¹Our world today often denies that objective truth exists. It denies that reality is real. It rejects claims to real truth about true reality.² How can one find a “moral compass” in this situation? With an appeal to Ps 4:6, St. Thomas Aquinas identifies the first principle of practical reason, and the first directive of the natural law, i.e., good must be sought and done, and evil must be avoided.³ This principle serves as the foundation for all other injunctions of the natural law and prompts the work of justice, which is the basis for the virtuous life:

“Hence the Psalmist after saying: ‘Offer up the sacrifice of justice,’ as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: ‘Many say, who will show us good things?’ in answer to which question he says: ‘The light of Your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us’: thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light.”⁴

Thus, Aquinas’ moral teaching based on solid metaphysical principles provides thoughtful answers to difficult questions of these days. Our actions proceed from our deliberations that reflect our ontological composition. This article presents metaphysical foundations of morals, especially as they refer to moral judgment according to the understanding of the Angelic Doctor. For this reason, this article connects theology and philosophy.⁵ We will advance in three steps. First, we will show a specific difference between good and evil as a basis of St. Thomas’ moral thought. Second, on this level we will discuss a moral judgment with regards to human action. Third, we will look at the judgment of our conscience. It is precisely our conscience that makes moral judgments according to one’s knowledge, and that proceeds from a habitual disposition of synderesis.

1. Good in Human Action

The whole of human life is full of actions. One cannot not act. However, we must distinguish a human act (actus humani) from an act of a human being (actus hominis). An act of a human being can be found in human beings but is not attributed to man as man. Acts like digestion, breathing or growth are called natural rather than human. Truly human acts, on the contrary, proceed from reason and will, which are the faculties proper to a human being.⁶ Are there any human acts that escape moral judgment because they are in their essence morally neutral? Every human act (actus humanus) as such, is either good or bad.⁷ While non-divine actions often do not enjoy the fullness of being, they do not necessarily have a defect. The goodness of anything is to be distinguished not insofar as it is in potency, but rather as it is in act in relation to the nature in which the potencies reside.⁸

It is important to distinguish between potency and privation. While potency can lead to evil, it is not evil itself; only privation is evil. In the case of created beings, it is always possible that a deficiency occurs in an action that does not have its required integrity. Even if the action itself is perfect, an effect of that action can be deficient. The mode of action of every subject follows its mode of being.⁹ Why is this general principle of such importance? It is because of the nature of a thing. Such as a thing is, so is the act that it produces. Each thing has as much good as it has being (of a certain nature), since good and being are convertible. That means that every human action is good if it effectuates the integral fullness of elements which it should have.

We need to place the morality of human behavior within the context of the metaphysical goodness of being, because if we base our consideration on moral goodness alone without considering the metaphysical nature in which morality exists, we will always evaluate the good against evil as the two components of a moral act in an overly abstract way. Thomas Aquinas does not present evil primarily as a transgression of a law which one’s conscience would reproach, but as the absence of good that one’s nature requires:

“Good and evil are not constitutive differences except in morals, which receive their species from the end, which is the object of the will, the source of all morality. And because good has the nature of an end, therefore good and evil are specific differences in moral things; good in itself, but evil as the absence of the due end. (…) Hence evil is not a constitutive difference as such, but by reason of the good that is annexed.”¹⁰

An act, as such, has goodness, insofar as it has being, and every being possesses a certain goodness. But this goodness does not have primarily moral but ontological character. The order of good in human actions is analogous to the order of goodness in natural things, and the structure of good in human acts generally follows St. Thomas’ reflection and analysis of the transcendental good.¹¹ What do we mean by that? The goodness of an action’s being is fourfold: the first concerns a genus of an action, that is the action as such; the second is defined by its species, which means a suitable object; the third is derived from its circumstances as the accidents; the fourth comes from its end.

As natural things are specified by their form, every action is specified and measured by its object. The essence of an action comes from its object. So, the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object.¹² The suitable object of an action is derived from the substantial form and nature of a thing and its goodness. The fullness of its goodness also includes its appropriate circumstances, mainly those of place and time, which play a role similar to accidents, for example the color and shape in the case of natural things.¹³ Finally, the goodness of an action comes from its end, and the relation to the end of human actions is also dependent upon a moral agent’s nature and substance.¹⁴

In these previous dimensions of the fourfold goodness of an action, there can be various defects in human actions. However, human action requires integrity, which comes firstly from reason. Action is good if it is in accordance with reason because “the good of man is to be in accordance with reason.”¹⁵ Since the essence of a human action is defined by its object, the action is good when its object is in accordance with the order of reason. Even though moral acts must be voluntary, the will itself is not a criterion for an action’s goodness. The will has to be regulated by reason.¹⁶ That is why the essential feature of St. Thomas’ ethics is the correlation between morality and rationality.¹⁷ Being is the first to be known in the absolute sense, but good and doing good is the first concept of practical reason. The character of moral goodness is practical rather than theoretical for it is proper to practical reason to lead to certain action. However, each practical reality presupposes and includes reality itself, which can be considered theoretically.

2. Relation between Good and Evil

As we wrote elsewhere, “Aquinas interprets the good in a transcendental sense by referring to its convertibility with being.”¹⁸ In our opinion, this is a crucial point to understand his moral concept. However, there are other opinions on the moral theory of Aquinas. Proponents of what has been called “the New Natural Law,” such as John Finnis, Germain Grisez and Robert George, argue that an analysis of practical reason without an ontological foundation is sufficient for morals fully compatible with the insights of St. Thomas.¹⁹ That is the reason why they put too much emphasis on the importance of intention for moral consideration against the physical and causal structure of a human action.²⁰ We have addressed Aquinas’ well-balanced position on this issue elsewhere.²¹

The greatest objection against the convertibility of goodness and being as was described in that previous text arises from the experience of evil. If everyone has the experience of evil in a being, and evil is opposite to good, how can it be said that good and being are really identical? Aquinas responds:

“Every being, as being, is good (…). No being can be spoken of as evil, formally as being, but only so far as it lacks being. Thus, a man is said to be evil, because he lacks some virtue; and an eye is said to be evil, because it lacks the power to see well.”²²

A thing is evil when its potentiality is deprived of its proper act.²³ Evil is not a pure negation; it is a privation of what is proper to the nature of a certain thing.²⁴ This quasi-definition of evil as a privation does not mean a denial of its existence as one could deduce from the convertibility of good and being. As Aquinas says, “experience teaches, and reason shows the fact (of the existence of evil).”²⁵

What is thus a mode of evil’s existence? Although evil has neither substance nor any positive nature, it has a material cause that is found in a subject through whom it can “exist.” Properly speaking, the subject’s existence is affected by a particular privation (evil). This is the material—or even subjective—principle of evil. Evil only exists in relation to the good. Two basic characteristics of evil stemming from what has been said are: 1) evil is a type of non-existence, and 2) evil affects its subject, sometimes terribly. In this sense, evil “exists.” It acts in this indirect manner, namely by its subject.²⁶ Evil is the result of a deficient application of efficient causality. An efficient cause is defined by a potency to make some modification to a being, to produce some positive change, something which is absent in the case of evil. Everything good comes about through the efficiency of an agent, while any committed evil is a result of a disordered deficiency in efficient causality, away from a truly good end.²⁷

Regarding the existence and the being, we have to specify that according to Aristotle and Aquinas, being is an analogical notion that covers different genera and modes of existence.²⁸ Aristotle distinguishes two modes of being.²⁹ 1. “Being outside the mind.” In this mode, evil does not exist outside the mind. 2. “Being as what is true.” This mode deals with the truth in relation to a subject and its predicate. In this sense, being is everything about which a true proposition can be stated. In this mode, evil exists and can be called being, and its privative character is affirmed, like when we speak of blindness as being in the eye, or of any other privation (although it is neither a positive reality, nor does it have any independent nature or essence).³⁰

The very fact that on the moral level evil constitutes a specifying principle does not contradict, but rather presupposes, the privative character of evil. The privative feature of evil does not consist in a human action having no object, but in the lack of conformity of this object to reason.³¹ An evil act is deprived of the order of reason, which is the good of the human person. Also, evil resides in the good as its subject, because if there is no good there would be no being, and thus there would be nothing. The evaluation of a human act as evil does not mean that there is something which is intrinsically evil in the sense of its essence. That is why, technically speaking, one must understand the phrase “intrinsically evil” as synonymous with the precise description of acts as “objectively evil”—since evil has no proper intrinsic content. It is in this precise and nuanced sense that we interpret and employ the phrase “intrinsically evil acts.”³²

Thus, how is an evil act constituted? Regarding human actions, we speak about good and evil in a specific sense. If we say that some action is morally evil, for example blasphemy, we exclude all the moral goodness from it. By this, we do not want to claim that an act of blasphemy does not exist. This act keeps some physical goodness in the sense that it is real, but it suffers from a real deficient moral disorder. It is morally evil in its essence, according to its species, because its moral privation shapes its objective character. Its disorder defines the act at its core. Such an act is not only affected by evil; it is formed by evil.³³ The evil shapes the formality and the identity of the action itself. Blasphemy is not just a privation of due praise. Praise and blasphemy are opposing like two extremes within the same moral genus.³⁴

Between a dog and a corpse of a dog, there is an opposition that has a privative character of evil. But a carcass does not represent the opposite to a dog in their common genus. There is a specific difference between those two—they are not in the same genus and their opposition is possible only as for the things of the same genus.³⁵ A sin, an evil human act, comprises an object opposing the requirements of reason that was freely chosen. It does not cease to be moral in the way that a cadaver ceases to be alive. It is a privation of goodness, being a contrary species of the same genus, namely, that of morality. However, the species of a sin cannot be defined by a privation, but rather by an opposition that serves as the context for this privation.³⁶

Now, somebody may ask: What about human acts that are in their essence morally neutral? Actions like going for a walk, choosing chocolate rather than vanilla ice-cream, or wearing a red dress (rather than a blue one). Do they escape moral judgment? Or how are they defined in terms of what has been said so far? There are two aspects under which this matter can be considered. If we consider actions strictly in relation to their essence, we must judge their object. If we abstract from everything else, like circumstances, an end or intentions, morally indifferent acts do exist in their species.³⁷

But human actions are actualized only in certain specific, concrete conditions which include the circumstances, the end, and the relation of reason. Under particular conditions, the acts that are morally indifferent in their object become good or bad. A free and human act must be oriented to the real ends of human life. Even an act with an indifferent object must be done for a reasonable end. If it is so, this might be sufficient grounds for calling it good. On the other hand, if this connection to the last end of the human life is missing, it is sufficient to render such an act evil.³⁸

That is why eating ice-cream or wearing a certain dress will not be just metaphysically but also morally good, since it contributes to the fullness of a certain being if there is no privation because of the circumstances of this action. In every concretely performed act, there is a morality which can be either good or evil. There is nothing like a mixed morality that would be partially good and bad at the same time.³⁹ Nor is it possible for there to be any mixture of a morality that is good or evil with an indifferent morality. The first and decisive criterion for a right moral judgment about a certain act is the accordance with reason. There are, of course, various degrees of conformity or of discrepancy with reason which will set certain degrees of goodness or badness, but an act in itself can only be either good (in accord with reason) or evil (because of a rational disorder). Almsgiving made by vanity is not partially good and partially evil; it is bad as a whole because the bad end (not compatible with a rational good) destroys the goodness of the act’s object (and on this account of the act as such).⁴⁰ It is all the more so for actions with indifferent objects.

3. Judgment of Conscience

After having discussed the nature of Aquinas’ moral theory, we can turn our attention to the accomplishment of moral choice that is based on a judgment of our conscience. Performance of human acts is based on the general knowledge of an agent. This knowledge is applied to a human action by the judgment of conscience.⁴¹

When talking about conscience, Aquinas refers first to the meaning of the word itself:

“Conscience, according to the very nature of the word, implies the relation of knowledge to something: for conscience may be resolved into ‘cum alio scientia,’ that means the knowledge applied to an individual case.”⁴²

He claims that the conscience is an act of the application of an agent’s knowledge to a particular action, by which the agent pronounces on 1) whether the act exists or has existed, and 2) whether it is correct or not,⁴³ i.e., it examines the moral value of an act that is to be done, was already done, or will be done—if it is conformed or opposed to the moral rule, which is the reason.⁴⁴ The second function (moral evaluation of an act) comprises the conscience in the strict sense of the word.

According to St. Thomas, conscience is not an independent faculty of the soul. Conscience differs from a habitus residing in a faculty of a soul, but it is not completely independent from the powers of the soul.⁴⁵ For example, as seeing presupposes the power of sight, and the act of sight is dependent on a seeing faculty, so conscience is an act of human reason. It is the act of evaluation and judgment that precedes in action a judgment of election (choice) and proceeds from a habitual disposition that determines our intellect, which is called synderesis. Thus, there are three integral elements to the conscience: a particular action, the agent’s knowledge, and the act of “application,” which is an act of the intellect that gathers and applies to a particular case all knowledge that can serve to enlighten it.⁴⁶

If the agent’s knowledge is applied to a present or to a future act, conscience leads the agent and can “prod, or urge, or bind.”⁴⁷ Regarding application to a past act, conscience may either 1) “accuse or cause remorse, when that which has been done is found to be out of harmony with the knowledge according to which it is examined,” or 2) “defend or excuse, when that which has been done is found to have proceeded according to the form of the knowledge”⁴⁸ that the agent applied. According to its very nature, conscience is subjective and individualist in its judgments.⁴⁹

Synderesis, on the other hand, is a habitual disposition of a human agent which shapes the acts of conscience. It refers to general moral principles, especially the first principle of moral acting which is “good is to be done and evil is to be avoided,”⁵⁰ and applies them (through the judgments of conscience) to an action. Synderesis also inclines an agent towards the good in general because it originates from the inclination of human nature to the good. Aquinas states clearly the fact that synderesis cannot be mistaken at any time and is “of unwavering integrity.”⁵¹ It also cannot undergo any change, which is why it serves as the basis for all moral determinations about individual moral laws. The individual judgments of conscience are coordinated with the universal principles of synderesis. In this regard, the synderesis makes moral consideration possible:

“For example, if the judgment of synderesis expresses this statement: ‘I must not do anything which is forbidden by the law of God,’ and if the knowledge of higher reason presents this minor premise: ‘Sexual intercourse with this woman is forbidden by the law of God,’ the application of conscience will be made by concluding: ‘I must abstain from this intercourse.’”⁵²

An error in a judgment of conscience can arise then either from bad knowledge about what is just and what is not or due to an incorrect application of an agent’s knowledge to an act.⁵³ However, the judgment of conscience may conclude rightly, but the free choice⁵⁴ may decide to act in contrary fashion because of certain elements (for example, a pleasure) present in such an action.

Conclusion

Every rational creature has not only an active participation (natural law) but also a passive participation in the eternal law, which means having a nature that is ordered towards the ends determined by God in the creature’s fundamental ontological constitution (imitation of and union with Him). Active participation in the eternal law is based on and presupposes passive participation, which is given to every creature simply by its existence and by having a nature that is ordered toward certain ends. Passive participation does not in itself constitute the natural law, but the universe is and behaves as it does through this participation subject to the law that was written into it by God.⁵⁵

The existence of a natural being is per se ordered to a determined end which is the cause of a predetermination of the kinds of means consonant with this end. Such determination is non-changeable, and thus non-voluntary, and arises from the intrinsic characteristics of the nature of a being. This is an unavoidable context for human acts that are authentically human because they are accomplished through the dynamics of human nature, which gives them their minimal necessary orientation. Being humans, we did not make ourselves need oxygen, water, or food. We did not create our need for wisdom and knowledge to avoid confusion and ignorance. We simply are that kind of beings.⁵⁶ This is our basic ontological constitution which is also on the natural level a primary source of our actions. Aquinas’ moral theology is built on these grounds.

Someone may object: “But what is the place of God in all this?” God exists in fullness and in complete simplicity. Human experience (especially the one that comes from our senses) offers contact with complex realities. “Simple”, in a negative delimitation, means something which is not composed from any parts.⁵⁷ In the case of God, simple is a quality of the source par excellence.⁵⁸ The fullness of being carries with it absolute goodness. There is not a single mark of evil in God.⁵⁹

On the contrary, since the integrity of a contingent being requires a harmony of different parts, a deficiency of one kind or another is always possible. This is the case with all creatures, including the purely spiritual. Unlike God, a creature is not its own being; its created essence requires completion in existence. This can happen only through its proper good acts. That constitutes a creature’s second perfection.⁶⁰ In this manner, the metaphysical character of Aquinas’ moral teaching, contrary to current relativizing tendencies, is not only capable of expressing the intrinsic character of morality, but also may help to lead its adherents to their perfection.

JUDr. Ing. Peter Samuel Lovás, OP., STL.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Sts. Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Palacký University Olomouc                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Univerzitní 22                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      779 00 Olomouc                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Czech Republic

Published in: Theologos, 2024, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 53 – 65. ISSN 1335-5570.