Abstract
In Ethics as a Work of Charity, David Decosimo argues that, according to Aquinas, those who lack grace are nonetheless capable of acquiring and practising genuine virtues, which are praiseworthy even though they are not sufficient for salvation. Someone who is familiar with Aquinas’s moral writings, but unfamiliar with recent developments in Christian ethics, might wonder what motivates this project. Aquinas clearly says that genuine virtues, grounded in our natural capacities and proportioned to a kind of connatural happiness, are not only possible, but have in fact been attained by morally upright pagans (Summa theologiae [ST] I-II 65.2). However, in recent years a number of commentators have argued that Aquinas does not in fact mean what he seems to say in this and similar passages. Rather, they say, a closer reading shows that, according to Aquinas, true virtue, even at the level of the cardinal virtues, presupposes grace and the theological virtues. The seeming virtues of unbelievers are, at best, simulacra of virtue, splendid vices. This way of putting the argument reflects its wider context in a long-standing debate over whether Aquinas should be understood as an Augustinian or an Aristotelian, and by implication, whether he supports a stance of rejection and opposition or one of openness and a cooperative spirit towards those outside the church.
Decosimo has considerable sympathy with those who defend an ‘Augustinian’ reading of Aquinas, and in the opening and closing chapters of his book he tries to show that Aquinas is more theological, and specifically more Augustinian, than we might have suspected. Nonetheless, Decosimo cannot accept an interpretation of Aquinas according to which he denies that those without grace can attain true virtues. Rather, Decosimo argues, Aquinas’s theological commitments and his own charity towards outsiders lead him to embrace Aristotle and the pagan world that he represents. This stance of openness is expressed, inter alia, through a clear and consistent affirmation that those who lack grace are nonetheless capable of true virtue. The core of Decosimo’s book is a thorough, textually grounded and convincing reply to those who deny that, on Aquinas’s view, true virtue is impossible without grace. As such, it represents an important contribution to an ongoing debate. At the same time, in the process of making his case against ‘Augustinian’ readings of Aquinas, Decosimo sets out an illuminating account of Aquinas’s conception of virtue as a kind of perfection, together with insightful remarks on the development of the virtues, the structure of moral motivation, and the presuppositions for attaining stability of character.
Decosimo’s interpretation takes its starting point from Aquinas’s claim that virtue is a habit, that is to say, a certain kind of stable disposition directed towards some characteristic type of action. As Decosimo explains, ‘Habits are dispositions that give a more determinate direction and shape to capacities that are not disposed in sufficiently narrow ways, that might be variously developed’ (p. 75). The ability to speak a particular language depends on habituation, and so does the development of a personality, characterized by likes and dislikes and tendencies to judge and act in more or less predictable ways. Habits are thus grounded in natural human capacities, and they may be said to perfect these, in the sense of developing and, as it were, finishing them. Decosimo goes on to say that ‘every habit is a perfection, determining its subject, completing what a creature’s nature naturally leaves unfinished’ (pp. 84–85). Habits are thus necessary to properly human functioning, since without some level of development, our natural capacities of intellect and desire would remain too unfocused to operate in such a way as to sustain rational activities. This general observation applies equally to those with charity, and those without, since the necessity for habits is built into human nature itself.
Habits are necessary to human life, and virtues are habits, but of course this does not prove that virtues are necessary to human life. Nonetheless, Decosimo argues, the status of virtues as habits indicates why they are humanly significant, and why we would expect to find them in some form among all peoples. As habits, the virtues are perfections of a distinctive kind, through which human capacities for choice and action—specifically, the passions and the will, together with practical reasoning—are perfected in a distinctive and unqualified way. The virtues perfect practical reasoning and the appetites in such a way as to direct them towards good ends, pursued and enjoyed in accordance with the dictates of reason or divine law. As such, they lead to actions which are good without qualification, that is to say, morally good, and they render their subject good in a properly human sense, praiseworthy and morally admirable.
If the virtues are perfections, it would seem to follow that dispositions which are in some way lacking, or fall short of an ideal standard, cannot be true virtues. This observation lends credence to the claim that for Aquinas, true virtue presupposes grace. As Decosimo acknow-ledges, Aquinas says that only the infused virtues can be regarded as perfections in an unqualified sense, since only they direct the human person towards the unqualified best end, namely the enjoyment of God in the Beatific Vision. Nonetheless, Decosimo argues that Aquinas also considers the acquired virtues, which can be attained through human effort alone, to be perfections, in the sense that they represent the full development of our natural capacities for judgement and action. In developing this argument, he draws extensively on his careful analysis of habits, arguing that the acquired virtues have all the hallmarks of an operative habit that is in no way deficient, considered in itself—that is to say, they are stable, unified, and operate in accordance with rational norms. The acquired virtues fall short of true virtue, seen from the perspective of the infused virtues, but when we place them within their own proper context set by natural capacities and ends, they have all the hallmarks of true virtue. As Decosimo puts it, they are ‘perfect, unified, and true’ (p. 106).
It may seem strange to speak of levels of perfection, but given Aquinas’s conception of perfection as full and appropriate development, we can make sense of the claim that the acquired virtues are truly perfections, while still falling short of the ideal set by the infused virtues. The acquired virtues are developed and exercised within the context of natural human life, oriented towards a kind of connatural happiness. Seen from within this, their proper and appropriate context, they are rightly regarded as perfections in an unqualified sense. They are stable, they are directed towards genuine goods, and they are connected through the operations of prudence. The effects of sin, not to mention actual sins, have weakened human moral powers, but they have not done so in such a way as to render the attainment of moral virtue impossible. Because the acquired virtues are not destroyed by individual sinful acts, the inevitability of sin does not imply the impossibility of virtue, although we are forced to conclude that even those who are humanly best among us cannot avoid wrong-doing at every point. Decosimo establishes these claims through a thorough and careful interpretation of key texts, focusing especially on those devoted to the connection of the virtues. He leaves little doubt that for Aquinas, the acquired virtues are moral perfections, virtues in a full sense, qualified only by reference to the supernatural standard set by the infused virtues.
There is, however, one point at which Decosimo’s reading of Aquinas seems to be overly hasty. That is, he adopts the widely held view that according to Aquinas, someone who possesses the infused virtues can also possess and exercise the acquired virtues. At first glance, this would seem to be a reasonable view, and it was widely held among Aquinas’s immediate predecessors and contemporaries. On this view, there are two kinds of virtues, political and theological or Catholic. Only the latter, which are ordered to union with God, can bring about salvation. However, the political virtues, which are oriented towards the commonwealth, are admirable in their way, and they can also be directed towards the final end of union with God through the activities of the theological virtues. Indeed, Aquinas himself seems to take this view in a text which Decosimo quotes, the De virtutibus in communi 10, ad 4.
Yet, by the time of the prima secundae, it would appear that Aquinas has reconsidered the view that the theological virtues can operate through naturally acquired political virtues. By this point, he has essentially dropped the distinction between political and theological virtues, although he devotes one article to the political virtues, seen in comparison to divine and exemplary virtues (ST I-II 61.5). He now analyses the virtues in terms of a two-fold set of distinctions, between theological and cardinal virtues, on the one hand, and infused and acquired virtues, on the other (these are set out in questions I-II 61-63). The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity orient the human person directly to the Triune God, an end which exceeds our natural capacities, and as such, they must be infused directly by God (I-II 51.4, 62.1). So far, Aquinas is on familiar ground. But he goes on to say that, in addition, cardinal virtues are also directly infused together with charity because, otherwise, charity would not be able to operate in such a way as to direct the wayfarer’s mundane activities towards the final end of union with God (I-II 63.3). This is surprising: why can’t charity operate through the acquired virtues, referring them to its own final end, union with God? The point is that the acquired cardinal virtues, which are necessarily oriented towards connatural ends, cannot be re-oriented towards the supernatural end of final union with God, even under the direction of charity. Aquinas expresses this point by saying that the acquired virtues are not proportioned to the theological virtues (I-II 63.3 ad 1), or alternatively, they are not suitable instruments for the operations of charity (I-II 65.3 ad 1). Decosimo suggests that the acquired virtues, which lead to actions in accordance with right reason, operate in tandem with infused moral virtues, which lead to actions dictated by divine law. But Aquinas makes it clear that right reason and divine law comprise two distinct standards, corresponding to two disparate ways in which someone’s virtues and actions can be oriented towards his or her final end, either naturally attainable happiness or supernatural happiness (I-II 62.1, 63.2; cf. I-II 51.4, I-II 110.3).
Decosimo remarks that his overall thesis does not depend on settling this particular question. That is certainly true—the status of the acquired virtues, considered in themselves, does not depend on their presence, or otherwise, in someone whose actions are informed by grace. However, Decosimo’s position on this question reflects an overall orientation towards the acquired or political virtues which should be flagged. That is, Decosimo seems to regard acquired and political virtues as essentially the same thing. Someone who is unfamiliar with Aquinas’s texts might assume from his book that in the Summa, Aquinas regularly refers to political virtues, whereas, as we have seen, he is at pains to introduce a new set of distinctions. Why does this matter? Decosimo’s way of framing what Aquinas says about the virtues, taken together with the claim that the acquired virtues are possessed by those who have charity, implies that the virtues of those without grace are not only true virtues, but to a considerable extent, the same virtues as those who have charity. On this view, the outsiders, as Decosimo calls them, are not all that far from the insiders—indeed, apart from the distinctive orientation conferred by the theological virtues, there is remarkably little difference between the moral virtues as they are possessed and exercised by those with grace, and the moral virtues of those who lack grace.
In many ways, this is an attractive picture, but it does not represent Aquinas’s mature view as developed in the ST. We have already noted that, for him, the acquired virtues cannot lead to actions which are oriented towards supernatural beatitude, even indirectly. They are proportioned towards a connatural end, which Aquinas does not now identify with the political good, but rather, with a kind of happiness that is proportioned to our natural capacities. In fact, this connatural beatitude consists in the practice of the acquired virtues (I-II 5.5). The theological virtues, in contrast, are oriented towards supernatural beatitude, and their operations draw on other infused habits, including the gifts of the Holy Spirit as well as the infused cardinal virtues (I-II 65.3, 68.1, 3). At some points, Aquinas compares charity or grace to our natural principle of action, grounded in reason, in order to make the point that grace involves a comprehensive re-orientation of the whole soul, which generates principles of operation, the infused virtues, analogous to the acquired virtues grounded in natural principles of action (I-II 65.3, I-II 110.3; cf. I-II 63.3 ad 3). None of this is inconsistent with Decosimo’s thesis—on the contrary, this line of analysis underscores the point that the acquired virtues are not only truly perfections, but jointly components of a kind of happiness which on its own level is perfect and complete. At the same time, Aquinas’s divisions between acquired and infused virtues, and connatural and supernatural happiness, would seem to underscore the distinction between outsiders and insiders that Decosimo is trying to minimize. It would be a mistake to conclude that Aquinas sides with those who regard secular modernity as irretrievably a-moral, or worse. Rather, we are reminded that Aquinas does not necessarily share our concerns over boundaries and inclusion, at least not at this point and in these terms. His views on virtue and grace are certainly relevant to those concerns, however, as Decosimo’s study makes clear.
One final comment is in order. In his concluding chapter, Decosimo claims that Aquinas’s charitable openness towards the outsider is exemplified by his extensive attention to Aristotle, which Decosimo regards as something almost unique to Aquinas. This claim does not really advance Decosimo’s thesis, and it is difficult to see how he could defend it. Aristotle was certainly a controversial figure in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but his influence was pervasive and he was embraced by both philosophers and theologians at the time. By the middle of the thirteenth century, the Arts Faculties at both Paris and Oxford had structured their curricula around Aristotle’s writings in logic, metaphysics and ethics. Every student had to begin his studies in the Arts faculty, and as a result, Aristotle’s writings played a critical part in the shared intellectual culture of the time. More generally, scholasticism was informed by an ideal of integrity of knowledge, now available in fragments among pagan as well as inspired authors, which led to a comprehensive study of classical authorities of all kinds. Aquinas stood out for the extent and the perceptiveness of his work on Aristotle, but his appropriation of Aristotle marks him as a scholastic theologian, someone whose thought and writings—including the dialectical structure of the Summa—were all profoundly shaped by the intensely collaborative forms of scholastic inquiry and writing. This concluding chapter distracts from Decosimo’s overall achievement, a fine and perceptive analysis of the virtues which rightly challenges those who would deny the possibility of true virtue apart from grace.