PURDUE UNIVERSITY

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Justin John Matchulat

!
PRACTICAL COGNITION AND MORAL MOTIVATION IN THE THOUGHT OF !
THOMAS AQUINAS

Doctor of Philosophy

Jeffrey Brower

Patrick Kain

Daniel Frank

Mark Murphy

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Type Major Professor's name

Jeffrey Brower

Matthias Steup 04/22/2014

PRACTICAL COGNITION AND MORAL MOTIVATION IN THE THOUGHT OF

THOMAS AQUINAS

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Faculty

of

Purdue University

by

Justin John Matchulat

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

May 2014

Purdue University

West Lafayette, Indiana

 UMI Number: 3636387

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 ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to first thank my parents for their constant support throughout the

dissertation process. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members for

all of their time and valuable contributions to this project: Jeffrey Brower, Patrick Kain,

Daniel Frank, and Mark Murphy.

 iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................................v
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... vi
CHAPTER I: PREFACE: NATURE OF THE PROJECT, CONCEPTUAL PRELUDE,
AND PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCHOLARLY CONTEXT ..............................................1
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................1
2. Incontinent Action and the Central Features of Aquinas’s Account .................3
3. My Project within the Relevant Secondary Literature on Aquinas ................13
4. My Project and Contemporary Debates ...........................................................18
CHAPTER II: THE NATURE OF PRACTICAL COGNITION .....................................22
1. The Powers of the Soul in General ..................................................................23
1.1. The Cognitive Powers of the Soul ...........................................................26
1.2. The Desiring Powers of the Soul .............................................................30
2. Speculative and Practical Intellect ...................................................................35
2.1. Speculative vs. Practical Intellect ...........................................................36
2.2. Speculative vs. Practical Cognition ........................................................43
3. The Practical Syllogism ...................................................................................50
3.1. The Middle Term ......................................................................................54
4. Practical Consideration ....................................................................................59
CHAPTER III: THE APPETITIVE DIMENSION OF PRACTICAL COGNITION:
THE INFLUENCE OF DESIRE .......................................................................................69
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................69
1.1. Terminological Prolegomena....................................................................72
2. How Desires of the Sensory Appetitive Influence Practical Cognition ...........77
 iv

Page
2.1. Sensory Passions and Attention ................................................................84
2.2. Natural Temperament, Natural Virtues, and the
Influence of the Heavenly Bodies.............................................................91
3. Appetitive Habits and Practical Cognition ......................................................95
4. The Natural Desires of Human Nature ..........................................................101
4.1. More Specific Human Natural Inclinations ............................................108
4.2. Natural Inclinations’ Effect on Practical Cognition ...............................111
CHAPTER IV: AQUINAS AND CONTEMPORARY MORAL PSYCHOLOGY ......121
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................121
2. Aquinas and Strict Akratic Action .................................................................123
2.1. Comparative Judgments and the Phenomenon of Incontinence ...........127
2.2. The Nature of Comparative Judgment and
Aquinas’s Moral Psychology ................................................................132
3. The Judgment Held at the Time of the Incontinent Action ...........................142
4. Aquinas’s Moral Psychology and Contemporary Work in
Empirical Psychology ....................................................................................149
4.1. Aquinas vs. Mele with Respect to the Psychological Literature ..........153
5. Aquinas and Iris Murdoch .............................................................................158
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................163
 v

ABBREVIATIONS

De Malo Quaestiones disputatae De malo

De Ver. Quaestiones disputatae De veritate

De Virt. Quaestiones disputatae De virtutibus in Communi

In De Anima Sententia libri De anima

In Ethic. Sententia libri Ethicorum

In Meta. Sententia super Metaphysicam

In Post. Expositio libri Posteriorum Analyticorum

In Sent. Scriptum super libros Sententiarum

SCG Summa Contra Gentiles

ST Summa Theologiae
 vi

ABSTRACT

Matchulat, Justin John. Ph.D., Purdue University, May 2014. Practical Cognition and
Moral Motivation in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Major Professor: Jeffrey Brower.

The work of Thomas Aquinas contains rigorous and rich reflection on the

relationship between practical cognition and moral motivation. The goal of my

dissertation is to elucidate and motivate Aquinas’s views on this relationship, views

which delve into the core of human moral psychology and are at the heart of Aquinas’s

ethics. Aquinas’s views on these issues are especially interesting. On the one hand, he

holds that there is a strong relationship between cognition and moral motivation, for he

holds that the will is moved towards some good insofar as, and only insofar as, that good

is cognized by the intellect. Furthermore, he holds that all wrongdoing involves some

measure of ignorance, a claim which has the following corollary: if a human being were

to behold the good in all its fullness, he or she would be incapable of doing evil. But

Aquinas also holds that there are indeed culpable cases of human wrongdoing that are the

result of weakness of will, a case that involves the influence of the emotions on moral

motivation. So on the one hand, Aquinas holds that there is a strong link between

practical cognition and moral motivation, since the former can give rise to the latter; but

on the other hand he thinks that our desires, emotions, and appetitive habits can and often

do influence our practical cognition and even render us ignorant in some way. My
 vii

dissertation proposes to illuminate these contrasting strands of thought in Aquinas and

show how he unifies them. I then turn in my final to consider contemporary discussions

in both moral and empirical psychology and how Aquinas’s views bear on these

discussions.
 1

CHAPTER I: PREFACE TO PRACTICAL COGNITION AND

MORAL MOTIVATION IN AQUINAS: NATURE OF THE PROJECT,

CONCEPTUAL PRELUDE, AND PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCHOLARLY CONTEXT

1. Introduction

Call the type of cognition that bears on action practical cognition and the type of

motivation that bears on voluntary action moral motivation. In this dissertation I

elucidate and defend Thomas Aquinas’s views of the relationship between practical

cognition and moral motivation.

Aquinas's views on the relationship between practical cognition and moral

motivation exhibit a certain tension. On the one hand, Aquinas emphasizes the important

place of cognitive states with respect to moral motivation: he holds that in order for an

agent’s thoughts and actions to be directed to an end, that end must first be cognized by

her.1 Furthermore, he holds that appetite or desire follows upon cognition. Even more

strongly, he follows Socrates and holds that all wrongdoing involves some sort of

ignorance.2 Let us call this the intellectualist or Socratic strand in Aquinas.

1
Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST) I, q. 1, art. 1: Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST) I, q. 1, art. 1: “Finem
2
ST I-II, q. 77, art. 2: “Respondeo dicendum quod opinio Socratis fuit, ut Philosophus dicit in VII Ethic.,
quod scientia nunquam posset superari a passione. Unde ponebat omnes virtutes esse scientias, et omnia
peccata esse ignorantias. In quo quidem aliqualiter recte sapiebat. Quia cum voluntas sit boni vel
apparentis boni, nunquam voluntas in malum moveretur, nisi id quod non est bonum, aliqualiter rationi
bonum appareret: et propter hoc voluntas nunquam in malum tenderet, nisi cum aliqua ignorantia vel
errore rationis.”
 2

On the other hand, Aquinas holds that a number of types of desire and emotion influence

our choices and actions in profound ways. This along with the fact that Aquinas is

strongly indebted to Aristotle's ethics, leads him to emphasize the importance of

developing appetitive habits that order these desires and emotions so that the agent can

attain stable motivation for the good. Let us call this the conatist or Humean strand in

Aquinas.

I believe this tension between the Socratic and Humean strands in Aquinas is a

healthy one since it does justice to the phenomena of human moral psychology. For on

the one hand, it seems that the way that we perceive or think about things—be they

people, situations, or opportunities for action—plays a crucial role in influencing our

choices. But on the other hand, conative or appetitive states such as emotions, habitual

and occurrent desires, inclinations we have by temperament, and developed habits or

character traits also seem to play a crucial role in influencing our choices and behavior.

Aquinas is sensitive to both of these phenomena, and due to this sensitivity the tension

arises in his account.

My dissertation displays how these Socratic and Humean strands are interwoven

in Aquinas's thought and how he resolves this apparent tension. In other words, I will

clarify how Aquinas maintains both that practical cognition and evaluation have

motivational power as well as how appetitive states both relate to cognition and have

motivational power. We will see that Aquinas provides us with interesting, significant,

and detailed analyses of the mechanisms at work between practical cognition and various

types of desire, and how both of these relate to moral motivation. Moreover, Aquinas’s

analyses are careful and systematic. He takes care to distinguish between types of
 3

cognition and to isolate that type which is salient to motivation and action and the types

which are not. He also takes care to distinguish between numerous types of desire and

explain how each influences both cognition and motivation. And Aquinas does not

simply make up these distinctions as he goes, but rather draws on conceptual resources

from his larger systematic philosophy of human nature.

2. Incontinent Action and the Central Features of Aquinas’s Account

In order to put on display the central features of Aquinas’s views on practical

cognition and moral motivation, as I understand them, I will now introduce Aquinas’s

account of incontinent action. Aquinas often uses examples of adultery and fornication

when analyzing incontinence, so I will follow suit with a similar example.

Consider the following vignette:

Phil is a married man who works for a large corporation. He has many
friends among his co-workers, including Sally whom he finds highly attractive.
Phil and Sally enjoy intermittent but pleasant interactions at work, which at times
get flirtatious. Phil occasionally considers the possibility of their taking things to
a romantic level.
One Monday the workers get a memo that there will be a company party
that Friday evening after work. The following day it becomes known to Phil that
if he attends this party, a sexual liaison with Sally will be all but certain. Phil is
engaged in an intense internal struggle throughout the week and especially on
Friday as the party nears. He knows that adultery is wrong. But he also
experiences strong sexual desires. In the end, Phil’s sexual desires get the best of
him and he comes to the conclusion that he should go to the party and initiate the
liaison with Sally. And so he does.

I will now break down this vignette using Aquinas’s analysis of incontinence and

his key terminology. I will not be defending Aquinas’s account here, in the sense of

providing quotations, citations and laying out a specific interpretation of Aquinas; I will

be assuming a standard account of his view of incontinence (standard in the sense that it
 4

is not controversial) and will use it to get the key features and concepts of Aquinas’s

thought on practical cognition and moral motivation in view. My aim here is simply to

acquaint one with these key features and concepts; I will elucidate, explain, and defend

them in later chapters.3 In this Chapter, I will use bold text to highlight the central

concepts in Aquinas’s account.

For the sake of clarity, I will start with Aquinas’s analysis of Phil’s choice and

move backwards to consider Aquinas’s analysis of the internal struggle in Phil that gives

rise to it. I will use bold text to highlight Aquinas’s central concepts,

Phil acts incontinently in deciding to sleep with Sally. We might be tempted to

think that Phil is simply pulled by his desires to commit this act and that his intellect is

not involved. But this is not Aquinas’s take. Phil’s sexual desire brings his intellect to

evaluate the action in a certain way. Accordingly, Aquinas holds that Phil’s choice to

sleep with Sally is preceded by a piece of practical reasoning. This practical reasoning

can be represented with the following practical syllogism:

Pleasure is to be pursued.
This act is pleasurable.
Therefore, this act is to be pursued.

The middle term of this practical syllogism is pleasure; this is the evaluative aspect

under which Phil viewed his action. It specifies the good that Phil is aiming to achieve in

acting as he did. And in explaining Phil’s action, or giving the reasons for acting as he

3
My Thomistic construal of Phil’s incontinent action is based on three main texts: ST I-II, q. 77; ST II-II,
q. 156; and De Malo q. 3, art. 9 and 10. For purposes of exposition, and because I return to these issues in
later chapters, I refrain here from giving specific citations for the concepts and explanatory moves Aquinas
would make about Phil’s case. But the specific citations will be found in later chapters where these issues
are extensively discussed.
 5

did, we would have to cite this aspect of good that Phil had in view and was aiming for,

viz., pleasure.

The conclusion of the above practical syllogism is ‘this act is to be pursued’ and

is called by Aquinas the practical judgment, which is a judgment in the sense of a

verdict about what is to be done. The practical judgment then gives rise to the will’s

choice. We could put it this way: Phil first comes to a conclusion about what is to be

done (the practical judgment) and then chooses to act accordingly. Moreover, Phil’s

choice is not a purely volitional state without any cognitive component. Rather, Phil’s

practical judgment not only gives rise to his choice, but is partially constitutive of it; we

might say that Phil’s choice is encoded and it receives its encoding from the practical

judgment. Thus, we can say that Phil’s practical judgment both gives rise to and is

embodied in his choice.

Let us now move backwards and consider Phil’s internal struggle before he makes

a choice. With respect to this internal struggle, Phil is faced with a difficult decision.

One might think that the tension in Phil is between whether to follow his considered

moral judgment or his sexual desire, and that the moral judgment would be a purely

cognitive affair and the sexual desire a purely appetitive affair. But this is not Aquinas’s

view of the matter. For Aquinas holds that the intellect and desire are involved with

respect to both options. With respect to the intellect, Aquinas explains that an agent like

Phil in the midst of struggle is engaged in competing lines of practical reasoning, which

can be represented in terms of a pair of incomplete practical syllogisms:

No adultery is to be committed. Pleasure is to be pursued.

This act is adultery. This act is pleasurable.
... ...
 6

These practical syllogisms are incomplete because Phil has yet to come to a conclusion or

verdict as to what is to be done. Phil is going back and forth in his mind about what to

do.

Let us first consider the side of Phil’s conflict that bids him to avoid the sexual

act, the side of right reason. Phil knows that no adultery is to be done. This knowledge is

a form of practical cognition since it predicates an aspect of good (or lack thereof, as in

this case) of an action. Furthermore, practical cognition is directive of action and

engages an agent’s desires. Just as we said earlier that a practical judgment gives rise to

and is embodied in a choice, so this practical cognition that no adultery is to be done

gives rise to and is encoded in a general intention to avoid adultery.

We also see that on the side of right reason, the incomplete practical syllogism

has as its middle term ‘adultery’. This middle term represents the evaluative aspect under

which the action appears undesirable; by thinking of the action in terms of adultery, Phil

thinks of the action as one involving infidelity to his wife, which he knows is bad.

Throughout the week when Phil is engaged in his internal struggle, this practical

cognition which employs the evaluative aspect of adultery is considered in flashes and

Phil entertains his present situation in its light. His entertaining of his present situation in

its light is represented by having the minor premise (‘this act is adultery’) come under the

major premise, without yet reaching a conclusion, though it inclines him towards one.

Let us now consider the side of Phil’s conflict that bids him to pursue the sexual

act. Phil indeed experiences strong sexual desires throughout the week. Aquinas does

not deny that such desires can and do have a powerful influence on our actions. But these

desires do not directly cause Phil to act. For Aquinas holds that the intellect is also
 7

involved. What the sexual desires do is bring it about that a competing practical

cognition—a competing evaluation—is entertained by the intellect. This competing

practical cognition is that pleasure is to be pursued and so involves thinking of the act

under the evaluative aspect of pleasure.

I have mentioned the two evaluative aspects of adultery and pleasure that Phil

entertains as he goes back and forth about what to do. Aquinas calls these evaluative

aspects considerations: the former consideration presents the act as evil and to be

avoided, the latter consideration presents it as good and to be pursued. These

considerations or evaluative aspects can also be thought of as concepts under which the

action appears good or bad; I will continue to refer to them simply as evaluative aspects.

Moving forward, we can call practical considering (and other verb forms of this

expression) that intellectual activity by which an agent thinks of an act under an

evaluative aspect, without yet using that evaluative aspect in effective, complete practical

reasoning that reaches a practical judgment that a particular act is to be done. So while

Phil is struggling, he is engaged in practical considering, thinking of his potential act now

under the aspect of adultery, now under the aspect of pleasure, yet without completing the

practical reasoning to reach a practical verdict. Hence, when we represent Phil’s

practical reasoning while struggling with two practical syllogisms, these practical

syllogisms are incomplete. So long as Phil merely considers the action under these

evaluative aspects or considerations, he has not effectively applied either of the principles

represented in the major premises to his concrete situation. To effectively apply such a

principle would require that Phil use that principle’s evaluative aspect to interpret his
 8

situation: to view his situation as one of adultery or as one of pleasure. This would

involve signing on, as it were, to the minor premise and hence reaching the conclusion.

Now Aquinas thinks the above analysis allows him to endorse the Socratic saying

that every act of wrongdoing involves some sort of ignorance.4 We might find it a bit

odd to speak of ignorance in this context since Phil does know that adultery is wrong.

But there are different kinds of ignorance, one of which is a kind of cognitive inattention

to something that is cognitively available to an agent and that he or she should be

attending to. And Aquinas thinks that this is the sort of ignorance at work in Phil’s case

and that it is illuminating in explaining why Phil acted as he did. Moreover, Phil’s

ignorance is culpable since it follows upon or is the result of his sexual desire, and Phil is

able to resist the influence that this desire has over him. Aquinas mentions a number of

ways that Phil could be ignorant: first, he may be ignorant of the principle that no

adultery is to be done, not in the sense that he doesn’t know this principle at all, but in the

sense that at the time of acting his knowledge is merely dispositional or habitual and not

actual. We might say that deep down he knows this principle but he is not at the time

calling upon and using it to direct his action. Second, Phil may actually know and bring

to mind that no adultery is to be done, but fail to apply this principle to his concrete

situation. In this sense, we could say that Phil actually knows what is represented in the

major premise of the practical syllogism but is ignorant of what is represented in the

minor premise, viz., that this act is adultery. And though he may consider his prospective

4
ST I-II, q. 77, art. 2: “Respondeo dicendum quod opinio Socratis fuit, ut Philosophus dicit in VII Ethic.,
quod scientia nunquam posset superari a passione. Unde ponebat omnes virtutes esse scientias, et omnia
peccata esse ignorantias. In quo quidem aliqualiter recte sapiebat. Quia cum voluntas sit boni vel
apparentis boni, nunquam voluntas in malum moveretur, nisi id quod non est bonum, aliqualiter rationi
bonum appareret: et propter hoc voluntas nunquam in malum tenderet, nisi cum aliqua ignorantia vel
errore rationis.”
 9

action as one of adultery, he fails to perceive it as one of adultery. And hence we could

say that Phil is, in this sense, ignorant about the truth of his situation; he fails to see it in

the proper light, as a case of adultery.

We might find the above a bit counterintuitive, but consider what we might say

about someone like Phil who does wrong on account of a temporary sexual desire. We

might ask, what is the point of Phil’s action, what is he aiming for? To respond that he is

aiming for adultery does not seem right. Rather, the intuitive response is that he is

aiming for pleasure. And this response suggests that there is some ignorance or

inattention in Phil, that pleasure is before his mind as the appealing good drawing him

while the consideration about adultery is not being applied to the case at hand.

Moreover, there would be a logical problem about Phil completing both the practical

syllogism about adultery and that about pleasure. For Phil would then reach two practical

judgments that are contradictory, viz., that this act is not to be done and that this act is to

be done. And Aquinas doesn’t think it possible for an agent to hold contradictory

practical judgments at the same time. So some piece of Phil’s practical reasoning under

the aspect of adultery must be rendered inoperative; Phil must at least be ignorant of the

perception expressed in the minor premise, and he may also be ignorant in a certain

respect of the principle expressed in the major premise, viz., by not bringing it to mind or

attending to it.

Phil’s incontinent act is blameworthy and hence free. For Aquinas, this means

that Phil was not necessitated to act as he did. For Phil had it in his power to resist the

force his sexual desire and the practical reasoning under the aspect of pleasure. He could

do this by redirecting his attention in some way away from his sexual desire and what
 10

that desire is directed towards. Phil could will to direct his attention either to the

practical consideration in terms of adultery or at least somehow divert his attention from

the practical consideration in terms of pleasure, so that his dispositional knowledge about

the wrongness of adultery could manifest itself and be applied to the case at hand. But he

neglects to so redirect his attention, and hence his practical intellect is not able to

effectively apply its practical cognition concerning adultery. Phil thereby culpably lets

his attention and considering be drawn to the other practical evaluation in terms of

pleasure which is brought about by his sexual desire. This evaluation is applied to his

particular situation and so Phil comes to the practical judgment that this act is to be done,

a judgment that gives rise to and is embodied in the will’s choice.

The fundamental role of practical cognition, reasoning, and judgment in the

example of Phil brings to light the Socratic and or intellectualist strand in Aquinas. But

Aquinas holds that these forms of practical intellectual activity can bear on action

because of how they engage the desires of the will. At the same time, Aquinas holds that

sensual desires indeed influence how Phil acts, and this brings to light the conatist or

Humean strand in Aquinas. And we can see that there is no inconsistency in Aquinas’s

development of these two strands, and furthermore, that this same development preserves

the most important intuitions or phenomena behind each. For Phil’s sexual desires

cannot move him to act on their own; rather, they must bring about an intellectual

evaluation, which in Phil’s case ends up terminating in a practical judgment, followed by

a choice of the will. So not only do our practical cognitions influence our actions by

giving rise to desires, but our desires indeed influence our actions, but do so only by
 11

influencing our practical intellectual activity, i.e., how we think about situations and

opportunities for action.

The above account of Phil’s action presents the basic picture of the relevant moral

psychology in Aquinas’s thought, and acquaints us with the basic concepts and

explanatory moves that Aquinas makes. We see that for Aquinas, evaluation and

motivation go hand in hand. I have introduced the key concepts of practical cognition,

practical reasoning and the practical syllogism, an incomplete practical syllogism,

evaluative aspects or considerations, practical considering, practical judgment,

ignorance, attention, negligence, and the will’s choice. There are of course important

open questions about each of these concepts, how precisely they work in Aquinas’s

account, and how Aquinas philosophically motivates these concepts in explanatory

moves. My purpose in Chapters II and III is to elucidate and motivate these concepts and

the explanatory principles of Aquinas’s moral psychology. I provide ample reference to

and interpretation of the relevant texts on these issues, and elucidate and motivate

philosophically these concepts and the explanatory moves.

More specifically, my second chapter clarifies the nature of practical cognition

and the relation practical cognition bears towards desire. To do this, I first show how

cognition in general differs from desire in Aquinas’s thought, and then how practical

cognition is differentiated from other forms of cognition. Aquinas holds that what makes

practical cognition unique is that it is fit to engage desire. Practical cognition can engage

desire by virtue of a number of its features, including its object, mode, and end: it grasps

something achievable by action, under some aspect of good, and for the sake of action.

Having elucidated practical cognition in general, I single out for special attention a
 12

central form of practical cognition, viz., practical consideration. This is a fundamental

type of practical cognition whereby an agent views an opportunity for action under some

evaluative aspect, without yet judging the action to have that aspect.

Whereas the second chapter shows the influence that practical cognition has on

desire, the third chapter investigates the reverse influence. Aquinas accepts and

frequently uses a principle taken from Aristotle: as a person is, so does an end seem to

him or her. When this principle speaks of how a person is, it is referring to the condition

of the person’s desires, emotions, and dispositions. Accordingly, Aquinas holds that

these types of appetitive state all influence practical cognition—how ends seems to us—

but do so in different ways. What is more, Aquinas claims that no sense desire, emotion,

or state brought about by one’s environment can directly cause a person’s choice to act.

These types of appetitive state, Aquinas claims, do not directly move the will to choice,

but only provide an occasion for the will to choose. And they do this by bringing it about

that the intellect entertains certain practical considerations, which the person can either

accept or set aside. This brings to the fore a crucial mediating role that practical

cognition plays between these appetitive states and action.

My fourth chapter situates Aquinas’s views relative to contemporary discussions

in moral psychology. I begin by returning to the issue of incontinence. I present the

standard contemporary conception of incontinence that was pioneered by Donald

Davidson, and bring to light how Aquinas departs from it when it comes to two key

assumptions built into the standard conception: he does not hold that incontinence

involves a comparative judgment (that a is better than b), nor does he hold that the agent

adheres to the correct practical judgment at the time of the action. I argue that there are
 13

good reasons to follow Aquinas in rejecting these assumptions, and then both clarify and

motivate Aquinas’s view of practical judgment and the reasoning that terminates in it. I

then turn to consider some contemporary findings in experimental psychology and show

how Aquinas’s own account corroborates these findings. Moreover, I address the work

of contemporary philosopher Alfred Mele, who also uses these psychological findings to

motivate his own view of incontinent action and related issues in moral psychology. I

point out problems with Mele’s use of the psychological findings and argue that

Aquinas’s moral psychology provides a better framework for incorporating them. Last, I

consider the work of Iris Murdoch, and show how the spirit of Aquinas’s account of

practical cognition and moral motivation is illuminated by what Elijah Millgram calls

Murdoch’s redescription view of practical reasoning, as well as her focus on the

significance of attention.

3. My Project within the Relevant Secondary Literature on Aquinas

Having laid out the central features of Aquinas’s views and given the program for

the rest of the dissertation, I now turn to consider the significance of my dissertation with

respect to other scholarship. I begin with a few remarks about its relation to the

secondary literature on Aquinas and then briefly describe how it contributes to some

contemporary debates on related topics.

In English, there are two prominent book-length works on Aquinas that bear

directly on my topic, one older and one more recent. The older work is The Nature of the

Practical Intellect According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, by John E. Naus, S.J., published
 14

in 1959.5 This work covers a vast range of topics related to the practical intellect: the

speculative and practical intellect, speculative and practical science, speculative and

practical virtues, and speculative and practical knowledge. These are just the broad

headings under which Naus considers a number of more particular topics. This work

obviously has great breadth. While I am indebted to it and presuppose much of it, my

dissertation has a different arrangement, style, and aim. To provide a systematic

understanding of my specific topic, I situate Aquinas’s views within his broader theory of

human nature and its powers. Moreover, I strive to make Aquinas’s views

understandable to an audience unfamiliar with the language and categories of scholastic

thought. Due to the scope of Naus’s work and the audience at which it is directed, he

does not always provide detailed analyses of the mechanisms involved in the topics he

takes up, or explain them in a way that would make them generally accessible. My work

here has a narrower focus which allows me to set aside a number of issues related to

practical cognition in Aquinas that Naus discusses. I focus especially on pure practical

cognition and in particular on practical judgment and the proximate reasoning that leads

to it, as well as on how various types of desire affect and inform practical judgment. And

because of this narrower focus I can engage in sustained and detailed analyses of these

topics.6 I also use a more limited range of texts than Naus, focusing on the Summa

5
John Naus, S.J., The Nature of the Practical Intellect according to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Rome:
Analecta Gregoriana, 1959).
6
One issue discussed by both Naus and other secondary literature is a distinction Aquinas makes in certain
early texts between a judgment of conscience and a judgment of election. The main text for this distinction
is De Ver. q. 17, art. 1, ad. 4. There Aquinas distinguishes between a judgment of conscience and a
judgment of election; both judgments are conclusions about a particular act, but Aquinas says that the
judgment of conscience consists in pure cognition, while the latter applies cognition to affection. Some
have interpreted this to mean that a judgment of conscience is a speculative judgment that has no
motivational power, even though its form resembles that of a conclusion of a practical syllogism. I do not
take up this debate in the main body of my text, for the following reasons. First, Aquinas never makes this
 15

Theologiae, especially the Prima Secundae, as well as the De Malo, since in these later

texts I believe we find Aquinas’s mature views, where he has refined his analyses and

terminology with respect to how practical cognition relates to various types of desire.

The more recent book-length work on Aquinas in this area is Right Practical

Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas by Daniel Westburg, published in

1994.7 This work has even more breadth than Naus’s work in a number of ways. First, it

aims not merely to clarify Aquinas’s philosophical views on these topics but also to

engage related topics in Thomistic theology. Second, Westburg devotes a good bit of

space to describing historical influences on Aquinas and to showing how these help to

interpret his views, especially Aristotle but also Christian theologians such as Maximus

the Confessor and John Damascene. He also discusses how Thomistic commentators

read or misread Aquinas. And third, Westburg does much to illuminate the reasons

behind Aquinas’s ordering of the Questions about action in the Prima Secundae of the

Summa Theologiae. As with Naus, I am indebted to much of what Westburg says and

will be taking many of his conclusions for granted. In particular, Westburg is quite

helpful as to how to understand the stages of human action in Aquinas. But also like

Naus, because of the scope of Westburg’s project and the big picture goals he has in

distinction in his later texts, which are the texts where I think we find his mature views; he might have
simply given up the distinction or found a better way to make his point. Second, it doesn’t seem at all
consistent with Aquinas’s views in moral psychology to have a judgment that in form resembles a practical
judgment yet has no motivational power, which makes me think that either (i) Aquinas didn’t understand
the distinction the way some commentators do, or again (ii) that he later gave up the distinction. Third and
finally, I think that these early texts that mention the distinction can be read in a way that is consistent with
Aquinas’s later writings; i.e., reading the judgment of conscience as a speculative judgment is an
interpretation, and it is not at all obvious that this is what Aquinas has in mind. To fully address this
interpretive issue is beyond the scope of my work here, but for the above reasons I think it good to set aside
this distinction in our investigation of Aquinas’s mature views in moral psychology.
7
Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994).
 16

view, he often does not focus on philosophically unpacking and defending the details and

mechanisms involved with respect to particular views of Aquinas. My work especially

seeks to provide such detailed analyses and arguments, and so complements Westburg’s

work. In particular, the chapters that follow corraborate one of Westburg’s theses that I

arrived at on my own: that practical judgment is the key point in elucidating how

practical cognition relates to moral motivation. My work seeks to go into more detail and

unpack philosophically just how and why this is so for Aquinas. And because of the

narrower aim of my work, I can set aside a number of things Westburg discusses,

including a full treatment of the stages of action in Aquinas, the nature of prudence, and

the relation of prudence to the theological virtue of charity.

In addition to the two works just mentioned, there is also another body of

secondary literature that addresses my topic, viz., that on human freedom in Aquinas.

This literature inquires into the role of the intellect and will in free action, how the

exercise of each of these powers enters into free choice, and whether the root of free

choice is to be found in the intellect, the will, or some interaction of both. This literature

also discusses whether and in what sense Aquinas is a compatibilist or a libertarian. The

authors I am particularly indebted to in this area are David Gallagher, Tobias Hoffman,

Scott MacDonald, and Eleonore Stump.8 However, because the aim of this body of

secondary literature is to establish Aquinas’s account of freedom, while it brings to light

much that is relevant to the relationship between practical cognition and moral

8
See David M. Gallagher, “Free Choice and Free Judgment in Thomas Aquinas,” Archiv fur Geschichte
der Philosophie 76 (1994): 247-77; Eleonore Stump, “Aquinas’s Account of Freedom: Intellect and Will,”
The Monist 80 (1997): 576-97; Scott MacDonald, “Aquinas’s Libertarian Account of Free Choice,” Revue
Internationale de Philosophie 52 (1998): 309-328; and Tobias Hoffman, “Aquinas and Intellectual
Determinism: The Test Case of Angelic Sin,” Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 89 (2007): 122-56.
 17

motivation, it does not contain (and is not meant to contain) sustained reflection on

Aquinas’s account of practical cognition as it relates to broader issues about moral

motivation and reasons for action. By contrast, while my project has application to

Aquinas’s thought on freedom, it does not specifically take up that issue, but instead

isolates practical cognition and how it affects motivation and likewise how desires,

emotions, and habits affect practical cognition.

I should mention that in this body of literature on freedom, I am especially

indebted to Gallagher, who brings to light and clarifies the notion of practical

consideration. I find this notion quite important for understanding Aquinas, and seek to

clarify it and show how it is related to practical reasoning and to the influence of

desiderative states.

Scott MacDonald, in addition to working on Aquinas on freedom, has written on

themes closely related to my topic, especially in his essay “Practical Reasoning and

Reasons-Explanations: Aquinas’s Account of Reason’s Role in Action.”9 But

MacDonald’s goal in this essay is not to provide a systematic interpretation of Aquinas’s

views. Rather, he brings to light a number of general problems about practical reasoning

and how some contemporary authors have provided inadequate solutions to these

problems, and then brings in Aquinas and displays that he has a satisfying solution to

these problems. By contrast, my work here is ordered towards providing a systematic

interpretation of Aquinas’s views on practical cognition and moral motivation, which

9
See especially Scott MacDonald, “Practical Reasoning and Reasons-Explanations: Aquinas’s Account of
Reason’s Role in Action,” in Aquinas’s Moral Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, ed. Scott
MacDonald and Eleonore Stump (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1999): 133-159; see also MacDonald,
“Aquinas’s Libertarian Account of Free Choice.”
 18

requires me to investigate Aquinas in a different manner. Furthermore, I also clarify

some difficult material in Aquinas on the practical syllogism that MacDonald discusses.

A related body of secondary literature is on Aquinas’s thought on incontinence.

Here I am especially indebted to Bonnie Kent and Tobias Hoffman.10 But the topic of

my dissertation is not incontinence, and hence I set to the side certain features of

Aquinas’s account and various disputes among specialists about those and other features.

As in the case of the discussion of Phil above, I use Aquinas’s thought on incontinence as

a sort of paradigm case of the practical reasoning proximate to choice, by reference to

which I can elucidate Aquinas’s key concepts and explanatory moves. That said, I do

return to Aquinas’s account of incontinence in more detail in my final chapter, with a

view to explicating and defending Aquinas’s unique account of the practical judgment

and reasoning involved in incontinent action, in contrast to standard contemporary

accounts of such judgment and reasoning. In this final chapter, I elaborate extensively on

an insight of Kent, who points out that Aquinas’s view of incontinence does not feature

any comparative judgments.

4. My Project and Contemporary Debates

My project contributes to a number of debates within Thomistic scholarship.

First, among those working on Aquinas’s view of natural law, there is an ongoing debate

on the role of natural inclinations in Aquinas’s account. Some hold that these

10
See Bonnie Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol.
LXXXV, No. 1, July 2007. 70-91; and Kent, Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late
Thirteenth Century (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 150-189. See Tobias
Hoffman, “Aquinas on the Moral Progress of the Weak Willed,” in Das Problem der Willensschwäche im
mittelalterlichen Denken / The Problem of Weakness of Will in Medieval Thought, ed. Tobias Hoffmann,
Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams, 221–47.
 19

inclinations provide a metaphysical basis for deriving certain fundamental goods and

precepts of the natural law, while others hold that the natural inclinations do not play this

role.11 In my third chapter, I give an interpretation of Aquinas that specifies the

epistemic role that natural inclinations play in the practical intellect’s grasping of goods

and precepts. My interpretation gives a natural reading of Aquinas’s text and is

supported by similar claims Aquinas makes about the epistemic role of other types of

inclination.

Second, the issues I investigate are closely related to debates about whether

Aquinas is an intellectualist or voluntarist with respect to free choice. On the

intellectualist interpretation, Aquinas holds that the indeterminacy needed for free choice

is ultimately found in the intellect. On the voluntarist interpretation, such indeterminacy

is ultimately rooted in the will. While I do not explicitly take up this interpretive debate,

what I say does have implications for this debate. For I examine in detail the practical

reasoning that is proximate to choice by clarifying the structure and mechanisms at work

in practical consideration and the reasoning that terminates in practical judgment. And

this requires me to analyze a host of texts highly relevant to the intellectualist/voluntarist

debate.

My project also will be of interest to readers interested in topics and debates

within contemporary thought in moral psychology. First, it has things to say about how

we should think about the phenomenon of incontinence or weakness of will. Aquinas has

a developed view of incontinence and one that is motivated by his systematic views about

11
For an overview of these competing interpretations with respect to natural law theory, see Mark Murphy,
Natural Law and Practical Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 6-13.
 20

human nature and moral psychology. And as I make clear in my fourth chapter,

Aquinas’s view of incontinent action is unique because, contrary to standard

contemporary accounts, he does not think incontinent action involves acting against a

comparative judgment. Second, there is a revival of contemporary interest in the “guise

of the good” thesis, i.e., the view that all intentional action is done under the guise or

aspect of good.12 And even if one endorses this claim, important puzzles remain about

just how it should be interpreted. As we will see, Aquinas indeed endorses the guise of

the good thesis, though he provides interesting and flexible way of interpreting it.

There are also important debates in contemporary moral psychology that my

project pertains to. For example, my project is related to debates about the nature of

reasons for action. There are important questions about whether only desires are reasons

for action, or only judgments, or that both can be reasons for action, or that reasons for

action are found in desire/judgment pairs. Aquinas has considered and interesting views

on how to parse out the role of cognitions and desires in stating an agent’s reasons for

acting. A related set questions deals with whether the cognitive grasp of a normative

claim is sufficient to motivate an agent, either on its own or because this cognitive grasp

generates a desire; or whether the cognitive grasp of a normative claim is in an important

sense separate from or external to motivation.13 Readers interested in these questions will

find significant both that and why Aquinas holds that practical cognitions by nature

engage our desires.

12
See Tenenbaum, ed., Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good. See also Tenenbaum, Appearances of the
Good: An Essay on the Nature of Practical Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
13
For a clear overview of these contemporary debates about reasons for action, see James Lenman,
"Reasons for Action: Justification vs. Explanation", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/reasons-just-
vs-expl/>.
 21

Last, we should note that the very issues I will be investigating in Aquinas—

issues surrounding practical reason, desire, reasons for action, and the guise of the good

theory—are all themselves very much live issues in philosophy today.14 What is more,

prominent analyses of these issues in contemporary thought are commonly indebted to

historical figures. For example, John McDowell’s views are much indebted to Plato and

Aristotle, Christine Korsgaard’s to Kant, and Simon Blackburn’s to Hume.15

Furthermore, Aquinas himself has been a significant influence in the moral psychology

developed by Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Michael Thompson, and Alisdair

MacIntyre.16 So this field of philosophy is one in which historical figures are often

looked to as potent resources in developing contemporary views. Insofar as

contemporary debates in this branch of moral psychology are often carried out in

dialogue with figures in the history of philosophy, my dissertation will be of interest to

philosophers engaged in those debates. Hence, I see my audience as including those who

are interested in the history of moral psychology both for its own sake and for its abiding

value as a resource that can inspire and shape contemporary philosophical inquiry.

14
See, for example, the anthology Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good, ed. Sergio Tenenbaum (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010).
15
See John McDowell, “Some Issues in Aristotle’s Moral Psychology” and “Virtue and Reason” in Mind,
Value, and Reality (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Christine Koorsgaard, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and
Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
16
See G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963); Philippa Foot, Natural
Goodness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Michael Thompson, Life and Action: Elementary
Structures of Practice and Practical Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
 22

CHAPTER II: THE NATURE OF PRACTICAL COGNITION

In Aquinas’s thought, we find a rich and rigorous account of just how the intellect

can be practical. In this chapter I isolate and investigate the nature of practical cognition

in Aquinas’s thought. My goal is to clarify Aquinas’s view on the specific features of

practical cognition that enable it to be a source of action or movement, and also to

distinguish among types of practical cognition and isolate which types can and cannot be

a source of movement. Ultimately I aim to elucidate Aquinas’s notion of pure practical

cognition, which is at the heart of determining moral motivation and action. Moreover, I

want to highlight the role of a type of pure practical cognition, viz., practical

consideration, since this act plays a central role in explaining how an agent comes to a

practical verdict and choice.

I first give a brief sketch of Aquinas’s account of the powers of the human soul in

general and the cognitive powers in particular; I also give a brief synopsis of Aquinas’s

view of the desiring powers of the soul and the types of desire. With this prolegomena in

place, I then begin my investigation of practical cognition by examining Aquinas’s view

of the practical intellect and clarifying its nature by comparing it to the speculative

intellect. Building on this foundation, I then inquire into the relationship between

speculative and practical cognition, and will show the subtle distinctions Aquinas makes

when discussing cognition, distinctions that he does not make when discussing the
 23

speculative and practical intellect in general. With these distinctions in place I will

beable to isolate and clarify the nature of pure practical cognition. I then investigate

Aquinas’s account of the practical syllogism; this section will provide a framework for

investigating the finer points of pure practical cognition. Last, I explain Aquinas’s

account of practical consideration, which is a basic and crucial form of practical

cognition, and show how it connects with pure practical cognition and the practical

syllogism.

1. The Powers of the Soul in General

Aquinas holds that the human soul has five kinds of powers: vegetative powers,

locomotive powers, sensory powers, intellectual powers, and appetitive powers.17 On

Aquinas’s understanding, “a power of the soul is nothing other than a proximate principle

of an operation of the soul.”18 Powers are differentiated on the basis of activities and the

objects of those activities, but diverse powers are postulated only if a set of activities

cannot be reduced to a single principle.19 Here it becomes apparent that Aquinas has a

robust, ontological sense of ‘power’ in mind: a power is the ontological ground or source

by virtue of which one is capable of engaging in a multitude of functions and activities. I

17
ST I, q. 78, art. 1.
18
ST I, q. 78, art. 4: “Et quaecumque harum actionum non possunt reduci in unum principium, requirunt
diversas potentias, cum potentia animae nihil aliud sit quam proximum principium operationis animae.”
19
ST I, q. 78, art. 4. For more detail on how the powers of the soul are diversified, ST I, q. 77, art. 3, where
Aquinas explains and justifies the following claim: “Not just any diversity of objects diversifies powers of
the soul; but rather the diversity of that towards which the power is concerned per se.” [“Sic igitur non
quaecumque diversitas obiectorum diversificat potentias animae; sed differentia eius ad quod per se
potentia respicit.”] (Note: Latin translations are my own. For citations that are not quotations I often also
provide the cited Latin text in the footnotes, and if I think such a text is especially significant, I also include
an English translation. The Leonine editions are used for all works except the Commentary on the
Metaphysics, Summa Contra Gentiles and the Commentary on the Sentences; see the Bibliography for
details.)
 24

will follow Aquinas’s usage and reserve the term ‘power’ to refer the ontological source.

I will use the term ‘ability’ to refer to those things a power makes us capable of. To

briefly illustrate this distinction, sight makes us capable of seeing a host of colors and

shapes, and so on this terminology the one power of sight endows us with a host of visual

abilities to see various colors and shapes.

Moving on to the other kinds of powers, the vegetative powers account for the

growth and maintenance of the body, and the locomotive powers account for the

movement of the body with respect to place. Since these two kinds of powers—the

vegetative and locomotive—are not directly relevant to my inquiry, I set them aside. The

kinds of powers directly relevant to Aquinas’s understanding of the relation between

cognition and motivation are the sensory powers, the intellectual powers, and the

appetitive powers. Aquinas at times brings the intellectual and sensory powers together

under the class of cognitive powers, and contrasts these powers with appetitive powers. I

will follow Aquinas and use the expression ‘cognitive powers’ when I wish to refer to the

conjunction of the intellectual and sensory powers. I will use the expressions ‘sensory

powers’ and ‘intellectual powers’ when I wish to speak of these types of powers

separately.

But before moving on to consider the cognitive powers of the soul in detail, we

should consider some general remarks Aquinas makes about the nature of cognition, and

how cognition contrasts with desire.20 Cognition and desire are alike in that they are both

states of the soul that have objects. The term ‘object’ in this context simply stands for

20
As I explain in more detail in section 1.2, I am here using the term ‘desire’ in a broad way to translate
Aquinas’s ‘appetitus’. This sense of ‘desire’ simply means a movement or inclination towards the thing
desired, and so covers a broad range of more specific types of desire (such as rational desire, sentient
desire, etc.).
 25

what the state is related to, and is not a synonym for ‘substance’ or ‘medium-sized dry

good’. Aquinas has in mind what some philosophers call an intensional object.21

Cognition and desire are different by virtue of having different types of relation to their

objects, and Aquinas highlights two differences in particular. First, the direction of the

relation between the soul and its object is different: for cognition, the relation typically

goes from the object to the soul, while for desire, the relation goes from the soul to the

object.22 In other words, the capacity to cognize is a receptive capacity; it enables the

agent to take in things and features of the world. On the other hand, the capacity to desire

enables the agent, not to be receptive to the extra-mental world, but to engage with it and

tend towards it.23 The etymology of the word ‘appetite’ helps bring out this feature:

‘appetite’ is from ‘ad’ which means ‘to’ and ‘petere’ which means ‘to go or seek out’.

Speaking broadly we can say that appetite is towards or for things, while cognition is

from things.

21
See Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion, and Will (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited, 1963),
187-88.
22
I qualify this sentence with ‘typically’ because practical cognition, as we will see, involves at least a
modification of this principle.
23
The account here of how Aquinas differentiates cognition from desire follows De Ver., q. 22, art. 10:
“Dicitur autem aliquid esse obiectum animae secundum quod habet aliquam habitudinem ad animam. Ubi
ergo invenimus diversas rationes habitudinis ad animam, ibi invenimus per se differentiam obiecti animae,
demonstrantem diversum genus potentiarum animae. Res autem ad animam invenitur duplicem
habitudinem habere: unam secundum quod ipsa res est in anima per modum animae et non per modum sui,
aliam secundum quod anima comparatur ad rem in suo esse existentem. Et sic obiectum animae est aliquid
dupliciter: uno modo in quantum natum est esse in anima non secundum esse proprium sed secundum
modum animae, id est spiritualiter, et haec est ratio cognoscibilis in quantum est cognoscibile; alio modo
est aliquid obiectum animae secundum quod ad ipsum anima inclinatur et ordinatur secundum modum
ipsius rei in se ipsa existentis, et haec est ratio appetibilis in quantum est appetibile: unde cognoscitivum in
anima et appetitivum constituunt diversa genera potentiarum.” See also ST I, q. 81, art. 1: “Actus enim
apprehensivae virtutis non ita proprie dicitur motus, sicut actio appetitus: nam operatio virtutis
apprehensivae perficitur in hoc, quod res apprehensae sunt in apprehendente; operatio autem virtutis
appetitivae perficitur in hoc, quod appetens inclinatur in rem appetibilem.”
 26

1.1 The Cognitive Powers of the Soul

With these general remarks about cognition in view, we can consider Aquinas’s

account of the cognitive powers of the soul, beginning with the sensory powers. Aquinas

holds that there are five exterior sensory powers and four interior sensory powers. The

five exterior senses are sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing.24 The four interior sensory

powers are the common sensory power, the imaginative power, the estimative power, and

the power of memory.25 Among these interior senses, the estimative power is particularly

important for Aquinas’s account of practical cognition. This power allows an animal to

apprehend things beyond mere sensible attributes such as color, size, and shape. The

estimative power accounts for an animal’s ability to apprehend something as harmful or

useful. Aquinas gives the example of a sheep that flees from a wolf: “for example, a

sheep seeing a wolf coming flees, not because of an unsightliness of color or shape, but

as if because of a danger to the sheep’s nature.”26 In human beings, the estimative power

is called the cogitative power or the particular reason. This cogitative power enables us

to read a number of things from others’ appearance and behavior: for example, that

someone is interested in what we are saying, that they are angry, that they are bored, that

they are approaching us to greet us, or are coming after us to harm us. In Aquinas’s

language, the cogitative power enables us to grasp another person’s intentions. In order

to be able to read these particular intentions of others, human beings need a sensory

power that accounts for more than simply the ability to perceive colors, shapes, and sizes.

This cogitative power is crucial for the human ability to grasp the complex dynamics of a

24
ST I, q. 78, art. 3.
25
ST I, q. 78, art. 4.
26
ST I, q. 78, art. 4: “sicut ovis videns lupum venientem fugit, non propter indecentiam coloris vel figurae,
sed quasi inimicum naturae.”
 27

situation involving other persons; and such a grasp is of course needed if they are going

to respond or act or appropriately.

Last, the interior sensory power of memory enables one to conserve sensory

cognitions, including intentions grasped by the cogitative power.

We can now consider the intellectual powers of the soul. Aquinas holds that

while there are many different intellectual activities and abilities, there are only two

intellectual powers or ontological sources for these activities and abilities. These two

intellectual powers are the agent intellect and the possible intellect.27 In Summa

Theologiae I, q. 79 Aquinas mentions a number of other candidates for intellectual

powers, including intellective memory, reason, higher and lower reason, speculative and

practical intellect, synderesis, and conscience. In each case, he denies that these terms

denote distinct intellectual powers. Recall that a power in Aquinas’s sense is the

ontological ground that makes one capable of engaging in a multitude of activities. And

so the intellectual powers (the active and possible intellect) are the ground by virtue of

which an agent possesses a host of intellectual abilities. To illustrate, the two intellectual

powers of active and possible intellect give a human being the ability to remember, the

ability to reason, the ability to think practically, and so forth. Having introduced the

distinction between the active and possible intellect and explained the sense in which

there are the only two intellectual powers, I will now set this distinction aside, since for

my purposes we do not need to keep track of which power is the source of which

27
ST I., q. 79, art. 7: “Sic igitur nulla alia differentia potentiarum in intellectu esse potest, nisi possibilis et
agentis.” [“There can be no other difference of powers in the intellect except that of the possible and the
agent.”]
 28

cognitive abilities and activities. In what follows, I will simply use the term ‘intellect’ to

designate this pair of intellectual powers, the active and possible intellect.

Above I mentioned a number of mental acts and abilities that Aquinas discusses.

But more fundamentally, Aquinas holds that there are three basic intellectual abilities

whose operations are (1) understanding of indivisibles, (2) composing and dividing, and

(3) reasoning. Through understanding of indivisibles the intellect forms and applies

concepts; through composing and dividing the intellect either combines or divides

concepts, and thereby forms judgments; and through reasoning the intellect forms

arguments or inferences.28 Notice that these three operations are distinct from their

products, viz., concepts, judgments, and inferences, respectively.29

I now wish to make some notes on the term ‘judgment’ in order to clarify how

Aquinas uses the term and how I will be using it. First, we should note that in general the

term ‘judgment’ is often ambiguous between the act or operation of making a judgment,

and the product of this act, the judgment made.30 Now Aquinas will at times use the term

‘judgment’ in the sense of an act, using it as a synonym for the intellect’s second

operation of composing and dividing concepts. Aquinas then uses the term ‘proposition’

to refer to the product of the act of judgment. But Aquinas’s use of ‘proposition’ is

different from contemporary uses, for Aquinas does not conceive of propositions as

28
SCG I, 59, 2: “Cum enim veritas intellectus sit adaequatio intellectus et rei, secundum quod intellectus
dicit esse quod est vel non esse quod non est, ad illud in intellectu veritas pertinet quod intellectus dicit, non
ad operationem qua illud dicit.” SCG I, ch. 58, n. 6: “Propositionis per intellectum componentem et
dividentem formatae compositio in ipso intellectu existit, non in re quae est extra animam.”
29
SCG I, 59, 2: “Cum enim veritas intellectus sit adaequatio intellectus et rei, secundum quod intellectus
dicit esse quod est vel non esse quod non est, ad illud in intellectu veritas pertinet quod intellectus dicit, non
ad operationem qua illud dicit.” SCG I, ch. 58, n. 6: “Propositionis per intellectum componentem et
dividentem formatae compositio in ipso intellectu existit, non in re quae est extra animam.”
30
This distinction between making a judgment and the judgment made is taken from Husserl, Ideas, IV.6,
sect. 94.
 29

abstract, independently existing objects. Hence, to avoid confusion between (i) act and

product senses of the term ‘judgment’, and (ii) Aquinas’s use of ‘proposition’ and

contemporary uses, I will adopt the following terminology: the second act of the

intellect—composing and dividing—will simply be called ‘judging’, in the sense of

making a judgment; and the product of the act of judging will be called a ‘judgment’, in

the sense of a judgment made. Likewise, I will refer to the first act of intellect as

‘conceiving’, the products of concept formation being concepts. The following table

displays these basic intellectual operations and their products.

Intellectual Act or Product

Operation
Conceiving Concepts
Intellect’s First • Aquinas’s idiom:
Operation ‘understanding of
indivisibles’
Judging Judgments
Intellect’s Second • Aquinas’s idiom: • Aquinas’s idiom:
‘composing and ‘propositions’
Operation
dividing’; or ‘judgment’
Reasoning Inferences
• Aquinas’s idiom:
Intellect’s Third ‘reasoning’; it is the act
Operation by which the intellect
forms inferences

Last and most importantly, I also want to flag another sense of the term

‘judgment’ (noted in the Preface) that we find in Aquinas that will be especially

important when we investigate pure practical cognition and in particular practical

judgment. Aquinas sometimes uses the term ‘judgment’ to refer to a verdict or

conclusion the intellect has reached as the result of a preceding piece of reasoning. This
 30

sense of ‘judgment’ is analogous to that used in a legal context, where a judge is said to

have reached a judgment or verdict as the result of his inquiry into the evidence. In this

legal context, it is clear that the judge’s judgment is related to an evidential base. So too,

the mind in either a theoretical or practical inquiry is said to reach a judgment—in the

sense of a verdict—at the conclusion of its reasoning.31 To clarify, if we let ‘verdict’

stand for a conclusion of a piece of reasoning and ‘judgment’ for the product of the

second act of the intellect, we can say the following: a verdict is a judgment that is

related to other judgments which serve as its (the verdict’s) rational, grounding base. I

flag these different senses of judgment and clarify them in the following table, since they

will be important in clarifying what follows when we consider practical judgment.

Judgment1 Product of the Second Act of the Intellect,

a Mental Proposition

Judgment2 = Verdict A judgment1 insofar as it is related to a set

of judgments1 that serve as its rational base

1.2 The Desiring Powers of the Soul

I now wish to introduce the basics of Aquinas’s view of the types of desire.

Understanding these basics is essential if we are to understand practical cognition, for as

31
Aquinas makes the connection between the legal meaning of judgment and other extended meanings
when he discusses judgment in his section on justice, ST II-II, q. 60, art. 1: “Iudicium proprie nominat
actum iudicis inquantum est iudex. Iudex autem dicitur quasi ius dicens. Ius autem est obiectum iustitiae, ut
supra habitum est. Et ideo iudicium importat, secundum primam nominis impositionem, definitionem vel
determinationem iusti sive iuris.” Also, ibid,, ad. 1: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod nomen iudicii, quod
secundum primam impositionem significat rectam determinationem iustorum, ampliatum est ad
significandum rectam determinationem in quibuscumque rebus, tam in speculativis quam in practicis.”
 31

we will see, practical cognition is partly defined by how it is fit to engage desire. As

stated earlier, desires are what enable their possessors to tend out towards the world and

engage with it. Accordingly, desires are the fundamental motive principles or sources of

action; as Aquinas says, “all movement is a pursuit or avoidance of something by way of

desire.”32 Note that I am here using ‘desire’ in a broad sense; a desire need not be felt,

and simply involves “a movement towards the thing desired.”33 My use of ‘desire’

expresses how Aquinas often uses appetitus and sometimes desiderium, namely, as a

broad term for an appetitive tendency. Now desires are inclinations or tendencies, and

what they incline to or tend towards are real or apparent goods, i.e., objects (in the broad

sense) that are in some way desirable to the possessor of the desire.34

Now Aquinas distinguishes between two main types of desire, viz., natural desire

and cognitive desire.35 He holds that every desire follows upon some form (i.e., some

structure): a being’s natural desires follows upon its natural form, while its cognitive

desires follow upon forms cognized by that being. So a desire is natural just in case it

follows upon its possessor’s nature; and a desire is cognitive just in case it follows upon a

form cognized by its possessor.36

32
In III De Anima, lect. 14, n. 19: “semper motus est fugientis aliquid secundum appetitum aut
persequentis.”
33
ST I-II, q. 30, art. 1, ad. 2: “Ad secundum dicendum quod desiderium magis pertinere potest, proprie
loquendo, non solum ad inferiorem appetitum, sed etiam ad superiorem. Non enim importat aliquam
consociationem in cupiendo, sicut concupiscentia; sed simplicem motum in rem desideratam.”
34
ST I, q. 5, art. 1: “The nature of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable.” [“Ratio enim
boni in hoc consistit, quod aliquid sit appetibile.”] For Aquinas’s account of goodness in general, see ST
I, q. 5.
35
ST I, q. 78, art. 1, ad. 3; ST I, q. 80, art. 1, c. and ad. 3.
36
Aquinas sometimes calls this animal desire, though beings which are not animals, such as angels and
God, have desire that follows upon cognition in the form of will. I will call this genus of desire that follows
upon cognition simply cognitive desire; it covers the sensory desire of lower animals and human beings as
well as the exercise of the will, i.e., the rational desire of human beings, angels, and God.
Note that this distinction between natural desire and animal desire is made from the perspective of
the possessor. At a more fundamental level, Aquinas holds that all desire follows upon some cognition or
 32

To illustrate natural desire, consider the case of a dog. The dog’s natural desires

follow upon the dog’s nature, which fits it with a set of inclinations or tendencies to live a

characteristically canine life. Moreover the dog’s natural desires are directed toward

things that are really good for it.37 More generally, natural desires are always directed

towards real goods, i.e., things that are good for the possessor or things that are simply

good.

Cognitive desires follow upon forms cognized by their possessor. So cognitive

desires are responses to cognitions. Appetites have for their objects goods; cognitive

desires are responses to, and are directed towards, things cognized as good in some

respect. So these cognitions of things as good are the ones that are fit to elicit a response

from the cognitive desires. These things cognized as good may be either real or merely

apparent goods, and hence cognitive desires can be directed toward either real or merely

apparent goods, in contrast with natural desires which are always directed toward real

goods.38 Returning to the case of a dog, suppose that the dog’s owner fills its bowl with

food; the dog, upon seeing and smelling that food, forms a cognitive desire to eat that

other. So even an animal’s natural desire follows upon cognition, not the cognition of its possessor, but
upon the cognition of God. God in his wisdom endows creatures with natural desire to their characteristic
activities. So the natural desires of a dog to mate in general is basic and built into the dog and does not
follow upon any cognition of that dog; but that inclination is rooted in the knowledge of God who endows
the dog with that natural inclination.—Furthermore, we should note the difference between the natural
desire to mate in general and a particular case where dog A desires to mate with dog B. In such a case, dog
A will represent dog B as a mate and so form a cognitive desire to mate with dog B; at the same time, dog
A’s natural desire to mate in general is being applied or exercised on account of dog A’s cognition. So dog
A’s having a natural desire to mate in general does not follow upon his cognition, but this natural desire is
being applied when dog A cognizes dog B as a mate and forms a cognitive desire.
37
Moreover, the dog’s powers are also said to have natural inclinations; the dog’s power of sight, for
example, is naturally inclined to the act of seeing. The dog’s power of sight is hard-wired, as it were, to
perform the operation of seeing.
38
Though Aquinas states that even a merely apparent good is in some way good: “Nothing is so evil that it
is not able to have some aspect of good; and it is by reason of that goodness it has that it can move the
appetite.” [“Nihil est adeo malum quod non possit habere aliquam speciem boni, et ratione illius bonitatis
habet quod movere possit appetitum.”] (De Ver. q. 22, art. 6, ad. 6)
 33

food. Likewise, suppose that the dog sees and smells a stranger; the dog upon cognizing

that stranger forms a cognitive desire to bark at him.

Aquinas further divides cognitive desire into sensory desire and rational desire.

We are enabled to have sensory desires by virtue of the generic power of sentient

appetite. And we are enabled to have rational desires by the power of the will. To be

more specific, both the will and the sentient appetite endow an agent with both natural

and cognitive desires. Let us first consider the will, followed by the sentient appetite. By

virtue of having a will, an agent has a built-in, natural desire for happiness as well as for

those generic goods that constitute happiness. And by virtue of the will, an agent is also

able to have rational desires, i.e., cognitive desires which are responses to intellectual

cognitions. Likewise, by virtue of having sentient appetite, an agent has natural desires

(such as the basic drive of hunger), but it also is able to have cognitive desires which are

responses to sensory cognitions. We see that both the power of will and that of sentient

appetite have multiple functions. First, both powers account for why an agent has a set of

hard-wired desires. And second—and continuing the computer metaphor—both powers

can be described as kinds of input-output mechanisms, which receive a specific type of

cognition as input and bring about a specific type of desire as output. To illustrate, when

an agent by his intellect cognizes something as good, the power of the will is responsible

for bringing about his desire to pursue that thing.

For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the cognitive desires an agent has by

virtue of his will as rational desires and the cognitive desires an agent has by virtue of his

sensory appetite as sensory desires; but we should keep in mind that each of these powers
 34

also endows an agent with a set of natural desires. In this chapter I will be focusing on

these two types of cognitive desire.

Now sensory desires are responses to the cognitions of either the exterior or

interior senses.39 The dog’s desire for the perceived food in its bowl is a sensory desire, a

response of the dog’s exterior senses of sight of smell; the dog’s desire to bark at a

perceived stranger is also a sensory desire, as it is a response to a threat grasped by the

dog’s estimative power (an interior sensory power).

Moreover, rational desires are responses to intellectual cognitions, and hence only

creatures with the power of intellect can have rational desires. So in the material world,

only human beings can have rational desires. Aquinas claims that what makes rational

desires rational or intellectual is that they tend towards something under a universal

concept: “The intellectual appetite, even if it is directed towards things which are

singulars outside of the soul, nevertheless it is directed towards them under some

universal concept, as when it desires something because it is good.”40 Some terminology

coined by Michael Thompson, an ethics scholar influenced by Aquinas, is helpful here.

We can think of desire in general (in Aquinas’s sense) in terms of end-orientation, and

rational desire in particular in terms of concept-involving end-orientation.41 A human

being could have a rational desire, for instance, were he to desire to defend the rights of

39
ST I, q. 81, art. 1: “Now sensual movement is a desire that follows upon sensory apprehension.” [Motus
autem sensualis est appetitus apprehensionem sensitivam consequens.]
40
ST I, q. 80, art. 2, ad. 2: “Ad secundum dicendum quod appetitus intellectivus, etsi feratur in res quae
sunt extra animam singulares, fertur tamen in eas secundum aliquam rationem universalem; sicut cum
appetit aliquid quia est bonum.”
41
See Candace Vogler, Reasonably Vicious (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 31. Vogler is
citing Michael Thompson’s terminology that he has coined in his unpublished manuscript, “Relations of
Right.”
 35

an individual because doing so is just; for in such a case, he would be oriented to this end

under the concept of justice.

What I have given above is just an outline of Aquinas’s view of the types of

desire. I have passed over a good deal of complexity about the relations between sensory

cognition, intellectual cognition, sensory desire, and rational desire. For example, one

might wonder whether and how intellectual cognition can influence the sensory desires,

and whether and how sensory apprehension and desire can give rise to a rational desire.

Aquinas has considered and interesting views on these questions, but I postpone

discussion of them until Chapter III. Here I simply introduce Aquinas’s understanding of

the types of desire in general, and cognitive desire in particular, as an explanatory

preliminary to Aquinas’s account of practical cognition. The type of desire that I will be

mostly focusing on is cognitive desire due to its special relevance for moral motivation.

And in order to get clear about the nature of cognitive desire, we will need more clarity

about the nature of cognition itself, and in particular that type of cognition that is fit to

elicit desires.

2. Speculative and Practical Intellect

Now that we have a basic grasp of the intellectual powers of the soul and

Aquinas’s account of the types of desire, we can move towards understanding Aquinas on

practical cognition. I begin by elucidating Aquinas’s distinction between the speculative

and the practical intellect.

Aquinas inherits the distinction between the speculative and practical intellect

from Aristotle, who elucidates this distinction in De Anima Bk. III and Nicomachean
 36

Ethics Bk. VI. Aquinas himself elucidates this distinction in his commentaries on the

aforementioned books as well as in his own works. His mature view is clearly stated in

the Summa Theologiae.

As suggested earlier, Aquinas holds that the speculative and practical intellect are

not two distinct powers of the soul: “the practical and speculative intellects are not

diverse powers.”42 Rather ‘speculative intellect’ and ‘practical intellect’ pick out two

ways that the intellect can function; they are two different intellectual abilities, rooted in

the same ontological source. ‘Speculative intellect’ simply denotes the intellect’s ability

to engage in one type of cognition, and ‘practical intellect’ the intellect’s ability to

engage in another type of cognition. Before discussing the nature of these types of

cognition, I will investigate how Aquinas differentiates the abilities that issue forth in

these types of cognition, i.e., how he differentiates the speculative and practical intellect

themselves.

2.1 Speculative vs. Practical Intellect

Aquinas holds that the speculative and practical intellect are primarily

differentiated by having different ends, i.e., they have different aims or objectives. In

Aquinas’s idiom, speculative and practical intellect differ in regards to their final cause:

they differ in regards to why they engage in intellectual activity. Aquinas also uses the

construction ‘for the sake of ( )’ to designate an end; the term that fills in the blank spot

stands for the end. In the following passage, Aquinas identifies what constitutes the

respective ends of speculative and practical intellect:

42
ST I, q. 79, art. 11: “intellectus practicus et speculativus non sunt diversae potentiae.”
 37

Now it is incidental to something apprehended by that intellect that it be ordered

or not ordered to an action. But the speculative and practical intellect differ in
this way. For the speculative intellect orders what it apprehends, not towards an
action, but only towards the consideration of truth, while the practical intellect is
that which orders what it apprehends towards an action. And this is what the
Philosopher says in De Anima III, that “the speculative differs from the practical,
with respect to its end.” And so each is named from its end: the one speculative,
but the other practical, i.e., operative.43

The speculative intellect is simply directed towards truth; the speculative intellect may

simply apprehend self-evident principles, or engage in inquiry with the sole aim of

coming to true judgments, or contemplate the true judgments it has attained. But the

practical intellect is directed towards action, towards doing something or even desiring

something. Since the speculative and practical intellect are functions of the intellect, they

both involve apprehension, i.e., they are both receptive to intelligible content and are

ordered toward truth. But the speculative intellect reaches its end—its aim or objective—

when it apprehends truth. Whether the mind be inquiring, has reached a judgment, or is

contemplating a truth judged, the intellect insofar as it is speculative aims to know or

contemplate truth and seeks no end beyond truth. Aquinas defines truth as the

conformity between mind and reality, and hence we can say that the speculative intellect

is intrinsically directed towards this conformity of mind to reality.

The practical intellect is also apprehensive of intelligible content and aims at

truth. But truth is simply an intermediate objective for the practical intellect. The

intellect insofar as it is practical is ultimately ordered beyond truth toward something

43
ST I, q. 79, art. 11: “Accidit autem alicui apprehenso per intellectum, quod ordinetur ad opus, vel non
ordinetur. Secundum hoc autem differunt intellectus speculativus et practicus. Nam intellectus speculativus
est, qui quod apprehendit, non ordinat ad opus, sed ad solam veritatis considerationem: practicus vero
intellectus dicitur, qui hoc quod apprehendit, ordinat ad opus. Et hoc est quod Philosophus dicit in III de
anima, quod speculativus differt a practico, fine. Unde et a fine denominatur uterque: hic quidem
speculativus, ille vero practicus, idest operativus.” For similar texts, see ST I-II, q. 3, art. 5; In III de
Anima, lect. 15, n. 3; In VI Ethic., lect. 2, n. 12; In II Meta., lect. 2, n. 2.
 38

practical, i.e., something that is doable or producible by human action (operabilis in

Aquinas’s Latin). Numerous external actions and works can be done or produced by

human beings, and hence are practical in this sense, but the same is true of internal acts

and states such as volitions, desires, emotions, and states of character, insofar as these are

within our power.44 And we should note that these things attainable by human action are

evaluated, not merely as true or false, but as good or bad. I will use the phrase ‘practical

act or state’ to cover any internal act (such as a desire or emotion), external act (such as

an intentional bodily motion), or state (such as a habituated state such as a virtue or vice)

that can be brought about by a properly functioning human being’s power.

We have seen that speculative and practical intellect are ordered towards different

ends: they differ with respect to why they cognize. But speculative and practical intellect

also differ with respect to how they cognize. They do so by viewing their content under

different rationes. Before we look at some passages, we need a preliminary grasp of the

meaning of ratio in this context.

Aquinas’s notion of a ratio is rich and multifaceted, having a host of related but

different meanings. The following are some of the meanings relevant to this context: (i)

concept, conception; and (ii) aspect, point of view. When Aquinas speaks of the ratio

under which the speculative or practical intellect cognizes, the meaning of aspect or point

of view is crucial. The sense of ‘aspect’ I have in mind is defined by the Century

Dictionary as follows: “One of the ways in which a thing may be viewed or

contemplated: as, to present an object or a subject in its true aspect; in a double aspect; in

44
See In VI Ethic., 1ect. 2, n. 1135. Here, Aquinas explicitly says that desires and emotions are caused by
practical reason. Aquinas holds that desires and emotions are types of activity that remain in the agent,
which Aquinas variously calls immanent or active operations.
 39

a favorable aspect.” Used in this way, a synonym of aspect is ‘light’, as when we speak

of coming to see something in a different light, or seeing something in a favorable light.

This meaning of ratio is also similar to Frege’s notion of the sense of a name, which

Frege explains as the name’s mode of presentation, i.e., the way that a name presents an

object to an agent.45

Consider first the aspect (or ratio) which the cognition of speculative and

practical intellect have in common. Aquinas writes,

The object of the practical intellect is good directed to an action, under the aspect
of truth [sub ratione veri]. For the practical intellect cognizes truth, even as the
speculative; but it directs the cognized truth to an operation.46

Both the speculative and the practical intellect cognize under the aspect of truth. I take

Aquinas to mean the following: constitutive of mental acts such as forming judgments,

reasoning, and so forth, is representing the content of such acts as true.47

So the speculative and practical functions of the intellect both cognize under the

aspect of truth. But the practical intellect also directs towards action, and in order to do

45
I said above that in our current context, the meaning of ratio that connotes ‘aspect’ is crucial. But the
meaning that connotes ‘concept’ or ‘conception’ should also be kept in view. For in order to cognize
something under a certain aspect, it would seem that the mind must employ a certain conception or set of
conceptions; it is by virtue of such a conception or set thereof that the mind is able to grasp a thing under a
given aspect. In the passages that follow, I will translate ratio as ‘aspect’ or a synonymous expression, but
we should keep in mind the closely related meaning of ‘conception’.
46
ST I, q. 79, art. 11, ad. 2: “Objectum intellectus practici est bonum ordinabile ad opus, sub ratione veri.
Intellectus enim practicus veritatem cognoscit, sicut et speculativus; sed veritatem cognitam ordinat ad
opus.”
47
I take Aquinas’s point here to be similar to a claim Frege makes in his essay “Thoughts.” Frege points
out that the judgment ‘I smell the scent of roses’ and ‘It is true that I smell the scent of roses’ have the same
content: when I assert ‘It is true that I smell the scent of roses’ the content of my assertion is nothing more
than when I assert ‘I smell the scent of roses.’ Now one could read Frege as pointing out that the concept
of truth is implicit even in judgments in which it doesn’t appear, and likewise that the truth predicate is
implicit even in spoken or written assertions in which it doesn’t appear. I am not claiming that Aquinas’s
and Frege’s view are wholly the same, but I think there is a similarity that is illuminating. See Gottlob
Frege, “Thoughts,” in Logical Investigations, ed. and with a preface by P. T. Geach, trans. by P. T. Geach
and R. H. Stoothoff (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 4-7.
 40

this, it must cognize in a way that somehow differs from or adds something to that of the

speculative intellect.48 Aquinas explains,

Just as the imagination of a form without a judgment of fittingness or harmfulness

does not move the sensory appetite, so neither does the apprehension of what is
true without the aspect [ratione] of goodness and desirability. Therefore it is not
the speculative intellect that moves, but rather the practical intellect, as is said in
De Anima III.49

So Aquinas holds that the practical intellect cognizes things not only as true but also in

light of their goodness and desirability. And this way of cognizing explains how the

practical intellect is ordered towards action. For whenever an agent performs a practical

act or is in a practical state, that act or state must be traceable back to, or be identical

with, some cognitive desire. And recall that cognitive desires have for their objects real

or apparent goods. So if the intellect is to be directed towards action, i.e. if it is to be

practical, then it must engage the cognitive desires; and if the intellect is to engage the

cognitive desires, then it must cognize things as good; so if the intellect is to direct

toward action, it must cognize things as good. But to cognize things as good is to

cognize them under the ratione of good, i.e., to cognize them from the point of view of

their goodness or desirability.50

48
ST I, q. 79, art. 11, ad. 1: “Intellectus practicus est motivus, non quasi exequens motum, sed quasi
dirigens ad motum. Quod convenit ei secundum modum suae apprehensionis.” [“The practical intellect is a
moving thing not as if it executes movement, but in the sense that it directs one towards movement. This is
proper to it because of its own mode of apprehension.”]
49
ST I-II, q. 9, art. 1, ad. 2: “Sicut imaginatio formae sine aestimatione convenientis vel nocivi, non movet
appetitum sensitivum; ita nec apprehensio veri sine ratione boni et appetibilis. Unde intellectus speculativus
non movet, sed intellectus practicus, ut dicitur in III de anima.”
50
A point of clarification: I take it that Aquinas intends goodness and desirability in the above passage to
serve as broad categories for aspects. So even thinking of something as lacking in goodness in some way,
or as evil, would count as thinking of it in terms of its goodness; and thinking of something as in some way
lacking in desirability or as aversive would count as thinking of it in terms of its desirability. Aquinas’s
point, then, is that the practical intellect cognizes under categories of evaluative aspects in addition to that
of truth and falsehood; the practical intellect thinks of things in light of the category of goodness (which
would include its contrary, evil, as well as a host of in-between evaluations) and in terms of the category of
desirable (which would include its contrary, aversive, and a host of in between evaluations).
 41

Thus when Aquinas says that the practical intellect is directed towards action, we

can understand him as saying the following: the practical intellect is that ability of the

intellect to cognize objects in such a way (viz., as good or desirable) that its cognitions

are fit to elicit cognitive desires. Using terminology that naturally suggests itself and

that Aquinas himself uses, we can call these cognitions of the practical intellect practical

cognitions. And we can call the cognitions of the speculative intellect, which do not

grasp their objects as good in the relevant way and hence are not fit to elicit cognitive

desires, speculative cognitions.

Aquinas also claims that the practical intellect is a source of movement, a claim

which we are now in a position to understand. As he says in two different places:

Therefore he [Aristotle] first says that the intellect which moves is the intellect
which reasons for the sake of some other thing, and not merely for the sake of
reasoning; and this is the practical intellect, which differs from the speculative
according to its end. For the speculative intellect examines truth, not for the sake
of some other thing, but merely for the sake of truth itself; but the practical
intellect examines truth for the sake of action.51

He [Aristotle] first says that, although the mind may be a principle of action,
nevertheless the mind absolutely considered in itself—i.e. the speculative
reason—moves nothing because it says nothing about pursuit or avoidance, as is
said in De Anima III, and so is not the principle of any action; but only that which
is favorable to this, i.e., which is ordained to some particular achievable action as
an end; and this is the practical mind or reason.52

Note that Aquinas sometimes uses the term ‘movement’ in a way that can cover desires,

operations, and actions. Aquinas gives a more specific description of the relevant sense
51
In III De Anima, lect. 15, n. 3 [Emphasis in translation is mine]: “Dicit ergo primo quod intellectus qui
mouet est intellectus qui ratiocinatur propter aliquid, non propter ratiocinari tantum, et hic est intellectus
practicus, qui differt a speculatiuo secundum finem: nam speculatiuus speculatur ueritatem non propter
aliquid aliud, set propter ipsam tantum, practicus autem speculatur ueritatem propter operationem.”
52
In VI Ethic., lect. 2, n. 12: “Dicit ergo primo, quod, quamvis mens sit principium actus, tamen mens ipsa,
secundum se absolute considerata, id est ratio speculativa, nihil movet, quia nihil dicit de imitabili et
fugiendo, ut dicitur in III de anima, et sic non est principium alicuius actus, sed solum illa quae est gratia
huius, id est quae ordinatur ad aliquod particulare operabile sicut ad finem; et haec est mens vel ratio
practica, . . . .”
 42

of movement in a passage we have already seen from his commentary on the De Anima:

“all movement is a pursuit or avoidance of something by way of desire.”53 Based on this

quotation, we see clearly that the appetitive powers are also involved in movement, and

hence that the practical intellect is not the sole or primary source of movement. Rather,

Aquinas holds that that the practical intellect indirectly brings about movement: “The

practical intellect is a moving power, not as if it executes movement, but in the sense that

it directs towards movement.”54 And as we have seen, the practical intellect directs

towards movement by producing cognitions that elicit cognitive desires to act. So while

desires are the direct sources of movement, the practical intellect is an indirect source of

movement.

So far we have investigated the end of the practical intellect, the aspects under

which the practical intellect cognizes, and its role as a source of movement or action. We

have clarified these features of the practical intellect by contrasting them with the

speculative intellect. We are now in a position to summarize Aquinas’s main theses

about the practical intellect and its cognitions:

1. The practical intellect is not a separate power of the intellect; it is simply

the intellect insofar as it has the ability to be practical or insofar as it is a
source of practical cognitions.

2. As an ability of intellect, it is oriented towards the cognition of truth. But

as a practical ability of intellect, it is ordered to the cognition of truths
about things insofar as they are good or under the aspect of good.

3. The cognitions that have as their source the practical intellect are practical
cognitions. These practical cognitions cognize things as good and hence
are fit to elicit cognitive desires.

53
In III De Anima, lect. 14, n. 19: “semper motus est fugientis aliquid secundum appetitum aut
persequentis.”
54
ST I, q. 79, art. 11: “Intellectus practicus est motivus, non quasi exequens motum, sed quasi dirigens ad
motum.”
 43

4. These cognitive desires elicited by practical cognitions are themselves the

proximate or direct source of practical acts or states, while the cognitions
of the practical intellect are the indirect source.

2.2 Speculative vs. Practical Cognition

My inquiries thus far have led me already to say a good bit about speculative and

practical cognition. But Aquinas’s distinction between speculative and practical

cognition is more complicated then my discussion has so far revealed. For in some key

texts on the nature of practical cognition, Aquinas claims that there are a number of

middle cases where cognition is both speculative and practical, or better, speculative in

one respect and practical in another. We will consider these texts in order to clarify the

nature of practical cognition, as well as to elucidate where pure practical cognition and

practical consideration fit into Aquinas’s schema.

The principle texts where Aquinas explains the different types of speculative and

practical cognition are found in De Veritate and in the Summa Theologiae. These texts

are situated within discussions of whether and to what extent God’s knowledge is

speculative or practical. These texts draw an analogy between (i) an artist, his

knowledge, and a work of art he makes or intends to make or can make; and (ii) God, his

knowledge, and what he creates or intends to create or can create. For context, we should

note that on Aquinas’s view an artist uses the practical intellect to conceive and make a

work of art: the artist conceives the work of art (the end) and deliberates about what

needs to be done (the means) and how to order those means to achieve the end. But in

these discussions Aquinas makes distinctions that can be applied to speculative and

practical cognition generally, and not just to the speculative and practical cognition of
 44

God or an artist. In what follows, I will use the Summa Theologiae text to elucidate

Aquinas’s view, but will draw on the De Veritate text where it is helpful to clarify

matters.

In Summa Theologiae I, q. 16, art. 14, Aquinas writes,

Some knowledge is speculative only, some is practical only, and some is in some
respect speculative and in some respect practical. To show this, it needs to be
known that knowledge can be called speculative in three ways. First, on the part
of the things known, which are not things able to be done [operabiles] by the
knower; such is a human being’s knowledge of natural or divine things. Second,
with respect to the mode of knowing: as, for instance, if a builder were to
consider a house by defining and dividing and considering its universal
predicates. Accordingly, this is to consider things able to be done in a speculative
way, and not insofar as they are doable: for something doable is something
through application of form to matter, not through analysis of a compound into
universal formal principles. Third, with respect to the end: for the practical
intellect differs in end from the speculative, as is said in De Anima Bk. III. For
the practical intellect is ordered to the end of action; but the end of the speculative
intellect is the consideration of truth. Therefore, if some builder were to consider
in what manner he could make some house, not ordering [his thinking] to the end
of doing it, but only to the end of cognizing it, it would be with respect to the end
a speculative consideration, but about a doable thing. Therefore, knowledge
which is speculative by reason of the thing itself known is speculative only. But
what is speculative either with respect to the mode or with respect to the end is in
some respect speculative and in some respect practical. But when it is ordered to
the end of action, it is purely practical.55

55
ST q. 14, art. 16: “RESPONDEO dicendum quod aliqua scientia est speculativa tantum, aliqua practica
tantum, aliqua vero secundum aliquid speculativa et secundum aliquid practica. Ad cuius evidentiam,
sciendum est quod aliqua scientia potest dici speculativa tripliciter. Primo, ex parte rerum scitarum, quae
non sunt operabiles a sciente: sicut est scientia hominis de rebus naturalibus vel divinis. Secunda, quantum
ad modum sciendi: ut puta si aedificator consideret domum definiendo et dividendo et considerando
universalia praedicata ipsius. Hoc siquidem est operabilia modo speculativo considerare, et non secundum
quod operabilia sunt: operabile enim est aliquid per applicationem formae ad materiam, non per
resolutionem compositi in principia umversalia formalia. Tertio, quantum ad finem: nam intellectus
practicus differt fine a speculativo, sicut dicitur in III de Anima. Intellectus enim practicus ordinatur ad
finem operationis: finis autem intellectus speculativi est consideratio veritatis. Unde, si quis aedificator
consideret qualiter posset fieri aliqua domus, non ordinans ad finem operationis, sed ad cognoscendum
tantum, erit, quantum ad finem, speculativa consideratio, tamen de re operabili. - Scientia igitur quae est
speculativa ratione ipsius rei scitae, est speculativa tantum. Quae vero speculativa est vel secundum modum
vel secundum finem, est secundum quid speculativa et secundum quid practica. Cum vero ordinatur ad
finem operationis, est simpliciter practica.”
 45

Here Aquinas distinguishes between cognition that is purely speculative (speculativa

tantum), cognition that is purely practical (practica tantum), and cognition that is mixed,

being in some respect speculative and in some respect practical (secundum aliquid

speculativa et secundum aliquid practica). And he makes these distinctions with

reference to 1) whether the object cognized (what is cognized) can be done by the

knower; 2) how the thing is cognized, or the mode of cognition; and 3) that for the sake of

which the thing is cognized—the end or goal of the cognition.56

With regard to the thing cognized, Aquinas holds that if it is not within an agent’s

power to do it, through action or production, then the agent can only have speculative

cognition of that thing.57 Accordingly, human beings can only have speculative cognition

of things such as the natures of material things, the nature and structure of the cosmos,

and the nature of God. Note that whether an object of cognition is speculative in this

sense or not is relative to the nature of the knower: whereas stars are objects of

speculative cognition for human beings, since we can only study them, but cannot

produce them, they are objects of practical cognition for God since he can and does

produce them. As a contrast to solely speculative cognition, consider my cognition of the

structure of a doghouse or an act of kindness towards a friend; cognition of these things is

not solely speculative, since what I am cognizing is something I can produce or do.

Aquinas specifically mentions human sciences that study natural and divine things as
56
Aquinas in this passage actually uses these distinctions as ways of differentiating knowledge (scientia)
rather than cognition (cognitio). The reason for this, I take it, is that in this context he is applying the
distinction to God’s knowledge, and God’s knowledge is perfect and hence he uses the stronger term,
scientia. In numerous other texts Aquinas speaks of speculative and practical cognitio; moreover Aquinas
gives us no reason to think that these distinctions apply only to scientia. So we have good reason to hold
that the Summa’s differentiation of the speculative and practical is not restricted to scientia but can be
applied to other forms of cognition. Moreover, in the De Veritate, Aquinas uses quite similar distinctions
to qualify cognitio.
57
I am taking producing to be a type of doing, viz., that type that results in a product.
 46

involving only speculative cognition, and he is presumably referring to sciences such as

Aristotelian physics and metaphysics. Though human beings can observe and understand

the things studied by these sciences, human beings do not have the power to do or

produce the content studied.58

Now if a thing cognized is doable or producible, the cognition of that thing is at

least in some respect practical. But even when cognition is practical with respect to the

what is cognized, it can still be speculative in another respect, and this can occur in two

ways: either with respect to the mode of cognition, i.e., how the object is cognized; or

with respect to the goal of the cognition, i.e., that for the sake of which the object is

cognized.

Let us call a thing cognized that is within a human being’s power to do or produce

a practical object of thought. Aquinas holds that a practical object of thought can be

considered in a speculative way. A practical object of thought is considered in a

speculative way when we don’t view that object as doable or producible, but analyze it

and consider it as an object of observation or investigation. We do this when we consider

a definition of the object, or consider it in the light of a number of distinctions, or focus

on certain attributes. In the De Veritate, Aquinas says that we consider a practical object

of thought in a speculative way when we think of the object in terms of its genus,

differences, and properties.59 So thinking of a practical object of thought in a speculative

58
There is also a class of cases Aquinas doesn’t discuss. For while plants and animals can be the objects of
speculative cognition since we can simply observe and study them, they can also be produced through
planting and breeding, and hence can in a sense be objects of practical cognition. So these and other like
things can be either a speculative or practical object of cognition depending on the purposes of the agent.
On the other hand, some things will never be objects of practical cognition for human beings, such as the
laws of nature, the universe as a whole, and God.
59
De Ver., q. 3, art. 3.
 47

way often involves treating it as an object of analysis or just considering some of its basic

properties. For example, I can consider an act of courage in light of its genus and the

specific difference that differentiates it from acts of the other cardinal virtues. This

would be cognizing a practical object of thought—an act of courage—in a speculative

way. Moreover, cognizing a practical object of thought in a speculative way need not

involve anything high-minded or abstract, but can simply involve considering basic,

common sense truths about the object and its properties. To use the example of a house, I

cognize houses in a speculative way when I cognize, e.g., that houses have a foundation,

that the roof of a house protects it from the elements, and so forth. This is a speculative

mode of cognition since I am not considering a house as something to be produced, but

am just considering basic truths about the structure of houses.

A second type of mixed cognition occurs when a practical object of thought is

considered in a practical way, but is speculative with respect to its end. I will first focus

on what it means to consider a practical object of thought in a practical way, and then

discuss how this can still be speculative with respect to its end. A practical object of

thought is considered in a practical way when one considers it as doable, which involves,

not analysis of the object into various theoretical parts, but considering how I can do it.

In the context of art, I cognize a house in a practical way when I consider how a cognitive

blueprint or design of a house can be used to build a house. With respect to the ethical

life, I consider an act of courage in a practical way when I focus on how I can bring about

my cognitive blueprint of a courageous act. I consider the act, not as something to be

analyzed by relating it to a genus and what differentiates it from acts of the other virtues,

but as something capable of being done. Now this cognition of a practical object in a
 48

practical mode can nevertheless be speculative with respect to its end. Aquinas says that

this occurs when one simply does not order this cognition to action or production; the

goal of one’s cognition is not practical. So in using my above examples, if I consider the

cognitive blueprint of either a house or a courageous act, but not for the sake of

producing the house or doing the act, then my cognition is practical with respect to its

object and mode, but speculative with respect to its end: I am considering something

producible and considering it as producible, but not for the sake of production. The

essential point here is that the end is not practical; the end could simply be to learn about

how houses are built or courageous deeds of a certain type are done. Aquinas in the De

Veritate calls this virtual practical cognition: the cognition is practical with respect to its

object and mode of apprehension, and hence is capable of being ordered to action, but is

not actually ordered to action, since the agent has no intention to do it.60

For Aquinas, intention is an act of the will, a form of rational desire that involves

tending to an end. Because it is a rational desire, an intention “presupposes cognition,

which proposes to the will the end towards which it moves.”61 Moreover, intention is

distinguished from other rational desires because it involves tending to an end in a certain

way: when one intends an end, one tends to an end with a certain plan or set of ordered

means in view. Aquinas uses the end of health as an example. When an agent intends

the end of health, he wills to attain the end of health by means of something else.62 Now

when Aquinas discusses mixed cognition that is speculative only as to its end, he uses as

60
De Ver., q. 3, art. 3.
61
ST I-II, q. 12, art. 1, ad. 1: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod intentio nominatur oculus metaphorice, non
quia ad cognitionem pertineat; sed quia cognitionem praesupponit, per quam proponitur voluntati finis ad
quem movet; sicut oculo praevidemus quo tendere corporaliter debeamus.”
62
ST I-II, q. 12, art. 1, ad. 4.
 49

an example the cognition of how to build a house. Such cognition would involve

conceiving of an end (building a house) along with a plan of the means involved in

achieving that end. Accordingly, the rational desire that could be elicited by such a

cognition would be an intention. The reason that this sort of mixed cognition does not

elicit an intention is that the agent does not cognize this practical object (building a house

by a certain set of means) as good. Aquinas explains this as follows,

But when [reason] proposes to it [the will] something under the aspect of good
towards which other things are ordered as to an end, then the will tends to that
thing with a certain order, which order is found in the act of the will, not
according to its own nature, but according to the demands of reason; and in this
manner to intend is an act of the will in regard to an order according to reason.63

Hence, an intention to build the house would be elicited by the cognition if the agent

cognized actually building the house under the aspect of good. So implicit in Aquinas’s

analysis of this form of mixed cognition is that the practical object of thought, though

cognized in a practical mode, is not cognized as good. This form of mixed cognition

grasps the practical object as something capable of being achieved, but not as something

desirable to be achieved, and hence, no desire is elicited. To be even more precise, the

agent might cognize the building of the house as generally a good thing to do, or as a

good thing to do for builders, but he doesn’t cognize it as good from his first-person

perspective, i.e., as a good thing for him to do in his present circumstances, and hence no

desire is elicited.

And this brings us finally to pure practical cognition, which is practical with

respect to its object, mode, and end. Pure practical cognition does involve intention of

63
De Ver., q. 22, art. 13: “Cum autem proponit sibi aliquid sub ratione boni ad quod alia ordinentur ut ad
finem, tunc tendit in illud cum quodam ordine, qui invenitur in actu voluntatis non secundum propriam
naturam sed secundum exigentiam rationis, et ita intendere est actus voluntatis in ordine ad rationem.”
 50

the end, and hence involves cognition of the object as good which elicits this intention.

Pure practical cognition is ordered to action as its goal since it cognizes practical objects,

not only in a practical mode, but also as good to be done or produced. And as we will see

in more detail in the next section, pure practical cognition isn’t simply cognition at a

general level but reaches all the way down, as it were, to particular actions.

The distinctions that Aquinas makes here are helpful in making perspicuous the

sense of practical cognition we will be considering, viz., pure practical cognition. For

just to consider practical topics isn’t enough to count as pure practical cognition, for one

could be considering that subject matter in a theoretical way.64 Even if one considers the

practical object of thought in a form in which it is doable, one still does not exercise pure

practical cognition. In order to exercise pure practical cognition, one’s cognition must be

directed towards action, and this is done when something is cognized as in some sense

good.65

3. The Practical Syllogism

Because Aquinas holds that every act of virtue and sin is grounded in a practical

syllogism,66 understanding his thought on the practical syllogism is crucial for

understanding his account of practical cognition. Moreover, considering the practical

64
Vogler, using Aquinas’s thought in a contemporary context, makes the point that practical reasoning is
not “critical reflection on oneself and on practical topics.” See Vogler, Reasonably Vicious, 28.
65
Again, Vogler makes this point well: “Practical reasoning is not just thought about action, but rather
reasoning toward (paradigmatically) extramental action.” See Vogler, ibid.
66
De Malo, q. 3, art. 9, ad. 7: “Ad septimum dicendum quod cum actus peccati et uirtutis sit secundum
electionem, electio autem est appetitus praeconsiliati, consilium uero est quaedam inquisitio, necesse est
quod in quolibet actu uirtutis vel peccati sit quaedam deductio quasi syllogistica.”
 51

syllogism will provide a framework through which we can understand more detailed

features of practical cognition.

The practical syllogism represents a piece of practical reasoning or a practical

inference which results from the reasoning of an agent that is towards action and hence

represents a form of pure practical cognition; the practical syllogism does not simply

represent a deductive entailment that happens to be about practical subject matter, but

represents a piece of practical reasoning from an agent’s first person, deliberative

standpoint. The purpose of such practical reasoning isn’t to prove something to others or

oneself, but to calculate what to do.67 And a practical syllogism not only represents the

reasoning an agent used in coming to a verdict about what to do, but also provides an

explanation for why an agent acted in such a way on such an occasion.

Aquinas describes the structure of the practical syllogism as follows:

But it must be considered that reason is directive of human action in accordance

with a twofold knowledge, viz., universal knowledge and particular knowledge.
For one thinking about action uses a sort of syllogism, of which the conclusion is
a judgment or a choice or an operation. But actions are about singulars. For this
reason the conclusion of a practical syllogism is singular. But a singular
proposition is not inferred from a universal except through the mediation of some
other singular proposition. For example, a human being is prohibited from the act
of parricide (i) through the fact that he knows that one’s father is not to be killed,
and (ii) through the fact that he knows that this is his father.68

As we see, a practical syllogism represents a piece of reasoning or argument formed by

an agent the conclusion of which states that the agent should pursue or avoid something.

67
Elizabeth Anscombe makes this point in Intention, 57-58.
68
ST I-II, q. 76, art. 1: “Considerandum est autem quod ratio secundum duplicem scientiam est
humanorum actuum directiva: scilicet secundum scientiam universalem, et particularem. Conferens enim
de agendis, utitur quodam syllogismo, cuius conclusio est iudicium seu electio vel operatio. Actiones autem
in singularibus sunt. Unde conclusio syllogismi operativi est singularis. Singularis autern propositio non
concluditur ex universali nisi mediante aliqua propositione singulari: sicut homo prohibetur ab actu
parricidii per hoc quod scit patrem non esse occidendum, et per hoc quod scit hunc esse patrem.”
 52

The first premise of a practical syllogism is a general judgment about a type of action,

and typically claims that this type of action should be pursued or avoided.69 The second

premise is a particular judgment (a singular proposition), and says that the concrete action

under consideration is a token of the action type found in the first premise.70 The

conclusion of a practical syllogism represents the practical judgment.71 Here the term

‘judgment’ is being used in the sense of a verdict, that is, it is a conclusion of a piece of

reasoning and is related to other judgments as its rational base.

Let us consider an example of a practical syllogism whose structure is similar to

Aquinas’s own examples. Suppose an agent reasons in a way we could represent with the

following practical syllogism:

No adultery is to be committed.
This act is adultery.
Therefore, this act is not to be committed.

The first premise expresses a general judgment about the action type of adultery and

characterizes adultery as an action to be avoided. This premise presupposes that the

agent views adultery as having an aspect of evil and hence as undesirable. Furthermore,

Aquinas claims that “good is naturally prior to evil, in the sense that evil is a privation of

69
Aquinas’s example in the quoted passage above is a bit different in that it doesn’t conform exactly to the
type/token model, but many of his other examples do, and I take the examples that use the type/token
model to be better representatives of his view. Even in the quoted example, you still have the basic pattern
of a general principle and a particular case that falls under that principle.
70
My presentation here of the practical syllogism is indebted to Denis Bradley in Aquinas on the Twofold
Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas’s Moral Science (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 157.
71
See ST I-II, q. 13, art. 3 and ST I-II, q. 76, art. 1. Note here that I am setting aside Aquinas’s discussion
of a judgment of conscience; for an explanation of this notion and why I am setting it aside, please see
footnote 6 above.
 53

good” and that “because good is sought, for that reason the opposite evil is rejected.”72

So the agent’s judgment that no adultery is to be committed, which proposes that one

reject adultery, presupposes practical cognition of the good that is the reason for rejecting

adultery, which Aquinas takes to be the good of marriage and family.73 The second

premise expresses that the concrete act being considered falls under the action type of

adultery; or to put it another way, it expresses that the act being considered is a particular

case of what the major premise prohibits. Because this judgment is particular, it cannot

simply be the result of an act of the intellect, since on Aquinas’s view the intellect on its

own only cognizes universals. Rather, the second premise will be an intellectual

judgment involving an act of sensory cognition. Specifically, the cogitative power or

particular reason will be at work in perceiving the dynamics of the situation, interpreting

it as involving an opportunity for adultery.74

Now the conclusion of the practical syllogism represents the agent’s practical

judgment that the act should not be committed. This practical judgment it elicits—and is

embedded in—a choice of the will.75 I will briefly describe choice since it helps shed

light on the reasoning process that precedes it. A choice (electio) is a specific type of

rational desire and is properly said to be an act of the will since it involves tending to the

object of desire. Nevertheless, choice has both an intellectual and a desiring component.

Aquinas says that in choice, the activity of reason is related to that of will as form to

72
ST I-II, q. 25, art. 2: “Naturaliter autem est prius bonum malo: eo quod malum est privatio boni. Unde et
omnes passiones quarum obiectum est bonum, naturaliter sunt priores passionibus quarum obiectum est
malum, unaquaeque scilicet sua opposita: quia enim bonum quaeritur, ideo refutatur oppositum malum.”
73
Aquinas lists the good of marriage and family as a basic good in ST I-II, q. 94, art. 2.
74
See In VI Ethic., lect. 1, n. 15.
75
ST I-II, q. 13, art. 3: “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut iam dictum est, electio consequitur sententiam
vel iudicium, quod est sicut conclusio syllogismi operativi.”
 54

“substance,” where the substance of the act is regarded as matter which receives order or

form from the power of reason. In other words, choice presupposes the work of reason in

cognizing an end as good as well as an order to that end. This work of reason

presupposed by choice is represented by the practical syllogism, and what is decided

upon, the practical judgment, is represented by the conclusion of that syllogism.76 This

practical judgment is embedded in the choice and gives it direction; the choice is as it

were encoded with the practical judgment. The choice in addition to this encoding

involves a tending to the action which reason has judged to be pursued or avoided.

3.1 The Middle Term

The practical syllogism, like a standard syllogism, contains three terms, and each

proposition contains just two of those terms. Among these three terms, the middle term

plays a special role. The middle term of a syllogism is easy to identify, for it is the term

that is found in both premises but not in the conclusion. In the example above, ‘adultery’

is the middle term. Now in the standard syllogisms of Aristotelian logic (I will call these

‘speculative syllogisms’) the middle term is held to play a very important role. For in a

valid syllogism, the middle term provides the principle of explanation, i.e., it explains

76
I am following Daniel Westburg’s interpretation of Aquinas in holding that all action presupposes choice
and all choice presupposes a practical judgment and the structure of practical reasoning represented in the
practical syllogism. So all choice presupposes some cognitive activity of the intellect, and the
aforementioned activity in particular. However, following Westburg I do not think that for Aquinas, all
choice presupposes deliberation, where ‘deliberation’ refers to the process of selecting a means to a given
end from a number of means-options. (See Westburg Right Practical Reason (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994), 147-149 and 165-169.) Aquinas at times can speak as though choice always
presupposes deliberation, as when he quotes Aristotle’s definition of choice as “the desire for what has
been previously deliberated about.” But Aquinas is clear in ST I-II, q. 14, art. 4 that choice does not
always presuppose deliberation.
 55

why the natures represented in the two terms of the conclusion are united.77 Consider the

following speculative syllogism:

All mammals are animals.

All dogs are mammals.
Therefore, all dogs are animals.

Here, the middle term is ‘mammals’. And following Aquinas’s Aristotelian logic, we

would say that every dog has an animal nature because of or by virtue of it’s having a

mammalian nature.

Now the middle term also plays an important role in the practical syllogism.

Aquinas writes,

And in such consideration [i.e. deliberation] it is necessary to grasp some one rule
or end, or something of this sort, by which is measured what is more fit to be
done. For it is evident that a human being will follow, i.e. desire, that which is
greater in goodness, i.e. that which is better; but we always judge what is better by
some measure, and therefore one needs to grasp some measure in deliberating
about what is more fit to be done. And this is the middle term, from which
practical reason forms a syllogism about what is to be chosen.78

In this passage, Aquinas has in mind a case where a number of competing alternatives are

being considered under one middle term. Suppose the middle term is ‘courage’; this term

will provide the standard for evaluating the opportunities for action presented to an agent;

it will enable him to judge which action will best allow him to exhibit courage.

Aquinas’s idea is that the middle term of the practical syllogism provides the aspect—the

ratio—under which various types and tokens of actions are being considered in

77
In II Post. Anal., lect. 1, n. 8.
78
In III De Anima, lect. 16, n. 841: “Et in tali consideratione necesse est accipere aliquam unam regulam
uel finem, uel aliquid huiusmodi, ad quem mensuretur quid sit magis agendum; manifestum est enim quod
homo imitatur, id est desiderat, id quod est magis in bonitate, id est id quod est melius; melius autem
semper diiudicamus aliqua mensura, et ita oportet accipere aliquam mensuram in deliberando quid magis
sit agendum et hoc est medium, ex quo ratio practica sillogizat quid sit eligendum; . . . .” For other texts on
the role of the middle term in the practical syllogism, see also In II Sent., d. 24 q. 2 a. 2 and In VI Ethic lect.
8, n. 4.
 56

deliberating about action. This ratio represents some goal or standard under which an

action can be evaluated and selected.79

But one and the same action can be considered under different middle terms. In

the practical syllogism about adultery we considered in the previous section, the action is

considered under the ratio of adultery, i.e., under the aspect of an act of infidelity to one’s

spouse. But the same act could be considered under another ratio, such as the ratio of

pleasure (i.e., the act could be considered as presenting an opportunity for pleasure).

Were the agent to come to a practical judgment under this ratio of pleasure, his practical

syllogism could be

Pleasure is to be pursued.
This act is pleasurable.
Therefore, this act is to be pursued.

We see that the middle term of this syllogism is ‘pleasurable act.’ This middle term is a

normative notion, meaning that it is a notion that can speak in favor for or against an

action. To put it another way, some acts are worth choosing because they are

pleasurable. But it is also an explanatory notion, for it provides the basis of the agent’s

practical reasoning by specifying the aspect under which the agent is viewing the act.

Moreover the middle term provides the inferential link that connects the other two terms

in the conclusion; the act is to be enjoyed because it is a pleasurable act. So the middle

term not only represents a normative notion, but it is key to showing what motivates and

explains why the agent acted as he did.

79
Aquinas in his commentary on the De Anima (In III De Anima, lect. 16, n. 841) says that the middle term
of a practical syllogism is the end or rule/standard. He also speaks of the middle term representing the end
in In VI Ethic., lect. 8, n. 4: “Sed sollertia est quaedam species eustochiae, est enim bona coniecturatio
circa inventionem medii, differt tamen sollertia ab eubulia, quia eubulia non est circa finem, qui se habet in
operabilibus sicut medium in syllogismis, non enim est consilium de fine, ut dictum est in III; ergo eubulia
non est idem quod eustochia.”
 57

Aquinas also says that one and the same act can be considered morally good for

different reasons, and these reasons are represented by correspondingly different middle

terms of practical syllogisms. Aquinas addresses this when discussing his view of higher

and lower reason, a distinction he takes from Augustine. Like speculative and practical

intellect, higher and lower reason for Aquinas are not two really distinct powers of the

soul, but are two ways that the soul can function; they are two kinds of intellectual

abilities. Higher reason is that intellectual ability whereby one can direct her attention to

eternal things either to contemplate them or to consult them as a standard for action;

whereas lower reason is the ability to direct one’s attention to temporal things to either

contemplate them or to consult them for directives for action.80

Aquinas holds that in the practical domain, higher and lower reason grasp

different types of rationes, i.e., different standards, norms, or reasons for acting. An

agent acts in a higher way when her reasons for acting are grounded in God’s law, and in

a lower way when her reasons for acting are grounded in considerations about excess and

defect, whether something is useful or noble, or in accord with the dignity of reason – in

short, reasons grounded in considerations about human nature and its flourishing.81

Aquinas illustrates the way that higher and lower reason function with respect to

practical reasoning in the following passage:

They [higher and lower reason] are distinguished in accordance with the middle
term from which reasoning begins; for lower reason deliberates towards choice
tending from reasons concerning temporal things, for example that something is
excessive or defective, useful or noble, and thus about other conditions the moral
philosopher occupies himself with. But superior reason deliberates from eternal

80
For the fundamentals of how Aquinas distinguishes higher and lower reason, see De Ver., q. 15, art. 2
and ST I, q. 79, art. 9.
81
For the various sorts of moral considerations that that higher and lower reason entertain, see See In II
Sent., d. 24, q. 2, art. 2; De Ver., q. 15, art. 3; De Malo, q. 7, art. 5.
 58

and divine reasons, for example because something is contrary to the command of
God, or appears to be an offence to him, or something of that sort.82

As we see, Aquinas says that the practical reasoning of higher and lower reason begin

with different middle terms. To illustrate, consider a case where an agent engages in a

piece of practical reasoning that can be represented with the following practical

syllogism:

Any act contrary to God’s law is to be avoided.

This act is an act contrary to God’s law.
Therefore, this act is to be avoided.

This would be a practical syllogism of higher reason, where the basis of the reasoning is

the notion of an act contrary to God’s law, and indeed, the middle term of this argument

is ‘an act contrary to God’s law’. This middle term is a moral or normative notion, but it

is also a motivating notion provides the basis of the agent’s practical reasoning. Now an

agent could also entertain a piece of practical reasoning about the very same act which

can be represented with the following:

Any immoderate act is to be avoided.

This act is an immoderate act.
Therefore, this act is to be avoided.

This would be a practical syllogism of lower reason. The middle term is the notion of an

immoderate act, a normative notion grounded in human nature and its flourishing and not

in God’s law. So in Aquinas’s view of higher and lower reason, we see that that the

82
In II Sent., d. 24, q. 2, art. 2: “sed magis distinguuntur secundum media, unde ratiocinatio sumitur; ratio
enim inferior consiliatur ad electionem tendens ex rationibus rerum temporalium, ut quod aliquid est
superfluum vel diminutum, utile vel honestum, et sic de aliis conditionibus quas moralis philosophus
pertractat; superior vero consilium sumit ex rationibus aeternis et divinis, ut quia est contra praeceptum
Dei, vel ejus offensionem parit, vel aliquid hujusmodi.”
 59

respective middle terms provide different descriptions or characterizations—different

rationes—under which particular acts can be evaluated.

4. Practical Consideration

I now will investigate Aquinas’s notion of consideration. This investigation will

provide further insight into the practical cognition presupposed by a practical syllogism,

and will also corroborate the way I interpret the role of the middle term in the practical

syllogism. We can understand much about Aquinas’s understanding of a consideration

from the following passages:

Now just as the actually colored is the object of the power of sight, so the good is
the object of the will. Hence if some object is proposed to the will which is good
universally and according to every consideration, then of necessity the will will
tend towards that thing, if it wills anything: for it will not be able to will the
opposite. But if some object is proposed to it [the will] which is not good
according to every consideration, then the will will not of necessity tend towards
that thing. And because a lack of any good whatever has the nature of a non-
good, it follows that that good alone which is perfect and to which nothing is
lacking, is such a good that the will is not able not to will it: which is happiness.
But whatever other particular goods, insofar as they are lacking by some good, are
able to be grasped as not good: and according to this consideration, they are able
to be rejected or endorsed by the will, which is able to tend towards the same
thing according to diverse considerations.83

And again, in regard to every particular good, reason is able to consider the aspect
of some good, or the lack of some good, which has the aspect of evil: and

83
ST I-II, q. 10, art. 2: “Sicut autem coloratum in actu est obiectum visus, ita bonum est obiectum
voluntatis. Unde si proponatur aliquod obiectum voluntati quod sit universaliter bonum et secundum
omnem considerationem, ex necessitate voluntas in illud tendet, si aliquid velit: non enim poterit velle
oppositum. Si autem proponatur sibi aliquod obiectum quod non secundum quamlibet considerationem sit
bonum, non ex necessitate voluntas feretur in illud. – Et quia defectus cuiuscumque boni habet rationem
non boni, ideo illud solum bonum quod est perfectum et cui nihil deficit, est tale bonum quod voluntas non
potest non velle: quod est beatitudo. Alia autem quaelibet particularia bona, inquantum deficiunt ab aliquo
bono, possunt accipi ut non bona: et secundum hanc considerationem, possunt repudiari vel approbari a
voluntate, quae potest in idem ferri secundum diversas considerationes.”
 60

according to this, it is able to apprehend every single one of such goods as able to
be chosen or able to be avoided.84

There is much going on in these passages, including significant material about the will

and the desire for happiness, and I cannot cover all of this material here. I want to focus

on Aquinas’s claim that apart from the good of happiness, any other particular good can

be cognized under numerous considerations. Here, ‘considerations’ seems to be

synonymous with ‘aspects’ (rationes) of good or evil. This is confirmed in the final

passage above where Aquinas speaks of considering an aspect of good or evil. Moreover,

Aquinas holds that practical acts and states that are in fact bad can be considered as good

in some way: an act of gluttony is a merely apparent good that can get its appearance of

goodness from being considered as pleasurable.

Aquinas scholar David Gallagher has brought to light the importance of the notion

of consideration in Aquinas’s writings. He explains the difference between consideration

and judgment as follows:

It seems that what Thomas means by consideration is more fundamental and

underlies what he means by judgment. Choice always involves a judgment.
When I choose something I must judge it to be a good thing for me here and now
(the iudicium electionis). In contrast, to speak in terms of consideration is to point
out the particular aspect of the object I had in view when I arrived at my judgment
about the object. In other words, for me to arrive at a judgment of a certain kind
concerning some object (whether to pursue or avoid it here and now) I must
consider that object in a particular way, such that if I had considered the object
differently, I would have come to a different judgment concerning it.85

84
ST I-II q. 13, art. 6: “Et rursum in omnibus particularibus bonis potest considerare rationem boni
alicuius, et defectum alicuius boni, quod habet rationem mali: et secundum hoc, potest unumquodque
huiusmodi bonurum apprehendere ut eligibile, vel fugibile.” See also De Malo, q. 3, art. 19 and q. 6.
85
David Gallagher, “Free Choice and Free Judgment in Thomas Aquinas,” Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 76 (1994): 269.
 61

Note that the judgment of election that Gallagher refers to is the same as the practical

judgment, i.e., the conclusion of a practical syllogism. Gallagher points out that the

consideration is the aspect one had in view when forming the judgment.

We can get further clarity about consideration by distinguishing between the act

of considering and the content of such an act. The content of an act of considering isn’t

simply the practical object of thought (the prospective action) but also the way that object

is being viewed; that is, the content is some aspect of good or evil under which the

practical object could be pursued or avoided. But the act of considering differs from the

act of practical judging in that one need not adopt the aspect considered in one’s

reasoning about what to do. Note that here I am using ‘practical judging’ to refer to the

whole reasoning process represented in the practical syllogism; and the product of

practical judging is the conclusion or verdict reached, i.e., the practical judgment. Now

one can consider a practical object in a certain way—as pleasing, as noble, as

forbidden—without adopting or using this evaluative aspect in one’s practical judging.

Suppose for example that one is tempted to commit adultery: one can consider this act

under the aspect of pleasure without adopting this aspect in forming one’s practical

judgment about what to do. The practical judgment or verdict is always based on a

(conceptually) prior consideration that has been adopted in an instance of practical

judging; and while considerations can be numerous and I could fluctuate between various

considerations, the practical judging involves a rational determination of whether an act

is to be pursued or avoided under a certain consideration.86

86
Ibid.
 62

Before moving on, I want to add some terminology that will be helpful for what

follows. First, I want to note two senses of the content use of ‘consideration’: (i) There

are considerations (evaluative aspects) that one entertains with respect to an opportunity

for action but to which one is not yet committed to, as when I consider grading exams

under different evaluative aspects (such as boring and required by teaching

responsibility) without yet committing to one. Let us call these open considerations. (ii)

There are the considerations that one adopts or is committed to in practical judging and

hence are the conceptual grounds of a practical judgment. Let us call these closed

considerations. With these distinctions in mind, we can say the following: the act of

practical considering always and only has as its content open considerations. Once an

evaluative aspect has been adopted and we have a closed consideration, we should speak

not of practical considering, but of practical judging, since a consideration has been

adopted in one’s practical reasoning towards a verdict. So every practical judgment

presupposes a closed consideration, i.e., an evaluative aspect that the agent has adopted in

one’s practical judging. Moreover the act of practical judging presupposes a prior act of

practical considering where one considers one or more open considerations before

closing in on one.

To clarify these distinctions, let us reflect on how they apply to the case of Phil

we considered from the previous chapter. While Phil is involved in his internal struggle,

he goes back and forth between practically considering the act of having sexual relations

with Sally under two evaluative aspects: adultery and pleasure. During his struggle,

these aspects are open considerations. Once he settles on the aspect of pleasure, that

aspect becomes a closed consideration and is used as the middle term in his practical
 63

judging (his practical reasoning towards a verdict). His practical judging concludes with

the practical verdict that this act (of having sexual relations with Sally) is to be done.

So as we see, practical considering always involves viewing an object under a

ratio or construal that characterizes the object as desirable or undesirable in some way.

Our understanding of Aquinas on practical consideration can be further helped by

reflecting on the famous image by Gestalt psychologists:

The image can be viewed as either a duck or a rabbit, and we can shift our attention so as

to consider it now in one way, now in another. Likewise for Aquinas, practical objects

can be considered in various ways when attention is drawn to their various desirable

aspects. So one could consider an act of giving money to a poor person as generous, as

helping someone in need, as obeying God’s command; or as imprudent given one’s low

income, as a threat to one’s creature comforts, and so forth. Moreover, there are limits to

how one can construe the above image: I cannot see it as a carrot or a book, for example.

Likewise, I can consider a chocolate as delicious, as high in calories, as a fitting desert, as

not permitted by my medical diet, etc. But I cannot consider the chocolate as a sort of

transportation vehicle to get me to class on time. However, given its shape and color I

could perhaps consider it as a ball of mud, an aspect under which it is not desirable.87

87
In fact, in Chapter 4 I investigate some noteworthy experiments involving marshmallows done with
children, where psychologists could teach the children to delay gratification by thinking of the
marshmallow before them as a little cloud.
 64

We can get even further clarity about Aquinas’s notion of practical consideration

by situating it within the practical syllogism and there connecting it with the middle term.

For it is the middle term that represents the evaluative aspect one has in view when

reasoning towards practical judgment, and so it is the middle term that expresses the

consideration (a closed consideration assuming a practical judgment has been reached).

This can best be displayed by looking at Aquinas’s account of the practical reasoning in a

case of incontinent action. Aquinas considers an example where an incontinent agent is

tempted by fornication, and he claims that the incontinent, prior to choosing, engages in

two competing lines of practical reasoning that can be represented by four propositions,

where these propositions can be divided into a pair of incomplete practical syllogisms.

Altering Aquinas’s example to our standard example of adultery, we would get the

following pair of incomplete practical syllogisms:

(1) No adultery is to be committed. (2) Pleasure is to be pursued.

This act is adultery. This act is pleasurable.
... ...

These syllogisms are incomplete since a conclusion is yet to be reached. The middle

term in the first incomplete practical syllogism is ‘adultery and in the second is

‘pleasure’. These middle terms represent the rationes or aspects under which one and the

same action is being considered. One could consider the act as one of adultery, which

involves viewing it as lacking in good in some way (as lacking with respect to fidelity to

one’s spouse) and hence as being undesirable. Or one could see the act as bringing

pleasure, an aspect under which it is desirable. Moreover, there could be other aspects

under which the act is considered: the agent could view the act under the aspect of useful

if she thought it would help her achieve revenge on some third party. And while the
 65

agent is going back and forth among these rationes, they are open considerations. These

open considerations speak in favor of the different courses of action and are potential

sources of action explanation. The aspect that the agent endorses or adopts—the closed

consideration—gets used in her practical judging and so determines the practical

judgment about what to do. The middle term of a completed practical syllogism, then,

represents the aspect of good or evil the agent had in view in coming to a practical

judgment and choosing; i.e. the middle term represents the closed consideration. And as

we have seen, in a case where an agent views an act under diverse rationes, the middle

terms of these proposed incomplete practical syllogisms represent the open

considerations.

Practical consideration seems to be fundamental to Aquinas’s account of practical

cognition, but to see more clearly how and why this is so, it will be helpful to place it in

Aquinas’s schema of cognition in general and practical cognition in particular. What

follows will serve both to summarize what has gone before and place this fundamental

act within Aquinas’s schema. Although Aquinas does not give an independent treatment

of practical consideration, we can situate it using his own concepts and distinctions.

Practical consideration is a cognitive act since it involves the cognitive powers—

the intellect and the cogitative power—rather than the appetitive powers. And like all

acts of the intellect, practical consideration cognizes its objects under the aspect of truth;

it involves representing and characterizing an action under some aspect that makes

pursuit or avoidance intelligible to the agent. Furthermore, because practical

consideration entertains and predicates evaluative concepts, i.e., aspects of good or evil

which speak for or against an action, it is an act of practical cognition, and hence is fit to
 66

engage the cognitive desires. We might wonder, is practical consideration a form of pure

practical cognition or a form of mixed cognition? Again, Aquinas doesn’t address this

question, but I would venture the following. Practical consideration certainly involves a

practical object, i.e., something achievable by action. It also involves a practical mode,

since it involves applying the aspect considered to a particular case and so thinking of the

opportunity of action under that aspect as doable. So all practical consideration is

directed towards a practical object in a practical way.

When it comes to the end of practical consideration, it seems clear that practical

consideration is for the sake of action. Hence, we should think of practical consideration

as a form of pure practical cognition. But if this is true, then pure practical cognition has

more levels than what Aquinas explicitly mentions. We can distinguish, on Aquinas’s

behalf, two different types of pure practical cognition, imperfect and perfect.88 Practical

consideration is a form of pure practical cognition since it is oriented towards action. But

practical consideration is imperfect insofar as it simply involves predicating evaluative

aspects of an action with a view towards coming to a verdict, without yet adopting an

evaluative aspect and using it to reach a practical verdict. In other words, practical

consideration is imperfect because it always involves open considerations. This

imperfect nature of practical consideration is shown by the incomplete practical

syllogisms that express the agent’s considering on an occasion of incontinent action.

Practical judging is, on the other hand, pure practical cognition that is perfect,

since an evaluative aspect has been adopted and a practical verdict has been reached.

88
‘Imperfect’ and ‘perfect’ in this context should not be read as having any moral overtones, but simply
pick out two stages of pure practical cognition.
 67

Practical judging reaches all the way down to choice and action, as it were, precisely

because it involves only closed considerations. The perfect nature of practical judging is

shown by the complete practical syllogisms that express the agent’s effective practical

reasoning towards a verdict, i.e., her practical judgment.

Because practical consideration is a form of pure practical cognition, yet without

yet being complete in the sense of reaching a practical judgment, it is central for

determining moral motivation and behavior. For Aquinas clearly holds that it is in a

human being’s power to direct his attention to various open considerations of an act and

to attend to one consideration rather than another, be it through focus, habit, or some

other means. Conversely, a human being can neglect to direct his attention and

consequently have it pulled towards considerations simply by what occurs to her, or by

her present desires, sources which may not lead to a human being’s true good. So we see

that the act of practical consideration—or how we direct our attention—is crucial with

respect to moral motivation and behavior; and this is because once a consideration

becomes adopted and closed upon, practical reasoning is completed in a practical

judgment, which then gets embedded in the will’s choice. 89

In this chapter I have clarified Aquinas’s account of the nature of practical

cognition. We have also seen the significance of pure practical cognition and in

particular practical judgment in determining choice, and moreover we have seen the

89
This part of Aquinas’s theory of practical reasoning, viz. consideration, can be classified as what Elijah
Millgram calls redescription as practical reasoning. Millgram and others find such a view outlined in Iris
Murdoch’s book The Sovereignty of Good. See Elijah Millgram (2004), ‘Practical Reasoning’ in
Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, C. Eliasmith (ed.),
<http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/practicalreasoning.html> For Murdoch’s example which
illustrates attention and redescription, see Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Shocken
Books, 1971), 17-23. In Chapter IV I explicitly consider this material from Murdoch.
 68

crucial role of a type of pure practical cognition: practical consideration. While in this

chapter I have emphasized the side of the intellect in moral motivation, in the next

chapter I will investigate the complementary desiderative side of moral motivation, and

in particular how various human desires are able to influence practical cognition.
 69

CHAPTER III: THE APPETITIVE DIMENSION OF PRACTICAL COGNITION:

THE INFLUENCE OF DESIRE

1. Introduction

In the previous chapter I investigated the nature of practical cognition and the

relation that practical cognition bears towards desire. We saw that a practical cognition is

one which, by virtue of its object, way of apprehending, and end is fit to elicit a cognitive

desire. In the current chapter, I will investigate the other direction of the relation, i.e.,

how desire influences practical cognition.

That Aquinas thinks desire affects practical cognition is evident from his

acceptance and frequent use of a principle taken from Aristotle: as a person is, so does an

end seem to him or her.90 Let us call this ‘Aristotle’s Principle’. When this principle

speaks of how a person is, it is referring to the condition of the person’s desires. The

intuitive idea is that the condition of a person’s desires influences which ends appear

good to a person: if someone is greatly angered, revenge will appear good, or if greatly

hungry, having a meal will appear good. And those ends that are truly good will appear

90
“Qualis unusquisque est, talis finis videtur ei.” The saying appears in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,
Bk. III, ch. 5. Aquinas discusses this saying of Aristotle in In III Ethic., lect. 13, n. 516 and In III Ethic.,
lect. 10, n. 494. He also cites this saying in ST I-II, q. 9, art. 2 and ST I-II q. 58, art. 5, and uses the
principle in ST I-II, q. 1, art. 7.
 70

good to the person whose desires have been properly trained and ordered, viz., the

virtuous person.91 Aquinas illustrates this principle by analogy with the sense of taste:

And for this reason, as taste is variously disposed, it does not receive something
as fitting or as not fitting in the same way. Hence, as the Philosopher says in
Ethics Book III, “as a person is, so does an end seem to him.”
Now it is evident that a human being is altered to some disposition in
accordance with a passion of the sensory appetite. Hence, insofar as a human
being is in some passion, something seems fitting to him which does not seem
fitting without an occurring passion: just as something seems good to one who is
angry that does not seem good to one who is calm.92

So if a person’s sense of taste is altered in some way, as when she is sick, certain foods

will seem distasteful to her that taste good when she is well. So too, the condition of

one’s desires affects what seems good.

Now in the above passage, Aquinas illustrates Aristotle’s Principle with reference

to just one type of desiderative state, namely, an occurrent passion of anger. But Aquinas

also uses Aristotle’s Principle with reference to other types of desire: the effects of one’s

bodily temperament, the influence of the heavenly bodies (which were commonly

believed to influence one’s desires), inclinations individuals may be born with to a

particular virtue or vice (in short: natural virtues), and the effect of habits such as the

moral virtues. At a more fundamental level, Aristotle’s Principle applies to the natural

inclinations that are constitutive of human nature as such. As I will argue, these natural

inclinations are what enable human beings to cognize certain fundamental ends as good.

91
ST I-II, q. 1, art. 7: “Illud tamen dulce oportet esse simpliciter melius delectabile, in quo maxime
delectatur qui habet optimum gustum. Et similiter illud bonum oportet esse completissimum, quod tanquam
ultimum finem appetit habens affectum bene dispositum.”
92
ST I-II, q. 9, art. 2: “Et inde est quod gustus diversimode dispositus, non eodem modo accipit aliquid ut
conveniens et ut non conveniens. Unde, ut philosophus dicit in III Ethic., qualis unusquisque est, talis finis
videtur ei.
Manifestum est autem quod secundum passionem appetitus sensitivi, immutatur homo ad aliquam
dispositionem. Unde secundum quod homo est in passione aliqua, videtur sibi aliquid conveniens, quod
non videtur extra passionem existenti: sicut irato videtur bonum, quod non videtur quieto.”
 71

So far we have seen that Aquinas holds that desire indeed affects cognition and

have labeled the basic types of desire that do so. In what follows, I will investigate the

types of desire in more detail and explain how each of these types of desire affect

practical cognition. Following Aquinas’s lead, I will divide my treatment of the various

types of desire according to the manner in which the desire affects practical cognition.

Accordingly, I will first investigate how desires of the sensory appetite influence

practical cognition. I will then investigate three influences on practical cognition whose

treatment is relevantly similar to that of sensory desires: (i) natural temperament, (ii) the

influence of the heavenly bodies, and (iii) natural virtues. I will then move to consider

how the natural desires constitutive of human nature influence practical cognition.

Note that my order of exposition of these topics differs from the order of

explanation. In the order of explanation, the natural desires of human nature are

fundamental and are the ground for basic practical cognitions as well as the ground for all

other supervening desires.93 I treat these natural desires last in my order of exposition for

two reasons: First, I think Aquinas’s treatment of how the other types of desire affect

practical cognition is more intuitive for contemporary readers, and hence can give a better

sense for Aquinas’s basic principles. Second, Aquinas has much to say about how the

other types of desire influence practical cognition, and relatively little about how the

natural desires of human nature do. And I wish to shed light upon how the natural desires

constitutive of human nature influence practical cognition by using his treatments of the

other types of desire as a model.

93
ST II-II, q. 155, art. 2: “Est autem considerandum quod naturales inclinationes principia sunt omnium
supervenientium, ut supra dictum est.” See also, ST I, q. 60, art. 2.
 72

1.1 Terminological Prolegomena

Before we go further, it will be useful to clarify the types of appetitive states to be

discussed. As we saw in the last chapter, human beings have a set of natural desires.

Recall that natural desires are to be contrasted with cognitive desires: whereas cognitive

desires follow upon cognitions of their possessor, natural desires do not.94 Recall also

that ‘desire’ in this context simply means inclination or orientation (I will use these terms

interchangeably). Now Aquinas speaks of two types of natural desire. First, there are the

natural inclinations that are constitutive of human nature, or to put it another way, are

hardwired into the nature of the human being as such. These natural desires are shared

by every human being. When Aquinas considers natural desires in this way, he contrasts

them with desires that are responses to cognitions, i.e., cognitive desires of the sensory

appetite or the will. Second, Aquinas speaks of natural desires that are not consitutive of

human nature, but vary from one human being to another. Aquinas explains,

Something can be natural to a thing in two ways. In one way, according to the
nature of the species, in the way that it is natural for a human being to be capable
of laughter, and for fire to move upwards. In another way, on account of the
nature of the individual, in the way that it is natural for Socrates or Plato to be
94
To clarify, at least in the case of human beings, natural desires never follow upon cognitions of their
possessor, though natural desires can be applied or exercised on account of their possessor’s cognition.
Moreover, I am not claiming that cognitive desires only follow upon the cognitions of their possessor: a
given cognitive desire is also partially explained by the possessor’s natural desires. My point is simply that
cognitive desires do follow upon their possessor’s cognitions, while natural desires do not. To illustrate,
assume that human beings have a natural desire for friendship, and that John, after becoming acquainted
with Pete, desires to form a friendship with Pete. John’s desire to be friends with Pete is a cognitive desire
since it follows upon cognitions about (roughly) the goodness of friendship in general and the perceived
goodness of friendship with Pete in particular. While John’s natural desire for friendship is being applied
or exercised in this case, John’s desire for friendship with Pete is still a cognitive desire since it follows
upon John’s cognition. Nevertheless the existence of this cognitive desire is partially explained by John’s
natural desire for friendship. I mean that when explaining why John desires to form a friendship with Pete,
at some level reference will need to be made to John’s natural desire for friendship. This example
illustrates how I take Aquinas’s claim that natural inclinations are the source of all supervening inclinations
(ST II-II, q. 155, art. 2: “Est autem considerandum quod naturales inclinationes principia sunt omnium
supervenientium, ut supra dictum est.”). Following my example, I take this to mean that all cognitive
desires are partially explained by reference to some natural desire.
 73

inclined to sickness or inclined to health, according to his own particular

temperament.95

Today we might refer to these desires rooted in an individual human’s nature as

personality traits; Aquinas refers to them as (i) tendencies of one’s bodily temperament,

such as being prone to sadness or anger or joy; and (ii) natural virtues, which are natural

tendencies to virtuous acts, such as those of courage or kindness. We could call the class

of natural desires that includes those from bodily temperament and those from natural

virtue ‘personal natural desires’. Common to the natural desires constitutive of human

nature and personal natural desires is that they are with a person “from birth.”96 Aquinas

also countenances a type of desire which is quasi-natural in so far as has its source in

nature, viz., the influence of the heavenly bodies.

We have seen that Aquinas often contrasts the natural desires constitutive of

human nature with cognitive desires. Aquinas’s point in these contexts is that creatures

with cognition are able to have desires over and above their natural desires, i.e., desires

that are responses to cognitions. But natural desires, be they specific or personal, can be

the subject of another contrast: natural desires can be contrasted with acquired desires.

Whereas natural desires are possessed from birth, acquired desires are picked up in the

course of one’s life. Many acquired desires will be cognitive desires, though some will

not be. An acquired, non-cognitive desire would be any desire that is picked up during

95
ST I-II, q. 51, art. 1: “RESPONDEO dicendum quod aliquid potest esse naturale alicui dupliciter. Uno
modo, secundum naturam speciei: sicut naturale est homini esse risibile, et igni ferri sursum. Alio modo,
secundum naturam individui: sicut naturale est Socrati vel Platoni esse aegrotativum vel sanativum,
secundum propriam complexionem.”
96
De Virt., q. 1, art. 8, arg. 19: “Praeterea, illud quod inest homini a nativitate, est naturale.” [“That is
natural which is in a human being from birth.”] This principle occurs as part of an objection, but Aquinas
doesn’t deny this principle in his response, but points out that natural virtues (inborn inclinations to bravery
or temperance, for example) are not complete and hence are not virtues in the fullest sense.
 74

the course of the person’s life and does not originate from the cognition of its possessor.

A case of an acquired, non-cognitive desire would be those desires generated simply by a

change one’s biology, as would be the case if one were to experience intense pangs of

hunger due to a malfunction in one’s brain. The types of desire so far discussed can be

catalogued in the following way:

Cogni0ve&
Acquired&
Non3Cogni0ve&
Desire&
For&Human&
Being&
Natural&
For&Individual&
Person&

Returning to acquired desires in general, both the will and the sensitive appetite

can be the subject of acquired desires. Furthermore, acquired desires can either be

occurrent or habitual. They are occurrent if they are presently manifesting themselves,

and habitual if the desire has been developed into a habit, a more robust dispositional

state. So an agent can have a mere occurrent movement of anger or through repeated

action can have developed a habitual disposition to anger. We should note that a habitual

desire can also be occurrent, viz., in those cases in which the habitual desire is

manifesting itself.

For our purposes, we also need a basic grasp of one type of acquired desire: the

acquired desires of the sensory appetite. The sensory appetite is a generic power that is
 75

divided into two powers: the concupiscible appetite and the irascible appetite. Aquinas

calls the acts or movements of these appetites passions of the soul. He also calls them

affections.97 To be clear, every act of the sensory appetite is a passion. A passion or

affection need not be a particularly strong or vehement state; a state of tranquil pleasure

after drinking a sought after cup of tea is a passion in Aquinas’s sense. Moreover, there

is a general consensus that for Aquinas, the terms ‘passion’ or ‘affection’ refer to

phenomena that we would today refer to with the term ‘emotion’.98 Following standard

convention, I will continue to use the term ‘passion’, but we must keep in mind that the

term basically means ‘emotion’.

Now the concupiscible appetite is moved by sensory cognitions of good qua

agreeable to the senses or evil qua disagreeable to the senses.99 The passions of the

concupiscible appetite are, on the one hand, love, desire, and joy (or pleasure); and on the

other hand, hate, aversion, and sadness. To illustrate, sensory love can be thought of as

simply liking something agreeable to the senses. This sensory love gives rise to the

passion of desire, whereby the agent longs to possess or enjoy the object. This desire is

fulfilled in the passion of joy (or pleasure) when the desired object is obtained. For

example, a person could have a liking for chocolate, which gives rise to a desire for

chocolate, which yields joy when the chocolate is eaten. Note that the term ‘desire’ in

97
ST I-II, q. 22, art. 2, s.c.: “Ex quo patet quod passiones animae sunt idem quod affectiones.” Though
this is stated in a sed contra, Aquinas does not withdraw this identification in the article’s body or
responses.
98
For the identification of passions in Aquinas’s sense with emotions from two different schools of
Aquinas scholarship, see Servais Pinckaers, “Reappropriating Aquinas’s Account of the Passions,” in The
Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, eds. John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus, trans.
Mary Thomas Noble . . . et. al. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 273-287.
See also Peter King, “Emotions” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Eleonore
Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 209-226.
99
Aquinas’s general account of the concupiscible and irascible passions is found in ST I, q. 81, art. 2. His
much more extensive treatment of the passions is found in ST I-II, q. 22 – q. 48.
 76

this context has a more specific meaning than the way it has been used thus far. Desire in

the broad sense, as we have seen, refers to any inclination, be that of the will (a rational

desire) or of the sensory appetite. But ‘desire’ in this more specific sense refers to a

passion that follows upon love and is completed by joy when the desired object is

possessed. Desire which is a passion could also be translated as ‘longing’.

The irascible appetite is also moved by sensory cognitions of good qua agreeable

to the senses or evil qua disagreeable to the senses, but under the further aspect of

difficulty. The passions of the irascible appetite are hope and confidence, fear and

despair, and anger. We might wonder why Aquinas says that these passions are activated

by sensory cognitions of good under the further aspect of difficulty or arduousness (sub

ratione difficultatis vel arduitatis).100 As we have seen, the passions of the concupiscible

appetite simply move the agent towards or away from some cognized sensory good or

evil. But what if there is an obstacle to possessing that good or avoiding that evil?

Aquinas holds that the passions of the concupiscible appetite aren’t fit to move the agent

in the face of the obstacle or difficulty; to do this, a different kind of power is needed, the

irascible appetite, which enables a new set of passions that can move the agent in the face

of difficulty.101 To illustrate these irascible passions, consider a person who has a

longing to obtain some sensible good but recognizes that there is a difficulty or obstacle

to obtaining it. The person can either experience hope, if he believes he can overcome

this obstacle, or fear, if he has doubt and hesitancy about his ability to do so. Moreover,

hope can then give rise to confidence in the face of this difficult challenge, or fear can

100
ST I-II, q. 23, art. 2.
101
For Aquinas’s argument that the irascible power and its passions differ in kind from the concupiscible
power, see ST I-II, q. 23, art. 1, ad. 3.
 77

give rise to despair if failure seems imminent. In the case of anger, the aspect of

difficulty is present in the sense that something contrary to the agent’s wishes, some

perceived injury, has occurred or is presently occurring. Anger is then the appetitive

movement that inclines the agent to attack the source of the obstacle or to seek revenge.

Now that we have before us the basic types of desire and the movements of the

sensory appetite, we can begin investigating how the sensory appetite influences practical

cognition.

2. How Desires of the Sensory Appetite Influence Practical Cognition

To make perspicuous how the sensory appetite influences practical cognition, let

us return to the case of incontinent action where an agent is tempted to commit adultery.

Using this case as a model, I will first provide the basics of how a desire of the sensory

appetite plays a role in the sort of practical reasoning Aquinas represents with a practical

syllogism, and will then go into more detail about how this occurs.

But before moving on, we should note two points to avoid confusion about

Aquinas’s moral psychology. First, while passion can lead the agent morally astray and

actually does so in the case of incontinence, it need not play this negative role; Aquinas

holds that the passions can also incline the agent to good action, especially in the case of

the virtuous person.102 Second, passion isn’t the only possible source for an agent’s

going morally astray: Aquinas also acknowledges bad acts caused by ignorance in the

102
For how passion can incline an agent in a good way, see ST I-II, q. 24, art. 3.
 78

intellect and malice in the will.103 I use the case of incontinence simply to illustrate how

the passions can affect practical cognition and hence moral motivation.

Recall that an incontinent person such as Phil, prior to choosing, considers two

lines of practical reasoning that can be represented by two incomplete practical

syllogisms:

(1) No adultery is to be committed. (2) Pleasure is to be pursued.

This act is adultery. This act is pleasurable.
... ...

The middle terms in these two (incomplete) practical syllogisms represent the

considerations or aspects under which the act is evaluated as desirable. Let us focus on

(2). Aquinas says that in the case of incontinent action the content of this incomplete

syllogism is brought about by a movement of the sensory appetite, in this case, sexual

desire. He claims that in a case like the one we are investigating, “the fact that something

appears good in particular to the reason, whereas it is not good, is due to a passion.”104

The passion of sexual desire inclines the agent to regard the act under the evaluative

aspect of pleasureable by furnishing (suggerit) the universial premise ‘Pleasure is to be

103
For ignorance as a cause of sin, see ST I-II, q. 76 and De Malo, q. 3, art. 6-8. For malice as a cause of
sin, see ST I-II, q. 78 and De Malo, q. 3, art. 12-14. Aquinas provides the following helpful summary of
the causes of sin in ST I-II, q. 78, art. 3: “The will is related in one way to good and in another way to evil.
For by the nature of its own power it is inclined towards the rational good. Therefore, insofar as the will by
choosing is inclined to some evil, this must happen from a different source. And indeed sometimes this
happens from a defect of reason, as when someone sins from ignorance; but sometimes from the impulse of
the sensory appetite, as when someone sins from passion. But neither of these is to sin from fixed malice;
but only then does someone sin from fixed malice, when his will itself, from its own accord, is moved
towards evil.” [“Voluntas aliter se habet ad bonum, et aliter ad malum. Ex natura enim suae potentiae
inclinatur ad bonum rationis, sicut ad proprium obiectum: unde et omne peccatum dicitur esse contra
naturam. Quod ergo in aliquod malum voluntas eligendo inclinetur, oportet quod aliunde contingat. Et
quandoque quidem contingit ex defectu rationis, sicut cum aliquis ex ignorantia peccat: quandoque autem
ex impulsu appetitus sensitivi, sicut cum peccat ex passione. Sed neutrum horum est ex certa malitia
peccare; sed tunc solum ex certa malitia aliquis peccat, quando ipsa voluntas ex seipsa movetur ad
malum.”]
104
ST I-II, q. 77, art. 2, ad. 2: “Ad secundum dicendum quod hoc ipsum quod rationi videatur in particulari
aliquid bonum quod non est bonum, contingit ex aliqua passione.”
 79

pursued’.105 So we see here that a passion of the sensory appetite can play a crucial role

in shaping the practical reasoning that leads to a verdict and choice.

But how strong a role does a sensory passion play? Can it by itself move the will

to a choice? Aquinas frequently investigates this issue by asking whether and how a

sensory passion can move the will. Aquinas in these contexts is simply investigating

whether and how the passions influence our actions. We all know from experience that

passions such as longing, hope, anger, and so forth influence our choices and ensuing

behavior, and Aquinas is interested in how this occurs and the nature of such influence.

Aquinas claims that there is a sense in which the passions can move the will, but

is careful to qualify this sense: “A passion of the sensory appetite is not able to directly

draw or move the will, but it can indirectly.”106 So there can only be an indirect link

between a passion and a movement of the will. Aquinas's considered view is that a

passion moves the will on the part of its object.107 This may sound odd, but Aquinas is

simply saying that the passions can influence what the intellect cognizes as good and

fitting, that is, the content of one’s practical cognition. In a passage already seen,

Aquinas explains the relationship between the passions and the will:

Now it is evident that a human being is altered to some disposition in

accordance with a passion of the sensory appetite. Hence, insofar as a human
being is subject to some passion, something seems fitting to him which does not

105
ST I-II, q. 77, art. 2, ad. 4: AD QUARTUM dicendum quod ille qui habet scientiam in universali, propter
passionem impeditur ne possit sub illa universali sumere, et ad conclusionem pervenire: sed assumit sub
alia universali, quam suggerit inclinatio passionis, et sub ea concludit. Unde Philosophus dicit, in VII
Ethic., quod syllogismus incontinentis habet quatuor propositiones, duas universales: quarum una est
rationis, puta nullam fornicationem esse committendam; alia est passionis, puta delectationem esse
sectandam. Passio igitur ligat rationem ne assumat et concludat sub prima: unde, ea durante, assumit et
concludit sub secunda.” See also De Malo, q. 3, art. 10, ad. 7.
106
ST I-II, q. 77, art. 1: “Respondeo dicendum quod passio appetitus sensitivi non potest directe trahere aut
movere voluntatem, sed indirecte potest.” I have translated this on my own but need to cross-reference the
Latin
107
See ST I-II, q. 9, art. 1 and 2; ST I-II, q. 77, art. 1
 80

seem fitting without an occurring passion: just as something seems good to an

angry person that does not seem good to a calm person. And in this way, on the
part of the object, the sensitive appetite moves the will.108

Aquinas is illustrating the intuitive idea that when someone is in a certain passionate

condition, such as being angry at someone, or longing for some pleasure, or hopeful for a

certain outcome, certain practical objects of thought can seem good to that person that do

not seem good when the person is not in that state. Aquinas uses the term "seems" here;

he does not say that these passions move one to the judgment that these practical objects

of thought are in to be pursued. What the passions do is give rise to certain practical

considerations. The passions move one to consider the practical object of thought under

a certain aspect. To use our example of incontinence, Aquinas would say that the passion

of sexual desire gives rise to the aspect of pleasure, under which sexual act seems good.

To summarize, when Aquinas claims that the sensory appetite moves the will on the part

of the object, he means that a passion of the sensory appetite draws the agent’s intellect to

entertain a practical consideration.

Aquinas in the above analysis of how the sensory passions move the will on the

part of the object of the will can be further clarified it by his distinction between the

specification and exercise of an act of the will. Aquinas holds that this distinction applies

not only to acts of the will but also to acts of other powers, and so he uses the power of

sight to illuminate this distinction. By the power of sight an agent can see red or green;

red or green would be the sensible object that specifies the act of sight. On the other

hand, an agent by the power of sight can either see or not see something, by directing her

108
ST I-II, q. 9, art. 2.: “Manifestum est autem quod secundum passionem appetitus sensitivi, immutatur
homo ad aliquam dispositionem. Unde secundum quod homo est in passione aliqua, videtur sibi aliquid
conveniens, quod non videtur extra passionem existenti: sicut irato videtur bonum, quod non videtur
quieto. Et per hunc modum, ex parte obiecti, appetitus sensitivus movet voluntatem.”
 81

visual attention or closing her eyes; and whether the power of sight is used to see or not

see something pertains to the exercise of the act, whose source is not the object seen, but

the subject. As Aquinas scholar David Gallagher succinctly explains, “Whether or not a

person sees is a question of exercise; what a person sees when he or she sees is a matter

of specification.”109 Turning to the case of the will, an agent by his will can will this or

that; this is the specification of the will’s act and also called the will’s object. This

specified object of the will is provided by the practical intellect cognizing something as

good. On the other hand, whether the will wills or does not will some cognized good

pertains to the exercise of the will’s act. And Aquinas holds that the exercise of the will’s

act is simply caused by the will itself.110 Moreover, as we will see in the next section, the

will can direct the exercise of the intellect’s act.

Moving forward, we have seen that Aquinas says that the passions are not a direct

cause of a movement of the will, but contribute only indirectly to it. He clarifies what he

means in this case by identifying a direct cause with a sufficient cause, while something

that makes an indirect contribution is identified as an occasion. Aquinas writes,

Something can be said to be the the cause of something in two ways: in one way
directly, in another way indirectly. Indeed indirectly, as when some agent causes
some disposition to some effect, he is said to be the occasional or indirect cause of
that effect; for example if it be said that he who dries wood is the occasion of its
burning.111

109
David Gallagher, “Free Choice and Free Judgment in Thomas Aquinas,” Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 76 (1994): 263. See pgs. 260-270 for Gallagher’s thorough treatment of the
specification/exercise distinction in this essay.
110
De Malo, q. 6: “Quantum ergo ad exercitium actus, primo quidem manifestum est quod uoluntas
mouetur a se ipsa : sicut enim mouet alias potentias, ita et se ipsam mouet.” See also ST I-II, q. 9, art. 1.
111
See De Malo, q. 3, art. 5: “Dicendum, quod causa alicuius potest aliquid dici dupliciter : uno modo
directe, alio modo indirecte. Indirecte quidem, sicut cum aliquod agens causat aliquam dispositionem ad
aliquem effectum, dicitur esse occasionaliter et indirecte causa illius effectus : sicut si dicatur quod ille qui
siccat ligna est occasio combustionis ipsorum.” Aquinas will also call an occasion an indirect or
dispositional cause, which is contrasted with a direct or perfect cause. See also De Malo q. 3, art. 3, and In
V Meta., lect. 2, n. 4-5.
 82

And with respect to the case of incontinence, Aquinas writes,

But passions of this kind [vehement passions that incline to an evil act], however
vehement, are not the sufficient cause of incontinence, but only its occasion;
because so long as the use of reason remains, a human being is always able to
resist his passions.112

According to this analysis, the passions are not a sufficient cause of a movement of the

will, but are rather an occasion of such a movement. Were the passions a sufficient

cause, then they could straightaway activate a movement of the will, and hence the

relation between the passions and the will would be direct rather than indirect. But

Aquinas holds that the passions occasion a movement of the will (a rational desire).

They do this by making certain practical considerations occur to the practical intellect.

To clarify, while Aquinas holds that a sensory passion is not a sufficient cause to move

the will, they are (by their effect on sensory cognition) sufficient for a practical

consideration to be formed by the intellect; in other words, the passions serve to bring

about a cognitively specified object of desire for the will. But the sensory passions

cannot bring about the exercise of the will’s act, which is to say that they cannot cause

the will to choose that cognized good.

Now at this stage of practical considering there is no necessitation: Aquinas is

clear that a practical consideration does not necessitate a practical judgment and hence

choice of the will. An ensuing movement of the will in accord with that practical

consideration is activated only on some further condition: the agent must at minimum

not resist that practical consideration. Aquinas in one text suggests a more robust

possibility: that practical considerations of good can be endorsed (approbari) or rejected

112
ST II-II, q. 156, art. 1: “Sed huiusmodi passiones, quantumcumque vehementes, non sunt sufficiens
causa incontinentiae, sed occasio sola; eo quod, durante usu rationis, semper homo potest passionibus
resistere.”
 83

by the will.113 In other texts, he emphasizes that the will always has the power to resist

the practical consideration brought about by passion. These latter passages suggest that

all that is needed for a practical consideration to lead to an act of practical judgment (at

least in cases where a sensory passion is intense) is that the agent fail to resist the

practical consideration by an intervening act of the will.114 Aquinas mentions a couple of

ways this not resisting can happen: the agent could yield (cedit) to his passions and the

practical consideration suggested by them;115 or he could simply neglect to do anything

about his passions and their suggested practical consideration, such that the practical

consideration have no impediment in the movement to practical judgment and choice.116

We can illustrate the above with respect to the case of incontinence. The person’s

occurrent passion of sexual desire suffices for a practical consideration that grasps the

evaluative object as good under the aspect of pleasure. But that passion of sexual desire

is not sufficient to move the will of the person to choose to act according to that desire.

In order for the agent to choose the act, the practical consideration brought about by the

passion has to become the middle term of an act of practical judging whose verdict is that

this act is to be pursued. But prior to the verdict and the choice, the agent could go either

way, since it is within his power to resist the practical consideration that sees the act as

113
ST I-II, q. 10, art. 2: “Alia autem quaelibet particularia bona, inquantum deficiunt ab aliquo bono,
possunt accipi ut non bona: et secundum hanc considerationem, possunt repudiari vel approbari a
voluntate, quae potest in idem ferri secundum diversas considerationes.”
114
See De Malo q. 3 art. 10; De Malo q. 6, co. and ad. 15; and ST II-II, q. 156, art. 2, ad. 2.
115
ST II-II, q. 156, art. 1: “Uno modo, quando anima passionibus cedit antequam ratio consilietur: quae
quidem vocatur irrefrenata incontinentia, vel praevolatio.”
116
It is not clear, however, that in every case failure to resist is sufficient for the practical consideration to
produce a practical judgment and hence move the will. It could be that if the passion is of weak intensity,
the practical consideration brought about will have little weight in the agent’s practical reasoning, and
hence an endorsement would be needed for that practical consideration to lead to practical judgment and
choice. Aquinas’s point, though, is that even in the strongest case when passion is intense and the practical
consideration has significant weight, an agent has the power to avoid an evil choice by virtue of the will’s
intervening with an act of resistance.
 84

pleasurable and bring to mind the practical consideration that evaluates the act as one of

adultery and hence not to be done.

2.1 Sensory Passions and Attention

We have seen that a passion of the sensory appetite does not directly move the

will, but indirectly contributes to a movement of the will. It does so by providing an

occasion of willing.

I will now investigate in more detail how a sensory passion provides an occasion

of willing. Aquinas’s view is that the sensory passion has the consequence of drawing

one's attention, a notion we briefly considered in the previous chapter. Aquinas describes

this consequence in two ways. First, Aquinas claims that when a sensory passion is

inflamed, the agent’s attention is fixed on that passion and its object, and hence attention

to other considerations is reduced. He writes,

For it is evident that whenever one power is intent on its own act, another power
is either impeded or totally diverted from its own act: for example, when
someone closely attentive to hearing something does not perceive a man pass by.
And this is the case because all the powers are rooted in one soul, whose attention
applies whatever power to its own act. And thus while somone is strongly
attentive concerning the act of one power, his attention is reduced concerning the
act of another power. So in this way, when concupiscent desire or anger or
something of this kind is strong, a human being is impeded from the consideration
of knowledge.117

A sensory passion, then, occupies the attention of the soul and hence can divert the

intellect and will from their proper course. It is important to note that the above

117
De Malo, q. 3, art. 9: “Manifestum est enim quod quandocumque una potentia intenditur in suo actu,
alia potentia uel impeditur uel totaliter auertitur a suo actu : sicut cum aliquis intentus est ad aliquem
audiendum, non percipit hominem pertranseuntem. Et hoc ideo contingit, quia omnes potentie radicantur in
una anima, cuius intentio applicat unamquamque potentiam ad suum actum : et ita, cum aliquis fuerit
fortiter intentus circa actum unius potentie, minuitur eius intentio circa actum alterius. Sic igitur, cum
fuerit concupiscentia fortis, aut ira, aut aliquid huiusmodi, impeditur homo a consideratione scientie.”
 85

quotation is taken from a discussion on incontinence where Aquinas is considering how a

sensory passion can occasion a moral failure. But we should note that in a virtuous

person, whose passions have been trained, a passion has the effect of directing the agent’s

attention in a good way. For example, a virtuous person could experience the passions of

love, desire, and joy with respect to helping those in need, and these passions would have

the good effect of directing the agent’s attention to those in need.118

The second way in which a sensory passion can draw one’s attention is by

influencing the will’s object, a process we have already investigated to some extent.

Recall that a specified object of the will is an achievable good grasped in practical

cognition. But practical cognition is influenced by the imagination and judgment of the

cogitative power, and these latter powers follow the lead of the sensory passions.

Aquinas writes,

In another way, [the sensitive appetite can move or draw the will indirectly] on
the part of the object of the will, which is the good apprehended by reason. For
the judgment and apprehension of reason are impeded on account of a vehement
and inordinate apprehension of the imagination and judgment of the estimative
power, as is plain in those who have lost their minds. But it is clear that the
apprehension of the imagination and judgment of the estimative power follow the
passion of the sensory appetite, just as the judgment of taste follows the
disposition of the tongue. Hence, we see that human beings who are in a passion
do not easily turn away their imagination from those things concerning which
they are being affected. Hence, the result is that the judgment of reason often
follows a passion of the sensitive appetite; and the result of this is a movment of
the will, whose nature is to follow the judgment of reason.119

118
For the ways that the passions relate to the perfection of virtue, see ST I-II, q. 24, art. 3.
119
ST I-II, q. 77, art. 1: “Alio modo, ex parte obiecti voluntatis, quod est bonum ratione apprehensum.
Impeditur enim iudicium et apprehensio rationis propter vehementem et inordinatam apprehensionem
imaginationis, et iudicium virtutis aestimativae, ut patet in amentibus. Manifestum est autem quod
passionem appetitus sensitivi sequitur imaginationis apprehensio, et iudicium aestimativae: sicut etiam
dispositionem linguae sequitur iudicium gustus. Unde videmus quod homines in aliqua passione existentes,
non facile imaginationem avertunt ab his circa quae afficiuntur. Unde per consequens iudicium rationis
plerumque sequitur passionem appetitus sensitivi; et per consequens motus voluntatis, qui natus est sequi
iudicium rationis.”
 86

Aquinas is here illuminating a common experience: when in the midst of a passion, it is

difficult to get our mind off of the passion’s object. And this focusing of attention has a

significant influence on our practical reasoning about whether the object is good and to

be pursued. In Aquinas’s language, a sensory passion draws the imagination and

cogitative power towards thinking of the object. These cognitions of the imagination and

cogitative power do not determine the intellect’s to reach a practical judgment, but do

indeed influence it. The crucial point is that the sensory passions do not directly influence

the intellect. Rather the sensory passions give rise to sensory cognitions, especially those

of the cogitative power and the imagination, and it is these cognitions that provide the

immediate input for the intellect to form practical considerations.

Aquinas holds that a sensory passion’s capacity to influence practical cognition

and hence action can be strong. In fact, he claims that there can be a sort of conditional

necessity that is involved. Aquinas gives the following example to illuminate the sort of

conditional necessity he has in mind: if a knife is driven through a person’s vital organs,

then that person will die. Of course, from the necessity of this conditional, it does not

follow that necessarily a knife will be driven through the person’s vital organs. So too,

Aquinas claims that necessarily, if a sensory passion is given free reign, then the person

will act in accordance with that passion.120 For example: necessarily, if serious anger

towards another is given free reign, then the person will seek revenge against that person

in some way. Yet it does not follow from the necessity of this conditional that

necessarily, the passion of anger will be allowed to run its course. Aquinas explains,

120
This principle may need to be modified a bit. Given that this analogy and example is discussed in a
section on sins from weakness, it’s plausible that Aquinas has in mind, not just any sensory passion, but an
intense sensory passion. If this is right, then the principle would be that necessarily, if a strong sensory
passion is given free reign, the person will act in accord with that passion.
 87

For supposing that reason be bound by a passion, it is necessary that an evil

choice follows; but it is in the power of the will to repel this binding of reason.
For it was said that reason is bound on account of this: that the soul’s attention is
vehemently applied to the act of the sensory appetite; hence it is averted from
considering in particular that which it habitually knows in the universal. But to
apply or not apply attention to something exists in the power of the will. Hence, it
is in the will’s power to remove the binding of reason. Therefore the committed
act, which procedes from such binding, is voluntary. Hence, it is not excused
from even a mortal fault.121

One’s reason is said to be fettered because the practical consideration suggested by

passion is present to the intellect and tempting one to an evil act. If this practical

consideration is not resisted or repulsed, or if it is actively endorsed, then the evil choice

and act will follow. But Aquinas is clear that the will has the power to remove the

fettering of reason. It can do this because it has the power to direct the intellect’s

attention, bringing the intellect to turn to other thoughts or to consider the same act in a

different light. Using Aquinas’s specification/exercise distinction, the will can direct the

exercise of the intellect’s activity.122 To put it more clearly, the agent can direct his

attention and practical considering by virtue of his will. To illustrate, when undergoing a

passion of anger, an agent could turn his thoughts towards moral considerations about the

circumstances in which acting out of anger is appropriate, or he could simply turn his

121
De Malo q. 3, art. 10: “Similiter dicendum est in proposito : posito enim quod ratio sit ligata per
passionem, necesse est quod sequatur peruersa electio, set in potestate uoluntatis est hoc ligamen rationis
repellere. Dictum est enim quod ratio ligatur ex hoc quod intentio anime applicatur uehementer ad actum
appetitus sensitiui, unde auertitur a considerando in particulari id quod habitualiter in uniuersali cognoscit.
Applicare autem intentionem ad aliquid uel non applicare in potestate uoluntatis existit, unde in potestate
uoluntatis est quod ligamen rationis excludat. Actus igitur commissus qui ex tali ligamine procedit est
uoluntarius, unde non excusatur a culpa etiam mortali.”
122
ST I-II, q. 9, art. 1, ad. 3: “AD TERTIUM dicendum quod voluntas movet intellectum quantum ad
exercitium actus: quia et ipsum verum, quod est perfectio intellectus, continetur sub universali bono ut
quoddam bonum particulare.”
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thoughts to consider something innocuous, such as sports, so that the passion can calm

down.123

Although Aquinas does not specify the details of this process, the following must

be at work. First, a sensory passion that is given free reign is one that is not impeded

either by the agent herself or by some external cause. Such a sensory passion is then

sufficient, not for moving the will, but for bringing about a practical consideration. And

because the sensory passion consumes the attention of the soul, unless the sensory

passion or its influence on the cogitative power and imagination is somehow impeded,

the practical consideration suggested by the sensory passion will have significant weight

and so will be adopted as the practical consideration adopted in the agent’s practical

judging, which terminates in the practical judgment or verdict that this act is to be done

here and now. This practical judgment in turn moves the will in the manner of a formal

and final cause; i.e., the practical judgment specifies that an act is to be done or avoided

under an aspect of good, and this practical judgment becomes the intelligible content

123
I am inclined to interpret Aquinas as holding that it is by virtue of the will that the agent is able to turn
his attention to other thoughts. But there is disagreement on how to interpret Aquinas on this matter. Some
hold that it is ultimately in virtue of the intellect that the agent is able to turn his attention to other thoughts,
claiming that in order for the will to command the intellect to consider the object in a different light, the
intellect must first judge that it is good to do so. This latter is often dubbed an intellectualist reading, while
an interpretation like my own that emphasizes the activity of the will is often dubbed a voluntarist reading.
Here I want to point out that the goal of my project isn’t to interpret and explain Aquinas’s account on
human freedom, so I don’t need to take a stand on whether an intellectualist or voluntarist reading is
correct. It’s sufficient for my purposes to say that, for Aquinas, the agent has the ability to redirect his
attention and how he considers objects, or to put it another way, that how the agent directs his attention and
how he considers an object is up to him. Whether this ability is ultimately in virtue of the agent’s intellect,
his will, or some synergy of the two faculties need not be resolved for my purposes. For a more voluntarist
interpretation of Aquinas (and the one with which I am most sympathetic), see David Gallagher, “Free
Choice and Free Judgment in Thomas Aquinas,”; and see also Tobias Hoffmann, “Aquinas and Intellectual
Determinism: The Case of Angelic Sin,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 89 (2007): 122-56. For a
more intellectualist interpretation, see Scott MacDonald, “Aquinas’s Libertarian Account of Free Choice,”
Revue Internationale de Philosophie 52 (1998): 309-28.
 89

embedded in the will’s choice. But the sensory passion need not run its course and can

indeed be impeded. Even if no external cause intervenes, the agent herself by virtue of

her will can direct her attention away from the object of the sensory passion. More

specifically, this direction of attention could involve imagining or thinking about

something else, or it could involve intellectually conceiving of the thing towards which

the sensory passion is directed in a different way. If that thing is conceived in a different

way, there will be a new practical consideration, and hence a new potential object of the

will.

Now we might wonder why Aquinas holds that the sensory passions cannot

directly influence the will’s choice. Aquinas holds that nothing material can be the

efficient cause of something immaterial. The sensory passions are grounded in material,

bodily organs, while the intellect and will (and their operations) are not. Hence, if a

sensory passion were to directly influence the intellect and will, the powers of the

intellect and will would have to be grounded in a material organ. But these powers are

not grounded in a material organ, and hence it is not the case that a sensory passion can

directly influence the intellect and will. What the sensory passions can do is produce

sensory cognitions since sensory cognitions are likewise annexed to material organs.

And these sensory cognitions, in turn, provide the input that suffices for the intellect to

form a practical consideration. Neither the sensory passions nor the sensory cognitions

are the efficient cause of the intellect’s activity, but they are sufficient for providing input

such that the intellect can exercise its own activity. The agent is then responsible for

whether or not this practical consideration is adopted in her practical reasoning.

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To summarize and clarify, the sensory passions do not directly cause the will’s

choice. This means they are not the sufficient cause of the will’s choice, but they are the

occasion of the will’s choice. But the sensory passions are sufficient for a practical

consideration to be formed by the intellect, though this practical consideration need not

be adopted. In more layman’s terms, the passions of the soul are sufficient for bringing

about a temptation, but are not sufficient for an agent’s succumbing to that temptation.

The purpose of this chapter is to isolate and investigate how desires affect

practical cognition. But I should mention that Aquinas also thinks that the intellect’s

cognition can contribute to the state of one's sensory passions. Aquinas holds to the

traditional idea, put forth in Plato's Republic and developed in Aristotle's Nicomachean

Ethics, that the passions of the sensory appetite are able to obey reason, i.e., that one’s

passions can be refined and trained such that they are in accord with the judgments of the

practical intellect. I will not go into the details of this process here, but suffice it to say

that in a virtuous person, the intellect and will work to move the interior sensory powers

of the imagination and cogitative power, and the ensuing sensory cognition gives rise to

sensory desire in accordance with reason.124

124
See ST I, q. 81, art. 3: “Respondeo dicendum quod irascibilis et concupiscibilis obediunt superiori parti,
in qua est intellectus sive ratio et voluntas, dupliciter, uno modo quidem, quantum ad rationem; alio vero
modo, quantum ad voluntatem. Rationi quidem obediunt quantum ad ipsos suos actus. Cuius ratio est, quia
appetitus sensitivus in aliis quidem animalibus natus est moveri ab aestimativa virtute; sicut ovis aestimans
lupum inimicum, timet. Loco autem aestimativae virtutis est in homine, sicut supra dictum est, vis
cogitativa; quae dicitur a quibusdam ratio particularis, eo quod est collativa intentionum individualium.
Unde ab ea natus est moveri in homine appetitus sensitivus. Ipsa autem ratio particularis nata est moveri et
dirigi secundum rationem universalem, unde in syllogisticis ex universalibus propositionibus concluduntur
conclusiones singulares. Et ideo patet quod ratio universalis imperat appetitui sensitivo, qui distinguitur per
concupiscibilem et irascibilem, et hic appetitus ei obedit. Et quia deducere universalia principia in
conclusiones singulares, non est opus simplicis intellectus, sed rationis; ideo irascibilis et concupiscibilis
magis dicuntur obedire rationi, quam intellectui. Hoc etiam quilibet experiri potest in seipso, applicando
enim aliquas universales considerationes, mitigatur ira aut timor aut aliquid huiusmodi, vel etiam
instigatur.” See also ibid., ad. 3: “AD TERTIUM dicendum quod sensus exteriores indigent ad suos actus
exterioribus sensibilibus, quibus immutentur, quorum praesentia non est in potestate rationis. Sed vires
 91

2.2. Natural Temperament, Natural Virtues, and the Influence of the Heavenly Bodies

Since Aquinas’s analysis of how other sources desire affect practical cognition is

closely related to his analysis of how the sensory passions do so, I will now investigate

the influence of three other sources of desire: natural temperament, natural virtue, and

the influence of the heavenly bodies. The former two sources of desire are internal, the

latter external. I will first explain what Aquinas has in mind when he speaks of these

sources of desire, and I will then analyze how they affect practical cognition.

The notion of personality traits and temperament is familiar to us. Human beings

display varying bents and inclinations to things such as sociability, leadership,

melancholy, reflection, and so forth. Aquinas held a common view of temperament

according to which there are four temperaments, which he briefly describes as follows:

“For example, we see that phlegmatic people naturally are lazy, whereas choleric people

are prone to anger, melancholic people sad, and sanguine people joyful.”125 He speaks of

bodily temperament, since the source of the inclinations or temperament is rooted in

one’s biology. In Aquinas’s day, it was believed that a person’s temperament is fixed by

how the humours in the body are distributed: for example, a person with a choleric

temperament would be especially prone to anger due to a dominance of the choleric

humor.126 Although the biology at work in Aquinas’s explanation of temperament is now

outdated, the question of the effect a person’s temperament has on her practical cognition

is not. Similar to the inclinations of one’s temperament are natural virtues; more

interiores, tam appetitivae quam apprehensivae, non indigent exterioribus rebus. Et ideo subduntur imperio
rationis, quae potest non solum instigare vel mitigare affectus appetitivae virtutis, sed etiam formare
imaginativae virtutis phantasmata.”
125
In III Ethic., lect. 12, 1114a3, 16-18: “Sicut videmus fleumaticos naturaliter esse pigros, colericos
autem iracundos, melancolicos tristes et sanguineos iucundos, . . . .”
126
ST I-II, q. 46, art. 5.
 92

precisely, these are natural inclinations that a person can have to certain kinds of virtuous

acts. Following Aristotle, Aquinas holds that some people are born with natural

tendencies to certain virtuous acts; for example, a person could have a natural tendency to

courageous acts or compassionate acts.127 Last, with respect to the influence of the

heavenly bodies, Aquinas is reflecting the view of his day that the heavenly bodies

influenced human behavior. Some philosophers even thought that they determined

human behavior. Although we may not accept Aquinas’s astronomy, we can think of

what he says here as applying to the influence of one’s environment on one’s behavior.

For example, we know that some people are more inclined to be sad during winter

months when the sun is rarely in view. Moreover, what Aquinas says on this matter can

be applied to what empirical philosophers have brought to our attention concerning how

situations (such as an event that triggers a bad mood, as when there is a disturbing noise

in one’s immediate environment) can affect our behavior.

Since Aquinas gives the three kinds of inclination mentioned above the same

treatment with respect to how they can influence the movements of the will, I will focus

only on what he says about the inclinations of natural temperament, and point out that the

same analysis applies mutatis mutandis to natural inclinations to virtuous acts and to the

inclinations brought on by the influence of the heavenly bodies.

127
To my knowledge, Aquinas does not speak explicitly of natural vices, though he does say that an
individual can be disposed better or worse to certain virtues by virtue of some disposition of that
individual’s body. So Aquinas could certainly say that some agents with respect to their individual nature
are disposed poorly to acts of temperance or courage. See ST I-II, q. 63, art. 1: “Secundum vero naturam
individui, inquantum ex corporis dispositione aliqui sunt dispositi vel melius vel peius ad quasdam virtutes:
prout scilicet vires quaedam sensitivae actus sunt quarundam partium corporis, ex quarum dispositione
adiuvantur vel impediuntur huiusmodi vires in suis actibus, et per consequens vires rationales, quibus
huiusmodi sensitivae vires deserviunt.”
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In the Disputed Questions on Virtue in General, Aquinas considers an objection

that involves applying Aristotle’s Principle to an individual’s bodily temperament. The

idea in this case is that how things seem to a person is determinately fixed by his

individual temperament. Aquinas’s response provides important clarifications.

It must be said that a human being can be said to be as or according to a quality

which is in (1) the intellective part: and in such a way he is not said to be as on
account of the body’s natural composition, nor from an impression of a celesital
body, since the intellective part is free from all body. Or a human can be called
as according to a tendency that is in (2) the sensitive part, which indeed can be the
result of the body’s natural composition or an impression of a celestial body. Yet
because this part naturally is obedient to reason, it for that reason can be
diminished through habit or removed altogether.128

By ‘intellective part’, Aquinas is referring to the intellect and the will. As we have seen,

Aquinas holds that the intellect and will are immaterial powers and that no material,

bodily thing can exercise efficient causality on immaterial powers. But both bodily

temperament and natural virtues are rooted in bodily organs and conditions, and the

heavenly bodies influence bodily organs. So Aquinas claims that what these three

principles do is influence the sensory appetite and its passions, which are grounded in

bodily organs. He then claims that the way in which these principles can influence the

movements of the will is no different than the influence of the sensory passions:

But through a condition of this kind, some alteration can follow from the sensory
appetitive part which utilizes a bodily organ, whose movements are the passions
of the soul. Accordingly, reason and will, which are the principles of human acts,
are no more moved by reason of this kind of disposition than by reason of the

128
De Virt, q. 1, art. 9, ad. 21: “Ad vicesimumprimum dicendum, quod homo potest dici qualis vel
secundum qualitatem quae est in parte intellectiva: et sic non dicitur qualis ex naturali complexione
corporis, neque ex impressione corporis caelestis, cum pars intellectiva sit absoluta ab omni corpore; vel
potest dici homo qualis secundum dispositionem quae est in parte sensitiva: quae quidem potest esse ex
naturali complexione corporis, vel ex impressione corporis caelestis. Tamen quia haec pars naturaliter
obedit rationi, ideo potest per assuetudinem diminui, vel totaliter tolli.”
 94

passions of the soul, concerning which it was said in Book I that they may be
persuaded by reason.129

We saw in the case of the sensory passions that they are an occasion and not a sufficient

cause of the will’s movements, e.g., intentions or choices. Aquinas says the same about

bodily temperament, natural virtues, and the influence of the heavenly bodies.130 These

principles modify the bodily organs in which the sensory passions occur, which then

brings on sensory passions; these sensory passions, as we have seen, cause sensory

cognitions, which can then be sufficient for the intellect to form a practical cognition.

Because the human being can resist, regulate, and train the sensory passions, and these

three principles can only affect the sensory passions, the human being can also regulate

the influence of natural temperament, virtues, and the heavenly bodies.

It is important to note that Aquinas is approaching these issues from a moral point

of view, so leaves out much about how temperament, natural virtue, and the heavenly

bodies influence behavior in innocuous ways. He willingly admits that these principles

can influence human behavior, but seeks to show both that and why they don’t determine

it, since such determination would undermine moral responsibility. From the perspective

of morality and freedom, these principles can be treated in the same way as the sensory

passions. But in those cases where one’s temperament, natural inclinations to virtue, or

the influence of the heavenly bodies inclines one to good acts, the person can endorse,

129
In III Ethic, lect. XII, 1114a4, 31-38: “Potest autem per huiusmodi dispositionem sequi aliqua
immutatio ex parte appetitus sensitivi qui utitur corporeo organo, cuius motus sunt animae passiones, et
secundum hoc ex huiusmodi dispositione nihil amplius movetur ratio et voluntas, quae sunt principia
humanorum actuum, quam ex passionibus animae, de quibus supra in I dictum est quod sint suasibiles
ratione.”
130
For temperament as an occasional cause, see ST II-II, q. 156, art. 1; for the heavenly bodies, see ibid ad.
2 and De Malo, q. 6, ad. 21.
 95

actively or tacitly, the practical considerations furnished by the desires brought about by

these sources.

3. Appetitive Habits and Practical Cognition

So far we have considered how occurrent sensory passions and sources of desire

that bring about occurrent sensory passions influence practical cognition. Now Aquinas

holds that habits influence practical cognition in a more profound way than sensory

passions, and so I will now investigate how habits, in Aquinas's sense, influence practical

cognition.

We first need to understand Aquinas's terminology, since the terms ‘habit’ and

‘disposition’, often used to translate Aquinas’s Latin terms, have taken on different

connotations both in ordinary speech and philosophy. The Latin term I translate as

‘habit’ is habitus. We should note that in Aquinas’s time, habitus was the translation into

Latin of Aristotle’s Greek term hexis. Aristotle holds that a hexis (often translated as

‘state’ or ‘disposition’) is a type of quality characterized by its permanence and stability.

Both mastery of a branch of knowledge and a moral virtue are types of hexis. A hexis is

contrasted with a diathesis, often translated as ‘condition’, which differs from a hexis in

that it is less stable and hence more easily lost.131 Now when Aquinas speaks of a habit

(habitus) and contrasts this with a disposition (dispositio) he is adopting Aristotle’s

distinction. So Aquinas holds that a habit (habitus) is a quality of the soul marked by the

131
Aristotle writes, “One kind of quality let us call states and conditions. A state differs from a condition in
being more stable and lasting longer. Such are the branches of knowledge and the virtues. . . . For those
who lack full mastery of a branch of knowledge and are easily changed are not said to be in a state of
knowledge, though they are of course in some condition, a better or worse, in regard to that knowledge.”
From Categories, translated with notes and glossary by J. L. Ackrill in Aristotle’s Categories and De
Interpretatione (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 8b27-9a8.
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fact that it isn’t easily lost, which contrasts with a disposition (dispositio) which can be

more easily lost.132 A disposition is akin to how we sometimes use the word tendency

today, when we speak, e.g., of a person’s tendency to lie, which could be a feature of

their character not yet strong enough as to be a full-blown bad habit. Accordingly, in this

chapter I will use ‘habit’ to translate habitus and ‘tendency’ to translate dispositio.

We can now go into more detail about the nature of a habit. Aquinas holds that a

habit develops or actualizes a power of the soul. More specifically, a habit develops a

power with respect to one of its specifically different ways of acting, which I have called

the power’s abilities. So just as one power can be the ground for multiple abilities, so too

one power can be the subject for multiple habits which are developments of those

abilities. Now both the cognitive and the appetitive powers can be the subjects or

possessors of habits and tendencies. Now while habits are said to actualize powers of the

soul, they stand in potentiality to acts: a habit enables its possessor to perform certain

types of acts in certain characteristic ways.133 Take for example courage. Courage is a

habit that develops or actualizes the irascible appetite with respect to the passions of

confidence and fear. The habit of courage perfects this power such that the courageous

person is enabled to perform courageous deeds consistently, readily, and with pleasure.134

And because habits actualize powers of the soul in certain ways and thereby enable and

direct certain characteristic acts, habits are said to give us a sort of second nature. By our

first nature we are given those powers and abilities which make us human beings; by our

132
ST II-II, q. 49, art. 2, ad. 3.
133
ST I-II, q. 49, art. 3, ad. 1.
134
See De Virt., q. 1, art. 1.
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second nature we actualize those powers and abilities in certain ways such that we can

reliably perform certain characteristic types of activity.

Now habits can be both good and bad. Aquinas writes, “For a good habit is said

to be that which disposes to an act suitable to an agent’s nature; while an evil habit is said

to be that which disposes to an act not suitable to its nature.”135 In general, a good habit

is a virtue, while a bad habit is a vice. For my purposes, I will be focusing on those

virtues and vices which I will call the appetitive virtues and vices. The appetitive virtues

and vices are all and only those virtues and vices which have some appetitive power as

their subject. These virtues and vices perfect and direct the desires and passions of the

appetitive powers. To give some examples, Aquinas holds that the virtue of temperance

perfects the concupiscible appetite with respect to the desires and pleasures of touch,

while the virtue of courage perfects the irascible appetite with respect to the passions of

confidence and fear. The virtue of justice perfects the will with respect to what is owed

to other persons. The concupiscible appetite can be subject to vices such as gluttony and

lust, while the irascible appetite can be subject to vices such as wrath and cowardice.

Now that we understand the nature of appetitive habits, we can investigate how

they influence practical cognition.

Aquinas thinks that good habits or virtues mold what a person cognizes as good,

i.e., his practical cognitions. In the following two passages Aquinas lays out two ways in

which an agent could come to a right judgment about matters of virtue:

135
ST I-II, q. 54, art. 3: “Et hoc modo distinguuntur specie habitus bonus et malus: nam habitus bonus
dicitur qui disponit ad actum convenientem naturae agentis; habitus autem malus dicitur qui disponit ad
actum non convenientem naturae.”
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Since judgment pertains to wisdom, according to a twofold mode of judging,

wisdom is received in two ways. For someone judges in one way through the
mode of inclination: as someone who has a virtuous habit, rightly judges about
those things to be done in accordance with that virtue, insofar as he is inclined to
them. Hence, it is said in Book X of the Ethics that the virtuous person is the
measure and rule of human acts. In another way, someone judges through the
mode of cognition: as someone instructed in moral science could judge about acts
of a virtue even were he not to have that virtue.136

But rectitude of judgment can happen in two ways: in one way, according to the
perfect use of reason; in another way, through a certain connaturality with regard
to those things about which one is to judge. Just as he who acquires knowledge of
moral science rightly judges about those things which pertain to chastity by means
of the inquiry of reason, but he who has the habit of chastity rightly judges of
those things by a certain connaturality with regard to them.137

With respect to judgments made about virtuous acts, one could ground one’s judgments

in the moral knowledge one has gained through study and philosophical reflection, or if

one is virtuous, those judgments could be grounded in the inclination that flows from

one’s good habit. He also calls this judgment through inclination a judgment through

connaturality. I will explain this latter term below. But the phenomenon Aquinas is

pointing to is familiar. Many are wont to think that a person who has a good character,

yet lacks any systematic study of moral matters, tends to have an intuitive yet reliable

knowledge about matters of good and bad. Evidence for this is that we often seek

counsel from a person of good character even if she lacks such systematic study.

136
ST I, q. 1, art. 6, ad. 3: “AD TERTIUM dicendum quod, cum iudicium ad sapientem pertineat, secundum
duplicem modum iudicandi, dupliciter sapientia accipitur. Contingit enim aliquem iudicare, uno modo per
modum inclinationis: sicut qui habet habitum virtutis, recte iudicat de his quae sunt secundum virtutem
agenda, inquantum ad illa inclinatur: unde et in X Ethic. dicitur quod virtuosus est mensura et regula
actuum humanorum. Alio modo, per modum cognitionis: sicut aliquis instructus in scientia morali, posset
iudicare de actibus virtutis, etiam si virtutem non haberet.”
137
ST II-II, q. 45, art. 2: “Rectitudo autem iudicii potest contingere dupliciter: uno modo, secundum
perfectum usum rationis; alio modo, propter connaturalitatem quandam ad ea de quibus iam est
iudicandum. Sicut de his quae ad castitatem pertinent per rationis inquisitionem recte iudicat ille qui didicit
scientiam moralem: sed per quandam connaturalitatem ad ipsa recte iudicat de eis ille qui habet habitum
castitatis.”
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Aquinas’s notion of judgment through inclination or connaturality is meant to explain this

phenomenon.

Aquinas also connects this judgment by inclination or connaturality with

Aristotle’s Principle:

And he [Aristotle] says that the virtuous person rightly judges about individual
things which pertain to human actions, and in particular cases what seems to be
good to him is that which is truly good. And this is because what seems good and
pleasing to each habit are those things which are proper to it, that is, which are
fitting to it; but those things are fitting to the habit of virtue which are in
accordance with the true good.138

So a habit has great influence on what seems good to an agent. An occurrent passion

merely makes something seem good only for a time, but an appetitive habit, either of the

passions or of the will, makes something seem good abidingly. It does this, we might

say, by molding the framework of the person’s evaluative perception.

Aquinas gives us some more detail when discussing the effect of bad habits.

Aquinas says the following about how a bad habit affects the agent:

But whenever someone uses a vicious habit, it is necessary that he sin from fixed
malice. Because to one who has a habit, what is in itself loveable is that which is
fitting to him in accordance with that particular habit, because it becomes in a
certain measure connatural to him, insofar as custom and habit are altered into
nature.139

Aquinas here states a general principle about how a habit affects an agent. He says that a

habit gives an agent a sort of connaturality with the objects that the habit inclines the

agent towards. What does Aquinas mean here? When a person has developed a habitual

138
In III Ethic., lect. 10, 1113a29, 76-83: “Et dicit quod virtuosus singula quae pertinent ad operationes
humanas recte diiudicat et in singulis videtur ei esse bonum id quod vere est bonum. Et hoc ideo quia
unicuique habitui videntur bona et delectabilia ea quae sunt ei propria, id est ea quae ei conveniunt; habitui
autem virtutis conveniunt ea quae sunt secundum veritatem bona, . . . .”
139
ST I-II, q. 78, art. 2: “Sed quandocumque utitur habitu vitioso, necesse est quod ex certa malitia peccet.
Quia unicuique habenti habitum, est per se diligibile id quod est ei conveniens secundum proprium
habitum: quia fit ei quodammodo connaturale, secundum quod consuetudo et habitus vertitur in naturam.”
 100

appetite, they come to love the object of that appetite. Enjoying the object of their habit

has become second nature to them. They have a certain affinity with that object, a sort of

acquaintance and attunement with it that is the result of their repeated experience with it.

An illustrative example from literature is the character of Gollum in J.R.R. Tolkein’s

stories, who on account of his disordered love for a powerful ring, repeatedly refers to

this ring as his precious. Something similar could be said about the miser’s relationship

with money and the gluttonous person’s relationship with food. Moreover, an incontinent

agent who merely sins from passion still aims most of the time at a good end, while an

agent who sins on account of a vicious habit “has a will ordered to an evil end, for he has

a fixed intention of sinning.”140 In other words, whereas an occurrent disordered passion

merely alters one’s practical cognition in a particular case, which can occasion a moral

lapse, a bad habit alters one’s practical cognition of the more general ends of human life.

And alternatively, a good habit or virtue gives one a connatural affinity with real goods,

objects worthy of being loved, and assures that the agent has right practical cognition of

the more general ends of human life.

Aquinas illustrates these points with respect to the practical syllogisms of agents

who act from appetitive habits. While the continent and incontinent go back and forth

between two incomplete syllogisms, both the person with a virtuous habit and the person

with a vicious habit do not. The virtuous person simply reasons as follows:

No adultery is to be committed.
This act is adultery.
Therefore, this act is not to be done.
140
De Malo, q. 3, art. 13. To be sure, Aquinas does think that on rare occasions it is possible to sin from
wickedness even though a person does not have a vicious habit (See ST I-II, q. 78, art. 3); nevertheless, any
sin that proceeds from a vicious habit is thereby sent from wickedness, and hence involves the will being
set on a bad end.
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By contrast, the vicious person simply reasons as follows:

Pleasure is to be pursued.
This act is pleasurable.
Therefore, this act is to be pursued.

So whereas the practical cognition of the person who sins from passion vacillates

between different practical considerations, the practical consideration of the virtuous or

vicious is fixed on one evaluative aspect, represented by the middle term of these two

syllogisms, viz., ‘adultery’ for the virtuous and ‘pleasure’ for the vicious.

4. The Natural Desires of Human Nature

I now will consider Aquinas’s account of the natural desires/inclinations that are

proper to human nature as they also play a fundamental role in directing practical

cognition.

We saw in the previous chapter that every creature has a set of natural inclinations

to pursue the goods proper to that nature. I used the example of a dog who has a set of

natural inclinations to live a specifically canine way of life. Human beings are no

different. They are endowed by nature with a set of natural inclinations that direct them

towards flourishing as a human being.

The fundamental natural inclination of the human being is the natural inclination

of the will, the rational appetite. And Aquinas holds that this inclination is the ground of

all its other more specific rational desires. He describes the object of this inclination as

follows:

Now this [naturally willed principle of voluntary movements] is the good

in general, towards which the will naturally tends, as even any power does for its
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own object; and also it is the ultimate end itself, which in this way relates to
desirable things as the first principles of demonstration relate to intelligible
things; and generally it is all those things which are appropriate to the one willing
according to his own nature.141

I will first analyze Aquinas’s claim that the will naturally tends to the good in general,

and then his claim that it tends naturally to the ultimate end and the things that accord

with a human being’s nature.

By saying that the will’s natural object is the good in general, Aquinas rules out 1)

that its natural object is some particular good, such as this piece of food here and now,

and 2) that its natural object is some specific good such as virtue or pleasure or honor. So

the natural inclination of the will isn’t towards a particular good, or towards a specific

conception of good, but towards good generally speaking. We can attain further clarity

by considering another way that he describes the will’s natural object: he sometimes says

that the object of the will is the ratio boni, the aspect or nature of good.142 In the last

chapter, we saw that the intellect is naturally oriented towards objects under the aspect of

truth. The will, on the other hand, is naturally oriented towards objects under the aspect

of good. To understand more clearly what he means by ‘aspect of good’, we need to

consider his view on the nature of goodness. Aquinas holds that goodness and being are

really the same, but differ only in aspect. What goodness adds to being is the aspect of

desirability.143 So we could say that the will’s fundamental inclination to the good in

141
ST I-II, q. 10, art. 1: “Hoc autem est bonum in communi, in quod voluntas naturaliter tendit, sicut etiam
quaelibet potentia in suum obiectum: et etiam ipse finis ultimus, qui hoc modo se habet in appetibilibus,
sicut prima principia demonstrationum in intelligibilibus: et universaliter omnia illa quae conveniunt
volenti secundum suam naturam.”
142
ST I-II, q. 8, art. 2: “Ratio autem boni, quod est obiectum potentiae voluntatis, invenitur non solum in
fine, sed etiam in his quae sunt ad finem.”
143
ST I, q. 5, art. 1: “Unde manifestum est quod bonum et ens sunt idem secundum rem: sed bonum dicit
rationem appetibilis, quam non dicit ens.” Aquinas argues that what links being and goodness is the notion
 103

general, or the aspect of good, is an orientation towards being or reality insofar as it’s

desirable. The will is hard-wired, as it were, to seek out and attune itself to the

desirability dimension of reality. The will, being an appetitive power, tends towards or

engages with reality, but it is also a responsive power in relation to the intellect; and

because the will is ordered to good in general, it is fit to respond to any desirable feature

discerned in reality by the practical intellect.

Now in the quotation we have been considering, Aquinas not only says that the

will is naturally oriented to the good in general, but also that it is oriented towards the

ultimate end. In understanding this, we should first note that Aquinas holds that the

notion of good goes hand in hand with that of an end: the notion of good is a teleological

concept.144 So to be oriented towards some good is ipso facto to be oriented towards

some end. Aquinas’s way of saying this is that goodness carries with it (importat) the

aspect of a final cause or end.145 Given these views, it is not surprising that Aquinas says

that the will’s inclination to good in general is also an inclination to an end. What is

unique is that the will’s inclination to good is also an inclination to the ultimate end.

Aquinas in a parallel passage clarifies that by ‘ultimate end’ he means happiness: “Just

as the intellect by necessity adheres to the first principles, so the will by necessity adheres

to the ultimate end which is happiness.”146 So the will’s inclination to the good in

general is also an inclination to happiness. Aquinas here does not mean that the will

of perfection. To say that something is good is to say that it’s desirable. But desirability follows upon a
thing’s perfection, is perfection is explained in terms of actuality, i.e., being.
144
ST I-II, q. 1-3, Aquinas repeatedly states that the object of the will is the good and the end.
145
See ST I, q. 5, art. 4: “Cum bonum sit quod omnia appetunt, hoc autem habet rationem finis;
manifestum est quod bonum rationem finis importat.” [Since good is that which all desire, but this has the
nature of an end, it is manifest that good carries with it the nature of an end.]
146
ST I, q. 82, art. 1: “Quinimmo necesse est quod, sicut intellectus ex necessitate inhaeret primis
principiis, ita voluntas ex necessitate inhaereat ultimo fini, qui est beatitudo: finis enim se habet in
operativis sicut principium in speculativis, ut dicitur in II Physic.”
 104

inclines to any particular object or any specific conception of happiness, but that it

inclines to happiness formally speaking. Aquinas follows Aristotle in holding that all are

alike in desiring happiness, though they differ over what constitutes happiness.

Aquinas gives an analogy that helps clarify the nature of the will’s natural

orientation to the good and happiness: just as the object of sight is color, so the object of

the will is the good/happiness. Let us look more closely at this analogy. Aquinas writes,

For what is visible moves the power of sight under the aspect of color actually
visible. Hence if a color is proposed to sight, by necessity it moves sight, unless
one turns vision away, which pertains to the exercise of the act. . . . Now just as
the actually colored is the object of the power of sight, so the good is the object of
the will. Hence if some object is proposed to the will which is good universally
and according to every consideration, then of necessity the will will tend towards
that thing, if it wills anything: for it will not be able to will the opposite. But if
some object is proposed to it [the will] which is not good according to every
consideration, then the will will not of necessity tend towards that thing. And
because a lack of any good whatever has the nature of a non-good, it follows that
that good alone which is perfect and to which nothing is lacking, is such a good
that the will is not able not to will it: which is happiness. But whatever other
particular goods, insofar as they are lacking by some good, are able to be grasped
as not good: and according to this consideration, they are able to be rejected or
endorsed by the will, which is able to tend towards the same thing according to
diverse considerations.147

The power of sight is by nature oriented towards things under the aspect of color. This

does not mean that the power of sight is always manifesting some particular act of seeing

some determinate color. Rather it means that the power of sight is such that, if something

147
ST I-II, q. 10, art. 2: “Visibile enim movet visum sub ratione coloris actu visibilis. Unde si color
proponatur visui, ex necessitate movet visum, nisi aliquis visum avertat: quod pertinet ad exercitium actus.
. . . Sicut autem coloratum in actu est obiectum visus, ita bonum est obiectum voluntatis. Unde si
proponatur aliquod obiectum voluntati quod sit universaliter bonum et secundum omnem considerationem,
ex necessitate voluntas in illud tendet, si aliquid velit: non enim poterit velle oppositum. Si autem
proponatur sibi aliquod obiectum quod non secundum quamlibet considerationem sit bonum, non ex
necessitate voluntas feretur in illud. – Et quia defectus cuiuscumque boni habet rationem non boni, ideo
illud solum bonum quod est perfectum et cui nihil deficit, est tale bonum quod voluntas non potest non
velle: quod est beatitudo. Alia autem quaelibet particularia bona, inquantum deficiunt ab aliquo bono,
possunt accipi ut non bona: et secundum hanc considerationem, possunt repudiari vel approbari a voluntate,
quae potest in idem ferri secundum diversas considerationes.
 105

colored presents itself to it, the power of sight will sense it as colored. Likewise, the will

is by nature oriented towards the good and happiness. Following the analogy, this means

that the will is such that if some object is presented to the will as good, the will

accordingly will desire it. Again, it would be misleading to think of the will’s natural

orientation towards the good and happiness as some particular volition that is always

active. Rather, the will’s natural orientation is the condition for the possibility for willing

anything, just as the power of sight’s natural inclination towards color is the condition for

the possibility of seeing anything.

To help clarify the uniqueness of the will’s inclination towards the

good/happiness, we should note that for Aquinas, the thought of happiness need not be a

constituent of one’s practical reasoning, and one might even deliberately set the thought

of happiness aside. Aquinas explains,

What is active does not move from necessity except when it overcomes the power
of the what is passive. But since the will is related in potency with regard to the
universal good, no good overcomes the power of the will as though moving it by
necessity, except that which is good according to every consideration. And this
alone is the perfect good, i.e., happiness, which the will is not able not to will,
namely in such a way that it wills the opposite. However, the will is able to not
actually will happiness, because it is able to turn away the thought of happiness,
insofar as it moves the intellect to its own act; and to that extent the will does not
even will happiness itself from necessity. Just as someone would not from
necessity be heated, if he were able with his will to repel heat from himself.148

Here Aquinas clarifies that there is a respect in which the will necessarily desires

happiness, and a respect in which it does not. That the will necessarily desires happiness

148
De Malo, q. 6, ad. 7: “Actiuum non ex necessitate mouet nisi quando superat uirtutem passiui. Cum
autem uoluntas se habeat in potentia respectu boni uniuersalis, nullum bonum superat uirtutem uoluntatis
quasi ex necessitate ipsam mouens, nisi id quod est secundum omnem considerationem bonum, et hoc
solum est bonum perfectum quod est beatitudo. Quod uoluntas non potest non uelle, ita scilicet quod uelit
oppositum ; potest tamen non uelle actu, quia potest auertere cogitationem beatitudinis in quantum mouet
intellectum ad suum actum, et quantum ad hoc nec ipsam beatitudinem ex necessitate uult. Sicut etiam
aliquis non ex necessitate calefieret, si posset calidum a se repellere cum uellet.”
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means that the will is unable to will the opposite of happiness; to will the opposite of

happiness would be presumably to will misery or evil simply for its own sake. In this

sense, the inclination to happiness places a constraint on the will by ruling out certain

objects of willing; in other words, by virtue of the inclination towards the good and

happiness, one cannot have a rational desire for evil for its own sake. And because one’s

rational desires are activated by practical cognition, it follows that an agent is unable to

have a practical cognition of evil for its own sake. Even if an agent believes his practical

object of thought to be some evil for its own sake, in reality he at some level conceives of

the object as good. Aquinas says that a person can make evil an object of the will, but

only if that evil is willed for the sake of some further good. Aquinas illustrates this

claim when considering a famous passage from Augustine’s Confessions where

Augustine recounts of how he once stole some pears seemingly for the sake of iniquity

itself. The way Aquinas interprets this event, Augustine did not will primarily iniquity

itself (he did not will iniquity for its own sake) but rather “either to conduct his behavior

with others, or to have an experience of something, or to do something in an uninhibited

way, or something of this kind.” 149 Aquinas here illustrates the breadth of what can be

willed under the aspect of good: to rationally desire an act under the consideration of

having an exotic experience or acting in an uninhibited way is enough to desire the act

under some aspect of good, an aspect under which the act is desirable.

149
De Malo, q. 3, art. 12, sed contra ad. 1 and 2: “Cum Augustinus dicit quod ipsum defectum amauit, non
poma que furabatur, non est hoc sic intelligendum quasi defectus ipse uel deformitas culpe possint esse
primo et per se uolita ; set primo et per se uolitum erat, uel gerere morem aliis, uel experientiam habere
alicuius, uel facere aliquid improhibite, aut aliquid huiusmodi.”
 107

Returning to the passage where Aquinas explains the will’s inclination to

happiness, Aquinas also says that an agent can set aside the thought of happiness, i.e., the

practical consideration of happiness. To put it another way, happiness need not be a

middle term in one’s practical reasoning. But even though the thought of happiness can

be set aside, the inclination to happiness, which as we have seen serves as a formal

constraint, is still operative in the background.

I have dwelt at length on the will’s natural inclination to the good in general and

happiness because it is intimately related to practical cognition. We defined practical

cognition in the previous chapter as cognition of achievable objects in so far as they are

good. Such cognition is practical because it is fit to elicit cognitive desires, which are

responses to cognized goods. Hence, practical cognition was defined in terms of its

relation to a type of desire. But the fundamental desire of a human being is the

inclination to the good and happiness. Because human beings are the sort of creatures

that by virtue of their will are naturally oriented towards goodness and happiness, they

are capable of practical cognition. That the human being has a will fundamentally

oriented towards goodness and happiness is the condition for the possibility, not only for

more specific rational desires, but also for practical cognition. Thus, the will’s natural

inclination isn’t a mere occasional cause with respect to practical cognition and rational

desire, but is constitutive of the form that practical cognition and rational desire take.

Because the will is hard-wired to seek the good and happiness, the intellect, in cognizing

things as good can be practical, i.e., can be towards action.

To illustrate, Aquinas says that “just as being is the first thing that falls under

apprehension simply, so good is the first thing which falls under the apprehension of
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practical reason.”150 Given what has been said, I analyze this as follows: Because the

will is naturally oriented towards good in general, the intellect is enabled to take on a

practical function and grasp objects under its fundamental concept of good. The intellect

as practical can then form more determinate judgments about whether certain generic

ends are to be pursued or avoided, and finally can form practical judgments about what is

to be done in the here and now.

4.1 More Specific Human Natural Inclinations

In the last section, we examined a passage where Aquinas claims that the will is

naturally inclined to the good in general and the ultimate end. At the end of that passage,

he also states that will is inclined to all those goods that fit with the human being’s

nature.151 In order to complete the picture of how the will’s inclinations influence

practical cognition, I will now investigate Aquinas’s view that somehow included in the

will’s inclination to the good are natural inclinations to more determinate goods.

Aquinas holds that human beings by nature have a set of natural inclinations to

certain goods. Aquinas simply means that human beings, by virtue of the sort of

creatures they are, naturally tend to seek out certain things. It seems undeniable, for

example, that human beings have a natural tendency towards forming friendships. To say

that a human beings have a set of natural inclinations to specific goods is to say that

150
ST I-II, q. 94, art. 2: “Sicut autem ens est primum quod cadit in apprehensione simpliciter, ita bonum est
primum quod cadit in apprehensione practicae rationis, quae ordinatur ad opus: omne enim agens agit
propter finem, qui habet rationem boni.”
151
ST I-II, q. 10, art. 1: “Hoc autem est bonum in communi, in quod voluntas naturaliter tendit, sicut etiam
quaelibet potentia in suum obiectum: et etiam ipse finis ultimus, qui hoc modo se habet in appetibilibus,
sicut prima principia demonstrationum in intelligibilibus: et universaliter omnia illa quae conveniunt
volenti secundum suam naturam.”
 109

human beings are intrinsically for certain goods; they have an intrinsic directedness or

orientation to these goods. We will first consider some of the natural inclinations that

Aquinas lists, and then specify how these are related to the will’s inclination to the good

and happiness.

Aquinas at times gives a relatively short list of the human being’s natural

inclinations, saying that they have inclinations to exist, to live, and to know.152 In his

section on natural law in the Summa Theologiae, he gives a more extensive list.153

Aquinas there says that human beings have an inclination to preserve their own existence,

an inclination that they share with all living things. Human beings also have an

inclination to mate and raise offspring, an inclination that they share with a large class of

other animals. Moreover, human beings have inclinations that flow from their rational

nature: he mentions the inclination to act according to reason, to live in society, and to

know the truth about God. Departing slightly from Aquinas’s idiom, we can think of the

human being’s natural inclinations as needs, not in the sense of instincts for mere

biological survival, but needs for the goods that constitute the basic aspects of a

flourishing human life. Henceforth I will refer to these basic aspects of flourishing that

Aquinas mentions as the basic goods.154

Now we may wonder how the natural inclinations to these basic goods are related

to the fundamental inclination of the will to the good and happiness. Aquinas explains,

152
De Malo, q. 6: “Si igitur dispositio per quam alicui uidetur aliquid bonum et conueniens fuerit naturalis
et non subiacens uoluntati, ex necessitate naturali uoluntas praeeligit illud, sicut omnes homines naturaliter
desiderant esse, uiuvere et intelligere.”
153
ST I-II, 94, art. 2 and art. 3
154
I find no reason to think that Aquinas’s list of the basic goods in either of the two texts mentioned is
intended to be exhaustive. When I speak of the basic goods, I mean at least those goods we are naturally
inclined to that Aquinas explicitly mentions: the goods of self-preservation, mating and rearing offspring,
acting in accord with reason, living in society, knowledge, and knowing the truth about God.
 110

For we not only desire by means of the will those things which pertain to the
power of the will, but also those things which pertain to the individual powers and
to the whole human being. This being the case, a human being naturally wills not
only the object of the will, but also other objects which are appropriate to the
other powers: as cognition of truth, which is appropriate to the intellect; and to be
and to live and other things of this kind, which provide for natural preservation.
These things are all included under the will’s object, as certain particular goods.155

Aquinas says that the specific goods mentioned are included in the object of the will,

which is the good in general. What does Aquinas mean by ‘included’ here? To begin,

Aquinas holds that the will moves all the other powers of the soul, and those powers

themselves are good or end directed. For example, the intellect is naturally inclined to

know the truth; the power of intellect is for truth. So because the will has an inclination

to the good in general, and because the good toward which the intellect is inclined is

truth, that particular good falls under the range of the will’s inclination to good in

general. The same holds for the good of living; this is a good that pertains to the welfare

of the whole human being, and hence it falls under the scope of the will’s inclination to

good and is included in it.

We could say that for Aquinas, human beings have an objective, natural

motivational set; this motivational set is not populated by pro-attitudes that human beings

simply happen to have, but by orientations which the human being has by virtue of its

nature.156 And this natural motivational set fixes what we could call the natural ends of

155
ST I-II, q. 10, art. 1: “Non enim per voluntatem appetimus solum ea quae pertinent ad potentiam
voluntatis; sed etiam ea quae pertinent ad singulas potentias, et ad totum hominem. Unde naturaliter homo
vult non solum obiectum voluntatis, sed etiam alia quae conveniunt aliis potentiis: ut cognitionem veri,
quae convenit intellectui; et esse et vivere et alia huiusmodi, quae respiciunt consistentiam naturalem; quae
omnia comprehenduntur sub obiecto voluntatis, sicut quadam particularia bona.”
156
This idea of an objective, natural motivational set is meant to contrast with Bernard Williams’ now
common concept of a subjective motivational set. See Bernard Williams, "Internal and External Reasons"
in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau and Terence Cuneo (Malden: Blackwell
Publishing, 2007), 292–98.
 111

the human being, i.e., the basic goods. Moreover, the goods this motivational set orient

us towards are not wholly distinct or separate from the primary object of the will, which

is good/happiness; rather, these goods should be seen as aspects or parts of happiness.

Since these natural inclinations are included in the will’s inclination, they are in

an important respect unlike the desires of the sensory appetite and sources of desire that

only affect the sensory appetite, such as bodily temperament. Aquinas says that all of

these principles are in a sense exterior to the will; while they can indirectly move the will,

they are not a property of the will. The natural inclinations, however, do proceed from

the will. Accordingly, these inclinations are highly resistant to being set aside. Though

as we have seen, just as the will can direct the intellect to set aside the thought of

happiness in its deliberations, so too can the will direct the intellect to set aside

considerations of the determinate goods that are aspects of happiness.

4.2 Natural Inclinations’ Effect on Practical Cognition

I now want to examine how these natural inclinations influence practical

cognition. When Aquinas gives an extended treatment of these natural inclinations in his

section on natural law, he correlates them with the goods to which they are oriented, and

some respective moral precepts that are based on those goods. For example, a human

being’s natural inclination to the good of living in society is connected to the

apprehension of that good and the precept of the practical intellect that one should avoid

offending those among whom one has to live. But Aquinas does not go into much detail

about how these inclinations relate to the practical cognition of goods. However, he does

offer the following:

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But because good has the aspect of an end, whereas evil has the aspect of a
contrary, for this reason all those things towards which a human being has a
natural inclination, reason naturally apprehends as good, and consequently as
things to be pursued, and the contraries of these as evil and to be avoided.157

Aquinas speaks here of a natural apprehension of the goods towards which we have

natural inclinations, and a concomitant natural apprehension of the evils which are the

contraries of those goods. It seems that these natural inclinations play a crucial role in

the human being’s identifying certain basic goods, that the natural inclinations are a sort

of compass by which we cognize basic goods. To put it another way, the natural

inclinations play an epistemic role, in the sense that they partially explain how human

beings come to recognize certain things as good, both with respect to the origin and

maintenance of such recognition.158 Because our human nature is always and already

inclined to certain goods, our intellect is directed to cognize them as good. To be sure, I

am here only claiming that the natural inclinations play this epistemic role in recognizing

the basic goods. When it comes the metaphysical role of what makes these things the

basic goods, the natural inclinations by themselves are not sufficient to do the

explanatory work.

Although Aquinas does not go into much detail about this psychological process

by which the natural inclinations allow us to grasp basic goods, we can construct a

reasonable account of what Aquinas could say. First, it’s plausible that a primary effect

of a human being’s natural inclinations is to direct his attention to instances of those basic

157
ST I-II, q. 94, art. 2: “Quia vero bonum habet rationem finis, malum autem rationem contrarii, inde est
quod omnia illa ad quae homo habet naturalem inclinationem, ratio naturaliter apprehendit ut bona, et per
consequens ut opere prosequenda, et contraria eorum ut mala et vitanda.”
158
I am not using ‘epistemic’ here in a restricted sense that pertains to the justification of knowledge; I am
not claiming here that the natural inclinations play a role in justifying reason’s cognition of basic goods
(though I am not denying this claim either; I simply do not take it up).
 113

goods, which provides the material for the intellect to form general judgments about the

basic goods (e.g., that preserving one’s life is good). Psychologists today point out that

attention is selective, that human beings in coming into a situation are not, as it were,

barraged with homogenous impressions. A healthy human being naturally and

unconsciously discriminates the salient features and individuals in a given situation from

unimportant details, and this discrimination is in part based on interests that the human

being already has. While Aquinas obviously wasn’t familiar with modern psychological

theory, I believe that the same basic idea is available to philosophical reflection and is at

work in Aquinas’s thought. It is plausible to think that for Aquinas, the natural

inclinations of the will naturally direct the human being’s attention such that he is able to

pick out those basic goods that are aspects of human happiness. The natural inclinations

would in particular give the cogitative power and the imagination a strong aptitude to

attend to instances of the basic goods. The intellect could then use the input of the

sensory cognitive powers to form concepts and judgments about the basic goods. Once

these concepts and judgments are formed, it seems plausible that the natural inclinations

would play two roles: 1) They would continue to direct the agent towards instances of the

basic goods (e.g., that this public lecture is an opportunity to grow in knowledge); and 2)

the natural inclinations would dispose the intellect towards practical consideration of the

basic goods in the agent’s thinking about what to do. (For example, in thinking about

whether to do something dangerous, the good of self-preservation would come to mind.)

While the cognition of the basic goods is achieved by the relevant cognitive powers,

either in general or in particular instances, those cognitive powers are directed in their

exercise by the natural inclinations.

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To support my interpretation, it will be helpful to have in view an alternative

interpretation of Aquinas on how the natural inclinations relate to practical cognition of

basic goods. Some hold that cognition of the natural inclinations of human nature is a

sort of speculative cognition from which the practical cognition of goods is derived.159

On this view, one would first have a sort of theoretical anthropology, by which one

recognizes that constitutive of human nature are certain natural inclinations; and from this

speculative knowledge that human beings have these inclinations, one would derive or

infer that certain things are good for human beings. So for example, one would take the

proposition ‘Human beings have a natural inclination to life in society’ and infer that

‘Life in society is good and to be pursued’. Call the view that basic goods can be derived

from facts about natural inclinations derivationism and call the view that this is the only

way that natural inclinations relate to the basic goods strong derivationism. Notice that

on strong derivationalism, the natural inclinations do not play any epistemic role in

directing an agent to cognize basic goods, but only serve as a datum for the intellect to

derive or infer basic goods.160

I do not wish to dispute the claim that derivationist knowledge is in principle

possible in Aquinas’s thought. But I do wish to dispute strong derivationism as an

interpretation of Aquinas. That is to say, I do not think that the only relation between the

natural inclinations and the basic goods is one of derivation. More importantly, in the

159
My presentation here of derivationism and its rival, inclinationism, is much indebted to Mark Murphy in
Natural Law and Practical Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 6-13; and "The
Natural Law Tradition in Ethics" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/natural-law-ethics/>.
For more on the issues in this debate and the main figures in the secondary literature, a good summary in
found in Robert George, In Defense of Natural Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 83-91.
160
For more on the differences between inclinationism and derivationism, see Mark Murphy, Natural Law
and Practical Rationality, 6-13.
 115

passage considered above, I do not think that Aquinas’s point is that basic goods are

derived from facts about natural inclinations. My interpretation is supported in the

following three ways. First, my interpretation seems a more natural, straightforward way

of reading Aquinas’s text. Recall that Aquinas says that “all those things towards which

human beings have a natural inclination, reason naturally apprehends as good, and

consequently as objects to be pursued, and their contraries as evil and to be avoided.”161

It seems clear that Aquinas is saying that because human beings have natural inclinations

to certain things, those same human beings naturally cognize those things as good and

their contraries as evil. In other words, Aquinas is saying that a human being’s cognizing

these things as good is explained by his being naturally directed towards them. It seems

clear that Aquinas’s point is not that because human beings have natural inclinations to

certain things, the philosopher reading Aquinas’s text and considering these inclinations

can apprehend certain things as good. Again, I take Aquinas to be saying that because

human beings have certain inclinations, any human being from the first person

perspective naturally apprehends certain things as good.

Second, in investigating the inclinations whose sources are sensory passions,

natural temperament, natural virtues, and appetitive habits, we saw that inclinations can

affect practical cognition by directing attention to cognize things as good in particular

cases or even in general. Hence, my interpretation of the natural inclinations and their

effect on cognition fits well with the epistemic role Aquinas explicitly gives to other

inclinations. And third, given how widespread Aquinas holds knowledge of the basic

161
ST I-II, q. 94, art. 2: “Quia vero bonum habet rationem finis, malum autem rationem contrarii, inde est
quod omnia illa ad quae homo habet naturalem inclinationem, ratio naturaliter apprehendit ut bona, et per
consequens ut opere prosequenda, et contraria eorum ut mala et vitanda.”
 116

goods to be, my interpretation is more plausible than a strong derivationist reading. For

Aquinas holds that any functional human being has practical cognition of the basic goods,

including the uneducated peasants of his day.162 But certainly uneducated peasants or

their contemporary analogues cannot be regarded as possessing a theoretical

anthropology which includes a list of natural inclinations, and then forming arguments to

derive the basic goods from these. As contemporary natural law scholar Mark Murphy

writes in this context, “the sort of arguments that would need to be made to produce

derivationist knowledge of the human good are certainly not had (or even have-able) by

all.”163 However, if the natural inclinations serve an epistemic role of the sort I have

described in directing agents to goods or worthwhile pursuits, then it makes sense that

any functional human being would possess cognition of the basic goods.

I now wish to consider something that appears to be in tension with what I have

said above. Aquinas claims that the intellect has a natural habit, called synderesis, which

disposes human beings to grasp certain basic ethical principles, which principles are

called the precepts of the natural law.164 Now by positing in the intellect a natural

disposition to grasp basic ethical precepts, a certain tension arises with the account of

how natural inclinations affect practical cognition I have been advancing. For if the

practical intellect through synderesis is enabled to grasp certain evaluative principles,

then it doesn’t seem that the practical intellect needs the will’s natural inclinations to play

162
Aquinas holds that the natural law is written on the heart of human beings and holds (with certain
qualifications we need not go into), that the natural law is known by all. See ST I-II, q. 94, art. 4 which
addresses whether the natural law is the same for all human beings, and ST I-II, q. 94, art. 6, which
addresses whether the natural law can be abolished from the human heart.
163
Murphy, "The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics."
164
For Aquinas on synderesis, see ST I, q. 79, art. 12 and ST I-II, q. 94, art. 1, ad. 2. A more extensive
treatment of synderesis is found in De Ver. q. 16, an earlier text.
 117

any epistemological role. It would seem that the practical intellect itself could, aided by

synderesis, grasp fundamental goods and form precepts with respect to them. But I don’t

think that this is correct. For one, if the practical intellect can immediately grasp goods

and precepts, Aquinas would seem to be saying that by virtue of synderesis, the human

being possesses a sort of innate knowledge of basic goods and precepts. Admittedly,

Aquinas at times speaks as if there were such innate knowledge, e.g., when he claims that

synderesis is a natural habit that “contains” the precepts of the natural law.165 But I take

this to just be a manner of speaking. For Aquinas in general is opposed to innate

knowledge, claiming that all knowledge originates in sense experience.166 And it would

seem ad hoc if this rejection of innate knowledge applied only to speculative cognition

and not to practical cognition. Of course, one could deny that synderesis involves innate

knowledge, claiming that in order for it to function concrete experience is needed. But if

having synderesis implies that any functional human being of the age of reason has

cognition of the basic precepts of the natural law, then the need for concrete experience is

not enough. There is also a need for the human being to be reliably directed towards the

types of concrete experience from which synderesis can form and retain precepts. I hold

165
ST I-II, q. 94, art. 1, ad. 2: “Ad secundum dicendum quod synderesis dicitur lex intellectus nostri,
inquantum est habitus continens praecepta legis naturalis, quae sunt prima principia operum humanorum.”
Aquinas also speaks of the precepts of the natural law being naturally endowed or implanted (naturaliter
indita); see ST I, q. 79, art. 12: “Unde et principia operabilium nobis naturaliter indita, non pertinent ad
specialem potentiam; sed ad specialem habitum naturalem, quem dicimus synderesim.”
166
Aquinas scholar John Wippel writes, “As is well known, Thomas holds that all of our knowledge begins
with sense experience and must in some way be derived from it.” He then says in a footnote, “On this
point, Thomas is following Aristotle. It is so central to Aquinas’s personal thought that no attempt can be
made here to cite all of the texts in which he explicitly states it.” See John Wippel, The Metaphysical
Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite to Infinite Being (Washington: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2000), 35 and note 43. Wippel does list the following texts as representative: In De
Trinitate, q. 6, art. 2; De Ver., q. 12, art. 3, ad. 2; ST II-II, q. 173, art. 2.
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that it is the natural inclinations that are responsible for this reliable direction or selective

attention.

I propose the following logical order as to how the practical intellect arrives at the

judgments that constitute the precepts of the natural law. The will is inclined to the

good/happiness, included in which are inclinations to the natural ends or basic goods.

These natural inclinations cause a strong aptitude for the sensory powers to selectively

attend to instances of those goods. The intellect, then, possesses a natural disposition

(synderesis) towards forming the concepts which represent these goods and ultimately

forming the judgments that constitute the basic precepts of the natural law. Synderesis is

also responsible for retaining these concepts and judgments once formed. So, when

Aquinas says that synderesis is a natural habit which contains the precepts of the natural

law, we should not interpret him as saying that we have innate knowledge of these

precepts. Rather we have a natural disposition to form (and retain) these precepts, which

disposition is activated when the sensory powers attend to instances of these goods and

the intellect forms the associated concepts and composes or divides them to form

judgments. Moreover, we are not at the mercy of simply happening to attend to instances

of these basic goods; the natural inclinations insure that the cognitive powers will be

directed towards these goods.

As I have said, this interpretation of the function of synderesis fits well with

Aquinas’s rejection of innate knowledge and his claim that all knowledge originates in

sense experience. My interpretation also helps account for Aquinas’s claim that the

precepts of the natural law (grasped by virtue of synderesis) are known by any functional

human being. What is more, we saw when considering knowledge by connaturality that
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inclinations can indeed be the occasion for forming judgments. In a passage we have

already seen, Aquinas writes,

Since judgment appertains to wisdom, the twofold manner of judging produces a

twofold wisdom. A man may judge in one way by inclination, as whoever has the
habit of a virtue judges rightly of what concerns that virtue by his very inclination
towards it. Hence it is the virtuous man, as we read, who is the measure and rule
of human acts. In another way, by way of cognition, just as a man learned in
moral science might be able to judge rightly about virtuous acts, though he had
not the virtue.167

The above shows that Aquinas acknowledges that an inclination can be the occasion for

forming an evaluative judgment. Hence, there is reason to think that this same process of

judgment formation is at work in the function of synderesis. On this interpretation,

synderesis is an inbuilt disposition or tendency to form judgments on the basis of the

human being’s natural inclinations towards the basic goods.

To conclude, we saw in Chapter II how practical cognition is related to desire:

practical cognitions are cognitions of things insofar as they are good, and hence they are

fit to elicit cognitive desires, which are responses to cognized goods. By itself, the

findings of Chapter II could make it appear that Aquinas is a pure intellectualist, in the

sense that cognition has a sort of autonomy and priority, and that the only way desire is

related to practical cognition is by following it (or being elicited by it). But now we see

that a wide variety of desires and appetitive states indeed influence one’s practical

cognition in significant ways. Moreover, we have seen that even when it comes to the

practical intellect’s grasp of basic goods and the formation of basic ethical directives,

167
ST I, q. 1, art. 6, ad. 3 (nt): “Cum iudicium ad sapientem pertineat, secundum duplicem modum
iudicandi, dupliciter sapientia accipitur. Contingit enim aliquem iudicare, uno modo per modum
inclinationis, sicut qui habet habitum virtutis, recte iudicat de his quae sunt secundum virtutem agenda,
inquantum ad illa inclinatur, unde et in X Ethic. dicitur quod virtuosus est mensura et regula actuum
humanorum. Alio modo, per modum cognitionis, sicut aliquis instructus in scientia morali, posset iudicare
de actibus virtutis, etiam si virtutem non haberet.”
 120

desire is directing the intellect’s attention and judgment-formation. Thus, we see that in a

wide variety of ways, reaching right down to the practical intellect’s bedrock cognitions

of goods, the principle holds that as a person is, so does an end seem to him or her.
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CHAPTER IV: AQUINAS AND CONTEMPORARY MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. Introduction

The last two chapters examined details of Aquinas’s views about practical

cognition and moral motivation. In this chapter I want to explore some of their

implications for contemporary debates on related issues. In order to do so, however, it

will be useful to briefly summarize the results arrived at so far.

In Chapter II, I investigated the nature of practical cognition in general and pure

practical cognition in particular. We saw that pure practical cognition grasps an object

able to be done, in a practical way, and as ordered towards action. Such cognition

involves grasping its objects not simply as true but as good and hence is fit to engage the

cognitive desires. I showed how pure practical cognition is represented in a practical

syllogism, the conclusion of which is a practical judgment of the form ‘This act is to be

done’. Finally, I investigated Aquinas’s thought on practical consideration, a crucial

stage of practical reflection that precedes that of practical inference and judgment, and

involves simply considering an action in light of various evaluative aspects or

considerations. I then used Aquinas’s account of incontinence to illuminate how these

evaluative aspects or considerations work when an agent is engaged in practical

consideration. We saw that competing incomplete practical syllogisms represent the

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motivational conflict of the agent, and moreover the evaluative aspects or considerations

are represented by the middle terms of those practical syllogisms.

In Chapter III, we investigated the ways that various types of desire influence

practical cognition, using as our interpretive theme Aquinas’s inherited principle that as a

person is, so does an end seem to him or her. Again, Aquinas’s analysis of incontinence

was used to illuminate the way that the passions of the sensitive appetite affect practical

cognition. We saw that a sensory passion draws an agent’s attention to the object of that

passion, making that object appear in a certain light, which in turn results in a practical

consideration being entertained by the intellect, a consideration at odds with the

consideration whose source is right reason. It is then up to the agent whether any

entertained consideration becomes effective in his practical reasoning and judgment.

This analysis of sensory desire’s effect on practical cognition, seen in light of Aquinas’s

views on incontinence, demanded that we investigate Aquinas’s views on attention, a

notion we saw to be a common thread in how various types of desire influence practical

cognition.

I now wish to connect Aquinas’s views on practical cognition and motivation with

contemporary discussions of these topics. In doing so I will be drawing out implications

of the views of practical cognition, desire, and incontinence elucidated in previous

chapters. I will do this by first comparing Aquinas’s account of incontinent action with

what has become the standard contemporary account, first formulated by Donald

Davidson and developed and discussed by Alfred Mele under the heading of strict akratic

action. I use this comparison as a gateway for how Aquinas’s views of practical

cognition and moral motivation differ in key ways from contemporary views. These
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differences, in turn, bring to light some crucial assumptions about the judgments involved

in practical reasoning that Aquinas does not share with standard contemporary accounts,

and accordingly make perspicuous some unique features of Aquinas’s views on practical

cognition and moral motivation. I will then turn to consider some work done in empirical

psychology and show how it corroborates Aquinas’s views as expressed in his account of

incontinence. Furthermore, I will argue that Aquinas is better able to account for these

results than Alfred Mele, who also uses these empirical findings. Last, given that

Aquinas’s account of practical cognition and moral motivation does not fit well into one

contemporary paradigm, I will consider another contemporary philosopher, whose views

are quite illuminating in understanding the spirit of Aquinas’s thought on practical

cognition and moral motivation, viz., Iris Murdoch.

2. Aquinas and Strict Akratic Action

The phenomenon of incontinent action is illustrated in the paradigm case of Phil

which we considered in the first chapter. Prior to his choice Phil is involved in an

internal struggle, with competing reasons and desires pulling him in different directions.

We have seen that Aquinas represents this struggle in terms of a pair of competing,

incomplete practical syllogisms. Phil acts contrary to his evaluative cognition that no

adultery is to be done. Turning to contemporary accounts of incontinent action, these

typically take as their starting point the formulation of the phenomenon given by Donald

Davidson.168 Alfred Mele refers to incontinence so formulated as strict akratic action

168
Donald Davidson, “How is Weakness of Will Possible,” in The Essential Davidson (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 72-89.
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(‘akratic’ here is a synonymous ‘incontinent’), and I will follow Mele in using this

label.169

Both Aquinas’s formulation of the phenomenon and the strict akratic formulation

agree that an incontinent action must be free and intentional. The strict akratic account

clarifies that since the action is free and intentional, compulsive handwashing and the

like, or being moved to act by some irresistible desire, do not count as cases of

incontinent action. But the strict akratic action formulation adds that the evaluative

cognition that the incontinent action goes against has to have certain features.

Specifically, in order for an action to count as a case of strict akratic action, that action

must be (i) free; (ii) intentional; and (iii) contrary to the agent’s judgment of what it is

better to do, all things considered, where this judgment is taken to be held at the time of

the action. For the sake of simplicity, let us dub the sort of judgment spelled out in

condition (iii) the agent’s better judgment.170

Condition (iii) of strict akratic action has a number of features worth expanding

upon for our purposes. First, it suffices that the agent acts contrary to her better judgment;

strict akratic action does not require that the agent act contrary to her knowledge of what

is better. Second, it suffices that the agent act against her better judgment; that is,

comparative judgments suffice for strict akratic action, and hence it isn’t necessary in

each case that the agent act contrary to a judgment of what is best, but only of what is

better. To be clear, in this literature comparative judgments are expressed in sentences

169
Alfred Mele, “Moral Psychology,” in The Continuum Companion to Ethics, ed. Christian Miller
(London: Continuum, 2011), 98.
170
My exposition of the contemporary accounts of incontinence is indebted both to Mele in “Moral
Psychology” and also to Sarah Stroud in "Weakness of Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/weakness-will/>.
 125

that contain an evaluative, comparative adjective that relates two action descriptions.

Third, this better judgment is an all things considered judgment. This means that with

respect to options A and B, the judgment takes into account all the parameters the agent

finds relevant to the situation, weighs them up, and judges that A is better than B given

the input of all these parameters. And fourth, one’s better judgment has to be maintained

at the time of the action; in other words, there cannot be a lapse in judgment at the time of

the action, such that one actually judges that the incontinent action is the better course at

the time of acting. Rather, strict akratic action requires that at the very the time of the

action, the agent judges that A is better than B, all things considered, and yet freely and

intentionally does B.

Let us refer to the paradigm of strict akratic action as the standard account. We

may wonder whether the standard account and Aquinas’s account of incontinence are

actually rival accounts. In order to be rivals, they need to offer conflicting interpretations

of the same phenomenon or subject matter. Aquinas’s account of sins from weakness or

incontinence applies to cases where the evaluation of reason conflicts with the evaluation

suggested by some passion of the sensory appetite.171 The standard account covers all

these cases and also more, the range of which will depend on the thinker developing the

account.172 Any time an agent intentionally and freely acts contrary to his all things

considered better judgment, there is a case of strict akratic action. This could include

171
Aquinas holds that cases of incontinence primarily involve a conflict between the evaluation of reason
and that of a passion of the concupiscible appetite, i.e., a sensory desire for a pleasure of touch or taste.
Secondarily, Aquinas allows for cases where the conflict is between the evaluation of reason and the
evaluation of a passion of the irascible appetite such as anger.
172
Davidson writes, “In using this terminology [of ‘incontinent actions’] I depart from tradition, at least in
making the class of incontinent actions larger than usual. But it is the larger class I want to discuss, and I
believe it includes all the actions some philosophers have called incontinent, and some of the actions many
philosophers have called incontinent.” See Davidson, “Weakness of Will,” 72.
 126

cases where one judges it better to act contrary to principle and to follow a desire, a case

not envisaged by Aquinas. Even though the standard account covers more ground than

Aquinas’s, there is still a rival interpretation about the set of cases that that both accounts

purport to explain. These are cases where one’s considered judgment about what it

would be good or evil to do conflicts with what one’s felt desires draw one to do.

Aquinas thinks that it is a fact of experience that people sin from weakness, and holds

that his view can account for that common experience. If the standard account

incorrectly interprets these cases, then it is not an adequate account of incontinent action.

There are obviously some similarities between Aquinas's conception of

incontinence and the standard account that derives from Davidson. I have noted that

Aquinas also holds that a genuinely incontinent action must be free and intentional, and

moreover it involves acting contrary to an evaluative cognition. Nevertheless, Aquinas's

conception of incontinence differs from the standard account in significant ways. I will

here focus on two fundamental differences: (i) one involving a difference with respect to

whether cases of incontinence involve comparative judgments; and (ii) one involving a

difference with respect to the time consideration, in particular, whether the agent holds

the right judgment at the time of the action (i.e., the judgment in accord with right reason,

which for the standard account is the better judgment). By understanding these two

differences, we will come to see some fundamental aspects of Aquinas’s moral

psychology and just how they intersect with contemporary views.

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2.1 Comparative Judgments and the Phenomenon of Incontinence

Consider first the type of evaluative judgment involved in cases of incontinence.

The standard account assumes that the agent makes a comparative judgment about the

conceived options: the agent judges that A is better than B, all things considered, and yet

does B. But Bonnie Kent points out that in Aquinas’s account of incontinence, no

comparative judgments are made. She writes,

In consenting to eat cheesecake, Bill acts on the description suggested by

passion—the cake would be pleasant and it that sense “good” to eat—but without
judging that it is better to eat the cake than stick to his diet, and certainly without
making the universal judgment that it is generally better to pursue pleasure than to
take care of one's health. No comparative judgments are made. Though we might
expect a comparative judgment to be made in the more familiar case of the weak
incontinent, the one with two syllogisms who struggles with temptation, none is
made there, either. Aquinas describes the agent as acting on the principle that
pleasure is to be pursued, not as judging that it is better to pursue pleasure than to
take care of one's health (or to avoid fornication, or whatever).173

In our case of Phil, which illustrates Aquinas’s paradigm case of incontinence, he simply

judges that the act of sleeping with Sally is to be done, based on the consideration of

pleasure, as represented in a practical syllogism whose major premise that says

‘Pleasurable acts are to be pursued’ and whose minor premise says ‘This act is a

pleasurable act’. Phil does not form a comparative judgment such as ‘it is better to not

have sexual relations with Sally than to have sexual relations with her’, and then have

sexual relations anyway. Kent is correct that in Aquinas’s paradigm cases of

incontinence, no comparative judgments feature in the account. Moreover this feature of

Aquinas’s account applies not just to one type of case, but is extensive: nowhere in

Aquinas’s texts do I find a treatment of incontinence that relies on or even mentions a

173
Bonnie Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Vol.
LXXV, No. 1, July 2007), 85.
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comparative judgment. This feature of Aquinas’s account is striking and merits our

consideration.

Why might one believe that comparative judgments are at work in cases of

incontinence? I would first note that there is some weight of tradition behind formulating

the problem of incontinence in terms of a comparative judgment, since one can find such

a formulation of it in Plato’s Protagoras (though Socrates denies the possibility of

incontinence so conceived). Socrates says,

Then if the pleasant is the good, no one who knows or believes there is something
else better than what he is doing, something possible, will go on doing what he
had been doing when he could be doing what is better.174

I will return to this quotation of Plato later in this section, but here we see the ‘better

than’ formulation. Contemporary accounts that focus on comparative judgment, as I said,

are traced back to Davidson’s seminal essay. But Davidson, though obviously familiar

with a broad range of thought on incontinence, does not argue for his interpretation of the

phenomenon in terms of a comparative judgment. He simply assumes that judgments

about what is better or best capture the phenomenon. I am not saying here that the weight

of tradition is driving all contemporary theorists or that it is the only thing driving them to

think of incontinence in this way; but because philosophical theorizing about a problem is

often done in the context of a tradition or previous body of literature, where the concepts

and logical space are carved out in a certain way, I find it not insignificant that there is a

comparative judgment tradition of thought about incontinent action.

174
Plato, Protagoras, trans. Stanley Lombardo and Karen Bell in Plato: Complete Works, ed., with
introduction and notes by John Cooper, 746–790 (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 358c.
 129

Second, one might think that the experience or phenomenology of incontinence

itself suggests that comparative judgments are at work. For based on experience, one

might think that it is either obvious or clear upon reflection that we often or at least

sometimes judge that some action A is better than another B, and yet do B. The difficulty

is that the phenomenology isn’t readily transparent. So even if we do take the pre-

theoretical phenomenology of incontinence seriously and use it as a constraint on how we

formulate and explain the problem, it is not clear that the natural and common

formulation will be in terms of a comparative judgment. In fact, a significant

contemporary essay on weakness of will by Richard Holton challenges the common

formulation on just these grounds. He opens his essay by stating his disagreement with

philosophers who hold that the pre-theoretical, untutored view of weakness of will is one

that involves going against one's better judgment. He writes,

Whenever I have asked nonphilosophers what they take weakness of will to

consist in, they have made no mention of judgments about the better or worse
course of action. Rather, they have said things like this: weak-willed people are
irresolute; they do not persist in their intentions; they are too easily deflected from
the path they have chosen. I shall develop the idea that the central cases of
weakness of will are best characterized not as cases in which people act against
their better judgment, but as cases in which they failed to act on their
intentions.175

As Holton reports, non-philosophers do not talk about weakness of will in terms of acting

against one’s better judgment. And Holton himself develops an interesting account

where comparative judgments are not a feature. Of course, Holton’s report is compatible

with these non-philosophers potentially admitting that at least sometimes they seem to be

acting against a better judgment. Nevertheless, if Holton is right that non-theory laden

175
Richard Holton, “Intention and Weakness of Will,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 96, No. 5 (May,
1999), 241.
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descriptions of incontinent action typically do not involve comparative judgments, this

should affect how we formulate the problem. It should at least make us open to

alternative models, according to which the comparative judgment cases would not be the

paradigm and hence would not be driving how we formulate and explain the problem.

Rather, another type of case would be the paradigm, and the account would need to be

tweaked so as to cover comparative judgment cases, but would not be centered on them.

But on the standard account, things are reversed: the comparative judgment cases are the

paradigm that drive how the problem is formulated, such that in order for an action to

count as incontinent it is necessary that it involve acting against a comparative judgment.

Moreover, there are other reasons to think that where the standard account gives

us a dubious account of the phenomenon, Aquinas gives us something more plausible.

As we have seen, the standard account assumes that the agent prior to his incontinent

choice forms a better judgment that he retains even while acting. But it could be objected

that this gives the struggling agent too much clarity and presence of mind: the struggling

agent is in effect presented as conceiving two competing courses of action which he puts

in his deliberative scales and weighs under a common standard in light of all the relevant

parameters (all things considered). On the basis of this mental process, the agent forms

and retains at the time of action the judgment that one option is better than the other. The

agent then is supposedly free to intentionally act either continently or incontinently. But

two points are worth noting. First, it is doubtful whether this is an accurate portrayal of

the agent’s motivational conflict, due to the unrealistic presence of mind and the obvious

complexity of the cognitive operations it attributes to the agent. At minimum, it does not

seem to be a reasonable requirement that potential formulations and explanations of

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incontinence assume this model of the motivational conflict. A second and related point

is that the standard account in fact gives us a theory-laden interpretation of the

motivational conflict involved in a potential case of incontinent action. That is to say, it

would be a mistake to think that the standard account’s etiology of incontinent action is a

brute fact available to casual, pre-theoretical observation. Davidson and the standard

account assume that the agent is both acting against a judgment and acting against a

judgment of a certain type, viz., a comparative judgment. Both of these are theoretical

assumptions and can be questioned; we have seen that Holton questions the first

assumption and Aquinas’s paradigm cases don’t assume the second. Notwithstanding

these assumptions, the standard account also brings in the apparatus of an all things

considered judgment, a notion that is difficult to unpack.176 One might wonder whether

an agent in such a case of motivational conflict ever makes an all things considered

judgment, i.e., one might wonder whether the agent has all the relevant parameters in

mind, or even if he does, whether he is using all of these parameters in forming his

judgment about what to do.

Aquinas’s model of motivational conflict is also theory laden, since it draws on

concepts from, and is supported by, his systematic philosophical views about nature and

philosophical psychology. Nevertheless, his portrayal of the struggling agent is more

modest with respect to the agent’s presence of mind. The struggling agent conceives one

opportunity of action under two evaluative aspects, one whose source is right reason and

bids her to avoid the action, the other whose source is an occurrent passion of the sensory

176
Davidson’s solution to the problem of incontinence involves a sophisticated unpacking of the notion of
an all things considered judgment, purporting to show that an all things considered judgment is by nature
conditional in character.
 132

appetite and bids her to pursue it. The agent is not portrayed as taking the further step of

weighing up the grounds for acting one way rather than another, taking into account these

two evaluative aspects plus any other ones that may come to mind. And though

Aquinas’s account is modest with respect to the agent’s presence of mind, it still clearly

preserves the fact that incontinent action is intentional and based on reasons, those

reasons (the aspect of good or evil) being represented by a complete practical syllogism.

2.2 The Nature of Comparative Judgment and Aquinas’s Moral Psychology

Above I have considered some general reasons why a comparative judgment

formulation of incontinence should not be a requirement. I now turn to directly consider

the nature of comparative judgment and why it is significant that Aquinas’s account lacks

such a judgment. Fundamentally, in order for a comparative judgment to be made, the

things compared have to be commensurable or at least appear commensurable. More

precisely, the things compared have to be viewed under a common standard whereby one

of them can be judged superior to the other(s). Using the scales metaphor, even if

multiple parameters are used in weighing both options, there still are the scales

themselves whose role is to weigh the options under a common standard of measurement.

Recall the passage from Plato’s Protagoras quoted above where Socrates gives a better

judgment formulation of (purported) incontinent action:

Then if the pleasant is the good, no one who knows or believes there is something
else better than what he is doing, something possible, will go on doing what he
had been doing when he could be doing what is better.177

177
Plato, Protagoras, 358c.
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Notice that Socrates here is supposing that pleasure is the good, i.e., that there is a unified

commensurate standard of goodness. Under this supposition, it is not surprising that he

speaks of comparative judgments. But on occasions of incontinence, Aquinas does not

portray the agent as being in possession of a common standard by which he evaluates two

courses of action. Hence the courses of action, in all the cases that Aquinas considers,

are not viewed as commensurable; at minimum, the two courses of action do not seem

commensurable to the agent in his circumstances. As we have seen, the two practical

syllogisms at work in the paradigm case have two different middle terms or standards,

which represent the different evaluative aspects under which the action is being

considered. To put it another way, two different parameters are being used to evaluate

the action, but these are not brought together under a third common standard. On the side

of right reason, the opportunity for action is considered under the evaluative aspect of

adultery, an aspect that presents the act as evil and to be avoided; whereas on the side of

passion, the action is considered under the aspect of pleasure, an aspect that presents the

act as good and to be pursued. For a comparative judgment to be made, the actions

would have to be considered under the same evaluative aspect, represented by a middle

term, and in all the cases Aquinas’s mentions they are not. I make these points about

comparative judgment for two reasons. First, these points highlight a noteworthy feature

of Aquinas’s account: that the agent is not weighing up his options by means of a

common standard. Second, they point out yet another supposition of the standard

account: not only does it presuppose that the key evaluative judgment the agent acts

against is a comparative judgment, but it also and as a consequence must presuppose that
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the struggling agent is in possession of some common standard by which he can rank one

course of action as being better than another.

So on Aquinas’s view, it is evident that the presence of a comparative judgment is

not a necessary condition for incontinent action. For Aquinas can account for central

cases of incontinence without any appeal to a comparative judgment. Moreover, we have

seen that there are a number of good reasons for not including comparative judgment as

an essential feature of incontinence. But we might still wonder whether for Aquinas

there could be cases of incontinence that involve acting against a comparative judgment.

That is, we might wonder whether there are features of Aquinas’s moral psychology that

rule out the possibility of comparative judgment with respect to incontinence. In what

follows, I will consider a number of options of how Aquinas’s theory, or even a

developed Thomistic theory, could accommodate comparative judgments. As we will

see, all of these options face problems. Last, I will close with some remarks about an

external critique of the Thomistic theory.

We can begin to investigate whether Aquinas’s theory can accommodate

comparative judgments by considering what is essential to Aquinas’s view of the moral

psychology that precedes action. The agent must reach a practical judgment of the form

‘This is to be done’ or ‘This is not to be done’. This practical judgment is the conclusion

of a piece of practical reasoning represented in the practical syllogism. That practical

syllogism must include as a minor premise that the particular case at hand falls under

some evaluative principle stated in the major premise. So if there were to be a

comparative judgment at work it would need to be a major premise in a practical

syllogism. Let us consider a case where an agent is out at a meal and dessert time has
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come. There is only one dessert option on the menu, and this option gives an enormous

amount of food. Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that the agent has just two

exclusive options: either eating the whole dessert himself or not eating it at all. Now on

the standard account, in an occasion of incontinence, there is one comparative judgment

that is made that the agent is tempted to act against. Adopting this model, we could see

whether it would fit with Aquinas’s theory. We might envisage the agent’s practical

reasoning to begin as follows:

(M1) It is better to avoid eating a high calorie dessert than to pursue it.

(m1) This is a case of eating a high calorie dessert.

The major premise (M1) is both an evaluative principle and has a level of generality to it,

so at least meets those two requirements for Aquinas’s schema of a practical syllogism.

And the minor premise says that the case at hand falls under the principle expressed in

the major premise. But there are some problems. First, the conclusion of this practical

syllogism would not be ‘This act (eating the high calorie desert) is to be avoided’.

Rather, the conclusion would be

(C1) It is better to avoid eating a high calorie desert than to pursue it.

And such a conclusion is not sufficient for a Thomist practical judgment. As we have

seen, a practical judgment is the immediate precursor to choice and has the form ‘This is

to be done’ or ‘This is not to be done’. In other words, the practical judgment is the final

verdict with respect to action and hence must prescribe an action. The conclusion C1

does not prescribe an action but simply gives us another evaluation, saying that one

particular course of action is better than another.

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In order for this instance of practical reasoning to yield a genuine Thomist

practical judgment, we would need to add another principle such as (P) ‘For any two

actions x and y, if it is better to x than y, and both x and y are live options, then x’. With

this extra principle in hand, the agent could then conclude that the act of eating the desert

is to be avoided. But two points are in order. First, if principle (P) is meant to be an

evaluative principle, then it is dubious as it stands. For it might be better to x than y in

one respect but not in another. We can imagine a similar case to the one above, where

with respect to one’s diet it is better to not eat the piece of cake, but with respect to

celebrating a birthday it is better to eat the piece of cake. What would be needed to make

the principle plausible is to include an ‘all things considered clause’ or something like it,

so that we would get (P1) ‘For any two actions x and y, if x is better than y, all things

considered, and both x and y are live options, then do x’. But then we run into other

problems. First, for the inference to go through, M1 would have to be modified to read

‘All things considered, it is better to avoid eating a high calorie dessert than to eat it.’

And as I argued earlier in this section, there is good reason to doubt that for Aquinas, the

agent in motivational conflict has the presence of mind to make such an all things

considered judgment. Second, if Davidson is right in how to interpret the logic of

inferences that involve an ‘all things considered’ judgment, then the conclusion of the

practical syllogism will not be an unconditional, all-out judgment ‘This act is to be

avoided’, but a conditional conclusion that ‘All things considered, this act is to be

avoided’.178 And this conditional conclusion is not a Thomist practical judgment that

gives rise to and precedes choice. Within Davidson’s own analysis of incontinence this

178
For elucidation of this point about Davidson, see Stroud, “Weakness of Will.”
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fact about the logic of ‘all things considered’ is not a drawback, and is actually a key

feature in how he elucidates the intelligibility of incontinence. But when we import such

a clause into Aquinas’s theory, practical inferences are no longer able to yield genuine

practical judgments.

Second, we could return to principle (P) and suppose that it is not an evaluative

principle, but rather a purely formal principle of practical rationality whose role is to

explain the move from a comparative judgment to a practical judgment. This move

would work, but it would saddle Aquinas’s theory with an extra step of practical

reasoning and so take away from its simplicity, and moreover, the move does seem ad

hoc.

Because the standard account of incontinence presents just one comparative

judgment that the agent acts against, I have first considered whether this model could

work for Aquinas. But in addition to the problems stated above, the one judgment model

leaves out some essential features of Aquinas’s theory of practical inference. In

particular, it leaves out the evaluative aspects or considerations that pull the agent in

different directions. Those aspects in Aquinas’s theory are represented by the middle

terms of the two syllogisms engaged by the struggling agent. Accordingly, we should

next consider a model that presents two comparative judgments, where each makes

reference to an evaluative aspect, and see if this model could be accommodated by

Aquinas’s theory. Using the same example, here is such a model:

(M2) In light of temperance, it is better to avoid eating a high calorie desert than
to eat it.

(m2) This is a high calorie dessert.

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and

(M3) In light of pleasure, it is better eat a high calorie dessert than to avoid eating
it.

(m3) This is a high calorie dessert.

Here we don’t have a middle term presenting the evaluative aspect, but we do have both

the principle and the particular case being considered in light of such an aspect, so it at

least gets at the spirit of Aquinas’s thought. And supposing the agent were to reach a

practical conclusion, we could provide a rational explanation of his action that provides

the consideration that was his reason for acting: if he chooses to eat the cake, we would

say that he was pursuing pleasure. So in these respects, this model fits Aquinas’s theory

more closely. In evaluating this model, we should first note that including an all things

considered clause in either of the major premises is ruled out since each major premise

restricts itself to one consideration or evaluative aspect. As with the first option we

considered, we would need to add an additional formal principle of practical rationality

along the lines of (P) that allows one to move from a comparative evaluative premise to a

conclusion that has the form of a practical judgment. So the worries mentioned above

about its taking away from the simplicity of the Thomist theory would remain.

This model, however, raises another serious problem. The major premises on this

model give us a relational clause (‘in light of F’), and hence, supposing the comparative

part of the conclusion could be removed, the conclusion would still be relational, stating

‘In light of temperance, eating this dessert is to be avoided’ or ‘In light of pleasure, eating

this dessert is to be pursued’. But the conclusion of a Thomist practical judgment is not

relational, but simply states that an act is to be done or not done, full stop. Moreover,
 139

because of the relational clause, in this case it isn’t clear how we could even remove the

comparative part of the conclusion. If we were to add a principle of practical rationality,

it would have to be more complex, such as (P2) ‘For any two actions x and y, and some

evaluative aspect F, if x is better than y with respect to F, and x and y are both live

options, then do x’. But this principle could be given numerous counterexamples that

would result in it bidding an agent to do a clearly evil act. (We could construct a number

of such examples by just appropriately filling in the blanks for ‘If action x is better than y

with respect to pleasure, then do x’). The fact that this principle so readily invites

counterexample certainly gives it the appearance of being an evaluative principle. So to

stipulate that this is a purely formal principle of practical rationality seems even more like

an ad hoc move than with our other options.179

In order to preserve the evaluative aspects that the struggling agent is torn

between, and to remove the relational feature of the second option, I can think of one

other option: we could change the competing sets of practical premises such that they

include the evaluative aspects. On this model, we would have

(M2’) It is better to pursue temperance than avoid it

(m2’) This is an act of temperance

and

179
There is another option for how the ‘in the light of F’ clause could be removed so as to clear the way for
a practical conclusion. From a Thomist perspective, one could say that move from practical considering to
effective practical reasoning is achieved by, as it were, removing or detaching the ‘in light of F’ clause
from the major premise and hence the conclusion. The idea would be that when you represent the agent
who is struggling and considering his options, you use the major premises that contain the ‘in the light of’
clause; but when you represent the practical reasoning of the agent who has settled on one option, you don’t
include this clause. The problem with this solution is that the effective practical reasoning would no longer
include the evaluative aspect under which the act is pursued, and hence the practical syllogism that
represents that reasoning would not give us an explanation of the aspect of good the agent had in view
when judging and acting.
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(M3’) It is better to pursue a pleasurable act than to avoid it.

(m3’) This is a pleasurable act.

We could then include the simpler, non-relational formal principle of practical rationality

(P), and reach a Thomist practical judgment supported by premises that state the aspect of

good the agent had in view. So this line seems more promising in these respects.

Nevertheless, it seems that here Aquinas would have good reason to say that this move is

a bad one. Recall what Bonnie Kent says about comparative judgments in her example of

Bill and the cheesecake:

In consenting to eat cheesecake, Bill acts on the description suggested by

passion—the cake would be pleasant and it that sense “good” to eat—but without
judging that it is better to eat the cake than stick to his diet, and certainly without
making the universal judgment that it is generally better to pursue pleasure than
to take care of one's health.180

Her point is that it would be quite implausible to impute to Bill a universal judgment such

as ‘it is generally better to pursue pleasure than to take care of one’s health’. To be sure,

(M2’) and (M3’) are not as extreme as the general comparative judgment she mentions,

since my examples only say that pursuing one type of value is better than avoiding the

same type of value. Even so, there is still some implausibility in imputing to the

incontinent agent these two general comparative judgments.

We should also note that the two options under consideration still have the

problem of needing to be supplemented with an extra, formal principle of practical

rationality. But more importantly, it seems that the two major premises (M2’) and (M3’)

could readily be redescribed as simply stating ‘Temperance is to be pursued’ and

‘Pleasure is to be pursued’, respectively. It doesn’t seem at all evident in this case what

180
Kent, “Aquinas and Weakness of Will,” 70. Emphasis mine.
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the comparative adjective ‘better’ is adding to (M2’) and (M3’). This seems to be a

feature of certain uses of comparative judgments. For if Phil in our paradigm case were

to say after the affair, ‘It would have been better for me to not sleep with Sally’, he could

simply be saying (or could just as readily have said) ‘I should have not slept with Sally’.

My suggestion here is more programmatic, but it seems to me that a contemporary

defense of Aquinas’s theory could say that when we get down to cases of comparative

judgments that actually have promise for inclusion into Aquinas’s theory, it seems that

those comparative judgments can be redescribed in terms of traditional Thomist major

premises without any loss of sense.

In this section, I have elucidated three ways that comparative judgments could be

included in Aquinas’s etiology of incontinent action in particular and practical reasoning

in general. None of these options can yield Thomist practical judgments on their own; a

formal principle of practical rationality would need to be added on each model, which

detracts from the simplicity of Aquinas’s theory and can seem more or less ad hoc

depending on the option. And one of the options does not make reference to the

evaluative aspects that pull the agent in different directions. Finally, the last promising

candidate seems to make the comparative element of the judgments involved

unnecessary. Hence, we see that including comparative judgments into Aquinas’s theory

is without substantially altering it proves quite difficult, and ultimately, doesn’t seem

needed.

Of course, even if what I say above is true it would still be possible to give an

external critique of the Thomistic theory, arguing that if it cannot include comparative

judgments then the theory is flawed in some important way. Here I would simply point
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out two things: first, it is worth exploring what considerations speak against

incorporating comparative judgments from within the Thomistic perspective; second,

considering an external critique of the Thomistic view and an adequate response to it is a

different stage in the dialectic, which would involve looking at a number of other

advantages and disadvantages of the theories behind the Thomistic view and a

contemporary Davidson-inspired account. This task is beyond the scope of this chapter,

though some of what I say in this and the following section has implications for how the

Thomistic side of that dialectic would go.

3. The Judgment Held at the Time of the Incontinent Action

As we have seen, on the standard account an agent judges that it would be better

all things considered to do A rather than B, and yet he does B. Moreover, this better

judgment must be held at the time of the action. To focus on the time element, let us for

now set aside the issue of whether a comparative judgment is at work in cases of

incontinence. Although Aquinas doesn’t countenance a comparative judgment in such a

case, we can nevertheless investigate whether he thinks the judgment in keeping with

right reason (for short, the right judgment) is held at the time of the weak-willed action.

Consider our paradigm case where an agent is tempted to commit adultery. Were the

agent to follow through on the reasoning that considers the act under the aspect of

adultery, he would reach the right judgment, ‘This act is not to be done’. We want to

know whether Aquinas thinks that the agent can be aware that no adultery is to be

committed, that the act he is engaging in is adultery, and have made the practical

judgment that the act is not to be committed, and yet at the same time act incontinently.
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Aquinas addresses this question in considering a case where an agent succumbs to

the temptation and hence chooses to commit an act of fornication, and yet outwardly says

‘This is a sin and not to be done’. His response is intriguing:

As the Philosopher says in Book VII of the Ethics, just as a drunk person brings
forward words which he does not interiorly understand, so he who is conquered
by passion, though he may from the mouth say exteriorly that this is to be
avoided, nevertheless in his own heart he judges that it is to be done. Hence, he
says one thing exteriorly and thinks another thing interiorly.181

So applying Aquinas’s thought to our case, though the agent may say that the act [of

adultery] should not be done, he doesn’t actually judge that the act should not be done.

Rather, he considers the act under the aspect of pleasure and judges that it should be

done.

What comes to light in this case is that Aquinas holds a strong version of

internalism. Internalism in this context is the view that there is a necessary connection

between first-person, evaluative judgments about what to do, and being motivated to act

in accord with those judgments. Based on what we covered in Chapter II, we can say that

Aquinas is an internalist in that practical cognitions give rise to rational desires: since the

will is oriented towards the good, if the intellect presents something to the will as good

the will inclines to it. Moreover, Aquinas holds that practical cognitions in general, and

practical judgments in particular, are the products of the intellect and hence are cognitive,

as opposed to such evaluations being expressions of desire, emotion, or some other pro-

attitude. Hence, Aquinas holds a version of cognitive internalism: he holds that there is a

necessary connection between practical cognitions and having at least some motivation to

181
De Malo, q. 3, art. 9, ad. 8: “Ad octauum dicendum quod sicut Philosophus dicit in VII Ethicorum, sicut
ebrius aliqua uerba profert que tamen interius non intelligit, ita ille qui a passione est uictus, etsi exterius ex
ore dicat hunc autem esse uitandum, tamen in corde suo iudicat hoc esse faciendum : unde aliud dicit
exterius et aliud interius sentit.” See also ST I-II, q. 77, art. 2, ad. 5.
 144

act. But the passage above shows just how strong Aquinas’s cognitive internalism is with

respect to a practical judgment or verdict. For if an agent reaches a practical judgment,

he not only has some motivation to act, but is sufficiently motivated to act. Likewise, in

the case where an agent succumbs to incontinence, regardless of what the agent might

say, as a matter of fact his practical judgment must be in alignment with what he actually

does. On Aquinas’s view, if an agent freely and intentionally acted in some way, then it

follows that he judged at the time of the action that he was to do the act, and did not

judge that he was not to do the act. In the here and now of action, evaluation and

motivation do not come apart.

What can we say to motivate Aquinas’s view on this matter? I think the key is to

recognize the tight relationship between attention and practical judgment in Aquinas’s

account. Recall that for Aquinas, how a person considers an action is crucial for the

practical judgment and choice she comes to make. And how a person considers an action

is a function of whether and how she attends to a desirable object. In a case of

incontinence, the sensory passions draw the agent’s attention to certain desirable features

of the object and thereby suffice for a practical consideration to be entertained by the

intellect. And if this practical consideration isn’t somehow removed through the agent’s

redirection of attention, it will be adopted in the agent’s effective practical reasoning (her

practical judging) which results with a practical judgment and choice. So attention brings

about a practical consideration which can then be closed upon to yield a practical

judgment. Though these stages are logically distinct, they need not be temporally so.

Aquinas could say, then, that when an agent succumbs to temptation in a case of

incontinence, her practical judgment is not a moral judgment about the act that she makes
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from a distance, as it were; rather, her practical judgment falls out from the evaluative

aspect she is attending to at the time of the action. The agent that succumbs to

temptation, Aquinas would say, reaches the incontinent practical judgment because she is

attending to the pleasing aspects of the desirable object at the time of the action. But in

such cases, prior to the judgment and choice she had the power to redirect her attention

so that she would no longer be focusing on those features towards which the passion

inclines. But so long as she doesn’t redirect her attention, the evaluative aspect of

pleasure remains the focus, which explains why she reaches the practical judgment ‘this

act is to be done’ and not the judgment ‘this act is not to be done’.

To summarize, the practical judgment of the intellect follows upon how one is

attending to an object at the time of the action. When we think of practical judgment in

this way, Aquinas’s strong internalism, wherein one’s practical judgment must be in

accord with how one acts, becomes much less implausible.

Moreover, we must note that Aquinas’s view here is not just supported by his

views in moral psychology, but also by purely logical considerations. For Aquinas

believes that an agent simply cannot hold contradictory judgments at the same time. He

writes,

Therefore if someone were to be of the opinion that two contradictories are true at
the same time, by believing the same thing at the same time to be and not be, he
would hold diametrically opposed (contrarias) opinions at the same time: and
thus contraries will belong to the same thing at the same time, which is
impossible. Therefore, it is not the case that someone about these things interiorly
lie and that he believe the the same thing at the same time to be and not be.182

182
In IV Meta., lect. 6, n. 603: “Si igitur quis opinetur simul duo contradictoria esse vera, opinando simul
idem esse et non esse, habebit simul contrarias opiniones: et ita contraria simul inerunt eidem, quod est
impossibile. Non igitur contingit aliquem circa haec interius mentiri et quod opinetur simul idem esse et
non esse.”
 146

To hold contradictory judgments would imply that two diametrically opposed predicates

be true of the same thing at the same time, which is metaphysically impossible. Applying

this line of thought to practical judgments, Aquinas would claim that it is impossible to

hold the contradictory judgments ‘This act is to be done’ and ‘This act is not to be done’

at the same time, since two diametrially opposed predicates would be said of the the same

act at the same time. This assumption of Aquinas seems eminently plausible. And we

should note that he also here says that an agent cannot interiorly lie or be decieved by

holding contradictory judgments, which connects with his view that an agent in a case of

incontinent action interiorly believes that the act he has chosen is to be done, even if he

exteriorly may say otherwise; which is to say that the agent is not decieving himself in

the sense that he interiorly believes contradictory things. Moreover, it is important to

recognize that the agent holds the practical judgment ‘This act is to be done’ as long as

the action endures. So if at any point from the time he makes the practical judgment until

the time the incontinent act is completed, the agent utters ‘This act is not to be done’,

then this utterance cannot be sincere; as Aquinas says, he actually believes in his heart

that the act is to be done. If he sincerely judged ‘This act is not to be done’, he would not

pursue or continue the action. Granted, the agent may prior to or during the incontinent

action consider the act under the aspect provided by right reason, but so long as he retains

his practical judgment, he will not effectively reason to conclude ‘This act is not to be

done’. This implies that there must be some break in the practical inference of right

reason so that the agent does not reach the practical judgment. Aquinas says that either

the major premise is rendered inactive by being known merely habitually but not actually,
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or even if the major premise is actively considered, it is not effectively applied to the case

at hand.

Now let us return to the standard account of incontinence. The standard account

requires that the better judgment be held at the time of the action. But we have seen that

a better judgment does not count as a Thomist practical judgment. Moreover, a judgment

that ‘A is better than B, all things considered’ is not in contradiction with ‘B is to be

done’. But there are some puzzles here for the standard account. Assume a case of

incontinent action, where an agent judges that A is better than B all things considered, yet

does B. One issue is that presentations of the standard account leave an explanatory gap

between the better judgment and the incontinent action. And filling that explanatory gap

with a plausible account might create problems for the standard account.

Let us examine why. The standard account stipulates that the better judgment is

held at the time of the incontinent action. If the agent commits the incontinent act, the act

is purportedly intentional, which would seem to require that an agent come to a practical

judgment at the time of the act, something akin to ‘This act is to be done’.183 So at the

time of the incontinent action, the agent holds ‘All things considered, it is better to A than

B’ and ‘This act [B] is to be done’. Now one question for the standard account is

whether the judgment ‘All things considered, it is better A than B’ results also in the

183
My argument here does not depend on the practical judgment taking the exact form as a Thomistic
practical judgment, i.e., ‘This act is to be done’ or ‘This act is not to be done’. One might follow Robert
Brandom and think that the conclusion of a practical inference has the form ‘I shall x’ or something similar.
The basic point is that intentional action needs some sort of practical judgment that the act is to be done,
which judgment could potentially be in contradiction to a judgment entailed by the better judgment. For a
summary of Brandom’s view of practical inference (which builds on that of Wilfred Sellars), see Chauncey
Maher, The Pittsburgh School of Philosophy: Sellars, McDowell, Brandom (New York: Routledge, 2012),
106-112. See also Robert Brandom, "Actions, Norms, and Practical Reasoning," Philosophical
Perspectives 12 (October 1998): 127–39.
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judgment ‘This act [B] is not to be done’.184 If it does result in this judgment and

moreover the agent is taken as making this practical inference, then the agent would be

holding contradictory judgments. For the agent in a case of incontinent action will hold

‘This act is to be done’ as a requirement for intentional action, and will also hold ‘This

act is not to be done’ as a conclusion inferred from her better judgment. And this would

be a considerable problem for the standard account.

How could a standard account theorist respond? To deny that the agent holds the

better judgment at the time of the action would be to give up the standard account, so this

strategy will not work. To deny that the agent judges ‘This act is to be done’ (or

something similar) would call into serious question the rationality and intentionality of

the incontinent action. It seems then, that the standard account should give up the claim

that the agent successfully draws the practical inference that reaches the conclusion ‘This

act is not to be done’. But if this is so, then the strategy of the standard account is similar

to that of Aquinas in an important respect. Recall that on Aquinas’s view, the agent holds

the major premise of right reason (e.g., ‘No adultery is to be done’), but though he may

consider it, he never effectively applies it to the case at hand; to put it another way, he

never effectively subsumes the minor premise ‘This act is adultery’ under the major and

thus conclude ‘This act is not to be done’. Now for the standard account, the agent is

holding a form of an evaluative judgment, a better judgment, which as we have seen

could be used to infer something like a practical judgment. However, this evaluative

judgment is not applied to the agent’s case so that he reaches the conclusion ‘This act is

184
Given my arguments in the last section, such an entailment would involve an extra principle. But I want
to set that issue aside for now and consider whether on the standard account the agent makes the rational
move from ‘A is better than B, all things considered’ to ‘B is not to be done’.
 149

not to be done’. So either the standard account must make an explanatory move similar

to that of Aquinas, or it must hold that the agent is holding contradictory judgments at the

time of the action. I assume it doubtful that a standard account theorist would accept the

latter. And the fact they would accept the former and make a move similar to that of

Aquinas is significant. It shows that Aquinas cannot be faulted for this move without

also faulting the standard account, and philosophically, it lends credence to the fact that

Aquinas illuminated a crucial feature about practical reasoning involved in incontinent

action, viz., how there must be a break in the line of practical reasoning that would lead

to the right action.

4. Aquinas’s Moral Psychology and Contemporary Work in Empirical Psychology

I will now consider some work in empirical psychology which I believe

corroborates Aquinas’s account of attention, practical judgment, and motivation. The

relevance of this work in psychology is shown by the fact that Alfred Mele, a highly

respected philosopher in the field of moral psychology, also makes frequent reference to

this literature, realizing its significance for our understanding of incontinence in

particular and the relation between cognition and motivation in general.185 I will first

provide a summary of the relevant experiments and their results, as well as the theory the

psychologists employ in explaining those results. I will then show how these results

corroborate Aquinas’s views on attention, practical consideration, and practical judgment.

Finally, I will investigate how Mele uses these results to come to a somewhat different

185
See Mele, “Moral Psychology,” 105-106. See also, Alfred Mele, Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia,
Self-Deception, and Self-Control (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 88-93.
 150

conclusion than what I take to be the case. I will show that Mele’s different conclusion

reveals his different conception of evaluative judgment, and argue that the research better

fits with Aquinas’s understanding of practical cognition and judgment.

The relevant research in empirical psychology involves experiments on delayed

gratification performed on young children. The experiments, as we will see, yield

interesting results about the cognitive attentional strategies used to delay gratification.

The experiments are summarized as follows:

In this procedure, young children wait for two cookies (or other little treats) that
they want and have chosen to get, and which they prefer to a smaller treat, such as
one cookie. They then are faced with a dilemma: They are told that the
experimenter needs to leave for a while and that they can continue to wait for the
larger reward until the experimenter comes back on his or her own, or they are
free to ring a little bell to summon the adult at any time and immediately get the
smaller treat at the expense of getting the larger preferred reward.
In short, the situation creates a strong conflict between the temptation to
stop the delay and take the immediately available smaller reward or to continue
waiting for their original, larger, more preferred choice, albeit not knowing how
long the wait will be. After children understand the situation, they are left alone
in the room until they signal the experimenter. The child, of course, has a
continuous free choice, and can resolve the conflict about whether or not to stop
waiting at any time by ringing the bell, which immediately brings back the adult.
If the child continues to wait, the adult returns spontaneously (15-25 minutes
depending on child’s age).186

The results of these experiments are interesting. Based on prior theories, the researchers

expected that attending to the rewards in a straightforward way would help the children to

delay gratification, the thought being that by focusing on the prize, the children would be

motivated to wait so that they could receive it. But this expectation proved to be

mistaken. Attention to the rewards, whether through direct exposure or the

186
Walter Mischel and Ozlem Ayduk, “Willpower in a Cognitive Affective Processing System: The
Dynamics of Delay of Gratification,” in Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory and Applications,
2nd ed., ed. Kathleen D. Vohs and Roy F. Baumeister (New York: Guilford Press, 2010), 84. This research
is given more of an overview in Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda and Monica L. Rodriguez, “Delay of
Gratification in Children,” in Science, New Series, Vol. 244, No. 4907 (May 26, 1989): 933-38.
 151

experimenter’s suggestion that the children think of them, made delay considerably more

difficult. The children who found it easiest to delay were the ones who utilized various

strategies. One such strategy involved diverting their attention from the rewards through

some distracting activity (such as entertaining “fun” thoughts or covering their eyes).

Even more significant for our purposes were how the children’s internal mental

representation of the rewards affected their ability to delay gratification. Drawing on

previous work, the researchers distinguish between two types of mental representation, an

arousing representation and an abstract representation. They write,

In an arousing representation, the focus is on the motivating, “hot” qualities of the

stimulus that tend to elicit completion of the action sequence associated with it,
such as eating a food or playing with a toy. In an abstract representation the focus
is on the more informative, “cool,” symbolic aspects of a stimulus, . . . .187

To clarify this distinction between an arousing and abstract representation, it’s helpful to

consider how it was used in the experiments. One group of children was asked to focus

on an arousing representation of the reward, by for instance thinking of the salty and

crunchy taste of a pretzel, while another group was asked to focus on an abstract

representation, by thinking of the pretzels sticks as “long, thin brown logs.”188 The latter

was considered an abstract representation since it drew attention to features such as the

shape and color of the pretzels. They found that the arousing representation of the reward

makes delay quite difficult while an abstract representation significantly facilitates

delay.189

187
Mischel et al, “Delay of Gratification,” 935.
188
Ibid.
189
Mischel, et al, “Delay of Gratification,” 937: “A focus on their [the rewards’] arousing features makes
self-control exceedingly difficult; a focus on their more abstract, informative features has the opposite
effects. Moreover, the type of cognitive representation generated can overcome, and reverse, the effects of
exposure to the rewards themselves.”
 152

To summarize, then, the research at a theoretical level proposes that desirable

objects can be cognized in terms of their arousing “hot” features and more abstract,

informational “cool” features. Moreover, the research shows that a highly significant

motivational feature, viz., the children’s willingness to delay gratification, depends upon

how they direct their attention. The children have the ability to direct their attention in

various ways, either by diverting their attention from the desirable objects by distraction,

or more significantly, by the way they represent the desirable objects.

Now all of this is precisely what one would expect given Aquinas’s theory of

practical cognition. Recall that for Aquinas, how a person considers an action or object

of desire is crucial for the practical judgment and choice he comes to make. And how a

person considers an action is a function of whether and how he attends to a desirable

object. In our paradigm case of adultery, the sensory passions are pulling the agent’s

attention to be focused on the pleasurable aspect of the desirable object. This fits with

what the research calls the arousing representation, which focuses on certain “hot,”

sensual features of the desirable object. The passions are fettering reason, in Aquinas’s

language, because they are sufficient for this practical consideration to be called to mind.

And the practical consideration can be likened to what the research calls the mental

representation of the desirable object in terms of its “hot” rather than its “cool” features.

And if the agent is to avoid succumbing to the incontinent act, his will needs to redirect

his attention so that it is taken off of the pleasurable, arousing aspect. This could be done

by some type of distraction, such as considering other thoughts, or by making a conscious

effort to see the object under a more abstract aspect, such as representing it as an act of

infidelity.
 153

Whatever the attention strategy may be, the result will be that reason will be

unfettered from the way that the sensory passion is directing the attention and the

practical consideration that is being produced. And the result will be that reason’s

knowledge that no adultery is to be committed, and the corresponding desire to avoid

adultery, will be able to be actualized, and the agent will be fit to subsume the particular

case at hand under that knowledge and desire.

Thus, the cited research in empirical psychology fits well with key features of

Aquinas’s thought on attention, practical consideration, and motivation. Of course the

results of the empirical studies are limited in certain ways. For one, they only focus on a

limited set of motivational struggles; they focus mostly on cases where an agent must

avoid something desirable for a time in view of a future reward. Furthermore, the results

were performed on children. But I see no reason why at least two features of the results

cannot be generalized to other moral agents: first, the studies show that we have the

ability to direct attention to various features of desirable objects, and that this direction of

attention has a considerable effect on motivation; and second, the studies point out the

motivational significance of the way we direct our attention, i.e., the mental

representations at work. Both of these results, I believe, corroborate Aquinas’s moral

psychology and even show its explanatory power.

4.1 Aquinas vs. Mele with Respect to the Psychological Literature

As I mentioned earlier, philosopher Alfred Mele also references and draws from

this psychological literature. But Mele uses this literature to reach a different conclusion.

First, we should note that Mele holds that strict akratic action is possible, i.e., that an
 154

agent can judge that A is better than B all things considered, hold this judgment at the

time of the action, and yet do B. In explaining precisely how strict akratic action is

possible, Mele offers a sort of mild “externalist” solution, according to which it is

possible for an agent’s evaluation and motivation to come apart, or in other words,

according to which our desires do not always strictly follow what we judge to be

desirable. He writes, “The motivational force of our desires does not always match our

evaluation of the objects of our desires . . . .”190 On Mele’s analysis, the agent’s

evaluation of the desirable object is found in his better judgment; but the motivational

force of his desires may not match his better judgment, with the result being that the

agent may act in accord with those desires and perform the incontinent action, contrary to

his better judgment held at the time of the action.

Now it is in further explaining this analysis that Mele refers to the psychological

literature under discussion. Consider the following two passages, noting that he uses the

term ‘decisive judgment’ to refer to what I have called the better judgment (i.e., the

judgment the akratic agent acts against):

Desire-strength is influenced not only by our evaluation of the objects of desires,

but also by such factors as the perceived proximity of prospects for desire-
satisfaction, the salience of desired objects in perception or in imagination, and
the way we attend to desired objects (Ainslie 1992, Mischel and Ayduk 2004,
Rorty 1980a). Factors such as these need not have a matching effect on
assessments of desired objects.191

Empirical studies of the role of representations of desired objects in impulsive

behavior and delay of gratification (reviewed in Mele 1987, 88-93; see Mischel et
al. 1989 for an overview) provide ample evidence that our representations of
desired objects have two important dimensions, a motivational and an
informational one. Our decisive judgments may be more sensitive to the

190
Mele, “Moral Psychology,” 105.
191
Ibid., 105.
 155

informational dimension of our representations than to the motivational

dimension, with the result that such judgments sometimes recommend courses of
action that are out of line with what we are most strongly motivated to do at the
time.192

In the second passage, Mele suggests that our better judgments are sensitive to the

informational dimension of our mental representations (also called the abstract dimension

in the literature) which may not be in strict alignment with what we are most motivated to

do. In the first passage, Mele speaks of our “evaluations” or “assessments” of desirable

objects, which are expressed in better judgments. But what is puzzling is that Mele

mentions a number of cognitive features that don’t enter into or affect these evaluations

or assessments, viz., “the perceived proximity of prospects for desire-satisfaction, the

salience of desired objects in perception or in imagination, and the way we attend to

desired objects.”193 Mele’s view seems to be that there are cognitions that have

motivating force but which are not involved in forming the agent’s evaluative judgment.

For Mele, it is clear that these cognitive features do not alter the agent’s better judgment;

but neither do these cognitive features serve to form a different evaluative judgment, one

that the agent in a case of incontinent action acts on the basis of. To clarify this point,

compare Mele’s view Aquinas’s. Aquinas holds that the struggling agent holds the

evaluative cognition that ‘No adultery is to be done’. On the other hand, his sensory

passion, imagination, cogitative power, and attention are all drawn to the bad act. So far

there is a parallel with Mele. The agent is drawn to act against an evaluative judgment

and similar cognitive features are involved in explaining why. But here we come to an

important difference between Aquinas and Mele. For Aquinas holds that the sensory

192
Ibid., 105-106.
193
Ibid., 105, emphasis mine.
 156

desires and cognitive features give rise to another evaluation: they bring him to consider

the prospective action under the evaluative aspect of pleasure. So the agent fixes on the

evaluative aspect of pleasure, and the fact that he fixes on that evaluative aspect is

explained in terms of salience in imagination and direction of attention (and perhaps the

proximity of the object of desire as well) brought on by the influence of the sensory

passions. To be sure, in Aquinas’s thought these cognitive features don’t change the

agent’s evaluative cognition that no adultery is to be done, but they do render it

inoperative; and moreover, these cognitive features do bring about the competing

evaluation in terms of pleasure. Why is this additional evaluation that the cognitive

features bring about significant? For Aquinas, this other evaluation is what enables the

act to be an intentional and rational act. In order for the act to be intentional, it must

proceed from reason and will, and more specifically practical reason must isolate and act

on the basis of some aspect of good. If in a case of incontinent action, the cognitive and

desiderative features did not bring about any corresponding evaluation, then the action

would not be a rational, intentional action.

With these points in mind, let us return to Mele. As we have seen, Mele

countenances a number of cognitive features that have motivational power and would be

cited in an explanation of an incontinent action. So these cognitive features give one

motives to act. But Aquinas could object that simply having motives to act isn’t

sufficient for an act to be intentional. For the action to be intentional, the agent must also

have a reason to act. This reason would be the evaluative aspect the agent has in view in

choosing the incontinent action, an evaluative aspect whose role is to specify the point or
 157

aim of the action. And to have such an evaluative aspect in view implies that some

evaluation has been made, at least at the time of the action.

We can also put this criticism of Mele in terms of his own theory of the evaluation

involved in a case of incontinent action, i.e, in terms of a better judgment held at the time

of the action. Now Mele explicitly states that the very sort of cognitive features we have

been discussing, including redirecting attention, and construing an object of desire in a

different way using one’s imagingation, are features that can be utilized in keeping an

agent from succumbing to incontinence. After explaining these cognitive features and

attention strategies, he concludes, “Occasionally we do not act as we judge best, but it is

implausible that, in all such cases, we cannot act in accordance with these judgments.”194

So using these cognitive features well are key ways in which an agent can avoid acting

contrary to her better judgment. In critique of Mele, we might well wonder whether

engaging in these types of cognitive activity or failing to engage in them affects how an

agent weighs her options, i.e., whether they affect her better judgment. Mele seems to

assume that these cognitive activities are simply ways that augment our motivation to act

as we judge better, but do not affect our better judgment. But surely if I imagine “a

chocolate pie as a plate of chocolate-coated chewing tobacco”, to use Mele’s example,

the scales are greatly tipped in favor of not eating the pie. And if a cognitive activity

could help achieve this good result, then why wouldn’t conceiving of the pie under its

“hot” features tip the scales in favor of acting incontinently? And if they do tip the scales

in favor of the incontinent action, then by definition the agent’s better judgment has

changed, at least at the time of action (for the scales are just a metaphor for how the relata

194
Ibid., 106.
 158

of the comparative judgment are weighted). Perhaps failure to engage in these cognitive

activities doesn’t affect general judgments such as ‘Health is generally better than

pleasure’, but in Mele’s examples the relata of the comparative judgments are always

concrete opportunities for action, such as eating a piece of pie or not eating it. Hence,

there is good reason that given Mele’s own committments, he should admit that the

aforesaid cognitive features affect our evaluative judgment, and moreover, they seem to

do this by calling attention to what we have been discussing in terms of evaluative

aspects.

Given these criticisms of Mele, I hold that Aquinas’s theory provides a better

framework for accommodating the empirical literature. For Aquinas can say that the

cognitive features cited by Mele and found in the literature bring about a practical

consideration, a competing evaluation which isolates some aspect of good that would

make the prospective incontinent action an intentional, rational action. Moreover, it

seems intuitive that even standard accounts that utilize a better judgment should admit

that these cognitive features affect the weighting of the conceived options. So, while I

agree with Mele about the salience of the psychological research for our understanding of

incontinence and moral psychology in general, there is good reason to think that

Aquinas’s theory is better able to accommodate it.

5. Aquinas and Iris Murdoch

So far, I have argued that Aquinas does not fit well into the paradigm of practical

reasoning in cases of incontinence found in the standard account of incontinence. For

Aquinas does not adhere to certain assumptions of these thinkers with respect to the
 159

nature of practical judgment. I then argued that Aquinas's conception of practical

cognition, at least with respect to incontinence, is corroborated by recent findings in

empirical psychology. Moreover, while Mele also uses these findings, Aquinas’s

theoretical framework is better able than Mele’s to accommodate them.

Throughout this dissertation there is a basic pattern in Aquinas’s thought on

practical cognition that I have continually touched upon: attention informs practical

consideration, and practical consideration informs or provides the inputs for effective

practical reasoning and judgment. At the same time, we have seen the important

influence that various sorts of desire have on attention. I want to close by turning to

consider Iris Murdoch, whose thought on the relation between attention, desire, and

action I take to illuminate the heart of these views of Aquinas established in this

dissertation. As we will see, Murdoch makes much use of the notion of attention and the

various descriptions under which one can view a situation.

In her work The Sovereignty of Good, Iris Murdoch has us consider the following
example:

A mother, whom I shall call M, feels hostility to her daughter-in-law, whom I

shall call D. M finds D quite a good-hearted girl, but while not exactly common
yet certainly unpolished and lacking in dignity and refinement. D is inclined to be
pert and familiar, insufficiently ceremonious, brusque, sometimes positively rude,
always tiresomely juvenile. M does not like D’s accent or the way D dresses. M
feels that her son has married beneath him.195

So initially, M sees D under a number of negative aspects, represented by terms such as

‘unpolished’, ‘pert’, ‘brusque’, and ‘juvenile’. Murdoch has us suppose that D never

discovers these views of M, and moreover, that D has either emigrated with M’s son or is

now dead. The point of these latter constraints is to ensure that if M’s thoughts towards

195
Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Shocken Books, 1971), 17.
 160

D change, it is due to something happening solely in M’s mind, and not due to some

confrontation with D or to changes in D’s behavior.

Murdoch then has us assume that time passes and the following takes place:

However, the M of the example is an intelligent and well-intentioned person,

capable of self-criticism, capable of giving careful and just attention to an object
that confronts her. M tells herself: ‘I am old-fashioned and conventional. I may
be prejudiced and narrow-minded. I may be snobbish. I am certainly jealous.
Let me look again.’ Here I assume that M observes D or at least reflects
deliberately about D, until gradually her vision of D alters. If we take D to be
now absent or dead this can make it clear that the change is not in D’s behavior
but in M’s mind. D is discovered to be not vulgar but refreshingly simple, not
undignified but spontaneous, not noisy but gay, not tiresomely juvenile but
delightfully youthful, and so on.196

M is engaged, then, in a certain sort of attention: “M looks at D, she attends to D, she

focuses her attention. M is engaged in an internal struggle.”197 And through this

attention, M moves from seeing D as vulgar to simple, undignified to spontaneous,

juvenile to youthful. As Murdoch describes this transition, it involves “the substitution of

one set of normative epithets for another.”198 I take it that there is nothing far-fetched

about Murdoch’s description of the example, that we can readily envisage ourselves or

others in engaged in this type of activity.199 Moreover, we are wont to say that this

attention is morally praiseworthy, at least in a case such as this.

The result of this attention, as we have seen, is that the object of attention has

been redescribed.200 And once the object is redescribed, or seen under a different set of

196
Ibid., 17-18.`
197
Ibid., 22.
198
Ibid., 18
199
Murdoch writes, “And M’s activity here, so far from being something very odd and hazy, is something
which, in a way, we find exceedingly familiar. Innumerable novels contain accounts of what such struggles
are like. Anybody could describe one without being at a loss for words.” See ibid., 22.
200
Elijah Millgram refers to Murdoch’s view as a redescription view of practical reasoning. See Elijah
Millgram (2004), ‘Practical Reasoning’ in Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, C. Eliasmith (ed.),
<http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/practicalreasoning.html>
 161

aspects, the agent’s desires and attitudes towards that object change, and accordingly so

do their actions. Murdoch uses an example where the agent’s attention and attitudes

change for the better with respect to accuracy and an affective response appropriate to the

situation; but this can also happen for the worse, as when an agent comes to see

something good in a negative light, or bad in a positive light.

As Murdoch conceives attention, it is an activity that is voluntary and requires the

use of one's moral imagination. She writes, “I can only choose within the world I can

see, in the moral sense of ‘see’ which implies that clear vision is a result of moral

imagination and moral effort. . . . When M is just and loving she sees D as she really

is.”201 We should notice that Murdoch’s thoughts on attention relate to the phenomenon

of seeing as. This is quite similar to Aquinas’s view of practical consideration which we

developed in Chapter II, where we discussed how one and the same opportunity for

action can be thought of under different aspects or rationes. Of course, for Aquinas this

attending wouldn’t count as seeing in the technical sense where seeing is an act of an

exterior sense power. This attending or “seeing” discussed in Murdoch would, for

Aquinas, involve the cooperation of the external senses, internal senses such as the

cogitative power, and the intellect in supplying various concepts. Still, thus understood,

this activity of attending or “seeing” for Aquinas would be under the power of the will

and crucial for the progression of the moral life.

Throughout this dissertation, we have investigated how practical consideration

works in particular cases, often using an occasion of incontinence to guide our

understanding. But we might wonder how such practical consideration or seeing as is

201
Murdoch, “The Sovereignty,” 37.
 162

operative in human life at the big picture level. Here I think Murdoch supplies us with a

good model. She writes,

Will and reason then are not entirely separate faculties in the moral agent. Will
continually influences belief, for better or worse, and is ideally able to influence it
through sustained attention to reality. . . . As moral agents we have to try to see
justly, to overcome prejudice, to avoid temptation, to control and curb
imagination, to direct reflection. Man is not a combination of an impersonal
rational thinker and a personal will. He is a unified being who sees, and who
desires in accordance with what he sees, and who has some continual slight
control over the direction and focus of his vision.202

We see here the idea of the dynamic interplay between the intellect and will, which

connects well with Aquinas’s view on the relation between the intellect and the will, and

how the will is able to guide a number of cognitive processes so that we can see

situations under the right evaluative aspects. Moreover, one of Murdoch’s main ideas is

we should not view the moral life as episodic, consisting primarily of discrete episodes of

important moral choice. Rather, we should see the moral life as a continuous affair,

where our task is to continuously direct our attention and thereby build up “structures of

value.”203 I find these reflections of Murdoch to be quite helpful in giving a sense of the

spirit of Aquinas’s thought on practical cognition and moral motivation, since they give a

picture of what Aquinas’s views look like when we step back from his detailed

discussions of the relations among powers and mental states with respect to a particular

action, and consider the good life in general and how an agent must orient himself to

achieve it.

202
Ibid., 40.
203
Ibid., 37.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 163

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works of Thomas Aquinas

Below I list first the Latin edition used followed by English Translations used or
consulted. The editions of the Leonine Commission (Rome, 1882— ) are abbreviated as
‘LC’. If the edition used is taken from the Opera omnia online at Corpus Thomisticum, I
provide the website.

Aquinas, Thomas. Expositio Libri Peryermenias. LC 1, 1882,

http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html. Aristotle On Interpretation.
Commentary by Thomas Aquinas finished by Cardinal Cajetan. Translated by
Jean T. Oesterle. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962.

———. Expositio Libri Posteriorum Analyticorum. LC 1, 1882,

http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html.

———. Quaestiones disputatae de Malo. LC 23. 1982. On Evil. Translated by John

and Jean Oesterle. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

———. Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate. LC 22, 3 vols. 1970-76.

The Disputed Questions on Truth. Translated by R. W. Mulligan, J.V. McGlynn,
R. W. Schmidt, 3 vols. Chicago: Regnery, 1952–54.

———. Quaestiones Diputatae de Virtutibus in communi. Edited by E. Odetto.

Marietti, Taurini-Romae, 1953, http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html.
Thomas Aquinas: Disputed Questions on the Virtues. Translated by E. M. Atkins
with Introduction by Thomas Williams. Cambridge Texts in the History of
Philosophy. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

———. Scriptum super libros Sententiarum. Parma, 1852–73.

http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html.

———. Sententia libri Ethicorum. LC 47, 2 vols. 1969. Commentary on Aristotle’s

Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by C.I. Litzinger, O.P. 1964.
Reprint, Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books, 1993.
 164

———. Sententia super Metaphysicam. Edited by M.-R. Cathala and R. M. Spiazzii.

2nd ed. Marietti, Taurini-Romae, 1971. Commentary on the Metaphysics of
Aristotle. Translated by J. P. Rowan, 2 vols. Chicago: Regnery, 1961.

———. Summa contra Gentiles. LC 13-15. 1918-30. Liber de veritate catholicae

Fidei contra errores infidelium seu Summa contra Gentiles. Marietti,
Taurini-Romae, 1961, http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html.
On the Truth of the Catholic Faith. Translated by A. C. Pegis, J. F. Anderson,
V. J. Bourke, C. J. O’Neil. 5 vols. 1955–57. Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1975.

———. Summa theologiae, LC 4-12. 1888–1906. Reprint, Rome: Editiones Paulinae,

1962. Summa Theologica. Translated by the Dominicans of the English
Province. Complete English ed. 5 vols. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics,
1981. Treatise on Human Nature: The Complete Text (Summa Theologiae I,
Questions 75-102). Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso. South Bend: St.
Augustine’s Press, 2010. New English Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s
Summa Theologiae (Summa Theologica). Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso.
http://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm. Treatise on
Happiness. Translated by John A. Oesterle. 1964. Reprint, Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Treatise on Human
Nature: Summa Theologiae, 1a 75–89. Translated, with introduction and
commentary by Robert Pasnau. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company,
2002.

———. Super Boetium De Trinitate. Faith, Reason, and Theology (Questions 1–4).
Translated with introduction and notes by A. Maurer. Medieval Sources in
Translation 32. Toronto: PIMS, 1987. The Division and Methods of the Sciences
(Questions 5–6). Translated with introduction and notes by A. Maurer. 4th ed.
Medieval Sources in Translation 3. Toronto: PIMS, 1986.

———. Super Epistolas S. Pauli lectura, t. 1: Super Epistolam ad Romanos lectura.

Edited by R. Cai. 8th ed. Marietti, Taurini-Romae, 1953. Lectures on the Letter
to the Romans. Translated by Fabian Larcher. Edited by Jeremy Holmes.
http://nvjournal.net/files/Aquinas_on_Romans.pdf.

———. Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura. Marietti, Taurini-Romae, 1952.

Translated by James A. Weisheipl and Fabian Larcher, 1998,
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/SSJohn.htm.
 165

Other Works

Adams, Robert Merrihew. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Adams, Robert Merrihew. A Theory of Virtue : Excellence in Being for the Good.
Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2006.

Annas, Julia. "Plato's Ethics." In The Oxford Handbook of Plato, edited by Gail Fine,
267–85. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Anscombe, G. E. M. Intention. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963.

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated with an introduction by David Ross.

Revised by J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson. New York: Oxford University Press,
1998.

Barney, Rachel. "Plato on the Desire for the Good." In Desire, Practical Reason, and
the Good, edited by Sergio Tenenbaum, 35-64. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009.

Blackburn, Simon. Ruling Passions. 1998. Reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009.

Boyle, Matthew, and Douglas Lavin. "Goodness and Desire." n Desire, Practical
Reason, and the Good, edited by Sergio Tenenbaum, 161–201. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2009.

Brandom, Robert. "Actions, Norms, and Practical Reasoning." Philosophical

Perspectives 12 (October 1998): 127–39.

Bradley, Denis J. M. Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good : Reason and Human
Happiness in Aquinas's Moral Science. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University
of America Press, 1997.

Burnyeat, M. F. "Aristotle on Learning to Be Good." In Essays on Aristotle's Ethics,

edited by Amélie Rorty, 69–92. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Clark, Philip. "Aspects, Guises, Species, and Knowing Something to be Good." In

Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good, edited by Sergio Tenenbaum, 234–44.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Cooper, John M. "Some Remarks on Aristotle's Moral Psychology." In Reason and

Emotion : Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory, 237-52.
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