Introduction and Outline
There are multiple theories of right living, or ethics. The most popular theories today are Kantianism and Utilitarianism. However, there is also the Aristotilean notion of Eudaimonism which was incorporated into Natural Law and Virtue Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas. One way of contrasting these theories is to look at their starting points. What is the foundation of the given ethical system? In this paper, I will be defending the Thomistic position that ethics should start with an exploration of human happiness.
I will begin by describing how St. Thomas starts to outline his ethics, which revolves around the human good, or happiness. Next, I will look at objections to this perspective. To do this, I will look at other starting points from popular perspectives on ethics: namely, Utilitarianism and Kantianism. Then, I will show why the Thomistic perspective is the strongest of the three. Last, I will look at a couple implications for why this matters.
St. Thomas on the Human Good
In his treatise on human beings, Saint Thomas Aquinas begins with a very Aristotilean notion of ends. Things work towards their natural ends, and so human beings also should work towards their natural end. Now, because man is “the master of his actions” in a way that irrational things are not, he will reach his end through reason and will. Next, he shows that man has only one final end. This is because it is impossible to go on to infinity “in causes of movement.” There needs to be a prime mover, which in the realm of human action would be the end that we are pursuing. So, although we pursue a variety of ends, these must all be subordinated to a single final end. This last end, he goes on to argue, is happiness. Even though men disagree on how to get there, we all pursue happiness as our final end.
From this starting point, St. Thomas builds his ethics. In question 2, he famously looks at different options for what happiness consists in: wealth, honor, fame (glory), power, the body, pleasure, the soul, or a created good. He finds all of these wanting. In question 3 he takes a more positive approach and reasons that happiness consists in contemplation of the divine essence. Then, St. Thomas relates his epistemology to a theory of human action. Then, he builds up an account of what makes human actions good or evil. From here, he will go on to build his virtue ethics. He begins by analyzing habits, which he breaks down into virtues and vices in general. Lastly, he analyzes particular virtues and vices.
Objections
In this section we will look at alternative theories to the one expressed in the above section. We will look at two: Kantianism and Utilitarianism. As usual with Kant, we need to start with epistemology. He thought that ethics must start with synthetic a priori principles. Kant, rather than beginning his ethics from a pursuit of happiness, begins with a sense of obligation. This obligation must be informed by a maxim derived from reason. He summarizes the maxim he reasons to as follows, “I ought never to act in such a way that I couldn’t also will that the maxim on which I act should be a universal law.” Universal, here, means that this law needs to be applicable universally. He gives the example of lying: you would never encourage someone else to lie to you to get out of a difficulty; in the same way, you shouldn’t lie to get out of difficult situations. This would undercut the very notion of speech, because if lying is permissible, then speech cannot be trusted.
In Chapter 2 he refines the Categorical Imperative based on his emphasis on duty: “Act as though the maxim of your action were to become, through your will, a universal law of nature.” Practically speaking, this means that people should only be treated as an end, and never as a means to an end.
And so, Kant’s Deontological Ethics would object to Aquinas that ethics needs to start with universifiable maxims that are rooted in synthetic a priori propositions. Aquinas’s failure is that his ethics is based on a posteriori phenomena, and is therefore a mere tautology. Kant’s critique (unsurprisingly) is largely epistemological. He is concerned that different disciplines have a proper epistemological grounding. This is imminently clear in his Prolegomena on any Future Metaphysic. The same is true in this work on ethics. He is concerned that ethics built off of a posteriori knowledge (like happiness) is circular.
A second Kantian critique is that taking pleasure in a moral action actually depletes the quality of the action. It is more noble, according to Kant, to do something out of duty, rather than deriving pleasure from it. We can all picture scenes from movies where the protagonist has to do the right thing, even though it’s not in their self-interest. We, as the audience, see this as more noble, because it was more difficult of an action.
Utilitarianism begins with the proposition that one should cause the most happiness for the most people, or limit the most pain from the most people. In this way, it is similar to Aquinas’s perspective that ethics needs to start with happiness. Although Utilitarian philosophers have different perspectives of these notions of goodness, pleasure and happiness; they all emphasize the notion of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. What makes utilitarianism distinctive, though, is that it focuses on consequences of actions alone. It is only by analyzing the consequences that one can measure the merits of an action.
And so, the utilitarian objection to Aquinas would be that happiness is the starting point of ethics only insofar as it is the consequence of an action. St. Thomas fails to look at the implications of actions in a satisfactory way, since it's in these that happiness is found.
Response
There are three objections that need to be responded to in this section. First, there are a pair of Kantian critiques. One, that ethics needs to start with maxims that are able to be made universal; and, two, that happiness as a starting place is self-interested. Third is the Utilitarian critique that ethics need to start with a calculation of maximizing pleasure or minimizing pain. I will respond to them in order.
There is some common ground between St. Thomas and Kant in the beginning of their ethics. Both think that an accurate epistemology is important in the opening stages of developing an ethical system. Saint Thomas spends several questions right after his treatment of happiness reviewing and applying concepts from his anthropology and epistemology that are found in book 1. He uses these as the basis for judging actions as good or evil. However, St. Thomas is right to begin with happiness rather than epistemology.
To respond to this Kantian critique though, we need to say something about their epistemologies. As should be clear, if St. Thomas is correct in his epistemology, then Kant’s critiques fail. If Kant’s epistemological critiques of Aquinas work, then we at least can turn to question his notion of happiness as the starting point of ethics. Kant and Aquinas see epistemology in opposite directions. Aquinas thinks that truth is conformity of the mind to the object. Whereas Kant thinks that objects form to cognition. Because of this, Kant’s epistemology makes it difficult to see how we grasp things at all. It seems rather, that we are left only with our perceptions of things. With Aquinas, we should see that the senses are able to grasp the natures of things, even if it's only in a limited way. This is more in keeping with our experience. When we take in things through our senses, we automatically try to categorize it based on previous sense data. We group things based on the kinds of things they are; based on their natures. And so, because St. Thomas’s epistemology seems at least to be a sustainable epistemology, it seems that we don’t need to fall for the Kantian critique of happiness (or other a posteriori notions) being our starting place for ethics.
As for Kant’s second objection, I think that St. Thomas’s perspective here is stronger as well. Aquinas gives a more nuanced and balanced position to the role of emotions in moral life. One extreme would say, you should always follow your emotions, because they are natural, and can’t steer you wrong. The other extreme, is the Kantian one, that the emotions are inherently selfish and therefore should be scorned in a moral calculus. Aquinas takes the middle position. Emotions are neutral. If they are not well tempered, they will probably fall prey to Kant’s critique. However, if they are rightly ordered, we should take pleasure in doing the right thing. Father Thomas Petri puts it this way, “For Aquinas, the virtuous person is someone who knows the moral thing to do, does it in the right way, and takes delight in doing it.”
This quote is pointing to a doctrine of Aristotle that Aquinas would be sympathetic towards. Namely, Aristotle’s discussion of Continence and Incontinence. Aristotle thinks that there are four levels in the moral life. There is the vicious person who relishes in doing vicious things. The next level is the incontinent person, who wants to do the right thing, but just can’t bring himself to do it. Then, there is the continent person. This person does the right thing, but has to grit his teeth to do it. Finally, there is the virtuous person who does the right thing and takes pleasure in doing it well. It seems that Kant confuses virtue with continence. Doing the right thing and being trained to take pleasure in doing the right thing is better than struggling to do the good (which although good, is less so).
I think that St. Thomas’s perspective stands up well against the Utilitarian starting point as well. Recall that Utilitarians think that ethics should start with the premise that we need to maximize pleasure (or minimize pain) for the most people with each action. Interestingly, they are starting with a notion of happiness just like Thomas does. So, insofar as this happiness is understood correctly, Aquinas would probably be sympathetic to this system, even if he had some problems with it. The largest problem that utilitarianism has is that consequences are not the only thing to analyze when judging a moral act. As Aquinas shows, “the goodness and malice of the will depend, not on the circumstances, but on the object alone.” This is because circumstances are accidental (not essential) to the act. Whereas the object (what the act is in itself, theft for example), is essential to the action. So, while intention and circumstances are important to human action, they are secondary to the actions themselves.
Implications
We have seen that when St. Thomas’s starting place for ethics is held up against his competitors; it holds its ground soundly. In addition to defending him against competitive theories though, I want to give a positive reason in favor of Aquinas’s position. I think that by starting an ethical system from the perspective of our end, we will be more able to order our lives with clarity. It’s a common trope today that setting goals gives us greater propensity to achieve at higher levels. It's hard to picture how this could be false. If I draw out a grocery list that is comprehensive and organized, I am more likely to get everything that I need, than if I go to the store and wing it. The same should be true with our lives. If we take the time to reflect on what makes a good life, what will make us happy, what we want out of life, we are more likely to order our lives accordingly.
This brings us to a second positive implication of taking Thomas as our guide. If we have a clear end, and can sort the means to that end well, this will give us greater motivation to live well. This is because now we are after a set objective, rather than a vague sense of pleasure. Since we are more motivated, we have an easier time dismissing things that we know aren’t good for us, and pursuing things that are.
A third positive implication of Aquinas’s ethics is that it avoids basing itself on fear of punishment as so many law based ethics do. For St. Thomas, we should live well because it will make us happy. We should avoid sin because it makes us unhappy. This is a more satisfactory calling to right living than, “if you don’t live the right way, you will be punished” (whether it is by God or the state).
Conclusion
In this paper I have defended the perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas that ethics should start with an exploration of human happiness. I have defended this position against two Kantian critiques. One epistemological and one that regarded the relationship between emotions and the moral life. I have also defended this position against the consequentialist critique of Utilitarianism. I have shown that St. Thomas’s theory holds up against these theories, but also helps us to order our lives more clearly and gives us deeper motivation for living well. By doing so, we will live more meaningful lives.
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