Lesson 5. A Sound Concept of Human Nature: Vir - The Latin Name For The Manly Man
Lesson 5. A Sound Concept of Human Nature: Vir - The Latin Name For The Manly Man
Lesson 5. A Sound Concept of Human Nature: Vir - The Latin Name For The Manly Man
Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on a sound concept of human nature, you shall be
able to:
1. explain how Man's three layers of life can contribute to his being able
to possess a sound human nature; and
2. give specific examples of the functions of each layer.
1
10. Emotion — strong passion
11. Feeling — weak passion
The passions of man are salutary to man's well-being. If man did not
experience these passions, his life would have been drab and colorless. However,
it is not correct to say that the only purpose of the passions is to give color to
man's life. Nature has put passions into human beings in order to make them
sustain life. If man did not experience love or desire or joy, he would not aspire
to procreate, or if he did not experience aversion, hatred, sorrow, he would not
learn to appreciate the goods he possesses or could lose. Hope and courage and
even despair sometimes fortify man's sagging spirits in the face of odds. Fear
and anger add fuel to the positive passions like love, desire or joy and make man
value what he has.
If he did not value the things he loves or desires or is joyful about, he
would not experience fear or anger. He is afraid of losing what he loves, or
experiences anger over losing what he loves.
Locomotion is the movement towards what a sentient being loves or desires,
or movement away from what he hates or feels aversion to. The power of
locomotion is implanted onto the sentient being in order to answer to a need
brought about by the passions. If a sentient being loves or desires an object but
cannot move towards it; or, if he hates or fears an object but remains rooted to
the spot and cannot move away from it, the sentient being would experience either
frustration or extinction: frustration, because he would always feel an unfulfilled
love; extinction, because the sentient being would be an easy prey to his enemies.
All the powers of sentient life are implanted by nature for its smooth
functioning. The joys and delights that accompany external and internal sensation
as well as those of the passions are within ethical and moral boundaries. In fact,
one should experience the accompanying pleasure to these functions. A sound
human nature does not frown upon these joys and delights and therefore a balanced
ethician, unlike the Stoic or Ascetic, encourages them to make life more
enjoyable.
Rational life involves powers that are distinctly human. These are
intellection and volition. Intellection constitutes reasoning from the known to
the unknown. Man is able to solve problems and resolve dilemmas by means of
intellection. His inventions, strides in scientific and technological progress are
due to his intellectual capacities. Volition or will is rational appetition which,
like its sentient counterparts, tends towards the pleasant, and away from the
unpleasant. The difference between volition and sentient appetition is that volition
can overrule sentient appetites in case a tremendous good to be achieved involves
pain which is always repulsive to the sentient appetites. When an operation or a
tooth extraction is necessary, the volition or will tends towards it despite the
pain, in view of a higher good to be achieved, in this case, health and well-
being.
As in the case of vegetative and sentient life, joy or delight can accompany
the function of intellect and will. There arises intellectual delectation after
having solved a difficult problem. There is also volitional delight after having
hurdled a difficult trial. Love in itself is the "union of the will or volition with
the object deemed to be good." Scholars experience intellectual delectation after
finishing a manuscript; mathematicians, too, after solving a difficult problem.
Those who sacrifice for a higher and nobler cause experience volitional delight
for having undertaken the sacrifice.
There is nothing wrong about these delights consequent upon intellection and
volition. Every normal activity is accompanied by a delight. This is nature's way of
saying that all beings are creatures of nature and as such they ought to accomplish what
nature had intended. This idea is reminiscent of the Chinese doctrine of the tao.
This sound human nature is the proximate standard of morality: the
wholesome human being with all the layers of life put into their proper places.
The highest is man's rational life; the second is the animal's sentient life; the
third and lowest is the plant's vegetative life. Man participates in the life of the
beast animal and the lowly plant but does not stop in their activites. When all
that man does is to eat and grow and reproduce, he is no better than the plant;
and when he stops at external and internal sensation, appetition and locomotion,
he is like the beast animal. Man's highest activities are thinking and willing.
These two activities must lord over the sentient and vegetative activities. When
man is able to dominate his plant and animal tendencies and make them subserve
the rational, man is acting as a real human being, like a vir, the Latin name for
the manly man.
To every activity, there is an ideal middle ground called a virtue. Each
power implies a virtue. When man exercises his powers moderately or in a manner
befitting his humanity, he experiences delight, and this is a sign given by nature
that he is doing right. There is a time or season to love and be angry, to fear, to
hope, to delight or feel aversion, etc. Each of these passions, when properly
experienced, gives man the power to live fully. A mother's anger over the
wrongdoing of her child is a normal and even a healthy passion. One's aversion
towards the ugly and the gross only underscores man's love for the beautiful and
the noble, and hence aversion can be healthy. Even hatred can be a healthy passion.
When one hates evil, hatred is healthy. Anger is not always unacceptable. When
Moses came down from Mt. Sinai carrying the two slabs of stome on which God
wrote the Ten Commandments, Moses broke them in anger when he saw his people
worshipping a golden calf. Hope and despair over the "right" things can even lead
to the fulfillment of ambition. There is therefore a middle ground or vitue for
every passion of man.
Man was not meant by nature to be Stoic; otherwise, he would not have
been created with the power to laugh or cry. Neither was he meant to be Epicurean
because he becomes easily satiated or bored.
There is a reasoned attitude towards pleasure. That pleasure accompanies
our natural activities like eating, drinking, perceiving must have been intended
by nature. Seeing a beautiful sunset or hearing a beautiful symphony or tasting
good food or smelling fragrant scents or touching smooth objects always gives
pleasure to a human being but only up to a point. Beyond this point, there is
displeasure, boredom and pain. The body lays down its limits. Only so much
food can be eaten; only so much of drink or sex. The body therefore is also a
gauge; there is no need for a mind to determine the limits of pleasure.
Modernism has created new pleasures, and modern man has taken to these
pleasures such as smoking, drinking liquor, taking of drugs. Some artists confess
that unless they smoke or drink or take drugs, they cannot create. Celebrated
among them are Edgar Allan Poe who could not write without being under the
influence of drugs. Or Jean-Paul Sartre who wrote under the influence of
amphetamine.
In the light of these modernisms, some ethical questions can be asked. Is
man allowed to indulge in these pleasures for the sake of artistic creation or
work efficiency? The reasonable answer is in the affirmative, provided that it does
not involve the ruin of one's health and well-being.
The question of smoking comes into focus. More and more evidence attests to the
link betweeen smoking and cancer. Is it therefore ethical to smoke,
considering that at some future time, the body could be adversely affected? Here,
the individual will have to weigh the pros and cons. If he is able to work better or
think better, to create, and he sees to it that the threat to his body's ruin is kept to a
minimum, he can indulge in this pleasure. Each individual is free to decide for
himself. Would this not contradict the ethical rules mentioned above? Modern life
involves many risks: inhaling the exhaust fumes of cars, eating from aluminum
pots, exposure to radiation, etc., and yet man has to live and make a living and he
has to take risks. The same goes for the smoker or the drinker or perhaps even the
drug taker. Each individual has to make a decision for himself. However, a
pleasure that involves injury to others or curtails the rights of others is no longer
moral; it would not be allowed.
Human nature — or better still, the sound human nature as interpreted by right
reason is the ethical standard of rightness or wrongness of human acts. Anything that
contributes to the well-functioning of man as man is good; anything that impedes or
obstructs it is evil. A sound human nature implies the proper object of the passion, the
right proportion, and must be lifting, not damaging, to the human person.
Readings in Module II
Objection 1.
It seems that there is no eternal law. Because every law is imposed on
someone. But there was not someone from eternity on whom a law
could be imposed: since God alone was from eternity. Therefore no
law is eternal.
Objection 2.
Further, promulgation is essential to law. But promulgation could not
be from eternity because there was no one to whom it could be
promulgated from eternity. Therefore no law can be eternal.
Objection 3.
Further, a law implies order to an end. But nothing ordained to an end
is eternal: for the last end alone is eternal. Therefore no law is eternal.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Lib, Arb.i,): That Law which is the Supreme
Reason cannot be undestood to be otherwise than unchangeable and eternal.
I answer that, As stated above (Q. XC., A. I ad 2; A. 3, 4), a law is nothing
else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a
perfect community. Now it is evident, granted that the world is ruled by Divine
Providence, as was stated in the First Part (Q. XXII., A. 1, 2), that the whole
community of the universe is governed by Divine Reason. Wherefore the very
idea of the government of things in God the Ruler of the universe, has the
nature of a law. And since the Divine Reason's conception of things is not
subject to time but is eternal, according to Prov. viii. 23, therefore it is that this
kind of law must be called eternal.
Reply Objection 1.
Those things are not in themselves, exist with God, inasmuch as they
are foreknown and pre-ordained by Him, according to Rom. iv.17: Who
calls those things that are not, as those that are. Accordingly the eternal
concept of the Divine law bears the character of an eternal law, in so
far as it is ordained by God to the government of things foreknown by
Him.
Reply Objection 2.
Promulgation is made by word of mouth or in writing; and in both
ways the eternal law is promulgated: because both the Divine Word
and the writing of the Book of Life are eternal. But the promulgation
cannot be from eternity on the part of the creature that hears or reads.
Reply Objection 3.
The law implies order to the end actively, in so far as it directs certain
things to the end; but not passively, — that is to say, the law itself is
not ordained to the end, — except accidentally, in a governor whose
end is extrinsic to him, and to which end his law must needs be
ordained. But the end of the Divine government is God Himself, and
His law is not distinct from Himself. Wherefore the eternal law is not
ordained to another end.
Objection 1.
It seems that there is no natural law in us. Because man is governed
sufficiently by the eternal law: for Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. 1.)
that the eternal law is that by which it is right that all things should be most
orderly. But nature does not abound in superfluities as neither does she fail
in necessaries. Therefore no law is natural to man.
Objection 2.
Further, by the law man is directed, in his acts, to the end, as stated
above (Q. XC., A. 2). But the directing of human acts to their end is
not a function of nature, as is the case in irrational creatures, which
act for an end solely by their natural appetite; whereas man acts for an
end by his reason and will. Therefore no law is natural to man.
Objection 3.
Further, the more a man is free, the less is he under the law. But man
is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which
he is endowed above all other animals. Since therefore other animals
are not subject to natural law, neither is man subject to a natural law.
On the contrary, the gloss on Rom.i.i. 14: When the Gentiles, who have not the
law, do by nature those things that are of the law, comments as follows: Although those
they have no written law, yet they have the natural law, whereby each one knows, and is
conscious of , what is good and what is evil.
I answer that, as stated above (Q. XC., A. 1 ad 1), law being a rule and
measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and
measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is
ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure. Wherefore,
since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal
law, as was stated above (A. 1); it is evident that all things partake somewhat of
the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive
their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others,
the rational creature is subject to partake of a share of providence, by being
provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the eternal
Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this
participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.
Hence the Psalmist after saying (Ps. iv. 6): Offer up the sacrifice of justice,
as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: Many say, Who
showeth us good things? In answer to which question he says: The light of Thy
countenance, O Lord, is shown upon us; thus implying that the light of natural
reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function
of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine Light. It
is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's
participation of the eternal law.
Reply Objection 1.
This argument would hold, if the natural law were something different from
the eternal law: whereas it is nothing but a participation thereof, as stated
above.
Reply Objection 2.
Every act of reason and will in us is based on that which is according to
nature, as stated above (Q. X., A. 1): for every act of reasoning is based on
principles that are known naturally, and every act of appetite in respect of
the
means is derived from the natural appetite in respect of the last end.
Accordingly the first direction of our acts to their end must needs be
in virtue of the natural law.
Reply Objection 3.
Even irrational animals partake in their own way of the Eternal Reason,
just as the rational creature does. But because the rational creature
partakes thereof in an intellectual and irrational manner, therefore
the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is properly
called a law, since a law is something pertaining to reason, as stated
above (Q. XC., A. 1). Irrational creatures, however, do not partake
thereof in a rational manner, wherefore there is no participation of
the eternal law in them, except by way of similitude.
"The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Moral" of Immanuel Kant: