Ethics — Conclusions
The conclusions of Glenn's Ethics set out as numbered theses, following the order of the tract, with the principles stated in the form Glenn gives them.
Tract: Ethics · Paul J. Glenn · 1930 · 28 articles in three Books School: Thomist Depends on: Philosophical Psychology — the will, free choice, the appetites. Natural Theology — God as ultimate end and author of the Eternal Law. Supports: Sociology, which presupposes this tract’s account of right, duty and justice.
What this tract is for
Ethics is the practical philosophical science of the morality of human conduct — practical because it derives norms for action, philosophical because it proceeds by natural reason rather than from revelation. Its formal object is the moral goodness or evil of free human acts.
Glenn is emphatic on one point of self-understanding: it is not the first function of Ethics to furnish motives or appeals for upright living, but to give a cold scientific demonstration of what right living is — to say what is to be done without explaining how it is to be done. He adds that a student cannot help taking from it an urge to upright conduct anyway.
The architecture
- General Ethics — the machinery. What a human act is, how voluntariness is modified, what an end is, what the ultimate end is, what law and conscience are, what morality is and what determines it, and what follows from human acts.
- Individual Ethics — rights and duties in general, then man’s duties to God, to himself in soul and body, and to his neighbour in charity and justice.
- Social Ethics — the family, then the State, man’s work and the Church, then the world-family of nations.
Books II and III are applications of Book I; almost every conclusion in them is reached by referring a case back to the norm of morality (Th. 21) or to the natural law. Reading Book I properly is not optional — the later Books are unintelligible without it, and Glenn’s arguments there are compressed precisely because he takes Book I as settled.
Book I — General Ethics
Human acts
1. A human act is one performed with knowledge and freedom — elicited or commanded by the will acting with native freedom in the light of intellectual knowledge — as against an act of man, which lacks these. Human acts are classified as elicited and commanded, and morally as good, evil and indifferent. → C1 A1 — The Human Act in Itself
2. Voluntariness admits several divisions: perfect and imperfect; simple and conditional; direct and indirect; positive and negative; actual, virtual, habitual and interpretative. → C1 A2 — The Voluntariness of Human Acts
3. Two principles govern indirect voluntariness: the Principle of Imputability of Evil Indirectly Willed, and the Principle of Imputability of a Twofold Effect. → C1 A2
4. Five modifiers affect human acts in knowledge, freedom and voluntariness, making them less perfectly human and so lessening moral character and diminishing the agent’s responsibility: ignorance, concupiscence, fear, violence and habit. Glenn’s principles for each are exact and worth having verbatim: → C1 A3 — The Modifiers of Human Acts
Ignorance — invincible ignorance destroys the voluntariness of an act; vincible ignorance does not destroy it but does lessen it; affected ignorance in one way lessens the voluntariness and in another way increases it. Concupiscence — antecedent concupiscence lessens the voluntariness of an act but does not destroy it; consequent concupiscence, however great, does not lessen it. Fear — an act done from fear, however great, is simply voluntary, although it is regularly also conditionally involuntary. Violence — acts elicited by the will are not subject to violence; external acts caused by violence, to which due resistance is offered, are in no wise imputable to the agent. Habit — habit does not destroy voluntariness, and acts from habit are always voluntary, at least in cause, as long as the habit is allowed to endure.
The ends of human acts
5. Every human act is performed on account of an end. An end is always the object of appetency; man’s rational appetency is his will; the will is exercised in every human act; therefore every human act comes from tendency toward an end. The end of human acts is their final cause. → C2 A1 — Ends in General
6. The end is always sought as desirable, satisfactory or good — evil as such is never the end of human acts. Ends divide as end of the act and end of the agent, proximate and remote, intermediate and ultimate. → C2 A1
7. There is one absolutely ultimate end. Objectively it is the infinite good, God; subjectively it is the possession of the limitless good, and that act of possession is an act of perfect happiness. → C2 A2 — The Ultimate End of Human Acts
8. Man acts for perfect happiness in every human act, by at least a virtual intention. Glenn’s image: a traveller at a convergence of roads who wishes to reach the City of Limitless Good tends there by a connatural and inevitable bent of the will — and his tendency remains the same even if he chooses a wrong road. → C2 A2
9. The desire for perfect happiness is not futile, vain or illusory but realizable in fact — by an act of the speculative intellect accompanied by full fruition on the part of the will, and by fulness of sense-satisfaction so far as the senses can share in it. → C2 A2
The norms of human acts
10. Law is defined and distinguished from precept, with its essential qualities, purpose, relation to liberty, author, field of application (society), and sanction. The classes given special study are the Eternal Law, the Natural Law, and Human Positive Law. → C3 A1 — Law
11. Conscience is a practical judgment, distinguished both from synteresis and from speculative judgment. → C3 A2 — Conscience
12. Its states are: true or correct, erroneous, invincibly erroneous, certain, doubtful or dubious, and probable. → C3 A2
13. Four principles govern acting on conscience:
(i) A certain conscience is to be obeyed, even when invincibly erroneous. (ii) It is never lawful to act while in practical doubt; moral certainty must be acquired. (iii) Only when direct means are unavailable, or fail to lead to certainty, may one employ the reflex principle that a doubtful law does not bind. (iv) On the lawfulness or unlawfulness of an act, the doctrine of probabilism applies.
Glenn’s supporting distinction: absolute certitude is not always possible in matters of conscience, but moral certitude — excluding all prudent doubt — always is, and is sufficient and requisite for guiding the judgment. → C3 A2
The morality of human acts
14. The Norm of Morality is twofold. Human acts are good or evil as they agree or conflict with the Divine Reason; the Divine Reason is recognised by man through human reason pronouncing on individual acts, that is, through conscience. Remotely and ultimately (but primarily) the norm is the Eternal Law; proximately (but secondarily) it is conscience. → C4 A1 — Morality and Its Norm
15. Morality divides as material and formal (objective and subjective), and material morality further as intrinsic and extrinsic. → C4 A1
16. The determinants of morality are the object and the circumstances of the human act — the end of the agent being distinguished among the circumstances as of special importance and studied in detail. (The article carries three headings — Object, End of the Agent, Circumstances — but Glenn’s own summary classes the end among the circumstances rather than as a third coordinate font.) → C4 A2 — The Determinants of Morality
17. Objective morality exists: many acts have intrinsic morality, being good or evil in themselves as such. Glenn draws two consequences directly. Utilitarianism and Moral Sensualism are “utterly inadequate, nay, insane.” And the theory tracing morality to the absolute and gratuitous decree of the Divine Will without reference to the Divine Reason involves an essential contradiction — a rejection of divine-command voluntarism that follows from Th. 14, since the norm is Divine Reason and not bare Divine Will. → C4 A2
18. The end of the agent modifies morality by addition: a good act done for a good end takes on added or new goodness from the end, and from each good end influencing it; a bad act done for an evil end takes on added or new malice from the end, and from each evil end. → C4 A2
Properties and consequences
19. Imputability, merit and demerit belong to human acts by natural necessity and are therefore properties of them. A human act is knowing and free, proceeds entirely from a rational agent, and so belongs to him — which is what imputability means. Glenn draws the practical point sharply: we can no longer say “the others made me do it” or “it wasn’t really my fault,” because we now know scientifically that we must stand by our human acts. → C5 A1 — The Properties of Human Acts
20. Virtue is a habitual power for good acts arising from the frequent performance of such acts; vice is a morally evil operative habit. A single evil act is a sin; vice is the habit of sin. Virtue preserves the sane balance of right reason and stands in the middle, while vice lies on either hand, swaying the scale to defect or to excess. → C5 A2 — The Consequences of Human Acts
Book II — Individual Ethics
21. A right is a moral power residing in a person, and its basis is law — ultimately the Eternal Law. Rights divide as natural, positive, divine, human, ecclesiastical, civil; as rights of property and of jurisdiction; as alienable and inalienable; as juridical and non-juridical. → C1 A1 — Rights
22. Right has three properties: coaction, limitation, and collision — the last raising the question of how an apparent conflict of rights is resolved. → C1 A1
23. The subject of right must be a person, and only a person. → C1 A1
24. Duty is a moral obligation binding a person to do or omit something, and is the necessary correlative of right. It divides as natural, positive, affirmative, negative, perfect and imperfect. Where a greater and a lesser duty conflict, the lesser ceases to be a duty. → C1 A2 — Duties
25. Four principles govern exemption from duty:
(i) Common necessity never exempts from duty. (ii) No necessity exempts from a negative natural duty. (iii) Extreme or grave necessity exempts from an affirmative natural duty, provided no violation of negative natural law is involved. (iv) Extreme or grave necessity exempts from the prescriptions of positive law, on the same proviso.
The asymmetry between negative and affirmative duties here is load-bearing throughout Book II. → C1 A2
26. Religion is man’s most important duty, in subjective and objective aspects, natural and supernatural. Glenn presses two corollaries. It is not a matter of sentiment, so that remarks like “don’t bring religion into this question” are unlearned; and it is not dictated by utility or selfishness but is a natural debt which rational man owes to God. It is one and the same for all men. → C2 A1 — Religion
27. Worship is owed internally and externally, privately and publicly. Its chief acts are devotion, prayer, adoration and sacrifice. → C2 A2 — Worship
28. Man strictly owes duties to himself. He owes it to himself to know God, the duties imposed by the natural law, and the duties of his state in life; he must tend constantly and diligently toward God and eternal happiness; and to that end he must cultivate prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. Glenn insists these are requirements of rational nature, not pious truisms or platitudes. → C3 A1 — Duties of Man Towards His Soul
29. Man has positive and negative duties regarding life, health and bodily integrity, together with a duty to acquire a sufficiency of worldly goods. Self-destruction is absolutely prohibited, and Glenn explains the difference between the suicide and the martyr. → C3 A2 — Duties of Man Towards His Body
30. A man is bound to love his neighbour as himself — a precept of the natural law, with certain duties following from it. → C4 A1 — Duties of Charity
31. Homicide is always contrary to the natural law, as is all injury to body, health, limb and personal physical liberty; Glenn sets out the peculiar and precise circumstances in which taking the life of another becomes lawful. → C4 A2 — Duties of Justice
32. Regarding the goods of the soul: scandal and enslavement contravene the neighbour’s rights of will, and lying outrages his rights of intellect. A lie is never lawful — Glenn states and justifies this without exception. Concealment of the truth which involves no lying is licit, and in certain circumstances is a duty owed in charity. → C4 A2
33. Man has a right to his good name and to the honour regularly due to his nature and position, both grounded in the natural law — alongside his rights in the goods of fortune. Violation of these rights raises the obligation of restitution. → C4 A2
Book III — Social Ethics
34. Man is a social animal, and society is a requirement of his nature — not the result of free agreement or convention among men. → C1 A1 — Society
35. The only perfect societies are the Church and the State. Authority is necessary in society, and its necessity is demonstrated rather than assumed. → C1 A1
36. Marriage is a natural institution obliging mankind collectively but not distributively — that is, the race is bound to it, no individual is. Its definition yields its primary and secondary ends. → C1 A2 — Marriage
37. Marriage has two properties, unity and indissolubility, from which the illicit character of polyandry, polygamy and divorce follows. Glenn closes the article with a brief and direct word on birth control. → C1 A2
38. Authority is necessary in conjugal society and in the family, and its normal and natural seat is the husband and father. → C1 A3 — Rights and Duties of Parents
39. The education of their children is the first and most important duty of parents, and the work of conducting it belongs to the parents and to no other agency. Glenn treats “State Controlled and Compulsory Education” at some length as a fallacy. → C1 A3
40. The State is natural in origin, and the social contract theory is unsound. → C2 A1 — The State
41. No form of government is absolutely the best. The relatively best form is that which is suited to the time, the place and the people in any given instance. (Worth noting given how often manuals of this period are assumed to favour a particular regime.) → C2 A1
42. Just State authority has a divine source, and true laws enacted by it bind. Its duties and the lawful limits of its exercise are set out. → C2 A1
43. Against abuse of State authority: resistance is justified in case of outright tyranny, while rebellion is always wrong and is opposed to the natural law. The distinction between the two is what the article turns on. → C2 A1
44. Man has a right and a duty to labour, and fulfilling it may be a source of peace and happiness as well as of material goods. → C2 A2 — Man’s Work
45. Men have a natural right to associate for the furtherance of their common welfare — treated in particular of labour unions, with their use and their abuse. → C2 A2
46. Wages are governed by ethical principle, and Glenn distinguishes the personal living wage, the family living wage, and the just wage in general, together with the means of determining what a just wage is. → C2 A2
47. Coercive measures adopted by employers or employees to obtain just treatment have a morality of their own — the strike, the boycott and the lockout each treated briefly. → C2 A2
48. The Church is a true and perfect society, and all men are bound by the natural law to belong to the true Church. The relations between a justly established State and the true Church are governed by principles dictated by the natural law. → C2 A3 — The Church
49. Nations have a natural right to self-preservation and development, expressed in certain specific points. → C3 A1 — International Law
50. The principle of non-intervention is to be rejected as fallacious in theory and impossible in practice. Glenn’s argument: a nation has the right of self-preservation and to the means necessary or useful to it, so long as no other’s rights are violated; asking aid when unjustly attacked is one such licit means, violating no alien right; therefore a nation in distress may ask for help and lawfully receive it, and no third nation may licitly prevent it — exactly as a man unjustly attacked may cry for help. This is the article’s central conclusion. → C3 A1
51. Wars divide as just and unjust, offensive and defensive. Offensive wars are always unlawful. An offensive war is undertaken without provocation to injure or destroy another State or to enrich at its expense; a defensive war is undertaken upon provocation to protect the rights of citizens or uphold the honour of the State. Glenn notes that the offensive party is not always the one that first declares war. → C3 A2 — Peace and War
52. Four conditions are necessary for a just war:
(i) It must be declared by competent authority, for a just cause, and undertaken with an honest intention — so that a war otherwise just is rendered unjust if undertaken for revenge, lust for power, or hatred of the opponent. (ii) It must be the last resource, undertaken only when all other means of settlement have been found unavailing. (iii) It must offer a reasonable prospect of success, else war would be a greater evil than the wrongs it seeks to right. (iv) It must be conducted in a manner approved by civilized peoples: no wanton slaughter or destruction without direct effect on the outcome; no direct killing or maltreatment of non-combatants; no inhuman and barbarous methods, such as poisoning wells and streams, envenomed weapons, or poisoning the air by noxious gases; no means intrinsically evil and against the natural law, such as lies, perjury or inciting to treason; and no continuation of hostile acts after an armistice or peace has been declared.
War is licit when all these conditions are met, on the ground that a State may repel force with force as an individual may defend himself. → C3 A2
Key terms
— human act / act of man · done with knowledge and freedom / lacking them
— elicited / commanded act · produced by the will itself / by another faculty at the will’s command
— antecedent / consequent concupiscence · arising before deliberation / aroused by deliberate choice
— invincible / vincible / affected ignorance · unavoidable / culpably avoidable / deliberately cultivated
— synteresis · the habit of first moral principles, distinct from conscience
— probabilism · the doctrine governing action under a probable opinion
— coaction, limitation, collision · the three properties of right
— perfect society · one possessing all means to its own end
— collectively but not distributively · binding the race, not each individual
Reading it properly
C1 A3 (the modifiers) is the most practically useful article in the tract and the one whose principles are quoted most often out of context — read the five sets in full. C4 A1 (the norm of morality) is the shortest article and the most load-bearing: everything in Books II and III is an application of it, and its twofold structure is what rules out divine-command voluntarism in Th. 17. If you read only one thing in Book III, read the non-intervention argument in C3 A1 — it is compact, fully worked, and the conclusion is not the one a reader expects.