9.2.1: The Good as the Ultimate End

p. 182 y 183

For Germain Grisez and the new natural law theorists, the good refers to a formality, a formality that characterizes all human actions, whether sinful or virtuous.” Even the adulterer pursues the good, for he hopes to gain the good of pleasure through his action. As such, li, the first principle of practical reason is premoral; it does not direct us to any moral good. Indeed, even the more particular precepts, on this reacing, are used in sinful reasoning. Someone who kills one innocent person in order to save another commits the sin of murder. Nevertheless, he uses the precrecept of the natural law that urges him to seek human life (for he does seek to save one human life, even if it is at the expense of another). The moral good arises only from the manner in which we pursue various individual goods.

Giuseppe Butera argues against this premoral, formalistic account of the first principle of practical reason.1 He emphasizes that Aquinas also calls this principle the first law, presumably referring to the natural law. It would be rather odd if the natural law recommended sin as well as virtue. As a principle of law, it necessarily directs to the common good, a defining feature of all law. Since sin is opposed to the common good, the first principle cannot direct toward sin.

Furthermore, argues Butera, the natural law directs everyone to beatitude, or the last and final end. The new natural law theory excludes this interpretation from the outset, since it rejects the very notion of a single final end. Aquinas says, however, that the eternal law, of which the natural law is a participation, directs all things to their final ends. All law seeks to make men good, and God’s law seeks to make men simply good. In no way, then, can the natural law direct toward sin.

For Butera, then, the first principle is not the first principle of any and all reasoning; it is the first principle of right reason. It directs us to the true good. For Grisez, it directs us to the formality of the good; as such, it is the principle both of right reasoning and of faulty or sinful reasoning. For Butera, the sinner is not using practical reason; he is abusing practical reason. In contrast, Grisez claims that the first principle must concern all reasoning, even sinful reasoning; otherwise, he asserts, someone who sins would be irrational or insane. Surely, however, Grisez is mistaken. To claim that someone has faulty reasoning is not the same as claiming that he is insane.

The difference between Grisez and Butera might be expressed through a single article, an article that is unavailable in Aquinas’s Latin. Grisez claims that the first principle says “A good ought to be pursued.” Any of diverse goods should be pursued. According to Butera, the first principle reads “The good ought to be pursued.” The good is a very definite identifiable good, namely, beatitude; even more precisely, it is beatitude as a common good. Grisez presents us with a common notion of the good, under which many goods might be subsumed; Butera presents us with one singular good, which is common by causality rather than by predication.2 

For Butera, then, the first principle corresponds to the object of the will. Namely, the highest good of the whole person.” The other precepts concern particular goods, which enter into the good of the whole person; the first precept concerns the unified good of the whole person, including all these other goods as parts.

As Brock says, “The first precept is referring to and directing toward the specifically human good. But it is directing toward the human good as a whole.’

I8. ST I-II, 90, 2. “…Primum autem principium in operativis, quorum est ratio practica, est finis ultimus. Est autem ultimus finis humanae vitae Felicitas vel beatitude, ut supra habitum est, Unde oportet quod lex maxime respiciat ordinem qui est in beatitudinem.”

The first principle of practical reason (which is also the first law), then, must concern the ultimate end of beatitude. It cannot be simply a logically general principle, directing to goods of any sort, including sinful goods.

This account corresponds with Kevin Flannery’s analysis of what he takes to be the first principle of practical reason for Aristotle, which is none other than the Socratic principle to do what reason judges as best. According to Flannery, the first principle directs us to what is best, which is an overall good; it does not direct us to any and every good. As such, it is the principle of right reason; in contrast, the reasoning of the weak-willed individual is defective reasoning and involves a kind of internal divide within the person.1

p. 185 This last point indicates another strength of the view of Butera an Flannery; it explains the main purpose of question 94, article 2. Given all that has been written about our knowledge of the natural law, we can easily lose sight of this purpose. Aquinas simply wants to determine whether there are many precepts of the natural law or only one. He seems worried that if he affirms a multiplicity of precepts, then he will lose the unity of the natural law; he will end up with many natural laws rather than one natural law. His answer, therefore, is nuanced. Yes, there are many precepts of the natural law, but they are all united by one single precept, namely, by the very first precept of the natural law. Any account of the first principle of practical reason, then, must explain how the first principle unifies the many precepts into a single natural law.

p. 186…Rather, we can discover the goods associated with diverse inclinations, but these become part of the natural law only insofar as they are ordered to the ultimate end, that is, insofar as they are ordered and measured by reason.

The order of reason must refer to right reason, which for Aquinas is reason ordering to the ultimate end.

p. 187 … To seek the good, then, means to seek the complete good, the ultimate end. This pursuit unifies all our actions; it unifies the pursuit of all other goods. Evidently, then, the precept that we should act according to reason is not one precept among many; it is another way of expressing the very first precept. 1

To come full circle, we find that the ultimate end also serves as a unifying force in human actions. The virtue of charity, for instance, is called the form of all the virtues, because it orders all of them to the ultimate end. This order to the end, then, seems to play the same role as reason, which unifies all the virtues under the natural law. 2

189

In contrast, Flannery and Butera provide a unity in which various goods can be ordered to one another. When an individual is faced with the choice between diverse basic goods, the first principle can provide the tools to prioritize these goods.

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1 26. Grisez objects to this interpretation, insisting that the precept to follow reason is a particular precept, because the good that it enjoins is distinct from other goods, such as self-preservation (“First Principle,” 198). The very claim we are making, however, is precisely that, namely, the very first principle of practical reason does direct to a distinctive good, namely, to the ultimate end. 

2 27. II-II 23, 8. “In moralibus forma actus attenditur principaliter ex parte finis, cuius ratio est quia principium moralium actuum est voluntas, cuius obiectum et quasi forma est finis. Semper autem forma actus consequitur formam agentis. Unde oportet quod in moralibus id quod dat actui ordinem ad fininem, det ei et formam. Manifestum est autem secundum praedicta quod per caritatem ordinantur actus omnium aliarum virtutum ad ultimum finem, Et secundum hoc ipsa dat formam actibus omnium aliarum virtutum.”

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1 See Kevin L. Flannery, “The Aristotelian First Principle of Practical Reason,” Thomist 59 (i995).’ 441-64. 

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1 12. See Giuseppe Butera, “The Moral Status of the First Principle of Practical Reason in Thomas’s Natural-law Theory,” Thomist 71 (2007): 609-31. See also Paterson, “NonNaturalism,” 18o. 

2 14. Mclnerny sees this difference as the chief difference between Aquinas and Grisez; see Mclnerny, “Grisez and Thomism.”