Promulgation as the material cause seems like the one which is more of a stretch than the others. Is the posting a law in a town square for people to read really a material cause of something?
Jul 4·edited Jul 4Liked by Titus Techera, CJ Wolfe
Dear Chris, thanks for bringing this up; this has long (I mean "for decades") been an issue for me. To start with your last question first: in Q. 55, the definition of the essence of virtue, Thomas follows the track you lay out: he starts with genus-species thinking in the first three Articles, then in the fourth, he brings in the four causes. I take that to be an exemplary case of essential, that is, definitional, thinking in Thomas. When I encounter a Question with four articles, I assume/expect that Thomas will be attempting to define the subject, and do so, eventually, in terms of the four causes.
It doesn't quite work, however, in connection with the essence of law in Q. 90. I only see three of the four causes, and I see the efficient cause covered twice. I explain: I think we all agree that article one, an ordinance of reason, is the formal cause; and article two, on the common good, is certainly the final cause. That just leaves two causes to cover: efficient and material. But here's the rub. Promulgation certainly seems to be (an) efficient cause. But can "he who has care of the community" be the material cause? No. (I'll get to what I think the material cause is in a second.) It seems to me that three and four go together and together designate the efficient cause as a power (or office) and an act. That leaves the material cause. Well, what matter does law form? Human actions, insofar as they bear upon the common good. One can tidy up this last formulation, but it seems clear to me that the matter that law forms is human beings as agents, members of a perfect community, and their external actions, insofar as they bear upon the community's good life. As we learn later in the Treatise on Law, Thomas is very wary of legislating internal actions, as well as all of human morality, whether vicious or virtuous. He's the first Whig (I say to tweak any number of people who appeal to him for their "common good" agendas.)
Jul 5·edited Jul 5Liked by Titus Techera, CJ Wolfe
Dear Chris, greetings post-4th and post-Messi game.
As you might expect, I wasn't convinced by the answer one of your commentators gave. It didn't pass the smell test, it was too cute by half (or more), and he didn't do the first thing that I look for in an interloctutor: acknowledge an issue or difficulty. "It's simple, you just need to have attended the class of [an obscure] Fr. So-and-So," doesn't invite me to follow up discussion. To make promulgation the formal cause of anything, as I said, doesn't pass the smell test. Its place in 4th place in the argument "argues" against that as well, I believe. The formal cause in 4th place is counterintuitive.
As I thought about a way to open (or reopen) the discussion, the following came to mind, that we might pursue here. Start with the questions of each article, then look at how Thomas addresses and answers it/them. For example (and this is more than an example), article one asks, whether law is anything pertaining to reason? Aliquid rationis. That's an odd question. What about law prompted him to ask, I wonder/suspect that it has a relationship to reason? (I'd also note how unspecified the relationship is in the question, we're starting vaguely or, if I can prejudice the answer, generally. Aliquid rationis.)
When you start with the question, you look at, or read, the reply in a distinct way, precisely as an answer answering the question. In this case, one asks, while one reads the responsio, what was/is it about the phenomenon, law, that prompts the thought and question, does it pertain, somehow, to reason?
As you read the responsio, the feature of law that prompted the question, and its connection with reason, are laid out. Law is a regula et mensura, reason rules and measures. Clearly there's connection and overlap of some sort. (BTW: regula et mensura is an abstraction from the Aristotelian designation of the spoudaios as the kanon kai metron; in other words, Thomas is extended and abstracting the concrete Aristotelian formula and transferring it to law. There's something important in that, which one could ponder. That bye the bye.)
So we have law's feature, as a rule and measure of human action (pay your taxes by April 15th), and we have reason's work, ruling and measuring. What's the connection? Law's a specific form of rule and measure, there are many others forms, e. g., an Ikea assembly document, a recipe, a syllabus. Reason in its activity of ruling and measuring is the general, the genus, and law is a specific form. The obvious question becomes, what specifies law as a activity/product of reason's general ability to rule and measure? The obvious answer will be "the common good" as its defining end (although what the common good is, isn't obvious!). All this does not point in the direction of "promulation" as the formal cause of law. Rather, a regula et mensura is already quite formal.
In this connection, I would emphasize the other formulation in the article and the definition: an ordinance of reason. An ordering of/by reason. Ordo is already quite formal. It's a putting of parts into a whole, or means to an end (Cf. the Proemium to the Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics). Promulgation doesn't give it that order, it already has that formality.
Another objection. Looking ahead to his discussion of eternal law, Thomas teaches that law, first of all, or initially, exists in the mind (the ratio) of the Legislator. True, it needs to be applied to those subject to it, that's part of its - if you'll excuse the petitio or anticipatio - essence. But formally it is the summa ratio in ratione legislatoris existens, insofar as it orders a perfect community. Its a grand Plan ordering a community to its end, or ends. It comes as no surprise that later in the Question, Thomas finally denies that the reason of just anyone can legislate. No, legislation as a rational activity and product requires superior intellectual skills. Skills that can knit means to ends, that can order a heterogeneity of parts. All that is produced first in the mind of the Legislator.
A final note: ordinance of reason, an order of/by reason, necessarily raises the question, what's ordered? We've seen two answers: human actions and a perfect community.
I got around to reading an article by John Fruola, "Promulgation as the Formal Cause in St. Thomas' definition of law." Fruola asserts that the 4 cause framework is the appropriate way to interpret the definition of law- but says that three different versions are acceptable: his own favored interpretation that sees promulgation as the formal cause, the Budziszewski interpretation that sees promulgation as the material cause, and even a third interpretation by Fr. Thomas Gilby that sees the ordinance of reason part as the efficient cause.
Fruola says "the question about causes in a definition is not a question that admits of only one rational judgment, so there are ways that differing opinions arrive at some truth as well."
To me that's a pretty weak interpretation of Aquinas then- the 4 causes are in there somehow, but we can't say for sure which ones where. It's not determinative of anything then, except maybe that final causes and teleology are involved with the common good. But you could say that without applying the whole 4 cause framework and selling people on it when it's not clearly in the text
Promulgation as the material cause seems like the one which is more of a stretch than the others. Is the posting a law in a town square for people to read really a material cause of something?
Seems like the material cause of a law is the IDEAS that went into it
Dear Chris, thanks for bringing this up; this has long (I mean "for decades") been an issue for me. To start with your last question first: in Q. 55, the definition of the essence of virtue, Thomas follows the track you lay out: he starts with genus-species thinking in the first three Articles, then in the fourth, he brings in the four causes. I take that to be an exemplary case of essential, that is, definitional, thinking in Thomas. When I encounter a Question with four articles, I assume/expect that Thomas will be attempting to define the subject, and do so, eventually, in terms of the four causes.
It doesn't quite work, however, in connection with the essence of law in Q. 90. I only see three of the four causes, and I see the efficient cause covered twice. I explain: I think we all agree that article one, an ordinance of reason, is the formal cause; and article two, on the common good, is certainly the final cause. That just leaves two causes to cover: efficient and material. But here's the rub. Promulgation certainly seems to be (an) efficient cause. But can "he who has care of the community" be the material cause? No. (I'll get to what I think the material cause is in a second.) It seems to me that three and four go together and together designate the efficient cause as a power (or office) and an act. That leaves the material cause. Well, what matter does law form? Human actions, insofar as they bear upon the common good. One can tidy up this last formulation, but it seems clear to me that the matter that law forms is human beings as agents, members of a perfect community, and their external actions, insofar as they bear upon the community's good life. As we learn later in the Treatise on Law, Thomas is very wary of legislating internal actions, as well as all of human morality, whether vicious or virtuous. He's the first Whig (I say to tweak any number of people who appeal to him for their "common good" agendas.)
Thanks CJ & Paul, this is both timely & very clever -- happy 4th!
Fascinating. Has anyone in the "Natural Law" tradition taken the "Four Causes" approach . . . ??
Dear Chris, greetings post-4th and post-Messi game.
As you might expect, I wasn't convinced by the answer one of your commentators gave. It didn't pass the smell test, it was too cute by half (or more), and he didn't do the first thing that I look for in an interloctutor: acknowledge an issue or difficulty. "It's simple, you just need to have attended the class of [an obscure] Fr. So-and-So," doesn't invite me to follow up discussion. To make promulgation the formal cause of anything, as I said, doesn't pass the smell test. Its place in 4th place in the argument "argues" against that as well, I believe. The formal cause in 4th place is counterintuitive.
As I thought about a way to open (or reopen) the discussion, the following came to mind, that we might pursue here. Start with the questions of each article, then look at how Thomas addresses and answers it/them. For example (and this is more than an example), article one asks, whether law is anything pertaining to reason? Aliquid rationis. That's an odd question. What about law prompted him to ask, I wonder/suspect that it has a relationship to reason? (I'd also note how unspecified the relationship is in the question, we're starting vaguely or, if I can prejudice the answer, generally. Aliquid rationis.)
When you start with the question, you look at, or read, the reply in a distinct way, precisely as an answer answering the question. In this case, one asks, while one reads the responsio, what was/is it about the phenomenon, law, that prompts the thought and question, does it pertain, somehow, to reason?
As you read the responsio, the feature of law that prompted the question, and its connection with reason, are laid out. Law is a regula et mensura, reason rules and measures. Clearly there's connection and overlap of some sort. (BTW: regula et mensura is an abstraction from the Aristotelian designation of the spoudaios as the kanon kai metron; in other words, Thomas is extended and abstracting the concrete Aristotelian formula and transferring it to law. There's something important in that, which one could ponder. That bye the bye.)
So we have law's feature, as a rule and measure of human action (pay your taxes by April 15th), and we have reason's work, ruling and measuring. What's the connection? Law's a specific form of rule and measure, there are many others forms, e. g., an Ikea assembly document, a recipe, a syllabus. Reason in its activity of ruling and measuring is the general, the genus, and law is a specific form. The obvious question becomes, what specifies law as a activity/product of reason's general ability to rule and measure? The obvious answer will be "the common good" as its defining end (although what the common good is, isn't obvious!). All this does not point in the direction of "promulation" as the formal cause of law. Rather, a regula et mensura is already quite formal.
In this connection, I would emphasize the other formulation in the article and the definition: an ordinance of reason. An ordering of/by reason. Ordo is already quite formal. It's a putting of parts into a whole, or means to an end (Cf. the Proemium to the Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics). Promulgation doesn't give it that order, it already has that formality.
Another objection. Looking ahead to his discussion of eternal law, Thomas teaches that law, first of all, or initially, exists in the mind (the ratio) of the Legislator. True, it needs to be applied to those subject to it, that's part of its - if you'll excuse the petitio or anticipatio - essence. But formally it is the summa ratio in ratione legislatoris existens, insofar as it orders a perfect community. Its a grand Plan ordering a community to its end, or ends. It comes as no surprise that later in the Question, Thomas finally denies that the reason of just anyone can legislate. No, legislation as a rational activity and product requires superior intellectual skills. Skills that can knit means to ends, that can order a heterogeneity of parts. All that is produced first in the mind of the Legislator.
A final note: ordinance of reason, an order of/by reason, necessarily raises the question, what's ordered? We've seen two answers: human actions and a perfect community.
I agree Paul about the smell test on this interpretation- there's some dogmatism here, and therefore an opportunity to do more philosophy
I got around to reading an article by John Fruola, "Promulgation as the Formal Cause in St. Thomas' definition of law." Fruola asserts that the 4 cause framework is the appropriate way to interpret the definition of law- but says that three different versions are acceptable: his own favored interpretation that sees promulgation as the formal cause, the Budziszewski interpretation that sees promulgation as the material cause, and even a third interpretation by Fr. Thomas Gilby that sees the ordinance of reason part as the efficient cause.
Fruola says "the question about causes in a definition is not a question that admits of only one rational judgment, so there are ways that differing opinions arrive at some truth as well."
To me that's a pretty weak interpretation of Aquinas then- the 4 causes are in there somehow, but we can't say for sure which ones where. It's not determinative of anything then, except maybe that final causes and teleology are involved with the common good. But you could say that without applying the whole 4 cause framework and selling people on it when it's not clearly in the text
https://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A14%3A9863150/detailv2?