The Thomist 71 (2007): 577-608

WAS AQUINAS AN EGOIST?

Christopher Toner

United States Air Force Academy, Colorado

WHILE ARISTOTLE HAS BEEN the primary historical source in the recent revival of virtue ethics, Aquinas has played an important role in his own right, especially with such philosophers as Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Alasdair MacIntyre.⁽¹⁾ Virtue ethicists have drawn on and developed many aspects of the ethical thought of Aristotle and Aquinas. One point to which they have not paid sufficient attention is whether the classical and medieval conception of the moral life as the pursuit of happiness (eudaimonia, beatitudo) amounts to a (perhaps very subtle) form of egoism. Yet there are philosophers who have argued that eudaimonistic approaches like those of Aristotle and Aquinas are indeed egoistic.

Strangely, it is often sympathetic commentators who make these arguments. They then go on to maintain that the theory in question is only "formally egoistic" or some such, and to suggest that this is not objectionable. Scott MacDonald and John Langan,⁽²⁾ whose views I shall consider below, take largely this approach to interpreting Aquinas. I find this problematic because it seems to

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me that "egoism" is "said together with the bad." Instead, I advocate an interpretation according to which Aquinas is no sort of egoist at all, but rather a perfectionist.

After defining some key terms, I shall sketch a preliminary case for taking Aquinas to be an egoist, and then outline my own interpretation of him as a perfectionist who sees well-being as part of human perfection properly understood, and as choiceworthy precisely as perfective. Following this I shall set out arguments drawn from MacDonald and Langan, together with other argu-ments based on passages drawn from Aquinas's writings, that seek to show that, despite the reasons adduced for my interpretation, Aquinas was an egoist (or perhaps that he waffled between perfectionism and egoism). I shall respond to each of these argu-ments in turn, endeavoring to show how each prima facie plausible case for egoism collapses under the weight of closer scrutiny of the textual evidence. I accept the principle that incon-sistency should be attributed to a great philosopher only when absolutely necessary; here is where I shall show that the attri-bution is not necessary even for the most "egoistic-sounding" passages of Aquinas.

I. Definitions and Preliminary Clarifications

I use perfectionism in a nonconsequentialist way, such that a theory is perfectionist if it recommends to each agent that he or she pursue, as a primary and overriding goal, his or her own perfection.⁽³⁾ For human beings perfection consists, essentially, in virtuous activity; it is about being the best person one can be, acting well and "being good." Egoism, on the other hand, is about "well-being." It is the doctrine that each agent takes as his primary, overriding goal the achievement of his own welfare.

This might initially seem to be a distinction without a difference: Is it not the case that in both doctrines the agent takes as his primary goal what is good for him? There is, however, a

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crucial difference of emphasis. The perfectionist takes as his primary overriding goal what is good for him--the "for him" is necessary because what it is to be good varies across persons (e.g., a man who has children cannot be good without being a good father, whereas as a childless man can). As the true athlete is committed to excellence in sport and not to feelings of ex-hilaration, so the perfectionist is committed to living a successful human life and not to the pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction for their own sakes. Of course, given certain assumptions about human psychology, it is surely the case that excellence in sport turns out to involve feelings of exhilaration. And similarly, given similar assumptions, a successful human life will involve pleasure and satisfaction--pleasure in being good, for example, and satisfaction with how one's life is going. The point, however, is that such feelings are consequent to, not the ground for, the excellence of which they are the enjoyment.

This crucial relationship between "being good" and "well-being" is reversed for the egoist, who takes as his primary goal his own welfare, what is good for him (pursued precisely as what is good for him). It may well turn out the world is such that the best way to pursue one's own welfare is to lead a life that seems quite unselfish from the outside. It may even be that the prudent egoist will foster habits of fairness and feelings of concern for others (so that the good of others, or some others, may come to be partly constitutive of the agent's own good, as some of those who inter-pret Aristotle and Aquinas as "formal egoists" claim). The egoist, that is to say, might look rather like the perfectionist. Still, the relationship between perfection and welfare is reversed. Ulti-mately, the egoist does not enjoy or take satisfaction in things or in his life because they are valuable, but values them because they satisfy him.

Some may still insist that (agent-relative) perfectionism is egoistic (although perhaps in a nonobjectionable way) because the agent's primary object of concern is still his own life and activity. With these, my dispute may ultimately be terminological--they are simply using the terms differently. But terms can be important,

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especially terms with such connotations as "egoism" has. To see this, consider first the testimony of Henry Sidgwick, Aquinas's unlikely ally on this point:

[W]e must discard a common account of Egoism which describes its ultimate end as the 'good' of the individual; for the term 'good' may cover all possible views of the ultimate end for rational conduct. Indeed it may be said that Egoism in this [to be discarded] sense was assumed in the whole ethical controversy of ancient Greece; that is, it was assumed on all sides that a rational individual would make the pursuit of his own good his supreme aim: the controverted question was whether this Good was rightly conceived as Pleasure or Virtue, or any tertium quid.⁽⁴⁾

Sidgwick's view is that the term "egoism" will become useless if we allow it to cast too wide a net--so wide as to capture, for example, the pursuit of virtue and perfection. Here I think he is absolutely right. Secondly, "self-centeredness" seems a more promising label than "egoism" for a primary concern with one's own life that does not take the form of myopic concern with one's own welfare. The allegation that a theory endorses self-centeredness may well imply an objection, but it would be a different objection.⁽⁵⁾ Finally, understanding egoism in terms of the pursuit of one's own welfare dovetails with common usage (an egoist is generally taken to be a selfish person, one driven solely

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by self-interest) and with that of recent writers on welfare, such as L. W. Sumner.⁽⁶⁾

But how are we to understand welfare, or well-being? Sumner himself defines it as "authentic happiness," where happiness comprises cognitive and affective satisfaction with one's life as a whole, and authenticity ensures that the satisfaction does not rest upon compulsion or deception. Others may prefer to define it in terms of, for example, a pleasant life, or a life experienced as worthwhile. Still others may insist that not only must a life of well-being involve satisfaction or pleasure, but it must also be the case that what pleases, or what satisfies, be itself objectively good: Robert Adams, for example, defines welfare as "a life characterized by enjoyment of the excellent."⁽⁷⁾ Wherever we might come down on these details, however, Sumner seems to have his finger on something important: namely, that, however we go on to amplify or qualify it, the core of our notion of well-being or welfare (the state of things going well for the agent) is the agent's satisfaction with his condition. For our purposes, if we can convict Aquinas of recommending to the agent the pursuit of what is good for him, the pursuit of his own welfare conceived in any of a range of plausible ways, and conceived as his final end, then the case for an egoistic interpretation will be made. The arguments I shall consider will interpret Aquinas as recommend-ing the pursuit, as the agent's final end, of what is in the agent's interest, of the agent's own fulfillment, of complete satisfaction, of the agent's own private good. The arguments characterize

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beatitudo, the agent's final end, to varying degrees of specificity, but in each case as a plausible characterization of welfare, of what is good for the agent--and therefore we can interpret these arguments as allegations that Aquinas was an egoist.

We need to note one last distinction, made by Shelly Kagan between normative factors and foundations.⁽⁸⁾ We may call normative factors those features of the moral environment that help make actions have the moral status they do (right or wrong, good or bad, virtuous or vicious). Factors are what moral agents should see as salient to deliberation. Standard examples of normative factors include special obligations, consequences, duties such as nonmaleficence and promise-keeping. Most moral theorists will agree that such and other factors are indeed salient to moral deliberation, but they will disagree on why, and on how they are to be ranked. To take up such questions is to move into the realm of normative foundations, which provide the justi-fication (and in some cases the motivation) for the agents' regard for factors. Different ethical theories appeal to different founda-tions: overall consequences, the universalizability of maxims, a social contract, individual welfare, or perfection.

Normative theories may variously combine foundations and factors. Rule-utilitarianism, for example, gives priority to rule-following at the factoral level, while grounding the rules, at the foundational level, in their expected consequences. Many other combinations are possible, including a normative theory that recommends the cultivation of certain traits and direct concern for friends and civic duties at the factoral level while justifying these, at the foundational level, on the grounds that according deliberative weight to such factors is the best way to achieve one's own welfare. The advocate of such a theory would certainly escape any charge of "factoral egoism," but would still be a "foundational egoist."⁽⁹⁾

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At the factoral level, Aquinas is a pluralist, for although "the force of the first intention, which is in view of the ultimate end, remains in the desiring of anything," very often when one acts in given situations "one is not actually considering the ultimate end, just as when going somewhere we do not have to think of the end at every step."⁽¹⁰⁾ Aquinas admits all sorts of factors as relevant to concrete decisions: pleasure, relaxation, or knowledge (cf. STh I-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1 and 2), or the good of another (the aim of just acts; cf., e.g., STh I-II, q. 56, a. 6). The fact that among the normative factors that, according to Aquinas, we take into account are such things as the good of others and the common good indicates that the charge of factoral egoism cannot even get off the ground. Yet Aquinas is a eudaimonist at the foundational level. This is so clear and so universally accepted that I shall simply point to a few passages that illustrate this: "All things which man desires he necessarily desires for an ultimate end" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 6); "all desire their good to be complete" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 7); and "Man's ultimate end is happiness" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 8, sc).

This helps us clarify our question, was Aquinas an egoist? Whether he was or not depends upon whether beatitudo can be fairly translated as "welfare." It is not enough to clear him simply to point to things he says about friendship or justice because these might obtain only at the factoral level.⁽¹¹⁾ Neither is it enough to

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condemn him to point out that he construes the moral life as the pursuit of happiness--"happiness" (beatitudo) is a place-holder for the final end, whatever that is. We want to know the nature of this end, and particularly whether it is perfection, welfare, or any tertium quid.

II. Grace as Perfecting Nature

Before assessing the nature of the human end we must touch on the relationship between nature and grace in Aquinas. In asking whether he was an egoist, the evidence reviewed will include things he says about the aims and actions of charitable persons. Aquinas, relying on Scripture (2 Pet 1:4), insists that in being reborn through grace we participate in and in some sense receive a new (divine) nature (STh I-II, q. 110, a. 3). It is important to make clear is that this "new nature" is not utterly alien to the old, that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.

Happily, Aquinas says just this in the very first question of the Summa: "grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it [Cum igitur gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat]" (STh I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2). Question 12 of the Prima Pars also speaks to this point. We have a natural desire to know God as the first cause of things (STh I, q. 12, a. 1); we know God better by grace than by natural reason (STh I, q. 12, a. 13), but faith still falls short of the vision and understanding we seek (ibid., ad 3); we know God as he is in himself only when he himself directly actualizes our intellects strengthened by "the light of glory" (STh I, q. 12, a. 5; ibid., ad 3). This nicely illustrates Aquinas's view of the tendency of human development: from first to second nature (e.g., from the capacity for and love of knowledge to the virtue of wisdom), from second nature to grace (from natural wisdom to the gift of wisdom), and from grace to glory (the beatific vision). Always the higher stage elevates without eliminating the lower: "But the first must ever be preserved in the second. Consequently nature must be preserved in beatitude [natura salvetur in beatitudine]" (STh I, q. 62, a. 7).

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In the moral realm, Aquinas insists that we can achieve some goodness without grace, but will always fall short of perfection without grace (cf. STh I-II, q. 109, a. 2). We see this too in Aquinas's adoption of Macrobius's division of the four kinds of virtues: exemplary, purified, purifying, and political (naturally acquired). Political virtues such as justice "exist in man according to the condition of his nature" (STh I-II, q. 61, a. 5). Aquinas later clarifies that while true, perfect moral virtue cannot be acquired by human acts without grace, virtues "productive of good works ordered to an end which does not surpass the natural capacity of man, can be acquired by human actions. And acquired in this way they can be without charity, as has happened with many pagans [gentilibus]" (STh I-II, q. 65, a. 2).⁽¹²⁾ Grace need not start from scratch; rather, it perfects the work nature is already attempting.

III. A Preliminary Statement of the Cases
against and for Aquinas

As I stated above, that Aquinas sees the moral life as the pursuit of happiness is not enough to convict him of egoism. Yet, when we find him saying things like, happiness "must so entirely satisfy man's desire that there is nothing left for him to desire" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 5) and "to desire happiness is simply to desire that one's will be wholly satisfied" (STh I-II, q. 5, a. 8), we may seem forced in this direction, for this sounds very much as though Aquinas does see happiness as welfare or overall satisfaction. The impetus toward an egoistic interpretation is further strengthened by consideration of his claim that man naturally wills his own good but requires virtues such as justice or charity to will the good of others or of God (cf. STh I-II, q. 56, a. 6)--especially when we combine this with his further contention that charity as love of God follows upon our belief that God will enable us to attain happiness (cf. STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4), so that even charity can seem motivated by self-interest.

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I shall return to a fuller discussion of these passages, but right away, given the description of the way grace perfects rather than destroys nature, we should suspect that there is something wrong here, at least with the egoistic interpretation of the latter pair of passages. If charity is a love of God, in which God is loved as a friend and for his own sake (see STh II-II, q. 23, a. 1; II-II, q. 26, a. 3), and if grace in the form of charity perfects rather than destroys the nature of the will, then surely it must be the case that in orienting the will to the love of God for his own sake (and for that matter to the love of neighbor for his or her own sake) the virtue of charity is amplifying and perfecting an other-regarding tendency that is already natural to the will. As Etienne Gilson puts it:

[For Aquinas] man naturally loves God more than himself. This love which puts God above all things is not yet charity, but the natural dilection to be perfected and fulfilled by charity. To suppose the contrary, to admit that man naturally loves himself more than God . . . would be to admit that grace, in order to make the love of God prevail over love of self in the soul, would have to destroy nature instead of perfecting it.⁽¹³⁾

It seems clear that the love under discussion here is the love of friendship, as it is slated to be perfected by charity, the highest form of the love of friendship. This suggests two points. First, we seem not to need grace, although we may need virtues like justice, to love others and to will their good; in other words, loving others for their own sake is within our natural power. Second, "natural dilection" prior to the advent of grace is not egoistic. To love another for that other's sake--especially when one loves that other more than one loves oneself--is inconsistent with egoism, which insists that the agent's overriding goal be what is good for himself. As Aquinas puts it, the agent "does not naturally love God for his own good, but for God's sake."⁽¹⁴⁾

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Looking back to the pair of passages cited at the beginning of this section which seem to imply that happiness, for Aquinas, consists in satisfaction, we may note the profound inconsistency of this (egoistic) interpretation with Aquinas's contention that "fault [culpa] is a greater evil than pain [poena]" (STh I, q. 48, a. 6, sc). As he goes on to explain in the body of the article, "Fault has the nature of evil more than pain has; not only more than pain of sense . . . but also more than any kind of pain, thus taking pain in its most general meaning, so as to include privation of grace or glory." Failing at "being good" seems worse than being deprived of "well-being" or welfare (to return to the terms used in distinguishing perfectionism from egoism in section I). Or, sin and vice are worse than misery or even hell (if per impossibile one could be there without sin). This would be an odd position for an egoist to take!

That Aquinas was not an egoist may be shown by the following argument. I shall first simply set it out, and then explain Aquinas's view of human perfection, and in particular how it is not the same as welfare in the sense required for an egoistic interpretation, but does contain it as a proper part.⁽¹⁵⁾

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(1) A doctrine is egoistic if and only if it holds that agents are to pursue their own welfare as their ultimate end (as discussed in section I above).

(2) Aquinas's doctrine holds that agents are to pursue their own perfection as their ultimate end. He writes, for example, that "all desire their own perfection [omnia appetunt suam perfectionem]" (STh I, q. 5, a. 1), where perfection consists in being in act, being fully what one is (cf. STh I, q. 4, a. 1). He ratifies this in the human case: "happiness," which is man's ultimate end, "is man's ultimate perfection [Est enim beatitudo ultima hominis perfectio]" (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 2).

(3) But perfection as Aquinas understands it is not in essence the same as welfare.

(4) Thus, Aquinas's doctrine does not hold that agents are to pursue their own welfare as their ultimate end.

(5) Therefore Aquinas's doctrine is not egoistic.

The obvious question is, can this perfectionist interpretation accommodate the welfarist elements of happiness that form the basis of the egoistic interpretation sketched above (e.g., the apparent concern for satisfaction), or is Aquinas's normative theory not fully consistent? To answer this question we need to look at some of the details of Aquinas's conception of human perfection.

Aquinas tells us "the ultimate end of things is to become like God,"⁽¹⁶⁾ and "each thing imitates the divine goodness according to its measure" (ScG III, c. 20). Yet he also says that God is the ultimate end of all things (ScG III, c. 17; cf. STh I-II, q. 1, a. 8), and that "man's ultimate end is an extrinsic good [bonum extrinsecum]--God" (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 5, ad 3). The ultimate end seems to be both God and the imitation of God appropriate to that particular imitator. And so it is. Aquinas draws a distinction between the ultimate end as object (res, objectum)--call this UE_O--and as the attainment of the object (or possession, use, or enjoyment (adeptio, vel possessio, seu usus, aut fruitio ejus rei)--call this UE_A--(cf. STh I-II, q. 3, a. 1). Creatures, Aquinas is

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saying, attain their ultimate end of perfection (UE_A) by imitating God (UE_O).

Each creature imitates God "according to its measure." Nonrational creatures imitate him by participating in some likeness of him, insofar as they exist, live and reproduce, and know (by their senses). Human beings attain their ultimate end by knowing and loving God (cf. STh I-II, q. 1, a. 8). Now the very essence of human happiness is knowing God (I shall return to this shortly); therefore, knowing God is also imitating him, in the way appropriate to an intellectual creature such as man. Aquinas considers (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 5, obj. 1) the claim that happiness consists in activity of the practical intellect rather than the speculative, on the grounds that our ultimate end is to become like God, and the practical intellect is the cause of the things it thinks, as is God. Here is his response in full:

The likening [similitudo] of the practical intellect to God, spoken of in the objection, is according to proportionality, that is, the practical intellect is related to what it knows as God to what He knows. But the likening [assimilatio] of the speculative intellect to God is according to union or representation [unionem, vel informationem], which is a much greater likeness. In addition, we may answer that with respect to the principal thing known, which is His essence, God has only speculative knowledge, not practical.

It is by knowing God that we become like him according to our measure, become perfect instances of ourselves.

Aquinas makes the point that our perfection lies in con-templation in another way too. He holds that our perfection lies in knowing God because perfection "must be man's highest activity [optima operatio]; his highest activity is that of his highest power in relation to its highest object⁽¹⁷⁾ [optimae potentiae respectu optimi objecti]"--and that is the speculative intellect contemplating God (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 5).

How are delight and satisfaction, what I called the welfarist elements, to be fitted into this rather intellectual conception of beatitude? Happiness (as UE_A) is essentially the contemplation of

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God (the UE_O), which perfects the intellect (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 8). The delight and satisfaction of the will follow upon the intellectual attainment as a "per se accident" (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 4), such that happiness "cannot be without a concomitant delight" (STh I-II, q. 4, a. 1), for the will rests in the highest good when it is attained, and this repose of the will is just what delight is (cf. ibid., ad 1); peace also follows (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 4, ad 1). Let me stress that, although delight is in some sense a consequence of happiness, it is also a part of it (it is not simply an accident, but a per se accident). The repose of the will in something good is itself desired; the will does in fact seek to rest in the activity of contemplation: "it seeks to be at rest in the activity because that is its good" (STh I-II, q. 4, a. 2). We may say that the repose of the will that is delight is also desired.⁽¹⁸⁾ The welfarist elements of happiness follow upon the essence of beatitude necessarily (per se accidents as tightly bound to the essence as powers--a kind of accident--of the soul are to its essence).

What of virtue? As we have noted, happiness for Aquinas is virtuous activity, in essence intellectually virtuous activity (the main virtue here being wisdom, not just natural but also the wisdom granted by grace, the gift of wisdom).⁽¹⁹⁾ Also, rectitude of the will is required for happiness, not only concomitantly or as a per se accident, but also antecedently (cf. STh I-II, q. 4, a. 4). Lack of moral virtue, and the inappropriate desires or fears attendant upon such a lack, would prevent an agent from fully dedicating himself to the final end. (Notice that rectitude of will involves not

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just the virtues of the will--justice, hope, charity--but also fortitude, temperance, and their associated virtues, since the passions can influence the will.)

In sum, our ultimate end (taken as UE_A) is perfection, which for us as creatures is our highest activity in relation to the highest object, God. Put differently, our end is to stand in the right relation to God. It follows that our perfection involves the virtuous integration and direction of the whole person toward friendship with God; but also, or rather as a small but significant part of this, our perfection includes our welfare.⁽²⁰⁾ It is good to be at peace and satisfied with being good and acting well, and it is an excellence to enjoy excellence.⁽²¹⁾ Such feelings are consequent to, not the ground for, the excellence of which they are the enjoyment. We do not see the crucial reversal made by the egoist, who does see such feelings as the ground for the value accorded to being good and acting well.

IV. Objections and Replies

In this section I shall present the strongest case I can for the claim that Aquinas was an egoist of some sort. Now, the argument of the previous section makes it clear that such an interpretation cannot be vindicated. What could be maintained with much more plausibility, though, is the claim that Aquinas was inconsistent, that he waffled between perfectionism and egoism. If this claim could be established, it would then be a matter for argument which elements preponderate, how to clean up the mess, and so forth. The case for Aquinas's egoism, or at least for the presence in his moral theory of important egoistic elements, here takes the form of five different arguments; perhaps it should be seen as

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"five ways" of seeing him as an egoist. In each instance Aquinas is interpreted as recommending that agents pursue what is good for them, their own welfare. These five ways are compatible, with some being more specific about the character of beatitudo (interpreted as welfare) and how it is good for the agent (e.g., the satisfaction argument) and others less so (e.g., the private good argument). In each case, though, I believe we would intuitively agree that an agent who followed Aquinas's (alleged) recom-mendation was egoistic.

The latter three of these "ways" are basically "anticipated objections" to my interpretation of Aquinas as a perfectionist, objections I have formulated based on a number of passages from Aquinas's writings that do seem, or can seem, to support an egoistic reading. The first two arguments are drawn from articles by Scott MacDonald and John Langan. I am not concerned here to offer a comprehensive assessment of MacDonald's and Langan's larger projects, with some aspects of which I am in sympathy. Instead, I draw on these articles simply to present arguments, which have been made by contemporary commen-tators on Aquinas, in favor of interpreting him as an egoist. As always in such cases, there is some danger that their use of certain terms, and in particular of "egoism," will not line up exactly with mine. There is some danger, then, that my dispute with these authors may turn out to be largely verbal. I believe it will become clear that Langan's use of "egoism" does line up quite closely enough with mine for a substantive dispute; with MacDonald's use there will be some question, and I shall address this issue explicitly below. In the end, I am not primarily concerned with an exegesis of Langan and MacDonald; the main function of my reference to these articles is to help me construct the strongest case I can for an egoistic interpretation of Aquinas. By responding successfully to the strongest case for egoism I shall more effectively support my own perfectionist interpretation. Following the presentation of each "way," I shall defend an alternative reading of the passages invoked that shows how they can fit quite

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snugly into a nonegoistic, perfectionist understanding of Aquinas's moral theory.

A) MacDonald's Interest Argument

Scott MacDonald argues in "Egoistic Rationalism: Aquinas's Basis for Christian Morality" that Aquinas's natural teleology yields in human beings a kind of "psychological egoism." MacDonald's chief goal in this essay is to advance, as a foundation for Christian morality, an alternative to a divine command metaethics, what he calls "egoistic rationalism," and he holds up Aquinas as an exemplar of this approach. This approach is "rationalist" in that, roughly, its content is determined by, and accessible to, reason. It is "egoistic" in that it portrays human beings as seeking their own perfection or complete actuality--he calls this "Aquinas's metaethical egoism."⁽²²⁾ But why think this is a form of egoism? Seeking one's own perfection sounds like perfectionism. Indeed, some of MacDonald's remarks suggest that my disagreement with him may be chiefly terminological (see below). Yet others point toward a more substantive dispute; for example:

Aquinas's natural teleology applied to human beings appears to yield a sort of psychological egoism. According to Aquinas, a human being naturally pursues (wills) its perfection or good (the human good) in virtue of the sort of soul (psyche) it has. . . . it seems natural to assume that what perfects a human being or what a human being's good consists in is what is in that human being's interest. Hence, Aquinas's claim can be reformulated as the claim that human beings always pursue their own interest as a matter of psychological necessity.⁽²³⁾

We naturally pursue our own good, which is what is in our interest. Here our interest and what is in it are left undefined, but other remarks MacDonald makes suggest how it might be understood. He tells us that Aquinas thinks "the concept of the good is the concept of what is desirable and the concept of the complete human good, happiness, is the concept of what

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completely satisfies human desires";⁽²⁴⁾ elsewhere MacDonald speaks of Thomistic practical rationality as allowing the agent "to maximize satisfaction of her desires."⁽²⁵⁾ Such passages could be understood as interpreting Aquinas to be recommending the pursuit of our own welfare, seen in terms of our complete satisfaction. To the extent that this is right, MacDonald's interpretation will link up with arguments discussed below (subsections B and C). But we might also take phrases like "our own interest" to be synonymous with what is good for us, or with our private good simply (so that the exact character of that good, or of our welfare, is left unspecified)--to the extent that this is so, other passages treated below (subsections D and E) will provide some further support for his view.

However fleshed out, the pursuit of one's own interests as an overriding goal smacks of egoism. This interest argument, seemingly grounded firmly in Aquinas's natural teleology, promises to support a variety of egoistic interpretations. A closer look at the argument, however, shows that it cannot keep such promises. We can reformulate the argument thus:

Premise: All human beings naturally pursue their own perfection.

Premise: Their own perfection is what is in the interest of human beings.

Conclusion: All human beings naturally pursue their own interest.

If we take "interest" here to be synonymous with "welfare" in our sense, the conclusion means that Aquinas sees all human beings as psychological egoists, as MacDonald said. But notice that this argument is invalid. All that really follows from the premises is that all human beings pursue what is in their interests. The loving contemplation of God that is our perfection will completely satisfy us, and is the only thing that will. In pursuing con-templation we therefore pursue what is in our interest. But this is not egoistic unless we pursue perfection only because it is in our

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interest (or in other words, for the sake of welfare). But, for Aquinas, we do not: We pursue perfection for its own sake: "Nor does the will seek good for the sake of repose" (STh I-II, q. 4, a. 2).

Three options are open to MacDonald. He could call our attention back to his remarks about satisfaction and his citation of passages like question 5, article 8 of the Prima Secundae.⁽²⁶⁾ He could, second, move in the direction of the private good argument.⁽²⁷⁾ These sorts of moves would make clear that the allegation is that we pursue what is in our interest because it is in out interest (they are addressed in the following sections). The third option would be to insist that he is using the term "egoism" differently than we are. Some passages certainly suggest this might be the case. MacDonald holds that, for Aquinas, humans do seek only their own interests, but that "their own interest is not narrowly individualistic. . . . Hence, when human beings seek the good of the family or the city they seek it as part of their own good."⁽²⁸⁾ MacDonald goes on to explain, this "does not mean that one does not seek the good of others for its own sake but only for the sake of one's own good. One can seek the constituents of one's own good for their own sakes, and also for the sake of the good of which they are constituents."⁽²⁹⁾

Obviously, MacDonald is not trying to answer my questions in my terms, but I do think he has left unresolved questions about how to understand some of his claims. It could turn out that my disagreement with MacDonald is essentially terminological. But even if so, it is an important one as such disagreements go. If nothing else, labeling Thomistic ethics a kind of "Egoistic Rationalism" seems an unpromising way to make it inviting to contemporary Christian philosophers (one goal of MacDonald's paper)--"Rational Perfectionism" or even "Agent-Relative Perfectionism" strike me as more inviting and more accurate, both

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on this third understanding of MacDonald and on what I think is the right understanding of Aquinas.

B) Langan's Fulfillment Argument

In "Egoism and Morality in the Theological Teleology of Thomas Aquinas," John Langan interprets Aquinas as "a long-range supernatural egoist" who "treats morality as a means to attaining an ultimate good."⁽³⁰⁾ Part of his brief is to show how such an egoism can ground an approach to life that has recognizably moral and even ascetic contours, and to suggest that these contours, constituting Aquinas's normative ethics (which occupies the "space between" its egoistic foundation and its theological telos)⁽³¹⁾ may be of interest even to those who reject Aquinas's egoism and theology. My concern will be with his argument for attributing the egoistic foundation to Aquinas's ethics in the first place.

Langan bases this attribution on his interpretation of Aquinas's notion of the final end. He quotes Aquinas's remark that "All desire their complete fulfillment, which, as we have noted, is what the final end means" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 7), and goes on to speak of "the condition of complete fulfillment or satisfaction of a person's desires,"⁽³²⁾ clearly taking fulfillment to be the same thing as satisfaction. Key to his argument is his reading of Aquinas's distinction between the ultimate end as object and as attainment:

"a) as a definite thing or condition or activity the attainment and realization of which is completely satisfactory, b) as the complete satisfaction of one's desires."⁽³³⁾

Along these lines, Langan says of Aquinas that "he shares Hobbes's understanding of good as the object of appetite or desire,"⁽³⁴⁾ and that "Hobbes and Aquinas both hold that all human persons . . . desire the satisfaction of their desires and a life of

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sure contentment."⁽³⁵⁾ In my terminology, the ultimate end for both is welfare. All that distinguishes them is the kind of natural inclinations they attribute to human beings⁽³⁶⁾ and the fact that Aquinas thinks that there is in fact an object (God) which can satisfy our desires, and turns out to be such that we must rectify our will (or, become morally good) in order to attain it.⁽³⁷⁾ As important as these differences are metaphysically speaking, they do not alter the basic goal of the agent, which is welfare in a roughly Sumnerian sense of complete satisfaction. Thus does Aquinas turn out to be some sort of foundational ("long-range") egoist for whom moral concerns are ultimately instrumental.

Langan's interpretation of Aquinas is in the end insupportable, due to three related mistakes that he makes.⁽³⁸⁾ The most important is his claim that Hobbes and Aquinas share an "understanding of good as the object of appetite."⁽³⁹⁾ Both agree that the good is the object of appetite, but that is as far as their agreement goes. Hobbes thinks that we call something good because we desire it, not because it is inherently valuable. For Aquinas we desire something because we think it good: "a thing is desirable only insofar as it is perfect" (STh I, q. 5, a. 1; see also I Nic. Ethic., lect. 1 [9]). Aquinas is diametrically opposed to Hobbes on this point. This sheds light on Langan's other mistakes, for they too tend to treat desire and its satisfaction as primary when they are actually secondary to goodness.

The second mistake is the following. Langan writes, "Hobbes and Aquinas both hold that all human persons . . . desire the satisfaction of their desires and a life of sure contentment."⁽⁴⁰⁾ Yes, but not in the same way. For Hobbes, desire satisfaction and contentment, and the quieting of the fear of death, are together the essence of the felicity we seek (without real hope). This is not

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the case for Aquinas, according to whom we do seek, to be sure, the satisfaction of our desires and the resulting contentment, but we do not seek these things exclusively or even primarily. Rather we seek first perfection and then these things insofar as they are part of our perfection (see above). We desire things, even our own satisfaction and contentment, because they are good. There can be no good argument from this superficial agreement with Hobbes to the conclusion that Aquinas is an egoist.

Langan's third (closely related) mistake lies in his interpretation of Aquinas's distinction between the ultimate end as object and as attainment, in terms of "a) as a definite thing or condition or activity the attainment and realization of which is completely satisfactory, [and] b) as the complete satisfaction of one's desires."⁽⁴¹⁾ Langan is paraphrasing rather than quoting here, and does not give a citation, so it is difficult to know just where he thinks Aquinas says this. Aquinas draws a distinction between two senses of the ultimate end (which we have called UE_O and UE_A) in a number of places in the Prima Secundae (e.g., q. 1, a. 7; q. 1, a. 8; q. 3, a. 1; and q. 5, a. 8, with the last one coming closest to Langan's formulation). Langan had been talking about question 1, article 5, where the distinction is not drawn, but he shortly afterward does cite question 1, article 7, where the distinction is cast in terms of the notion (ratio) of the ultimate end (UE_A), and that in which the notion is realized (UE_O). Langan quotes Aquinas as saying there, with regard to the UE_A: "All desire their complete fulfillment, which, as we have noted, is what the final end means (est ratio ultimi finis)."⁽⁴²⁾ I believe the translation is his own, but at any rate I should like to quarrel with it. The word translated as "fulfillment"--which seemingly has the sort of connotations needed by one who is trying to establish that Aquinas understands the UE_A as desire satisfaction (Langan goes on to speak of "the condition of complete fulfillment or satisfaction of a person's desires" as though the disjuncts were equivalent)⁽⁴³⁾--is perfectio, which does not have these

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connotations. Langan's argument is that in seeking the attainment of the ultimate end the Thomistic agent seeks satisfaction, and therefore is an egoist of some stripe. But the argument falls flat because the UE_A is not satisfaction, but is that perfect activity which will, as a matter of fact, satisfy.⁽⁴⁴⁾

C) The Satisfaction Argument

These arguments drawn from Langan and MacDonald do not successfully convict Aquinas of egoism. Still, it is possible to cite texts supporting the idea that Thomistic agents pursue their own satisfaction, and that can seem to call for an egoistic inter-pretation. Langan and MacDonald cite some, but I do not think they exploit these and other passages to the fullest extent. Here are some of the starkest. Our ultimate end, happiness, "must so entirely satisfy man's desire that there is nothing left for him to desire" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 5). Again, "Each thing desires its own fulfillment and therefore desires for its ultimate end a good that perfects and completes it" (ibid.). Perhaps most damning, "Hence to desire happiness is simply to desire that one's will be wholly satisfied, and this everyone desires" (STh I-II, q. 5, a. 8). Moreover, Aquinas indicates that the ultimate end understood as object (money, or whatever object an agent takes as his ultimate end) is ordered to the agent's possession and enjoyment of that object; in this sense the agent uses even the ultimate end (cf. STh I-II, q. 16, a. 3; and ibid., ad 1 and 2). Thus the ultimate end in terms of attainment is the satisfying repose of the will in a fitting object, and so morality is a means to the ultimate end of the agent's own welfare (here again understood in terms of complete satisfaction), a useful instrument for the enlightened egoist--so Langan and (perhaps) MacDonald argue, and so many passages in the Summa seem to indicate.

These are tough passages for the perfectionist. The gist of the reply, however, should be clear from what I have said above:

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perfection includes welfare within it, so of course it will satisfy, delight, and so forth. Still, the passages cited demand individual attention. The claim that happiness must completely satisfy man's desire (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 5) looks to be giving an account of the essence of happiness. But this would be odd, given that Aquinas later (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 5) states explicitly that the essence of happiness consists in an activity of the speculative intellect. Indeed, close attention to the context of the former passage shows that it is not so. Aquinas has just said that each desires a good that perfects him; the passage cited in the objection is preceded by "Oportet igitur"--it is therefore necessary that happiness com-pletely satisfy man's desire and so forth. The satisfaction is necessary for happiness because it is a consequence of it, as heat is needed for fire (as Aquinas explicitly says of pleasure [STh I-II, q. 4, a. 1]).⁽⁴⁵⁾

The other passage quoted from question 1, article 5, in which Aquinas says that each "desires its own fulfillment" and for this reason desires a good that "perfects and completes" him is easily dealt with, along the same lines as we dealt (in the previous section) with another passage involving the term "fulfillment." The objection is based on a misunderstanding of the term; what Aquinas actually says is that each desires his own perfection (suam perfectionem) and thus desires a good that will in fact perfect him.

What of the passage from question 16, article 3, suggesting that the UE_O is ordered to the agent's use and enjoyment of it? Aquinas points out that the end of the miser is not money simply, but his possession of it. In the same way, we cannot speak of a man aiming at God, full stop, as though he were a clay pigeon. The man must be aiming at a certain relationship with God--namely, the relationship that perfects the man, making him to be as he should. God is willed in the willing of a certain relationship with him, and so in a sense God is willed as "part" of a whole (man in the right relation to God). But a part is for the sake of the whole, a (constitutive) means to the whole, and thus

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the part is "applied to" the whole or "used" in the sense Aquinas has in mind here. The language he employs in this article would be unfortunate, and would have to be judged very poorly chosen, had he been concerned here with fending off charges of egoism (he speaks of possession and enjoyment of the UE_O, and so forth). But this was not his concern. We--or at any rate the blessed--do enjoy God, and do in some nonexclusive sense possess him, and Aquinas has no desire to hide this. But we also serve, contemplate, worship, and love him as a friend. Indeed, as we saw above, we love God for his own sake, and more than we love ourselves. All of this is part of the "right relationship to God" that perfects rational creatures, but not all of this can be mentioned in every article in which the last end is mentioned.

What of Aquinas's claim that "to desire happiness is simply to desire that one's will be wholly satisfied"? Here is the context:

The common notion of happiness is that it is a perfect or complete good, as we have said. Now since the object of the will is the good, the perfect good for a man is that which wholly satisfies the will.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Hence to desire happiness is simply to desire that one's will be wholly satisfied, and this everyone desires. (STh I-II, q. 5, a. 8 [emphasis added]).

This is a different spin on the argument from that which we find in question 1, article 7, where Aquinas argues that all desire happiness from the premise that all desire their complete perfection (omnes appetunt suam perfectionem adimpleri). The argument here (STh I-II, q. 5, a. 8) is this. Good is the natural object of the will and thus a perfect good perfectly satisfies the will. Happiness or beatitude is a perfect good and thus will perfectly satisfy the will. Therefore to desire happiness is at the same time, per se accidentally, to desire the complete satisfaction of one's will.

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As we saw above, the repose of the will in something good is itself desired; the will seeks to rest in good activity: "it seeks to be at rest in the activity because that is its good" (STh I-II, q. 4, a. 2). But in saying this Aquinas cannot mean what the objection requires him to mean, namely, that this repose or satisfaction is all that we desire at the ground-floor level. By saying that to desire happiness is "simply," or better and more literally "nothing other than" (nihil aliud est), to desire that the will be satisfied, he must mean that the desire for happiness is not other than the desire that the will be satisfied because the former contains the latter, and satisfaction of the former entails satisfaction of the latter. He cannot mean that the desire for happiness simply is the desire that the will be satisfied, for this would blatantly contradict other things he had already said. "It is impossible that the primary thing desired, which is the end, be the act itself of willing" (STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2); even more tellingly, "the will rests in something only because of the goodness of that in which it rests. . . . Nor does the will seek good for the sake of repose [Nec voluntas quaerit bonum propter quietationem], for if this were the case the very act of the will would be the end, which has already been disproved" (STh I-II, q. 4, a. 2). So despite appearances, this passage, like the others, provides no ammunition for the charge of egoism.

D) The Private-Good Argument

If the case cannot be made out that Aquinas understands beatitude in terms of satisfaction, another group of passages may still seem to lend some support to MacDonald's more generic description of the final end as whatever is in the agent's interest. For example, Aquinas seemingly endorses Aristotle's claim in the Ethics that even in leaving virtuous actions to friends, "the virtuous person takes what is better for himself [accipit sibi id quod est melius]" (IX Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 [1883]). Earlier Aquinas had followed Aristotle by saying that "the lovable for each man is that which is good for him [ita unicuique amabile est illud quod

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est sibi bonum]" (VIII Nic. Ethic., lect. 2 [1554]). And as I noted above, when speaking of the necessity of grace Aquinas writes of "the appetite of his [man's] rational will, which, unless it is cured by God's grace, follows its private good [bonum privatum]" (STh I-II, q. 109, a. 3). Similarly, as also noted, he says the good of another exceeds what is proportionate to the will, so that virtues such as justice and charity are needed; but the will naturally desires one's own good (bonum proprium) (see STh I-II, q. 56, a. 6; ibid., obj. 1 and ad 1). All of this sounds much in tune with the initial, generic description of egoism as the agent's overriding commitment to the attainment of what is good for him, his own welfare, however we may go on to define that.

Now, it is undoubtedly true that, for Aquinas, the agent seeks what is good for him (as he has it, "illud quod est sibi bonum"). But the question must be, "good for him" in egoistic fashion, or "good for him" in a perfectionist fashion (i.e., being good in the way appropriate to him given his unique situation in creation)? Alternatively, is the emphasis on the sibi or the bonum? The passage from the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics cited in question 3, article 4 gives us a clue, for there Aquinas goes on to say that "every faculty tends to the object proportionate to itself. Thus everyone's vision sees what is visible to it [sibi visibile]" (VIII Nic. Ethic., lect. 3 [1554]). The same reflexive pronoun, sibi, is used, and this helps make its meaning clear: the object sought is one that is fitting for the seeker. We do not see what is visible for us, as though we possess some exclusive vision; we see what is visible, for us--the "for us" or sibi here indicating that our vision is limited in some way. In the same way we seek what is good, for us.⁽⁴⁷⁾ We are creatures located in a particular place and time, and the good with which we can enter into the right relation (in this life, at least) is circumscribed by our finitude. We find this ratified in the Summa: arguing that the will wills only the good (as it is known), Aquinas holds that the appetite tends toward something only if it is "like or suitable to it [simile, et conveniens]" (STh I-II,

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q. 8, a. 1). The emphasis is on the bonum, as required by a perfectionist interpretation.

What of the "private good" language? Aquinas's admission that without grace the will tends to its private good seems to support the egoistic interpretation. But again, his insistence that grace perfects rather than destroys nature should raise our suspicions about this interpretation. A careful reading of the cited passages shows that they do not support it. We are more focused on ourselves than we should be, certainly, but what sort of focus is this? Even in this disordered case (which is now "natural" to us), the goal remains perfection rather than (just) welfare. The disorder lies in the way we now seek perfection, and the disordered way most relevant to the present argument is that, through ignorance and pride, we seek our perfection as individuals, for example, at the expense of the family, or as family members at the expense of the community. It is in this sense that the will seeks "its own good" (STh I-II, q. 56, a. 6) or "follows its private good" (STh I-II, q. 109, a. 3).

This is nicely illustrated by an example Aquinas gives (STh I-II, q. 19, a. 10). A judge justly wills a certain criminal to be executed. Meanwhile his wife and son will him not to be executed "because it is an evil for the family"; Aquinas calls the criminal's survival a "private domestic good [bonum privatum familiae]." The wife's desire is private, relative to the good of the state, but it is not selfish--she is worried about the family's good, not just her own welfare. Indeed Aquinas actually calls her will good, provided that, he goes on to qualify, she "refers it to the common good as an end." However much she may lament the judge's ruling, she must yield to it (and not, e.g., try to "spring" her husband). And, the will must ultimately be ruled by the common good that God wills for the universe.⁽⁴⁸⁾ This much is clear: The will can be disordered in willing the private good, but the disorder need not be one of selfishness. Indeed, the virtues of the will such as justice and charity do not reorient the will from welfare to perfection (as the

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objection supposes), but from partial to full perfection--from the person's perfection qua individual to his or her perfection qua member of an ordered hierarchy of societies (family, local community, state, universe). Virtues are in some sense the forerunners of grace;⁽⁴⁹⁾ they too perfect nature, or at least tend toward its perfection. Aquinas makes just this point at the outset of the article from which the second passage cited in the objection is drawn: "habits perfect powers" (STh I-II, q. 56, a. 6; see also I-II, q. 55, a. 1). The point is ratified when Aquinas insists that we have a natural inclination to live in society (cf. STh I-II, q. 94, a. 2); justice is simply the virtue that perfects this inclination. In saying that the good of others exceeds what is proportionate to the will, Aquinas must mean only that this natural inclination stands in need of development. Thus, the private-good argument fails to show that Aquinas's ethical theory is egoistic.

E) The Order-of-Virtues Argument

Aquinas's insistence that charity is the form and root of all true virtues (e.g., in STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4) and that charity involves loving God above all things and neighbor as self present a stumbling block to any egoistic interpretation of Aquinas. Indeed I have drawn on this consideration several times to suggest that, since the life of grace is not egoistic, the life of nature is not either. A final objection seeks to turn the tables, maintaining in effect that the life of nature is egoistic, and so we should expect to find that the life of grace is as well. Furthermore (it is objected), we do find this when we attend to how human beings reach the high plateau of charity. We begin by believing with faith that God will enable us to attain happiness, then we come to hope for this good from him, and only then do we come to love him with charity (see STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4). Thus it seems that even charity is motivated by self-interest. In this interpretation, happiness is equated to welfare, which itself is left unspecified.

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There are three points to be made in response. First, whatever the motivation that leads us to become charitable, we do after all become so. This is to say, in part, that we come to love God for his own sake and more than we love ourselves (see STh II-II, q. 23, a. 1; II-II, q. 26, a. 3). So, even if we did start out as egoists, we seem to end up otherwise. Given this, we can fall back on Gilson's point that this would be odd, for grace would seem in this case to destroy or replace nature, and also the earlier grace of hope.

Happily, and second, this is not so. The objection misunder-stands the character of hope, for "the proper and principal object of hope is eternal happiness" (STh II-II, q. 17, a. 2). But as we have seen, happiness or beatitude is, for Aquinas, not welfare but perfection. We hope in God because he perfects us: "we derive from God both knowledge of truth and the attainment of perfect goodness [adeptio perfectae bonitatis]"; God is the principle of perfect goodness in us (in nobis principium perfectae bonitatis) (STh II-II, q. 17, a. 6).

Third, although hope leads to charity in part for the reason stated in the objection (as Aquinas says, one who hopes for good from God is set on fire with love for him (accenditur ad amandum Deum [STh II-II, q. 17, a. 8]), it should be noted that charity is itself part of the perfection hoped for (charity is first in the order of perfection, and the most excellent of all the virtues; see STh ibid.; II-II, q. 23, a. 6). Gratitude and love of friendship for a benefactor, as well as the gracious acceptance of the gift, are part of standing in the right relation to the benefactor--in this case God.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Our perfection consists in standing, as creatures, in the right relation to God: part of the grace we hope for just is to be able, sincerely, wholeheartedly, to love God more than we love ourselves. The progression in virtue from hope to charity, then, in no way shows that Aquinas's ethical theory is egoistic.

We can get at this point another way. Aquinas notes that "the movement of love has a twofold tendency": first, we love

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someone with the love of friendship (amor amacitiae) and thus wish good to him; second, we love some good thing with the love of desire (amor concupiscentiae) for that person (STh I-II, q. 26, a. 4). Although in this passage Aquinas indicates that the love of friendship may be directed toward oneself or another, if we combine this passage with the passage under consideration (STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4), we face another version of the argument that we begin loving only ourselves as friends and loving all other things only for ourselves, and only later come to love others with a love of friendship when they promise us good things (as hope begets charity). But although Aquinas often speaks of concupiscence as a principle of sin (see, e.g., STh I-II, q. 77, aa. 4 and 5), it is a natural appetitive principle and is not disordered in itself. Aquinas later says that "the concupiscible regards as proper to it the notion of good, as something pleasant to the senses and suitable to nature [delectabile secundum sensum, et conveniens naturae]."⁽⁵¹⁾ And as we saw above (section III), delight follows upon, is secondary to, what perfects nature. Concupiscence tends not only to delight but principally to perfection, in the sense of standing in a right or fitting relation to some good. To bring this back around to hope and charity, we might say that hope perfects the will in its capacity as the seat of amor concupiscentiae, charity in its capacity as seat of amor amacitiae.⁽⁵²⁾ This is perfectly consistent with the argument of the foregoing paragraphs that what we hope for is perfection because concupiscence is not limited to love of pleasure (or even, more broadly, to what is good for the agent, to welfare). The amor concupiscentiae is initially self-regarding, but it is essentially perfectionist rather than merely egoistic, and it is of its own nature apt to open up into other-regardingness (as we saw Aquinas point out in STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4).

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V. Conclusion

In saying that "all desire their own perfection" Aquinas is clearly a perfectionist, and none of the objections succeed in showing otherwise. I spoke in the introductory section of fitting the odd pieces into a coherent structure, and I hope I have succeeded in doing this. But putting things this way is unfair to Aquinas, whose Summa Theologiae is, after all, a coherent structure already. It can look incoherent, or at least in need of serious tidying up and clarification of the sort I have undertaken here, because we make assumptions that he did not. After Hobbes, Kant, and Sidgwick, we tend to see selfishness, the inordinate desire for one's own welfare, as the root of all evil. But for Aquinas, the first principle of sin is not selfishness but pride.⁽⁵³⁾ Some passages strike us as clearly perfectionist, others as obviously egoistic (I chose many of the passages cited in sections IV.C-IV.E because for a long time they struck me that way), because we have largely lost sight of the old idea, almost universally accepted by moralists from Plato through Aquinas, that perfection includes welfare, or, being good includes well-being. The story of how this changed is a fascinating one involving such characters as Anselm and especially Duns Scotus, but it cannot be told here.⁽⁵⁴⁾ For the moment, I can conclude that, for virtue ethicists struggling today to put the two pieces back together, Aquinas can be an invaluable help--and we need not be put off by allegations of egoism.⁽⁵⁵⁾

1. See Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), and Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals (Chicago: Open Court, 1999).

2.  Scott MacDonald, "Egoistic Rationalism: Aquinas's Basis for Christian Morality," in Michael Beaty, ed., Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 327-54, at 332; John Langan, S.J., "Egoism and Morality in the Theological Teleology of Thomas Aquinas," Journal of Philosophical Research 16 (1991): 411-26. Langan, I think, finds the egoism objectionable, but thinks we can salvage a substantial part of Aquinas's theory despite it.

3. The term "perfectionism" is often associated with Thomas Hurka'a agent-neutral version of the theory; not so here (the view I attribute to Aquinas is closer to what Hurka calls agent-relative perfectionism).

4. Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), 91-92.

5.  Bernard Williams illustrates the distinction between egoism and (mere) self-centeredness with characteristic clarity and crispness in a discussion of his notion of ground projects: These projects "do not have to be selfish. . . . Nor do they have to be self-centered, in the sense that the creative projects of a Romantic artist could be considered self-centered (where it has to be him, but not for him)" (Bernard Williams, "Persons, Character and Morality," in Twentieth Century Ethical Theory, ed. Steven Cahn and Joram Haber (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995), 642.

Although this is not my chief concern in this paper, let me suggest why I think this objection fails. There seems good reason to think that pursuit of one's own perfection need not be, in fact needs not to be, self-centered, just as excellence in sport typically involves excellence in teamwork. We shall see in sections 3 and 4 that concern with one's own life, as Aquinas understands it, is in large part to direct it toward, and in service of, others and ultimately God (see Christopher Toner, "The Self-Centredness Objection to Virtue Ethics," Philosophy 81 [2006]: 595-617).

6.  See L. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 13.

7. See Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 93. Given Aquinas's Aristotelian notion of pleasure, according to which pleasure--which will involve enjoyment of something and satisfaction with it, or repose in it--varies in quality and desirability with the quality of the pleasing object, Adams's more objective account of welfare seems initially much more compatible with Aquinas's outlook than does Sumner's. See, e.g., Aquinas, X Nic. Ethic., lect. 6 (In Decem Libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum Expositio, Raymundi Spiazzi, O.P. [Rome: Marietti, 1949], para. 2038; parenthetical numbers in references to this text refer to paragraph numbers in the Marietti edition). (While I shall refer to this text frequently, I shall not rest any controversial claim about Aquinas's doctrine solely on it.) Yet, we shall see that in certain passages Aquinas does seem to lean toward understanding beatitude in terms of the complete satisfaction of the will, simply.

8.  Cf. Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998).

9.  It would certainly be more difficult for a foundational egoist to acquire and exercise other-regarding virtues than, say, to adopt and follow other-regarding rules. But not impossible: we can imagine a father realizing that things are more pleasant for him when his children are contented and that his children are more contented when he controls his temper, who therefore seeks to develop patience. We can, with difficulty and over time, work to develop our own character with a view to enhancing our own welfare or, of course, our own perfection. For different, not necessarily incompatible, accounts of this kind of foundational reflection, see MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals, 112-13 on the "theoretical level" of reflection, and Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 165-66 on the "Neurathian procedure."

10.  Aquinas, STh I-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad3. The Latin text consulted is in Summa Theologica, editio altera romana (Rome: ex Typographia Forzani et S., 1894). The principal translation consulted is Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947). I have also consulted John Oesterle's translation of I-II, qq. 1-21 (Treatise on Happiness [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983]). Unless otherwise noted, I use Oesterle's translation when quoting from this "treatise."

11.  Of the virtue ethicists mentioned, MacIntyre is the most self-conscious about clearing his Thomistic account of the charge of egoism (cf. MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals, 160-61). But his remarks, I think, remain at the factoral level; for all he says there, his account could still be foundationally egoistic (although I do not think it is in fact). (The same, incidentally, can be said of Edmund Santurri's "Response to Langan," Journal of Philosophical Research 16 [1991]: 427-30.)

12.  Here I follow Brian Shanley, O.P., "Aquinas on Pagan Virtue," The Thomist 63 (1999): 553-77.

13.  Etienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 282. Gilson is commenting on STh I, q. 60, a. 5.

14.  STh I, q. 60, a. 5, ad 2 (emphasis added). Aquinas is speaking here of an angel, but the context makes it clear that he thinks the same holds for human beings: In the body of the response, he had said "from natural love angel and man alike love God before themselves and with a greater love."

15.  Aquinas seems to use no concept just like our concept of "welfare" or "well-being." I shall be making the case that some concepts that one might think would be equivalent to "welfare" in fact are not: e.g., happiness (beatitudo), one's private good (bonum privatum), or what is good for an agent (bonum sibi). If I am right about this, it helps undermine any case for interpreting Aquinas as an egoist, for if he has no concept of welfare, it would be very difficult to convict him of recommending its pursuit. But I shall not be resting my case on this, for some of his concepts are close, and it is plausible to maintain that from them we could put together a "Thomistic" concept of welfare. My case instead will rest on showing that welfare thus understood is not the final end of the Thomistic agent. The concept of his that probably comes closest to "welfare" is delectatio, and I have seen no serious case made out that Aquinas was a hedonist. (Even Cornelius Williams's article "The Hedonism of Aquinas" [The Thomist 38 (1974): 257-90] does not actually argue that Aquinas was a hedonist!) It might be thought "satisfaction of the will" is the same as "welfare" in our sense. I shall later discuss at length passages in which he says things in the neighborhood, so to speak, of "satisfaction of the will," but to my knowledge the phrase itself does not appear in Aquinas's writings. He rather says things like, "happiness must completely satisfy the will." Perhaps this is close enough to say that he does have the concept, or perhaps one could argue that peace (pax) or repose (quietatio) are equivalent to that concept. In any event, the point I shall be stressing is that saying that happiness does satisfy the will is very different from saying that happiness is the satisfaction of the will. Satisfaction of the will seems to be mentioned (or almost mentioned) only as an effect of the attainment of the final end.

16.  ScG III, c. 19 (Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. Vernon Bourke [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975]). Cf. also STh I-II, q. 3, a. 5, obj. 1 and ad1.

17. This essentially relational nature of human perfection or beatitude is also central to defending Aquinas against the broader charge of self-centeredness.

18.  Cf. X Nic. Ethic., lect. 6 (2036 and 2038), where Aquinas insists that we do seek pleasure as perfecting life, but also that the activity rather than the pleasure taken in it is principal.

19.  It is worth noting that the gift of wisdom is tied, not to any intellectual virtue, but to charity, and the knowledge it imparts is not abstract intellectual knowledge, but knowledge that flows from loving acquaintance with a friend (cf. STh II-II, q. 45, a. 2). It is connatural knowledge involving affection as well as apprehension. Aquinas's theory of beatitude might be less intellectualist than it seems on its face. Indeed, Jacques Maritain goes so far as to attribute to Aquinas the doctrine that contemplation is not its own end, but "the most excellent of means and already united to the end," the end of a union of "loving attentiveness to God," citing in support STh I-II, q. 68; II-II, q. 45, a. 2; and II-II, q. 180, a. 1 (see Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. under Gerald Phelan [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995], 344 and 344 n. 35).

20. Or, perfection includes those things--peace, delight, well-judged satisfaction--that we would consider to be constitutive of welfare.

21. Of contemporary virtue ethicists, Philippa Foot is particularly strong on this point (see e.g. Foot, Natural Goodness, 79, 98). See also Aristotle, Nic. Ethic. 1.8.1099a15-21 and Aquinas's commentary on this passage (I Nic. Ethic., lect. 13 [157-58]). I discuss this further in "Aristotelian Well-Being: A Response to L. W. Sumner's Critique," Utilitas 18 (September 2006): 218-31.

22. MacDonald, "Egoistic Rationalism," 331.

23.  Ibid., 332.

24.  Ibid., 335.

25. Scott MacDonald, "Ultimate Ends in Practical Reasoning: Aquinas's Aristotelian Moral Psychology and Anscombe's Fallacy," The Philosophical Review 100 (1991): 31-66, at 56.

26.  MacDonald, "Egoistic Rationalism," 335, 351 n. 20; MacDonald, "Ultimate Ends in Practical Reasoning," 55 n. 45.

27.  MacDonald, "Egoistic Rationalism," 331-32 could be read in this way.

28.  Ibid., 339.

29.  Ibid., 352 n. 35.

30. Langan, "Egoism and Morality," 424.

31.  Ibid., 424-25.

32. Ibid., 413.

33.  Ibid., 412-13.

34.  Ibid., 421.

35.  Ibid., 420-21.

36.  Ibid., 423.

37.  Ibid., 421.

38.  Langan himself admits "there are moves available to Thomas and his defenders that would open the way to a non-egoistic interpretation of his views" (ibid., 425).

39.  Ibid., 421.

40.  Ibid., 420-21.

41.  Ibid., 412-13.

42.  Ibid., 413.

43.  Ibid.

44.  I think that Langan gets the first horn of his distinction wrong too: his description of the first horn includes both horns of Aquinas's distinction, object and activity. In STh I-II, q. 3, a. 1 and I-II, q. 3, a. 2, we see that the UE_O is God, and the UE_A an activity.

45. See also STh I-II, q. 3, a. 4, ad 1 where peace, which involves satisfaction, receives a similar treatment: peace is consequent to happiness "inasmuch as man is at peace when he has attained the ultimate end, all his desires being at rest."

46. With the Dominican Fathers, I say "that which" where Oesterle has "whatever" (which I find potentially misleading). The Latin reads: "Cum autem bonum sit objectum voluntatis, perfectum bonum est alicujus, quod totaliter ejus voluntati satisfacit." Aquinas's point is that the perfect good satisfies the will because it is the will's natural object, not that the perfect good is the will's object because it satisfies--it is "that which" (quod) satisfies, not "whatever" (quidquid) satisfies.

47. The same reading should be applied to IX Nic. Ethic., lect. 9: each agent takes what is "better for himself"--i.e., what is "better, for himself."

48.  Cf. STh I, q. 49, a. 3, where Aquinas clarifies that "the goodness of anything" depends upon "what it is in itself, and on its order to the whole universe, wherein every part has its own perfectly ordered place."

49. On this point see Shanley, "Aquinas on Pagan Virtue," 572-77.

50.  MacIntyre makes a similar point, on the natural level, in his discussion of the "virtues of receiving;" (cf. MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals, chap. 10, esp. 126-27).

51. STh I, q. 82, a. 5 (emphasis added). Aquinas makes this remark about the sensitive appetite, not because he thinks the will different in this respect, but because he thinks that since the will regards the good under its common notion it is not diversified into distinct concupiscible and irascible powers, as is the sense appetite, which is diversified by different notions of particular goods.

52. See his discussion, at STh II-II, q. 17, a. 8, of charity and hope as, respectively, "perfect" and "imperfect" forms of love.

53.  See Paul Weithman, "Thomistic Pride and Liberal Vice," The Thomist 60 (1996): 241-74, for a penetrating discussion of Aquinas's account of pride. It is revealing that Aquinas identifies pride (which involves self-centeredness but not, essentially, selfishness) with both the inordinate desire for excellence (that part of perfection which involves excelling others), and with inordinate self-love. That is, he sees self-love not in terms of desire merely for one's own welfare, but for one's own perfection (see e.g. STh II-II, q. 162, a. 1, ad2; I-II, q. 84, a. 2, ad3).

54.  I try to tell an important part of this story in "Angelic Sin in Aquinas and Scotus and the Genesis of Some Central Objections to Contemporary Virtue Ethics," The Thomist 69 (2005): 79-125.

55.  I would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft.