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Objection 1: It would seem that drunkenness does not excuse from
sin. For the Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 5) that "the
drunkard deserves double punishment." Therefore drunkenness
aggravates a sin instead of excusing from it.
Objection 2: Further, one sin does not excuse another, but
increases it. Now drunkenness is a sin. Therefore it is not an
excuse for sin.
Objection 3: Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 3)
that just as man's reason is tied by drunkenness, so is it by
concupiscence. But concupiscence is not an excuse for sin: neither
therefore is drunkenness.
On the contrary, According to Augustine (Contra Faust. xxii,
43), Lot was to be excused from incest on account of drunkenness.
I answer that, Two things are to be observed in drunkenness, as
stated above (Article 1), namely the resulting defect and the
preceding act. on the part of the resulting defect whereby the use of
reason is fettered, drunkenness may be an excuse for sin, in so far as
it causes an act to be involuntary through ignorance. But on the part
of the preceding act, a distinction would seem necessary; because, if
the drunkenness that results from that act be without sin, the
subsequent sin is entirely excused from fault, as perhaps in the case
of Lot. If, however, the preceding act was sinful, the person is
not altogether excused from the subsequent sin, because the latter is
rendered voluntary through the voluntariness of the preceding act,
inasmuch as it was through doing something unlawful that he fell into
the subsequent sin. Nevertheless, the resulting sin is diminished,
even as the character of voluntariness is diminished. Wherefore
Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 44) that "Lot's guilt is
to be measured, not by the incest, but by his drunkenness."
Reply to Objection 1: The Philosopher does not say that the
drunkard deserves more severe punishment, but that he deserves double
punishment for his twofold sin. Or we may reply that he is speaking in
view of the law of a certain Pittacus, who, as stated in Polit.
ii, 9, ordered "those guilty of assault while drunk to be more
severely punished than if they had been sober, because they do wrong in
more ways than one." In this, as Aristotle observes (Polit. ii,
9), "he seems to have considered the advantage," namely of the
prevention of wrong, "rather than the leniency which one should have
for drunkards," seeing that they are not in possession of their
faculties.
Reply to Objection 2: Drunkenness may be an excuse for sin, not in
the point of its being itself a sin, but in the point of the defect
that results from it, as stated above.
Reply to Objection 3: Concupiscence does not altogether fetter the
reason, as drunkenness does, unless perchance it be so vehement as to
make a man insane. Yet the passion of concupiscence diminishes sin,
because it is less grievous to sin through weakness than through
malice.
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