Whether Drunkenness Excuses from Sin?
Objection 1: It would seem that drunkenness does not excuse from sin.
For the Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 5) that "the drunkard deserves
double punishment." Therefore drunkenness aggravates a sin instead of
excusing from it.
Obj. 2: Further, one sin does not excuse another, but increases it.
Now drunkenness is a sin. Therefore it is not an excuse for sin.
Obj. 3: Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 3) that just as
man's reason is tied by drunkenness, so is it by concupiscence. But
concupiscence is not an excuse for sin: neither therefore is
drunkenness.
_On the contrary,_ According to Augustine (Contra Faust. xxii, 43),
Lot was to be excused from incest on account of drunkenness.
_I answer that,_ Two things are to be observed in drunkenness, as
stated above (A. 1), namely the resulting defect and the preceding
act. On the part of the resulting defect whereby the use of reason is
fettered, drunkenness may be an excuse for sin, in so far as it
causes an act to be involuntary through ignorance. But on the part of
the preceding act, a distinction would seem necessary; because, if
the drunkenness that results from that act be without sin, the
subsequent sin is entirely excused from fault, as perhaps in the case
of Lot. If, however, the preceding act was sinful, the person is not
altogether excused from the subsequent sin, because the latter is
rendered voluntary through the voluntariness of the preceding act,
inasmuch as it was through doing something unlawful that he fell into
the subsequent sin. Nevertheless, the resulting sin is diminished,
even as the character of voluntariness is diminished. Wherefore
Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 44) that "Lot's guilt is to be
measured, not by the incest, but by his drunkenness."
Reply Obj. 1: The Philosopher does not say that the drunkard deserves
more severe punishment, but that he deserves double punishment for
his twofold sin. Or we may reply that he is speaking in view of the
law of a certain Pittacus, who, as stated in Polit. ii, 9, ordered
"those guilty of assault while drunk to be more severely punished
than if they had been sober, because they do wrong in more ways than
one." In this, as Aristotle observes (Polit. ii, 9), "he seems to
have considered the advantage," namely of the prevention of wrong,
"rather than the leniency which one should have for drunkards,"
seeing that they are not in possession of their faculties.
Reply Obj. 2: Drunkenness may be an excuse for sin, not in the point
of its being itself a sin, but in the point of the defect that
results from it, as stated above.
Reply Obj. 3: Concupiscence does not altogether fetter the reason, as
drunkenness does, unless perchance it be so vehement as to make a man
insane. Yet the passion of concupiscence diminishes sin, because it
is less grievous to sin through weakness than through malice.
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