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Objection 1: It would seem that moral virtue can be without
passion. For the more perfect moral virtue is, the more does it
overcome the passions. Therefore at its highest point of perfection it
is altogether without passion.
Objection 2: Further, then is a thing perfect, when it is removed
from its contrary and from whatever inclines to its contrary. Now the
passions incline us to sin which is contrary to virtue: hence (Rm.
7:5) they are called "passions of sins." Therefore perfect
virtue is altogether without passion.
Objection 3: Further, it is by virtue that we are conformed to
God, as Augustine declares (De Moribus Eccl. vi, xi, xiii).
But God does all things without passion at all. Therefore the most
perfect virtue is without any passion.
On the contrary, "No man is just who rejoices not in his deeds,"
as stated in Ethic. i, 8. But joy is a passion. Therefore
justice cannot be without passion; and still less can the other virtues
be.
I answer that, If we take the passions as being inordinate emotions,
as the Stoics did, it is evident that in this sense perfect virtue is
without the passions. But if by passions we understand any movement of
the sensitive appetite, it is plain that moral virtues, which are
about the passions as about their proper matter, cannot be without
passions. The reason for this is that otherwise it would follow that
moral virtue makes the sensitive appetite altogether idle: whereas it
is not the function of virtue to deprive the powers subordinate to
reason of their proper activities, but to make them execute the
commands of reason, by exercising their proper acts. Wherefore just
as virtue directs the bodily limbs to their due external acts, so does
it direct the sensitive appetite to its proper regulated movements.
Those moral virtues, however, which are not about the passions, but
about operations, can be without passions. Such a virtue is justice:
because it applies the will to its proper act, which is not a passion.
Nevertheless, joy results from the act of justice; at least in the
will, in which case it is not a passion. And if this joy be increased
through the perfection of justice, it will overflow into the sensitive
appetite; in so far as the lower powers follow the movement of the
higher, as stated above (Question 17, Article 7; Question
24, Article 3). Wherefore by reason of this kind of overflow,
the more perfect a virtue is, the more does it cause passion.
Reply to Objection 1: Virtue overcomes inordinate passion; it
produces ordinate passion.
Reply to Objection 2: It is inordinate, not ordinate, passion
that leads to sin.
Reply to Objection 3: The good of anything depends on the condition
of its nature. Now there is no sensitive appetite in God and the
angels, as there is in man. Consequently good operation in God and
the angels is altogether without passion, as it is without a body:
whereas the good operation of man is with passion, even as it is
produced with the body's help.
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