Right And Reason: Ethics Based on the Teachings of Aristotle & St. Thomas Aquinas

404 Pages·2015·3.04 MB·English

by  Austin Fagothey

Right and Reason
Ethics in Theory and Practice
Fr. Austin Fagothey, S.J.
Imprimi Potest: Carroll O’Sullivan, S.J.
Provincial
Nihil Obstat: Benedict M. Blank, O.P
Censor Deputatus
Imprimatur: John J. Mitty
Archbishop of San Francisco
May 3, 1958
Second Edition copyright © 1959 by The C. V. Mosby Company, St. Louis.
Previous edition copyrighted 1953.
Library of Congress Control No.: 00-131559
TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com
2000
PREFACE
The point of view adopted in this book is that of the Aristotelian-Thomistic synthesis, the
living tradition of the perennial philosophy, that applies the wisdom of the ancients, tried and
proved in the crucible of historical experience, to the discoveries and problems of modern life.
However, the author does not regard the Aristotelian-Thomistic system as such an historical
crystallization that all thinking must henceforth cease. He has incorporated whatever seems
worth while in later speculations, not in a spirit of irresponsible eclecticism, but as a genuine
development, extension, clarification, or application of Aristotelian-Thomistic principles.
Because ethics is not the logical place to begin the study of philosophy, it will be
presupposed that the student has already had some training in the basic concepts of the
Aristotelian-Thomistic system. For this reason no effort has been made to explain or demonstrate
the presuppositions of ethics. To do this adequately would require the inclusion of almost the
whole of philosophy in this one volume; to do it inadequately would be worse than useless.
However, the student lacking previous philosophical training may be able to accept these
presuppositions provisionally and to await their demonstration in another course.
Ethics is a part of philosophy, and an effort has been made to preserve the philosophical
approach throughout. Because ethics is practical philosophy, some excursion into the domains of
sociology, economics, and political science is inevitable, especially in applied ethics, but the
author believes that even the most concrete problems can be viewed in the true spirit of
philosophical inquiry.
As a rule the problem method has been used. This consists in introducing one of the major
problems of ethics, explaining how it arose and why it is a problem, giving the main schools of
thought on the subject with sufficient historical background, stating the arguments for and
against each proposed solution, weighing the arguments against one another, and finally
resolving the problem in the light of the evidence and reasoning involved. Of course, each
problem will result in a thesis to be maintained, but the author thinks that the questioning
approach is a better instance of the philosophical attitude than an immediate launching into the
demonstration of a set thesis. For this reason a syllogistic argument is not first stated and then
explained and defended, but is used rather as a summary of the whole investigation.
Fairly numerous quotations from the classical philosophers are interspersed for the purpose
of letting each philosopher explain his own position as well as of encouraging the student to
explore some of these sources for himself. Reading lists at the end of each chapter are meant by
way of suggestion both to teacher and student and make no pretense of being exhaustive. As a
rule, textbooks are omitted from these lists, not because they are unimportant, but because they
are so obvious.
An endeavor has been made to keep the language as nontechnical as possible. Ethics deals
with the everyday activities of human life and should be expressible in commonly current terms.
But no science (and ethics is one) can wholly dispense with terminology. The author has tried to
avoid long classifications and enumerations, distinctions and subdistinctions, whose application
is not immediately apparent, and to defer the explanation of technical terms to the moment when
their use is necessary. Since so many college students of today lack the classical training of
former generations, the teacher is often faced with the dilemma of achieving technical exactness
in his words at the cost of being totally incomprehensible to the class or of using familiar
language with some sacrifice of terminological precision. The author has tried to steer between
these two pitfalls.
No textbook can take the place of the living teacher, whose personal inspiration is a
stimulus to learning, but his fleeting words need to be supplemented by a more lasting record
than the hasty notes the student can scribble during class. No textbook can take the place of solid
reading in the great masters, a task which this text supposes and encourages, but unfortunately
the great masters did not usually write with a clientele of college undergraduates in mind, and at
least the older among them had no prophetic vision of the specific problems facing the modern
world. So it seems that there is still place for a textbook.
This second edition is a very changed book. Many rearrangements have been made for a
better pedagogical sequence. The topics of happiness and the end of man have been re-expressed
to clarify the philosophical approach and distinguish it from the theological. Reflections on some
modern schools of thought, such as logical positivism, relativism, and existentialism, have been
introduced. The norm of morality has been rewritten and given what the author thinks an original
presentation. The nature of obligation has been re-examined and made more consistent with the
general intellectualist approach adopted throughout. A unique feature is the treatment of society
and its chief forms, the family and the state, before considering property and economic life. The
chapter on Society has been enlarged, and a new chapter on Social Order has been introduced.
The treatment of positive law has been postponed until the state has been studied. The
consideration of justice has been expanded and that of merit omitted. When possible, the
terminology has been simplified to put more emphasis on the problem than on the language.
Many verbal changes, some of them seemingly trivial, have been made where experience in the
classroom has uncovered general student misunderstanding. The reading lists and bibliography
have been brought up to date. Though the book bulks a little larger, there should be a saving
rather than an increase in teaching time, since the book can be read more easily out of class and
more class time can be used for discussion.
The author wishes to express his thanks to the many who have assisted him with the first
and second editions of this work, especially to his colleagues in the Philosophy Department at
the University of Santa Clara. He owes a particular debt to the late Father William Donnelly,
S.J., without whose help the first edition could not have been written, and also to Father Joseph
Farraher, S.J., and Father Robert Dailey, S.J., professors of moral theology at neighboring Alma
College, Los Gatos, California. He is grateful to Father John Mootz, S.J., Father Andrew Boss,
S.J., Father Richard Mulcahy, S.J., Father Robert McMahon, S.J., and Father Cornelius Lynch,
S.J., of the University of San Francisco; to Father Stephen Earley, S.J., Father George Lucy, S.J.,
and Father Robert Taylor, S.J., of Loyola University of Los Angeles; to Father William Gaffney,
S.J., and Father Clifford Kossel, S.J., of Mount St. Michael's, Spokane; and to many others for
their criticisms, advice, and encouragement. He is grateful also to all his students, whose
questions and answers, discussions and difficulties, insights and gropings contributed more than
they knew.
AUSTIN FAGOTHEY, S.J.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the various authors and publishers who kindly
granted permission to quote from the following works:
To the Oxford University Press and the Clarendon Press for permission to quote from The
Dialogues of Plato, translated by B. Jowett; from The Works of Aristotle Translated Into English,
edited by W. D. Ross; from Epicurus's Letter to Menoecius, translated by Cyril Bailey; from T.
H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics; from J. B. Scott, Classics of International Law: Selections
From Three Works of Francisco Suarez.
To Random House for permission to quote from A. C. Pegis, Basic Writings of St. Thomas
Aquinas (quotations from The Summa Theologica, I-II, qq. 6-114, are from this source); and
from E. A. Burtt, The English Philosophers From Bacon to Mill.
To Benziger Brothers for permission to quote from The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas
Aquinas, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (quotations from The Summa
Theologica, I-II, qq. 1-5, 21, II-II, and III suppl. are from this source).
To Professor Lewis W. Beck and the University of Chicago Press for permission to quote
from L. W. Beck, Kant: Critique of Practical Reason.
To Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to quote from Benjamin Rand, The Classical
Moralists.
To Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to quote from Descartes Selections, edited by
Ralph M. Eaton.
To T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, for permission to quote from St. Augustine's The City of God,
translated by Marcus Dods; and from Kant's Philosophy of Law, translated by W. Hastie.
To E. P. Dutton & Company for permission to quote from St. Augustine's The City of God,
translated by J. Healey, Everyman's Library.
To George Allen & Unwin, London, for permission to quote from Bertrand Russell,
Mysticism and Logic.
To the Harvard University Press for permission to quote from Cicero, De Natura Deorum,
translated by H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library.
To the Hafner Publishing Company for permission to quote from H. W. Schneider, Smith's
Moral and Political Philosophy.
To Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, for permission to quote from Carl von Clausewitz,
On War, translated by J. J. Graham.
To Charles H. Kerr & Company for permission to quote from their edition of Karl Marx's
Capital.
To the American Peace Society for permission to use its published material: "Report of the
Commission on the International Implications of Justice, 1932."
To the Fordham University Press for permission to quote from St. Robert Bellarmine, De
Laicis, or the Treatise on Civil Government, translated by K. Murphy; and from Le Buffe and
Hayes, Jurisprudence.
CONTENTS
1. ETHICS AS A STUDY
The Good Life, Origin of Ethics, What Ethics Studies, Relation to Other Studies, Ethics as a
Science, The Emotive Theory, Ethics as an Art, Presuppositions of Ethics, Method of Ethics,
Definition and Division of Ethics
2. THE GOOD
Problem, The End and the Good, Ethical Relativism, The Last End or Highest Good, One and the
Same Last End, The Last End and Moral Goodness
3. HAPPINESS
Problem, Meaning of Happiness, All Men Seek Happiness, Two Views of Happiness, Three
Stages of the Question, Happiness, Man's Last End, Is Attainable, Questions on the Argument
4. PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Problem, Hedonism, Utilitarianism, Stoicism, Evolutionism, Process of Elimination, Goods of
Fortune, Man Himself, Goods of Body, Goods of Soul, Knowledge, Virtue, Goods of Body and
Soul Together, Pleasure, Self-Realization, God, Synopsis, Positive Argument, Natural and
Supernatural Happiness, Questions and Remarks
5. THE HUMAN ACT
Problem, Conduct and the Last End, Human Acts, Psychological Background, Commanded Acts,
Ethical Constitution of the Human Act, Knowledge, Voluntariness, Freedom, Consequences of
Voluntariness
6. VOLUNTARINESS
Problem, Positive and Negative Voluntariness, Attention and Intention, Foreseen Consequences of
Voluntary Acts, Modifiers of Voluntariness, Ignorance, Passion, Fear, Force, Habit
7. MORALITY
Problem, Meaning of Morality, The State, Custom, What is Custom? Some Customs Never
Abolished, Some Acts Never Customary, Divine Decree, Conclusions
8. THE NORM OF MORALITY
Problem, Meaning of a Norm, The Moral Sense Theory, Criticism, Right Reason, Setting Up the
Norm, Human Nature Taken Completely, Proof for the Norm of Morality, Proximate Norm,
Ultimate Norm
9. SOURCES OF MORALITY
Problem, The Act Itself, The Motive, The Circumstances, Practical Application, Principle of
Double Effect, Existence of Morally Indifferent Acts, Internal and External Act
10. LAW
Problem, Meaning of Law, Definition of Law, Law and Freedom, Kinds of Law
11. NATURAL LAW
Eternal Law, Definition of Natural Law, Problems, Possibility of the Natural Law, Existence of
the Natural Law, Knowledge of the Natural Law, Levels in the Knowledge of Natural Law,
Argument, Apparent Exceptions, Unchangeableness of the Natural Law, Questions on the
Argument
12. OBLIGATION AND SANCTION
Problem, Kant's Autonomous Morality, Criticism, True Nature of Obligation, All Obligation
Through Natural Law, Sanction, Imperfect Sanction in This Life, Perfect Sanction Hereafter, Gain
or Loss of Man's Last End
13. CONSCIENCE
Problem, Meaning of Conscience, Deriving the Judgment of Conscience, Kinds of Conscience,
Always Obey a Certain Conscience, Never Act With a Doubtful Conscience, Forming One's
Conscience, Reflex Principles, The Morally Safer Course, A Doubtful Law, Systems of
Probability, Conclusion
14. VIRTUE
Procedure, Habit, Virtue, Intellectual Virtues, Moral Virtues, Cardinal Virtues, Prudence,
Temperance, Fortitude, Justice
15. RIGHTS AND DUTIES
Problems, Meaning of Right, Components of a Right, The Subject of a Right Can Be Only a
Person, The Term of a Right Must Also Be a Person, The Matter of a Right Can Never Be a
Person, The Title Is the Reason Why This Particular Concrete Right Exists, Natural Rights, The
State, Contract, Concept of Freedom, Custom, Proof for Natural Rights, Right and Might, Duties,
Conflict of Rights and Duties, Excuses From Duty
16. WORSHIP
Transition to Applied Ethics, Natural Religion, Divine Worship, Problem, Obligation to Worship,