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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 5

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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 5

ABELARD, THE ETHICS OF INTENTION

Abelard:

  • 1079-1142/4
  • Brittany, central middle ages, nobleman
  • affair with Heloise (niece of Notre Dame canon)
  • Historia Calamitatum: autobiography
  • a great logician
  • a wandering scholar after his castration
  • work in logic, ethics, theology, metaphysics

Ethics:

  • a very original ethical system
  • How do we judge a deed to be good/bad?
  • traditional answers: deontology (duty to follow rules, Kant); Consequentialism (results make an action good/bad); Virtue Ethics (character-dependent); Divine Commands (following the 10 commandments determines one’s goodness)
  • he uses Virtue Ethics (pre-Aristotlean translation) & Divine Commands
  • 2 elements: INTENT (motivation/reason) & CONSENT (commitment to doing, even if impossible to)
  • non-Aristotelian virtue ethics
  • Morals: the minds’ dispositions, via virtues and vices (which are second nature, reflexes)
  • Hero ethics: virtues & vices are reflexive, but we can overcome vices so that we become heroes (the stronger the vice, the bigger the hero you are, etc.)

3 types of virtues & vices:
1. Moral: mental reflex, patterns of action (being a hothead, being quick-witted, etc.)
2. Bodily: being weak, etc. dispositions of the body
3. [???]

Sins:

  • scorn on the creator, like spitting on God
  • SIN OF OMISSION: not doing something we know we ought to do
  • SIN OF COMMISSION: doing something we know is blameworthy
  • is it willing that makes us sin?: not exactly, because in willing something good you can commit a sin as an instrument of your end goal [example of the slave murdering his master]
  • sin is CONSENT to a bad act, not just willing it, but commiting to it even if you didn’t truly will it
  • sins are often parts of an action, unwilled, but tolerated
  • you can will only a part of the sin, yet tolerate the whole of it, etc., so this toleration (consent) is fully sinful
  • if you can resist consenting, then you’ve not sinned

Will (qualified) → consent (to the whole) → deed (sinful) → consequences

Ansem of Laon: 4 steps of sin

  • suggestion, pleasure, consent, deed
  • for him the deed itself is most important, but for Abelard it is consent
  • the same deed is sometimes sinful, sometimes not, so something is more important than the deed

Moral Luck:

  • removing one’s luck is important for Abelard, since you may now be unlucky and be forced to commit sin, now lucky
  • but his theory places more attention on the agent, via his virtues and vices, his capacity to consent

Consent: moral-psychological element of a deed
Intention: psychological content of the moment of consent (so goals, the deed, the motivation, the consequences, etc…); the content to which we consent, etc.

Good intentions: doing what God wants, because you know God wants it, etc.

  • only God can judge you truly
  • thus executive justice is mostly useless, since it cannot judge properly
  • this conclusion made Abelard get accused of heresy

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