Question Four
Whether one who is brave with political courage ought to flee the sin opposed to courage more than bodily death
It is asked whether one who is brave with political courage ought to flee the sin opposed to courage more than bodily death.
To this it seems at first that it must be answered that the brave person ought to flee bodily death more than the opposite of courage.
First, as follows. That for the sake of which each thing exists is itself more so, according to Book I of the Posterior Analytics. But by natural love everyone loves another for his own sake. For each person loves something insofar as it is good for himself. Therefore by natural and political love everyone ought to love himself and his own life, which is lost through death, more than to avoid the sin opposed to courage.
Likewise, every agent acting naturally acts for its own preservation. Nature would not reflect upon itself if it tended toward something else more than toward itself. Therefore, and so forth.
Likewise, ordered charity begins from oneself, in law Praeses, the Code On Servitudes and Water, and On Supplying the Negligence of Prelates, chapter 1, Book VI; and distinction 42, chapter Quiescamus; On Penance, distinction 3, chapter Sane; and in chapter Nisi de usu pallii, according to the Gloss. Therefore all things ought to be placed after bodily life.
But to the contrary: the more common a good is, the more divine it is, according to Book I of the Politics. But the good of the commonwealth is more common—and consequently more divine—than the good of a particular person. Therefore we ought naturally to love its good above ourselves.
I answer that it must be said that every person who is virtuous through political courage and love of virtue ought to flee the sin opposed to virtue more than bodily death.
This conclusion is proved by reason, authority, and examples.
By reason, as follows. Every inclination of reason conforming to the inclination of nature which is neither corrupted nor vitiated is laudable and virtuous, or pertains to virtue. But the choice by which a virtuous and politically brave person chooses bodily death for the preservation of virtue or of the commonwealth, and flees harm to the commonwealth more than harm to his own bodily life, conforms to the inclination of integral nature. Therefore, and so forth.
The minor is proved by Saint Thomas in Part I, question 60, article 5, as follows:
In natural things, each thing which, according to nature, is the very thing which belongs to another is inclined more principally and more strongly toward that whose thing it is than toward itself. This natural inclination is demonstrated by those things which act naturally, because each thing is naturally acted upon in the way it is naturally fitted to be acted upon, according to Book II of the Physics. For we see naturally that a part exposes itself for the preservation of the whole body. And because reason imitates nature, we find an imitation of this kind in political virtues. For it belongs to a virtuous citizen to expose himself to the danger of death for the preservation of the whole commonwealth; and if the human being were a natural part of this city, this inclination would be natural to him.
And in Book IV of the Sentences, distinction 19, question 1, article 3, explaining this matter more diffusely, he says:
Each person wishes most strongly that good to be preserved which is pleasing to him, because it is more conformable to the appetite informed by love; and this is his own good. Hence, according as the good of some thing is—or is judged to be—a greater good of the lover himself, the lover wishes this good to be preserved more in the beloved thing. The good of the lover himself, however, is found more where it is more perfect. Therefore, because every part is imperfect in itself but possesses perfection in its whole, by natural love the part tends more toward the preservation of its whole than toward its own preservation. Hence an animal naturally places its arm in the way to defend its head, upon which the safety of the whole depends. It follows from this that particular human beings also expose themselves to death for the preservation of the city of which they are parts.
He states the same in II-II, question 26, article 3, saying:
Each part naturally loves the common good of the whole more than its own particular good. This is manifested in action, for each part possesses a principal inclination toward common action for the utility of the whole. This appears in the political virtues, according to which citizens sometimes sustain the losses of their own property and persons for the common good.
Second, the stated conclusion is proved by the authority of Augustine in Book V of The City of God, chapter 12, who says:
Therefore the ancient and earliest Romans, so far as their history teaches and commends them, although, like the other nations—with the one exception of the Hebrew people—they worshiped false gods and sacrificed victims not to God but to demons, were nevertheless eager for praise and liberal with money. They desired immense glory and honorable riches. They loved the former most ardently; for its sake they wished to live, and for its sake they did not doubt that they should also die. They suppressed their other desires through this one immense desire. Finally, because it seemed inglorious that their fatherland should serve, but glorious that it should rule and command, they first desired with every effort that it should be free, and afterward that it should be mistress.
And so forth.
Third, it is proved by examples. For we read that certain Gentiles exposed themselves to death from love of friends, not because charity caused their neighbor to be loved more than their own life, but because a person loves the good of virtue in his neighbor more than a corporeal good, as Thomas says in the Sentences, distinction 19, question 1, article 5.
We also read that others loved the commonwealth more than parents, children, and brothers, and chose death before committing the opposite of some virtue, even without hope of eternal life.
To the first, it must be said that those who love a good commonwealth for their own sake love it with the corrupt love of vitiated concupiscence, and not with the love of virtue.
To the second, it must be said that nature reflects upon itself not only with respect to what is singular to it, but much more with respect to what is common. For each thing is inclined to preserve not only its own individual but also its species; and much more does each thing possess a natural inclination toward that which is simply the universal good.
To the third, it must be said that ordered charity begins from oneself, yet according to the right reason of virtue.
These things are from Thomas in the places cited above and Lord John Capreolus of Toulouse in Book IV.