THE RELATIONSHIP OF VIRTUES AND NORMS IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGIAE

Abstract

The Prologue to the Secunda secundae provides important insight into Aquinas's ethical vision. Therein he lists the essential categories within moral theology. The list includes virtue, vice, gifts, and precepts. Of these four, precepts receive the thinnest treatment. Taking the example of the precept forbidding adultery, he notes that to treat this precept adequately he would need to 'inquire about adultery which is a sin. The knowledge about which depends on his knowledge of the opposite virtue'. 1 This is inefficient, so instead of treating each concept (virtue, vice, gifts and precepts) in isolation, he proposes to treat them using a 'shorter and quicker method'. This shorter method begins with each virtue, and under the aegis of virtue, includes a treatment of its corresponding vices, together with the gifts related to the virtue, and finally the affirmative and negative precepts of the virtue. There are two important insights to glean from this passage. First, precepts are an essential, if overlooked, aspect of Thomas's ethics. Second, precepts are to be understood in relationship to virtues.The purpose of this paper is to investigate how secondary moral precepts, or moral norms, relate to acquired virtues. Three questions drive this study. First, what is the purpose of moral norms in the Summa theologiae? Second, how are moral norms generated in the Summa? Finally, how are moral norms applied in the Summa?A note on language is in order before we begin. There is no single term in Thomas's lexicon that can be readily translated into the contemporary concept of 'moral norm'; the concept of 'secondary moral precept' (secunda praecepta) is the closest in meaning. When referencing Thomas's text, therefore, this paper will employ his language of secondary moral precept, but in commenting on Thomas's ideas and in the conclusions, the language of moral norm will be employed to connect Aquinas's thought to contemporary discussions of the function of moral norms in theological ethics. In this I am following such Thomists as Louis Janssens and Jean Porter. 2 I. PRINCIPLES AND MORAL PRECEPTSA key development in questions 90-108 of the Prima secundae is the definition of praeceptum. There is sporadic use of the term in the Prima pars, and in the first 90 questions of the Prima secundae. 3 Until the treatise on law, however, the concept remains undefined. Aquinas defines it through an analogy with principium. A principium is a source or origin of something else. In question 75 of the Prima secundae the soul is called a principium of knowledge and motion, just as the eye is a principium of vision. 4 All speculative reasoning begins with the principia of non-contradiction. It serves as an

• Notes on Moral Theology •

“…70 Like Annas, Daniel Daly looks at the relationship between virtues and ethical rules and norms, but rather than simply take what Aquinas injects about the matter, Daly looks at the rather pedestrian way that parents develop rules and norms for their children precisely so that they, in living the truth, might acquire the virtues for the good life. 71 Duquesne's Elizabeth Agnew Cochran first entered the discussion on virtue by reflecting on the Stoics and the Fathers. 72 Now in Receptive Human Virtues she provides a study of Jonathan Edwards on the virtues.…”