Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas on the moral ignorance

Firstly, it should be noted that in the epoch of XII-XIII centuries several translations of " Nicomachean Ethics" have been made, in particular, one of them was carried out about 1253 under the direction of Robert Grosseteste. In turn, Albert the Great, being the mentor of Thomas Aquinas, twice applied to this outstanding Aristotelian treatise and layed the foundations of subsequent tradition of medieval commentaries. Apparently, he instilled an interest in this treatise to his disciple. It is noteworthy that Thomas Aquinas has left not only the Commentary on " Nicomachean Ethics", but in general a significant part of his fundamental work " Summa Theologica" is devoted to the issues of morality, that certainly due to his Christian worldviews which were focused according with the Ecclesiastical penitential discipline on the moral principles and on the calculation of sin and virtue. Nevertheless, we should not discount the influence of Stagirite’s ethical discours

Secondly, the problem of moral unawareness (agnoia), as the famous Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov has translated this Greek term, goes back to Plato's dialogue " Protagoras" and is an important theme both for the understanding of strategy moral act in " Nicomachean Ethics" and for the explanation of human action in the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas. Moreover, in the Western tradition it was defined as " ignorance" (ignorantia), that in the Russian perception indicates a free election, because the ignorance involves a personal participation (I ignore, I do not notice anything), while the " unawareness" is independently of me (I do not know, because I cannot know or have not heard). Nevertheless, for Aristotle and Aquinas, the ignorance associates with the problem of incontinence (akrasia), when the person is unable to make correct moral decisions and to develop appropriate behaviour strategies, for example, due to drunkenness or anger. In this sense, Aristotle separated a state of ignorance, like as in examples of drunkenness or anger, or out of ignorance, when a person do not have enough knowledge or knowledge not yet moved to the level of moral skill or when he operates under the external duress. However, according to Stagirite and Thomas Aquinas the fact of ignorance does not remove the responsibility of person. In opinion of Aristotle it is associated with a perverse man who is subject to errors.

Thirdly, for Aquinas the topic of moral ignorance has a particular importance, because in his understanding of it is due not only with the inability to control himself, but it determines the moral grounds and intentions of human actions that in turn leads to the phenomenon of conscience and ultimately to the matter of salvation. In the context of ancient Greek philosophy the understanding of moral ignorance is defined by the Socratic conception of knowledge as a condition of our actions (if I know, then I will do so, as it should be, but if I do something wrong, it means that I do not know), although Aristotle recognizes that people may not know because of its perverse nature (incontinence etc.). According to the medieval scholastics, the intentions and strategies of our actions are the starting principle of imputation of guilty and moral responsibility of man, so the Old Testament story associated with the act of Jacob’s adultery was regarded as a quite venial action because of deception he could not get the appropriate knowledge. In this context, the issues of moral ignorance were associated with the prospect of scholastic discussions that unfolded around understanding the act of moral action, including identification of the causes of our mistakes and errors, determination of correlation of will and intellectual abilities, and comparing the procedure of moral judgments and emotional experiences that certainly was reflected in Thomas Aquinas' doctrine.

The research is carried out within the Russian Humanitarian Foundation (grant № 16-03-00099 " Freedom and Subjectivity in the Reformation Doctrine of Martin Luther and the Early Modern Philosophy").

[27] Monika Michał owska

Uniwersytet Medyczny w Ł odzi, Poland