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Objection 1: It seems that in repaying favors we should not look at
the benefactor's disposition but at the deed. For repayment is due to
beneficence, and beneficence consists in deeds, as the word itself
denotes. Therefore in repaying favors we should look at the deed.
Objection 2: Further, thanksgiving, whereby we repay favors, is a
part of justice. But justice considers equality between giving and
taking. Therefore also in repaying favors we should consider the deed
rather than the disposition of the benefactor.
Objection 3: Further, no one can consider what he does not know.
Now God alone knows the interior disposition. Therefore it is
impossible to repay a favor according to the benefactor's disposition.
On the contrary, Seneca says (De Benef. i): "We are sometimes
under a greater obligation to one who has given little with a large
heart, and has bestowed a small favor, yet willingly."
I answer that, The repayment of a favor may belong to three virtues,
namely, justice, gratitude and friendship. It belongs to justice
when the repayment has the character of a legal debt, as in a loan and
the like: and in such cases repayment must be made according to the
quantity received.
On the other hand, repayment of a favor belongs, though in different
ways, to friendship and likewise to the virtue of gratitude when it has
the character of a moral debt. For in the repayment of friendship we
have to consider the cause of friendship; so that in the friendship
that is based on the useful, repayment should be made according to the
usefulness accruing from the favor conferred, and in the friendship
based on virtue repayment should be made with regard for the choice or
disposition of the giver, since this is the chief requisite of virtue,
as stated in Ethic. viii, 13. And likewise, since gratitude
regards the favor inasmuch as it is bestowed gratis, and this regards
the disposition of the giver, it follows again that repayment of a
favor depends more on the disposition of the giver than on the effect.
Reply to Objection 1: Every moral act depends on the will. Hence
a kindly action, in so far as it is praiseworthy and is deserving of
gratitude, consists materially in the thing done, but formally and
chiefly in the will. Hence Seneca says (De Benef. i): "A
kindly action consists not in deed or gift, but in the disposition of
the giver or doer."
Reply to Objection 2: Gratitude is a part of justice, not indeed
as a species is part of a genus, but by a kind of reduction to the
genus of justice, as stated above (Question 80). Hence it does
not follow that we shall find the same kind of debt in both virtues.
Reply to Objection 3: God alone sees man's disposition in itself:
but in so far as it is shown by certain signs, man also can know it.
It is thus that a benefactor's disposition is known by the way in
which he does the kindly action, for instance through his doing it
joyfully and readily.
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