Còmhdach-leabhar le Larry HOFFMAN (1974)
An t-eadar-dhealachadh sgolàstach
eadar dia-eòlas mòralta agus eitic nàdarra.
EITIC NÀDARRA agus am
MOTAIBH CRUTH-STUTH GREUGACH.
EITIC NÀDARRA agus am
MOTAIBH CRUTH-STUTH GREUGACH.
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The scholastic distinction
between moral theology and natural ethics.
NATURAL ETHICS and the
GREEK FORM-MATTER MOTIVE.
NATURAL ETHICS and the
GREEK FORM-MATTER MOTIVE.
Starting from the scholastic basic-motive of nature and grace, Thomism distinguished between natural and super-natural ethics. In natural ethics it accepted the Aristotelian conception of virtues as the essential content of the ἦθος (èthos), the moral disposition of man. Love, together with faith and hope, was here conceived of as a super-natural virtue, the subject of moral theology. The norm of natural ethics is given in natural reason, that of moral theology in super-natural Revelation. But the Aristotelian conception of virtue is ruled by the religious form-matter motive of Greek thought, which cannot be really synthesized with the central motive of Biblical Revelation. The dialectical theme of form and matter proved to be destructive to a real insight into the modal structures of the different aspects of experience (1).
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(1) Cf. Vol. II, Part. 1, Ch. 1, § 2.
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In ARISTOTLE the ethical sphere is determined by the idea of the highest good. But in his metaphysics the good, as such, is an analogical concept inherent in the metaphysical idea of being. He rejected the Platonic conception of the transcendent Idea of the good in which the different virtues find their concentric unity. In Aristotelian ethics the idea of the natural good can be determined only by the different essential forms of natural beings. By virtue of its innate entelechy every natural being, as such composed of form and matter, strives after its specific natural good, i.e. the actualizing of its substantial form. Since human nature finds its specific form in the rational soul, behaviour in conformity to natural reason (ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια κατὰ λόγον) is identical with good or virtuous activity (ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια κατ' ἀρετήν)(2).
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(2) Eth. Nic. B 5, 1106a 22 fl.: ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀρετὴ ἐίη ἂν ἕξις ἀφ' ἧς ἀγαθὸς ἀνθρωπος γίνεται καὶ ἀφ' ἧς εὖ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἔργον ἀποδώσει. [Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well. (Trans. by Wm David Ross, 1908)]
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Ethical virtue consists in the permanent control of the lower sensory functions (particularly the passions) by the will in conformity to the rules of practical reason. It is conceived of as the due mean between two extremes (3), and its natural consequence is eudaemonia, i.e. happiness. It is a permanent disposition (ἕξις) of the will as the actualizing of an ethical potentiality (dynamis); this disposition can be acquired through continuous training.
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(3) Eth. Nic. B 6, 1106b 36 fl.: ἕξις προαιρετικὴ ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς ὡρισμένῃ λόγῳ καὶ ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν.
[Virtue is a trait (ἕξις) which disposes someone to choose in a certain way (προαιρετική), and which is intermediate (ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα) as between two other states, in a manner relative to us (τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς)-- that is, when virtue is marked out by its formal definition (ὡρισμένη λόγῳ), and in the way that a person with insight into practical matters would mark it out (ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν).(Dissoi Blogoi: The Solution to the Well-Defined Problem)]
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The analogical character of the Aristotelian concepts of virtue and of the good.
This entire conception of the good and of ethical virtue is dependent upon the Greek form-matter motive*.
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*FMF: see also Dooyeweerd's historical analysis here.
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It is impossible to discover in it a really modal criterion for an ethical law-sphere. Both the concept of virtue and that of the good are analogical notions. The so-called dianoetical or logical virtues (λογικαὶ ἀρεταί) are not dispositions (ἕξεις) of the will, but of the faculty of thought, either in its theoretical or in its practical function (directed to human actions). Virtue must therefore derive its specific ethical meaning from its specific relation to the human will. But the latter is not a modal aspect of experience and human existence. Rather it is a concrete direction of the inner human act-life which functions in the coherence of all the modal aspects. Consequently, the special scientific concept of volition can only be analogical in character. The modal difference between the psychological and the juridical concepts of the will has already been discussed (4).
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*FMF: see also Dooyeweerd's historical analysis here.
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It is impossible to discover in it a really modal criterion for an ethical law-sphere. Both the concept of virtue and that of the good are analogical notions. The so-called dianoetical or logical virtues (λογικαὶ ἀρεταί) are not dispositions (ἕξεις) of the will, but of the faculty of thought, either in its theoretical or in its practical function (directed to human actions). Virtue must therefore derive its specific ethical meaning from its specific relation to the human will. But the latter is not a modal aspect of experience and human existence. Rather it is a concrete direction of the inner human act-life which functions in the coherence of all the modal aspects. Consequently, the special scientific concept of volition can only be analogical in character. The modal difference between the psychological and the juridical concepts of the will has already been discussed (4).
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(4) Cf. pp. 125 ff. of the present volume.
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What would be its ethical modality? If the latter is sought in a constant disposition of volition to follow the norms of practical reason by controlling the lower sensory functions, the definition moves in a vicious circle. Practical reason as such has no modal-moral delimitation of meaning. The control of our sensory passions and affects is as such a cultural, not an ethical function of volitional life. It may be made serviceable to very immoral ends, for instance self-worship, imperialism, the destruction of economical competitors etc.
For lack of a really modal criterion it is no wonder that the modal boundaries between the juridical and the ethical spheres are levelled in Aristotelian ethics. Justice is conceived of as an ethical virtue. In its general sense it is the perfect virtue encompassing all the others insofar as they are concerned with our social relations to our fellow-men. In its strict sense it refers to equality and inequality (τὸ ἴσον καὶ ἄνισον) as the specific rational measure of legal order.
In the Aristotelian conception the juridical aspect of the good is thus only a species of the general ethical good and lacks an irreducible modal meaning-nucleus. The legal norm cannot belong here to a law-sphere different from the ethical modus. Only the permanent subjective inclination or disposition of the will to follow the rational norm of justice — not this standard itself — is exclusively ethical and cannot he transferred to the juridical sphere.
So there remains only a single criterion for the distinction between the ethical and the juridical viewpoint: the subjective èthos as a constant disposition of the will to subject itself to the autonomous norms of practical reason. But we have seen that this èthos, as such, lacks a specific modal meaning; it is an analogical concept. Its determination by the rational measure of the due mean between two bad extremes does not detract from this analogical character. This measure was taken from the Pythagorean idea of the peras [πέρας = limit, boundary] limiting the apeiron [ἀπείρων = unlimited, infinite, endless], a mathematical expression of the Greek form-matter motive which has also strongly influenced the ethical conception of PLATO's dialogue Philebus.
So it appears that Aristotelian ethics lacks the modal unity of meaning in its enumeration of the different 'virtues'. This whole conception of ethical virtue as a result of the autonomous human training of the will is unacceptable from the Christian standpoint. It cannot be a natural infra-structure for a really Christian ethics because it contradicts the very basic motive of the latter, that of creation, sin, and redemption.
If there exists a modal ethical law-sphere in the temporal order of creation, there can be no question of autonomous morality with a standard of good and bad derived from natural reason and realized by human volition.
Then the standard of the moral good can only be a modal temporal refraction of the central commandment of Love as the religious meaning-totality of the whole temporal coherence of modal law-spheres. There cannot exist a moral disposition of the will independent of the central religious disposition of the heart (5). For there does not exist a 'will' as an independent and autonomous entity, no more than an independent, autonomous 'reason'. All our volitional acts are acts of the I-ness which expresses itself in them.
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(5) This word is meant here in its pregnant Biblical sense.
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(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol II/ Part I/ Chapt 2/§5 pp 144-147)
