Pints With Aquinas - 09: What makes an act good or evil?

Episode Date: May 24, 2016

“The good or evil of an action, as of other things, depends on its fullness of being or its lack of that fullness. Now the first thing that belongs to the fullness of being seems to be that which gives a thing its species. And just as a natural thing has its species from its form, so an action has its species from its object, as movement from its term. And therefore just as the primary goodness of a natural thing is derived from its form, which gives it its species, so the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object… And just as, in natural things, the primary evil is when a generated thing does not realize its specific form (for instance, if instead of a man, something else be generated); so the primary evil in moral actions is that which is from the object, for instance, ‘to take what belongs to another’.” ST I-II.Q 18. A 2. SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, Episode 9. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we'll ask St. Thomas the question, what makes a human act good or evil? Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor and discuss theology and philosophy. Have you ever wondered what makes a particular act good or evil? I don't just mean because it feels good or that it just seems evil or because somebody told us that it was good or evil, but what else makes this particular act or that particular act good or evil? St. Thomas

discusses this at length and in today's episode we'll touch upon a few of his insights. So, let's read from the first part of the second part, question 18, article 2 of the Summa Theologica. St. Thomas says, the good or evil of an action, as of other things, depends on its fullness of being or its lack of that fullness, end quote. Let's stop there for a moment and see what Aquinas is talking about. So, Aquinas wants to say, he's particularly interested in showing that human acts have a moral species in much the same way that natural things have a species. So, just as Aquinas would say, for instance, that you and I belong to the species human, he'll also say that the human act that I'm currently performing as I sit here in doing this podcast belongs to the species teaching. So, Aquinas believed that each human act, just like any ordinary thing, belongs to a moral species like teaching or almsgiving or murder or adultery because a moral act is a thing and therefore, he says, we can say that it belongs to a particular species. And this species of human acts, this will be the first determining

factor of the moral goodness or evil of the act. So, for example, everything that belongs to rape, right, will be evil. And all acts that belong to the species of justice would be good, and so forth. All right. Now, so, try and keep this in mind. Just as the substantial form of a substance is what gives that substance its species, so the object of a human act is what gives the act its species. What do I mean by object? Well, there are three things that make up a moral act, three elements that we have to consider. And these would be called moral determinants in the Thomistic tradition. Those three things are the object of the act, the intention of the act, and the circumstance of the act. The object,

the intention, and the circumstance. Whenever we're considering whether or not an act is morally good or morally evil, we take those three things into account. But Thomas says that it's the object of the act that gives the act its species. So, what do we mean by object, end, and circumstance? Well, the object is the thing that we're doing. So, let's think of an example. If I give money to the poor, that's the object. If I cheat on my taxes, then that's the object of the act. But then we also have the intention and circumstances. How do they come into play? The intention has to do with the intention of the one doing the act. And the circumstances or consequences have to do with the surrounding circumstances into which the act is inserted. So, all three of these elements have to be good for an act to be considered morally good. The object must be good,

the end must be good, and the circumstances must be good. And Aquinas does take this up in the Summa Theologica, again, the first part of the second part, question 18. In the second article, he considers the object, in the third article, circumstances. And the third, he considers the end. And he shows that each of these elements are necessary when deciding whether or not an act is moral. So, why don't I give us a few examples? If a man gives money to a beggar, but he does so solely that you would think good of him. And suppose the circumstances are also good. So the object's good, the circumstances are good. Perhaps the beggar gets to eat that day where he otherwise may not have. Guess what? The act

is still evil. Why? Because the intention has made it so. Yes, it was a good object. Yes, the circumstances or the consequences were good, but the intention of the one performing the act was out of vanity or that others would think well of him and therefore the act is evil. Well, what about if the object is good and the intention is good? How do the circumstances make that act evil? Well, let's think of an example. A man makes love to his wife. That's a good object. He does so with a good intention, not out of lust, but in a desire to express his love. But if he does so when it's medically dangerous, then he has not performed a morally good act, but instead the act is morally evil. Now, notice we're not talking about the culpability of the

man in this case. Perhaps he's not culpable. We're not talking necessarily about this being a sin, but just that the circumstances have made it such that the act is not morally good. So, all three things need to be taken into account, object, end, and circumstances. Now, back to Aquinas talking about the species of human acts and saying that the first determining factor of the moral goodness or evil of the act, this has to do with the object. So, here's what we mean. Have you ever heard the phrase intrinsically evil? Have you ever wondered what that means? Well, here's what it means. It means that if you perform an action and the object is evil, then we call that act intrinsically

evil. And what that means is it's evil in and of itself. It's not evil because of any sort of extrinsic factor, such as the intention or circumstance. It's just evil. So, perjury or rape or murdering the innocent, these things are intrinsically evil or contraception. These things are intrinsically evil because theeption. These things are intrinsically evil because the intention and the circumstance can't modify that act. Even if the intention is good, even if the circumstances bring about, we might think, more pleasurable effects than the negative effects, the act is still evil. So, this is another way of saying that the ends don't justify the means. So, if the end is evil, in this case, the object of the act, if the object is evil,

then no intentional circumstance can make it otherwise. Now, some moral acts will be morally neutral, such as teaching or even killing. These belong to the different species, teaching and killing, but they don't say enough about what's going on for us to judge whether or not it's good or evil. Now, suppose I kill a man. Is that good or evil? Well, it depends. Is he breaking into my house? Is he threatening my children? Is he about to seriously harm one of them? Well, if in the process of defending my child, I kill the man, then I haven't committed a morally evil act. This certainly isn't an intrinsically evil act. In fact, if I just sat back on my chair and let the abuse take place, I would be committing a grave evil, which we'd call the sin of omission, because I didn't do what I ought to have done.

But if my intention was to kill this man, and let's say even though he didn't show, he wasn't much of a threat, or he didn't look like he was going to do a great deal of harm to my children, but perhaps, you know what, I know this guy and I don't like him, and so I take this as an opportunity to kill him. Well, in that case, we might say that it's intrinsically evil because I've committed the sin of murder, not simply killing. Okay? Now, what does this have to do in our daily lives as we try and explain and defend the Catholic faith to people? I think here's one example of why this matters. You'll notice that when people speak about evils like contraception, when they try to convince others as to why it's not a good idea, many people in the church, including myself,

will point to the fact that the oral contraceptive pill, for instance, is a carcinogen. That's a cancer-causing agent. We might point to the divorce rates among those who practice natural family planning as opposed to contraception and show that those who practice natural family planning have more successful marriages. Now, I think this is good that we do that because often pointing to the consequences of a particular action can be more convincing than the object of that moral act. But here's the trick. If we hang our hat on these arguments, if we just hang our hat on these consequential reasons that contraception is wrong, that puts us on shaky ground, and here's why. In five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, perhaps they will invent an oral contraceptive pill that's very healthy for

the woman, that's actually somewhat of a multivitamin, let's say, with no negative side effects, medically speaking. Well, if all we have done is explain to people that the pill is evil because of its consequences, we no longer have an argument left. So, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't focus on the consequences of particular moral acts. We should, but we should also get back to the object. Okay, so why is contraception intrinsically evil? And we might say something like this. Well, contraception is intrinsically evil because it thwarts one of the two ends of the sexual embrace, the marital embrace. What are those two ends? Well, it's the good of the spouses, and it's an openness to life. And so, in using contraception, I've thwarted that

second end and have thereby perverted the act. Interestingly enough, a few years back, I was living in California, and a dear friend of mine who was an evangelical Protestant had decided to get a vasectomy. And we knew each other pretty well, but it was still going to be awkward for me to bring up why I don't think he should get a vasectomy. So, I started out gently and he seemed open to what I had to say. So, the first thing I did is I showed him all this medical literature that suggested that vasectomies can have negative consequences, that they can be very painful, that sometimes even though you've got it, you can, you know, it's, you still have a chance of impregnating someone, and so on and so forth. Now, what

interested me is he wasn't very interested in these things. So, eventually, I looked at the object of the act. I said this to him. I said to my friend, this is an act of mutilation. And he said, well, what's the difference between this and say, getting my ears pierced? I said, there's a big difference. Getting your ears pierced isn't mutilation because when you get your ear pierced, you're not destroying the function of your ear. Now, if you did destroy the function of your ear in order to get a particular earring, that would be mutilation. It's not though when you get an earring because that's merely cosmetic and it doesn't affect the function of the ear. affect the function of the ear. Same thing with circumcision. If a man gets circumcised or if parents decide to have their children circumcised, they're not mutilating their child because they're not destroying the function of their child's penis. But in getting a vasectomy, we are destroying one of the reasons or one of the fundamental ways the penis acts and why it's there in the first place.

And because we do that, it is an act of mutilation. And what surprised me is that explaining that to him is what convinced him because this man was a Christian man. He loved Jesus Christ. He didn't want to mutilate his body. You know, he was a healthy person. And I thought that was quite fascinating. So, when you and I consider morally evil acts such as pornography, That was quite fascinating. So, when you and I consider morally evil acts such as pornography, contraception, vasectomies, we should think about the consequences, but we should also think of the object. So, with pornography, you know, look, it can be addictive.

Look, much of the porn out there today is violent. You know, many children are exposed to pornography. We could think of many more reasons people give for thinking pornography is wrong. But again, and I hope I'm not boring anyone at this point, but again, theoretically, we can change all of these things. Theoretically, right? We can see to it that pornography isn't violent. Maybe we can pass laws or something. If the only problem with porn is that it's addictive, then let's see to it that people regulate their porn use. If the only problem with porn is that it's addictive, then let's see to it that people regulate their porn use. If the only problem with pornography is that children are exposed to it, then let's put more protections in place so that they're not exposed to it. But do you notice that even if we fix those three things, we would still want to say that pornography is wrong?

And so at this point, we've got to get back to the object. Why is the object wrong? Because if the object isn't wrong, if it's not intrinsically evil, then we could say, well, if you have the intention and the circumstance right, then maybe pornography isn't evil after all. And that's not something I think that any of us would like to say. All right. I meant to read a lot more from St. Thomas Aquinas, but I sort of went off on a huge tangent there. I apologize. I only read one sentence from St. Thomas Aquinas. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to just read the paragraph that I intended to read at the beginning from the top. And hopefully, what I've explained so far will help us as we now read this paragraph.

explained so far will help us as we now read this paragraph. Quote, the good or evil of an action, as of other things, depends on its fullness of being or its lack of that fullness. Now, the first thing that belongs to the fullness of being seems to be that which gives a thing its species. And just as a natural thing has its species from its form, so an action has its species from its object. That's one of those three sources we talked about. As movement from its term. And therefore, just as the primary goodness of a natural thing is derived from its form, which gives it its species, so the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object. And just as in natural things, the primary evil is when a generated thing does not realize its specific form. For instance, if instead of a man, something else be generated. So, the primary evil in moral actions is that

which is from the object. For instance, to take what belongs to another. So, let's see if I can try and wrap all this up in a couple of sentences that will make things clear to us. When we say an object is evil, what do we mean? We mean it lacks being. And being is synonymous with goodness, just looked at from a different angle. So, when we say an act is evil, we mean that there is a lack of something that ought to be there in the same way that if we say a man is blind, we say, well, that is an evil. Not morally speaking, but it's obviously an evil thing for a man to not have the faculty of sight. to not have the faculty of sight. There is an absence of what ought to be there. The same thing in moral acts. Any action you can think of, for example, rape. Well, what's lacking there? Well,

many things. Gentleness, self-mastery, respect for another, prudence, you know, all sorts of things are lacking in that act. So, if we say a man doesn't have sight, that's an evil because there's something that should be there that isn't. But if a man doesn't have wings, we don't say that that's evil because, you know, man is such that he doesn't have wings and therefore it's not an evil. If a bird lacks wings, then that is an evil. So I hope and pray to God that I haven't just rambled on for 30 minutes in a way that has made you even more confused than ever. It's fascinating what Aquinas has to say and so much more could be said. And I think I'd like to say more in a future episode. But for now, remember, object, intention, and circumstance, these are the three things that make up a moral act, and we have to consider each and decide whether or not the

action is good or evil. Okay? So, let's see. This has been a pleasure. I have to say, doing these podcasts has been tremendous. I began doing these for class, actually, to try and impress my professor and see if he'll help me get some more credit. I don't think that's going to happen, but that's okay. I'm really enjoying doing it, and I hope it's been a help for you. I do ask, would you consider rating the podcast? I'm so thankful to those of you who have. I know it's just a few clicks for you, but it means a lot for me because if we rate the podcast, if it has a higher rating, then people are more likely to stumble across it when they type things into the search bar. Would you check out my website, mattfradd.com to learn more about me

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