Character and Reason

 There is a passage in the Summa Theologiae where Thomas Aquinas states that moral character conditions moral knowledge (Prima Secundae (I–II), Question 58, Article 5, where he discusses the relation between moral virtue and prudence). Aquinas writes: “As the Philosopher says in the Ethics (VI), such as a man is, so does the end appear to him.” This line is taken from Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics (Book III and Book VI). Aquinas then explains the point in his own words, which I will now put in mine. The idea is this: practical reasoning does not begin from neutral premises. In theoretical reasoning we begin from self-evident principles (like non-contradiction) or undoubted facts. But in moral reasoning the starting point is the good as it appears to the agent. And that appearance depends on the person’s character. If a person is virtuous, the true good appears attractive and intelligible. But if a person is morally corrupted, their perception of the good becomes distorted. Aquinas says very plainly that someone who is vicious can reason cleverly about means, but they cannot judge correctly about ends. That would be like a tone-deaf man trying to understand Bach or a blind man trying to judge about what color to use in a painting. That would be like me, who knows little about music, trying to tell an accomplished performer how to play a certain musical score. In other words, there would be no more point for my mother, a woman of very good character, to have a "rational" discussion about morals with a man of no character - like Trump - than for me to have a discussion about Special Relativity Theory with Einstein or about the interpretation of a Beethoven symphony with Herbert von Karajan or Leonard Bernstein. The reason, however, is not superior knowledge but superior character. Character enables understanding; it is the key that opens the door to moral insight. 

    So there is a structure involved in moral reasoning. Wisdom/prudence (practical reasoning participating in moral reality) requires moral virtue since virtue points our desires toward the true good. Without virtue, reason becomes instrumental cleverness.  Wisdom determines the right means toward that end. But if the end is wrong because the person’s desires are disordered, wisdom is occluded. This is why Aquinas also says elsewhere that sin can produce a kind of blindness of mind. Repeated wrongdoing gradually darkens one’s ability to perceive what is truly good. (This connects beautifully with the passage I cited in the previous entry from The Brothers Karamazov: “the man who lies to himself eventually cannot distinguish truth within or around him.” Dostoevsky dramatizes the same psychological and moral insight that Aquinas describes philosophically.)

       And this brings me back to the issue I raised in the previous entry about modern forms of reasoning shaped by social structures. If the formation of virtue weakens because communities no longer support stable habits of truthfulness, justice, and restraint, then practical reasoning itself changes. It becomes focused on strategy, preference satisfaction, and image management rather than on discerning the good. The classical tradition (Plato/Aristotle/Aquinas) holds that ethical knowledge depends on moral formation. And that is the claim modern moral philosophy often resists because it conflicts with the idea that reasoning should be morally neutral and universally accessible.  Moderns fear an unsettling consequence of this view: to see the good clearly, one must already be becoming good. That is not democratic.

. . .

    There is a second passage where Thomas Aquinas makes this point even more starkly (Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae (I–II), Question 94, Article 4, in his discussion of the natural law) (Aquinas inherits the core idea from Aristotle, who says in the Nicomachean Ethics: “Such as a man is, so does the end appear to him.”) The question Aquinas is addressing there is whether the natural law (i.e., the basic moral principles accessible to human reason can ever be erased from the human heart. His answer is that the most general principles of morality cannot disappear entirely. But in concrete situations, people can become unable to recognize what those principles require. He explains that this happens through corrupt habits, passions, and social customs. He writes that because of “evil persuasions” and corrupt customs, people can come to regard things as acceptable that are actually contrary to natural law. He mentions cases such as theft or violence becoming normalized within certain societies.

      The point is that repeated wrongdoing reshapes a person’s moral perception. What once appeared obviously wrong can gradually cease to appear wrong at all. In other words, the intellect does not simply float above our character. Our judgments about the good are shaped by our desires, habits, and the moral atmosphere of the community in which we live. He stresses that corruption of moral judgment can arise not only from individual vice but from shared practices and customs. That point connects with my previous entry. If the surrounding culture encourages image-making rather than truthfulness, consumer preference rather than moral formation, and short-term advantage rather than stable character, then the experience of moral goods itself can become darkened. People may still reason intelligently, but the starting point of their reasoning – i.e., the recognition of what is really good – has shifted from moral reality to ego-dramas. Another way to say that virtue, and especially the virtue of wisdom, is a precondition of understanding moral reality. And this is precisely what the defenders of the classical tradition feared: that reason would become instrumental, serving ends that are themselves disordered.

       This also provides some insight into characters like Ivan Karamazov. He is intellectually brilliant, yet his reasoning becomes trapped within a moral landscape already darkened by despair or rebellion. By contrast, Alyosha Karamazov perceives moral reality differently because his soul has been shaped by love and humility.

    So to reason well, to judge, and understand moral reality requires not only intelligence but a virtuous soul and a community that sustains that order. Without those conditions, moral reasoning does not disappear but it does become less able to see the good clearly.

p.s.

What I am doing here is partly to understand but partly to account for my own failures of character over the course of my life. Nothing I have written removes individual responsibility for character failures. But it does situate them in the human realm. We cannot be guilty in the same sense an angel could. This leaves space for forgiveness, that fact that none of us are little centers of absolute consciousness.