Return to Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics
Lecture 1. Subject Matter and End of Moral Philosophy: Diversity of Ends
Book I, Chapter 1
Preliminary notions
First Aristotle shows what he intends to do.
He presents in advance certain things necessary to explain his intention.
He shows how it is necessary to start with the end.
He states… that all human things are ordered to an end.
He states his intention.
All arts and all teaching, and similarly every act and every choice seem to have the attainment of some good as their object.
He explains his purpose.
For this reason it has correctly been proclaimed that good is what all desire.
He shows that there can be a number of ends.
Now a certain diversity of ends is apparent, for some are operations while others are works outside the operations.
He makes a comparison among ends.
If the ends are works then the works are better than the operations.
He compares habits and acts with the end.
He shows that different things are ordered to different ends.
Since there are many operations and arts and sciences there must also be different ends for each of them. Thus the end of medical art is health; of shipbuilding, navigation; of strategy, victory; of domestic economy, riches.
He arranges the order of habits among themselves.
In all such skills a subordination of one to another is found. For instance, the art of bridle-making is subordinated to the art of riding as also are the arts which make riding equipment. The art of riding in turn, and all military operations, come under strategy. In a similar way other arts are subordinated to still others.
He lays down the order of ends.
It follows then that in all these, architectonic ends are more desirable than the ends subordinated to them. The reason is that men seek the latter for the sake of the former.
He shows that it makes no difference whether the end is a product or an operation.
It does not matter whether the ends are operations themselves or something other than the operations as in the skills mentioned above.
Commentary
As the Philosopher says in the beginning of the Metaphysics, it is the business of the wise man to order. The reason for this is that wisdom is the most powerful perfection of reason whose characteristic is to know order. Even if the sensitive powers know some things absolutely, nevertheless to know the order of one thing to another is exclusively the work of intellect or reason. Now a twofold order is found in things. One kind is that of parts of a totality, that is, a group, among themselves, as the parts of a house are mutually ordered to each other. The second order is that of things to an end. This order is of greater importance than the first. For, as the Philosopher says in the eleventh book of the Metaphysics, the order of the parts of an army among themselves exists because of the order of the whole army to the commander. Now order is related to reason in a fourfold way. There is one order that reason does not establish but only beholds, such is the order of things in nature. There is a second order that reason establishes in its own act of consideration, for example, when it arranges its concepts among themselves, and the signs of concept as well, because words express the meanings of the concepts. There is a third order that reason in deliberating establishes in the operations of the will. There is a fourth order that reason in planning establishes in the external things which it causes, such as a chest and a house.
Because the operation of reason is perfected by habit, according to the different modes of order that reason considers in particular, a differentiation of sciences arises. The function of natural philosophy is to consider the order of things that human reason considers but does not establish understand that with natural philosophy here we also include metaphysics. The order that reason makes in its own act of consideration pertains to rational philosophy, which properly considers the order of the parts of verbal expression with one another and the order of principles to one another and to their conclusions. The order of voluntary actions pertains to the consideration of moral philosophy. The order that reason in planning establishes in external things arranged by human reason pertains to the mechanical arts.
Accordingly it is proper to moral philosophy, to which our attention is at present directed, to consider human operations insofar as they are ordered one another and to an end.
I am talking about human operations, those springing from man’s will following the order of reason. But if some operations are found in man that are not subject to the will and reason, they are not properly called human but natural, as, clearly appears in operations of the vegetative soul. These in no way fall under the consideration of moral philosophy. As the subject of natural philosophy is motion, or mobile being, so the subject of moral philosophy is human action ordered to an end, or even man,.as he is an agent voluntarily acting for an end.
It must be understood that, because man is by nature a social animal, needing many things to live which he cannot get for himself if alone, he naturally is a part of a group that furnishes him help to live well. He needs this help for two reasons. First, to have what is necessary for life, without which he cannot live the present life; an for this, man is helped by the domestic group of which he is a part. For every man is indebted to his parents for his generation and his nourishment and instruction. Likewise individuals, who are members of the family, help one another to procure the necessities of life. In another way, man receives help from the group of which he is a part, to have a perfect sufficiency for life; namely, that man may not only live but live well, having everything sufficient for living; and in this way man is helped by the civic group, of which he is a member, not only in regard to bodily needs but also in regard to right conduct, inasmuch as public authority restrains with fear of punishment delinquent young men whom paternal admonition is not able to correct.
It must be known moreover that the whole which the political group or the family constitutes has only a unity of order, for it is not something absolutely one. A part of this whole, therefore, can have an operation that is not the operation of the whole, as a soldier in an army has an activity that does not belong to the whole army. However, this whole does have an operation that is not proper to its parts but to the whole for example, an assault of the entire army. Likewise the movement of a boat is a combined operation of the crew rowing the boat. There is also a kind of whole that has not only a unity of order but of composition, or of conjunction, or even of continuity, and according to this unity a thing is one absolutely; and therefore there is no operation of the part that does not belong to the whole. For in things all of one piece the motion of the whole and of the part is the same. Similarly in composites and in conjoined things, the operation of a part is principally that of the whole. For this reason it is necessary that such a consideration of both the whole and its parts should belong to the same science. It does not, however, pertain to the same science to consider the whole, which has solely the unity of order, and the parts of this whole.
Thus it is that moral philosophy is divided into three parts. The first of these, which is called individual ethics, considers an individual’s operations as ordered to an end. The second, called domestic ethics, considers the operations of the domestic group. The third, called political science, considers the operations of the civic group.
Thus Aristotle as he begins the treatment of moral philosophy in the first part of this book called Ethics, or morals, first gives an introduction in which he does three things. First he shows what he intends to do. Second, at “Our study will be etc.”, he determines the manner of treatment. Third in the same lecture, at “Now every man etc.”, he explains what manner of person the student of this science ought to be. In regard to the initial point he does two things. First he presents in advance certain things necessary to explain his intention. Second, at “If our actions etc.”, he manifests his intention. In regard to the first he does two things. Initially he shows how it is necessary to start with the end. Then, at “Since there are many etc.,” he compares habits and acts with the end. On the first point he does three things. He states initially that all human beings are ordered to an end. Next, at “Now a certain diversity etc.,” he shows that there can be a number of ends. Last, at “If the ends are works etc.,” he makes a comparison among ends. In regard to the first point he does two things. He states his intention; and then, at “For this reason etc.”, he explains his purpose.
In regard to the first we should consider that there are two principles of human acts, namely, the intellect or reason and the appetite, which are active principles as explained in the third book De Anima. The intellect or reason considers both the speculative and the practical. The rational appetite is concerned with choice and execution. Now all these are ordered to some good as to their end, for truth is the end of speculation.
Therefore, in the speculative intellect he includes teaching by which science is conveyed from teacher to student, while in the practical intellect he locates art which is right reason applied to things to be made, as is stated in the sixth book of this work. He indicates that the act of the appetitive intellect is choice, and that execution is “actus.” He does not mention prudence, which is in the practical reason together with art, because choice is properly directed by prudence. He says therefore that each of these faculties obviously seeks some good as an end.
Then, at “For this reason,” he manifests his intention by the effect of good. In regard to this we should bear in mind that good is enumerated among the primary entities to such a degree that good is prior to being. But, in reality, good is convertible with being. Now primary things cannot be understood by anything anterior to them, but by something consequent, as causes are understood through their proper effects. But since good properly is the moving principle of the appetite, good is described as movement of the appetite, just as motive power is usually manifested through motion. For this reason he says that the philosophers have rightly declared that good is what all desire.
There is no problem from the fact that some men desire evil. For they desire evil only under the aspect of good, that is, insofar as they think it good. Hence their intention primarily aims at the good and only incidentally touches on the evil.
The saying “… what all desire” is to be understood not only of those who knowingly seek good but also of beings lacking knowledge.
These things by a natural desire tend to good, not as knowing the good, but because they are moved to it by something cognitive, that is, under the direction of the divine intellect in the way an arrow speeds towards a target by the aim of the archer. This very tendency to good is the desiring of good. Hence, he says, all beings desire good insofar as they tend to good. But there is not one good to which all tend; this will be explained later. Therefore he does not single out here a particular good but rather discusses good in general. However, because nothing is good except insofar as it is a likeness and participation of the highest good, the highest good itself is in some way desired in every particular good. Thus it can be said that the true good is what all desire.
Then, at “Now a certain diversity,” he indicates that there is a diversity of ends. In this we must keep in mind that the final good, to which the inclination of each thing tends, is its ultimate perfection. Now the first perfection is possessed after the manner of a form, but the second perfection by way of an operation. Consequently, there must be this diversity of ends: some are operations and others are the objects achieved, that is, the products which exist apart from the operations.
For evidence of this we must consider that activity is of two kinds, as noted in the ninth book of the Metaphysics. One, which remains in the agent himself, as seeing, wishing and understanding, is an operation of the type properly called “action.” The other is an operation passing over into external matter and is properly called “making.” Sometimes a person accepts external matter only for use, as a horse for riding and a zither for playing, and at other times he takes external matter to change it into some other form, as when a carpenter constructs a house or a bed. Accordingly, the first and second of these operations do not have any product which is their term, but each of them is an end. The first, however, is more excellent than the second, inasmuch as it remains in the agent himself. But the third operation is a kind of generation whose term is a thing produced. So, in operations of the third type, the things done are the ends.
Then, at “If the ends,” he presents the third type, saying that whenever the products which are extrinsic to the activities are ends, the things produced necessarily are better than the operations that brought them to be, as the thing generated is better than the generative action. The end is more important than the means in fact, the means have goodness from their relation to the end.
Then, at “Since there are many operations,” he compares habits and acts with the end. In this matter he does four things. First he shows that different things are ordered to different ends. He says that, since there are many operations and arts and sciences, there must be different ends for each of them, for the ends and the means are proportional. This he shows by saying that the end of medical art is health; of shipbuilding, navigation; of strategy, victory; and of domestic economy or managing a household, riches. He accepts this last example on the opinion of the majority of men, for he himself proves in the first book of the Politics that riches are not the end of domestic economy but the instruments thereof.
Second, at “In all such skills,” he arranges the order of habits among themselves. It happens that one operative habit, which he calls virtue, is subordinated to another, as the art of bridle-making is subordinated to the art of riding because the rider tells the bridle-maker how he should make the bridle. In this way the rider is the designer, that is, the chief producer of the thing itself. The same arguments hold for the other arts making additional equipment needed for riding, such as saddles or the like. The equestrian art is again subordinated to the military, for in ancient times the army included not only mounted soldiers but everyone who fought for victory. Hence under military science there is not only the equestrian but every art or skill ordered to the prosecution of war archery, ballistics and everything else of this kind. In this same way other arts are subordinated to still others.
Third, at “It follows then,” he lays down the order of ends according to the order of habits. He says that in all arts or skills it is commonly true that the architectonic ends are absolutely more desirable to everyone than are the ends of the arts or skills that are subordinated to the chief ends. He proves this from the fact that men follow or seek the ends of the inferior arts or skills for the sake of the ends of the superior. The text, however, is suspensive, and should be read as follows: In all such skills a subordination of one to another is found… in all these the architectonic ends etc.
Fourth, at “It does not matter,” he shows that it makes no difference in the order of ends, whether the end is a product or an activity. He says that it makes no difference in what pertains to this order that these ends be activities or some product other than the activities, as is evident from the explanation given above. The end of bridle-making is a finished bridle; but the end of horsemanship, which is of greater importance, is an operation, that is, riding. The contrary is true in medicine and gymnastics, for the end of medicine is something produced, namely, health. But of gymnastics which is comprised under it, the end is an activity, which is exercise.
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