QUAESTIONES DISPUTATAE DE VIRTUTIBUS
Disputed Questions on the Virtues

It seems that they are not, but are rather acts.

1. For Augustine says in the Retractions that the good use of free will is a virtue. But the use of free will is an act. Therefore, virtue is an act.

2. Moreover, no one is owed a reward except by reason of an act. But a reward is owed to everyone possessing virtue, because whoever dies in charity attains happiness. Therefore, virtue is a merit. But merit is an act. Therefore, virtue is an act.

3. Moreover, the more something in us is like God, the better it is. But we are most like God insofar as we actually are, because he is pure act. Therefore, act is what is best in us. But virtues are what is best in us, as Augustine says in On free will. Therefore, virtues are acts.

4. Moreover, perfection in this life answers to perfection in the next. But the perfection of heaven is an act, namely, happiness, that consists in activity, according to the Philosopher. Therefore, the perfection of this fife, which is virtue, is an act.

5. Moreover, contraries belong to the same genus and mutually exclude one another. But an act of sin expels virtue because of its opposition to it. Therefore, virtue is in the genus of act.

6. Moreover, the Philosopher says in On the heavens 1 that virtue is the utmost of a potency. But the utmost of a potency is act. Therefore, virtue is an act.

7. Moreover, the rational part is more noble and perfect than the sensitive part. But no habit or quality mediates between the sensitive part and its activity. Therefore, in the intellective part, there should not be habits by the mediation of which the intellective part has its perfect operation.

8. Moreover, the Philosopher says in Physics 7 that virtue is the disposition of the perfected to the best. But the best is act, and a disposition is in the same genus as that to which it disposes. Therefore, virtue is an act.

9. Moreover, Augustine says in On the customs of the Church that virtue is the order of love. But order, as he says in The City of God xix, disposes what is equal and unequal in a thing to their places. Therefore, virtue is a disposition and not a habit.

10. Moreover, habit is a quality difficult to change. But virtue is easily removed, because it is taken away by one act of mortal sin. Therefore, virtue is not a habit.

11. Moreover, if we need certain habits, which are virtues, we need them either for natural activities or for meritorious ones, which are supernatural. But not for the natural, because if any nature, sensible or insensible, can perfect its activity without a habit, a fortiori rational nature can do this. Likewise, not for meritorious activities, because God works these in us, Philippians 2:13, “who works in you both the will and the performance.” Therefore, virtues are in no way habits.

12. Moreover, any agent that acts thanks to its form acts according to the demands of that form, as the warm always acts by heating. Therefore, if there were in the mind some habitual form called virtue, the one having virtue would have to act virtuously, which is false, because then anyone having virtue would be confirmed (in the good). Therefore, virtues are not habits.

13. Moreover, habits are in powers that they might have ease of action. But we do not need something facilitating the acts of virtues, as is clear. For they consist chiefly in choice and will. But nothing easier than what is constituted in the will. Therefore, virtues are not habits.

14. Moreover, the effect cannot be nobler than its cause. But if virtue is a habit, it will be the cause of the act, which is nobler than the habit. Therefore, it does not seem fitting that virtue should be a habit.

15. Moreover, the mean and extremes are in the same genus. But moral virtue is a mean between passions; but passions are in the genus of acts; therefore...

ON THE CONTRARY

1. Virtue, according to Augustine, is a good quality of mind. But it can only be in the first species [of quality], which is habit. Therefore, virtue is a habit.

2. Moreover, the Philosopher says in Ethics 2 that virtue is a habit of choosing in the mind.

3. Moreover, virtues exist in sleepers, because they are only taken away by mortal sin. But there are no virtuous acts of sleepers, since they do not have the use of free will. Therefore, virtues are not acts.

RESPONSE. It should be said that virtue, given its meaning, designates the completion of a power; so strength means that thanks to which a thing, by the complete power it has, can bring about its impetus or motion. Virtue, according to its name, points to the perfection of a power. Hence, the Philosopher said in On the heavens 1 that virtue is the utmost reach of the power of the thing. But because potency is said with reference to act, a potency is fulfilled when it has its complete activity. And because activity is the end of the agent, since any thing is for the sake of its own activity as for its proximate end, as the Philosopher says in On the heavens 1, a thing is good insofar as it has a complete ordering to its end. Hence, virtue makes the one having it good and makes his work good, as is said in Ethics 2, and thus it is evident that it is the disposition of the perfected for the best, as is said in Metaphysics 7.

All of these pertain to the virtue of anything. For the virtue of a horse is what makes him and his activity good; similarly the virtue of a rock or a man or any other thing. But as potencies differ so does the mode of their complexity. For some powers only act, others are only acted upon or moved, yet others are both acted upon and act on others.

The potency which only acts does not require, in order to be a principle of action, that anything be brought to bear on it; hence, the virtue of such a potency is nothing other than the potency itself. Such is the divine power, the agent intellect and natural powers; that is why the virtues of such powers are not habits but the potencies themselves as complete in themselves.

But those powers which both act and are acted upon and which are so moved that they are not determined to a single object, act in a manner that is, in a way, rational. Such powers act insofar as something is added to them, not just in a manner of a passion, but as a form which abides in the subject but which does not determine the subject to a single object - if that were so, the power would not have dominion over its act. Hence, in Ethics 3 it is said that sense is not the principle of any act, and these powers are perfected in their acts only thanks to something superadded, which, however, is not in them in the manner of a form abiding in its subject but only in the manner of passion, as the species (image) in the pupil. Hence, the virtues of these powers are not habits but rather the power themselves, insofar as they are actually acted upon by their agents. Those powers act and are acted upon that are so moved by their agents that they are not determined to one. Action belongs to them as to powers which in a sense are rational, and these powers are completed in acting by something superadded, which is not in them in the manner of a passion alone but in the manner of an abiding form remaining in the subject, in such a way, however, that by it the power is not necessitated to one, since then the power would not have dominion over its act. The virtues of these powers are not the powers themselves, nor passion, as with sensitive powers, nor qualities acting necessarily, like the qualities of natural things. Rather they are habits thanks to which one can act when he likes, as the Commentator says in On the Soul 3. And Augustine in On the conjugal good says that habit is that whereby one acts when time permits.

Therefore, it is clear that virtues are habits and how habits differ from the second and third species of quality. How do they differ from the fourth species? Figure as such is not ordered to act.

From all of which it can be seen that we need the habit of virtues for three things. First, for uniformity in operation; for what depends solely on operation is easily altered unless it is stabilized by some habitual inclination.

Second, in order that perfect operation be promptly at hand. For unless the rational power is in some way inclined to one [of contraries] by habit, when we act it will always be necessary for the activity to be preceded by inquiry, something obvious in one who does not yet have the habit of science or one wishing to act virtuously who does not have the habit of virtue. Hence, the Philosopher in Ethics 6 says that things done right away are from habit.

Third, in order that perfect activity might be pleasantly accomplished. This results from habit which, since it acts in the manner of a kind of nature, makes the activity proper to it, as it were, natural and, consequently, delightful. For fittingness is a cause of delight. Hence, the Philosopher in Ethics 2 gives as a mark of habit the delight taken in acting.

Ad 1. It should be said that virtue, like power, is understood in two ways. In one way, materially, as when we say that what we can do is our power or strength; and thus Augustine calls the good use of free will a virtue. Second, essentially, and thus neither power nor virtue is an act.

Ad 2. It should be said that to deserve or merit is taken in two ways. First, properly, and thus it is nothing other than the performance of some action by which one justly acquires a reward for himself. Second, improperly, and thus any condition that makes a man in any way worthy is called merit, as when we say that the mien of Priam merits command since it was worthy of command. So a reward ought to follow on merit, and is in a way owed to the habitual quality by which one is made worthy of reward, and thus it is owed to baptized infants. It is also owed to actual merit, and thus it is not owed to virtue but to the act of virtue. Yet even to little ones it is given as by reason of actual merit, insofar as by the merit of Christ the sacrament has the efficacy, by which one is regenerated to life.

Ad 3. It should be said that Augustine says that the virtues are the highest goods, not absolutely, but of their kind, just as fire is said to be the most subtle body. Hence, it does not follow that there is nothing in us better than these virtues but that they are numbered among things that are the highest goods of their kind.

Ad 4. It should be said that just as in life there is a habitual perfection which is a virtue, and the actual perfection which is the act of virtue, so too in heaven happiness is actual perfection, proceeding from some consummate habit. Hence, the Philosopher too in Ethics 1 says that happiness is an activity in accord with perfect virtue.

Ad 5. It should be said that vicious acts directly remove the act of virtue because of contrariety, but they remove the habit of virtue only incidentally insofar as it is separated from the cause of infused virtue, namely, from God. Hence, in Isaiah 59:2: “But your iniquities have divided between you and your God.” That is why acquired virtues are not taken away by one vicious act.

Ad 6. It should be said that that definition of the Philosopher can be understood in two ways. In one way, materially, such that by virtue we understand that of which the virtue is capable, which is the utmost of which the power is capable, as the virtue of one who can carry a hundred pounds is his insofar as he can carry a hundred pounds, not sixty. Second, it can be understood essentially, and thus virtue means the utmost reach of the power because it signifies the completion or fulfillment of the power, whether or not what completes the power is other than it.

Ad 7. It should be said that sensitive and rational powers do not get the same account.

Ad 8. It should be said that a disposition for something is that through which something is moved to achieve something. But motion sometimes has its term in the same genus, as quality in the case of alteration as such; hence the disposition to that term is always of the same genus as the term. Sometimes, however, it has a term in another genus, as when the term of alteration is a substantial form, and thus the disposition is not always of the same genus as that to which it disposes, as heat is a disposition to the substantial form of heat.

Ad 9. It should be said that disposition is said in three ways. First, as heat is the disposition for the form of fire. Second, as that by which an agent is disposed to act, as speed is the disposition to run. Third, disposition means the ordering of things to one another, and Augustine takes disp6sition in this sense. Disposition in the first sense is contrasted with habit, whereas in the second sense, virtue itself is a disposition.

Ad 10. It should be said that nothing is so stable that it is not immediately undone when its cause is removed. It is no wonder then that if union with God is taken away by mortal sin, infused virtue should go. Nor does this impugn its stability, which can only be understood in terms of its cause remaining.

Ad 11. It should be said that we need habit for both operations. For natural operations for the three reasons given above; for meritorious acts too, in order that the natural power can be elevated by the infused habit to that which is above nature. Nor is this affected by the fact that God works in us, because he so acts in us that we too act, hence we need a habit whereby we can act sufficiently.

Ad 12. It should be said that every form is received in its subject in the manner of the one receiving. But it is proper to the rational power that it is capable of opposites and has dominion over its act. Hence, the rational power is not forced to do the same thing by the habitual form acquired, but it can act or not act.

Ad 13. It should be said that what is a matter of choice alone can easily come about in one way or another, but it is no easy matter for it to come about as it should, that is, expeditiously, firmly, pleasantly. For that we need the habits of the virtues.

Ad 14. It should be said that any motion, whether of man or beast, that begins from scratch is produced by some mover, and depends on something that exists prior, and thus a habit does not elicit an act from itself except insofar as it is stirred by some agent.