It is my understanding that the will is not damaged. The intellect however has been darkened by sin. So it would be easier to desire to sin. Rather than to not sin. This darkness gets worse and worse until thoughts are evil continually. Then there is a judgment, as with Sodom and Gamora.
Thank GOD for sending The Lord Jesus Christ to save us from our sins and for Holy Spirt who strengthens us so that we can resist temptation to sin, and for the Bible with which to renew our minds.
This is another fantastic lecture and it has been very useful in helping to reinforce my learnings from Jensen's books on sin and natural law. Do you have any thoughts as to how to avoid an infinite regress of interactions between the intellect and will when considering sin as culpable ignorance? For instance, the final step appears to fall with the will in allowing substitution for a major premise (sins of weakness), a minor premise (sins of ignorance), or an entire syllogism (sins of malice). However, how can we avoid saying that the intellect could subsequently inform the will that avoiding this substitution would be a higher good? We might answer that the will has ceased this process, but one might object that the intellect could inform the will that avoiding cessation would be a higher good? This would lead to an infinite regress. Do we merely say the will's cessation of the process is an irreducible fact? I believe this culpable ignorance is understood as "choosing without a rule." However, I've really struggled with understanding 1.) how one can be culpable without ending the process with the intellect's information and 2.) how one can be free without ending the process with the will's choice. How do we reconcile this to allow for culpable freedom?
Unfortunately, there is no settled or even standard solution to the infinite regress I know of. A not terribly satisfying solution is the one Aquinas seems to offer with a citation to the Eudemian Ethics. Ultimately, a higher agent (i.e., God) causes the first movement of the will, which starts the whole immanent process of interactions between intellect and will. In a context like this, it is probably best to stop at this general solution without trying to spell it out in detail. On the question of whether God would then be culpable for the sins that result from his not causing morally right acts of will in humans, the basic answer is that, since everything God does with regard to creatures is gratuitous and a good unnecessary for his own perfection achieved in himself, whereas everything positive in human action is attributed to God, every defect is attributed only to the human to whom it is proper to act, not to God, who doesn't need to give any good to creatures to achieve his own good. I should again emphasize that all this is very much a basic sketch, and there are many problems that would have to be addressed.
Around 12:30, how does the will fail to consider something? I thought the will selects what the intellect presents to it as the best good. The will doesn't have contemplative properties, does it? Only the intellect can contemplate. Thoughts?
The will, for Aquinas, controls the exercise of all the powers of the soul, including the intellect. The will itself does not contemplate anything, but it controls whether the intellect contemplates something. If the will acts without moving the intellect to deliberate, then it is possible the will will fail to act correctly. Now, Aquinas does not think that willing without deliberation is necessarily immoral. There is no necessary sin of omission in not moving the intellect to deliberate before acting. People with virtues or skills do not need to deliberate in order to perform complete actions proper to those habits.
Now, there is a well known infinite regression difficulty here, which different medieval philosophers solved in different ways. If the will moves the intellect to deliberate because the intellect itself judges, upon deliberation, that the will moving it to deliberate is good, then we have an apparent vicious circle. Aquinas solves the problem by saying that, at some point, we need to appeal to an outside agent, God, who moves the will to its first act. This is a troubling solution since it seems to make God responsible for our sins. Scotus says that the will can just spontaneously move itself to act. This is a problematic solution since it violates the principle that everything that is moved is moved by something else.
@@ElliotPolskyPhilosophy Fantastic explanation, thank you! Do you have a video on this? Or does anyone else? Or can you recommend any books? It seems to me the solution is "God created us as Good Wills, that is, Wills that always seek the Good." In this way, we are not unmoved movers, but God is also not directly choosing our actions. Thoughts?
@@aisthpaoitht I don't have a video on this, but I strongly recommend Tobias Hoffmann's Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge, 2020). With anything like this, there are many ways people propose to read Aquinas, but I think Hoffmann's is very plausible and his book nicely frames Aquinas's views in the context of alternative medieval theories. You can also check out Steven Jensen, Sin: A Thomistic Psychology (CUA Press, 2018).
There are, I think, several problems with this. First, sins of malice appear to be sins of ignorance with respect to higher moral values. So, the difference between the two categories is unclear. But this projects a problem for the entire analysis of the issue, since the problem is that some people know the good and pursue the bad. Such a situation would not have existed if only ignorance, in some form or another, was at play. This is why Ayn Rand's analysis is better: it introduces the mechanism of evasion by which ignorance is deliberately created so as to do evil. And that grounds moral judgment, because evasion is the result of volition. Also, some of the examples are weird. Oedipus, to name one, can't have committed a sin precisely because of his ignorance. Ignorance of that kind is exempting of moral condemnation.
Saying that someone "should know" is an infinite regress, because obviously they don't know that they should know. Your examples also assume that the bad-actor (de Medici) knows that usury is wrong.
I find this thomistic analysis of malicious sins lacking. Although you address one sort of perverse agents, you fail to address some of the more challenging cases such as persons whose reason is not fully formed in some way (young children, the disabled) and persons who commit evil for the sake of evil (Augustine and the pear tree, Miltons satan). The latter group, at least to me, seem to offer the most trouble to a thomistic ethical framework. For their desires do not seem to be inclined towards the guise of the good.
These are interesting objections, but I don't think they hold up. First, in any science (including ethics), we should begin with what is more easy and obvious and proceed to what is more difficult. A moral analysis of normal adults is more easy and obvious than an analysis of exceptional cases or still developing children. Thus, in this video I treat only of normal adults. The application to more exceptional cases or to children is left to the viewer or to future videos. One of the main problems with postmodern philosophy is that it reverses this procedure and always begins with exceptional cases and tries to explain the norm by means of them. This backwards procedure, in practice, allows the philosopher to reach whatever conclusion he wanted to reach at the outset rather than the conclusion necessitated by the facts in front of him. Second, as to the claim about willing evil. I can't speak to Milton, who is a bit of a strange thinker and, in my opinion, not worthy of being given too much authority in moral questions. But I think you have misunderstood Augustine. To will evil as evil can be taken in two ways. First, it may mean willing an action that is defective under the aspect of its privation/defect. Second, it may mean willing an action that is defective as precisely that action. Augustine, as a good Platonist, agrees with Aquinas that the first of these is totally impossible. People only ever will what they perceive as good for them. The whole point of his discussion of stealing the pear was to illustrate this Platonic principle in his own life. Nevertheless, like Aquinas, Augustine also recognizes that certain people do will defective actions as such (e.g., they will adultery as adultery, not merely as pleasant behavior, or murder as murder, not just as revenge). It is this latter sense of willing evil as evil that I address under the heading of "malicious" sins or "sins of malice."
I am glad I found this channel. Excellent material!
Perfect rhythm and cadence while talking... you are getting better and better.... Love the content of all your lectures. Thank you, again. :)
please keep uploading
Wow! This is so informative! Really helpful!
It is my understanding that the will is not damaged. The intellect however has been darkened by sin. So it would be easier to desire to sin. Rather than to not sin. This darkness gets worse and worse until thoughts are evil continually. Then there is a judgment, as with Sodom and Gamora.
Thank GOD for sending The Lord Jesus Christ to save us from our sins and for Holy Spirt who strengthens us so that we can resist temptation to sin, and for the Bible with which to renew our minds.
12:00 causes of moral fault
25:30 malice
This is another fantastic lecture and it has been very useful in helping to reinforce my learnings from Jensen's books on sin and natural law. Do you have any thoughts as to how to avoid an infinite regress of interactions between the intellect and will when considering sin as culpable ignorance? For instance, the final step appears to fall with the will in allowing substitution for a major premise (sins of weakness), a minor premise (sins of ignorance), or an entire syllogism (sins of malice). However, how can we avoid saying that the intellect could subsequently inform the will that avoiding this substitution would be a higher good? We might answer that the will has ceased this process, but one might object that the intellect could inform the will that avoiding cessation would be a higher good? This would lead to an infinite regress. Do we merely say the will's cessation of the process is an irreducible fact?
I believe this culpable ignorance is understood as "choosing without a rule." However, I've really struggled with understanding 1.) how one can be culpable without ending the process with the intellect's information and 2.) how one can be free without ending the process with the will's choice. How do we reconcile this to allow for culpable freedom?
Unfortunately, there is no settled or even standard solution to the infinite regress I know of. A not terribly satisfying solution is the one Aquinas seems to offer with a citation to the Eudemian Ethics. Ultimately, a higher agent (i.e., God) causes the first movement of the will, which starts the whole immanent process of interactions between intellect and will. In a context like this, it is probably best to stop at this general solution without trying to spell it out in detail.
On the question of whether God would then be culpable for the sins that result from his not causing morally right acts of will in humans, the basic answer is that, since everything God does with regard to creatures is gratuitous and a good unnecessary for his own perfection achieved in himself, whereas everything positive in human action is attributed to God, every defect is attributed only to the human to whom it is proper to act, not to God, who doesn't need to give any good to creatures to achieve his own good.
I should again emphasize that all this is very much a basic sketch, and there are many problems that would have to be addressed.
Around 12:30, how does the will fail to consider something? I thought the will selects what the intellect presents to it as the best good. The will doesn't have contemplative properties, does it? Only the intellect can contemplate.
Thoughts?
The will, for Aquinas, controls the exercise of all the powers of the soul, including the intellect. The will itself does not contemplate anything, but it controls whether the intellect contemplates something. If the will acts without moving the intellect to deliberate, then it is possible the will will fail to act correctly. Now, Aquinas does not think that willing without deliberation is necessarily immoral. There is no necessary sin of omission in not moving the intellect to deliberate before acting. People with virtues or skills do not need to deliberate in order to perform complete actions proper to those habits.
Now, there is a well known infinite regression difficulty here, which different medieval philosophers solved in different ways. If the will moves the intellect to deliberate because the intellect itself judges, upon deliberation, that the will moving it to deliberate is good, then we have an apparent vicious circle. Aquinas solves the problem by saying that, at some point, we need to appeal to an outside agent, God, who moves the will to its first act. This is a troubling solution since it seems to make God responsible for our sins. Scotus says that the will can just spontaneously move itself to act. This is a problematic solution since it violates the principle that everything that is moved is moved by something else.
@@ElliotPolskyPhilosophy Fantastic explanation, thank you! Do you have a video on this? Or does anyone else? Or can you recommend any books?
It seems to me the solution is "God created us as Good Wills, that is, Wills that always seek the Good." In this way, we are not unmoved movers, but God is also not directly choosing our actions. Thoughts?
@@aisthpaoitht I don't have a video on this, but I strongly recommend Tobias Hoffmann's Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge, 2020). With anything like this, there are many ways people propose to read Aquinas, but I think Hoffmann's is very plausible and his book nicely frames Aquinas's views in the context of alternative medieval theories. You can also check out Steven Jensen, Sin: A Thomistic Psychology (CUA Press, 2018).
@@ElliotPolskyPhilosophy very very much appreciated, thank you! Consider doing a video on it too 😉
There are, I think, several problems with this. First, sins of malice appear to be sins of ignorance with respect to higher moral values. So, the difference between the two categories is unclear. But this projects a problem for the entire analysis of the issue, since the problem is that some people know the good and pursue the bad. Such a situation would not have existed if only ignorance, in some form or another, was at play. This is why Ayn Rand's analysis is better: it introduces the mechanism of evasion by which ignorance is deliberately created so as to do evil. And that grounds moral judgment, because evasion is the result of volition. Also, some of the examples are weird. Oedipus, to name one, can't have committed a sin precisely because of his ignorance. Ignorance of that kind is exempting of moral condemnation.
Saying that someone "should know" is an infinite regress, because obviously they don't know that they should know.
Your examples also assume that the bad-actor (de Medici) knows that usury is wrong.
The de Medici example is of a bad actor because it is intended to be an example of a bad actor-i.e., one who acts out of malice.
I find this thomistic analysis of malicious sins lacking. Although you address one sort of perverse agents, you fail to address some of the more challenging cases such as persons whose reason is not fully formed in some way (young children, the disabled) and persons who commit evil for the sake of evil (Augustine and the pear tree, Miltons satan). The latter group, at least to me, seem to offer the most trouble to a thomistic ethical framework. For their desires do not seem to be inclined towards the guise of the good.
These are interesting objections, but I don't think they hold up.
First, in any science (including ethics), we should begin with what is more easy and obvious and proceed to what is more difficult. A moral analysis of normal adults is more easy and obvious than an analysis of exceptional cases or still developing children. Thus, in this video I treat only of normal adults. The application to more exceptional cases or to children is left to the viewer or to future videos. One of the main problems with postmodern philosophy is that it reverses this procedure and always begins with exceptional cases and tries to explain the norm by means of them. This backwards procedure, in practice, allows the philosopher to reach whatever conclusion he wanted to reach at the outset rather than the conclusion necessitated by the facts in front of him.
Second, as to the claim about willing evil. I can't speak to Milton, who is a bit of a strange thinker and, in my opinion, not worthy of being given too much authority in moral questions. But I think you have misunderstood Augustine. To will evil as evil can be taken in two ways. First, it may mean willing an action that is defective under the aspect of its privation/defect. Second, it may mean willing an action that is defective as precisely that action. Augustine, as a good Platonist, agrees with Aquinas that the first of these is totally impossible. People only ever will what they perceive as good for them. The whole point of his discussion of stealing the pear was to illustrate this Platonic principle in his own life. Nevertheless, like Aquinas, Augustine also recognizes that certain people do will defective actions as such (e.g., they will adultery as adultery, not merely as pleasant behavior, or murder as murder, not just as revenge). It is this latter sense of willing evil as evil that I address under the heading of "malicious" sins or "sins of malice."