Whether in Giving Thanks We Should Look at the Benefactor's
Disposition or at the Deed?
Objection 1: It seems that in repaying favors we should not look at
the benefactor's disposition but at the deed. For repayment is due to
beneficence, and beneficence consists in deeds, as the word itself
denotes. Therefore in repaying favors we should look at the deed.
Obj. 2: Further, thanksgiving, whereby we repay favors, is a part of
justice. But justice considers equality between giving and taking.
Therefore also in repaying favors we should consider the deed rather
than the disposition of the benefactor.
Obj. 3: Further, no one can consider what he does not know. Now God
alone knows the interior disposition. Therefore it is impossible to
repay a favor according to the benefactor's disposition.
_On the contrary,_ Seneca says (De Benef. i): "We are sometimes under
a greater obligation to one who has given little with a large heart,
and has bestowed a small favor, yet willingly."
_I answer that,_ The repayment of a favor may belong to three
virtues, namely, justice, gratitude and friendship. It belongs to
justice when the repayment has the character of a legal debt, as in a
loan and the like: and in such cases repayment must be made according
to the quantity received.
On the other hand, repayment of a favor belongs, though in different
ways, to friendship and likewise to the virtue of gratitude when it
has the character of a moral debt. For in the repayment of friendship
we have to consider the cause of friendship; so that in the
friendship that is based on the useful, repayment should be made
according to the usefulness accruing from the favor conferred, and in
the friendship based on virtue repayment should be made with regard
for the choice or disposition of the giver, since this is the chief
requisite of virtue, as stated in _Ethic._ viii, 13. And likewise,
since gratitude regards the favor inasmuch as it is bestowed gratis,
and this regards the disposition of the giver, it follows again that
repayment of a favor depends more on the disposition of the giver
than on the effect.
Reply Obj. 1: Every moral act depends on the will. Hence a kindly
action, in so far as it is praiseworthy and is deserving of
gratitude, consists materially in the thing done, but formally and
chiefly in the will. Hence Seneca says (De Benef. i): "A kindly
action consists not in deed or gift, but in the disposition of the
giver or doer."
Reply Obj. 2: Gratitude is a part of justice, not indeed as a species
is part of a genus, but by a kind of reduction to the genus of
justice, as stated above (Q. 80). Hence it does not follow that we
shall find the same kind of debt in both virtues.
Reply Obj. 3: God alone sees man's disposition in itself: but in so
far as it is shown by certain signs, man also can know it. It is thus
that a benefactor's disposition is known by the way in which he does
the kindly action, for instance through his doing it joyfully and
readily.
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