Virtue in the Middle Ages

1. Virtue in theMiddle Ages A quick, and yet somehow still exhausting, tour of a Thousand Years

2. One Thought Per Thinker • Augustine: The pagan idea of virtue is pride and delusion. • Anselm : It’s all about obedience. • Peter Abelard : Intentions are all that matters. • Thomas Aquinas: Virtue perfects human nature. • John Duns Scotus : It’s all about the will. • William Ockham : The language of virtue falls apart.

3. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)Virtue Perfects human nature • From natural law to virtue • The standing analogy between speculative and practical reasoning

4. From natural law to virtue (ctd) • The first precept of the natural law is that good is to be done and evil avoided. • The most general precepts of the natural law are more substantive principles that point out specific goods to be pursued. • Aquinas identifies these goods by appealing to a general metaphysical theory of goodness and a philosophical anthropology. • These goods are arranged hierarchically and inclusively. • Aquinas posits appetites corresponding to each level of good.

5. And so we arrive at virtue • Virtues are dispositions by which we achieve our specific good effectively. • We need them because our specific good is rational activity, and our appetites alone do not suffice for fully rational choice. • Sensory appetite needs virtue in order to follow reason. • Intellectual appetite needs virtue in order to be directed toward the common good. • Reason needs virtue in order to judge well.

6. Thus the fourcardinal virtues • There are two virtues perfecting the sensory appetite: • Temperance (temperantia) perfects the concupiscible appetite • Fortitude (fortitudo) perfects the irascible appetite. • Justice (iustitia) perfects the intellectual appetite (will). • Practical wisdom (prudentia) perfects reason.

7. Analyzing particular virtues • We’ll take temperance as our example, just because I have a handy chart. • The basic rule of temperance: natural law at work • The psychological complexity of temperance

8. The Linchpin:Practical wisdom • In deliberate action • We apprehend the end • We deliberate about how that end can be achieved here and now • We judge what is to be done • We command the external bodily members to do it • Practical wisdom in the broadest sense is the virtue by which we deliberate well, judge well, and command well.

9. The linchpin:Practical Wisdom • There are corresponding vices in each case • Foolish haste or “precipitation” is a failure in deliberation: you don’t stop and think. • Thoughtless is a failure in the act of judgment: you can’t be bothered to pay attention to the relevant considerations. • Inconstancy is a failure in the act of command: you don’t follow through. • Since moral defects cause these defects in practical reason, practical wisdom is impossible without moral virtue.

10. Natural & supernatural goods(or, how aquinas out-book-tens book ten) • The specifically human activity that constitutes our good is not theoretical but practical reason. • The life of practical reason – the life of the activity of the moral virtues – is “proportionate to human beings.” • The life of theoretical reason is in an important sense superhuman. • But as a Christian Aquinas believes that God intends human beings for a life that surpasses their nature.

11. Natural & supernatural goods(or, how aquinas out-book-tens book ten) • But note: grace does not destroy nature; it brings nature to fulfillment. (Gratia non tollitnaturamsedperficit.) • Heaven fulfills our nature, though in a way beyond nature’s power; and our supernatural life begins not with death but with baptism. • We need virtues that dispose us toward that supernatural happiness: faith, hope, charity. • These virtues have a parallel structure to the moral virtues.

12. John duns scotus (1265/66-1308)It’s all about the will • All virtues of character are in the will. • Possession of a virtue is neither necessary nor sufficient for right action. • The virtues are not necessarily connected; they are partial perfections.

13. William Ockham (c. 1287-1347)The Language of Virtue falls apart • Ockham agrees with Scotus that • Virtues exist only in the will. • The virtues are not necessarily connected. • The intellect’s judgment never determines the will. • No innate inclination or acquired habit in the will – not even a virtue – causally determines the will’s actions. • But he’s more radical than Scotus in his view of the neutrality of the will.

14. William Ockham (c. 1287-1347)The Language of Virtue falls apart • The most characteristic feature of Ockham’s discussion of the virtues is that he uses the language of virtue and vice to talk about particular actions rather than dispositions. • This tendency aligns Ockham with the approach that is commonly said to be characteristic of modern moral philosophy.

15. Organizing Questions for the Grand Tour • 1. What is the role of virtue in each thinker’s ethics as a whole? • 2. How does each thinker arrive at a characterization of particular virtues? • 3. What’s more important: human nature or the human condition? • 4. Does psychological analysis play a crucial role? • 5. How are knowledge, love, and virtue related?

16. Organizing Questions for theGrand Tour • 6. What is the connection between virtue and happiness? • 7. What is will? • 8. How trainable are the appetites? • 9. What about the unity of the virtues?