Aquinas and Scotus on Law (Part One)

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1:21we were going to do some virtue, some moral action, some law. I guess there's plenty more of the moral action section we did not do. There's like 90 pages. We did maybe 10 of them. Anyway, there was this separate section on law, which is the Summa Theologica 1A 2AE question 90, the essence of law, which we ended up not doing as a group on the Partially Examined Life, partially because I think the PDF that we are using of the collected works or selected philosophical works

1:54cut off the end of it. And we thought maybe, in fact, there was much more. But it's just this is four questions is all, of course, in the strange Aquinas ordering of the presentation of information. And I happened to find in trying to find a PDF that was not cut off, a version that had a commentary on it by Duns Scotus. Have you ever had to do any Duns Scotus, Wes? No, but I think we should we should do them ultimately for PEL.

2:26So Duns Scotus is another one of these Middle Ages philosopher guys. This is I'm not sure exactly when he would have written this commentary. I see he lived from 1265 to 1308. And I believe the I don't have to get my appropriate notes out from our episode on the Aquinas. It sounds like he's a contemporary of Aquinas. So 1268. So he's like the next generation or so responding to this.

2:59I mean, of course, Aquinas was massively influential for hundreds of years. So but, you know, we're not we're not to consider this. I'm looking at the wiki page for Duns Scotus among the most important philosopher theologians in Western Christendom during the last part of the medieval period with Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure and William of Ockham. So I didn't know that we I don't know that Seth will let us do anything else from this period. He seems to be very disgusted known for the university of being the idea that the that existence is the most abstract concept we have applicable to everything exists.

3:36Well, what I was looking through this before I saw at least this wiki characterizes some of what we were saying Aquinas is comments about the features of God that we can only apply analogically to God where we apply them literally to people. So people literally love other people. Does God literally love anything? Well, God is not the kind of being that can actually love in a way that we would understand. But he does something that metaphysically is comparable to love. So we it's OK to use that word.

4:08Duns Scotus apparently is somebody that is pushing back against that and saying, no, no, you could literally apply these adjectives to God. He's also a voluntarist. So some of the stuff that we've talked about of the determinism in Aquinas, I think Scotus is pushing against. So law was interesting to me in that it seems the most foreign to the Aristotelian stuff that Aquinas is so excited about, right? That when we read our Ellis on essentialism, Ellis was sort of following the Aquinas that the necessary properties of things are right there in the things.

4:47They're not in some sort of external law, God having a plan, a blueprint that then gets, you know, the the the the creatures on the earth obey. But the if you want to have an idea of divine law that God makes every molecule doesn't do what it does. And God commands maybe doesn't make human beings do what they do, but at least gives them options and invites them to, you know, so they want to have some sort of continuity between descriptive laws of science and normative laws of ethics is my understanding for for this time period.

5:23Very, very foreign to Aristotle. So you didn't even take a look at this stuff when we did the Aquinas, right? It was sort of a sign, but then not a sign. And I had read the beginning of the first couple of questions, at least. Yeah, no, I haven't looked at it, but I'm looking forward to it. All right.

5:47Well, let's go and let's let's try to do it in order this time. So we have objection one and then we can discuss it. And then let's just see what SCOTUS has to say about objection one, because this is a people can look at the PDF. I've linked you to and there's one column that's Aquinas and one column at SCOTUS. And eventually, at least in some parts, well, what SCOTUS has to say is much longer. And so it takes over the whole page. Okay. Whether law is something pertaining to reason.

6:17Article one. Objection one. It would seem that law is not something pertaining to reason for the apostle says, I see another law in my members, etc. But nothing pertaining to reason is in the members, since the reason does not make use of a bodily organ. Therefore, law is not something pertaining to reason.

6:41And then do you want me to read the SCOTUS? Well, let's let's so right off the bat, right, we're trying to get to the point of is law like scientific description, which, of course, applies to everything. And so you could say that there's a separate law within my limbs than is in the rest of my body or is in the, you know, the physics of the rocks and the biology of the trees and things like this. It's clearly nothing to do with human reason, but it would be strange to have an idea that there's a logos in everything.

7:13But it I was going to say, but but most especially in the human mind, right? We explicitly use reason. So you would have to have an idea, you know, very contra to the Ellis thing that I was describing, that all reason is in either human minds or God's mind and everything else is just obeying. There is no logos within it. It is all imposed upon it. Are we going to look at the I mean, let's see if we can see if SCOTUS replies one by one.

7:45You want to look at the SCOTUS and then and then maybe we should look at the replies one by one as well, because if we do in completely in order, then we're going to have to come back all the way up to the objection. And I read the objection. Let's let's just try it in order this time. I know we did it out of word the last time, but just to, you know, we'll remind ourselves. We'll we'll we'll take it as he's presenting it. I mean, I think some of these are it's clear what what these objections mean when you look at the reply, because it's it can be vague.

8:15But oh, well, let's read the SCOTUS first and then. All right. And then we could maybe try the reply on this one and then. Sure. You know, try it without on the second. OK. All right. So SCOTUS says, it seems that law is something of reason for it pertains to law itself to prescribe and prohibit, but to command belongs to reason for reason, shows and dictates what needs to have been done. Therefore, law is something of reason. So he's already articulating the counter argument here.

8:51I don't know exactly what SCOTUS is doing here. Yeah. We have to kind of figure out because there's no introduction here. Is SCOTUS giving a commentary on this? Is SCOTUS replying to it? His own giving his own reply? Is he just trying to make it more understandable what Aquinas is saying? Yeah. I mean, I think part of what he's doing is he's he's probably reading these objections according to the point that they're trying to make, which is the opposite. Right. So he's he's reading the tea leaves here and trying to say, OK, yeah, the implication is that there is something of reason in law.

9:28And the way it sounded like you interpreted objection one is saying something like. Right. Reason is the is the way we. What is it? I see another law on my members, but nothing pertaining to reason is in the members. You're reading it is about determinism and freedom, right? Well, or about the relation between where is the logos? You know, is it just in minds or can it be in everything? So the law is something that compels us. And at the level of natural law that right, that seems to preclude us doing anything because we have reasons.

10:03We just do things because we're compelled to do it by natural law. Right. So your members are just compelled to do it by natural law, but they don't have reason. So, yeah, maybe that's a good way you put it with logos where the logo says. So SCOTUS is giving his own reply. It seems law is something of reason for it pertains to law to prescribe and prohibit, but to command belongs to reason. Right. And so prescribing and prohibiting is commanding or, you know, a species of commands.

10:34Recent shows what needs to have been done. Therefore, law is something of reason. So if something is if we're doing a science experiment and we're stacking rocks on each other, whatever the thing is, and we note the behavior. If there's necessity, right, if when you drop something, it always falls, then on some level, something is showing that it needs to be done. So reason, even though obviously the rock is not thinking I need to go down, but reason must be involved in any instance of necessity.

11:09Right. The way rationality is manifested and the fact that things are law like in their behavior. I think what's probably at issue here is this paradox that we're very familiar with, which is that freedom is supposed to come from reasoning about things, deliberating about things, and then coming to a decision. But in a way, we're compelled by reasons. So if we're compelled by the reasons that we reason about, then how is that a basis for freedom? It's not directly the issue here, but it seems to be behind this a little bit.

11:44So. I don't know. Should we check out the reply? So, yes, we're going to try read the reply. And if it doesn't make sense to us, then we're not going to use this strategy. So, yeah, or even if it's just not that not that helpful. Yeah. Because, yeah. So because what's intervening is his considered position stated. But anyway, since law is a kind of rule and measure, it may be in something in two ways. First is that in that which measures and rules. And since this is proper to reason, it follows that in this way, law is the reason alone.

12:19Secondly, as that which is measured and ruled in this way, laws and all those things are inclined to something by reason of some law. So that any inclination arising from a law may be called a law, not essentially, but by participation, as it were. And that's the inclination of the members to concupiscence is called the law of the members. So our body, you know, so desire is part of, you know, our members. It's a part of our physicality to be desiring beings.

12:51And we're pushed in this way and that. And so someone might say, well, you know, desire isn't a law because desire is not rational. You're being irrational when you desire something. So Aquinas is trying to tell us, yes, but from the naturalistic point of view, I discover rational scientific principles that can describe the way my desire works. So there's reason from the first person point of view where I'm reasoning about things and coming to conclusions.

13:24And then there's reason from this third person point of view where I'm doing natural science. And that is going to be compatible with the religious point of view that he's presenting because God, because of a sort of theodicy that God always does something for a reason. God has a, you know, the logos has coherence within him. So by trying to, by trying to do good science, and I think this is probably the way, you know, Newton or somebody thought of things as well.

13:54I'm not totally sure, but that you are, uh, by investigating the most rational way that a, a, an ideally rational being would have thought through something is the same project to just figuring out how organized nature is. Hmm. All right. You want to do objection to further in the reason there is nothing else, but power, habit, and act. So this is, this is supposed to be against the idea that laws pertaining to reason and the reason there is nothing else, but power, habit, and act. But law is not the power itself of reason and like minor.

14:29Neither is it a habit of reason because the habits of reason are the intellectual virtues of which we've spoken above. Nor again, is it an act of reason because then law would cease when the act of reason ceases. For instance, while we are asleep, therefore law is nothing pertaining to reason. So at least the last one is very easy to understand, right? If you think law is reason, then, well, you're not reasoning when you're asleep. So in other words, is it reasoning like a human being is doing in their head? Yeah. And then then Scotus, do you want to read that one?

15:01Okay. So Scotus is a response to that. According to the philosopher ethics one, last chapter, in other words, Aristotle, the appetite obeys reason. Therefore, the will obeys the commands of reason. Therefore, it is the job of reason itself to command and to pass laws that are to be kept in the republic. Okay. That seems like he's talking about a different thing. Yeah, exactly. But this is the challenge of this whole topic is law could be the logos, the orderliness of things, or it could be the guiding principle in ethics and therefore the guiding principle in a well-run state.

15:40Yeah. It could be something like natural law and ethics, what ought we to do? So we have two, just for listeners to remind them, we have two conceptions of law. One is natural law, the laws according to which objects are compelled to behave. And then one is the… Positive law. Yeah, positive law. That is a technical term, laws people pass. Well, natural, the distinction between… Yeah, so this is getting confusing now because there's natural law in the political sense, which is supposed to be what's, you know, what's according to nature.

16:13And then positive law can accord with that or not accord with that. That's man's law. It's positive law. But then there's the naturalistic laws of the way, you know, matter and force and energy behave in nature. And there's Kantian law, what's right to do, what's ethical is a law given to oneself. So all these things are kind of at play here. But the main thing is we have two broad categories, which is scientific law versus ethical law.

16:44Yes, descriptive and normative and the natural law that you were talking about, you know, that probably comes from Aristotle, but is… Well, I'm not sure if it comes from Aristotle, but it is definitely used by Hobbes and folks like that is some bastardization of the descriptive and the normative. It's a teleological notion. This is why I said it came from Aristotle, even though I'm not totally sure about that, if you can find that phrase in him. But if an acorn is supposed to grow into an oak tree, then it naturally does this.

17:17It is a natural law that it do this. And so a human being is supposed to use its reason and control itself. And so that is what the natural law says. But of course, human beings don't obey the natural law because we have free will, because we have options, because we succumb to our animal nature. But if we were living fully as human, then we would obey this natural law that says this is what humans are like. Yeah, there are these objective norms that are based on our constitution, how we're constituted as human beings, what kind of animals we are and all that.

17:53People can listen to our Philippa Foot episode for defense of that kind of point of view. I want to think a little bit more about this objection to, as Aquinas gives it, I think he's trying to give just an interpretation of Aristotle that would rule this out, right? But law is not the power of reason itself. In reason, there is nothing else but power, habit, and act. Power meaning potentiality. Right, right. In the reason, how in the reason is there potentiality?

18:25I forget. Like we talked about habit, virtues are habits. Okay, and virtues are also potential. Well, it's like a disposition. Disposition, the power, the potentiality is a dispositional thing. So there's a, so in other words, it's not, well, I don't know, it's just confusing. I think this is a very compressed recap of some things from his ethics section. He even says intellectual virtues, which you have spoken of above question 57. This is exactly what we talked about in our partially same in life episode on this, that virtue is all about reason and what is virtue, but it is a disposition.

19:05So it's a power for us to act rightly. It is a power that is habitual, that is trained by good schooling. And of course, we consider particular actions, you know, the way we recognize you would have this potential or disposition is because it gets realized sometimes. So it's actually the virtuous acts are sort of the primordial or at least the epistemically primary way that we recognize the other two. The idea seems to be here that law can't pertain to reason because reason is being conceived of here as a virtue or as a, as a faculty of the human mind, which is not always active.

19:52Yeah. Law would cease when the act of reasoning ceases. So there, there's gotta be a, the law can't just depend on human consciousness in this way. Um, yeah, law is supposed to be something eternal, consistent. It is dictating down. It is not merely the reasoning process or the virtue that is exhibited in somebody's actions or, and, uh, habits. Let's look at the reply. Just as an external action, we may consider the work and the work done. For instance, the work of building and the house built.

20:25So in the acts of reason, we may consider the act of reason that is to understand and the reason and something produced by this act with regard to the speculative reason. This is first of all, the definition. Secondly, the proposition. Thirdly, the syllogism or argument. These are the, I guess, the products of reason. And since also the practical reason makes use of a syllogism in respect of the work to be done, the stated above, and since the philosopher teaches, hence, we find in the practical reason, something that holds the same position in regard to operations.

20:59As in the speculative intellect, the proposition holds in regard to the conclusions. Such like universal propositions of the practical intellect are directed to actions, that are directed to actions, have the nature of law. And these propositions are sometimes under our actual consideration, while sometimes they are retained in the reason by means of habit. So in other words, you know, whether or not we are thinking about them or are habitually inclined to do them, there are objective laws of what we should do.

21:35And that's what it sounds like here to me. And there are principles that hold, right, such that we can insert them into syllogisms and so forth. It sounds almost like a Kantian maxim here, right? That's what Kant would say. What corresponds to the scientific laws in the ethical domain is like a maxim, and we can use it almost syllogistically to figure out how we should act. So even in the use of human reason, we do see this metaphysically stable, I don't know about eternal, but something external.

22:12In the acts of reason, we may consider the act itself of reason to understand and to reason and something produced by this act. In regard to speculative reason, this is, first of all, the definition, the secondly of the problem. Okay, yeah. So there are these mathematical, logical reasoning underpinnings to anything that we do. And in that way, we are evincing reason when we act. Well, speculative reason, right? So theoretical, scientific reasoning, mathematical as well.

22:42But when we reason, we produce something, it sounds like to me, like we produce definitions, we produce propositions, we produce syllogisms. So the activity of reasoning gives us all these products. And the same thing happens in practical reason. So reason can issue laws.

23:07There's an analogy between practical reason and speculative intellect, as he says. So the universal propositions of the practical intellect that are directed actions have the nature of law. Let's think about this for a second. Because if we, you know, if we define, we could give our definition of the rabbit and then come up with some universal, you know, if we're doing science and discover some universal things about it, we're not in that same mode of discovery when we're doing ethics. As Kant would say, we're pulling the laws out of our ass.

23:39That's part of the problem here, I think. We can't just go out and discover the laws in the same way. We're issuing the laws to ourselves. And for Kant, it has something to do with avoiding contradiction, right? But how are these ethicists going to do it? I think, I guess they're going to go along with Aristotle. And the full analogy is, it's teleological. So there is something about the rabbit where we can say, what ought the rabbit to be doing? Okay, not for rabbits, but for human beings, at least. There's something about human beings where we can examine them and their structure and the way they are and say, yes, we can generalize and say they all have hearts and this and that.

24:20But we can also generalize and say they all ought to do such and such. I think we can do that for rabbits. We, you know, if the rabbit is just lying there listlessly, we say it ought not to be doing that. Not that we scold it because it doesn't have the faculties of reason to make a decision about this. But that was the seemed to be the key to Aristotelian ethics is that it is tied in our nature as human beings.

24:50And so if somebody is not acting morally, then they're defective in some way. And the defect could mean that they're missing some information or that they are calibrated wrongly so that they are responding only to their animal appetites and not to more highfalutin ideals. You would have to do a little work to say Kantian ethics is actually compatible with Aristotelian ethics because what it is for Aristotle to listen to reason is to engage in something like the Kantian giving yourself maxims.

25:26You know, Aristotle certainly doesn't say that, but I like the idea that these might fit together. I mean, they both certainly like reason. Yeah, I think as we said in our Hume episode, the idea of constitution kind of enters in into virtue ethics and into Hume and into Kant, right? The constitution in Kant, that's at issue is our constitution as willing, rational beings. It gets very minimalistic in Kant. The constitution at issue in Hume is the moral sentiments, right? And in Aristotle, maybe it's some sort of mixture.

25:58So yeah, so the constitution is always at stake. How we are structured. Are we on to objection three or we have not been getting SCOTUS's commentary on the replies to the objections? We already did a SCOTUS's commentary on objection to. Yes, but then he has commentary on the replies as well. So this is. Yeah, I think maybe because those are long. So yeah, why don't we come to those? Okay, so let's deal with objection three here.

26:28Further, the law moves those who are subject to it to act right, but it belongs properly to the will to move to act as is evident from what has been said above. Therefore, law pertains not to the reason, but to the will. According to the words of the jurist, I don't know who this is. Who is the jurist? Whatsoever pleases the sovereign has force of law is a quote from someone. Yeah, so we get a kind of command theory here.

26:59Hobbesian, right? Yep. So law is conceived of as something that has to issue from some authoritative forcing activity. And so it becomes confusing how reasons could perform that role. And this is what in our Cars Guard episode. This is part of the problem. And she's she gives a kind of synthetic point of view where you have something that's authoritative, but also reasons are there at work as well. Reflective endorsement. So, yeah, the objection seems to seems to say reasons can't be forcing in the proper way.

27:36Right. It's only the will. Yeah. That is the mechanism of action. We see this in Hume, too, when he's worried about he's saying reasons can't really properly motivate. We need sentiments. Only sentiments can do the perform that forcing role. The reason can get involved, but not unless sentiment is there as well. So in the end, if we're going to be motivated to action, there's got to be something non-rational putting us into motion. Does that interpretation make the final sentence here? This quote, whatsoever pleases the sovereign has forth of law, not make any sense.

28:10Because if we're saying the law pertains to the will, the will needs to be determined not just by the fact that it is reasonable to perform this, but that the appropriate sentiments, appropriate habits and things set up. That seems like a completely different topic than this time. I think it may just be a metaphor. Like the will is like the sovereign. So just as in a state, what has the force of law, whatever the sovereign says, and the sovereign could be the constitution, right?

28:41Or it could be the legislature or whatever. It doesn't have to be a monarch, but it could be a monarch. So yeah. So just as in a state, whatever the sovereign says has the force of law in us, it's the will that gives things the force of law. So, and reasons can't do that, you know, so even if I say, well, it's, it would be a good thing for me to do X.

29:05That doesn't mean I have to, right? This is the whole Korsgaard thing again, you know, what gives it normative force just because something would be good for me doesn't mean I have to do it. So then where does the half to come from and command theory says it comes from something that's like a sovereign in this case, the will. And this is part of what Kant's trick was right to say it's because we legislate it to ourselves. So the will in a way is like the sovereign. So let's see.

29:35Scotus is, yeah, go ahead. Read what he has to say about this. From what was said above, by the name of eternal law, we rightly understand the judgment of the divine intellect. This judgment through participation derived intellectual natures is born as natural law. Therefore, if eternal and natural law pertain to reason, much more must other laws, which are declarations of those laws, be attributed to reason. Other laws, it seems like might be human positive laws.

30:08Sure. Well, this is in accord with what he had said in responding to objection to that was about laws that are to be kept in the Republic. So he really is is going to give us a more a less subtle, more recognizably theological, you know, divine command theory. This is not just a metaphor. This is literally what happens is God has judgments, the judgment of the divine intellect. Through participation, this is derived to intellectual natures, right? To to use reason is to understand what the divine intellect wants of us.

30:43And that is natural law. So just like for Hobbes, I don't know if he's the best example. Maybe Locke is a better example. But, you know, by natural law, we ought to be generally respectful of each other and, you know, have something like the harm principle, right? Hobbes is definitely not going to say that. That doesn't mean that we do that. But insofar as we are moral beings, then we will pay attention to that and we will enact God's will. So yeah, so SCOTUS is bringing it into the political domain, more obviously.

31:18We didn't really read all of them. Objection three. Oh, you're right. There's two more paragraphs of it. What Aquinas has to say. All right. Yeah. Well, read it. This is back to Aquinas. On the contrary, it belongs to the law to command and to forbid, but it belongs to reason to command as stated above. Therefore, law is something pertaining to reason.

31:47I thought the point of these objections was to say law is not pertaining to reason. Yeah. What's the right place? Yeah, we're on the right page. So maybe he's moved. Okay. That's the. Okay. I get it. That was the end of objection three. And now he's moving into his reply. Oh, okay. So it's just not labeled here. It's just not labeled as that in the text. Okay. Wow. This is such a confusing presentation. This format.

32:17All right. So here's his, his, uh, the, the two paragraphs that are between his stating the objections and the replies that we've already started to read. All right. So, so yes, read for us the unambiguous presentation of Aquinas's view. Yeah. Okay. On the contrary, it belongs to the law to command and to forbid, but it belongs to reason to command as stated above. Therefore, law is something pertaining to reason. I answered that law is a rule and a, and measure of acts whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting.

32:51For Lex law is derived from ligare to bind because it binds one to act. Now, the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts, as is evident from what has been stated above. Since it belongs to the reason to direct to at the end, which is the first principle in all matters of action, according to the philosopher. Now, that which is the principle in any genus is the rule and measure of that genus.

33:22For instance, unity in the genus of numbers and the first movement in the genus of movements. Consequently, it follows that law is something pertaining to reason. The first movement in the genus of movements I would take to be. The unmoved mover. It wouldn't be God because God would be the unmoved mover. Okay, well, the first, the first, the movement that God creates then, the demiurge or whatever. Well, maybe, yeah, the act of creation itself.

33:55Well, we've seen this before, right? All of this is only really making what little sense it makes to me because we've read about the ethics. And so, he was saying, like, a moral act is one that is properly proportioned to its object. It is, there's something, there's some agreement in reason about it. So, although then we, so we concluded our discussion of moral action by saying, you know, the most moral acts might be something that where we try to do something greater.

34:29Something that's out of proportion. So, if I'm trying to just go about my day, the sort of general object that is in proportion to what I am capable of is something that is about me sized, right? Me as agent. But if I want to actually do something to serve God or fellow man, then that's something bigger than me. So, it's something sort of out of proportion and we needed a special effort by the will to come in. But there was, you know, in general, when you're doing, right, I'm making an arch, I'm an architect making an arch, well, then what I create should be in proportion to the job that it's getting done, right?

35:05This is just bringing up his practical reason example before, that there is reason determines how I should design the arch by the physics involved and what kind of roof I'm trying to hold up with this arch or whatever. Yeah, we could almost read this paragraph backwards and say, okay, we start with the genus of something and then we can get a principle from that. And the principle is what directs it to its proper end. There's a proper end built into it, just like, you know, with the arch holding something up or something.

35:39The roof was an example, right? And he refers to the Aristotle's physics, right? It belongs to reason to direct to the end, which is the first principle in all manners of action, according to the philosopher in physics. Yeah. And then, so once we have that, reason is, I guess, what connects us to those principles. The rule and measure of human acts is the reason.

36:06Yeah. So, when we have a reason to do something, it's because it's our end, essentially. And that gives us a law. So, the law is something that commands us. What he's really trying to do here, right, the whole work being done here, is to be able to say that reason can be a commanding thing, right? That reason has the force of a command, can have the force of a command. It's not just, right, so, oh, that's the rational thing to do, or, oh, that's good. Well, why does that have any force?

36:37It belongs to reason to direct to the end. So, he's talking about final causation, and this is what makes it so weird for us, because we think about natural law as describing, you know, in science, as describing what Aristotle would call efficient causation. That, whereas this is the ultimate pointing at an end. So, it is, I think, maybe a fundamentally weird way to think about, you know, it's retaining this ancient take on science that the law of gravity means that, in some sense, it is the proper end, it is the reasonable end, it is the desire of the rock to fall.

37:15You know, we have this problem that rocks have to fall, but we don't have to do the right thing. We don't have to do the reasonable thing. So, the force analogy falls apart, and that's why this problem comes up over and over again. So, we're forced, but we're not forced, because we can do the wrong thing. So, in what sense are we forced? That's the dilemma. And here, he just wants to say that, with reason, we can be sensitive to ends, and those can have the force of a law that, in some sense, forces us.

37:52I mean, I don't think it really fully gets rid of the dilemma and the problem, but he just, he wants to be able to say, yeah, a reason is what gives us access to understanding what the law is for us, based on what our ends are. Which, as I've said, is related to how we're constituted as human beings. So, just to try to recap the free will stuff. So, I thought it was, again, we like to use the example of, it is rational for me to not eat the cake, because it is my overall goal to have health.

38:29But I have this desire, and it is, in some sense, reasonable for me to eat the cake, in that, you know, this can become, so it's a matter for Aquinas of, which one of these do we focus on? And that's sort of, we have the, people might have different capacities to focus on the higher, more abstract, delayed gratification solution, or they might just be animals that will just go right for the cake, as your dog will. But even your dog might be, like, you could train your dog to, like, put the treat in front of them and, like, don't eat it yet.

39:01Don't eat it yet. But, you know, so you might be able to, and that's essentially what reason is giving us a view of what the right thing, of, you know, the delayed gratification thing, that we then, it's not like we choose to focus on one or the other. It's still deterministic, but at least there are multiple choices, there are multiple options for action. I don't, can you complete, complete the account there? Because it's, it's difficult for me to say it in a, in a deterministic framework, right?

39:34Because it does seem like, well, whether the animal is dominating you that day is whether you will eat the cake or not. Yeah. I'm thinking, I'm associating to Korsgaard and to her saying, right, desire is a reason, you know, and pleasure and pain, they're the most fundamental reasons. And then the question is, well, what kind of creature are we or do we want to be, right? We could be the wanton, I think is what she calls it, right? So if, if pain and pleasure just become our law and nothing else is our law, then that's a way of inhabiting a certain kind of identity, right?

40:08The rabbit doesn't really have, you know, the rabbit is the rabbit, that's its identity, the rabbit, with, you know, being, being a rabbit and having certain kind of rabbit laws associated with it. With human beings, in a way, we can step into different identities that have different laws associated with them. And there is, this is on Korsgaard's account, you know, one of those identities is just being a wanton or a libertine of some sort where we just do what's pleasurable. Yep. But qua human in the fullest sense, qua rational or whatever, then something else becomes the law to us and that it would be something to do with what's good for us.

40:46So I'm noting that having read this, now the reply to objection one that we already read, but which is below this on the page, since law is a kind of rule and measure, it would have been very helpful to have read this. So I think this is a, an argument for actually reading the text in the order is presented, even though that you have to then look back to the objection when you get to the reply to remind yourself what it's about. I mean, I would even read the middle section before everything else.

41:17Sure. Yeah. Cause you want to see what his, what his actual order. We can certainly try that. Well, let's, uh, and that's the way the guy, the guy who did the introduction to the text we used for appeal episodes recommended that. So you do the middle part, then you do the objections and you do the replies. I see that if you want to, if the point is just to get what is Aquinas's actual view. And if he was writing like a normal person, he would just state that up front and then consider objections. But if you want to just kind of muse about the question, I think the objections are a fine way to start.

41:50Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's just, it is, it is confusing and it's fine for us to be confused in this product. That's part of the points for us to be confused out loud, which should be the name of the podcast.

42:04Confused out loud. But yeah. All right. So we, we had gotten, do we want to look at any SCOTUS here? Yeah. We'd done the three objections and we started on, so we read the SCOTUS's, uh, comment on objection three judgment to the divine intellect, blah, blah, blah. And then he has his, on the contrary law moves those who are subject to the law rightly, but moving to act properly pertains to the will. Therefore, it belongs to the will to pass laws according to what the jurist says.

42:35What is pleased the prince has, has the force of law. So actually that's the second paragraph about objection three. So here we, here's the new part. I answer that it is said here in the sentence that law is something of reason for the rule and measure of human acts is reason since it is proper to reason itself to order things to the end, which is the first principle in things to be done. It doesn't seem like there's anything new here, but in any genus whatsoever, what is the principle is equally the measure and rule of that genus as unity is in the case of numbers.

43:09So he's just trying to give eating. Yeah. He's, he's trying to make it a little more understandable law. Therefore ought to pertain to reason. It seems to us that law is rather an act of will informed by prudence on the presupposition of a practical pointing out by reason. I like that. Fine. And then there's a declaration with a bunch of references. Law, Lex is, okay. So he's going to continue to repeat. If law that is Lex is derived from binding ligando, he alone can restrict others through legitimate authority to obeying his just mandates who can give commands and prescriptions to those who are bound to obey him.

43:50Otherwise he would be passing laws in vain if he could not compel observance to them. It belongs to the same power and virtue then to pass laws and to give commands. But to command is an act of will, its object having been shown to it in advance and not of reason. Although reason shows practically what needs to have been done. Nevertheless, rational appetite is able by its innate power of domination over itself to follow reasons dictates or by choosing other opposed things to contend them as was declared above.

44:23Therefore, the making of laws and the binding of subjects to them by legitimate authority will equally belong to the will.

44:31Should we stop there for the moment?

44:35Sure. So this seems like a more straightforward presentation of, I think, what we were unpacking that, you know, a more traditional, right? I had said he's a volunteerist. So he doesn't have to come up with this weird determinist view whereby, you know, whether you choose the cake or the delayed gratification of not having the cake is some sort of deterministic matter. You could just you just choose to command is an act of will, its object having been shown to it in advance and not a reason.

45:10So reason is showing you here the delayed gratification. This is the best thing. But you are just choosing. Right. Or is this undermined by what Scotus is saying that if a deity or anybody were to pass laws that he has no way to enforce, then he'd be passing them in vain.

45:30Yeah. I mean, it's just the laws.

45:34There's got to be something in them that compels. And again, this is just the problem of normativity, where you can create a general principle that such and such is the end or such and such is good for us. But where's the oomph in that? Where's the push? Because I could just not do it anyway. Mm hmm. And that's the that's I think, again, that's what they're trying to. They're trying to say there's something in about reason which can detect the oomph in the law.

46:05So it's not just it's not just sensitive to. Hey, this is be nice if we all did this, because that's our end. That's the way we're structured in general, or it would be good or would be healthy or this or that. It's that we get plugged in to something compulsive, something that compels reason as a conduit for that. I don't know. Am I making sense?

46:31Yes, I'm just. Yeah, I'm still really torn as if to determine is SCOTUS actually presenting something different, substantially different in the way that I was saying, you know, I was characterizing that. No, he's a volunteerist. He's all about actual free will, whereas Aquinas is all about this kind of compatibilism. Therefore, the making of laws and the binding of subjects them by legitimate authority will equally belong to the will. So the the the binding is the hard the thing that I'm trying to understand.

47:02Right. He's saying law. Lex is derived from ligando binding. But is the binding efficient causation? Is it obligation? It's obligation. Yeah. But ligando. But yeah, it's it's obligation. Right. So the efficient cause compulsion is with objects and their natural laws. But in this case, it's what I've been calling the right. The binding quality. But it's it's normative.

47:32So we don't we have to follow it, but we don't have to follow it. It's just when you when we read the Aquinas version of that. So higher on the page, I answer that law is a rule and measure of acts whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting. So that sounds like efficient causation. You're actually induced. Law is derived from ligare binding because it binds one to act. So it actually forces you. It doesn't merely give you sufficient reason.

48:03But we don't. But we can disobey the law. Right. So it's not deterministically forcing. And we, you know, we have to keep in mind that that we can always when we talk about inducement, we can always look at it from the first person point of view or the third person point of view. So when reasons induce us, it's from that first person point of view. And then if we look at it from the third person point of view, it just becomes about causality. The way reasons induce us is that we recognize the reasons as reasons.

48:33It involves us being conscious of them as such. And we can choose to act contrary to, you know, we can see that we have reasons to do something, but do something different anyway. For Aquinas, though, if you take a third person position and you look at somebody who is very reasonable, very ethical, is not drunk, sees what the good is. The good is the delayed gratification, not the eating of the cake. And they simply do that. Do we, as third persons, we can say that deterministically came out of their character.

49:10Right. We don't say, well, he could have chosen otherwise. Like it's not necessary that he couldn't show. He could have chosen otherwise. So it's only in the first person point of view that it seems like we have another choice. Right. Which would be enough for us to have another choice despite the third person point of view, according to people like Korsgaard and certain kinds of compatibilism. I just, I don't, I don't see in Aquinas himself this distinction between first person and third person point of view that.

49:41But I, yeah, but I don't think he's, he's, he understands that we can disobey the law.

49:48That's my main point here. And so it's not, it's not forcing to us in the same way from that perspective that it would be to natural objects. Just continuing, obviously we're, we're toward the end of this. This is back to SCOTUS. Next intellectual virtue says what is true or not true, whether it be practical or theoretical. But law bids to act, to work towards what has prescribed, but does not incline one to making announcement that one must thus act.

50:20Law, therefore, does not belong to intellectual virtue, but rather to the appetitive. So this seems to follow from what we know about Aquinas, about virtue, right? The, you need the appetitive involved. Yeah. Okay. So that's his commentary on. Well. Well, what do you think? That's confusing to me because I thought the whole point of this was to say that we, um, that we could be motivated and compelled without the appetite getting involved.

50:52Um, right. We have to do something regardless of whether we want to, we can be normatively compelled without the appetite be involved, but we cannot be motivated without the appetite get involved. Right. Does not incline, right, right. Does not incline. I mean, this is, this is very weird in SCOTUS because it seems like SCOTUS has been moving toward a definitely normative, even positive view of law, like a king passing laws and God passing laws. And he said, or at least Aquinas has said, somebody has said here that the way that that works is that the intellect reason recognizes that this is what God's command is.

51:32This is what your telos is. And so you do that. But here it seems like he's, he's expanding law to talk about natural law more fully, which involves the biological, even in human beings. So yeah, I'm not sure what he's up to. I'm confused so far, but. So the, his reply, we didn't look at his reply.

52:02Uh, so Aquinas's reply to objection three. I think we, we read this reason has its power of moving the will for his due. No, we didn't read it yet. Oh, we didn't read that. Yeah. We read it. Did we read objection three? We did. Yes. The objection three law moves those who are subject to it to act right. But it belongs to the will to move to act right. Right. Whoever pleads this is sovereign has the force of law. On the contrary, it belongs to the law to command and forbid, but belongs to reason to command. Therefore law is something pertaining to reason.

52:35This was confusing because we were trying to figure out, is this a reply? Is this continue the issue of the objection? In any case, Aquinas's reply to objection three. Reason has this power of moving the will as stated above. For it is due to the fact that one wills the end, that reason issues its commands as regards things ordained to the end. But in order that the volition of what is commanded may have the nature of law, it needs to be in accord with some rule of reason. In this sense, it is to be understood the saying that the will of the sovereign has the force of law.

53:07Otherwise, the sovereign's will would savor of lawlessness rather than of law. So it's not divine command theory. Sorry, that was my addition. Yeah, I think I misused that term, command theory. I mean, it sure sounded like it. Voluntarism, right? The Hobbesian point of view where the authoritativeness of the norm comes from the sovereign and the ability of the sovereign to enforce it. And that's what the will of the sovereign has the force of law.

53:38Otherwise, it would savor of lawlessness.

53:42Yeah. But let's go farther back up. Reason has its power of moving from the will. For it is due to the fact that one wills the end, that the reason issues its commands as regard things ordained to the end. And so it that's that's interesting. That is very strange because we usually think it's the opposite. That reason says, hey, this is the end. And the will says, OK. And the will does that. But this is saying it is due that one wills the end that reason issues its commands as regards things ordained to the end.

54:18As if will is bringing into this sounds very content, right? Yeah, it sure does. Boy, man, this is quite complicated. I mean, this is what I as we come to the end here, this is why I had a more positive response to Aquinas. I think like Seth did, because I do. I think it's thinking about these intricate issues. Not that it is always easy to understand, but but but it's really getting down into the meat of things. All right.

54:48I was all ready to not do a second one of these, but now I'm actually very curious as to what SCOTUS has in this giant two paragraph commentary on the reply to objection three. And then it would be nice to at least get to this second question, whether the law is always something directed to the common good. Right, because otherwise we're not talking about that. Let's do one more. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a little bit unsuited to this format just because of all the jumping around.

55:19Yeah. You know, hopefully people have been able to follow this and you can just go get the PDF if you want to follow along to hear that. Part two, just to remind folks, that'll only be available to close read supporters. So that's patreon.com slash close reads philosophy. We hope you have enjoyed this. The public one, the one with the video, if you're not looking at it, the video looks pretty terrible today. I've been out of focus. You're you're zooming. It's it's not great. I'm getting a new webcam for the 200 people or if it's even that much who want to see us on video.

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56:28So that's not as good.

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