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Pints With Aquinas

09: What makes an act good or evil?

Pints With Aquinas

Matt Fradd

Stthomasaquinas, Saintthomasaquinas, Mattfradd, Theology, Catholic, Dominican, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy

4.86.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2016

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“The good or evil of an action, as of other things, depends on its fullness of being or its lack of that fullness. Now the first thing that belongs to the fullness of being seems to be that which gives a thing its species. And just as a natural thing has its species from its form, so an action has its species from its object, as movement from its term. And therefore just as the primary goodness of a natural thing is derived from its form, which gives it its species, so the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object… And just as, in natural things, the primary evil is when a generated thing does not realize its specific form (for instance, if instead of a man, something else be generated); so the primary evil in moral actions is that which is from the object, for instance, ‘to take what belongs to another’.”

ST I-II.Q 18. A 2.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Pints with Aquinas Episode 9. I'm Matt Frad.

0:04.6

If you could sit down with Saint Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one

0:10.9

question, what would it be?

0:13.7

In today's episode, we'll ask Saint Thomas the question, what makes a human act good

0:19.6

or evil?

0:31.0

Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a bar stall

0:37.5

next to the angelic doctor and discuss theology and philosophy.

0:42.3

Have you ever wondered what makes a particular act good or evil?

0:47.1

I don't just mean because it feels good or that it just seems evil or because somebody

0:51.2

told us that it was good or evil, but what else makes this particular act or that particular

0:56.9

act good or evil?

0:59.1

Saint Thomas discusses this at length and in today's episode we'll touch upon a few

1:03.9

of his insights.

1:06.8

So let's read from the first part of the second part, question 18, article 2 of the

1:12.8

Summathological.

1:14.8

Saint Thomas says, the good or evil of an action, as of other things, depends on its fullness

1:22.4

of being or its lack of that fullness.

1:26.7

End quote.

1:27.7

Let's stop there for a moment and see what Aquinas is talking about.

1:31.4

So Aquinas wants to say he's particularly interested in showing that human acts have

1:40.9

a moral species in much the same way that natural things have a species.

1:46.2

So just as Aquinas would say, for instance, that you and I belong to the species human,

...

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