III. To the Principal Arguments of the Second Question

26. To the arguments of the second question [nn.8-9].

I say that the habits of the practical intellect are called good or bad because of their agreement with the will, just as - contrariwise - the will can be called right or bent because of its agreement with a right speculative act or a non-right speculative act, which acts are formally in the intellect; however goodness belongs to the will as rightness belongs to the intellect, but goodness is more appropriated to the practical intellect than to the speculative.

27. To the next argument [n.9] response can be made through the remark of the Philosopher in Ethics 7.5.1147a19-22 that “some people, when in a state of passion, speak the words of Empedocles, but they do not at all know them.” And so one can concede that he who simply knows with practical knowledge, not he who knows merely how ‘to say the words’, is conscientious - and the more he knows the more conscientious he is; this would seem it ought most to be said by him whose opinion has already been rejected [Henry’s, n.8, 12-18], because, according to him, in the same instant of time when will is bad reason is blinded, so that no one would in this way have conscience the less even if conscience belongs to the will. The argument then is common to this as to the other part [sc. about synderesis], and it can be solved as in the aforesaid way [sc. by distinguishing elicited act from habit or inclination, nn.23-24].