SOURCE: "Albertus Magnus and the Problem of Moral Virtue," in Vivarium, Vol. VII, 1969, pp. 81-119.

[In the following essay, Cunningham examines Albert's treatise on ethics, Do bono, arguing that the work displays an innovative concern with "the purely natural and human elements of morality."]

I. THE HISTORICAL SETTING

Within the intellectual upheaval that attended the appearance of Greek philosophical literature in the Latin West in the early thirteenth century, a special problem was put for Christian moralists when they were confronted by the theory of natural virtue contained in the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. Not surprisingly, Christian thinkers had been primarily concerned with supernaturally endowed perfections through which man could hope to achieve beatitude. In this preoccupation, however, they tended to ignore the question and indeed the very possibility of virtue naturally acquired. Albert the Great (1206-1280) appears to have been one of the first to respond enthusiastically to the challenge of Aristotle's Ethics; and the originality of his venture can be gauged by the extent to which in his own theory he included the purely natural and human elements of morality. Now as it developed, the problem of natural virtue in many ways was allied to the question of what constitutes the moral character of an agent's actions. Earlier thinkers, to be sure, had come to see, though gradually, that a number of factors are involved; but there was both in their theories and in their written presentations a noticeable absence of cohesion and unity. Albert's awareness of these problems and his response to them are evident in one of his early works. His contribution was nothing less than a methodical treatment of a number of moral distinctions, inherited from his predecessors, culminating in a causal grounding of those natural virtues which, in the career of moral speculation before him, had been so conspicuously ignored.

The De bono

Albert's innovations show up most strikingly in a relatively early work entitled De bono, written about 1240-1244 during his residence in Paris. It is worth remarking that at this time he was conversant with only fragments of the Nicomachean Ethics: the Ethica vetus, comprising a Greek-Latin translation of Books II and III, the Ethica nova containing a Greek-Latin translation of Book I, and a few excerpts from Books VII and VIII. The De bono, therefore, reveals only a partial knowledge of Aristotle's ethics. It was also written early in Albert's career, nor is it his only or latest publication in this field. Yet by contrast to this other writings it enjoys a number of merits which make it a primary source for an appreciation of his own moral philosophy in its organic outlines.

Prior to the De bono Albert had undertaken to write the Tractatus de natura boni which remains unpublished to this day. The Tractatus, abandoned in considerable disorder far short of its projected aims, is an awkward and premature attempt to erect a comprehensive synthesis of the natural and supernatural perfections. His experiment in this direction was resumed with greater success in the De bono. The moral sections in Books II-IV of Albert's Scripta super sententias (written from 1245-1249), while admittedly providing a valuable source for this thought, stand as so many separated components of a comprehensive presentation of theology. In the Scripta, Albert is not concentrating exclusively upon morals alone, but rather composing a theological summa along lines laid down ninety years earlier by Peter the Lombard. Finally, Albert is the author of two full-fledged commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics, In works of this nature, however, the arrangement of the material is not Albert's but Aristotle's. To put it in other words, neither of these commentaries necessarily reflects the controlling principles of organization according to which Albert would frame his own moral treatise.

By contrast, the De bono is neither a commentary nor part of a theological summa. Though it is incomplete, what we have is the first part of a projected synthesis of moral doctrine in which Albert devotes himself to an investigation of the natural principles of morality prior to an examination of the supernatural virtues. Since he wrote in a form inspired by the medieval academic disputation, Albert was free to assemble his material according to principles of his own formulation and choice. Indeed, in the early articles Albert carefully establishes a number of broad metaphysical principles which dictate both formal and material aspects of his theory of virtue. Being an independent and exclusively moral synthesis, the De bono is our best source for tracing his theory of natural virtue in its consecutive development.

Briefly, the work opens with a metaphysical disquisition on the 'good' (bonum, bonitas) and the physical good (bonum naturae). The implication, clearly stated in one of Albert's later commentaries, is that we cannot move into the area of moral goodness unless we first understand the notion of goodness. Metaphysics proper is followed by sections dealing respectively with the causes of virtue and the nature of virtue in general. The major and remaining part of the De bono is composed of four tractates each of which deals with one of the cardinal virtues (virtutes cardinales, virtutes politicae) in the following order: fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice. The final treatise on justice contains a revolutionary treatment of natural law theory.

Pre-Albertinian Theories

The full significance of Albert's theory of human virtue as elaborated in the De bono stands out against the background of his contemporary and earlier writers. That history, as Dom Odon Lottin did so much to demonstrate in his monumental Psychologie et Morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, was a rich and highly variegated complexus of interlocking themes and tensions. For our purposes, two facets of that history are especially relevant. There was first of all a tendency among most writers to restrict extensively the moral worth of human acts to the level of supernatural virtue and merit. The second facet of this overall history concerns itself with the development in theories about the nature and number of factors contributing to the moral specificity of human acts.

A) The problem of moral worth

Apropos of the first problem, Lottin has remarked time and time again that prior to St. Thomas Aquinas there was a conspicuous tendency among medieval writers to confuse the moral goodness of acts with supernatural merit. Underlying this confusion was the implication that the only kind of moral perfection is that which derives from a divine infusion. That is, instead of merit being visualized as a property resulting from the morally good act, it was confusedly made the condition. Since these Christian moralists favoured an almost exclusively supernatural perspective, there resulted theories of moral neutrality, so to speak, at the natural level of human conduct. Now since the time of Peter Abelard in the early twelfth century, the moral specification of human acts was, in varying degrees, explained by the agent's intention. And as it developed, the only kind of good intention was one rooted in charity and directed by faith. One might not be surprised to discover this attitude running through a theological literature which was largely preoccupied with the principles contributing to man's salvation. But the result came to be that little if any value was laid upon naturally acquired virtues which, by themselves, would admittedly be insufficient to insure supernatural beatitude. Seen through the higher medium of theological virtues (faith, hope and charity), the natural cardinal virtues (fortitude, temperance, prudence, justice) appeared to be little else than essentially incomplete and imperfect qualities. In short, they were not moral virtues. In St. Albert's own time, this line of thought culminates in a theory held by some Franciscan theologians, notably John of Rupella and St. Bonaventure, who viewed the human act, taken at the level of nature, as being essentially indifferent even though it be a deliberated act. Lottin insists that this confusion between moral goodness and merit arose in large measure from faulty organization. "The principal cause of this in the twelfth century", he writes, "was the inclusion of treatments on virtue into a doctrine of grace."

The widespread confusion, diagnosed by Lottin, between natural and supernatural moral perfections stems largely from a manual of theology widely read at that time, the famed Sentences of Peter the Lombard. Published between the years 1153-1158, the work is a compilation of extracts gleaned from scriptural and patristic sources to which are adjoined Peter's own comments and explications. As to its architectonic structure, Peter follows a plan already adhered to in the works of some of his immediate predecessors, namely, the order of the Apostolic Creed. In two different places within this framework he has inserted moral treatises: in Book II within the context of sin, and in Book III following the treatise on Christ. Yet in either section no room is made for a treatment of the natural acquired virtues as such. True, in Book III following the chapter on charity and preceding those on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Peter cursorily mentions the four cardinal virtues, but these are clearly conceived as divinely infused perfections. By the same token, he steers clear of any philosophical approach to moral virtue. Indeed, not only in reference to this particular matter, but throughout the entire work, it has often been remarked that there is a noticeable absence of the principles and precisions of philosophy. Symptomatic of this attitude is "a notion of virtue which is plainly theocentric and Augustinian". From passages in St. Augustine's De libero arbitrio, the Lombard culls a definition of virtue which is really Peter's own amalgam of St. Augustine's words and the Augustinian idea of the gratuitous nature of grace: bona qualitas mentis, qua recte vivitur, et qua nullus male utitur, quam Deus solus in homine operatur. The exclusively divine origin of virtue is even more apparent when one of the Lombard's disciples, Peter of Poitiers, supplies his own interpolation to the definition in order to stress the moral inefficacy of man: Virtus igitur est qualitas mentis qua recte vivitur, qua nemo male utitur, quam Deus in homine SINE HOMINE operatur.

Commenting on the Lombard's definition, Lottin once again has occasion to remind us of the subsequent tendency in the twelfth century to equate the goodness in human acts with supernatural merit. The result was either to ignore or to minimize the value of natural virtue, and to regard the Christian perfection of charity as the only genuine cause of goodness.

That Peter the Lombard's Sentences could be so influential in this respect becomes evident when we stop to consider that a major proportion of speculative theological literature in the next two centuries consisted of works which, in varying degrees, were modelled upon the Sentences. These writings, whether they be Scripta or the later and more independently wrought syntheses known as Summae, tended to perpetuate the original defect in Peter's Sentences. No one can deny, of course, that there was a progressive increase in the attention and space given to moral speculation. There were even new materials inserted into the traditional Lombardian framework. But the bits and pieces of each man's moral theory generally remained scattered and disconnected. In the wake of Peter the Lombard, then, the emergence of moral treatises showing a logical consecutiveness and organization was slow to materialize. Moreover, in commenting upon this late appearance of systematized moral treatises, Lottin also indicated the scarcity of any such treatments until the third and fourth decades of the thirteenth century. As the earliest and most noteworthy experiments in this direction he cited the Summa aurea of William of Auxerre (written about 1220-1225) and Philip the Chancellor's Summa de bono (completed before 1236). Oddly enough he did not mention St. Albert's De bono, yet the dates and authors cited bring us almost to the eve of its composition. Up to this time, the continuity of the Lombardian framework as well as the privileged authority of the Augustinian definition of virtue tended to discourage any positive recognition of the natural dimension in morals.

B) The multiplicity of moral elements

In diagnosing the prevailing conception of moral worth prior to Albertus Magnus, we have seen the position given by medieval thinkers to their moral sections within the wider structure of their theological syntheses and the effect this had upon their theories of virtue. There is still another dimension to the historical context, this time involving attempts made both to identify and to correlate the elements which contribute to the moral specification of human acts. What factors, elements, or principles are necessary to constitute a morally good action? How many are there? Assuming that several are required, what are their inter-relationships and interdependencies?

With respect to the identification of these principles, there is a pertinent passage in St. Albert's De bono wherein he states that in a morally good act a plurality of elements is required. He enlists the authority of Pseudo-Dionysius who says:

… in Chapter IV of Concerning the Divine Names that 'the good is constituted by a total and single cause, but that evil originates omnifariously'. By this it is understood that for the reality of virtue there are required all the circumstances together with the end harmonizing with the act as it is brought to bear upon its proportionate object. For evil and vice, however, the corruption of any one of these by itself is sufficient.

The same doctrine is reiterated in Book III of Albert's Scripta super Sententias:

It must be said that good and evil in acts are not caused in only one manner, but that the good, as Dionysius says, is caused by a total cause that is one. That is, in the constitution of the good act all the circumstances and the end and the agent's intention must coincide. It is caused only when all of these are simultaneously present in the manner of an integral whole which is made up of all its parts taken together at once. Evil, however, as Dionysius says, derives omnifariously, that is, from the corruption of any particular part, just as an integral whole is broken up when any one of its parts is destroyed. And so it is that there is no good act without a good intention, but it is not made good solely by the intention.

Throughout his lifetime, Albert seems to be quite consistent in this regard. Supported by a statement of the Neo-Platonic author, Pseudo-Dionysius, Albert insists that moral goodness, more specifically virtue, derives only from a total synthesis of all the elements involved, namely circumstances, the agent's intention, the end, and the act itself. The corruption of any one of these constituents vitiates the act. In the Sentences, Albert admits that intention plays a major rôle in the moral determination of acts, but it is not the sole feature.

We have briefly anticipated the Albertinian position merely to indicate one stand taken in the history of this problem. Prior to Albert's arrival in Paris, however, this particular problem had been vexing moralists for over a century. Albert's words are certainly a far cry from those written a century earlier by that intrepid figure of the twelfth century, Peter Abelard. In his relatively short treatise entitled Ethics, or Know Thyself written about 1135, Abelard distinguishes between an external human act (opus) and the intention which precedes it. The term 'intention' connotes a determination or consent of the will to perform an external action. That is, it is an internal act of the will distinguishable from other natural undeliberated tendencies. Now, external acts in themselves are morally neutral: their moral goodness or turpitude accrues to them solely from our interior act of consent which precedes them. As long as consent is withheld, a disposition to evil or weakness cannot be called evil. On the contrary, if weakness is conquered it serves as an occasion for merit. The pleasure accompanying a sinful act does not augment its turpitude. As for the physical act it-self, it is morally indifferent. Killing a man may be committed accidentally, that is without consent, in which case it could scarcely be called evil. In short, the morality of external acts is a borrowed one, and identical with that of the intention. God does not weigh the things we do, but rather the spirit in which we perform them.

As if anticipating future indictments of propounding a radical moral subjectivism, Abelard attempts to place the morality of intention on a more objective footing. It is not enough, he says, that one's intention seem good; it must really be good by conforming to God's will. Otherwise, he observes, the acts of non-believers would be good like ours, since they too believed that their works were pleasing to God.

Even after the condemnation of his theories at the Council of Sens in 1140, Abelard still clung to his position. External acts are morally indifferent. He is prepared to admit that virtues and vices are essentially good and evil in themselves, but the relationship of these to the act itself is far from clear.

It is too easy to brand Peter Abelard as a radical moral subjectivist and to let it stand at that. What is often overlooked is that his position stems from a reaction to legalistic moral doctrine. In the penitential and canonical literature of the times, it was common practice to codify acts according to their conformity or opposition to law. In opposition to this excessive legalistic objectivism, Abelard had emphasized the rôle of individual intention, but to such a degree that he had seriously undermined all objective basis for morality.

In the next hundred years and more, the doctrine of intention ran a torturous course due in large measure to the initial imprecision of its vocabulary. Suffice it to say that with few exceptions later moralists were prepared to recognize the primacy of intention in the moral determination of human acts. The problem was not so much this, however, as to supplement Abelard's simplistic theory of intention with other moral principles which would ground the morality of acts upon a solid and objective footing. It was this search, originally sparked by the Abelardian crisis, which partly accounts for the growth of moral speculation in the next century and a half. Efforts were made to define morality in terms of certain rationally discernible features in the human act itself; and early overtures to a philosophical approach to virtue represent one facet of this doctrinal evolution. In addition to the discovery and enlistment of new principles, of course, there still remained the problem of integrating them into a logically consecutive and cohesive account.

A first significant step in the post-Abelardian movement is found in Peter the Lombard's Sentences. Peter enlists no less an authority than St. Augustine to confirm his thesis that certain acts are intrinsically bad and that no degree of good will or intention can erase their turpitude. This stand constitutes a positive reaction to the Abelardian thesis. End, or intention, is not the sole determinant of morality. Independently of it, some acts are evil in their very constitution (per se mala, per se peccata); that is, they are objectively evil. Intention, the Lombard admits, determines the other kinds of external acts. An act inherently good, for instance, may be vitiated by a bad intent.

Moreover, in speaking about acts, different levels or kinds of goodness are discernible. All actions are ontologically good in their very nature (essentia sui). Unlike Abelard, the Lombard feels that some acts may also be classified as objectively good. Feeding the hungry, for instance, in addition to possessing ontological goodness, is what he calls 'genere bonus' because it belongs to that class or genus called works of mercy. This generic goodness, though somewhat broad and indeterminate, is independent of the intention; it is objective. Nevertheless, it is still inferior to the perfectly good act which, in addition to possessing the goodness of essence and its class, issues from a good intention and is directed to a good end.

The end which Peter the Lombard has in mind is supernatural, namely charity or God. On the other hand, rather than refuse all goodness to the actions of non-Christians who lack faith and charity, he allows for a goodness of intention at the purely natural level. The extension of the notion of the good will allow for this, he says. Without contradicting it, he refers, to one theory which says that operations aimed at the alleviation of natural wants and the welfare of one's relatives or neighbors are morally good. The statement, however, reads in a spirit of concession. To account for moral goodness in acts, Peter reasons mainly within a supernatural perspective.

By partially extending the notion of goodness beyond the rigid limits imposed on it by Abelard, the Lombard indicated certain lines along which subsequent theories of the morality of acts evolved. Henceforth, moral speculation was characterized by analyses of additional elements which, over and above intention, contribute to the moral specification of acts. In the writings of one of the Lombard's disciples, for instance, a new and important dimension was added. Circumstances, said Peter of Poitiers, in some way influence the character of our acts and must be taken into consideration. The point was only mentioned in passing; it received no further development. But the formula "bonum ex circumstantia" continued to reappear often in later writers even though its rôle was never clearly defined. One must wait until St. Albert's De bono for the first full-fledged treatise on circumstances.

By the early decades of the thirteenth century it was not uncommon for writers to discern several levels or moments of goodness in the human act. The following formulae appear with increasing frequency: bonum naturae or bonum naturale referring to the physical reality of the act; bonum in genere, bonum ex circumstantia, bonum virtutis politicae, and finally the goodness of supernatural grace—bonum gratiae. The formula bonum in genere, since the time of Peter the Lombard, generally signified the objective goodness of a class of actions. Albert's immediate predecessor, Philip the Chancellor, through an ingenious application of the hylomorphic theory, interpreted it to mean a natural fittingness between an act (say, feeding) and its object (a hungry man). Yet its status as a moral or non-moral feature was left ambiguous.

This evolving awareness of the multiplicity of elements involved in the morality of human actions may be taken as an index of the development in moral theory at this time. And yet, at the same time, this complexity in the data of the problem was scarcely attended by any kind of apparent cohesiveness. Amidst this plurality of factors, some kind of intelligible synthesis was wanting. This in turn would presuppose clearly defined relationships between the various elements involved. In short, there was need for systematic integration. Albert's De bono was written in response to this need.

II. ALBERT'S METAPHYSICS OF THE GOOD

It would exceed the scope of this [essay] to attempt a thorough analysis of Albert's metaphysics of the good even as contained in the De bono. There are, however, three salient metaphysical themes which must be kept in mind since they determine his theory of virtue.

A) Goodness and Appetition

In the opening article of the De bono where in Albert reports three definitions of the good, he credits Avicenna with defining the good as the "undividedness of act from potency" (indivisio actus a potentia). Throughout these early articles, Albert identifies the notions of perfection and completion (actus, complementum) with that of the good. This is apparent in the definition imputed to Avicenna which is clearly an attempt to express the absolute without enlisting something yet more ultimate. Though seemingly negative, the definition affirms a positive reality, the nature of the good in itself, this being a unity between any kind of potency or avidity and its corresponding perfection (actus). The 'act' in question, however, does not stand simply for the operation performed by some being, nor for the fulfilment which is added to that same being by its substantial form. The notion of perfection here is rather one of fulfilment and completion which accrues to a thing from the attainment of its end. The allegedly Avicennian definition, then, truly expresses the proper nature (propria ratio) of goodness, namely, an identity with end (indivisio finis).

All things, from inanimate bodies to intellectual agents, desire the good at proportionate levels of appetite. On the one hand, there is 'perfect appetite' which is always accompanied by some form of cognition or apprehension. There is also 'natural appetite' which is universally present in all beings, and

… which is nothing else than the aptitude and inclination of that which is in potency towards perfection. This is in all things, and by this is meant what is said, 'that the good is what all things desire', just as the Philosopher at the end of Book I of the Physics says that matter desires form as the female the male and evil the good.

The desire for the good among some things may be no more than the inclination of the imperfect towards perfection, but this entitative willingness is rooted in all beings. At the heart of each and every nature is a desire for goodness. Correlatively, it is the very quintessence of the good to be desired, if not cognitively and actively, at least according to this innate propensity. Only goodness can be desired, or at least that which is apprehended as being good (in ratione boni ut hunc).

God is the primum or summum bonum. All created goods, even though standing as certain perfections in themselves, are nonetheless defective in comparison to God who is the source of all goodness. Their goodness owes its presence to an influx of perfection from the supreme good; and the universal desire inherent in all things is simply a desire for this influx of perfection. Or to put it another way—and this time Albert is consciously exploiting the Neo-Platonic doctrines of St. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius—all things are good by participation in the sense that the first good or exemplar is reflected (relucet) in created goods. Exemplarism tells us the mode of presence. Albert rejects any attempt to visualize this participation as a direct sharing in the nature itself of the supreme good. Rather, participation is taken to mean that each thing, possessing as it does a certain finite and particular instance of goodness, is somehow reducible to the efficacy of the primum bonum as the cause of this goodness. As a particular instance (ratio particularis) of goodness, it only mirrors the supreme goodness. What is really possessed is created goodness (ratio boni creati), and this as particularized in individuals through their differences and matter.

B) The analogical Nature of Goodness and Appetition

In no way, then, can goodness as some sort of common nature be predicated univocally of an infinite God and the universe of finite creatures. On the contrary, to explain the unity in goodness between the summum bonum and creatures, as well as among created goods themselves, the principle of analogy is introduced by Albert, more precisely that type of analogy which is called a community of proportionality:

To the fourth objection it must be said that that good which all things desire is not reducible to one species or to one genus, but to a community of proportionality in such wise that a distinction obtains between proportion and proportionality … And so we say that the proportionality and commensuration of all possibles in relation to a perfecting end is one, and the end of all things in this proportionality is one, and so too is the appetite which inclines to the end.

It must be said that there is a community of proportionality, as was established earlier, which is reduced to the third mode of analogy. For although there is not one end which every good attains as its fulfilment, nevertheless there is one end beyond the order of creation to which every good inclines according to its power. And this end is the highest good. Other goods are not good unless they derive from it and tend back to it.

All creatures, in desiring their own particular perfections, are really moving towards a perfecting end which, by a community of proportionality, is one. This is the same as saying that every thing has some kind of natural inclination towards goodness. More than once, Albert points to the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius who has said that, corresponding to the different levels of nature and appetition discernible in the universe, there results a hierarchy of degrees in which perfection is shared by creatures. Intellectual and rational beings desire the good knowingly; sentient creatures reveal a desire for the good in their sensible appetites; other living things without sense, desire the good by their innate urge to live; and finally, inanimate creatures tend to the good in their mere inclination to participate in being. All this is to say that creatures, by a movement commensurately one, desire an end which is also proportionately one: goodness. Now, we have already seen that the absolute instance of goodness is God, the summum bonum. Even though all creatures do not actually attain to Him as their complementum, nevertheless He is the absolute end, beyond the order of creation, towards which all of creation is drawn according to diverse specific powers and natures. What creatures achieve on this natural level, of course, is not a part of God, but rather a certain instance of created goodness.

The principle of analogy and the doctrines of Pseudo-Dionysius coalesce in Albert's explanation of the relationship between creatures and God. The result is a universe conceived in Neo-Platonic fashion as a hierarchy of beings which derive from, and are tending back towards, an infinite good. Each thing desires and shares in goodness according to the level of its nature and powers. Our general concept of the good is broad enough to accommodate every instance of the good, both finite and infinite, since predication is made analogically in each case.

By enlisting the principle of analogy, Albert has bestowed upon the notion of goodness a flexibility and unity which hitherto was missing in pre-Albertinian thinkers. Application of the principle ensures the reduction of all the various degrees and kinds of goodness to a more overall intelligible unity. Moreover, what has been said of the good in general will be no less applicable to the elements of moral goodness proper: all these in some way will connote a perfection and an "undividedness of act from potency". Each of them, in view of this analogical similitude, has a certain intelligible setting within the more comprehensive notion of bonum.

The notion of the innate appetency for perfection in creatures dovetails with the Albertinian doctrine of being. Every created being in some way is a composition of potency and act. Hence, it is not entirely destitute of goodness, but only relatively so. Yet if each thing possesses a certain degree of perfection, it still remains susceptible to additional increments. Reiterating the conceptions of the Liber de causis, Albert says that stability in being (fixio et permanentia) accrues to created things through an influx of the good. When they have incorporated the desired perfection, beings are perfected in their very nature.

The terms 'influx', 'participation', and 'information' all convey the same idea. For Albert, goodness is scarcely a remote ideal or standard which creatures merely imitate. Rather, it is seen as a perfective element which has been incorporated and shared in by the creature. As an interiorized perfection, inhering intimately within the thing, it consummates a corresponding potency or need thereby fulfilling the created nature in its very being. This is why the Avicennian definition of the good, "the undividedness of act from potency", most truly characterizes the quintessence of goodness.

C) Causal Explanation of the Goodness of Creatures

The problem of the relationship between created being and the good does not end here. In Article Seven of the first Question in the De bono, Albert boldly confronts the classic dilemma voiced by Boethius in his De hebdomadibus. In this tractate, Boethius had raised the question how natures or substances, from the very fact that they exist, are good, since they can scarcely be called absolute goods. If, as St. Albert has already done, we are prepared to admit that each and every being is not entirely devoid of goodness, but only relatively so, would this not lead us to equate the being of creatures (esse) with their goodness (bonum esse)? In this article Albert undertakes to clear up this dilemma.

Boethius had urged that the substantial being of creatures may be called good since it derives from and participates in the Prime Good in whom goodness and being are identical. The solution offered by Boethius, Albert admits, is 'imperfect and obscure'. To clarify Boethius' answer one must invoke a theory of causes. In a vocabulary highly redolent of Avicenna, Albert begins by observing that nothing can exist (esse in effectu) except by a cause since the effect owes its whole being to an antecedent cause. Now the four Aristotelian causes—form, matter, final cause or end, and efficient or agent cause—fall conveniently into two groupings or arrangements. Form and matter, which we may also designate as act and potency or quo est and quod est respectively, are intrinsic principles or constituent causes of a being. The end and efficient causes are its extrinsic causes. These combinations coincide in the production of being. The end or final cause exists in the agent cause as that which is intended (per intentionem); the form exists potentially in the matter (per potentiam). The final cause is the highest of all the causes; it is the 'cause of causes'. Though completely unmoved and immobile in itself, it nevertheless moves all the other causes. As that which is desired, it effects motion in the efficient cause, and this in turn induces the material principle or 'that which is' to receive the form. With this hierarchical arrangement of the causes, Albert feels prepared to interpret the relationship between the being of creatures and their goodness. The being is given them by the efficient cause which moves the matter to the reception of form. The goodness, on the other hand, derives from the end which moves the efficient cause as an object of desire and intention. According to their absolute and abstract consideration, the being and goodness of creatures, therefore, cannot be equated. They may be identified only through mutual inherence in one and the same subject or supposit. Goodness and being, or if you will, nature, are not identical although in reality they are inseparable.

It seems obvious, therefore, that for Albert any explanation of the good and its reference to being merely in terms of the traditional doctrine of participation does not suffice. All this does is to indicate the kind or type of presence. Over and above this, one must explain, why, and how, such a presence by participation is effected, i.e., a causal explanation and knowledge of the good is required. To account for the origin of goodness in creatures, then, one must ground his explanation on the four ultimate causes of Aristotle. This solution to the Boethian dilemma becomes a significant methodological principle. When Albert comes to treat of moral goodness, its various elements will be systematically integrated according to this hierarchy of Aristotelian causes.

III. THE CAUSES OF MORAL VIRTUE

In the Tractatus de natura boni, Albert had commenced his moral disquisition proper by pointing out a certain disjunction between the order of nature and the human moral order. Some things are not caused by human beings such as the created things in this world; other things, however, are caused by us, namely our voluntary acts of which we are the masters. Now just as in nature there is one primary thing—matter—which serves as the subject for additional forms, so too in our moral voluntary actions there is a primary subject in potency to further moral specifications which is called bonum in genere. The bonum in genere, Albert adds, is simply the human act brought to bear upon its proportionate object: actus solus super materiam debitam. For instance, the act of feeding a hungry man, abstracting from those particular circumstances of time and place which surround the act, may be called bonum in genere. Bonum in genere, therefore, designates the first moment of goodness in the order of morality, and it is subject to further increments of moral perfection.

At the corresponding point in the De bono, that is, immediately after the short disquisition on bonum naturale, Albert commences his moral section by distinguishing between the two main orders of moral goodness: bonum consuetudinis and supernatural grace. 'Consuetudo' or 'consuetudinalis'—terms found in the Ethica vetus—were employed by mediaeval writers to designate moral virtues acquired at the level of nature. For Albert too they connote moral excellence won through the repetition of acts. In this treatise, bonum consuetudinis comprises three levels or types of moral perfection: bonum in genere, the moral determinations of circumstance (bonum ex circumstantia), and virtue (bonum virtutis politicae). These divisions are taken over by Albert. Earlier writers had coined these formulae, and tradition sanctioned them. There is no attempt at this point to justify the classification by explicitly invoking a hierarchy of potencies and corresponding degrees of perfection such as Philip the Chancellor had done, but it is evident that this same scheme is operative here as well.

These first three degrees of perfection are natural, rationally discernible elements in the morality of acts whose investigation logically precedes the order of divinely infused goodness. A number of statements in the De bono clearly indicate that an elaborate study of the perfections of the supernatural order would follow as part of the De bono. The De bono, then, heralds a noticeable departure from the traditional procedure adhered to in mediaeval treatises: there is to be a treatment of natural virtue outside the context of grace and preceding a disquisition upon the supernatural virtues. This is possible because the De bono is a work patterned independently of the Sentences of Peter the Lombard. We may therefore anticipate a treatment of the acquired virtues more consonant with their natural status.

Indeed, all through this work Albert appears to be cognizant of the difference between the two moral orders. For instance, bonum in genere, he tells us, is still immediately susceptible to the more specific moral determinations of virtue. This latter superadded determination is still in potency to merit. Moral specificity, therefore, is already discernible on the natural level, and prior to the order of merit. Grace, in turn, the condition of merit, neither destroys nor dispenses with nature, but rather, as its 'most connatural' excellence, raises it to its highest state of perfection.

A) The moral status of rational, voluntary actions

Bonum in genere is clearly included into the moral order. Even though its status as a moral factor was not always clear among pre-Albertinian scholars, these same authors from the time of Peter the Lombard generally regarded it as the first consideration in any discussion of morality. Now, in Albert's treatise, the first article in the specifically moral section is devoted to an analysis of bonum in genere. In spite of this, however, Albert admits that the absolutely first consideration in moral speculation is not really the bonum in genere, but the voluntary act abstractly considered as such:

The absolutely first thing in morals, however, is that which is susceptible to the condition of praise, which is virtue, or the condition of blame, which is vice, and this is the voluntary act brought to bear upon its object following choice and deliberation. For this act is susceptible to either of the contraries, and equally so. Bonum in genere, however, does not signify the absolutely first principle in morals, but rather something ordered to one of the contraries, that is, to the good of virtue.

Here we have a precision which seems to be absent from the earlier Tractatus. The voluntary act as such, a deliberated act bearing upon a definite object, is an abstraction distinguishable from the bonum in genere. It is the act seen as being equally susceptible to the conditions of good or evil. Bonum in genere is really the same act, but now as having a certain ordination or determination to subsequent moral goodness.

Does this mean that the voluntary act is morally indifferent? The question is explicitly raised in Article Seven of Question Two: "Whether in voluntary acts there is anything indifferent such that it be neither good nor evil in genere or concretely (in specie)?" This is indeed a perplexing problem in the moral philosophy of Albertus Magnus, and a certain imprecision in his writings makes it difficult for us to arrive at a definite solution. When he explicitly raises this question in Article Seven, he seems to have in mind the concrete individual act. In the last text quoted from Article Four, wherein the voluntary act is depicted as being equally susceptible to either good or evil, he was speaking of actions in a general and abstract manner. Abstractly conceived, the voluntary act could be viewed both as the absolutely first moment in the moral order, as well as morally indifferent in itself since it is equally open to good or evil.

The opening arguments of Article Seven preceding Albert's own magisterial resolution mention two possible kinds of morally indifferent acts: the vain or futile act (vanum), and the useless or idle act (otiosum). A definition of the vain act Albert takes from Aristotle's Physics: it is that which is a means to some end, but which falls short of that end. Now, that which is vain is condemned by Holy Scripture (Psalms 4, 3) wherein it is written "Why do you love vanity and seek after lying"; and so this kind of indifferent act ranks among those acts which are sinful. The definition of the idle act is taken from St. Gregory the Great's Moralia: "the idle is that which lacks the character of rightful necessity or dutiful service". It is also condemned as sinful in the Gospel of St. Matthew (12, 36) when Christ states "that of every idle word men speak, they shall give account on the day of judgment". On the basis of Holy Scripture, then, it would seem that these so-called morally indifferent acts in effect are evil acts.

Albert the Great does not seem entirely opposed to this line of reasoning. In his reply, he begins with a distinction between the theologian's position, and that of the moral philosopher. According to the Christian theologian, no deliberated voluntary act is morally indifferent because he knows that all our actions should issue from charity, that is, from a love of God. Charity, an infused perfection by which we incline to God, is a universal virtue (virtus … generate movens) moving us to the acts of all other virtues. The moral philosopher, on the other hand, philosophizing beyond the pale of faith and Scripture, is ignorant of any such universal virtue presiding over the economy of the moral life. He knows only of a specific number of acquired virtues, each of which has a defined and limited moral influence. At this level, then, it appears that indifferent natural acts are possible, indifferent because they lack the information of charity.

According to St. Albert, then, the testimony of Holy Scripture adds a new dimension to the morality of acts of which the philosopher is unmindful, and this is the reference which all human actions, external as well as internal, have to God. "Not everything futile", continues Albert, "is condemned by the moral philosopher, but everything futile is condemned by the theologian"; and so at one point, he classes the futile with the evil.

The idle act, as defined by St. Gregory, is also an indifferent act, and it too is condemned by the Christian theologian. But in direct contrast to certain contemporary Franciscan authors, notably John of Rupella, Albert in Article Seven goes on to show what the otiosum is not. Now, as Lottin has pointed out, the Franciscan thinkers of this time regarded any act directed to a natural end as morally neutral. This is particularly evident in the writings of John of Rupella who had said that those acts which are aimed at the daily necessities of living, such as nourishing one's self, are neither good nor bad; they are indifferent. In opposition to this attitude, Albert goes on to state that any act directed to the alleviation of our own natural exigencies or the pressing needs of others does indeed have the "character of rightful necessity" (ratio iustae necessitatis), and so is not indifferent. These purely natural exigencies arise from the daily necessities of life and the toil of labor. Hence the activities of eating, drinking, sleeping, are not indifferent since they procede from natural necessities; they fall within the moral order. This applies also to the comforts of peace and rest, conversation, strolling, singing and play, which dispel the tedium and fatigue of labor. For support Albert appeals to a passage in the Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristotle treats of wittiness or urbanity (eutrapelid) as a virtue.

There is another very important dimension to this problem of the morality of acts. Every deliberated action is good or bad:

… we say that many things are done without deliberation and these are neither indifferent, nor bad, nor good because they do not fall into the sphere of morality. Whatever things are done with deliberation, however, are good or bad, according as the futile act (vanum) is called evil.

Here Albert is pointing out the key principle of rational ethies: reason is the indispensable condition of morality, while a non-rational act is simply non-moral, that is, neither good, bad, nor indifferent. But as far as we can gather from his words, the futile action is still a deliberated or rational act. It is also an indifferent act whose full significance escapes the moral philosopher, but which the theologian recognizes and so classifies among evil acts. In the realm of natural ethics, then, it is possible to have a concrete deliberated, but indifferent, act. The principle that natural reason is that which essentially constitutes an act as moral is not accepted unconditionally by Albert. In the final analysis, the rôle of reason is found wanting; unlike the universal virtue of charity, it does not universally initiate the moral character of all our natural acts, and so must be supplemented by the data of the theologian.

Concerning the morality of acts, then, Albert's theory betrays not only a certain ambiguity, but also a qualified acceptance of the rôle of reason as an adequate determiner of moral specificity. At the same time, it is important to note that Albert is attempting to validate and emphasize, to a greater extent than any of his predecessors, the purely rational and natural factors in the morality of acts. Every naturally virtuous act is a morally good act. Every rational act is a moral act (with the added stipulation that futile or idle acts are evil). In relation to his predecessors and contemporaries, Albert's position represents an advance. At the same time, he falls short of St. Thomas for whom all rational acts are ipso facto moral. Lottin has aptly characterized St. Albert's position as a "michemin sur la voie d'une morale strictement naturelle".

B) The material cause of virtue: bonum in genere

Like the absolute consideration of the voluntary act, bonum in genere is also an abstraction. It signifies this same human act not as being in a state of absolute indetermination or equal liability to good or evil, but more positively as having an inclination or disposition to the good. Albert calls it a 'first potency' to the good. He also refers to bonum in genere as the 'matter' and the 'materia circa quam' which, over and above the concept of matter, includes as well a certain reference to the end of the act. At the same time, it is the 'first subject' which receives and supports the added determinations of circumstance and virtue.

It seems obvious, then, that not unlike Philip the Chancellor, Albert is conceiving bonum in genere as the material cause of virtue.

To the standardized description of bonum in genere—actus solus super debitam materiam—Albert adds a new precision which is helpful to the modern reader who is apt to find the term 'debitum' both strange and misleading. At this point in the thirteenth century, 'debitum' had a strong juridified ring arising from its traditional associations with the notions of law, right (ius) and a legalistic conception of justice. Albert, however, under the influence of Philip the Chancellor's interpretation of bonum in genere, uses the term in a meta-juridical sense: and he warns us that in this context the notion of debitum is not to be taken in a specific sense as the debitum iustitiae. The main purpose of these early questions in the De bono is to render an intelligible account of the nature and genesis of moral virtue. Hence, if the debitum in question were the debitum iuris which derives from justice (as yet uninvestigated), we would be caught in a circular argument by trying to invoke a special virtue in order to account for virtue in general. No, the debitum here connotes a natural and right proportion between the act and its corresponding material object: for instance, feeding a hungry person, or teaching an ignorant person, or consoling a sorrowful person. It is a proportion between two natures, as it were. Hence, as the first degree of moral goodness founded on a proportion, bonum in genere appears as a true instance of the transcendental good which, we recall, analogically embraces all instances of goodness through a community of proportionality. Conversely, malum in genere signifies a privation of this proportion.

In the history previous to Albert, the formula bonum in genere is characterized by a certain ambivalence. Sometimes it was viewed as a positive perfection, the first in a series of moral perfections. On the other hand, it was given an almost entirely indifferent status in which it was regarded as equally liable to corruption by subsequent circumstances. Both themes are still discernible in the De bono. The bonum in genere is a first potency, matter and subject with respect to specific moral goodness. It is the act seen as having a disposition to goodness in the same way that matter has a disposition to form. Albert also admits that it can be specified and vitiated by circumstances. However, this possibility of change in the morality of an act by circumstances, from bonum in genere to malum in specie, does not constitute its essence: it is more of an accidental property. The true essence of bonum in genere is its inherent disposition or proclivity to goodness— ad bonum magis quam ad malum. The indifference is a by-product, so to speak, of the relatively indeterminate moral status of bonum in genere. What is essentially indifferent is the voluntary act abstractly conceived.

C) The Formal Cause of Virtue: Circumstances.

In the history of moral speculation in the Middle Ages, Albert's Tractatus de natura boni seems to have been the first known instance in which a distinctive treatment is given to the rôle of circumstances. Question three of Tractatus I in the De bono is devoted to the same analysis. The inclusion of these treatises within the Tractatus and the De bono is an innovation. No longer is bonum ex circumstantia just a formula mentioned in passing, one whose own status as a moral factor, and whose relationship to the other moral factors, remains in obscurity. On the contrary, Albert's recognition of their function as a necessary cause in the genesis of virtue has finally prompted the inclusion of a treatise on the circumstances within the wider scheme of a natural ethic.

In this section of the De bono, Albert relies heavily upon passages from Cicero's De inventione and the De differentiis topicis of Boethius. All the circumstances enumerated by Cicero, writes Albert, are reducible to seven main headings: agent or person (quis), the nature of the act, or what was done in the performance of the act (quid), intention, motive, or reason for the act (cur), the time (quando), the place (ubi), the manner of performance (quomodo), and finally the means or instruments involved (quibus auxiliis). This enumeration, in effect, is a convenient abbreviation of Cicero's long catalogue made by Boethius, and used and commented upon by Albert. The Universal Doctor, of course, would know the six major circumstances listed by Aristotle in Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics which partially coincide with the seven headings just listed; but in the present section, Albert seems to prefer the testimony of Cicero and Boethius.

A better name for circumstances, Albert points out, is 'singularia' because the moral philosopher is primarily concerned with concrete actions which are immersed in individuating conditions, and not simply with problematic or rhetorical questions. Indeed, Albert insists upon the difference between circumstances and 'singulars'. Strictly speaking, circumstances are universal or general considerations which are extrinsic to the act, and which give rise to the rhetorical syllogism and question. 'Singulars', on the other hand, are numerically particularized differences which characterize, and attach to, each and any act. One is universal and extrinsic to the act; the other is real and, as we shall now see, intrinsic to the act's morality. Nevertheless, in deference to tradition and for the sake of convenience, Albert continues to use the term 'circumstances' when what he really means is 'singulars'.

Circumstances inform our acts with the being of moral goodness (honestum) or evil (vituperabile). They do not constitute the ontological nature of the act as such, but they do confer upon it a moral being. Hence, although extrinsic to the act as such, they are nevertheless intrinsic components of its morality:

To the first argument, therefore, we say that these qualifying principles (talia) do not give being to the act inasmuch as it is an act, but rather they give it being inasmuch as it is good or evil. And for this reason, although they are extrinsic to the act, they are not, however, extrinsic to moral goodness or evil.

… circumstances … give being to virtue and they are intrinsic to virtue …

It is clear that St. Albert draws a line between the act conceived as a psychological entity, and its moral accidents, so to speak. Morality is something superimposed, a quality tacked on to the nature of an external act. It does not permeate the act as in St. Thomas for whom the 'human act' is through and through a 'moral act'. At this crucial point, then, Albert, not unlike many earlier and contemporary thinkers, seems to regard the physical and substantial core of a human act as being essentially infra-moral. The point is worthy of note if only to indicate one more instance in the enduring history of the factvalue distinction.

The 'circumstance' quid, however, raises some difficulty. Inasmuch as it designates the kind or nature of the act performed (e.g., adultery, homicide), then surely it must connote the very 'substance of the act'? In his replies to this objection, Albert does not altogether deny that this one circumstance connotes the essence or physical subtrate of an act. But this connotation is secondary and minimal. He emphasizes the fact that what quid really designates is the moral species of the act, that is, the act (together with its material object) as enveloped in, and specified by, circumstances. It primarily points up the moral character of an act which is constituted by circumstances. Albert appears unwilling to allow quid any more than an oblique signification of the physical act itself.

Good and evil, therefore, accrue to the agent and to his behaviour not so much from the act as such, but from the manner in which the act is performed. Circumstances are modes or ways of acting which inform the act with its moral character:

The being of moral goodness, moreover, derives from the manner (in which the act is performed) rather than from the act itself in such a way that all the circumstances may be called 'the manner'. And this is made clear by Aristotle in Book II of the Ethics where he says that 'we are not just and temperate because we perform just and temperate acts, but because we act as just and temperate persons do (ut iusti et casti)'.

Albert cites Aristotle who says that it is not simply the performance of just and temperate acts which make us to be so, but rather our acting in the manner of those who are just and temperate. The ut of ut iusti et casti in this text signifies the mode of circumstance, and not the habitus of virtue itself. Obviously, I do not act already with the virtues of justice and temperance since it is precisely these which we are in the process of trying to account for. Virtues, at this point, are not the conditions of good acts, but the result of morally good acts.

Circumstances, then, inform our actions with moral specificity when they actualize the potency towards goodness (i.e., the bonum in genere) which is in these acts. Indeed, it becomes apparent that Albert envisages circumstances in the rôle of formal causes of an act's morality. This formula has actually been suggested in the opening arguments of Article One: "… it does not seem that these should be called circumstances, but rather forms of the act … Therefore, it seems that circumstances constitute the act as a formal cause". Albert does not dismiss this proposal. His only rejoinder is that these circumstances are not the intrinsic causes of the physical act as such, but of its moral character. That is, they are the formal and intrinsic causes of natural virtue.

In describing circumstances as the 'modes' or 'forms' of our acts, Albert has followed out a line of reasoning suggested by the vocabulary of Philip the Chancellor. Moreover, for Albert, the element of cur, the agent's intention, is included within the catalogue of circumstances. It is that for the sake of which the deed is performed, and so a cause of that operation. Now, in the De bono, Albert really raises the problem of intention only once; this is in the answer to an objection, and so the treatment is very brief and incomplete. He mentions two kinds of intention. First, there is a 'simple intention' which sets up an end, but which does not take into account the quality of the means, or of the end itself, or the proportion between the means and the end. This, Albert says, is a 'foolish intention' (intentio stulta). The other kind of intention is one informed and directed by faith. This is the theological notion of intention prevalent in Albert's time, and whose inspiration was Scriptural. The objection itself refers to a passage from St. Matthew's Gospel (12, 35): "The good man from his good treasure brings forth good things". The treasure of a man's heart, continues the objection, is his intention, and it is this which determines the moral quality of acts, and which God will judge. Albert, moreover, must certainly have had in mind the divinely orientated intention of which St. Paul speaks (Romans, 14, 23): "for all that is not from faith is sin".

Is no other kind of intention conceivable? The issue at stake once again, of course, is the reality and degree of natural moral goodness in the moral philosophy of Albertus Magnus. Does Albert admit to an intention which, though not informed by faith, is nevertheless able to assess the value of some end and the relationship of the means to the end? Surely the fact that thinkers of antiquity recognized and used this circumstance cur, which Albert himself has equated with the term 'intention', would suggest that in spite of an absence of positive recognition by Albert of a purely natural intention in the present passage, he does not in his own mind exclude the possibility. Yet, with special reference to this passage, Lottin believes this is absent from Albert's thought.

The brevity of this particular passage would seem to reflect hesitancy on the part of Albert himself. Nevertheless, this same brevity is significant in its implications. For a complete analysis of his theory of intention, Albert refers us to another work, namely to Book II of his Scripta super Sententias. This would seem to indicate that in his mind the theological notion of intention, one informed by charity and faith, is out of place in the present discussion. The circumstances are formal causes of virtue. To invoke an intention informed by faith and charity would nullify the purpose at hand: namely, to render an account of the genesis of natural virtue. Then too, in a later section of the De bono, he makes the statement that the natural virtues may be distinguished from the theological perfections on the basis of naturally and supernaturally orientated intentions. It seems clear, then, that some understanding of a natural intention is operative in the moral philosophy of St. Albert, a natural intention expressed by the term cur.

Must all the circumstances coincide in the formation of virtue, or does one suffice without the others? In answer to this problem, Albert leaves no doubt that all the circumstances are involved, although one or more of them may play a prediminant rôle. At this point he credits Aristotle and Pseudo-Dionysius with the following doctrine: "virtus est ex una tota et sola causa, vitium autem omnifariam"1. Virtue results from a total convergence of all the elements or causes involved, whereas the corruption of any one of these suffices to account for evil. The wording of this statement is not only a curious amalgam of statements by two different authors; there is also a distortion in vocabulary. Dionysius had said that the good (bonum) is characterized by a wholeness or completeness with respect to its causes. This is consonant with Albert's own general conception of the good as a virtual whole. In the present context he ties it down to virtue which is a specific kind of goodness. In Albert's mind, then, virtue presupposes a convergence of all the circumstances.

Up to this point, Albert has analyzed the intrinsic causes of virtue; and the account is structured in terms of the principles enunciated in the preliminary metaphysical discourse, Both circumstances and bonum in genere are analogical varieties of goodness. Bonum in genere, resulting from a fusing of two relatively indeterminate principles, namely, an action and its proportionate object, is a natural instance of the good. In their real and concrete setting, circumstances inhere in the bonum in genere as in their subject. The same kind of affinity which generally unites act to its correlative potency obtains here as well. As formal or modal elements proportioned to the potency of the act, circumstances endow it with moral specificity. The goodness which results from this 'indivision' is the specific goodness of virtue.

At the same time, we should not forget that these two factors have been treated as abstractions. Since they are distinguishable aspects of the moral act, we are justified in abstracting them from their proper concrete setting in order to give each a separate and distinct consideration. In reality, however, they exist only as integrated components of the individual act.

D) The 'Matter' of Virtue

In his general metaphysics of the good, Albert had made it clear that any account of the genesis of goodness must also include efficient and final causation. The final cause, as an object of desire, moves the efficient cause which, in turn, moves the matter to a reception of forms. Question Four of Tractatus I which is devoted to an analysis of the efficient causes of virtue shows clearly that Albert is faithfully adhering to this principle. Article One of this same question, however, contains a discussion of what is called the 'materia virtutis'. Having already treated of the bonum in genere which is described in terms of 'matter', one might be surprised to see the same term and problems cropping up again. As it turns out, however, the formula 'materia virtutis' in its present context is a far more comprehensive notion than that used to describe bonum in genere. Furthermore, this article has been prompted by certain statements in the Ethics of Aristotle in which it is said that acquired virtue has to do with pleasure (voluptas, delectationes) and pain (tristitia). If such is the case, then virtue should be situated and studied in reference to these connatural passions. But since they are really the proper domain (materia) of fortitude and temperance, this would seem to limit the definition of moral virtue to only these two, there-by excluding at one blow prudence and justice from the moral order. Some sort of clarification is wanting.

In the formula 'materia virtutis', not one, but several distinguishable factors are welded together. Some understanding of the complexities involved is given by those texts in the De bono which most significantly contain some allusion to the term 'materia'. It is found to embrace (a) the materia debita, better still, the act itself taken at the level of bonum in genere. Yet over and above this, it also includes reference to (b) the agent's intention and the end, and (c) man's appetitive powers together with their concomitant feelings of pleasure and pain. At the same time, materia virtutis is really something completely individualized: the concrete act immersed in, and clothed by, all its moral circumstances, factors, and concomitants, and brought to bear upon a proportionate object. The formula 'materia circa quam' is employed as an equivalent.

In the solution to Article One, Albert explains that all acts and powers of the soul are differentiated by their corresponding objects. This is no less true of virtuous actions. The proximate object of the moral act is its moving cause or terminus (movens, finis), and what this does is to specify the indeterminate movement of the will pervading any particular act. The element of finality—the most decisive feature in morality—prevails over this entire network. Necessarily, bare matter without reference to an end would fail to adequately differentiate human acts and their proportionate qualities. In this way, the terms 'obiectum', 'finis', 'opus', 'materia', and 'materia circa quam' are all intended to convey the same function of determination and specification. In most cases, the end or terminus is simply the operation itself as virtuous; in the case of justice, it is a result (operatum) distinct from the operation. Regardless of the type, it belongs to the very nature of these objective ends to essentially determine the kind of virtue in each concrete act.

Now, our external acts are performed through bodily organs, and at the same time they are accompanied by affections or feelings (passiones) of pleasure and pain. These acts and their concomitant sensations issue directly from the sensible soul, that is, from the irascible and concupiscible powers of man's soul. Hence, Albert agrees that virtue may be situated 'circa passiones' and 'circa delectationes et tristitias'. But at the same time, such statements taken simply as they stand would not adequately define the province of virtue since they ignore the other factors involved, and especially a reference to the primary factor of the final cause. Over and above the mere notion of passion, as we have seen, one must take into account the end or object of these appetitive powers, and indeed the entire complexus, as signified by the term 'materia'. Hence, because the specification of natural moral virtues is not arrived at merely by their reference to the passions, then by speaking analogically (differenter) we may say that prudence and justice are also referable to them.

"Matter of virtue', therefore, is a comprehensive formula intended to circumscribe virtue in its real and concrete setting. It is, to put it simply, a comprehensive view of the virtuous act in all its moral relations. Instead of connoting merely one aspect or facet of the moral act, it signifies rather a totality of factors or complexus. Now, it is from its nature as an integrated whole or complexus, and not from this or that particular element, that the human act receives its moral specification, i.e., virtue. In this way virtue reflects the condition of totality which characterizes the Pseudo-Dionysian theory of the good:

… and blessed Dionysius agrees in Chapter Four of Concerning the Divine Names in saying that 'the good is constituted by a total and single cause, but evil originates omnifariously'. By this it is understood that for the reality of virtue there are required all the circumstances together with the end harmonizing with the act as it is brought to bear upon its proportionate object. For evil and vice, however, there suffices the corruption of any one of these by itself.

The formation of virtue entails all the circumstances and the end which are proportioned to the act. This is consonant with the statement of Pseudo-Dionysius, and so falls perfectly in line with the Albertinian vision of the good as something whole and complete.

E) The Efficient Causes of Virtue

By situating the virtuous act in a much wider context, Article One has shown that the formation of moral goodness rests upon a plurality of converging elements: the act itself, end, circumstances, the powers of man's soul, and the accompanying affections of pleasure and pain. The account of the genesis of virtue up to this point, however, has dealt only with two intrinsic causes. A complete examination must also include the active or efficient causes of morality, and the final cause. The following seven articles of Question Four are devoted to an analysis of the efficient causes of virtue. In dealing with this problem as well as the notions of free choice, voluntariness, and deliberation, Albert relies heavily upon the Ethics of Aristotle. The integration of this material worked out at this particular point in the De bono is really an innovation. In the traditional Augustinian conception of virtue with its emphasis upon the exclusively divine origin of virtue, no such causal explanation was really called for. St. Albert, however, is concerned with virtue acquired through our own natural acts, and so the inclusion of these considerations within his general doctrine of virtue is both necessary and consistent.

Five positions are suggested in Article Two which would call for a direct supernatural intervention to explain the cause of natural virtue. In his answer to the question raised, however, Albert outlines the natural setting and origin of moral virtue. It is directly and immediately caused by the exercise of human acts (ab opere). Within our nature lies an innate power or ability to develop these perfections. The capacity is innate, not the full-fledged virtue itself which must be cultivated by a repetition of acts. In the solution to Article Two, he goes on to say that this purely natural ability to generate virtue cannot be conceived as something purely material and passive. Over and above this, one must distinguish its active and immaterial components: right choice (eligentia recta) which is combination of right reason (recta ratio) and will. Right reason, Albert tells us, consists in the correct discernment of the mean to be observed in our operations. In other words, our inherent capability to perform virtuous acts ultimately stems from our faculties of reason and will. Hence, he concludes, nature is not only a material or passive cause, but in some way it is also the efficient cause of virtue.

Albert goes on to say that the efficient cause of virtue is the operation seen in its dynamic activity (in agere) and not simply in its physical being (in esse) since this substratum is really outside the moral order. A helpful analogy is that of manual labourers who develop those special limbs they use in their work to greater and stronger proportions than other men. So too in the case of virtue; its most efficacious cause (potissima causa) will be that immediate power of the soul which is called into play. Operations by their very nature issue in virtue. On the other hand, the bare performance of actions without a conscious attendance to the particular conditions or circumstances involved would not really be an immediate efficient cause of virtue. At most it could only be called a remote cause. As we shall see, such actions would, to a certain extent, be involuntary by reason of this ignorance. Hence, just as the formal cause of virtue requires and presupposes the material cause, so too the operation as the efficient cause of virtue, if it is to be an adequate and direct cause of the virtuous act, entails the formal cause of circumstances.

Virtue is described as being a 'potential whole'. Now, in any such whole no one part completely constitutes the whole. Rather, the first part or component is necessarily presupposed by a second, and so on. It is, as Albert says, in potency to subsequent augmentation: semper prior materialis ad sequentem. Hence, in the generation of virtue many distinct acts are required. From the first operation a certain disposition accrues to the soul and likewise this disposition is in potency to the superimposition of a second, and so on. In itself, a disposition lacks the stability and permanence of a virtuous habit. It is easily displaced (facile mobile). But by a process of moral metamorphosis, so to speak, many successive dispositions are welded into a habit. No definite and exact number of operations can be assigned to this cumulative development.

So much for the proximate efficient cause of virtue. In Albert's attempt to circumscribe this notion of efficient cause operative in the moral order, the next step is to ascertain the remote efficient causes. Such causes are remote because, as in the case of voluntariness or deliberation, they precede the exercise of the final human operation which itself immediately issues in the formation of virtue. In his introductory preface to this section, Albert observes that, since human operations are voluntary, then it behooves us to analyze this notion of voluntariness. This can be thrown into relief by starting with negative considerations, that is, by contrasting it to that which is involuntary. Articles Three and Four, therefore, deal with the involuntary; Article Five establishes the positive nature of voluntariness.

In the ensuing discussion, Albert relies heavily upon the doctrine of Aristotle. There are two kinds of involuntariness. Some acts are involuntary by reason of an external violence or compulsion worked upon the agent. Other acts are involuntary through ignorance. The ignorance in question is of the circumstances conditioning the act. This may also be called 'ignorance of the fact' (ignorantia facti) according as the deed (factum) is taken in its real and concrete setting, and as including the particular circumstances in which it is immersed. Once again, then, knowledge of all the circumstances is an indispensable condition of the voluntary act.

By this contrast to the kinds of involuntariness, Albert is now able to establish positively the nature of a voluntary act. Two conditions are involved: first, the moving principle of the act must be within the agent himself, and in this way it escapes the impediments of the act which is exteriorly coerced. Secondly, the agent must be aware of the particular circumstances of the action, and in this way it is opposed to involuntariness through ignorance.

The second section given over to a study of the remote causes of virtue, includes another three articles in which special consideration is devoted to the nature of choice (prohaeresis, eligentia), deliberation (consilium), and the difference between these and will. Since we are primarily concerned with virtue which is a species of the good, considerations about will and voluntariness in general are insufficient. We must know more in detail about the catenation, as it were, of the individual acts which precede the formation of virtue. Voluntary goodness (bonum voluntarium), which is the object of the will, lacks determination; it is the good as such, the good absolutely conceived abstracting from any particular type or instance. The particular acts of deliberation and choice which immediately issue in virtuous operations also have this good ultimately as their end, but not as their immediate and proper object. Rather, they are directly ordered to particular instances of the good, i.e., the means to the end. Moreover, in the case of deliberation, we cannot say just any means, but rather those means whose usefulness are open to question. Still, we cannot even say all debatable means, but more precisely those which we discern by reason as being helpful in the attainment of the end. We then desire what has been ascertained as useful.

Choice, then, is not simply a power belonging exclusively to the will. Just as the will compenetrates with reason, so too the element of reason or intellect is indispensable to choice.

A final and necessary characteristic of choice is that we be the masters of these actions: 'actus quorum nos domini sumus'. In all our moral acts we are sufficient agents. In this respect, however, one must distinguish between acts and their resultant habits. Aristotle, writes Albert, has said that we are the masters of our individual operations from the beginning of the act to its completion. As to the habit or virtue generated by these acts, however, the same is not entirely true. We are the masters of habits at their inception. But since it is impossible for us to ascertain just how much of a contribution each operation makes to the formation of a habit, then we are to a certain extent 'involuntary' in their possession.

F) The Final Cause of Virtue: Happiness

Hitherto, Albert has discussed the material, formal and efficient causes of virtue. Even though there are indications that a treatment of the final cause of virtue was to be included in the De bono, no distinct question or treatise dealing with this mode of causality is to be found. The notion of finis, however, appears often enough in this moral treatise, and so we are able to arrive at some understanding of the meanings which Albert gives to this term.

In his preliminary metaphysics of the good, Albert had argued that the good analytically includes a reference to end: of its very nature, the good is that which is desired. The notion of end, therefore, is necessarily analogical or, if you will, as flexible and relative a notion as the good itself. Within any particular order or perspective, it always connotes that which is ultimately willed or desired. In general, writes Albert, one can distinguish two kinds of final causes: a proximate or immediate end which is intended in one act, and the remote or ultimate end intended in all, or in a series of acts. This is true both of the order of nature as well as of the moral order. In the latter, the proximate end or object would be that complexus known as the 'matter of virtue' or materia circa quam, the human act seen in all its dynamic complexity, which specifies and differentiates the various virtues and vices. The remote end, which is not intended merely in one act or in one virtue, is man's final end: happiness or beatitude.

Another distinction, partially overlapping the first, is that of 'end of the act' (finis operis) and 'end of the agent' (finis operatis). 'End of the act' signifies the immediate object of a particular action. In the case of bonum in genere, it would be the proportionate object (debita materia) of the act in question. In some cases, such as adultery, an act is malum in genere, and regardless of the agent's intention or other circumstances it can never be made good because the 'end of the act' is itself something evil. 'End of the agent', on the other hand, obviously designates the agent's motive or intention. In contrast to 'end of the act', it usually connotes a more ultimate goal. Virtue, according to Albert, may be regarded either as the 'end of the act' or the 'end of the agent' depending upon which way we choose to look at it.

Since there is no question or section in the De bonodevoted to man's last end, it is difficult to reconstruct adequately Albert's thought on this point. Like the earlier Tractatus de natura boni, the De bono was to include such a treatment. The Preface to Question Four clearly proposes this move: after a detailed analysis of the natural virtues, we are to expect a disquisition upon "the end and perfection of virtue which is happiness." Both works, however, were abandoned in an incomplete state and so fall short of this proposed endeavor. Consequently, in the De bono we are left with only a few scattered and cursory remarks about this.

Whether we choose to call it happiness (felicitas) or something else, Albert says in one text, is not our present concern. Apparently precisions in doctrine and terminology were to be made later on. Inasmuch as it is the end, it is the absolute good (bonum honestum), and so something desired for its own sake. There are several statements, however, in which Albert distinguishes between happiness (felicitas) as that to which the virtues are essentially ordered, and 'eternal beatitude'—man's supernatural destiny—which is not possible without grace and meritorious works. Felicitas viae, on the other hand, is another phrase used by Albert which seems to connote that kind of happiness known or experienced by non-Christian thinkers (philosophi) who philosophized without the benefit of faith, and who lacked grace.

There are additional texts in the De bono which point to a fundamental relationship obtaining between the virtues and this concept of happiness. Happiness, we read, is a perfection but a dynamic perfection (actus) of the soul which is consequent upon the possession of all the perfected virtues. The presence of one complete and perfected virtue does not suffice, but rather the possession of each and every natural virtue is required in the attainment of happiness. In this respect, prudence plays an important rôle. With reference to happiness, Albert says that it enjoys a 'more excellent act' because it guides us to the primum bonum, God, wherein the greatest happiness is found. Nevertheless, not just prudence, but all the virtues, are essentially ordered to, and consummated in, happiness. Happiness, then, is truly the end and perfection of natural virtues in relation to which they stand as so many necessary steps or means.

The texts seem to show that Albert understood quite well the Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia through and in the virtuous life; but for all this, the De bono gives only a sketchy idea about the final end of man. In spite of this reticence, however, a significant feature of Albert's thought comes to light. It concerns his method of procedure. Happiness is that in which the virtues culminate. As so many necessary steps or means in the acquisition of happiness, their treatment would seem logically enough to precede the analysis of happiness.

IV. CONCLUSION

At this point Albert's account of the genesis of natural moral virtue terminates. The next question, Question V of Tractatus I, rounds out general moral considerations with an enquiry into the essence of virtue in general. The preceding articles, beginning with bonum in genere and ending with the passages on choice and deliberation, are clearly an attempt to render an intelligible account of the origin of the humanly acquired virtues. This undertaking is an innovation. The Augustinian definition of virtue which attributed all moral excellence to a divine infusion made such an enquiry seem superfluous. St. Albert, however, distinguishes between the order of acquired perfections and those which are divinely infused; and since the former accrue to man through his own agency, an investigation into their origin is in order.

In his account, Albert draws upon an established vocabulary; and yet his concern for methodological rigor can be seen in his program to interpret and to integrate these inherited distinctions in terms of principles enunciated in his preliminary metaphysics of the good. Thus, bonum in genere is a first instance of goodness grounded in the natural proportion between an act and its object. Viewed in this light, it enjoys a certain unity, but it still remains in potency to further completion and actualization through the formal determinations of circumstances. The resulting goodness is that of virtue which, as Albert demonstrates in later sections of the De bono, manifests itself in various modalities. In this way, bonum in genere, circumstances and, of course, virtue, are established as genuine though analogical varieties of goodness.

The enquiry, moreover, is causal, and in this way conforms to the principle established earlier by Albert that any enquiry into goodness must be framed in terms of the four Aristotelian causes. Elements traditionally included in moral treatises fall into this framework. Bonum in genere and circumstances emerge as the intrinsic causes of virtue. Incomplete expressions of this doctrine, to be sure, are found in Philip the Chancellor, but the consecutive and unified elaboration of this theory originates with Albert himself. For the first time too, room is made for a brief but distinctive treatment of the rôle of circumstances. A new treatise is also devoted to the efficient cause of virtue. Here the inspiration is quite evidently Aristotelian, and Albert relies heavily upon the doctrine and vocabulary of the fragmentary versions of the Nichomachean Ethics. The incompletion of the De bono robs us of a more thorough treatment of the final cause of virtue.

This whole section, indeed, exemplifies the naturalist and humanist strains in Albert's ethical theory. Critical of a univocally theocentric conception of moral worth, Albert attempted to enlarge the area of human moral efficacy by making man the responsible agent in the generation of his own natural excellences. Though a certain unresolved gap is noticeable in his conception of the physical structure of the human act in relation to its moral determinations, it is still true to say that for Albert nature, through its human potentialities, becomes a real and significant cause of moral values.