Abelard – Ethics, or Know Thyself (Book I)

 Book I
o Morals – the mind’s vices or virtues that make us disposed to bad or good deeds
 Also vices and virtues of the body
 On Mental Vice Relevant to Morals
o Some vices or goods of the mind are unconnected to morals
 These don’t make a human life deserving of censure or praise
 E.g. mental obtuseness or quick wit; having a good memory or being
forgetful; ignorance or knowledge
o “disposed to bad deeds” – they incline the will to something that isn’t properly to
be done or renounced at all
 What Difference Is There between a Sin and a Vice Inclining One to Evil?
o Mental vice isn’t the same as sin
o A sin isn’t the same as a bad action
o Vice:
 Being hot-tempered
 Disposed or easily given to the turmoil that is anger
 It inclines the mind to doing something impulsively and
irrationally that isn’t fit to be done at all
o The vice is present even when the action is absent
o They don’t sin by the fact that they are like this
o Religion doesn’t think it shameful to be defeated by a human being, but by a vice
o Whatever is common to good and bad people equally is irrelevant to virtue or vice
 What Is Mental Vice, and What Is Properly Called “Sin”?
o Vice makes us disposed to sin
 We are inclined to consent to what is inappropriate, so that we do it or
renounce it
 This consent is what we properly call “sin”
 The fault of the soul whereby it merits damnation or is held guilty
before God
o God cannot be offended by injury but he can by scorn
o Sin consists of non-being rather than of being - sometimes
 We can define sin negatively, saying it is not doing or not renouncing
what is appropriate
o Willing a bad deed is also a sin - sometimes
 As a result, in the same way as there is virtue in a good will so there is sin
in a bad will, and there is sin not only in non-being but also in being, just
as with virtue
o Sometimes we sin without any bad will
  Shouldn’t be called a “sin” but a kind of illness that is now necessary
 When a bad will is curbed without being extinguished, it wins the
palm-branch of victory for those resisting it, and it provides the
material for a fight and a crown of glory
o Cruel master example (killing in defense)
 It was against his will and under duress that he did
what kept his life intact as long as possible
 This willing isn’t to be condemned as bad
 Yet he did wrong in consenting to an unjust slaying
he should have borne rather than inflicted
 His unjust consent that preceded the killing was a
sin
o But surely a so called “willing: like this, one that consists of great mental sorrow,
isn’t to be called a “willing” but rather a “suffering”
 To say he wants one thing because of another is like saying he tolerates
what he doesn’t want because of something else he does desire
 No one suffers when he accomplishes his will and when what happens
delights him
o It is plain that sin is sometimes committed without any bad will at all, so that it is
clear from this that willing isn’t said to be what sin is
o Internal struggle
 What if this willing is curbed by the virtue of moderation but not
extinguished
 Now this enemy is our bad will, the one we triumph over when we subject
it to the divine will
 But we don’t entirely extinguish it, so that we always have a will we might
strive against
o We don’t merit anything from God
 Since in giving out rewards He takes account of the mind rather than the
action
 The action doesn’t add anything to the merit, whether it springs from good
or bad willing
o When we prefer His will to ours, so that we follow His rather than ours, we do
obtain great merit before Him
o It isn’t the lusting after a woman but the consenting to the lust that is the sin
 It isn’t the will to have sex with her that is damnable, but the will’s
consent
 Example: Fruit (gluttony)
o Where there is desire, no doubt there is will
o He curbs his desire; he doesn’t destroy it
 o But because he isn’t drawn into consent, he doesn’t fall into
sin
o We consent to what isn’t allowed when we don’t draw back from committing it
and are wholly ready to carry it out should the opportunity arise
 Adding on the performance of the deed doesn’t add anything to increase
the sin
 For God, someone who tries as hard as he can to go through with it is just
as guilty as one who does go through with it insofar as he is able
o How do we say the sin is “voluntary”?
 How do we say we want to scorn God (which is what sinning is), or to
grow worse or to be made deserving of damnation?
 For although we might want to do what we know ought to be punished, or
that whereby we might be deserving of punishment, nevertheless we don’t
want to be punished
o When we lust after a married woman, we don’t want her to cheat, but to not be
married
 There are some who lust after a woman for who she is married to
(powerful)
o “I really don’t see how this consent that we don’t want is going to be called
“voluntary” so that, following some people as was said, we call every sin
“voluntary” – unless we understand the “voluntary” as merely excluding the
necessary (since no sin is inevitable), or call the “voluntary” whatever arises from
some will (for although he who killed his master under duress didn’t have a will
for killing, nevertheless he committed it from some will, since he wanted to
escape or put off death)
o If doing the act is considered a sin, then not even married couples are exempt
from sin when they are brought together by this bodily pleasure that is permitted
to them, and neither is one who enjoys a delicious meal of his own fruit
 Taking pleasure in an action is not necessarily sinful
 Bounds of permission allow certain pleasurable actions
 But yet the pleasure is not what is permitted – technically they
should be done without pleasure
o No natural bodily pleasure is to be counted as a sin
o Original Sin
 Surely one who doesn’t yet perceive by reason what he ought to do
doesn’t have any fault because of scorn for God
 Yet he isn’t immune to the stain of his earlier parents’ sin, from which he
already incurs punishment even if not fault; he preserves in his
punishment what they committed in their fault
o Indulgence – being able to turn away from the more perfect life to the practice of
a more lenient life
 Marriage & sex
 Indulgence isn’t forgiving a sin, but the authorization of a more lenient life
in order to avoid fornication, with the result that the inferior life would
prevent a great amount of sin, and is less in merits so that it not become
greater in sins
o Any kind of carrying out of deeds is irrelevant to increasing a sin
 Nothing taints the soul but what belongs to it, namely the consent that
we’ve said is alone the sin
 Not the will preceding it or the subsequent doing of the deed
 Will  consent  deed
 (Bad) consent without bad will – the example of a person who unwillingly
killed his master
 (Good) No consent with bad will – fell into lust for a woman seen
o Consent as sin
 He who shall look at a woman in order to lust after her – is consenting to
the lust
o If we look carefully, wherever deeds appear to be included under a command or
prohibition, they are to be referred more to the will or the consent to the deeds
than to the deeds themselves
 “Thou shalt not kill” etc
 Such acts can be committed sometimes without sin
 If this kind of prohibition is taken at face value, as being about the deed,
then he who wants to bear false witness, or even he who consents to
saying it, as long as he doesn’t say it and keeps quiet for whatever reason,
doesn’t become guilty before the Law.
 For it wasn’t stated that we should not want to bear false witness,
or not agree to bearing it, but only that we should not bear it.
 Marrying ones sister
 Does one sin if he does it out of ignorance and accident?
 He doesn’t break it because he didn’t consent to breaking it insofar
as he acted unknowingly
o The merit or praiseworthiness of the doer doesn’t consist in the deed but in the
intention
 Often in fact the same thing is done by different people, through the
justice of one and the viciousness of the other
 EX: hanging a criminal
 Power of justice from God, will for unjust from himself
o Question of Integrity of God’s commands
 Commanded Abraham to kill Isaac
Commanded followers to not tell about miracles
God didn’t intend this or command it to be done that Abraham would
really sacrifice his son, but in order that his obedience and the
steadfastness of his faith or of his love for him might be sorely tried and
left as an example to us
 Thus, this intention of God’s was right, in the case of a deed that
was not right
o Conclusion:
 Four parts
 The mental vice that makes us disposed to sin
 The sin itself
o Which we have located in consent to evil or scorn for God
 The will for evil
 The doing of the evil
 Just as willing isn’t the same as accomplishing the will, so sinning isn’t
the same as carrying out the sin
 Three steps
 Instigation
 Pleasure
 Consent
o Temptation
 Any inclination of the mind to doing something improper, whether that
inclination is a will or a consent
 God doesn’t allow us to be tempted by more than we can bear
 Human temptation – based off of human needs
 Why God Is Called the Examiner of the Heart and Reins
o The examiner of the intentions or consents stemming from there with respect to:
 Lust of the flesh
 Lust of the soul
o Men should punish for acts between men – not sins
 We punish house-burnings with a greater penalty than we do for carrying
out fornication, when before God the latter is regarded as much more
serious than the former
o These things are done not so much out of duty to justice as out of the proper
balance needed for its administration, so that in preventing public injuries we
have regard for general expediency
 Saving the mind’s faults for divine judgment, with our own judgment we
pursue their results, which are ours to judge
  We pay more attention to administering – that is, to the standpoint of
foresight – than to pure fairness
o But God arranges everyone’s penalty according to the extent of the fault
o A deed is good because it proceeds from a good intention
 On the Reward for External Deeds
o We aren’t denying that in this life something is awarded for these good or bad
deeds, in order that we may be further encouraged to good deeds or kept from bad
ones by present repayment as profit or penalty, and in order that some people
should take their examples from others in doing things that are proper or shunning
those that are improper
 That a Deed Is Good by Means of a Good Intention
o As in “Socrates is sitting”
 Is true or false based on changing in the subject thing
 On What Basis Should an Intention Be Called Good?
o Pleases God?
 What they believe pleases God
 But they are deceived in this zeal or eagerness of mind, their intention is
mistaken and their heart’s eye is not simple in such a way that it could see
clearly – that is, keep itself from error
o An intention isn’t to be called good because it appears good, but more than that,
because it is such as it is considered to be – that is, when if one believes that what
he is aiming at is pleasing to God, he is in addition not deceived in his evaluation