I. To the Question

6. Response. One must speak first of natural goodness and then of moral goodness.

7. About the first I say that, just as beauty in the body comes from the combination of all the things befitting the body and each other, namely quantity, color, and shape (as Augustine maintains On the Trinity 8.4, “A man’s face is good when it is similar in dimensions, happily disposed, and bright in color”), so natural goodness - not the goodness that converts with being but the goodness that has bad as opposite - is the second perfection of a thing, complete with all things befitting the thing and each other. And goodness is perfect when all these come together, according to the remark of Dionysius Divine Names ch.4, “Goodness comes from a perfect and complete cause;” but when all of them are lacking, and the nature that is naturally perfected by them remains, it is perfectly bad; when some are removed, there is badness but not perfect badness - as is the case with beauty and ugliness of body. Now a natural act is of a nature to agree with its efficient cause, its object, its end, and its form; for it is naturally then good when it has all befitting things, to the extent they are of a nature to come together for its being.

8. About the second [cf. 1 d.17 n.62] I say that the goodness of a moral act comes from the combination of all the things befitting the act (not from its nature absolutely), but the things befitting it according to right reason; so because right reason dictates that a determinate object befits the act, and a determinate mode as well as other circumstances, complete goodness does not come from the end alone.

9. But the first reason for an act’s goodness comes from the act’s fitting the efficient cause, which the act is called ‘moral’ by, because it is freely elicited; and this cause is common both to a good act and to a bad act, for the one is not laudable nor the other blamable unless it is from the will. The second condition comes from the object; and if the object is fitting, the act is good in its kind; but goodness in kind is indifferent as to the goodnesses beyond it, which are taken from the specific circumstances, just as a genus is indifferent to the many differences.

10. The first circumstance after the object is the primary end; nor is this end sufficient without the other circumstances, as the circumstance of form (namely that the act is done in due manner, which pertains to the fourth circumstance), and following it the more extrinsic circumstances, namely when and where.

11. It is plain, then, that the goodness of the end alone, even as intended according to right reason, is not sufficient for the goodness of an act, but other circumstances - in the order stated - are required for an act to be good.Aristotle Ethics 3.2.1111a3-6 has this list of circumstances: “who, what, about what or in what, sometimes also by what (as by what instrument) and for what end (as health) and how (as calmly or vehemently).” Ps.-Augustine Principles of Rhetoric ch.4 lists the circumstances as: “who, what, when, where, why, how, by what instruments.” ⁵³