VIRTUE IN THE
MIDDLE AGES
A QUICK, AND YET SOMEHOW STILL
EXHAUSTING, TOUR OF A THOUSAND YEARS
TWO WAYS OF APPROACHING
THE MATERIAL
• One or two selected figures
• The grand historical sweep
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?
ORGANIZING QUESTIONS FOR THE
GRAND 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?
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.
AUGUSTINE (354-430)
THE PAGAN IDEA OF VIRTUE IS PRIDE
AND DELUSION
“You’ve heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons.”
AUGUSTINE (354-430)
THE PAGAN IDEA OF VIRTUE IS PRIDE
AND DELUSION
• Human responsibility for sin: the concept of
will
• The damage to human nature
• The anti-Pelagian polemic
• What the Pelagians said
• Augustine’s retort
• The problems of ignorance and difficulty
AUGUSTINE (354-430)
THE PAGAN IDEA OF VIRTUE IS PRIDE
AND DELUSION
• Implications for standard philosophical
doctrine
• Against the inseparability of the virtues
• Against the Stoic theory of emotions
• Against the philosophers’ conception of
virtue
• Against the Grand End Theory
• The fate of the cardinal virtues
ANSELM (1033-1109)
IT’S ALL ABOUT OBEDIENCE
“As you wish.”
ANSELM (1033-1109)
IT’S ALL ABOUT OBEDIENCE
• Anselm never approaches ethics as an
independent area of inquiry.
• Our purpose
• Our place
• Two definitions of rectitude of will (which
come to the same thing)
• Justice is rectitude of will preserved for its
own sake.
WHAT IS JUSTICE IN
ANSELM’S ACCOUNT?
• It’s a disposition, but not an Aristotelian
hexis: it is neither acquired by human effort
nor strengthened by habituation.
• In this life our possession of justice is always
precarious.
• Hence, the moral life requires exceptional
vigilance, and every disobedience,
however apparently trivial, is a grave evil.
• Notice how unlike an Aristotelian virtue this
is.
FURTHER INDICATIONS THAT THE
ROLE OF VIRTUE IS LIMITED AT BEST
• The traditional vocabulary of the cardinal
virtues other than justice is almost
completely absent.
• Anselm doesn’t appear to envision the
possibility of training the emotions.
• And anyway, preserving rectitude of will is
what’s important – and obedience is always
possible, no matter what the state of one’s
emotions might be.
• And what about charity?
PETER ABELARD (1079-1142)
INTENTIONS ARE ALL THAT MATTERS
• Start with the analysis of cases
• The tempted monk
• The servant who kills his master
• The man who marries his sister
• The two hangmen
PETER ABELARD (1079-1142)
INTENTIONS ARE ALL THAT MATTERS
• The key terms
• Disposition of the mind
• Will
• Consent
• Act
• So what about virtue?
THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)
VIRTUE PERFECTS HUMAN NATURE
• From natural law to virtue
• The standing analogy between speculative and
practical reasoning
Speculative
reason
Practical reason
Starts from
First principles
Natural law
Proceeds by
way of
Theoretical
syllogism
Practical
syllogism
Until it reaches
A conclusion
An act
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.
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.
THUS THE FOUR
CARDINAL 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 tollit
naturam sed perficit.)
• 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
ORGANIZING QUESTIONS FOR THE
GRAND 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?