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GRADUATE SCHOOL
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This is to certify that the thesis/dissertation prepared

By Tully A. Borland

Entitled The Ethical Theory and Voluntarism of John Duns Scotus

For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Is approved by the final examining committee:

Jeffrey Brower

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Chair
Daniel Frank

Patrick Kain
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Patricia Curd
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To the best of my knowledge and as understood by the student in the Research Integrity and
Copyright Disclaimer (Graduate School Form 20), this thesis/dissertation adheres to the provisions of
Purdue University’s “Policy on Integrity in Research” and the use of copyrighted material.
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Approved by Major Professor(s): ____________________________________
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GRADUATE SCHOOL

Research Integrity and Copyright Disclaimer

Title of Thesis/Dissertation:
The Ethical Theory and Voluntarism of John Duns Scotus

Doctor of Philosophy
For the degree of ________________________________________________________________

I certify that in the preparation of this thesis, I have observed the provisions of Purdue University

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Executive Memorandum No. C-22, September 6, 1991, Policy on Integrity in Research.*

Further, I certify that this work is free of plagiarism and all materials appearing in this
thesis/dissertation have been properly quoted and attributed.
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I certify that all copyrighted material incorporated into this thesis/dissertation is in compliance with
the United States’ copyright law and that I have received written permission from the copyright
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copyright violation.

Tully A. Borland
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22 July 2008
________________________________
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THE ETHICS AND VOLUNTARISM OF JOHN DUNS SCOTUS

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Faculty

of

Purdue University

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by
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Tully Andrew Borland
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In Partial Fulfillment of the

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Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

August 2008

Purdue University

West Lafayette, Indiana

 3343969

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3343969
2009
 ii

For my wife, kids, and parents.

I can’t thank my wife enough for her support and encouragement through these
rough and stressful times, and for my girls who have had to put off playtime with

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their dad many days while he works on that mysterious thing called a
dissertation. Finally, I thank my parents for instilling in me a desire to work hard
and for supporting me in numerous ways.
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 iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am truly grateful to the members of my dissertation committee for their

helpful comments and for being available for consultation throughout the past two

years: Jeff Brower (chair), Dan Frank, Pat Kain, and Pat Curd (who served as

the fourth reader). Professor Brower, in particular, went well beyond the call of

duty allowing me to engage with him on a weekly basis as I worked through

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Scotus’ often obscure and difficult writings. His insights were invaluable and it

was a delight to have him as my chair. Thanks to him, I not only completed this
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thesis, but more importantly learned a great deal of philosophy.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................vi
ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................viI

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1

CHAPTER 1. SCOTUS' THEORY OF VALUE ................................................... 30

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1.1. The Transcendental Concept of Goodness ............................................ 31
1.2. Primary Goodness.................................................................................. 38
1.3. Primary Goodness and its Relation to God's Will ................................... 43
1.4 Voluntarism and Primary Goodness ....................................................... 48
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1.5 Secondary Goodness ............................................................................. 52
1.6. The Nature of Creatures' Secondary Goodness ..................................... 54
1.7. Natural and Moral Goodness of Acts...................................................... 60
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1.8. Two Ultimate Ends ................................................................................. 68
1.9. Happiness............................................................................................... 69
1.10. Happiness and God's Will....................................................................... 77
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CHAPTER 2. JUSTICE AND FREEDOM ........................................................... 80

2.1 Divine Justice and the Nature of Justice.................................................... 81
2.1.1. Divine Command Theory ................................................................... 81
2.1.2. Two other Theories about the Nature of Justice ................................ 84
2.1.3. Divine Justice and DC-Theory ........................................................... 88
2.1.4. God's Justice: Rendering to His Goodness what it Demands............ 95
2.2. Justice and Freedom .............................................................................. 103
2.2.1. A Preliminary Account of Scotus' Theory of Freedom .................... 104
2.2.2. Boler's Interpretation....................................................................... 107
2.2.3. Lee's Interpretation ......................................................................... 111
2.2.4. Scotus' Anselmian Account of Freedom ......................................... 117
2.2.5. Williams' Objections against God's Affection for Justice................. 129
2.3. Conclusion.............................................................................................. 135
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Page
CHAPTER 3. SCOTUS' NORMATIVE ETHICS ............................................... 136
3.1. Theory of Virtues .................................................................................... 138
3.1.1. An Outline of the Virtues.................................................................. 138
3.1.2. Connections Between the Virtues.................................................... 149
3.1.3. God's Will and the Virtue of Charity ................................................. 153
3.2. The Goodness and Badness of Acts ...................................................... 158
3.2.1. Degrees of Moral Goodness and Badness ...................................... 158
3.2.2. External vs. Internal Goodness of Acts............................................ 167
3.3. The Moral Laws and God's Dispensations ............................................. 171
3.3.1. Scotus' Understanding of Moral Law ............................................... 172
3.3.2. Scotus' Discussion of Divine Dispensations in the Decalogue......... 183
3.4. Restrictions on God's Will ....................................................................... 193
3.4.1. Two Problem Passages................................................................... 195
3.4.2. God's Reasons for Dispensing from the Law................................... 206
3.4.3. The Murder of Isaac ........................................................................ 207

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3.4.4. Bigamy............................................................................................. 208
3.4.5. Divorce ............................................................................................ 209
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CHAPTER 4. PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE ....................................................... 212
4.1. A General Account of Practical and Theoretical Knowledge................... 215
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4.2. Internalism vs. Externalism..................................................................... 220
4.3. The Practical Habit of Prudence ............................................................. 226
4.4. Natural Knowledge of God...................................................................... 240
4.5. Faith........................................................................................................ 247
4.6. The Practical Science of Theology ......................................................... 259
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4.7. Conclusion.............................................................................................. 268

BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................... 269
VITA ................................................................................................................. 275
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ABBREVIATIONS FOR PRIMARY SOURCES AND ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

Primary Sources:

DPP: De primo principio

QQ: Questiones Quodlibetales
On Metaphysics: Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis

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English Translations:
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DSM: Duns Scotus, Metaphysician, selections and translations by William Frank
and Allan Wolter (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1995)
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ER: The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture: Reportatio I-A, trans. Allan
Wolter and Oleg Bychkov (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute
Publications, 2004)
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GC: God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions, trans Felix Alluntis and
Allan Wolter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975)
PW: Philosophical Writings, selections and translations by Allan Wolter
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987)
Vol I/II: Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John Duns Scotus Vol. I &
II, trans. Girard Etzkorn and Allan Wolter (St. Bonaventure, NY:
Franciscan Institute Publications, 1997, 1998)
WM: Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, selections and translations byAllan
Wolter (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of American Press,
1986
 vii

ABSTRACT

Borland, Tully Andrew. Ph.D., Purdue University, August 2008. The Ethical
Theory and Voluntarism of John Duns Scotus. Major Professor: Jeffrey Brower.

The late medieval philosopher, John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), is

notorious for making the claim that everything other than God is good because

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God wills it and not vice versa. As evidenced by commentaries in the literature, a
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natural response to this claim is a skeptical one, since it suggests that God could

have made even the most hideous acts morally good. On this reading of Scotus,
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he endorses an implausibly radical version of Theological Voluntarism. My

dissertation challenges the above reading of Scotus by providing a systematic

exposition of his ethical theory. The purpose is two-fold: (i) to show that Scotus
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is not a radical Voluntarist and (ii) to clarify the relationship between his

Voluntarism and his broader ethical theory.

One reason why commentators tend to read Scotus as a radical

Theological Voluntarist is that they fail to distinguish between various types of

Voluntarism. Broadly, there are two types. Metaethical Voluntarism claims that

the nature of certain value properties is to be explained entirely by God’s will.

Normative Voluntarism, in contrast, is an action guiding theory about the

conditions under which certain normative properties obtain. My contention is that

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the type of Voluntarism to which Scotus subscribes is a moderate type of

Normative Voluntarism, and it is in light of this that we should interpret other

elements of Scotus’ ethical theory.

In the first chapter I argue that Scotus is not a Metaethical Voluntarist by

presenting his theory of value. Scotus follows the Aristotelian Eudaimonism of

his day in developing a theory of value in terms of perfection or completion. That

is, the goodness of an agent or action is its completeness, and it is not identified

with a property of God’s will. Yet, interestingly, Scotus offers a non-

Eudaimonistic moral psychology, borrowing from Anselm of Canterbury (1033-

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1109), and introduces an affection for justice as well as an affection for
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happiness (which is the only basic affection for standard forms of medieval

Eudaimonism). In the second chapter, I develop Scotus’ theory of justice and his
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moral psychology and show how these elements of Scotus’ ethical theory fit with

his theory of value.

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In the third chapter, I explain the way in which Scotus is a Voluntarist by

demonstrating the extent to which God’s acts of will determine the conditions for

right action. I agree that Scotus says that in select cases God can indeed make

an otherwise impermissible act permissible, or a permissible act impermissible.

Nevertheless, God’s goodness sets significant parameters on when this may

occur and God is guided by reasons for the whole of his creation. Hence my

reading of Scotus’ seemingly radical Voluntaristic remarks is that Scotus is not

saying that “anything goes in ethics.” Rather, Scotus is merely insisting that God

has freedom in creating and is not necessitated to create the actual goods of this
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world. God is free to create different worlds by instantiating different kinds of

natures, but prior to creating the actual world, God’s goodness constrains God to

intend what would be good for these creatures.

Once it is agreed that Scotus’ brand of Voluntarism is not of the radical

sort suggested by some of the commentary, we will need to reinterpret Scotus’

moral epistemology in this light. This is the task of the final chapter. Recently, it

has been argued that Scotus’ Voluntarism allows syllogistic reasoning to play

little or no role in practical decision making because our actions are to be guided

by God’s arbitrary commands; instead, Scotus is a moral intuitionist about the

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proper ground of nearly all moral beliefs. I argue that this is wrong on both
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counts. Scotus thinks that practical syllogisms play a substantive role in moral

reasoning and that a number of moral beliefs can be properly grounded by

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testimony or from a consideration of the concepts involved in the beliefs.
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INTRODUCTION

John Duns Scotus’ (1265-1308) thoughts on ethics are wide-ranging,

scattered throughout a number of various works, and are often situated within

discussions that are only remotely related to ethics. For instance, we find some

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remarks on ethics in an inquiry into the nature of art but also in a question about

whether metaphysics is a science. This, combined with the fact that Scotus did
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not live long enough to produce a comprehensive and systematic ethical treatise,
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makes it difficult not only to assess Scotus’ ethical theory but also to determine

whether Scotus in fact had theory of ethics at all. This thesis takes up the task of

putting the pieces together to form Scotus’ ethical theory.

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One thing that is widely agreed upon in the secondary literature is that

Scotus places a high degree of value on freedom of the will, both human freedom

as well as divine, and that his thoughts on freedom play a serious role in Scotus’

ethics. It is not hard to motivate such a reading, especially considering the

context in which Scotus was working. Perhaps most important in understanding

the historical context is the Condemnation of 1277, in which the Bishop of Paris,

Etienne Tempier, condemned 219 philosophical and theological propositions, in

large part to influence the curriculum of the universities away from embracing a
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certain interpretation of Aristotle that Tempier and others thought greatly

departed from Christian doctrine.1 The condemnations are fairly wide ranging,

touching on intricate metaphysical details, angelology, freedom, ethics, and other

theological doctrine. The basic thrust of the condemnations having to do with

freedom and ethics is against a philosophical worldview that placed too great a

limit on God’s freedom, particularly what revelation suggests about God’s activity

in creating and graciously instilling virtues needed for salvation.

With respect to God’s creative activity—the Aristotelian interpretation

flirted with a wholesale rejection of God’s freedom to create, which was

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influenced by Aristotle’s arguments that the world was eternal and therefore had
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no beginning. Moreover, the world was not only thought to be eternal, but to

exist of necessity, and the interpretation pushed for a denial of all contingent
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states of affairs making it difficult to account for both divine and human freedom.

In addition, the view maintained that humans could sufficiently dispose

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themselves for beatitude by acquiring the sorts of virtues that Aristotle lays out in

his ethics, such that humans without grace were thought to be able to attain

beatitude. Hence, human freedom came under suspicion and the notion of

God’s activity threatened to drop out of the field of ethics as well. A few

examples of the condemned propositions illustrate the view:

20. that God necessarily does whatever he does immediately by himself.

21. that all events occur necessarily and none occur contingently

1
For a useful discussion of the “Franciscan voluntarism” in Scotus’ day in light of the
Condemnation of 1277 see William E. Mann’s “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” in Being and
Goodness, ed. Scott MacDonald (Ithanca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991): 253-8.
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53. that whatever God does directly he does by necessity

157. that the one whose intellect and will are ordered according to the

intellectual and moral virtues spoken of in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

is sufficiently disposed for eternal beatitude

177. that only acquired or innate virtues are possible

184. that creation is not possible, however much the contrary view ought

to be held on faith

It is difficult to determine the extent to which the Condemnation influenced

Scotus’ writings. Nevertheless, there is good evidence that he took the

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Condemnation seriously. For instance, in his Quodlibetal Questiones, Scotus
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refers to “Lord Stephen [Tempier]” by name, taking three of the condemned

propositions (81, 96, 191—which condemn certain views on individuation and the
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plurality of angels) as evidence in favor of the view for which Scotus is arguing.2

Additionally, as Edward P. Mahoney has pointed out, that Scotus would have
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taken this Condemnation very seriously is also confirmed by Scotus’ remarks in

the Ordinatio that what is condemned by a diocesan authority also has the

authority of the Pope.3

The historical event of the Condemnation of 1277 might initially explain

why Franciscan theologians (of which Scotus was a member) at the time seem

attracted to an ethical theory which places significant emphasis on God’s will,

2
QQ. q. 2, n. 12 (GC: 34).
3
Ordinatio 2, d. 2, q. 6. Edward P. Mahoney “Reverberations of the Condemnation of 1277,” in
Nach der Verurteilung von 1277: Philosophie und Theologie an der Universitat van Paris im
letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts. Studien und Texte (New York: Wlater de Gruyter, 2001):
915.
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and it also goes some way towards explaining why Scotus speaks in ways that

often sound as if Scotus adheres to some form of Ethical Voluntarism. But just

how much the Condemnations bear on the whole of Scotus’ ethics is difficult to

determine. It will not be the purpose of my thesis to flesh out this interesting

connection, but I mention it because it helps to show that the historical picture of

Scotus ethics as Voluntaristic is not without some merit.

As the traditional picture would have it, Scotus’ ethics is considerably

shaped by the high degree of value he places specifically on divine freedom, and

as such, he has often been labeled a Voluntarist or Divine Command Theorist.4

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Most recently, Thomas Williams has written a number of articles in an attempt to
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clarify Scotus’ Voluntarism and to argue that the traditional picture of Scotus as a

fairly radical Voluntarist is right.5 Nevertheless, I will argue that the historical
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characterization is wrong; or, perhaps a bit more modestly, I aim to show that the

role that God’s will plays in Scotus’ ethics is not as prominent as has often been
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assumed. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is twofold: (1) to move us toward a

better understanding of Scotus’s ethics and (2) to provide an extended argument

4
For just a few examples, Jeffrey Brower, John Hare, and Janine Marie Idziak have recently
associated Scotus with Divine Command Theorists while others prefer the more general label of
Voluntarist. Jeffrey Brower, “Anselm on Ethics,” The Cambridge Companion to Anselm
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 233; John Hare, “Scotus on Morality and
Nature,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 9 (2000), 15; Janine Marie Idziak, “Divine Command
Ethics,”; Robert Prentice, O.F.M., “The Voluntarism of Duns Scotus, As Seen in His Comparison
of the Intellect and the Will,” Franciscan Studies 28 (1968) 63-103; John K. Ryan and Bernardine
M. Bonansea, “Duns Scotus’s Voluntarism,” vol. III of Studies in Philosophy and the History of
Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1965): 83-121.
5
“The Unmitigated Scotus,” Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 80 (1998): 162. See also “How
Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness” Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 69 (1995): 430. “A
Most Methodical Lover?” Journal of the History of Philosophy 38, 2 (2000): 169-202.
 5

for the claim that Scotus’ ethics is not as radical a form of Voluntarism as the

historical characterization would have it.

Now, what exactly Scotus’ alleged Voluntarism amounts to in the literature

on Scotus’ ethics is not clear, and no one to my knowledge has offered a

succinct and fairly unambiguous definition of Voluntarism applied to Scotus’

ethics. Instead of arbitrarily stipulating my own definition and juxtaposing such a

theory with Scotus’ thoughts, I too shall leave Voluntarism undefined and will

simply refer to Voluntarism in general as a theory which affords God’s will a

significant place in ethics. What I will be most concerned about is not whether

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Scotus’ ethics can be properly characterized as a form of Voluntarism—in my
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opinion the term is too vague to be of great service—rather, my concern is with

the extent to which Scotus thinks God’s will plays a role in various components of
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Scotus’ ethical theory.

In the remaining part of this introduction I shall set forth a basic framework
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for considering Scotus’ ethical theory, developing what I take roughly to be the

traditional Voluntaristic interpretations of Scotus’ ethics against a standard form

of medieval Eudaimonism—a largely Aristotelian ethical theory fairly widely held

during the time of the Condemnation which Scotus is often taken to be arguing

against. Often it is taken as a paradigm instance of a non-Voluntarist, medieval

ethical theory. In this way, by beginning with a sketch of medieval Eudaimonism,

we will be able to see more clearly in what ways Scotus is sometimes thought to

be offering a theory which is more or less Voluntaristic. I divide the theory into

four parts or sub-theories which mirror the content of the four chapters which
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follow: (1) A theory of Value, (2) Moral Psychology; (3) Normative Ethics; (4)

Practical Knowledge. At the end of each section, I will briefly sketch my

interpretation of Scotus for which the relevant chapters of the dissertation provide

a sustained argument.

The Nature of Value

According to a standard from of medieval Eudaimonism, all value is to be

explained in terms of goodness, and goodness is itself explained in terms of

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being. A thing’s goodness and being are coextensive and whatever has a certain
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degree and kind of being must have the same degree and kind of goodness and

vice versa. Everything, it was thought, has some degree of goodness simply in
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virtue of existing and having a nature. We can call the type of goodness that

something has simply by possessing a nature—that is, by possessing its

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essential being—its essential goodness. The degree to which things have

essential being, and hence essential goodness, is determined by the capacities

or dispositions definitive of the kind of thing in question. Plants have a capacity

for reproduction, growth, and nutrition—capacities which make something a plant

and not (say) a rock. Since all plants have the same basic type of capacities,

they all have the same degree of essential being because no plant is more or

less of a plant than another, and hence they are all equally good with respect to

their essential being. Thus, essential goodness does not vary within a species.

However, some species have more being than other species in virtue of having
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more or higher capacities. Humans, in addition to having capacities for growth,

reproduction, and nutrition, have a rational capacity for cognition and volition. As

such, humans have more being and, therefore, more essential goodness, than

plants.

Obviously, then, essential goodness cannot be a type of moral goodness,

since moral goodness, it is thought, can come in degrees within a species and

humans have some control or freedom over their moral goodness; humans,

although they have equal value as humans, are not all equally morally good.

Hence, in addition to essential goodness, medieval Eudaimonists recognize a

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second type of goodness which is accidental, but also kind-relative. Like
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essential goodness, this type of goodness is associated with the possession of

certain capacities, but whereas with essential goodness the possession of the
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capacity is constitutive of the type and degree of essential goodness, it is the

perfection of a capacity that is constitutive of something’s kind-relative accidental

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goodness. The more being or perfection that the capacity has, the more one has

kind-relative accidental goodness.

The perfection of an individual as a member of its kind is its end,

completion, and purpose--in Aristotelian parlance, its full actualization as a

member of its species. In order to be a fully actualized being one must perform

an activity (or realize a state) in accordance with one’s specifying capacities.

This characteristic state or activity is its ultimate good. The capacity which is

distinctive of humans—which no other animals possess--is their rational capacity;

thus, a human’s complete perfection consists in her complete actualization of this

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capacity. A human becomes perfect by performing rational acts and cultivating

virtues—dispositions or tendencies which perfect the will and intellect. What is

important to note, here, is that according to Eudaimonism, the moral goodness of

a human just is the perfection of the human’s rational capacities. Moral

goodness consists in their happiness-- “eudaimonia” according to the Greeks,

“beautitudo” or “felicitas” for the medievals. Hence, the more that one has moral

virtues, the happier one is and vice versa.

As we can see from the preceding discussion, since it is the nature of a

creature that determines the nature of both its essential goodness and the

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accidental goodness distinctive of their kind—no appeal to God’s will seems
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apparent in order to explain the nature of the value of creatures. In fact, on the

standard form of medieval Eudaimonism, God is free to create the creatures that
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he does, but it is the natures of creatures and their actions which determines

their value. If, per impossible, God did not exist but creatures did, creatures
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would still have essential goodness and could still be morally good, since both

their essential and moral goodness are constituted by their perfection or being.

In contrast, Voluntarism with respect to the nature of value can be thought

of as a theory which identifies properties of value with properties of divine

volitions. There is not only a causal relation between creaturely value and God’s

will (which a medieval Eudaimonist will accept) but a deep metaphysical

connection as well. For instance, if one were to hold that being beautiful, true,

and morally good are properties identical, say, to being aesthetically valued,
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affirmed, and commanded by God, then one would be a type of Voluntarist about

the nature of value.

Very little has been written about Scotus’ theory of value and the

metaphysical connection between God’s will and value in Scotus’ ethics. No

commentator to my knowledge has argued that Scotus thinks that all value is to

be identified with properties of God’s will, however some seem to suggest that

nearly all value is to be understood in this way. Thomas Williams (1998) offers

the most extensive treatment and has argued that all value other than the

goodness of God depends on God’s will; and although he is not clear about what

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exactly the dependency relation is (e.g. identity, constitution, etc.), what Williams
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says highly suggests that he thinks that for Scotus there is some deep

metaphysical (and not merely causal) connection between acts of God’s will and
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the value of creatures.6 Efrem Bettoni, in his book Duns Scotus: The Basic

Principles of his Philosophy also seems to be thinking along similar lines as

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Williams in this brief and cryptic comment: “[Regarding] Duns Scotus’

metaphysics of value…Only the infinite being is good in itself; all other beings are

good only to the extent that they are ordained to God.”7 Both Williams and

Bettoni seem to think that for Scotus, the only thing that has value independently

6
I will not be quoting Williams extensively in this Introduction because I quote Williams’ thoughts
at length in the body of the dissertation, given that his view is the most thoroughly developed of
the Voluntarist interpretations and the one which I will most often contrast with my own in
developing my interpretation of Scotus.
7
Duns Scotus: The Basic Principles of his Philosophy, trans. and ed. by Bernardine Bonansea
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1961): 176.
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of God’s will is God’s goodness, and all other value is to be understood in terms

of properties of God’s will.8

My interpretation of Scotus’ theory of value is that Scotus accepts a

standard medieval Eudaimonist theory of value. All goodness, including moral

goodness, is understood in terms of being or perfection. The goodness of

agents, Scotus identifies with certain capacities and their habits or dispositions

which perfect or complete the agent, and the goodness of actions is also

understood in terms of the completeness or perfection of the act. I argue for this

interpretation and explain Scotus’ theory of value in detail in Chapter 1. The

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discussion of value extends additionally into Chapter 2 where it is explained how
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Scotus’ theory of the nature of justice and moral psychology fit with his general

theory of value.
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Moral Psychology
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The standard medieval Eudaimonist’s theory of moral psychology follows

quite naturally from an understanding of value. To be good is to be desirable,

where this suggests not only an ability to be desired but a normative element as

well. The good is something that is appropriate or right to desire. Furthermore,

the degree to which something is good is the degree to which something is

desirable. What is most desirable to something is its ultimate good—its complete

8
As we will see in the first two chapters, Williams sometimes suggests that God is not morally
good prior to an act of will, and thus that we should understand God’s goodness which is prior to
his act of will as a type of non-moral goodness.
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perfection as a member of its kind. Of course, in practice, rarely does anything

present itself as something which will make a thing a perfect member of its kind.

Most often, what is presented will be, at best, partly constitutive of a thing’s

complete perfection. For instance, in the case of a non-rational animal, such as

a dog, if presented with a side of beef under appropriate conditions, the dog

desires to eat it, since eating it contributes to the dog’s health even if falling well

short of completely perfecting the dog. Nevertheless, insofar as the beef is either

partly constitutive of the dog’s complete perfection or a means to it, the beef is

good and desirable. As illustrated by this example, what non-rational animals

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desire are particular goods.
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Rational creatures, however, have an ability to consider both particular

and general goods. Our most general conception of the human good can be
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thought of as the most perfect or complete life available for humans; this is

something that we all desire.9 As such, our nature inclines us towards more
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precise specifications of the good life consists in and towards means to

accomplishing our end. Among these goods might include such items as virtues,

life, procreation, knowledge, friendship, reasonable activity, health, and so forth.

The ultimate concrete or particular end is realized in the beatitific vision of God in

which all of one’s desires are satisfied.

As we can see, there is at least one overarching virtue of medieval

Eudaimonism’s account of moral motivation—its simplicity. There is only one

9
On the general and particular ends and a complete life as the general end in the thought of
Thomas Aquinas, see Scott MacDonald’s “Ultimate Ends in Practical Reasoning: Aquinas’s
Aristotelian Moral Psychology and Anscombe’s Fallacy,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. C, No. 1
(January 1991): 31-66.
 12

type of fundamental desire that humans have, a desire for their own perfection,

and this follows naturally from the thesis that (a) there is only one type of kind-

relative accidental goodness for rational creatures, happiness, and (b) everything

that is good for a human is desirable and vice versa. Nevertheless, the chief

difficulties of the theory are closely related to its simplicity. The first is that the

theory is unabashedly egoistic. What I desire most is my perfection, and one

difficulty that the theory must overcome is to explain how one can be motivated

to act for the goodness of another, especially in cases where reason seems to

demand this at the expense of one’s own goodness.10 The second difficulty is to

W
explain how it is that humans frequently, and freely, choose what is not good.11
IE
There is a fairly wide consensus in the secondary literature on Scotus’

moral psychology that Scotus thinks the standard medieval Eudaimonist moral
EV
psychology is seriously flawed, and the reasons which Scotus believes count

against the theory are the two previously mentioned—a moral theory that is
PR

egoistic cannot account for motivation which is properly moral, and one based on

only a desire for happiness cannot account fully for freedom in our moral decision

making.12 Following Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), Scotus thinks that one

10
For a response to this objection along Eudaimonist lines see David M. Gallagher’s “Desire for
Beatitude and Love of Friendship in Thomas Aquinas,” Medieval Studies 58 (1996): 1-47.
11
For an excellent explication of Aquinas’ understanding of freedom which takes up this objection
see Scott MacDonald’s “Aquinas’s Libertarian Account of Free Choice,” Revue Interationale de
Philosophie, 2, (1998): 309-328.
12
See Allan Wolter’s introduction and general remarks in Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press of American, 1986): 39-46; Williams (1995);
Williams “The Libertarian Foundations of Scotus’s Moral Philosophy,” The Thomist 62 (1998):
193-215; Douglas Langston’s “Did Scotus Embrace Anselm’s Notion of Freedom,” Medieval
Philosophy and Theology 5 (1996): 145-159; Sukjae Lee’s “Scotus on the Will: The Rational
Power and the Dual Affections,” Vivarium 36, 1 (1998): 40-54; Mary Beth Ingham’s “Duns Scotus,