Medieval Philosophy
Boethius extra stuff
Previdentia means something that is known about the future, whereas in this case it is not only the future at stake, God knows past, present, and future at the same time.
Abelard ”Ethics of Intention”
Called the so-called 12th century Renaissance. Lay people and monks could study.
The idea that God sees all things, God sees our intentions therefore too. And as such, the intentions we have in doing things is very important.
Lived during different period than Boethius, much later, 1079-1142/44. Famous tragic love story with Heloise.
From the point of view of the culture of intellectual life at the time, we have different schools of the 12th century which are not the universities. The universities are generally founded 1 century after. At this point it is the so-called cathedra schools around bishophrics. The main cultural institution at this time was the monastary. Abelard was a so-called wandering scholar. It basically means a master of some studium, for Abelard logics. He wandered among different schools in the north of France where he could teach his doctrine and his logics, whilst also learning from other masters. We know in his life thanks to his so-called historia calamitatum, history of my misfortune. One of the things he did was fighting with a lot of different masters.
Abelard meets a laywoman called Heloise, who was Abelard’s pupil. Abelard was hired by Heloise’s uncle to teach her philosophy. They ended up having a love-affair, she became pregnant, and she got married to Abelard. Heloise wasn’t actually that interested in marriage. Heloise’s uncle feared that Abelard wasn’t serious, so he castrated him. After the castration Abelard became a monk, and Heloise also becomes a nun. They had a beautiful correspondence with each other. The tragedy continues in that after Abelard becomes a monk he continues to write theological texts, but was contemned for heresy. They were at least burried together in Paris.
He uses the tools of logic in theology in many of his writings.
Abelard was fascinated with lust, you see it a lot in his examples.
Moral imputability/appraisability, how do we judge that an action is morally good or bad?
Where is the moment at which we can say that an action is bad or good. What is morally determining?
For Abelard, it is more or less entirely related to the intention of the act.
Abelard, much like Augusine, says that evil is more like nothing. It has no ontological consistency. He directly quotes Augustine in the text.
How are they different?
The only aspect of an action that should be taken into account when evaluating the morality of that action is the intention/consent with which the action is done.
Consent means the full committment of doing the deed. So you need to clearly decide to do the deed.
[Some virtues are relevant for morals and some not. Being smart is not relevant for morals. Whilst being hot-headed for example is relevant for morals.
The vice is the disposition of the mind. The character in virtue ethics. The fact that we are inclined to perform certain acts in response to others. So what you can do is to cultivate good virtues, and get away from the morally relevant vices.
To act in a morally good way, you need to cultivate your moderation, and then without struggle, you will become inclined to be less impulsive or similar.]
For Abelard rather, there is a sort of moral struggle against our vices. Our vices like being hot-headed need to be fought. We need to win over them. It is a kind of hero theory of ethics. The more you struggle against your vices, the more praiseworthy you are. But the vices themselves are not possible to remove.
The sin is not in the vice itself.
”consenting to an unjust slaying he should have borne rather than inflicted. He certainly took up the sword on his own; he didn’t have it entrusted to him by some power”.
There is a conflict between first order desires and second order desires.
There are sins committed involuntarily, at least in the sense of having not been willed.
There are 4 steps to sin according to Augustine
Suggestio
Delectatio (Pleasure)
Consensus
Opus
The sin is not in the vice, it is not in the will, there is no correspondence with sin and deed either. The sin is purely in the intention.
Because of this there is no moral luck.