Thomas Against Proportionalism

[qfnol31]

Thomas Against Proportionalists
The Catholic Church has set forth and taught that various acts are intrinsically evil, meaning that they are an evil act in every circumstance. Proportionalists, while intending good, radically misunderstand not only the Church, but also Thomas Aquinas. The idea of Proportionalism, as stated by Pope John Paul II, “by weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses…on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad effects of that choice, with a view to the ‘greater good’ or ‘lesser evil’, actually possible in a particular situation” (VS 75). Proportionalists take Aquinas’ words and misinterpret them in support of their theology. Yet, contrary to first appearances, Aquinas is not a Proportionalist; he does not say that each case is subjective, but that there are intrinsically evil actions.

Aquinas, quoting Aristotle, says, “human actions are good or evil according to circumstances” (S.T., I-II, q.18a.2). This appears to mean that judgment of an action must come from the subjective circumstances and denies universals. Aquinas also states, “External actions may be said to be good or bad in two ways. First, in regard to their genus and the circumstances connected with them…” (S.T., I-II, q.20a.1). By this logic, circumstances of an action are the first considerations to determine the goodness or evil of the action. This same argument, taken further, could imply that the circumstances are all that truly matter for an act to be truly evil. Aquinas goes on to say in his replies, “thus it is that the circumstances of actions are considered in the doctrine of morals” (S.T., I-II, q.18a.3). A glaze over this statement could imply that all doctrine of morals is based on subjective circumstances, and since there is no way for anyone, including the Church, to know all circumstances of any act, there is no action that She can teach as intrinsically evil.

Still another argument the Proportionalists use is that the intention of an action can change the type of act it is; evil intention is what makes an act evil. Instead of calling something intrinsically evil, the Proportionalists substitute the phrase “pre-moral evils”, that is, they are not evil actions until an evil intent is present. To prove their case they use the example of killing versus contraception; the Church teaches contraception as an intrinsically evil act while she says that killing is not intrinsically evil. The Proportionalists claim that the Church is inconsistent, in one she does not judge circumstances and intent in one, but does so in the other, an error they try to correct in the Church’s theology. Pope John Paul II says that for a world of Proportionalism, “its moral ‘goodness’ would be judged on the basis of the subject’s intention in reference to moral good, and its rightness on the basis of a consideration of its foreseeable effects or consequences and of their proportion,” meaning no one could define an act as intrinsically evil until the full circumstances are known (VS 75).

A third case taken from Thomas by the Proportionalists to serve their theology hinges on his statement, “the very proportion of an action to its effect is the measure of its goodness” (S.T., I-II, q.18a.2). It is from this idea that Proportionalism derives its name; it looks at the proportions of everything to the action. This is a very troubling statement by Thomas when first discovered. He seems to say, if an action has a good effect greater than the evil of the same act examined alone, then it is a good act. The Proportionalists also take Aquinas’ statement, “a thing is said to be good or evil from its relation to the end,” to mean the end, or intentions of a person, (along with circumstances) define whether his act is good or evil (S.T., I-II, q.20a.1).

The first problem with the Proportionalist case is their misinterpretation of Aquinas and their disregard for the fullness of his argument. Aquinas, when speaking of circumstances that determine the good or evil of an action, refers to the due circumstances, as he makes explicit in one of his responses: “the goodness or malice which the external action has of itself on account of its being about due matter and its being attended by due circumstances…” (S.T., I-II, q.20a.1). Due circumstances change the type of act performed. They are the circumstances considered a part of the action before the inclusion of any particular agent. In other words, due circumstances can be looked at on an objective basis and will not change from case to case, which is different from the subjective circumstances which change from action to action. Proportionalists ignore this imperative distinction between the two types of circumstances.

When Proportionalists read Thomas, they have a tendency to take various phrases of his writing out of context and many limited portions rather than the text as a whole. Thomas proposes many of the arguments that the Proportionalists attribute to him. He says that the circumstances and ends of an action are crucial when deciding if it is good or evil; however, these are only two things a person must consider, and he does not separate them from the rest of his argument: “Now it must be observed…that for a thing to be evil, one single defect suffices, whereas, for it to be good simply, it is not enough for it to be good in one point only, it must be good in every respect” (S.T., I-II, q.20a.2). When Thomas writes, he first mentions the objects of the act, that is, what the act is: “so an action has its species from its object, as movement from its term” (S.T., I-II, q.18a.2). For each object of the act, there are two parts: interior and external; the external object is that which is being acted upon; the interior is how the person perceives his action: “we must say that sometimes the goodness or malice of the interior act is the same as that of the external action, and sometimes not,” meaning sometimes the two coincide, but not always (S.T., I-II, q.20a.3). An example is if a person chooses to donate money to the poor. Exteriorly this is a good act; interiorly, this may be a good act, or maybe the person is intending to gain publicity by his act. In this latter example, the external act would still be good, but the internal act would make it an evil act because the object of the interior act of the will does not align with the object of the external act of the will. Other than the object of the interior and external acts of the will, there are also the intent of the person and the end of the act. The intent must be present, in that a person must intend to perform the act, for it to be an evil act. The end is the intent of the person executing the act, or what he wishes to accomplish with the act; Thomas writes, “It has been shown above…that human actions derive their species from the end” (S.T., I-II, q.18a.5), or the end can be built into the act (finis operis), such as unaltered sexual intercourse during the fertile period, where the intention of the couple may or may not be procreation, but the result will not depend on their purpose. The last consideration is with respect to due circumstances, the circumstances the make the act a different kind of act. If a person were to kill another person, the due circumstance of the innocence will make the killing a different kind of act than the killing of a person trying to stab him (who would be guilty). Looking at these elements of actions, the Church is able to establish that certain kinds of actions are intrinsically evil actions, or always wrong.

Beyond the objective side of each act, there is also the subjective. This deals with the intentions of the person, such as what he means to accomplish by his act. If a person intends to good by committing an evil act, this intent is only an accidental property to the act and does not diminish the evil, for an internal intent to do good by doing an evil act does not change the external act, for when one part of the act is evil, the whole act is evil. Aquinas writes, “Augustine says…that ‘there are some actions which neither a good end nor a good will can make good’” (S.T., I-II, q.20a.2).

Breaking the law is one example of an action open to consideration both objectively and subjectively, such as in the case of underage drinking. Drinking alcohol moderately is a good given by God. It becomes evil when there is a lack of due order, or an excess of alcohol is drunk by a person. Therefore, the object of the external act of the will, insofar as the person is drinking moderately, is a good. The object of the interior act of the will corresponds with the external—the person intends to drink moderately—so the act is good in regards to the objects of the will. However, one of the more crucial points of this type of action deals with the due circumstances, in this case whether or not the law is just or unjust. If the law is unjust, it is for the person to at least protest, if not act out against it. However, if this human law is in accord with the Natural Law, then it is most likely a just law. Since the law against underage drinking is an just law in that the arbitrary age exists for the benefit of all, the due circumstances change it to a different kind of act. In this case, a person may have the permission of his parents, but this is accidental if the parents are not around, for it remains an act of breaking the law. If one person decides to drink the alcohol, moderately, so that he can relax, it remains an act of breaking the law. There is also the idea that a minor is convinced to drink the alcohol, in which case a sin is committed, at least materially. These last few examples are instances of different subjective circumstances (these consider individual, specific agents), in which case the only part of the act possibly affected is the culpability of those breaking the law.

When the Proportionalists claim that the Church is inconsistent by calling some actions intrinsically evil and others not, they ignore the terms used by the Church. When the Church defines something as an intrinsic evil, she looks at the due circumstances and intent of the person. An intrinsically evil act is one that is a grave matter (such as killing), done intentionally by the person (he chose to do the act), and considers circumstances that change the type of act (such as killing an innocent versus a guilty person) . Proportionalists of argue that contraception cannot be intrinsically evil because it does not take into consideration the intent of the person, unlike killing. However, contraception is a term that implies the intention to do a sexual action that is contrary to the procreative meaning of sexual intercourse.

A quick glazing of St. Thomas upholds the Proportionalist arguments very well. He seems to say that the Church is wrong in defining certain actions as intrinsically evil, while others not. However, a more thorough examination shows that Thomas upholds the Church in Her definitions of intrinsically evil actions. The difference between the Proportionalist argument and the Thomistic argument is that Thomas makes an imperative distinction between words, such as: intending to do an action and reason for doing the action or between the subjective circumstances and due circumstances. The Proportionalists only take a portion of Thomas’ argument, and they twist it to convolute the meaning of the whole as it Thomas wrote it, together. Thomas himself even says that all his work on evil actions is a whole and that for a good action all parts are good. This is the argument ignored by the Proportionalists when they dissect Thomas and turn him into a Proportionalist.

Edited December 2, 2004 by qfnol31

[point5]

thank you

[phatcatholic]

good work, i added this to the list of "tracts by phatmassers"