The Theological Virtues

The Cardinal Virtues: Can you figure out which is which, and why?

The Seven Deadly *Virtues*?

SP2 Prompt

William James:

I have been accused, when talking of the subject of habit, of making old habits appear so strong that the acquiring of new ones, and particularly anything like a sudden reform or conversion, would be made impossible by my doctrine. Of course, this would suffice to condemn the latter; for sudden conversions, however infrequent they may be, unquestionably do occur. But there is no incompatibility between the general laws I have laid down and the most startling sudden alterations in the way of character. New habits can be launched, I have expressly said, on condition of there being new stimuli and new excitements. Now life abounds in these, and sometimes they are such critical and revolutionary experiences that they change a man's whole scale of values and system of ideas. In such cases, the old order of his habits will be ruptured; and, if the new motives are lasting, new habits will be formed, and build up in him a new or regenerate 'nature.'

In a short paper, discuss an example (different from your first paper) of a character who is 'on the way't to a deadly sin or who is there, but who changes course, stalls or breaks the habit.  Explain the relevant sin, then explain how it is the the change occurs.  What happens?  Why does it cause the character to make such a drastic change?  Is the change believable?  Why/why not?  Explain.  Be sure along the way to make a convincing case both for the characters involvement with the sin and for his or her about-face, change of heart.

Due on Friday at midnight.

Aquinas on the Three-fold Principle

Aquinas' Article IV is remarkable.  In it, he explains what he calls "a three-fold principle" involved in human actions (i.e., properly human actions).  The first principle is reason or will (also referred to as "the superior appetite"), the second is the sensible appetite (irascible or concupiscible appetite), and the third is the exterior member (hands, feet, etc.).

One striking feature of this three-fold principle is the way in which the sensible appetites differ from the exterior members.  According to Aquinas, the exterior members unresistingly obey the orders of the appetites without any resistance.  (Of course, you could be tied up, or ill, and so on.)  The sensible appetites, however, can resist reason or the will.  This is because the sensible appetites have inclinations as part of their nature--and so it is possible for them to resist reason or will or to obey it "with repugnance".  What does it mean for the sensible appetites to have inclinations as a part of their nature?

Let's understand the point like this:  The sensible appetites are appetites, natural desires.  So the concupiscible appetite is an appetite, a natural desire, for pleasure.  My concupiscible appetite might move me to eat something, say a large and gooey slab of chocolate cake, for the pleasures it would give me both of satisfying my hunger and of taste.  But imagine that I am struggling to diet; I weigh too much.  Reason commands me not to eat the slab.  Now, in such a case, my reason may prevail--its command may be obeyed.  But since the appetite is drawn toward the cake, strongly drawn, then the appetite will likely resist the command, and, if the appetite gives in and obeys, it will do so with sorrow.  (In other words:  I will not eat the cake, but I will refrain regretfully, in disappointment, wishing I could eat it even while I do not.)  Or my concupiscible appetite may prevail; I eat the cake against reason or will--champing, chomping, crunching and craunching.

This example shows the crucial importance of virtue.  If I am a temperate man, then I will have so trained my sensible appetites that they obey reason in something like the way my exterior members do (as if reason were despotic, and as sensible appetite had no faculty of resistance of its own).  For Aquinas, virtuous action is uniform, ready and pleasurable.  So if I am temperate, and I confront the slab of cake, if reason or will commands me not to eat, I will not eat.  I will refrain without disappointment; indeed, my refraining will be pleasurable to me, insofar as it is an exercise of temperance.  I will experience no inner discord.  I will not wish to eat the cake even while I do not eat it.  The training, the habituation, that I have undergone has developed in my concupiscible appetite a habit of obeying the superior appetite with facility (reliably, readily and pleasurably)--and this habit is a virtue; it is temperance. It is "seated" in the concupiscible appetite. (The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of the irascible appetite and fortitude.)

Aquinas believes that reason, the practical intellect, is the "seat" of justice and of prudence.  But justice is seated differently, we might say, than prudence is.  Justice requires us to care about the goods of others, not only of ourselves.  It takes us beyond the limits of our individuality. Because that is so, it does not involve our natural desires in the same way as do the virtues of the sensible appetite. Prudence is the habit of judging rightly about singular human actions, of recognizing what is good in them.  It is directly connected to my natural desires and it informs all of the appetites, whether superior or sensible. (So prudence informs justice, fortitude and temperance.)

Lecture Notes: Greed, Gluttony, Lust

Gluttony

Proverb about Gluttony

The glutton digs his grave with his teeth.

The Deadly Virtues? (W. H. Auden)

"Certain sins can manifest themselves as their mirror opposites which the sinner is able to persuade himself are virtues.  Thus, Gluttony can manifest itself as Daintiness, Lust as Prudery, Sloth as Senseless Industry, Envy as Hero Worship."

Dating in the Hook-Up Culture: Lust, anyone? Anyone?

Dating in the Hook-Up Culture

Lust

The Boss on Sloth and Lust: Dancing in the Dark

I get up in the evening, and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning, I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired, man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

(Chorus)

You can't start a fire, you can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire even if we're just dancing in the dark

Message keeps getting clearer, radio's on and I'm moving round the place
I check myself out in the mirror I wanna change my clothes my hair my face
Man I ain't getting nowhere just sitting in a dump like this
There's something happening somewhere baby I just know that there is

(Chorus)

You sit around getting older there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me
I'll shake this world off my shoulders come baby this laughs on me
Stay on the streets of this town and they'll be carving you up alright
They say you got to stay hungry hey baby I'm just about starving tonight
I'm dying for some action I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write
this book
I need a love reaction come on now baby give me just one look

(Chorus)

Hey baby!

Life as a Thesis: Umberto Eco

So, you want to be better, be more.  Think about your life like you might a thesis.

Great little essay.

The Very Elements of Intelligence

In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that... or: There is capitalism in so far as... The use of expressions like "to the extent that" is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever. Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts. In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.

Simone Weil, The Power of Words

Paper Due Sunday at Midnight

Don't forget!

Also be sure to look at all the Greed, Avarice and Lust entries here on the blog.  Required reading for class.  Try to think about the idea that all three are forms of false mastery.

"The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me": Avarice, Gluttony, Lust

Scrooge Asks for Pity

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.
"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"
The finger still was there.
"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life."
The kind hand trembled.
"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

False Mastery: Avarice, Gluttony and Lust

As I will say in class (and likely have said), we are embodied creatures -- and so creatures of circumstance and vulnerability.  We live our lives enmeshed in circumstances, most not of our choosing and most not (fully) under our control.  Yet we find ourselves free in the midst of circumstances--and we know our vulnerability:  even if we would rather not know it, and so do our best to pretend otherwise.

The greedy person, the gluttonous person, the lustful person:  at a deep level, each is engaged in an effort to overcome circumstance and vulnerability and so to forget or overcome or transcend embodiment.  We have genuine needs for material possessions, for food and drink, for love and intimacy. These needs throw us back on our circumstances and they reveal our vulnerability. 

The greedy person attempts to master circumstance and to prevent vulnerability by piling up possessions.  Like the rich fool in the parable (in Luke 12: 16ff), the greedy person looks forward to being able to say to himself, "Come, soul, thou hast goods in plenty laid up for many years..."  But the problem for the greedy person is also illustrated by the rich fool, who dies in the night after his plait of self-congratulation.  The greedy person cannot master circumstances, cannot prevent vulnerability -- no matter how much he or she accumulates.  And so nothing that is possessed is ever enough; eventually, the unruliness of circumstance or the exposure of vulnerability reveals that, and then more must be possessed, so as to regain the mastery and prevent vulnerability.  And so on.  The greedy person's mastery is always false mastery.

I will extend this to gluttony and lust soon, but I suspect you can well enough imagine how the extension will go.

Avarice (Greed)