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Practical Reasoning, Human Goods and the End of Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

John Finnis
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Our practical reasoning goes well and attains its truth when we identify ways of adequately getting or realising really desirable objectives. And our objectives are really desirable (good) when they either are really desirable in themselves, or are steps on the way to getting or realising some such intrinsically desirable objective or objectives. If there is but one such intrinsically desirable objective, our practical reasoning cannot go well unless we know what it is. If, as seems much more plausible, there are a number of intrinsically desirable objectives, our practical reasoning cannot go well unless we know whether there is some further objective to be attained or realised by or in the pursuit of some or all of these intrinsically desirable objectives, i.e. whether there is some further point to pursuing them; and if so, what that further point or objective (‘last end’) actually is.

Some say that the true last end is some one of the intrinsically desirable human goods, say, the highest instantiation of the highest good attainable in this life, thus contemplation of God to the extent that God is knowable through His creatures. Others agree that it is some one human good, but place it beyond this life, and beyond merely human capacities, in the beatific vision and contemplation of God.

Type
Aquinas Lecture 1985
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 66 , Issue 784 , October 1985 , pp. 438 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

* A similar version of this Aquinas Lecture appears in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064).

1 in Eth. I, lect. 2, (ed. Spiazzi) n. 31; see also VI, lect. 8, n. 1233, with note 3 below.

2 See Gauthier and Jolif, L’Ethique àd Nicomuque (Louvain and Paris, 2nd. ed: 1970), vol. 11, pp. 1-2; St. Thomas, in Eth., I, lect. 1, nn. 2, 3, 7.

3 For Aristotle, see Eth. Nic. I, 3: 1095a5-6; II, 2: 1103b 27-9; VI, 8: 1141b23; and the arguments of Teichmuller amply summarised and defended in T. Ando, Aristotle’s Theory of Practical Cognition (3rd. ed., Martinhus Nijhoff, The Hague: 1971). pp. 121,168-74. For St. Thomas, see in Pol., proem., (ed. Spiazzi) nn. 5-8; in Eth. II, lect. 2, n.256; lect. 9, n. 351; in Lib. Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a.1c & ad 4. It is clear that Aquinas has no interest in drawing a significant distinction between ‘moral philosophy’ and ‘prudentia’; he will introduce the treatise on moral philosophy with the words ‘sapientis est ordinare’ (in Eth. I, lect. 1, n. I), and the sapientia in question, as the development of the whole commentary makes clear, is that sapientia in rebus humanis which is prudentia and ‘pertains solely to practical reason’ (S.T. II-II, q. 47, a.2).

4 See Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Georgetown U.P., Washington, DC; Clarendon Press, Oxford: 1983), ch. 1.

5 Nic. Eth. I, 2:1094a18-22, re-arranging the sentence-order.

6 Nic. Eth. I, 7:1097b2.

7 For this interpretation of the term ‘the others’, see St. Thomas, in Eth. I, lect. 2, n. 19. The recognition that basic goods can be desired and valued both for their own sake and as components in a completely final good (eudaimonia) is reached by Plato in his critique of Socrates: see Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory (O.U.P.: 1977), p. 167.

8 It goes without saying that ‘desires’, throughout, is to be taken in the Aristotelian, not the Humean sense: see Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics, p. 44, also pp. 30-7, 44-5; ‘Natural Law and the “Is”-“Ought” Question: an Invitation to Professor Veatch’ (1981) 26 Catholic Lawyer 266 at pp. 266-70.

9 Engberg-Pedersen, Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Insight (O.U.P.: 1983), p. 31; see also pp. 12, 17-18, 20, 31-2.

10 See S.T. I-II, q. 5, a.8c; see also q. 5, a.8 ad 2; q. 5, a.4 ad 2; q. 13, a. 6c; I, q. 19, a. 3c & a. 10c; q.60, a. 2c; 82, a. 1c & a. 2c; q. 94, a. 1c; de malo, 3, 3c; in Eth. III, lect. 2. n. 403.

11 S. T. I-II, 5, 3c, 4c, quoting Nic. Eth. I, 7: 1097b8.

12 S.T. I-II. 5, 3c; also in Eth. nn. 129, 202, 2103, 2136, 2110.

13 S.T.I-II,q. 3, a. 2 ad 4; a. 5c and a. 6c; q. 5, a. 3 ad 2; a. 5c.

14 I-II, 5, 5c.

15 II-II. 47, 6c.

16 Q.D. de Caritate, a. 2c.

17 S.T. II-II, 47, 6c.

18 II-II, q. 47, a.6 ad I & ad 3; I-II, q. 58, a. 4c; I, q. 79, a. 12c.

19 S.T. I-II. q. 94, aa. 2, 4c; a. 3c = q. 63, a. 1c = II-II, q. 47, a. 6c = I-II. q. 58, a. 4c; de Malo, 3, 12 ad 13.

20 S.T. I-II, q. 10, a. 1; q. 9, a. 1; q. 18, a. 7c; q. 94, a. 2c.

21 I-II, q. 8, a. 2c & ad 1; q. 9, a. 1; q. 19, a. 1c & ad 3.

22 I-II. q. 94, a. 2c (the main list); II-II, q. 64, a. 5 ad 3; a. 6 ad 2; III, q. 68, a. 11 ad 3.

23 I-II, 58, 5c.

24 I-II, 57, 1c.

25 I-II, 66, 3c. See also Joseph, Buckley, Man’s Last End (Herder, St. Louis & London: 1949). pp. 208-10Google Scholar.

26 See Nic. Eth. 1, 7: 1097b17-19.

27 Notice that there is no reason at all to suppose that this as yet indeterminate ‘aspect’ of the realization of basic goods is instantiated by only one ‘appropriate way’ of so realizing them; there may be many such ways that have in some measure the relevant intelligibility and worth, and there is no reason to suppose that the measure must be capable of commensuration and measurement. See Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford U.P.: 1980). ch. 5.

28 in Lib. Boet. de Trin. q. 6, a. 4 ad 3.

29 S.T. I-II, 3, 5c.

30 St. Thomas will appeal (II-II, 182, lc) to the seven reasons set forth by Aristotle in Nic. Eth. X, 7: 1177a11-b13. The weakness of these reasons, and their incompatibility with so much of the Ethics, is well exposed by Jon Moline, ‘Contemplation and the Human Good’ (1983) 17 Nous 37 at 40-5 (though Moline’s own thesis about Aristotle’s ironical intent fails to convince).

31 S.T. I-II. q. 66, a. 4 ad 1; q. 3, a. 6c; q. 57, a. 1 ad 2.

32 sola visio Dei; cf also ‘in solo Deo beatitudo hominis consistit’: I-II, q. 2, a. 8c; q. 3, a. 8c.

33 II-II, 26, 13 ad 3. Beatitude, the fully satisfactory, must surely include such a vision, since without it our concern to understand would be unsatisfied. Indeed, that vision could be said to be central to integral human fulfilment, because the goodness that would be revealed in it must be such that all other goods will then be understood (‘seen’) and appreciated as having their goodness as participations (likenesses and effects) of that primary and original goodness. See further section IV.

34 II-II, 27, 8c: ‘dilectio Dei accip(i)tur secundum quod solus diligitur’.

35 ‘propter unitatem humanae naturae’: see in Eth. I, lect. 9, n. 106.

36 St. Thomas, in I Cor., c. 15, lect. 2.

37 S. T. I, q. 26, a. 2 ad 2; q. 87, a. 3c; etc; see Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics. pp.21-2, 25.

38 Supra n. 19; for the order of thought in St. Thomas on this key issue, read S.T. I-II, q. 94, a. 2c with I, q. 80, a. 1 ad 1; q. 82, a. 4c and 1-11, q. 10, a. 1c.

39 I-II, q. 26, a. 4; II-II, q. 25, a. 2c.

40 I-II, 94, 2.

41 I-II, 4, 8c and ad 3.

42 I-II, q. 4, a. 6c; also a. 5c.

43 II-II, 26, 13. This concession appears in other ways, too. In the state of perfect beatitude, says Aquinas, the order of priorities in love, the ordo caritatis, will remain the same ranked order as it is in this life. And in that state of beatitude, all “the proper grounds of love” (honestae causae dilectionis) will remain as in this life: a. 13c. But what is a causa dilectionis, a ground of love? It is a good, which affords a ratio diligendi: II-II, 26, 2 ad 1. So yet again we find Aquinas formally recognising the multiplicity of goods involved in beatitude, and the necessity of loving and respecting each of those goods in due measure.

44 I-II, q. 67; II-II, q. 26, a. 13; q. 52, a. 3; de Virt. Card. 4; de Car. a. 2c.

45 See also Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethiss, pp. 70-4, 120-1, 151-2.

46 For the contrast between ‘goal’, as attainable objective, and ‘ideal’, see Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, p. 61 and pp. 75-6. On ‘integral human fulfilment’ as the first principle of morality, see n. 45 above.

47 S.T., I-II, q. 2, aa. 7c, 8c; I, q. 65, a. 2; I-II, q. 1, a. 8.

48 de Car., a. 2c.

49 S. T. 11-11, 25, 1.

50 Neo-Platonism such as Augustine’s can be regarded as employing this inadequate model of knowing ‘in its sublimest form’: Bernard Lonergan, Insight (Longmans, London: 1958) p. 412.

51 See notes 1, 3, and 37 above. Six conclusions about the relative epistemological priority of ethics in our knowledge of human nature are reached by close students of St. Thomas such as Theo G. Belmans O. Praem., Le sens objectif de l’agir humain (Libreria Editrice Vaticana: 1980). pp. 142-3,428, J. de Finance SJ, ‘Sur la notion de loi naturelle’ (1969) 22 Doctor Communis 201 at 209-210. For an important and neglected treatment of the way in which sciences can be interdependent without any vicious circle-precisely because each science (even one subalternated to another) can call upon principles which are per se nota and thus not derived from the other science see St. Thomas, in Lib. Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a. 1 ad 9.

52 Eud. Eth. I, 5: 1216a; Grisez and Shaw, Beyond the New Morality (U. Notre Dame P.: 1974), p. 26; Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: 1974), pp. 42-5; Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics, pp. 37-42,46,48, 89.

53 S.T. I, 93, 4c.

54 Here is St. Thomas principal argument for his famous assertion that every intelligent being ‘naturally desires the vision of the divine substance’: Summa contra Gentiles III, 57.

55 See note 8 above; Fundamentals of Ethics, ch. 2.

56 A deficient style of homily went further, reducing Christian moral life to a search for ‘happiness’. Ethics books could be found to follow suit. For example, Vernon Bourke’s Ethics began: ‘(The) basic and natural urge for happiness is deep-rooted in the being of every man. ... Each man’s moral problem ... is to select and do the kind of actions which are conducive to true happiness .... Ethics may be defined as the systematic study of human actions from the point of view of their rightness and wrongness as means for the achievement of ultimate happiness.. . . For the present, we can take right action to be that which should be done ... in order to achieve happiness’ (1966 ed., pp. 3, 4). And happiness was located in an ‘intellectual contemplation of the perfect good’ (ibid., p. vi). A more adequate exposition of Christian faith sets aside these emaciated conceptions of the moral life. The search for one’s own happiness is displaced as the moral norm; in its place we find, in the words of Vatican II: ‘the norm of human activity is this: that in accord with the divine mind (comilium) and will, human activity should harmonize with the genuine good of the human race, and allow men as individuals and members of society to pursue and fulfil their integral vocation’: Gaudium et Spes, 35.

57 Gaudium et spes, 39.

58 Id.

59 cf. Eric D’Arcy, ‘The Withering-Away of Disbelief‘ (1983 18 Atheism and dialogue (Secretariat for Non-Believers, Vatican) 158 at p. 163.

60 Vernon Bourke, ‘Justice as Equitable Reciprocity: Aquinas Updated’ (1982) 27 Am. J. Jurisp. 17 at 25.

61 Ibid., at p. 24. Bourke added: ‘Finnis does not tie in this list of proximate human goods with any consideration of an ultimate good’. But see Natural Law and Natural Rights. pp. 49, 405–10.