St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Overview of Thomistic Ethics

    Telos = Good = Happiness = Heaven (Beatific Vision)
    Generic Virtue (GV): a generic virtue of x is a state of x which helps x achieve its Good.
    Moral Virtue (MCV): a moral virtue is a voluntary generic virtue.

Fundamental Objection

    Teleological Ethics Greek Ethics
    Counsels of Prudence vs. Commands of Duty
        10 Commandments
        Kantian Deontology ("Categorical vs. Hypothetical" Imperative)
        Utilitarianism (the pursuit of utility is not dependent upon personal gain)
    Two Possible Solutions
        Duty determines Prudence: Moral value is "so high" that it is always in your best interest to do your moral duty
            God will punish you for breaking a commandment
            Special value to self-sacrificing duty-observance (moral heroes or saints)
            Greatest happiness comes from helping others
        Prudence determines Duty: The commandments, imperatives, or summum bonum are what they are only because they direct us to what is supremely Good and worthy of love and devotion, i.e. in attaining your good
            Jesus summed up the commandments as "Love God & Love Neighbor"
            "Bare Imperatives" are insane; obey CI only for rational fulfillment
            Care about utility because love others, not simply because you ought "cold duty"

Plausible? Only depending upon whether there is a connection between the individual's good and the good of others; if, e.g. my good is simply my pleasure, then prudence and duty are separate; but if my good somehow involves the good of others, then perhaps together

St. Thomas' Strategy

1. There is a human telos = human good = happiness = beatific vision
2. Attaining this telos requires the perfection of intellect, will, and appetite
3. Perfection of these parts of the soul is the development of all the virtues

First Step: There is a Telos (SCG ii, pp.5-7)

1. If agents did not act for an end, then they would have no potentiality-differential for producing one effect rather than another.
2. If agents had no potentiality-differential for producing one effect rather than another, then over time we would see an equal number of different effects from the same agents.
3. If agents did not act for an end, then over time we would see an equal number of different effects from the same agents.
4. We do not see an equal number of different effects from the same agents.
5. Agents do act for an end.

The basic idea is in Premise 4: it happens with virtually absolute regularity that gorillas give birth to gorillas and not to bonobos, baboons or flamingos. Apple trees produce apples and not oranges. Human babies are born with hearts and lungs in exactly the same locations performing exactly the same functions. How do you explain all that? Coincidence? That's unreasonable.

Today in the mall there was only 1 reported wallet-stealing: mine! Why did it have to be mine? Was it just a coincidence? Maybe. Next time I go, only one reported wallet-stealing and again it is mine. Twice? Coincidence? How about a third time? Must be something I am doing to make myself a target. No coincidence.

They come about that way because that was the whole point, that was the goal, things are structured the way they are for the purpose of bringing about just those results as opposed to other possible effects.

P2: Random chance produces equality over time, but may be a long time

number of trials, not time, very unlikely if it doesn't show up in more than a few trials; unscientific to believe in other than teleology (cf. Coin toss).

P1: Teleology!

First Point: Intentionality and Teleology. Acting for an end doesn't mean that it was intentional: the theory is that there are two distinct ways for something to be teleological: (a) intentional and (b) non-intentional. Science accepted both kinds of teleology since Aristotle, but it was a hallmark of Early Modern Science & Philosophy to reject the second kind of teleology, sometimes called "teleology in nature." They tried to reduce natural teleology to the intentionality of God: apple trees have the purpose of producing apples only because that purpose was God's purpose or plan. They thought that it made no sense to say that the apple tree itself was doing what it was doing for a purpose. Once again, they were wrong! However, they were wrong in an instructive way, and it wasn't until Darwin that scientists were again persuaded of non-intentional teleology in nature.

Second Point: The Aristotelian Four Causes.

1. The efficient cause is the primary source of change in a thing (e.g. the acorn weevil is the efficient cause of the destruction of this acorn).

2. The material cause is the material composition out of which the efficient cause derives its potentiality for being the primary source of change in a thing (e.g. the material body of the acorn weevil, especially of the snout [a nitrogenous polysaccharide of N-acetylglucosamine plus some glucosamine, sclerotized with N-acetyldopamine and/or N--alanyldopamine, and with additional deposits of zinc, manganese and/or iron], is the material cause of the destruction of this acorn).

3. The formal cause is the essence, definition or specifying capacities in virtue of which the efficient cause is able to be the primary source of change (e.g. acorn-weevil-ness is the formal cause of the destruction of this acorn).

4. The final cause is that for the sake of which the efficient cause operates (e.g. providing food for its larvae is the final cause of the destruction of this acorn.)

Third Point: Objection to P2. You can explain the destruction of the acorn, why baby humans almost all grow hearts & lungs in the same places with the same functions, why gorillas give birth to baby gorillas and not baboons etc without the final cause. All you need is the right efficient cause, i.e. DNA, it is "hard-wired" into things

yes, but why precisely that "hard-wiring"? Of all the possible hard-wirings, why couldn't a gorilla be hard-wired to produce a flamingo instead of a gorilla? Answer: the one's that did all died out. The forces of evolution ("natural selection") have chosen only those hard-wirings that produce the right sort of result, i.e. have the right telos. The forces of evolution have selected against human beings who reproduce babies without hearts or lungs, or who have them but are defective. Hard-wiring has developed along certain lines rather than others for the survival advantages you get from those hard-wirings, i.e. for the good of the species.

Note: This is why the "Argument for God's Existence from Design" was so powerful for so long. Gorilla's don't give birth to flamingos because it would be bad for the flamingo: gorilla's simply aren't able to care for flamingos, but they are very well able to care for baby gorillas, and that is precisely why they give birth to baby gorillas. This kind of structuring things for the good is easy to see all over the cosmos, and makes it very plausible to think that there is a benevolent designer behind it all. That is why Darwin is responsible for a much more serious blow to religion than Copernicus ever was. The Copernican Revolution simply put God a bit more distant from the everyday operations of our lives (Deism and the Watchmaker), but Darwin's idea proposed a complete substitution for the role of designer.

You can develop this kind of ethical theory using Evolution in the place of God; so you could distinguish "Atheistic Teleological Ethics" from "Theistic Teleological Ethics."

Pro Evolution: if God were managing all this, we wouldn't see large-scale evolution over time, after all, in Genesis it says that in the beginning God saw that it was good!

Pro Theism: but if we see evolution evolving in a particular direction (e.g. developing rational agents with true moral free-will), then we would have empirical reason to think that evolution itself is an instrument of divine will.

C: All living organisms are telically/teleologically organized (same goes for organs)

Second Step: The Telos is a Good (SCG iii-xxiv, pp.7-9).

The crucial thing to know about this step is that it is not really controversial: it is true by definition that the telos of a thing is good ... for it. Look at SCG iii p.8: why do leaves wrap around fruit as it grows on the branch? Answer: to protect the fruit, i.e. for the good of the fruit. Why does a baby gorilla grow a heart in the middle of its chest right behind the sternum? Answer: because the sternum protects the heart, i.e. for the good of the gorilla. This follows right from what we just said about the telos.

The difficulty here is just to be clear on some Aristotelian metaphysics that Aquinas is relying on. He is relying on two absolutely central concepts in medieval philosophy: degrees of being and degrees of goodness.

Degrees of Being: x has being as an F to the degree that it actualizes the specifying capacities of an F.

E.g. a tree has being as an apple-tree to the degree that it actualizes the specifying capacities of apple-trees, i.e. to the degree that it has and exercises the specifying capacities of an apple tree.

E.g. an apple tree that puts out lots of healthy apples has a greater degree of being as an apple tree than an apple tree that puts out only a few apples that are not healthy

Don't confuse degrees of being with degrees of existence. Existence is all or nothing, either you have it or you don't; but being comes in degrees. If you understand degrees of being, then you understand degrees of goodness.

Notice that this is relative: being is being as something. The same goes for goodness: goodness is always goodness as something.

Degrees of Goodness: x has goodness as an F to the degree that it successfully strives for perfectly actualizing the specifying capacities of an F.

E.g. the degree to which one apple tree is better than another is determined by the degree to which it puts out lots of healthy apples.

The Argument

1. All agents act for an end.
2. If so, then all agents strive to actualize their specifying capacities perfectly.
3. All agents strive to actualize their specifying capacities perfectly.
4. All agents strive for their good.

P2: Agents act for an end because they have a potentiality-differential for precisely that end. Achieving that end is "actualizing that potentiality," or "reaching its full potential." It is doing what it is was designed to do.

Goodness is simply being qua desirable. Goodness and Being are not really distinct, they are not formally distinct, they are only intentionally distinct. They are the same thing thought of in two different ways.

Evil is privation/deviation. This also shows that evil is not a positive substance, it is merely the absence of goodness, evil is negation. This is what Aquinas leads to in SCG vii p.13. He points out also in SCG ix p.16 how his view is different from those who divide good and evil into two positive genera, like the Pythagoreans did:

The Pythagoreans viewed these oppositions as oppositions between two separate but equal powers: the power of good and the power of evil. Evil is just as real as women. Aquinas disagrees. What is "indefinite" is simply what lacks definition, what is unequal is simply what lacks equality, what is many simply lack unity. This is why he says in SCG x p.18 that "evil has not an efficient, but a deficient cause."

This is also why Aquinas mentions "monsters" in SCG iv p.9. When organisms are born malformed, i.e. lacking proper form, they are monstrous, they are evil. It is an evil to be lame, blind, deaf and so on. Now keep in mind, this is metaphysical evil, and not moral evil. A blind person is metaphysically evil, but not necessarily morally evil. A blind person is a defective person, they lack something which is proper to the perfection of a human being. They deviate from the norm

Summary: Evil is Privation in Two Senses

(1) Deviation from the Aim
(2) The Deviation results from some lack
    (a) Rational Lack = Ignorance
    (b) Will Lack = Malice, lacking proper regard for others
    (c) Irascible Lack = weakness, lacking strength to stand up to difficulties
    (d) Concupiscible Lack = failing to desire the right pleasures in right amounts ...

Third Step: Metaphysical Goodness and Moral Goodness (SCG iii-xxiv, pp.7-9).

In SCG x p.19 Aquinas introduces the idea of moral goodness and moral evil, i.e. the distinction between virtue and sin. To understand his view, we need to see how he understands the nature of a human action. Every human action comes in four stages.

    Apprehended Thing Apprehensive Power Will Executive (Motive) Power
    The apple pie sits on the window ledge cooling.
    I see the apple pie and judge that it would be good to eat it.
    I choose to eat it.
    I go over to the ledge and eat the apple pie.

Of these four stages, is clearly not capable of having either positive or negative moral worth. A visible object simply sitting there being visible is neither morally good nor morally bad, it just is. Of course it can be metaphysically good or bad, because it can be good as an apple pie, or it can be a bad apple pie, but this goodness is not moral.

Of course there is moral value by the time we get to stage , because that is the stage where you are actually stealing the pie. But it is important to isolate stage from the others. The physical actions you take don't add or take away any moral value from the action you are doing. For example, suppose you had decided not to steal but simply to sniff the pie, but you happen to trip on a rock, propelling you face forward into the pie, ruining it. You destroyed the pie, and that is a kind of theft, but it clearly wasn't really your fault. That is why Aquinas says that "a defect in this executive power either wholly excuses or diminishes moral fault."

Notice that such a defect may only "diminish" moral fault. If you should have looked where you were going, and have been more careful, then you are guilty to a certain degree. It is like the drunk driver who hits and kills someone. They didn't intend to kill anyone, so in that sense they aren't a murderer; however, their drunkenness only partially excuses their behavior. They shouldn't have been driving drunk to begin with, so it is really their own fault.

Now back up to stage . Your intellect tells you that it would be good to eat the apple pie. Is that morally wrong? Not really, according to Aquinas. In fact, what your "apprehensive power," i.e. Reason, is telling you is true: if you eat that pie, it will taste pleasant, and pleasure is good. Another way to see that there is no sin here is to think of a way in which the "apprehensive power" could go wrong. Suppose the person who baked the pie called over for you to watch the pie, and you thought he said "munch" the pie. You just mis-heard, and so you didn't really do anything immoral.

But the same thing goes here as with a defect in the executive power. If you didn't but should have known what your neighbor was saying, then you are only partially exculpated. You did something wrong, but it is not quite as wrong as if you knew full well that you were stealing.

So the only place left for moral right/wrong to come in is with , i.e. the will. Moral right and wrong stems primarily from the choices you make. If your bodily "executive powers" are weak in a particular area, then your will is responsible for taking care that you don't go places where your particular weaknesses will result in something bad happening. If you have an eating disorder, for example, then your will has to be watchful to make sure you don't end up near food. If you are particularly susceptible to a sexual temptation, e.g. adultery, then your will has to make sure that you are never alone with that person.

The same goes for the relation between your will and your intellect. Look at SCG x pp.20-21 (last two paragraphs). First of all you have to make sure that your apprehensive faculty lets your reason work something over. Don't just give it to the computer long enough for the read-out to say, "Well it would be awfully tasty, but ..." and you cut it off in med-sentence. Like John Lennon said in "The Ballad of John and Yoko:" Think! Second, your will can direct your attention. Don't just think about how good/bad it is along one dimension, think about, for example, how your action would affect others. You should treat almost every situation as a Wittgensteinean duck-rabbit situation. Is it a duck or is it a rabbit? turn it over in your mind and look at it in different ways. Perhaps it looks good to you from one perspective, but it can look pretty bad from another perspective. If you just think about the pleasure of having sex with that person, it might look pretty good; but if you think about all the details involved, and the bitter recriminations from your girlfriend or boyfriend when they find out, it might not look so appealing.

The point is that moral good/evil is just a species of metaphysical good/evil. Metaphysical good/evil is being good/evil as an F, and moral good/evil is simply good/evil as an agent with a rational will, i.e. as a voluntary agent, one with free will. A sinful person, a person who develops vices rather than virtues, is simply bad at making voluntary choices. Or to put it another way, developing the vices rather than the virtues is like intentionally making yourself go blind, or intentionally crippling yourself. Vicious people are in the realm of moral value what monsters are in the realm of physical value. Vicious people are moral monsters, horribly disfigured, and doomed by their own doing to live unhappy lives.

This is the main topic for the bulk of what we will be looking at in Aquinas, but for now, all you need to focus on is the fact that moral evil is just a type of metaphysical evil, it is privation and an impediment to or deviation from achieving your telos, your good, i.e. happiness. But I've jumped the gun here by bringing in happiness. That's the next step.

Fourth Step: Goodness and Happiness (SCG xxv, p.46).

Aquinas doesn't really spend a lot of time defending the view that the human good, the human telos, is happiness. He mentions it in SCG xxv, p. 46 at the very end of his chapter on knowing God. He says, "the last end of man and of any intelligent substance is called happiness or beatitude, for it is this that every intellectual substance desires as its last end." Actually, in Latin there is only one word here: beatitudo. Notice that he is getting this word from the Bible. In Matthew 5:3-12 Jesus gives a list that has come to be called "The Beatitudes" because they all begin, in Latin, with the word "Beati," the Latin translation of the Greek word "makarioi" which is usually translated as "happy" or "blessed" because it is normally associated with divine favor. That is, in fact, the basic idea of the other Greek word that is usually translated as "happiness," i.e. eudaimonia. Both words carry the sense of divine favor or good fortune. The idea is that in this world, bad things so often happen that if you are able to escape tragedy, then it must be because the gods, or God, has smiled down upon you. So being eudaimn or makarios is being favored by the gods, being fortunate, having a good life. Having beatitudo (or beatitas) or felicitas mean pretty much the same things. Beatitudo comes from bonus, which means good. So the idea is that if you have "beatitude" then you have a good life. Felicitas comes from felix which means fruitful or productive. But if you live in an agrarian community, something fruitful, i.e. something that promises to result in a good crop, is a very good omen, a very favorable or auspicious sign. By extension, it means fortunate or "lucky" but not lucky in a random sense. When you believe in the gods, you don't believe that luck is random. So again, the main idea has to do with divine favor resulting in a good life.

The English word "happy" does not occur, so far as we know, before the 14^th century. Etymologically it is derived from the same root that we get the word "happen" from. If you have ever heard the expression "a happy accident," then you have heard the root idea of the word. A "happy" occurrence is when something good happens. A person who is "happy" is a person to whom something good has happened. Again, the idea is closer to what we now think of as "good fortune." Also, in a culture that believes in the gods, or in God, fortune or "good luck" is not random, it is divine favor. God has smiled upon you and given you your heart's desire, you have a good life. It isn't until Shakespeare, Milton and Spenser (around the 17^th century) that the word "happy" begins to refer primarily to a subjective mental state, i.e. pleasure. This is part of the modern philosophical disease, perhaps initiated by Descartes, to focus exclusively upon the subjective side human experience, rather than to take a more balanced approach.

Since you all were raised in these decadent, modern times, you all can't help but think that happiness is pleasure, and that the word "happiness" means just pleasure and nothing else. I can't really blame you, because it is not really your fault. However, you need to realize that in the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, Europeans had not yet contracted this disease, and so when we talk about "happiness" from now on, we mean it in the more general sense of "felicity" or "beatitude" or "eudaimonia" or "makaria." Another phrase that was often used in Latin is "summum bonum," i.e. the highest or greatest good. If you think of "happiness" as a synonym for "summum bonum" and leave "summum bonum" indefinite, you will come very close to thinking of "happiness" in the same way that Aquinas thought of "beatitude."

Happiness is the highest good a human can achieve, but there is dispute about what the summum bonum is. First of all, think of political apathy. Think of someone who is jaded by the political system and never even votes. This person might say, "What's the point of voting? Whoever wins, they just go to Washington and get sucked into the system of partisan politics and nothing ever changes." A response might be, "Then you need to get more involved, not less involved. Don't just sit around complaining; do something about it! You'll never be happy if you are a passenger and not a participant in your community. No one is an island; you have to get politically involved." This person is arguing that the political life is the summum bonum. Alternatively, if you ask a rock star what the summum bonum is, he'll say that it is sex & drugs & rock 'n roll. This person is arguing that the life of pleasure is the summum bonum. What good is the political life if it just leads to frustration and headaches. Life is a ride; go for the gusto; enjoy life to its fullest. Here you have two opposed views of the summum bonum, and so they are two opposed views of happiness. Aquinas is going to decide which determinate conception of the summum bonum is correct.

Most of what I've said so far is just conceptual or verbal clarification. But there is an important philosophical point to be made here. The concept of the summum bonum is related to the concept of the human telos and the human good. Look at SCG xxvi p.49. Aquinas gives the example of a heavy object moving to its proper place, i.e. the center of the universe. That is how they are designed. Their telos is not simply the floor, because it if you put it on the floor, it will still be pressing down, striving to get even lower. The telos of the rock is not achieved until it has finally arrived at the lowest place, and is no longer striving to move anywhere. Imagine that the center of the universe is the center of the earth, and imagine further that the center of the earth is hollow. If a rock got there, it would just hover in mid-air; it would no longer be striving to move anywhere. That is the summum bonum for anything at all, including a human being. You have not achieved your summum bonum if there is something that you lack and are still trying to get. The highest good is just that, highest. If you are still climbing, then you're not there yet, you have to keep going. To link this up with the idea of the human good and the human telos, it is just hard-wired into you that your specifying capacities cannot be completely fulfilled without achieving your summum bonum. Why? Because that is just what your summum bonum is, i.e. whatever it is that would completely actualize or "per-fect" your nature. You summum bonum is your complete actualization, your complete fulfillment. "Be all that you can be" is the slogan for achieving your summum bonum. If you are an under- achiever, if you are not working up to your full potential, then you have not achieved your summum bonum. It is what you were designed for.

Fifth Step: Happiness is the Beatific Vision (SCG xxvi-lxiii, pp.47-113).

Are you happy? Are you truly, deeply happy? If so, what exactly is it that makes you happy? If not, what would make you happy? What is it that you are looking for? What do your heart's desire? What do you want out of life? What is your aim in life? And what if you finally achieved it? Would it really satisfy you? Do you have any aim at all, or are you just drifting aimlessly through life from one empty, meaningless event to the next? Is there anything worth trying for in this life?

External Goods (Goods of Fortune)
    28: Honor
    29: Glory
    30: Wealth
    31: Worldly Power
Goods of the Body
    32: Health, Beauty, Strength
Goods of the Sensitive Soul
    27: Pleasure
    33: The Senses
Goods of the Intellective Soul - Moral Virtues
    34: Moral Virtue
Goods of the Intellective Soul - Action
    35: Prudence
    36: Art
Goods of the Intellective Soul - Contemplation of Truth/God
    37-63: The Beatific Vision of God

As you go through these you will see certain considerations recur. Of these ends, only the final one, the Beatific Vision of God, can possibly be the human telos/good. Here are the recurrent considerations.

    The Good is the Last End
    The Good the Highest Good
    The Good is Stable & Dependent upon the Will

The Good is the Last End. E.g. Wealth cannot be The Good, and so Happiness cannot consist in the possession of wealth. Why? Ch. 30, p.55: wealth is valued only for a further end, i.e. the things it can buy.

Objection: What about the miser who hoards his wealth and spends only what he must? For him, wealth is his last end.

Distinguish Subjective Last End from Objective Last End: With respect to your own conscious plans and choices, the accumulation of great wealth may in fact be your Last End, and so that may be the complete satisfaction of your conscious choices. The problem is that your nature is not up to your conscious choices. You are what you are, and because of that, much of what you are will remain unsatisfied if you devote yourself solely to the accumulation of great wealth.

Note that existentialists strongly object to this sort of view. They argue that the self is entirely a matter of voluntary choice. The problem is that there seems to be empirical verification of the Objectivist view:

(a) biological & medical science do seem to tell us a great deal of the human good independently of our conscious choices;

(b) the science of psychology seems to yield the same result (satisfying all of your conscious choices may still leave you radically unsatisfied and unfulfilled). There are drives and desires you have that are not fully conscious ("unconscious" or "subconscious"), see Ch. 24, p.41 & 42 ("good is diffusive"): if you set your sights on anything less than your true, objective Last End, then you will not be completely satisfied, and you will be striving for something more, and you will be unable successfully to incorporate these other strivings/yearnings into your lesser goal

In either case, Thomas' final determination will be that no matter how subjectively happy the possession of great wealth makes you, you could be happier. Perhaps you don't care about being happier. That's up to you. His only point is that you could.

This is the idea underlying the virtues and the vices; this is the root idea underlying the 10 commandments and all of your moral duties: you could be happier. The same holds for all of the "External Goods" e.g. Honor (respect), Glory (fame, notoriety), and worldly power: these all can be good things (but they can also be bad!), but they are valued for a further end (Ch. 28, p.53), e.g. honor is for a "voucher" for one's own worthiness, glory is valued for the honor it brings (Ch.29, p.54) and power is valued for the things it can do (Ch. 31, p.56, "reference to something else").

The Good is the Highest Good. E.g. Pleasure (Ch. 26, pp.49-50), Moral Virtue or the Active Life (cf. p.51 "fifth") 26, pp.47-48 the various powers.

Cf. the U.S. Govt. Judiciary, Legislative, Executive powers. The Legislative Power passes laws, but the Judiciary has a kind of veto power: those laws are invalid because they violate the constitution. The Executive can make recommendations to the Legislative, but it's power is limited to executing the law of the land. Hence, the good of the country rests primarily in the good of the Judiciary. E.g. Freedom of Speech. President John Adams recommended, and got passed a "seditious libel" law, so that he could throw anyone into prison who criticized him or his government. And he did! This could have been nipped in the bud, had the Judiciary overruled that law, but it didn't. Our freedom is only as secure as the Judiciary permits. Without a sound Judiciary, the Legislative can get away with writing unconstitutional laws, and the President can get away with applying those laws, and even applying constitutional laws in unconstitutional ways.

The same goes for you. You have an objective structure: SCG Ch.26, pp.47-48

(a) Natural Appetite (you have things in common with rocks & plants); you have to take care that you don't get too close to cliffs, because you'll fall; also you have to heed your basic appetites for food and drink & avoiding physical illness
(b) Sensitive Appetite (you have things in common with animals); you are attracted to pleasure, and you have a fight/flight instinct. You have a part to you that kicks in when the things that attract you are arduous, there are obstacles.
(c) Rational Appetite (you have things unique to humans); you can think and make plans and evaluate alternatives and make informed choices on the basis of these decisions
(d) Intellect (you have things humans have in common with angels & God); you can understand the fundamental truths of the cosmos, i.e. the mind of God, which is God Himself. On the practical side, you use your "what are the principles by which this works" to govern your life & the lives of those around you (politics). On the theoretical side, you want the truth for the truth's sake; knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

Speculative Intellect is the Highest Faculty because for human beings, it all starts from there. Our understanding of the truth is where we get our practical principles for conducting human life by laws & customs which maximize satisfaction for all of us, even when doing so is arduous, including bodily health and physical integrity.

The Good is Stable & Dependent upon the Will. E.g. health, beauty, strength (Ch. 32, pp.56-57); Worldly Power the same (Ch.31, p.56)

All three depend upon the will: health (will to take care of yourself & exercise), beauty (plastic surgery, make-up, hygiene), strength (working out).

fortune, luck, tragedy; highly dependent, cf. power

Why does happiness have to be stable & dependent upon the will? Cf. Mayflies, Order Ephemeroptera, they spend their larval stages in the water, pupate, emerge with their wings, fly up, mate and die. Often they are adults for a few hours before dying. Often are structurally incapable of eating (e.g. no mouthparts). "Live fast, love hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse."

That's fine for them, but you are different. For you that would be tragic loss. "Wasted youth." Think of how much more you could have done and been. Again, as much as you may subjectively place your happiness in these things, your nature is structured so that you will find this unsatisfying, you will be yearning for more.

Take it step by step
    (a) Satisfy Natural Appetite alone? Absence of pain leaves you wanting pleasure.
    (b) Natural & Sensitive Appetites? Leaves you at the mercy of others.
    (c) Natural, Sensitive & Rational? Leaves you wanting to know the best way.
    (d) Natural, Sensitive, Rational, Practical Intellect? Leaves you wanting to know the deepest questions about the cosmos. I.e. what are we doing here anyway?

ST IaIIae q.4 a.3: Since Happiness consists in gaining the last end, those things that are required for Happiness must be gathered from the way in which man is ordered to an end. Now man is ordered to an intelligible end partly through his intellect, and partly through his will: through his intellect, in so far as a certain imperfect knowledge of the end pre-exists in the intellect: through the will, first by love which is the will's first movement towards anything; secondly, by a real relation of the lover to the thing beloved, which relation may be threefold. For sometimes the thing beloved is present to the lover: and then it is no longer sought for. Sometimes it is not present, and it is impossible to attain it: and then, too, it is not sought for. But sometimes it is possible to attain it, yet it is raised above the capability of the attainer, so that he cannot have it forthwith; and this is the relation of one that hopes, to that which he hopes for, and this relation alone causes a search for the end. To these three, there are a corresponding three in Happiness itself. For perfect knowledge of the end corresponds to imperfect knowledge; presence of the end corresponds to the relation of hope; but delight in the end now present results from love. And therefore these three must concur with Happiness; to wit, vision, which is perfect knowledge of the intelligible end; comprehension, which implies presence of the end; and delight or enjoyment, which implies repose of the lover in the object beloved.

You don't just want health, you don't just want pleasure, you don't just want justice, you don't just want to understand how things work.

Faith: you want to believe that the truth is out there
Hope: you want to avoid despair of ever attaining this true
Charity: you love this truth, and you want to be united with it in mutual love

[The Truth = The Pleasant = The Arduous = The Good = God]