GRISEZ AND THOMISM

RALPH MCINERNY
[web.archive.org/web/20060719054829/
http://www.nd.edu:80/~rmcinern/te_grisez.htm]

page
1 Table of Contents & Introduction
3 1.  The ultimate end of human action
3 a. What Thomas Taught
9 From good to goods
12 b.  Grisez on the good
14 From goods to good
16 The Integration of the Basic Goods
16 2.  The First Principle of Practical Reasoning
18 b. Professor Grisez on the First Principle
22 3.  Conclusion

Germain Grisez has emerged as one of the most important Catholic

moralists of our time. He began as a philosopher but along the way
retooled himself as a theologian. In his magisterial work in progress, The
Way of the Lord Jesus,[i]1 he is engaged in an effort which can be fittingly
compared with the moral part of the  Summa theologiae  of Thomas
Aquinas..  In producing his work, Grisez has been exhibiting the concept
of commitment he analyses within it. His influence has been both broad
and deep -- not to say high.  It is often said, sometimes with pride,
sometimes with resentment, that his work lurks as a kind of
eminence Grisez behind certain magisterial pronouncements. He long ago
accepted the role of the paladin of the Magisterium, taking on its critics
whenever the opportunity presented itself.
It is because the Magisterium continues to recommend Thomas
Aquinas as our mentor in philosophy and theology that Grisez often
invokes Thomas in the course of developing his moral theology. Volume
1[i].  The Way of the Lord Jesus is a work in progress. For purposes of this study, it is
the first volume, Christian Moral Principles, Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1983, that will serve as the basis of the comparison between Grisez and Thomas
Aquinas. The work will be cited as CMP.
1
One of his chef d’oeuvre, contains an appendix of some six dense, triple-
columned pages recording the references to Thomas — less than half the
number devoted to scriptural references, but three times the number of
pages recording references to Vatican II. It would be quite wrong,
however, to imagine that Grisez is undertaking yet another rethinking of
the thought of Aquinas. His is and is meant to be an original work. What
then is the relationship between Grisez’s moral thought and that of
Thomas Aquinas?
This question could be addressed in a number of ways. One might
review what others have written on the matter, some finding Grisez
wanting in thomisticity, others defending him on that score. Or one might
independently enumerate all the points on which Grisez is clearly of one
mind with Thomas, others where he consciously departs from him, and the
gray areas where it is unclear whether a teaching is recognized as the one
or the other. I have eschewed both of these approaches here. If there is one
thing on which Grisez and Thomas are emphatically at one it is in their
insistence on the importance of starting-points, of principles. Principles are
important, of course, because they affect everything that follows from
them.  Now, if there were differences, important differences, in the
way Grisez and Thomas understand the starting-points of ethics, clearly
this would be more significant than other differences along the way.

Grisez makes it clear that he is not engaged in rewriting traditional

moral theology. He is a particularly severe critic of “scholastic natural-law
theory”, and while he exempts Thomas from some specific criticisms, his
dissatisfaction with what he considers inadequacies of Thomas is not
hidden. But on the matter of starting-points, it is not always clear
whether Grisez considers what he is offering as a version of what Thomas
taught, as an improvement on it, or as a replacement of it. That there are
differences between the two men at this liminal level would be clear to
anyone comparing them. What may not be clear is the depth of the
difference. It has long been my suspicion that the differences here are
radical.  This paper attempts to explain why.

2
 The differences in question concern the understanding of the
meaning of “good” and the account given of the first principle of practical
reasoning. That the differences are deep becomes clear when one considers
the innovation on which Grisez prides himself, the so-called modes of
responsibility. The fact that he does not find such a doctrine in Thomas is a
sign of their divergence.  Perhaps I should point out that I have written on
both Grisez et sequaces eius before, but the major points of this article are
not a repetition of those earlier misgivings.[ii]2 While my own preference,
when the doctrines of Grisez diverge from those of Thomas, will perhaps
be clear, my main purpose here is to establish the profound differences
between the two men on the nature of the good and the starting-point of
practical reasoning, not to argue on behalf of the one or the other.  And,
once more,  I concentrate on threshold differences, but these of course
affect everything that follows.[iii]3 

1.  The ultimate end of human action

It is notorious that Thomas, like Aristotle, sees in the overarching end

of human action the starting point for moral reflection. The moral part of
the Summa theologiae devotes five questions to man’s ultimate end..
Thomas then discusses aspects of voluntariness and goes on to an analysis
of the various will-acts — and cognitive acts — that enter into a complete
human action. Professor Grisez, in CMP, having defined moral theology,
discusses choice, then conscience, refutes some rivals and then, in Chapter
5, begins his discussion of the “goods which fulfill persons.” I will first say
some things about Thomas’s treatment of ultimate end, that is, the human
good, and then contrast what he says with Grisez’s doctrine on goods
and bads.
2[i].  The Way of the Lord Jesus is a work in progress. For purposes of this study, it is
the first volume, Christian Moral Principles, Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1983, that will serve as the basis of the comparison between Grisez and Thomas
Aquinas. The work will be cited as CMP.
3[iii].Benedict Ashley, in “What is the End of the Human Person? The Vision of God
and Integral Human Fulfillment,” in Moral Truth and Moral Tradition: Essays
in Honour of Peter Geach and Elizabeth Anscombe, Four Courts Press: Dublin,
1994, pp. 68-96,  makes different points than I do here.
3
 a. What Thomas Taught
When the moral reflection that issues in moral philosophy begins,
action has of course already been going on. To engage in such reflection is
itself a human act. The moralist thus has a vast field before him (in every
sense): the countless deeds performed, being performed, but also about to
be performed by innumerable human beings, himself included.. How on
earth can he gain any purchase on so vast a field of study? Even if he
sought to confine himself to his own actions, the matter would seem to be
unmanageably manifold. The search for moral principles first asks what all
of those actions commonly exhibit, what is true of all of them.
The analogy that Thomas draws is from natural philosophy. Indeed, it
is from the outset of the Physics that he takes the principle that governs all
his own work.4 It is the nature of the human mind to begin with a first
universal grasp of singulars, expressing a formality they all share. Progress
amounts to more and more specific characterizations of things. Thus, the
natural philosopher first asks the most comprehensive questions about
things that have come to be as the result of a change (‘ta physika). What is
it they all have in common despite their bewilderingly many differences?
Aristotle shows us in a magnificent example of philosophical analysis that
any such thing must be a compound of subject and property, of matter and
form. The great difference between surface and substantial changes of such
entities is broached; that they are in place and measured by time, and so
on. These things are the least that  can be said about physical objects. They
are true of all of them despite their further differences. —  This same
procedure is to be found in the practical order, Thomas observes
(IaIIae.94.4.c). We must first seek truths common to all human acts. The
most obvious thing about ourselves and other human beings is that we are
doing things. What has been said of physical objects is true of us, so far as
it goes, and so is what has been said of living substances. Indeed, in On the
Soul, Aristotle has said quite a number of things about the specific kind of
living substance we are. But that is not the angle of the moralist. The
subject matter of moral doctrine is human action, the deeds men do.

4 .   There is a magisterial discussion of this procedure in Summa theologiae, Ia, q.85,

a. 3 where the influence of the considerations at the outset of the Physics is manifest..
4
 How to begin? At the beginning, with what they all have in common.
What characterizes a human act is that it is undertaken for some end.
Responsible acts are those to which the question “why are you doing
that?” can be directed; we are answerable for them. Such acts are in our
power and proceed from cognitive awareness and will — the mind sets an
end which is willingly pursued. Activities which can truly be ascribed to a
human agent but which do not proceed from him in this way — e.g.
digesting, balding, tripping — may be called “acts of a man” but
not “human acts.” Human acts are voluntary, a term meant to cover both
the will-act as such and its execution by foot and hand and the like.
Raising my hand is voluntary because commanded by the will. What is
willed is an end that is or is taken to be the good of the agent. All voluntary
acts are for the sake of the end, the good. Moreover, there is an effective
identification of human acts and moral acts:  “...moral acts are specified by
the end, for moral acts and human acts are the same.” [IaIIae.1.3]
This does not mean simply that “for the sake of an end” is predicable
of each and every human act. Thomas is after far more than the predicable
universality of “end” and “good.”  He understands the human good as that
for the sake of which all human acts are undertaken.  This is what he
means by the ultimate end of human actions, already mentioned in the
opening article. Is there a comprehensive end of human actions? Is there
some one good for the sake of which they are all undertaken, and in the
absence of which they would be absurd and foolish? Like Aristotle,
Thomas observes that we have a word for the ultimate end, namely,
“happiness.” For Aristotle, the truth that there is an ultimate end is primary
and can thus only be defended by reducing to absurdity objections to
it.5 Thomas takes a similar approach6 and the way he understands it is clear
when he explains why there could not be a plurality of ultimate ends.
5.The significance of the fact that Aristotle defends the claim that there is an ultimate
end of human action by a reductio in Nicomachean Ethics, I.2 is not always noticed.
Undeniable truths, the kind that can serve as starting-points,  can be defended only
indirectly. Thomas in his commentary on this passage displays the series of
reductiones that carry Aristotle’s point. The implication is that it is self-evidently true
that there is an ultimate end of human acts.
6.  Summa theologiae, IaIIae, q. 1, a.4.
5
 Respondeo dicendum quod de ultimo fine possumus loqui dupliciter:
uno modo, secundum rationem ultimi finis; alio modo secundum id
in quo finis ultima ratio invenitur. IaIIae, q. 1, a. 7..
I answer that we can speak of ultimate end in two ways, in one way,
with reference to its meaning, in another way, with reference to that
in which the meaning is taken to be realized.
What is meant by the ratio ultimi finis?  It is the account or logos or
definition we give of the phrase. Man’s ultimate end is the good that will
perfect and fulfill him. Concretely, ultimate end is the application of the
formality, what is meant by ultimate end, to something taken to satisfy that
meaning, a kind of sandwich, the upper half of which characterizes the
lower half. Many things have been thought to satisfy the notion of ultimate
end. Classical morality gathers them into large groups: pleasure, wealth,
power, fame, and so on. These, or species of them, have been put forward
as the point of anything we do. When St. Paul speaks of those cuius deus
venter est, he is pointing out that some treat food as the be-all and end-all
of human life. The question thus becomes: Do all or any of these
candidates deserve the characterization? Classical moral philosophy argues
that they do not. Thomas will devote the second question of the Prima
Pars to a similar effort, ticking off eight candidates for ultimate end, and
finding all of them wanting. He even adds that the proof that they are
wanting is often best grasped when they are had77. In short, there can be a
plurality of candidates for the role of ultimate end, but only one defensible
winner of the role.
I mention these commonplaces because they are important. These are
the first steps Thomas takes in moral theology, as they were the first steps
Aristotle took in the Nicomachean Ethics. One begins with the notion of a
comprehensive end. One begins by speaking of the “good” as common to
all good things. Things will be called good insofar as the ratio boni is

7. Summa theologiae, IaIIae, q. 2, a. 1: “...eorum insufficientia magis cognoscitur

cum habentur.”  Whenever possible, I will lard the text with my references, placing
them in parentheses at the appropriate places.
6
taken to be realized in them. Good is first understood as an end, as what is
sought, as the point of action, as something perfect and sufficient. It is not
simply that anything we do has some point and aims at some good or
other; they are all gathered up at the outset in the community provided by
the meaning of “ultimate end” and of “good.” How does Thomas reply to
the objection that the ultimate end consists of a plurality of things?8 The
formality under which things are brought when they are called good is
the ratio boni perfecti. This conception of good excludes the possibility of
any perfection outside it. Whether he speaks of ultimate end, the human
good, or happiness, Thomas always employs this distinction between their
meaning and the things in which that meaning is taken to be realized.
The ratio boni is thus conceptually prior to things called good. The notion
of good is not built up from them; they are recognized as good because
they save the notion, or at least are thought to.
The good is first recognized as an end, but something may be called
good because it is a means to an end and is only so desired. Other things,
desirable in themselves, also serve as means to a further end. The ultimate
end is never a means. But good is first and primarily to be understood as
end, indeed, as ultimate end.
Needless to say, the use of “good” to talk about morals, in both
Thomas and Aristotle, presupposes a vast background of non-moral uses of
the term. The change which characterizes the physical world, involves the
actualization of a potentiality. Actualization is the completion or perfection
of potentiality. The end of any natural process is the good aimed at.
Universal teleology is notoriously presumed by Thomas’s moral thinking.
From that point of view, human action is a special case -- which was the
point of the second article of question one of the Prima secundae. Non-
moral goods function as ends in the various processes Thomas referred to
in article one as acts of a man but not human acts.
8.  He takes the objection from Augustine, (The City of God, XIX, 3) who is
discussing Varro’s views, “This is then the life of man which is rightly called
happy — a life which enjoys virtue and the other goods of soul and body without
which virtue cannot exist.” Thomas answers: “It should be noted that all those many
things are understood in the notion of one perfect good constituted by them which
they [i.e Varro] took to be the ultimate end..” IaIIae, q..1.a. 5.1m
7
 
But can “good” be common  in this way? Whether taken in all its
sweep or as confined to the human good, good is not a genus, is not
something that can be predicated univocally. There are remarks in
Professor Grisez that suggest that this consideration plays some role in
what he has to say about basic goods.
“Acting according to reason” is often given as an account of the
human good. As such it means that one should engage in rational activity
well. It is the adverbial modification of the activity as well or badly done
that is of moral importance. When Aristotle and Thomas have argued that
rational activity is peculiar to and characteristic of man and that to do it
well is a sufficient basis for saying that the agent is good, they immediately
point out that “rational activity” means many things. It is, in Thomas’s
terminology, analogous.  Rational activity can mean either the activity of
reason itself or activities which participate in or are governed by reason.
Rational activity in the essential sense is subdivided into theoretical and
practical. Participated rational activity comes down to the desires
following on perception which can come under the sway of reason. If the
perfection of an activity is its virtue and if rational activity covers many
different kinds, there must be a corresponding plurality of virtues. The
human good, it seems, is inescapably multiple.
But things which share a term in this way are ordered. The order
among the various kinds of rational activity proposed by Thomas is of two
kinds. Objectively speaking, the perfection of reasoning will lie in
theoretical knowledge and preeminently in theoria, contemplation of the
divine. This analysis is the culmination of the unpacking of the ultimate
end, a movement from clarifying its ratio to finding what most perfectly
saves that meaning. Contemplation is the answer and consequently is
man’s ultimate end. Of course, one must distinguish between the subjective
side, happiness, and the object of contemplation.
It is of course of maximum significance that Aristotle postpones the
discussion of contemplation until the end of the Nicomachean Ethics.
When he turns in Book Two to a discussion of the virtues which constitute
the ultimate end, he significantly remarks that one does not become good
8
by philosophizing. The definition of virtue then given establishes another
order among the virtues. If virtue is that which makes the agent good and
renders his activity good virtue applies unequally, analogously, to
intellectual virtues and moral virtues. Given the recurrence of “good” in
the definition, and given that good is the object of appetite, habits that have
their seat in appetite are virtues in a primary sense. Thus temperance is
more properly a virtue than science, even the science of metaphysics
which is the locus of contemplation. Intellectual virtues give one the
capacity to do something well, but since they are not lodged in appetite,
there is no inclination or bent actually to do the thing. Intellectual virtues,
Thomas notes, gives the facultas but not the appetitive disposition to use it.
Thus a man can be called good only in a sense, secundum quid, because he
has such virtues. Notoriously, art in the practical intellect, and various
habits of theoretical intellect make one having them good only in a sense.
One does not become good by philosophizing.9
But one can philosophize well or badly in the moral sense of these
terms. The intellectual virtues, as they figure in human acts, are directed by
practical intellect and will. One undertakes to engage in them and for a
purpose which may include gaining truth, but the truth figures in action as
a good to be sought. Not simply the good of the intellect, but as good for
me to pursue here and now. The unity of the moral life is thus lodged in the
virtue directive of practical reason’s choices and this virtue presupposes
the moral virtues, the virtues of appetite. Moral virtues depend on the
direction of prudence and the truth of the judgment of prudence is
dependent on moral virtue. This is the rich setting in which the truth that
contemplation best saves the notion of ultimate end must be understood.
From good to goods
In ST IaIIae, 94. 2, having established that the first principle of the
practical order is “the good is to be done and pursued and evil
avoided,” Thomas indicates how it is that one passes from the first
principle to others.  The passage will be one from the most general to the
less general. In order to be guided by the first principle, one will have to
specify a good that can in fact be chosen. The first principle is foundational
9.This sketch is based on IaIIae, qq.55-58.
9
with respect to all other principles in the practical order. How are less
general principles to be formualted? Everything that practical reason
naturally grasps as human goods provides a basis for other precepts.10
Quia vero bonum habet rationem finis, malum autem rationem
contrarii, inde est quod omnia illa ad quae homo habet naturalem
inclinationem ratio naturaliter apprehendit ut bona, et per consequens
ut opere prosequenda, et contraria eorum ut mala et vitanda.
Because good has the note of end and evil has the contrary note,
reason  naturally grasps as good all those things to which man has a
natural inclination and consequently as to be pursued in action, and
the contrary of these are grasped as evils to be avoided.
The natural inclinations are ordered, the first being one man shares
with all things: the desire to continue in being; the second inclination is
one man shares with all animals: the urge to mate and rear young; the third
is peculiar to man, an inclination following on his defining difference,
reason, thanks to which he seeks to know the truth about God and to live in
society. Particular natural law precepts bear on the goods revealed as the
ends of these inclinations. On the basis of the first inclination, those things
by which man is conserved in being, and their contraries, pertain to natural
law. On the basis of the second inclination there are natural law precepts
concerning reproduction and the education of children. On the third are
based such precepts as that one should shun ignorance, not harm others
with whom he must live and the like.
Beginning with the assumption that man seeks his good, we move on
to articulate this good, to ask what its constituents might be. Since man is a
complex organism comprising many appetites — natural inclinations —
his total good comprises a number of constituent goods. A nature as nature
is ordered to some end as its good or perfection. Primarily, by nature is
meant the intrinsic principle in changeable things, and this nature is either
matter or form. But the term ‘nature’ is extended to cover every substance
10.  For the following English translation, see Thomas Aquinas Selected Writings,
Penguin Classics, edited and translated with an introduction by Ralph McInerny,
London: Penguin Books, 1998, p. 645.
10
or being and then whatever is fitting to the thing given its nature is said to
be natural 11 and to belong to it as such (per se).  In this sense, the
principles or starting-points in a thing are called natural. “This is obviously
so in the case of intellect: the principles of intellectual knowledge are
naturally known. Similarly the principle of voluntary activitites must be
something naturally willed.” (IaIIae, q. 10, a. 1)  What is it that is naturally
willed? Bonum in communi, the good universally taken. Another name for
this good is ultimate end which stands to desirable things in a way
analogous to the way the first principles of demonstration stand to
intelligible things. This good includes everything that pertains to the one
willing according to his nature. That is, we not will only what pertains to
the faculty of will but also what pertains to each of the faculties and to the
whole man. So it is that a man naturally wills not only the object of will,
but also what befits the other faculties, such as knowledge of the truth,
which befits intellect, and existing and living and the like which concern
natural survival. All these things are included in the object of will as
particular goods.12 Particularizations of the human good presuppose the
human good as such, the desire for the ultimate end. Just as the first and
most common precept is founded on the most fundamental appetite, the
11. Summa theologiae, IaIIae, q. 2, a. 1: “...eorum insufficientia magis cognoscitur
cum habentur.”  Whenever possible, I will lard the text with my references, placing
them in parentheses at the appropriate places.
12.  “Et ideo necesse est quod hoc modo accipiendo naturam, semper principium in
his quae conveniunt rei, sit naturale. Et hoce manifest apparet in intellectu: nam
principlia@ intellectualis cognitionis sunt naturaliter nota. Similiter etiam principium
motuum voluntariorum oportet esse aliquid naturaliter volitum. Hoc autem est bonum
in communi, in quod voluntas naturaliter tendit, sicut etiam quaelibet potentia in
suum obiectum: et etiam ipse finis ultimus, qui hoc modo se habet in appetibilibus,
sicut prima principia demonstrationum in intelligibilibus: et universaliter omnia illa
quae conveniunt volenti secundum suam naturam. Non enim per voluntatem appeti-
mus solum ea quae pertinent ad potentiam voluntatis, sed etiam ea quae pertinent ad
singulas potentias, et ad totum hominem. Unde naturaliter homo vult non solum
obiectum voluntatis, sed etiam alia quae conveniunt aliis potentiis, ut cognitionem
veri, quae convenit intellectui, et esse et vivere et alia huiusmodi quae respociunt@
consistentiam naturalem, quae omnia comprehendunt sub objecto voluntatis, secut
quaedam particularia bona.” — Summa theologiae, IaIIae, q.10, a.1, c.
11
will’s desire of the ultimate end — the good is to be done and pursued and
evil avoided — so the precepts which bear on the ends of other natural
inclinations express their relation to the ultimate end, man’s overall good.
b.  Grisez on the good
When one turns from Thomas to Grisez one is struck by similarities
but also differences. It is noteworthy that  Grisez prefers to speak of human
goods rather than of the human good. He uses the concept of ultimate end
sparingly and then not in the sense of the ultimate end. The phrase does
not even appear in the index of CMP. This is no accident.
In developing his account of the central meaning of “good” and
“bad”13, Grisez begins with a difficulty. All creation is said to be good, but
what of evil? Non-moral evil is a privation, a lack of what would make the
thing to be as it ought to be. Goodness, by contrast, is fullness of being.
Moreover, it is the fulfillment of potentiality.(115-119) Of course, there are
goods and goods. What are the goods which fulfill human persons? Here
Grisez insists on a distinction between two kinds of basic human goods,
some he calls reflexive, others are substantive. The reflexive -- also called
existential -- goods are both reasons for choosing and are in part defined
by choosing. The examples of such goods are four: self-integration,
practical reasonableness and authenticity, justice and friendship, and
religion. There are other non-reflexive or substantive basic human goods in
the account of which choice is not included. Although they provide reasons
for choosing, choice is not part of their account. Grisez lists three such
substantive goods: life and health, knowledge of truth and aesthetic
appreciation, play and skill. This listing of seven basic human goods is a
central point in Grisez’s theory. Human goods are intelligible goods which
are distinguished from sensible goods. The latter are characterized by
pleasure as opposed to pain. Intelligible goods provide reasons for choice,
for acting. The basic human goods are all intelligible goods and thus
reasons for acting, but they must be subdivided into reflexive/existential
and substantive basic human goods. The latter can be objects of choice, but

13. The paragraphs that follow summarize the teaching of Chapter 5 of CMP. Page
numbers are given in parentheses.
12
that fact is not part of what they definitionally are. They are realized states
of affairs which result from choices. (121-125)
It is only by being taken up into reflexive acts, moral acts as such,
that the substantive goods take on a moral aspect.14 The reflexive goods are
presented as modes of “harmony”, so much so that “harmony” and “moral
good” seem to function as synonyms. Could we supply “moral virtue” as
synonymous with these? How do the reflexive goods look under that
suggestion?
*self-integration, which is harmony among all the parts of a person
which can be engaged in freely chosen acts.
*practical reasonableness or authenticity, harmony among moral
reflection, free choices and their execution
*justice and friendship, choosing to act in harmony with one another
*religion or holiness, harmony with God
Now there are several gathering terms involved in this
comparison — on the side of existential goods, harmony, but also
fulfillment which covers them all. “In sum there are seven categories of
basic human goods which perfect persons and contribute to their
fulfillment both as individuals and in community.” [p. 124] What is the
significance, if any, of such gathering or common terms and phrases?
Grisez notes that some have used “vague and obscure language” to refer to
human fulfillment, speaking for example of “living in accord with
reason” or “for self-realization” or “acting out of love.” Sometimes, as
with “happiness” it is a summary of the basic goods, or as with “self-
realization” it is simply an articulation of the notion of good itself. He
attributes three functions to such talk. It is a way of summarizing the all
basic forms of human goodness, as “happiness” did for the Greeks
(125)    How is “human fulfillment” or “in accord with human reason”
common to all the basic goods? Or, put more simply, how is “human good”
common  to all the basic goods? The subdivision of basic goods into
existential and substantive indicates that not all basic goods are human

14.It is Professor Grisez’s account of this “taking up” that is the object of criticism

below.
13
goods in the same sense. The substantive seem clearly human goods in a
lesser sense than the existential.
From goods to good
Obviously GG’s discussion of the meaning of “good” and “bad” is
important for this question. “Goodness lies in a fulfillment of potentialities
which leads to being and being more; badness lies in the realization of a
potentiality which cuts off further possibilities and tends to limit
opportunities for self-realization which would otherwise be open to an
entity.” [p. 117] 15 It is clear that Professor Grisez is offering what might be
called an account of ontological goodness and badness. His use of
Ia.5.1.1m makes that clear. In this sense of them, good and bad presuppose
teleology — natures and ends. Like Thomas, accordingly, he sees moral
good and bad as special cases of good and bad, those which are peculiar to
human agents. In its most general use, “goodness is the fulfillment of
potentialities” [118] and not the realization of a possibility for non-
fulfillment. Potentiality is directional — toward a corresponding actuality.
But the fundamental point is that the fulfillment of a potentiality is good
and the thwarting of that potentiality is bad.

15.   One could quibble about Professor Grise\’s using potentiality both for what is
fulfilling and for the opposite. He does not of course mean that an entity is equipped
with two sets of potentialities, one set whose fulfillment increases being and another
set which thwarts a being. Thomas, following Aristotle, would ascribe the possibility
that a thing my cease to be to its matter and possibilities — potentialities — whose
fulfillment increases the intended perfection of the thing. Sometimes potentialities are
impeded; and of course sometimes faculties or capacities are abused — and this can
take us into the moral order. I have in mind such remarks as “Yet not every
fulfillment of potentialities is good. People get sick and die, who make mistakes in
reasoning, who burn potatoes, or who hurt others are fulfilling potentialities just as
truly as people who live healthily, who think straight, who make good dinners and
who help others.” [p. 118] Surely this is wrong. The organism does not have a
potentiality to get sick in the way in which health is the fulfillment of its potentality.
That the potentiality might not — that it is possible that — the potentiality not be
realized is not the mark of another potentiality of that organism. If it were, calling
health good and sickness bad would sound arbitrary — the distinction could no
longer be grounded in the fulfillment of potentiality or its opposite.
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 Having distinguished good and bad, Professor Grisez goes on to
distinguish between sensible goods and bads and intelligible goods
and bads. “This complexity in the uses of the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ arises
from the complexity of the human person.” [119] “Human persons are both
sentient and intelligent...” — in the former they are similar to animals, the
latter is distinctive. “Free choices are made on the basis of judgments
about what will fulfill or prevent the fulfillment of the person as a
whole.”  “lthough complex, the acting person is one self. “A person lives in
a single world, and the behavior must be adapted to all aspects of the
reality of this world.” Behavior is usually motived both by emotion and
will, that is, directed to both sensible pleasure and intelligible fulfillment.
“Since human goodness is found in the fullness of human being, one
begins to understand what it is to be a good person by considering what
things fulfill human persons.. Things which do so are human goods in the
central sense — that is, intelligible goods.” [121] Such goods are aspects
of persons, not things. It is not simply things as things, as opposed to say
their human possession or use, that Professor Grisez has in mind in
denying that things, wealth, fences and locks are basic goods. “They are
extrinsic things persons can possess and use, but they do not guarantee
personal fulfillment even in the bodily, intellectual, and cultural
dimensions, much less in the existential or moral dimension.” [121]
Professor Grisez speaks of the empty gas tank, and asks if it is good or bad
by itself. Surely only in relation to something else — it can prevent a
person doing what he wishes. I want to get home and  I run out of gas. In
the light of my desire, gas is good and no-gas is bad. But this is because it
is part of an intelligible chain of purposes, and such a chain always ends in
something appealing in itself.
The Integration of the Basic Goods
If the overriding meaning of the human good is self-fulfillment and if
there is a plurality of human goods because of the complexity of the
human person, the question arises as to how the basic goods come together
as the integral human good. It will be noticed that self-integration is one of
the basic goods, but by it Professor Grisez does not mean the effort to
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bring together all the basic goods. The integral human good is not identical
with the basic human good of self-integration. The integral human good
consists of both existential and substantive goods. How does self-
fulfillment cover the bringing together of the basic goods? That is, is there
one way of doing this, or is there a plurality of ways which are ranked as
good, better and best, or is there simply no limit to the way in which the
basic goods are to be integrated? In order to appreciate Grisez’s response
to such questions, it is necessary to examine his sui generis interpretation
of what precedes the discussion of natural inclinations in the famous article
of Aquinas. 

2.  The First Principle of Practical Reasoning

The text to which we referred for Thomas’s account of natural

inclinations and the way in which their ends ground natural law precepts
begins at a prior point. Thomas is asking himself whether there is more
than one precept of natural law.(IaIIae.94.2) His answer is going to be yes
and no. First he develops an analogy to which he has appealed several
times prior to this discussion. Precepts of natural law function in practical
reasoning the way in which the first principles of demonstration function
in theoretical reasoning. Like the latter, the former are per se nota. That is,
knowledge of their truth is not derived from other truths functioning as
premises. These precepts are the starting points of all practical reasoning,
not just an instance of it. Propositions are knowable in themselves when
their truth is obvious from the very meaning of their terms. The immediacy
of such truths is grounded in reality but is available only to those who
understand what is being referred to. This is the basis for the distinction of
self-evidence as such and self-evidence for us. Only as expressed in a
proposition is there self-evidence in the full sense. And, because not
everybody knows everything, some self-evident propositions will not be
understood to be such by those not understand their terms. But there are
some things which no one can fail to know and it is such common self-
evident starting points to which Thomas now refers, using the
Latin dignitates for the Greek axioms. What is it that no one can fail to
know?
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 Thomas stresses that there is an order to be followed in this
discussion: we first speak of what every mind grasps and then we speak of
the grasp of practical reason. Further, within reason simpliciter
— theoretical reason as presupposed by practical reason — there is an
order. First, there is the grasp of the simple, then there is judgment about
simples. Being, that which is, is what the mind first grasps and on the basis
of it it forms a first non-gainsayable judgment which Thomas expresses
as Athe same thing is not to be affirmed and denied at the same time. All
other judgments are said to be based on this.
There is a parallel of this in practical reason. Practical reason is
ordered to some work (opus) and every agent acts for an end which has the
note of  good, which is the principle of the practical order. The first simple
grasped is the good, understood as the object of desire, quod  mnia
appetunt. Based on this concept of the good is the first precept of the law:
the good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided. On this all other
precepts of the law of nature are founded. The text continues into the
treatment of natural inclinations.
b. Professor Grisez on the First Principle
Professor Grisez begins his discussion of practical reasoning with a
crucial distinction. Practical reasoning, he says, has two phases, a first
concerned with what might be done —  he calls this its general phase —
and another with what ought to be done. General principles of practical
reasoning are not moral principles because both good and bad people use
them Grisez understands the first inciple Thomas formulated — bonum 
est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum  — to be a general
practical principle. It is not, he asserts, a moral principle. “Good” here
means “whatever can be understood as intelligibly worthwhile.” The
principle extends to and governs all coherent practical thinking. “What the
first practical principle provides is a foundation for practical thinking.”
(179) It directs toward a fulfillment to be realized in and through human
action. It is self-evident.
Grisez makes it clear that he thinks Thomas would agree that “good
is to be done and pursued” is not a moral principle. It is normative,

17
however, “even though it does not specify the relationship of actions to
goods in such a way that deliberation and choice among possibilities are at
all limited.”(180)
The reiterated reason why Thomas’s first principle is not a moral
principle is that it governs the practical thinking of bad people as well as
good. Grisez summarizes his dissatisfaction with “scholastic natural-law
theory” by pointing out that it substitutes the imperative “Do good and
avoid” evil for the gerundive, thereby trying to turn it into a moral
principle.16 Another reason is that spontaneous action is governed by the
first principle but, as not involving choice, is not moral. A further reason,
suggested rather than expressed, is that there are actions whose appraisal is
not a moral one. One who is said to be a good golfer may or may not be a
good person. (Cf. 129)
None of these reasons convinces. Is his suggestion that faciendum
could be translated as either “what might be done” or “what ought to be
done”? And how does the latter relate to the former? By calling the first
general, he suggests that the second is a particularization of the first.
Ought implies can?  Or are we to think that when we act badly we are
merely aiming at something that might be done? Surely “ought to be
done” is common to good and bad action. No more could Grisez mean that
the general phase or understanding of the principle is not moral in the
sense that moral is opposed to immoral. His point is rather that the moral
realm is not yet in play. But this suggests that one opts into the moral order
as if it were a game one might or might not choose to play. It is impossible
to think that Germain Grisez would entertain such a possibility. What then
does he mean?
Light is cast on his reasons by his discussion of the general
determinations of the first practical principle. The principle directs toward

16.It is difficult to see why “Do good” is not equivalent to “Good ought to be done.”
Grisez is aware of IaIIae.17.1 Thomas notes that reason can express its command
either absolutely, by a verb in the indicative mode, (e.g. “This is to be done by you.”)
or so as to move someone to act, “Do this.” The distinction is between  modes of
reason’s command (imperium). In any case, we are now interested in Grisez’s
understanding of Thomas, not his understanding of other interpreters of Thomas.
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fulfillment to be realized in and through human acts. The good is to be
done and pursued. But we grasp as goods all the fulfillments to which we
are naturally inclined. There is a basic principle of natural law
corresponding to each natural inclination. Who in reading this will not
think it is simply a restatement of what we read in Thomas?
Professor Grisez refers to Thomas on natural inclinations, while pointing
out that he himself had discussed basic goods in greater detail than Thomas
did.(180) “The general determinations of the first principle of practical
reasoning are these basic precepts of natural law.” But if the first practical
principle is not a moral principle, how can the precepts of natural law be
determinations of it? The statement of the first moral principle has yet to
be made. No small difficulty, but here is the crucial remark about the
formation of natural law precepts: “They take the form: Such and such a
basic human good is to be done and/or pursued, protected and
promoted..” This is the key to the fundamental difference between
Germain Grisez and Thomas Aquinas.
For Grisez, the form that less general practical principles takes
is “ _________ is to be done and pursued.” The blank is to be filled in with
one or the other basic goods which have been identified as the objects of
natural inclinations. A practical principle which directs thinking to each
basic good is, like the first principle, self-evident. But what would a basic
precept of natural law look like on this understanding? There is a natural
inclination toward sex. Sexual pleasure, sexual congress is the object of a
natural inclination. “Sexual pleasure is to be engaged in and pursued and
otherwise protected and promoted.” Is this a mere lapse on Professor
Grisez’s part? That it is not can be seen by looking backward and slightly
forward in his exposition.
Professor Grisez’s prefers to talk about the human goods rather than
the human good. The “good” in the first principle functions as a place-
marker for any basic human good, a blank that can be filled in with any
one of them. It is because of this that he suggests that we formulate
determinate principles by substituting a basic good for the place-marker.
By contrast, Thomas holds that natural concupiscence is to be
ordered to the common good of our nature, and ordered by reason. Natural
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law is aliquid rationis; it is the direction by practical reason to the good to
which we are naturally ordered, the ultimate end which is perfect and
sufficient. The goods which are the objects of natural inclination enter into
natural law precepts insofar as reason orders them to the good of
reason. “Just as in man reason dominates and commands the other powers,
so all the natural inclinations pertaining to the other powers must be
ordered by reason. Thus this is right for everyone that all man’s
inclinations should be directed by reason.” (IaIIae, 94.4.3m) Natural
inclinations pertain to natural law insofar as they are ruled by reason and
are thus reduced to the first precept. “In this way there are many precepts
of natural law which however share in a common root.” (94.2.2m) The
common root is the bonum universale grasped by reason. Thus the form of
less general precepts of natural law would be “______________ should be
pursued according to the direction of reason.” And reason orders to the
comprehensive good of the agent: that is what bonum means in Thomas’s
formulation of the first precept.
Clearly there is no need of a precept commanding us to pursue goods
to which we are naturally inclined. We do not require direction as far as the
ends of natural inclinations are concerned. Such ends are givens of human
nature: we do not choose to hunger or thirst or to be attracted by the
opposite sex. Yet Professor Grisez’s understanding of determinations of the
first practical principle, which he calls natural law precepts, is precisely the
judgment that the ends of natural inclinations are to be pursued, protected,
etc. If that is what natural law precepts said, they would be otiose. We do
not need to be told to hunger and thirst.
In any case, we can see why Professor Grisez says that he has not yet
entered the moral order. The principles of practical reason as he has
developed them do not tell us what is morally good.  What do they do?
They generate the field of possibilities in which choices are necessary. But
when choices are made, no one disputes that basic goods are good or their
opposites evil. He mentions Gaudium et spes, n. 35 but says that it like
Thomas’s formulation is unsatisfactory as a moral principle. What we
need, over and above the foregoing, is a first principle of morality whose
function will be to “provide the basis for guiding choices toward human

20
fulfillment.” (184) What does he propose as the first principle of
morality? “The basic principle of morality might best be formulated as
follows: In voluntarily acting for human goods and avoiding what is
opposed to them, one ought to choose and otherwise will those and only
those possibilities whose willing is compatible with a will toward integral
human fulfillment.”(184)
What Professor Grisez’s moral principle adds is “integral human
fulfillment” as the measure of pursuing the basic goods. He has to add this
because he does not see that something like that is the meaning
of bonum in what he calls the first practical principle. That first practical
principle, as Professor Grisez envisages it, can be rephrased by putting the
ends of natural inclinations in the place of good, one of the basic goods for
the place-marker “good.” This has the unfortunate result of commanding a
natural inclination to have the end it has. Moreover, what he means
as “integral human fulfillment” seems to continue his assumption that the
basic goods are more basic than the notion of good and the primary
practical judgment that the good is to be done and pursued and its opposite
avoided. Just as Professor Grisez fragments the principle into a number of
injunctions commanding us to pursue the ends of particular inclinations, so
when he seeks to put them together in “integral human fulfillment”the task
is one of bringing into unity a set of precepts whose particular goods have
to be treated in such a way that one of them is not pursued at the expense
of the others. Integral human fulfillment, as Professor Grisez understands
it, takes as primary obligations the pursuit of the ends of inclinations, the
basic goods, and morality involves their orchestration.
The nature of the moral task in Professor Grisez is further clarified
by the eight modes of responsibility on which he prides himself as being
their first systematic theorist. These modes specify the first moral
principle. We are urged not to be deterred from acting for intelligible
goods, on the one hand, but not to be impatient or individualistic in
pursuing them either. Emotional motivation, positive or negative, is
warned against; one must be careful not to prefer one person to another
The human good is the summation of the basic goods: their integration

21
must avoid giving precedence to one over another.17 “Integral human
fulfillment means a single system in which all the human goods would
contribute to the fulfillment of the entire human community.” (222)
It is because basic human goods, in the plural, are more basic than
any prior orientation toward one’s comprehensive good that integral human
fulfillment is like establishing a federation between sovereign states.
Choice and modes of responsibility must as it were respect states rights.
3.  Conclusion
The radical difference between the moral thought of Germain Grisez
and Thomas Aquinas is obscured by Professor Grisez’s employment
of Thomistic texts to make his points and his apparent belief that Thomas
would share his interpretation of those texts. In talking about basic goods,
Professor Grisez often refers to the text in which Thomas speaks of the
goods revealed by natural inclinations. Particular natural law precepts bear
on such goods. So far, Professor Grisez and Thomas are agreed. But
Professor Grisez thinks the form of such particular precepts is “X should
be gone, pursued, protected,” where X takes as its value one or the other of
the basic goods. This has the odd result, inter alia, of urging the pursuit of
sex as a natural law precept. For Thomas, the form of a particular precept
is “X should be pursued as reason directs the pursuit to one’s overall
good,” where values of X are the ends of natural inclinations.
This striking difference reveals a difference in understanding bonum
in the first practical principle as formulated by Thomas: bonum est
faciendum et prosequendam. For Thomas it is the comprehensive good of
the agent, bonum in communi, bonum universale, the agent’s ultimate end.
Any object of will must save the ratio boni, a formality which relates it to
one’s overall good. For Professor Grisez, by contrast, “good” is the
disjunction of the basic goods, a place-marker for any of them.  But it
seems to have no meaning of its own.
Understanding particular practical precepts as he does, Professor
Grisez  needs a way to relate such reasoning to the moral order. Integral
human fulfillment is the means of brokering the various basic goods.

17. Chapter 8 of CMP is devoted to these modes of responsibility.

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“The guidance which the ideal of integral human development offers to
choice is to avoid unnecessary limitation and so maintain openness to
further goods.” (186) Morality consists in not choosing one basic good at
the expense of the others and the pursuit of them in such a way that the self
remains open and is not needless restricted. The ideal is more and more of
the basic goods, a more expansive participation in them, personally and
communally.
It is not my purpose here to argue for or against either of these
approaches. My much more modest aim has been to show that Germain
Grisez and Thomas differ in crucial ways and at the very outset of moral
teaching. These differences doubtless generate others as the teaching of
each man moves on from its starting-points.
_____

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