c. Scotus’ own Response

38. One can reply in another way as follows. Active and passive power are, in general, the same in absolute nature (namely, some hot thing is the same as the heating power and another hot thing the same as the heatable power), and on these absolute natures are founded certain relations such that ‘this passive thing’ is disposed to ‘this active thing’ so as to receive from it the form for which it is in passive potency; and when a power thus proportioned or disposed comes close to the active thing, there is then a relation of coming close together, a mutual relation, on which it follows that the passive thing receives a form from the active thing -not however that the relation of action in the active thing and of passion in the passive thing, or their tendencies prior to their coming together (or the relation of coming close in the active and passive thing), are causes of such a form; rather these relations will be causes ‘sine qua non’. So, in like manner, one can say as to the matter at hand that this absolute thing, e.g. sight, is disposed to some visible thing as to something perfective of it (e.g. to some perfect or beautiful white thing) and, conversely, to a contrary visible thing as to something corruptive of it (or it is not disposed to it but disposed from it), and then the relation that is the term of the relation of the disposing to the disposed is called ‘agreement’ and the contrary is called ‘disagreement’ (because there is no relation of equality in the sense objects but of inequality), insofar as the ‘agreeable’ is said to be that to which it is dispositionally inclined (that is, to something extrinsic which is perfective of it), and the ‘disagreeable’ that from which it is dispositionally disinclined as from something extrinsic that is corruptive and offensive to it. Nor is there any other reason that sight is disposed with such an inclination to something white save that sight is the sort of passive thing it is and white the sort of active thing it is; just as there is no other reason that matter is inclined to form as to an intrinsic perfection save that matter is the sort of absolute entity it is and form the sort of absolute entity it is. Now upon this relation, which is founded on these absolute terms, there follows a coming together, which coming together is greatest when the white thing in its very presence is seen or perceived by sight.

39. From this coming together it follows that the inclined thing receives (from the perfective thing to which it is inclined) some perfection; and this perfection is pleasure, which, because it only moves in the presence of the agent cause, is called a ‘passion’, though it is really a quality and not of the genus of ‘passion’ as passion is a category (as I said elsewhere [On the Categories qq. 3036 nn.54-60]). For a like reason intellection is called an ‘action’, though it is really a quality; also, just as intellection possesses something additional to this idea of action (namely that, like action, it has regard to an object), so this additional something has regard to an efficient cause by which it is produced as a passion is. And by these two facts one says ‘it [intellection] is an action’ and ‘it is a passion’.

40. The idea then of being cause of this pleasure is not the agreement that was the relation, nor either is it the presence of the object in perception, which is a different relation (a sort of coming together of agent and passive thing); rather the absolute form alone (on which the relation of being active object is founded) has the idea of causing also the absolute (which is the pleasure) in the absolute that is inclined to this absolute (the absolute form) as to an extrinsic cause of perfection.

41. So too from the opposite side about pain, that the absolute which is disposed against the corruptive object called ‘disagreeable’ (as the object is referred to the power) is followed by a coming together, and this is followed, third, by the impression of the passion which is the pain; and this pain is, as an intrinsic form, contrary to the disposition of the receiver of pain, just as the passive thing is, as extrinsic, contrary to the receiver’s disposition.

42. As to the commonly stated remark that ‘the agreeable pleases and the disagreeable saddens’, it must not be understood causally, as if the agreeableness or disagreeableness were the reasons for causing pleasure and pain in the power; but we abstract certain general reasons from the distinct absolute things (to which causing those effects belongs), and from those reasons (to which it belongs to be efficient cause of pleasure and pain) we abstract reasons of agreeable and disagreeable, as that we abstract the idea of disagreeable from that which is efficient cause of pain, and we take the idea of agreeable from that which is efficient cause of pleasure. It is as if we were to say that every active thing when close at hand acts on the passive thing; ‘active’ and ‘passive thing’ spoken of as relations are not the reasons for acting and undergoing, but rather the absolute things are that those relations refer to.

43. But if it be asked on what the form is impressed - as on what disposed perfectible thing the form called ‘pleasure’ is impressed and on what counterdisposed perfectible thing the form called ‘pain’ is impressed, whether on the sense power as apprehending things or as appetite - it seems more to be on the appetite, because we can distinguish the power by which the soul can apprehend something from the power by which the soul is inclined to some extrinsic thing that is perfective of it [n.38], and the inclination naturally has the preceding apprehension as term. And so, just as we attribute apprehension per se to sense, so it seems that the inclination (the inclination namely whose term follows on the apprehension) belongs to the sensitive appetite; for we posit a sensitive appetite only because of such a term and the pleasure that follows apprehension; and so, since the form that terminates the inclination belongs to the same thing that the being inclined belongs to, pleasure will be in the appetite that was inclined.

44. This is confirmed from Damascene Orthodox Faith ch.38 [2.22], “the term, that is, the definition, of the animal passions is this: ‘Passion is a movement of the sensible appetitive power in imagination of good and evil.’” ‘Sensible’ is put for ‘perceptible’ because a non-perceptible passion is not properly an animal passion; ‘in imagination of good and evil’ is put there as cause, for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are put there as something absolute; but ‘agreeable’ or ‘disagreeable’ is the cause of the passion, and ‘imagination’, that is sensation in general, is a sort of coming together of agent and passive thing.

45. Further, the moral virtues are located in appetite and not in the cognitive part as it is distinguished from appetite, and they are located thus most of all because of pleasure, for they concern pleasures and sadnesses [cf. Ord. 3 d.33]. So the passions seem to be in the same part and not in the sensitive [cognitive] part. Therefore does Avicenna say in his Metaphyics 8.7 that “pleasure is the conjunction of any power/virtue with what is agreeable to it.”

46. Alternatively, Avicenna takes ‘virtue’ there as it includes the cognitive part as well as its own appetitive part, for any proper cognitive part has its own appetitive part and cannot be conjoined perfectly with anything agreeable to it unless conjoined according to both parts. And because of this closeness they are taken to be one power; for they are more inseparably conjoined than operation and pleasure, which the Philosopher says, Ethics 10.5.1175a19-21, seem to be the same because they cannot be separated from each other. Now such predications are causal, so that the sense is “pleasure belongs to any power agreeing with its agreeable object, for it is caused by an object agreeable to sense.”