Thomas Aquinas on Malice: Three Interpretive Errors

Self-published, 2023

Thomas Aquinas's claim that not all malicious sins proceed from an agent's vice is examined. First, I summarize Thomas's arguments to the effect that all vicious actions are malicious, so as to provide the relevant backdrop. Second, I explain the two ways in which malicious and non-vicious sins arise: sickly bodily dispositions, and the removal of a restraint. Third, I explore the characteristics of malicious and non-vicious sins, and how these differ from those malicious sins that proceed from one's vice. Ultimately, I conclude that malicious and non-vicious sins constitute a mean of sorts between sins of passion and vicious sins.

This project aims to examine the relationship between vice and malice according to Thomas Aquinas. The first chapter begins with a consideration of the categories before moving on to disposition and habitus. Habitus, it is argued, is a disposition that resides in certain powers of the soul that is difficult to change; they make action prompt, easy, and pleasurable, and their objects connatural to their subjects. The second chapter takes up unsuitable habitus: vices. The features of habitus are applied to vice, and the relationship of vice to virtue and to the mean, the connection of the vices, and the generation, strengthening, weakening, and corruption of vices are examined. The third chapter focuses upon that to which vicious habitus are directed: sinful actions. Here, sin is examined as a philosophical concept as well as as an act. The fourth chapter considers malice, which is an interior cause of sinful actions, consisting as they do in a disordered will that loves some temporal good more than a spiritual good, and which, when the temporal and spiritual good are perceived to be incompatible with each other, result in an agent who knowingly chooses a spiritual evil so that the temporal good may be obtained. Malice is contrasted with the exterior causes of sinful action, as well as with the other interior causes of sinful action: ignorance and passion. Special emphasis is placed upon the roles of intention and choice in the malicious action, as well as upon the role of evil in the choice that characterizes malice. The groundwork being laid, the fifth and final chapter considers the relationship between vice and malice, which consists in large part of an examination of Thomas's two claims that, first, all sins arising from one's vicious habitus are malicious, and, second, that not all malicious sins are from a vicious habitus. In the former case, this is in part because a vicious habitus makes its object connatural to the sinning agent. In the latter case, this is because malicious sins need not be committed in the manner which vicious sins are: promptly, easily, and pleasurably. Thus, for Thomas, the relationship between vice and malice is characterized differently whether one approaches malice from the side of vice, or vice from the side of malice. I argue that the result is a progression of vice and malice in the sinning agent, according as one's appetites are more or less inclined to their respective objects.

2010

The idea that St. Thomas's theory of the will changed from an Aristotelian stage to a voluntaristic stage, which was first proposed by Lottin in the 1920s, is still accepted by many scholars despite some criticisms. In this paper I will criticize Lottin's interpretation and elucidate the precise meaning of the change in Thomas's theory of the will. My method of criticism is to examine closely the indications of the change on which Lottin and his followers have insisted. I think these indications are an effect of Thomas expanding his understanding of the structure of the motion of the will. In conclusion, the change in Thomas's theory does not involve a fundamental shift in his thinking, but only an elaboration of his analysis of the will's act and of his proof of the freedom of the will.

2020

Although the sin of angels seems to be only a theological issue, it is a very interesting case of the choice which was made by intellectually perfect creatures, and therefore it can be helpful in understanding the very nature of choice. This article analyses the two most significant views on the matter as presented by St. Anselm of Canterbury in his dialogue On the Fall of the Devil, and by St. Thomas Aquinas in the first part of Summa Theologiae. The problem is the role of the intellect and the will in the process of decision making and which of these powers seems to be more important in case of the sin of angels. The main problem of St. Anselm’s analysis lies in the question of how angels could have chosen freely, since only freedom of their choice can dismiss the claim that God is the one to be blamed for their fall. St. Anselm claims that God gave angels two types of will: the will of justice and the will of beatitude, and since angels lacked something to achieve the ultimate beatitude, they preferred happiness over justice. The focus is then on the act of will, which seems to make the choice without the need of any other cause. Although St. Thomas knew of Anselm’s dialogue, it seems that he did not refer to it while discussing the sin of angels. Although he ultimately agrees that the cause of the fall of angels was a defective act of will, he sees the problem not in the will alone, but rather in the intellectual aspect of the decision. Aquinas makes a distinction between the two kinds of beatitude and shows that although angels after the creation had natural beatitude, they lacked ultimate beatitude, that is seeing God as He is. Angels wanted to obtain this ultimate beatitude by their own power regardless of the rectitude which their action ought to have — and this was insubordination to the rule of the Divine will. According to St. Thomas, the defect of the act laid in not considering the thing which ought to be considered, and therefore it was a lack of consideration. This lack of consideration was possible because angelic cognition was not perfect, and therefore they considered their choice only in one aspect while abandoning other possible views on the matter. However, this defect of consideration was also the effect of the action or restraining of the action of will which did not allow or did not order them to make it. Finally, Aquinas’s answer seems to show a balance between the cognitive and voluntary aspects of the angelic sin.

Philosophers' Imprint, 2017

From the early reception of Thomas Aquinas up to the present, many have interpreted his theory of liberum arbitrium (which for Aquinas is free will specifically as the power to choose among alternatives) to imply intellectual determinism: we do not control our choices, because we do not control the practical judgments that cause our choices. In this paper we argue instead that he rejects determinism in general and intellectual determinism in particular , which would effectively destroy liberum arbitrium as he conceives of it. We clarify that for Aquinas moral responsibility presupposes liberum arbitrium and thus the ability to do otherwise, although the ability to do otherwise applies differently to praise and blame. His argument against intellectual determinism is not straightforward, but we construct it by analogy to his arguments against other deterministic threats (e.g., the one posed by divine foreknowledge). The non-determinism of the intellect's causality with respect to the will results from his claims that practical reasoning is defeasible and that the reasons for actions are not contrastive reasons.

2006

The article studies the reception of Aristotle’s treatments of voluntariness and decision (EN 3.1–5) in the first three Latin commentaries (two by Albert the Great, one by Thomas Aquinas) that are based on the integral text of the Nicomachean Ethics. In particular, my goal is to examine how Albert’s and Thomas’s non-Aristotelian concepts of the will as a faculty distinct from reason influences their explanations of the Aristotelian account. It is argued that the Dominican commentators emphasize the idea of freedom more than Aristotle did.

Academia. Humanities and Natural Sciences, 2021

This article is a continuation of a two-part engagement with the concept of evil as it has been developed and (mis)interpreted in the history. In the first part I traced the roots and the classical meaning of the axiom of a “lesser evil”. I presented the insights of Pope Gregory the Great, of the Eighth Council of Toledo, and of Gratian which pertain to this topic, as well as the more or less implicit views of Aquinas on evil, on the object of action and on sinful yet non-culpable actions performed in accordance with the conscience. I have pointed out that this principle of lesser evil is not at all as simple as it might look, and that its original application was extremely limited. There was also a shift in word usage – from consentingly tolerating a lesser damage to engaging in choosing a lesser of (usually) two evils. In what follows, I will focus on post-Renaissance thought and consider criticism oriented toward this lesser-evil-thought from the perspective of Catholic moral theology. The numbering of the chapters follows the previous part.