The Stoics and Virtue: The Adiaphora

ALTHOUGH THE STOIC PHILOSOPHERS took their inspiration from Socrates, sidestepping the developments of Plato and Aristotle, their contribution to virtue theory was the addition of the notion of logos or reason underlying the entire virtue inquiry.  However, the Stoic thinkers did not disdain Plato or Aristotle in their entirety.

For example, the Stoic thinkers accepted the four-fold division of Plato, and thought it convenient to divide virtue into the four cardinal virtues that Plato had identified: fortitude, temperance, prudence, and justice.  They also followed the notion that these virtues were related to each other and mutually supported each other.  The Stoics found that the inter-relatedness of the virtues also applied to their corresponding vices.

The Stoics, however, rejected the Aristotelian moderation of virtue/vice distinction.  Whereas Aristotle saw vice and virtue as two extremes to a continuum, with most of mankind in between the two extremes, the Stoics saw virtue and vice as all-or-nothing qualities.  One either was virtuous in toto or not, and if not, one was vicious.  This led to a sort of moral rigorism for which the Stoics were famous.  As Diogenes Laertius put it in his work on the life of the philosophers (Vitae, 7.127), "'while the Peripatetics [Aristotelians] say that progress lies between virtue and vice,' the Stoics'believed there is nothing between virtue and vice.'"  Houser, 19 (quoting Laertius).

Cicero--himself a disciple of the Stoic moral school--described this Stoic position in his De finibus (3.14.48) thus:

For just as those who are submerged in the ocean cannot breath, whether they are so close to the surface that they are just about to emerge or they are down deep . . . so too whoever is making a little progress toward the habit of virtue is no less in misery than one who has progressed not at all.

(quoted in Houser, 19)

The Stoic Chrysippus

Another contribution of the Stoic school is that they did not adopt Plato's "philosopher king" (philosophos basileus) or Aristotle's "great-souled" man (spoudaios) as the exemplar of the virtuous soul.  These notions were too tied to the political life of the polis or were too practical in perspective.  Rather, consistent with their Socratic emphasis and their notion of the logos as the underlying standard, the Stoics looked toward the wise man or sage (sophos) as the paradigm of the virtuous human.

By putting a cosmic and cosmopolitan twist on Socrates' search for universal definitions, the Stoics thought [the sage's] single-minded devotion to the logos allowed [the sage] to submit with equanimity to death, seemingly the worse of evils . . . . The Stoic sages was conceived as a paragon of moral virtue.

Houser, 19.

It should be noted that the Stoic sage's equanimity before death in his devotion to the logos was a quality that was quite compatible with the martyr's devotion to the Logos made flesh, Jesus the Lord, which led him to spurn death and witness to the truth.  The heroism of the sage and the heroism of the martyrs were thus analogous.

The Stoics recognized that virtue was not only something that made a man extrinsically excellent (in his relations ad extra), but that virtue was something that pertained to the inner life and so made a man excellent in his interior life (ad intra).  Indeed, it was the inner aspect of virtue which was emphasized.  Thus virtue's intrinsic goodness is not necessarily measured by results, but rather by what is right and good.  The Stoics therefore came to see virtue as its own reward, irrespective of consequences or happiness.  The Stoic philosopher Zeno, for example, "concluded that virtues are not one among many things that are intrinsically good, they are the only things that are good intrinsically (agathon, kalon; honestum); and likewise th only thing intrinsically bad is vice (kakia; vitium)."  Houser, 20.

Diogenes Laertius (Vitae, 7.102-3) summarized the Stoics' view thus:

The virtues--prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and the others--are good (agatha); and their opposites--imprudence, injustice, and the others--are bad (kaka); neither good nor bad are those things which neither benefit nor harm, such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, good, reputation, noble birth, and their opposites death, disease, pain, ugliness, weakness, poverty, bad reputation, low birth, and such things . . . . For these things are not good, but things indifferent (adiaphora) in the category of preferred things (proegmena).  For just as heating, not cooling, is a property of the hot, so benefiting, not harming, is a property of the good; but wealth and health do not benefit any more than they harm; therefore, neither wealth nor health is a good.

(quoted in Houser, 20).  The Stoics therefore saw a great many goods as pre-moral goods to which a sage ought to be indifferent; whereas Plato and especially Aristotle tended to see man and his good (happiness) as more a blend of extrinsic and intrinsic qualities.  The Stoic man could be "happy" lacking all things but virtue.  The Aristotelian man could not be "happy" even if virtuous, if he was lacking health and a certain level of wealth.

As we shall see in the next posting, this scheme of the Stoics--which labeled a whole host of things seen as intrinsically good in the Platonic-Aristotelian analysis as morally indifferent.  In order to explain which humans gravitated to such supposedly indifferent goods and avoided such supposedly indifferent evils, the Stoics had to develop some explanation.  They therefore developed a sort of dualistic moral theory that distinguished between animal impulse and desire tied to man's animal nature and the higher reason-based nature of rational man.

Relatio Publici de Nefas Moralis: Haeresis et Quasiconscientia

IN A WAY, MAN LIES TO HIMSELF if he thinks that he is completely autonomous, and can create new moralities. Man cannot "create" the moral law. At best, he can corrupt it by ignoring certain of its precepts, by misconstruing them, by overemphasizing them. In short, every kind of morality is derived from the authentic morality. Every morality that is not the natural moral law is a heresy of the natural law.*

There is no vast array of possible moralities. Natural law is not the one true star in a galaxy of false ones; it is the only star. There is only one possible source of value judgments, one possible well from which moral duties can be drawn, one tree from which they can be plucked. The so-called new moralities do not pluck from different trees. They pluck from the same tree, but selectively. . . . The foundational principles of right and wrong can neither be created nor destroyed by man; therefore, the only way to defeat the natural law is to make it cannibalize itself. Put another way, there are no new moralities, but only new perversions of the old one. This insight is crucial for understanding how the so-called new moralities are able to make us believe them. Moral error is a parasite on morality, and sucks all its plausibility from its host.

Budziszewski (2003), 186-87. Whatever public or private morality or system of morality is advance--Communism, Nazism, Liberalism, Libertarianism, Relativism, etc.--the strategy is always "to select one moral precept, exaggerate its scope and importance, and use it as a club to beat down others." In short, it is a heresy, a blend of truth and error mixed. In the past, we suffered Christological and Trinitarian heresies. Currently, we suffer from Moral heresies.

In Budziszewski's analysis, moral heretics undertake their "black magic" or "spells" against the moral law by two means: imposture and unraveling.

St. Augustine Refuting a Heretic
From 13th Century Manuscript

Imposture takes a moral principle, perverts it, and then replaces the original principle with the perverted (or impostor) principle. For example, the advocates of homosexual "marriage" take the notion of fidelity between a man and a woman (an essential principle of marriage), extricate it from the fact that its context is precisely between a man and a woman, and then pervert it to apply to fidelity between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, and that therefore the latter are marriages also. The fidelity advocated here is an impostor.

The other method is unraveling. This is defined by Budziszewski as "the perversion of one moral principle against another." Homosexual "marriage" also gives us an example of this. In this instance, the principle of "fairness" is perverted and used to attack the principle of marital purity, chastity, and conjugal relations. "Fairness" is perverted to mean the principle of treating people differently, but this is a perversion of "fairness." Fairness is in fact the principle of not treating people differently arbitrarily. There is nothing wrong, in fact there is everything right, in treating people in different circumstances differently. Thus a man who has worked 40 hours is entitled to pay from his employer, whereas the man who has refused to work is entitled to no pay from his employer. This is fair because there is a reasonable, non-arbitrary reason for treating the employees dissimilarly. In fact, it would be unfair to treat them the same. It is not unfair to treat the sterile relationship between a man and a man or a woman and a woman differently from the relationship between a man and a woman in permanent marriage. There is no arbitrarily-imposed distinction, but a clear, apparent, and natural reason for treating the relationships differently.

Obviously, in confronting the advocates of false morality, we have to be sensitive in perceiving the legitimate principle they are taking and perverting and how they are using the perverted principle illegitimately.

In addition to the heretical methodologies used by opponents to the natural law, we might also consider the seduction of what Budziszewski calls "paraconscience,"** which as far as I can tell is a neologism, but a very valuable one. Paraconscience should be distinguished from (deep) conscience proper and the "belt of conscience."*** Paraconscience is the handmaid of conscience proper, and consists of "desires and emotions," and includes such emotions such as the desire for the good, outrage, indignation, the feelings of a desire for justice or disdain for injustice, pity, compassion, the desire to render aid, modesty, shame, avoidance of the unseemly or indecent. Paraconscience is, to a certain degree, a second nature. It is one that is subject to training, to education, to formation (unlike deep conscience, which is unalterable). Virtue is what binds the paraconscience to the conscience, so that if one is virtuous, the paraconscience (those desires, emotions, etc.) support the conscience. Vice is what opposes the paraconscience to the conscience. Enemies of the natural law have wreaked havoc in the area of virtue or paraconscience, and what counted once as vice is hailed as virtue, so that the desires and emotions we are often inculcated with now act against conscience.

In our day, the seduction and redirection of the emotions and desires has achieved its greatest success with the feeling of compassion. In compassion we feel with the sufferer, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. One way relieves his suffering, the other relieves what I suffer for him; one gives him what he needs, the other merely gives him what he wants--or just puts him out of sight. . . . False compassion is a great deal less work than true. . . . False compassion has other advantages too. It sits easier with unrepented sins . . . [i]t certainly requires less moral reflection . . . . [and is] especially useful for corrupting the minds of the very young.

Budziszewski (2003),189-90.

Though compassion seems to be that part of the paraconscience that is the choice of modern liberalism and relativism, this does not mean that the other desires and emotions cannot be seduced. "It makes no difference how noble a particular desire or passion may seem to be; the noble it is in itself, the baser it will be if corrupted." The advocate of abortion--who has clear emotions that there is an injustice to the woman if such a "right" is restricted--has had her paraconscience as it relates to justice seduced. The homosexual who feels himself aggrieved by the fact that marriage laws allow marriage only between a man and a woman has had his paraconscience seduced. The manager of a Planned Parenthood or a High School nurse, who believes that children ought to be given contraceptives as a matter of public health and policy, has had his or her paraconscience seduced. One could go on and on, as in the modern world, virtue and vice have, to a large degree flipped places, and the paraconscience, for a whole host of reasons to complex to go into here, is all askew.

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*The word heresy comes to us from the Greek word hairesis (αἵρεσις). Its roots suggest the notion of faction or choice, and suggest that followers have chosen one truth over another, or emphasized one truth over another, or chosen not to believe one truth so as to believe a falsehood.
**Since the word conscience is Latin in origin, it may be more appropriate to call this notion quasiconscience, or perhaps pseudosynderesis or parasynderesis. Or perhaps that's just being pendantic.
***See the prior posting on this in De Testimonio Quatuor Testibus: Conscientia Profunda.

Virtue Defined

WE ARE NOW POISED TO PROPOSE a definition of moral virtue. But before we do, we ought briefly to recapitulate our prior postings on this issue. First, we looked at and criticized the modern substitutes for virtue: the notion of natural spontaneity, the notion of psychology and its techniques, and the notion of social engineering. Each of these, while they contain germs of truth, are not, in any event virtue. They may have a subordinate role to play in perfecting man, but they are subordinate to moral virtue which objectively fits into natural law, and so has a guide to right and wrong which these other techniques dangerously do not have. From these substitutes, we looked at the notion of habit, and distinguished the Aristotelian notion of hexis which has been translated as "habitus," and the meaning of which is inadequately conveyed by the term "habit." Principally, hexeis or habitus is grounded on an objective reality. It is a form of knowledge (epistēmē), in the area of morality practical knowledge to be sure, and not opinion (doxa). Though the word virtue is used by Aristotelian and his followers in a sense broad enough to include both intellectual and moral virtues, and, may broadly be used even to refer to inanimate behaviors that are reliable and dependable, it needs to be distinguished in its general sense from its sense in the context of moral virtues. Simon distinguishes the intellectual virtues from the moral virtues by using the concept of existential readiness and qualitative readiness. The intellectual virtues have a qualitative readiness, but not necessarily an existential readiness (which may be equated with the notion of "finality"); whereas the moral virtues have both qualitative and existential readiness (finality) as part of them. From the notions of qualitative and existential readiness, we looked at the notion of disposition or diathesis, which is the the arrangement of that which has parts, in respect either of place, or of potency, or of kind, and in the area of morality, yields the notion of reliable, arranged, and ordered response to the contingent circumstances met by a human being during the course of his life. From these concepts, we turned to the traditional four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

The Moral Relativist, who Demands Normativity,
Cuts Himself Off From the Trunk of Normativity

With this backdrop, we are ready to tackle a definition of virtue. This notion of virtue has an unusually strong and rich pedigree, and it has been found among the followers of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, St. Augustine, and the medieval theologians, most notably St. Thomas, and into all the moral theologians, manualists, and advocates of traditional morality. Only recently, with the advent of modern, materialistic substitutes of the natural law taking precedence in the 18th but especially mid-19th centuries, have these notions been lost. Instead, there has been a collapse of a central moral ethic, and we wallow in relativism which is not benign and tolerant, but which has turned out to be quite tyrannical. It imposes the normativity of relativism on an objectivist, though it has sawn itself off the trunk of objectivism. Refusing to recognize that it sits proverbially on the branch which it is sawing off from the tree, and so is bound to being supported by nothing, relativism accuses the entire stable trunk from which it has sawed itself off as intolerant, dogmatic, obscurant, and unfeeling. The fundamental inconsistency does not seem to bother the relativist, since he is based upon nothing other than naked assertion, a moral ideology not founded on reality, but on a moral revolt and skepticism. There has been a resurgence--how lasting it will be is difficult to tell--of both the natural law and virtue ethics which may result in these concepts once again being central to Western thought. But we are a long way off from that, if it even happens.

In any event, we may start with Aristotle's definition of moral virtue found in his Nicomachean Ethics.

Virtue (aretē, ἀρετὴ), then, is a state of character (hexis, ἕξις) concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle (logō, λόγῳ), and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom (ho phronimos, ὁ φρόνιμος) would determine it.

ἔστιν ἄρα ἡ ἀρετὴ ἕξις προαιρετική, ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ὡρισμένῃ λόγῳ καὶ ᾧ ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν.

Aristotle, Nic. Eth., 1106b-1107a.

The translation of hexis into "state of character," might be better rendered by the term "habitus" were that latter term better known. The notion of a "state of character" or moral habitus is, as we have seen, "a stable, objective disposition of the diverse parts of the soul." Simon, 105. This state of character or moral habitus avoids both excesses and defects into which all our actions may fall. This is the famous Aristotelian "golden mean," or aurea mediocritas, the via media between defect and excess wherein virtue lies. One should not fail to see the genius in the definition, as it incorporates both objective notions of excellence and habitus, yet also subjective realization of those in a particular person ("relative to us"). "The mean has to be relative to us," Simon notes, "because it is we and nobody else who have to decide what to do in a given situation." Therefore, what may be within the mean of temperance for someone who can hold their liquor, would be intemperance for an alcoholic. What would be an act of courage for a lifeguard who saves a person drowning, might be an act of rashness on the part of a man who cannot swim. Though the decision is our own, and must reflect circumstances, including those of our ourselves, "that does not make our decision unqualifiedly subjective. For if we have practical wisdom, we shall determine what is to be done, and do it, on the basis of rational principle and objectively with regard to the circumstances." Simon, 106.

Aristotle insists that our choice must be in accord with "rational principle," or in accord with logos or reason. The invocation of logos into the moral mix is significant. Logos as Simon notes, is "a powerful word with a beautiful multiplicity of meaning. It means 'word,' it means 'concept,' it means 'reason,' it means 'rational principle.'" Simon, 109. Yet, for Simon, this statement of Aristotle is "rather ambiguous," and does not sufficiently invoke the notion of "what is good or what is bad" into his definition. Some effort is made to tie in the decision with that of a wise or prudent man, the objective man of practical wisdom. However, in Simon's view, the Aristotelian definition of virtue does sufficiently contain a "theory of how we know the basic premises of the moral order." Simon, 107. In other words, it seems inadequately grounded, at least in any express sense, in the natural moral law. In a world that accepts an objective moral order to be referenced in moral decisions, the gap in Aristotle's definition is not consequential. However, where such a concept is lacking in a culture, as in ours, the gap becomes problematic, and Aristotle's definition's insufficiency is felt.

The notion of right and wrong relates to the notion of nature and its finality. "To know what do do, one must consider the nature of things." Simon, 107. In the case of man, it requires the recruitment of both reason and inclination, an "intellectual feltness" which is grounded in the natural moral law.

Natural law . . . is known first of all by inclination. That does not mean, of course, that it cannot be known rationally, or that rational knowledge of its principles is not desirable. it is simply that primordially, primitively, and primarily, natural law, whose core is constituted by the premises of the moral order, is known by inclination.

Simon, 108.* Again, this knowledge by inclination, though intensely subjective, is also intensely tied to the objective moral order. Through this intellectual feltness, a man intellectually "smells" and what is wrong, though this intellectual "smelling" is consisting with an intellectual "feel" or an intellectual "sight." As Simon observes:

For just as we use metaphors derived from the sense of sight when we speak of analysis, and metaphors derived from the sense of touch when we want to convey certainty, we come closes to describing knowledge by inclination in moral matters by comparing its feelings of attraction and repulsion to the sense of smell.

Simon, 109. There is, then, this wonderful synthesis of objective and subjective worlds in the decision of a virtuous man:

In knowledge by inclination, subjectivity--that is, the constitution of a subject--works as a way of judgment in all cases, including the case of correct, right good objective judgment. And then we, too, can say with Kierkegaard that "in der Subjektivität liegt die Wahrheit [Truth lies in subjectivity]."

Simon, 111.** Perhaps the simplest way to explain the intermingling of objectivity and subjectivity is the Scholastic formula that joint right reason with good will. We might view it in antimetabolically: to be virtuous, we must use both use both heartfelt reason and a reasoning heart.

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*Simon invokes the teaching of Jacques Maritain on the natural law, particularly his notion of the role of inclinations in informing our sense of right and wrong from a natural law standpoint. It has been the subject of prior postings. The reader is particularly referred to Jacques Maritain and Natural Law: Inclination and Law, Part 1 and Jacques Maritain and Natural Law: Inclination and Law, Part 2. We have described the Maritanian notion of inclination as an "intellectual feltness." Simon characterizes this "intellectual feltness" or inclination, as an intellectual sense of "smell," which should be distinguished from strictly rational operations which might be analogized to sense of "touch" or "sight."
**Simon's reference is to Kierkegaard's "Concluding Unscientific Postscript."

Contra Consequentialismum: Virtue

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, or at least practice makes more perfect, in almost anything human.

The simple fact is that frequent repetition of an act, in any sphere of human activity, is a prerequisite for good performance, since the agent learns how to do the thing required, learns how to avoid mistakes, works out ways of doing the same thing more quickly, more efficiently or with less stress. Further, repetition inclines the agent towards the act concerned, since easy and efficient performance is intrinsically satisfying, reinforcing among other things the agent's confidence in is own skill and ability.

Oderberg, MT, 45. And therein lies the notion of virtue. Virtues are essential to the life of happiness. In the most general sense, virtues are powers or capacities to do something, and they may be innate and developed, or they may be acquired, even to the point of becoming more or less habitual. Hence, a child born of two gifted pianists may have an innate genetic "virtue" or potential power to play the piano, yet it must be developed through learning, practice, and hard work. The same principles apply to the moral life.* The habits typically associated with the moral life are what we call virtues, which is the context in which we ordinarily use the word, and which may be defined as "ingrained behavioral traits that reflect a certain broad aspect of [good] character." Oderberg, MT, 46. Unfortunately, the possibility of virtue opens up the possibility of vice, which is nothing other than ingrained behavioral traits that reflect evil character.

Though it is difficult to state with certainty precisely his view, Socrates appears to have believed, or at least argued, that knowledge alone was sufficient tutor for the development of virtue (excellence or aretē). Thus, for example, Plato's dialogue Protagoras, Socrates appears to have convinced Protagoras that virtue (ἀρετή, aretē) is knowledge (ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē) (Protagoras, 361b). This seems either a sophistry or an error, as in our world our experience is that our will all too often acts against our knowledge, encouraged, moreover by both intrinsic (passion, temptation, bodily desires) and extrinsic factors (bad influences, poor education and culture). Knowledge alone seems clearly insufficient to get us to goodness and hence to happiness. While knowledge is important, in this world "good moral habits are required to keep our emotions, our sensations, our bodily desires, and the like, harnessed to the pursuit of human happiness." Oderberg, MT, 48.

Maurice Wilson, Ill-Fated Everest Climber
Symbol of the Fool Who Tackles the Pursuit of Happiness Without Virtue

To tackle the pursuit of happiness without virtue is to be as foolish as the dreamer Maurice Wilson, whose ill-fated effort at climbing Everest alone--without mountaineering experience, without proper preparation and training, without learning the use of an ice ax or crampons, relying on fasting and prayer** and a few climbs of the hills in Snowdonia in Wales, he considered himself ready to tackle one of the most difficult physical feats that had yet to be accomplished. "Off again," the foolish optimist wrote in his diary, "gorgeous day," only to end the "gorgeous day" as a dead, frozen body at the foot of the North Col to be found by the mountaineer and sailor Eric Shipton, and buried ignominiously in a crevasse. So does a man turn out who seeks happiness without virtue: he ends up in failure's crevasse instead of on victory's summit.

Virtues are more lasting than mere dispositions or resolutions, and they are certainly more that "simply a mood, or passing whim." These latter things are transient, and virtues have a certain stability; stayingness, lastingness is their characteristic. Virtue is also more than merely routine, as virtues suggest not drab, dreary day-to-day application of moral precepts as if one were on an assembly line of widgets, operating a stamp that impressed the word "good" on them. Virtues are intelligent habits, founded upon reason, requiring "sound judgment and the skillful application of principles to particular moral problems." To be virtuous, one has to be as deft, and as nimble, and as quick, and as certain as a quarterback facing the entire defensive line and the line backers in a blitz.
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*If there are innate moral virtues, then does that imply there such a thing as what Bernard Williams or Thomas Nagel call "moral luck"? Oderberg rejects the notion as being of any great significance. First, any innate trait that may relate to morality pales next to the requirement of development (which requires effort, and so cannot be said to be "luck"). More, he seriously doubts that moral habits are innate. He distinguishes between innate characteristics which may dispose a person to a certain virtue or vice (but which is not virtue or vice in itself), and the virtue or vice itself. He acknowledges, however, some "luck" in being exposed to an environment (e.g., parents) that would encourage the development of virtue (if, and to the extent, innate) or would allow it to be acquired (if not innate). "Luck will be an ineradicable feature of the development of one's character. In this sense, there is and must be 'moral luck.'" Oderberg, MT, 47. Even so, the "moral lack" is, in Oderberg's view, not causative:

Just as no one is born good or bad, so no one is made good or bad. Everyone is born with the desire to know the truth and the desire to live well. Even if their surroundings work against them, they can employ their native reason to rise above those surroundings (as so many do) and to live well and do what is good.

Oderberg, 48. Ultimately, whatever "moral luck" there is does not rob us of our freedom or of our responsibility.
**Apparently Wilson forgot that, while faith may figuratively move mountains (Matt. 17:20), especially the mountains of the mind, it does not suffice, to climb real mountains, unless God were to freeze the laws of nature by an extraordinary and miraculous prodigy, akin to the prodigies of Moses, which we ought never to presume he would do. Wilson also forgot: "Do not put Lord your God to the test . . ." Deut. 6:16; cf. Luke 4:12.

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 10: The Moral Virtues

FROM LAW TO VIRTUE THE ROAD IS SHORT. The two are inextricably mixed. "The habitual qualities that result from the observance of the moral law are called moral virtues." [240(46)] The law leads to virtue, and virtue to good. Simply put, a virtue is "an habitual disposition, either received from God (infused virtue) or acquired by the individual (acquired virtue), which is added to the natural powers of the rational soul and makes the normal exercise of its activity easier." [24-41(40)] Moral virtues perfect or polish the will, as distinguished from intellectual virtues, which perfect or polish the intellect. Mercier adopts the classical division of the moral virtues into four "hinges," four "fundamental or cardinal virtues." And these are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

The Four Moral Virtues by Giotto (Scrovegni Chapel, Padua)
From Left to Right: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance

The practical reason is used by man to distinguish between what is morally good and what is morally evil, between the affirmative commands and the negative prohibitions of the natural law. It is through a judgment of the practical reason that an act's conformity with any determined end, including the last end, is determined. From the subjective point of view, our practical judgment is what we use to tell us the goodness or badness of moral acts. Cardinal Mercier rejects those theories of morality that would place moral decisions in some sort of irrational faculty, some sort of instinctual or affective power separate and apart from the cognitive part of man (i.e., moral sense or organic morality theories).

The practical reason has its first principle just like the speculative reason has its first principle. With respect to the speculative reason, the first principle is the principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot both be and not be in the same way. With respect to the practical reason the first principle is that good must be done, and evil avoided. This principle is self-evident, foundational. [242-43(50)] (quoting S.T. Ia-IIae, q. 94, a. 2).

Since the moral law, the natural law, is really law, it follows that it requires a sanction. A sanction, considered objectively, is "all the rewards and punishments attached to the performance or to the violation of it [a law]." Considered formally, the sanction is "the promulgation of this system of rewards and punishments reserved for those who observe or transgress the law." [244(51)] The natural law therefore should have both punishments and rewards and these should be promulgated. Mercier considers the objective and formal need for sanction, and he suggests that the moral law has sanction. Though the sanction of the moral law is seen in this life, it is not always sufficient, and so he argues that the moral law requires some sort of eternal reward or punishment.

During the present life, there is a sanction, albeit insufficient in all respects. Mercier distinguishes four kinds of sanction that are temporal: a natural sanction, an interior sanction, a legal sanction, and a public or social sanction.

Natural Sanction	The natural consequences of our action, including health, comfort, success, etc. which generally follow the exercise of moral virtues and the weakness, disease, suffering that follow from vice.
Interior Sanction	The internal sense arising from conscience, which includes joy of being good, and the shame, guilt arising from doing wrong.
Legal Sanction	The system of rewards and penalties from human law that supplements or supports the natural law
Public or Social Sanction	The praise, esteem, discredit, glory, infamy, etc. that others attach to our external actions.

Though the natural law has sanctions attached to it in this life, Mercier acknowledges that these are insufficient for three reasons. To be sufficient, sanction would have to be universal, proportionate, and efficacious. In other words, the sanction must leave no good act or actor unrewarded and no bad act or actor unpunished (universal); it must be precisely tailored to the individual merit and demerit of the act or actor (proportionate); it must be consistently applied so as to maintain the moral order (efficacious). Manifestly, this does not occur in this life. We all know that men that have escaped punishment, and men that have obtained reward far beyond their just deserts. It is a constant plaint of the virtuous:

These things also I saw in the days of my vanity: A just man perisheth in his justice, and a wicked man liveth a long time in his wickedness.

Haec quoque vidi in diebus vanitatis meae iustus perit in iustitia sua et impius multo vivit tempore in malitia sua.

There is also another vanity, which is done upon the earth. There are just men to whom evils happen, as though they had done the works of the wicked: and there are wicked men, who are as secure, as though they had the deeds of the just: but this also I judge most vain.

Est et alia vanitas quae fit super terram sunt iusti quibus multa proveniunt quasi opera egerint impiorum et sunt impii qui ita securi sunt quasi iustorum facta habeant sed et hoc vanissimum iudico.

(Eccl. 7:16; 8:14). We may also simply peruse the Book of Job.

Job by William Blake

"A sanction, then, to be adequate, must be found elsewhere, in a future life." [245(52)] So it would seem to be required by reason alone that there must be some sort of eternal settling of accounts, though clearly reason can only speculate beyond that much:

After a time of trial, the length of which we do not know, the virtuous will be eternally rewarded in a future life, and the wicked will be deprived for ever of their happiness." . . . . With regard to [this] proposition, philosophy can establish two points: (i) the idea of eternal punishment is not contrary to reason; God can inflict on man for certain grave or mortal delinquencies a supreme eternal damnation. (ii) if we consider the exigencies of the providential order of the universe, God must give a sanction to the moral law by inflicting on the guilty a supreme eternal punishment. If, therefore, He can and must punish grave transgressions with an eternal chastisement, it is a logical conclusion that the guilty will in fact be for ever unhappy.

[245(53)] (Mercier also provides support or proof of this by arguments from reason, or at least showing that it is not contrary to reason, which will not be summarized here simply for lack of space. See [245-47(53-54)])