Whether There Can Be Moral Virtue with Passion?
Objection 1: It would seem that moral virtue cannot be with passion.
For the Philosopher says (Topic. iv) that "a gentle man is one who is
not passionate; but a patient man is one who is passionate but does
not give way." The same applies to all the moral virtues. Therefore
all moral virtues are without passion.
Obj. 2: Further, virtue is a right affection of the soul, as health
is to the body, as stated _Phys._ vii, text. 17: wherefore "virtue is
a kind of health of the soul," as Cicero says (Quaest. Tusc. iv). But
the soul's passions are "the soul's diseases," as he says in the same
book. Now health is incompatible with disease. Therefore neither is
passion compatible with virtue.
Obj. 3: Further, moral virtue requires perfect use of reason even in
particular matters. But the passions are an obstacle to this: for the
Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 5) that "pleasures destroy the judgment
of prudence": and Sallust says (Catilin.) that "when they," i.e. the
soul's passions, "interfere, it is not easy for the mind to grasp the
truth." Therefore passion is incompatible with moral virtue.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 6): "If the will
is perverse, these movements," viz. the passions, "are perverse also:
but if it is upright, they are not only blameless, but even
praiseworthy." But nothing praiseworthy is incompatible with moral
virtue. Therefore moral virtue does not exclude the passions, but is
consistent with them.
_I answer that,_ The Stoics and Peripatetics disagreed on this point,
as Augustine relates (De Civ. Dei ix, 4). For the Stoics held that
the soul's passions cannot be in a wise or virtuous man: whereas the
Peripatetics, who were founded by Aristotle, as Augustine says (De
Civ. Dei ix, 4), maintained that the passions are compatible with
moral virtue, if they be reduced to the mean.
This difference, as Augustine observes (De Civ. Dei ix, 4), was one
of words rather than of opinions. Because the Stoics, through not
discriminating between the intellective appetite, i.e. the will, and
the sensitive appetite, which is divided into irascible and
concupiscible, did not, as the Peripatetics did, distinguish the
passions from the other affections of the human soul, in the point of
their being movements of the sensitive appetite, whereas the other
emotions of the soul, which are not passions, are movements of the
intellective appetite or will; but only in the point of the passions
being, as they maintained, any emotions in disaccord with reason.
These emotions could not be in a wise or virtuous man if they arose
deliberately: while it would be possible for them to be in a wise
man, if they arose suddenly: because, in the words of Aulus Gellius
[*Noct. Attic. xix, 1], quoted by Augustine (De Civ. Dei ix, 4), "it
is not in our power to call up the visions of the soul, known as its
fancies; and when they arise from awesome things, they must needs
disturb the mind of a wise man, so that he is slightly startled by
fear, or depressed with sorrow," in so far as "these passions
forestall the use of reason without his approving of such things or
consenting thereto."
Accordingly, if the passions be taken for inordinate emotions, they
cannot be in a virtuous man, so that he consent to them deliberately;
as the Stoics maintained. But if the passions be taken for any
movements of the sensitive appetite, they can be in a virtuous man,
in so far as they are subordinate to reason. Hence Aristotle says
(Ethic. ii, 3) that "some describe virtue as being a kind of freedom
from passion and disturbance; this is incorrect, because the
assertion should be qualified": they should have said virtue is
freedom from those passions "that are not as they should be as to
manner and time."
Reply Obj. 1: The Philosopher quotes this, as well as many other
examples in his books on Logic, in order to illustrate, not his own
mind, but that of others. It was the opinion of the Stoics that the
passions of the soul were incompatible with virtue: and the
Philosopher rejects this opinion (Ethic. ii, 3), when he says that
virtue is not freedom from passion. It may be said, however, that
when he says "a gentle man is not passionate," we are to understand
this of inordinate passion.
Reply Obj. 2: This and all similar arguments which Tully brings
forward in _De Tusc. Quaest._ iv take the passions in the execution
of reason's command.
Reply Obj. 3: When a passion forestalls the judgment of reason, so as
to prevail on the mind to give its consent, it hinders counsel and
the judgment of reason. But when it follows that judgment, as through
being commanded by reason, it helps towards the execution of reason's
command.
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