument from the causality of
the maxi,mum~20 whieh holds that if X is the original caus.e
of A possessing the property F, thell X must possess the prop-
erty F in a maximal and eminent degree.
Oornelio Fabro has rightly emphasized the importanee of
this argument in Thomistic metaphysies, noting that it is by
means· of it (he calls it the (( dialettica dell'Imp,erfetto") that
is channeled the proper Aristotelian inspiration of ·the notion
of participation inSt. Thomas, whieh flourishes with other in-
spirations, Platonic and Avieennian. 21 Some authors. have
noted, however, that if the reasoning is indeed of Aristotelian
origin, the way in which Thomas uses it is not. 22 Aristotle
mentions it in faet in Posterior Analytic8~ 72a29-30 and, in a
formula.tion more strict and restricted in M etaphysics 11, 1,
993b24-26. In the latter text the example of n.re oceurs again
and St. Thomas accepts it, but exp,ressly establishes that the
argument applies to univocal realities (if, that is, as seems to
us, to ·synonymon must be understood in a technieal sense:
hekaston de malista auto ton allon kath' d'kai tois allois
huparchei to sunonumon.
In the Aristotelian perspective, this reasoning ean be under-
stood to be taken to apply to fire and fired things or even, if it
existed, to the Platonic Idea of Good and good things (in both
eases the caus.e in question is the formal cause), but never for
terms whieh are predieated equivoeally.

20 Cf. V. De Couesnongle, "La causalite du maximum. L'utilisation par

S. Thomas d'un passage d'Aristote," Revue des 80ienceB philo8ophique et
tkeologiques 84 (1954), pp. 433-444 and 658·680, and E. Berti, "Aristo..
telismo e ne<>platonismo nella dottrina tomistica di Dio come 'ipsum
esse " " in Studi ..., op. cit., pp. 347-353.
21 C. Fabro, La nozione metafisica di parteoipazione secoodo S. Tommaso
d'AquVno (Milano, 1939), p. 118.
22 Cf. DeCouesnongle, arte oit.
 Good and Goods Accordingto A.ristotle 15
In his commentary·on the Aristotelian passage (In.II Meta-
physic.~ lectio 2, n. 293), Thomas notes Aristotle's mention of
univocity but explains that the effect cannot obtain similarity
with the cause ,according to the same ratio specifica. In the
Summa theolgia,e~ Ia~ q. 6, a. 2, on the other hand, he fully
assumes that God isan efficient cause equivocal with respect to
good things, and affirms, that thus He is maximally good,
whereas univocal causes are uniform with their effects; it is in-
teresting that he understands the example of fire-of the sun
and heat--is a case of an equivocal cause.
W e ~ould say that the reason Thomas shows no reluctance
to use this argument of the goodness, of God and of creatures
lies in the. fact that the concept of a,na.logia in medieval philos-
ophy implies, in virtue of p'articipation~ a much less radical
equivocity on the part of the analoga or even of the pros hen
legomena than tbe Aristotelian. In Greek philosophy the re-
speetive logoi hei a,gatha' are diverse logoi from one another.
Saint Thomas, of course, also holds that the ra.tiones of goods
are distinct, but that each being "is called good by similarity
with the divine goodness which is inheren,t in it and formally
its goodness on the basis of which it is called good in itself"
(Ia~ q. 6, a. 4).
The distinction' between goodness per essel1iia,m andgood-
ness perpa,rticipalio1tem (participation which results by way
oi similarity or exemplarity and by way of efficient causality,
inasmuchas God impresses His likeness on creatures) permits
St. T,homas to say that a' thing is good both by a forrna in-
haerens or by -a similitudo' inha,erens 23 and "in virtue of the
divine goodness a.s first. exemplary, efficient and final principal
of all goodnes,sl."
Earlier we rej~ted the, interpretationaccording to which
the divine substance of Aristotle, as summu,m bon,umj·would be

23 See, respectively, Q. D. de Veritate, q. 21, R. 6 and Summa theologiae,

la, q. 6, a. 4.
16 Ernesto La Oroce
considered in a relation of logical priority to the rest of the
goods of the universe. But even if such an interpretation were
accepted, the concept of homonymy of focal signification would
in no wise be compatible with the idea of a princeps analo-
gatum which possess:es "by essence" the property in question,
that is, an entity, a unity or a goodness whose substance would
be being itself, one itself and the good itself. This is p'recisely
the question Aristotle put in the form of the eleventh aporia
of Metaphysics 111: "whether being and unity are the suh-
stances of things, and whether each of them, without being any-
thing else, is being or unity respectively" (1001a,5-7). The
definitive response can be found in book X (1053b16-24) and
is, of course, negative. 24 St. Thomas, by contrast, in comment-
ing on the passage of the third book (In 111 Metaphysica" lectio
12, n. 501), says that Aristotle would give a positive response,
despite his doubts., in Book XII, affirming thc existence of
ipsum unum et ens" although not of co,urse in the Platonic
mode, not as (formal) substance of all the things that are in
each instance one, hut as St. Thomas wishes, i.e. as causa and
principle. The same thing 'applies. to the good.
Tt seems unnecessary to clarify that, in emphasizing that the
Aristotelian divine substance is not Good p'er essentiam but
, a' good, we in no way undermine his condition as summum
bonum. The difference between the Aristotelian summum
bonum and the Thomistic has much to do with the function
exemplar causality fulfills in the latter. 25 Let us remember
that, in the realm of practical goods, one of the arguments
used by Aristotle against the Platonic Idea of Good aims pre-

24 An excellent study of this whole question ia found in E. Berti, "Le

probleme de Ia substantialite de l'etre et de l'un dans la Metaphllsique,"
in lJJtudes sur la Metaphysique d' Aristo·te, published by P. Aubenque
(Paris, 1979), pp. 89-119.
25 As we already pointed out in fn. 3, the process whereby the causa
ememplaris gets infolded in the homonymy of focal meaning has a note·
worthy antecedent in Philoponus.
 Good and Goods According to Aristotle 17
cisely to deny that an ahsolute non practical Good could actuate
as paradeigma human goodS. 26

VIII
The existence of a bonum universale and peT' essentiam, in
which all good things p,artieipate, enables. asolid connection to
be maintained between ethics and metaphyscis. If a being,
aspiring to its proper good, also aspires to the bonum un,iversale
that impressed on it its likeness, it ia possible to investigate--
this has aetually been done 27-the consequence this ean have
in excluding profound eonflicts between real goods.
No doctrine of this kind is found in Aristotle, and the su-
preme praetical good (the highest form of euda.imon.ia) is con-
nected with the non praetical good as a subject with an object,
or by way of teleological relations in the total hierarchy of the
goods of the universe. But the subordination between both su-
preme goods is finally equally established, though by ways dis-
tinet from those of Thomas Aquinas. It is a matter of subordi-
nation with participation or derivation.

Uni'Versitll 01 Buenos Aires,

BUenDS Aires, Argentina.

Cf. NB 1096b35-aI3.
26

Cf. L. P. Gerson, "Plato, Aquinas and the Universal Good," The

21
New Scholasticlsm 58 (1984), pp. 131-144.