Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

Objection 1: It seems that liberality is not about money. For every moral virtue is about operations and passions. Now it is proper to justice to be about operations, as stated in Ethic. v, 1. Therefore, since liberality is a moral virtue, it seems that it is about passions and not about money.

Objection 2: Further, it belongs to a liberal man to make use of any kind of wealth. Now natural riches are more real than artificial riches, according to the Philosopher (Polit. i, 5,6). Therefore liberality is not chiefly about money.

Objection 3: Further, different virtues have different matter, since habits are distinguished by their objects. But external things are the matter of distributive and commutative justice. Therefore they are not the matter of liberality.

On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 1) that "liberality seems to be a mean in the matter of money."

I answer that, According to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 1) it belongs to the liberal man to part with things. Hence liberality is also called open-handedness , because that which is open does not withhold things but parts of them. The term "liberality" seems also to allude to this, since when a man quits hold of a thing he frees it , so to speak, from his keeping and ownership, and shows his mind to be free of attachment thereto. Now those things which are the subject of a man's free-handedness towards others are the goods he possesses, which are denoted by the term "money." Therefore the proper matter of liberality is money.

Reply to Objection 1: As stated above (Article 1, ad 3), liberality depends not on the quantity given, but on the heart of the giver. Now the heart of the giver is disposed according to the passions of love and desire, and consequently those of pleasure and sorrow, towards the things given. Hence the interior passions are the immediate matter of liberality, while exterior money is the object of those same passions.

Reply to Objection 2: As Augustine says in his book De Disciplina Christi (Tract. de divers, i), everything whatsoever man has on earth, and whatsoever he owns, goes by the name of "'pecunia' , because in olden times men's possessions consisted entirely of 'pecora' ." And the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 1): "We give the name of money to anything that can be valued in currency."

Reply to Objection 3: Justice establishes equality in external things, but has nothing to do, properly speaking, with the regulation of internal passions: wherefore money is in one way the matter of liberality, and in another way of justice.

Articulus 2

Argumentum 1

Ad secundum sic proceditur. Videtur quod liberalitas non sit circa pecunias. Omnis enim virtus moralis est circa operationes vel passiones. Esse autem circa operationes est proprium iustitiae, ut dicitur in V ethic..

Ergo, cum liberalitas sit virtus moralis, videtur quod sit circa passiones, et non circa pecunias.

Argumentum 2

Praeterea, ad liberalem pertinet quarumcumque divitiarum usus. Sed divitiae naturales sunt veriores quam divitiae artificiales, quae in pecuniis consistunt, ut patet per philosophum, in I polit..

Ergo liberalitas non est principaliter circa pecunias.

Argumentum 3

Praeterea, diversarum virtutum diversae sunt materiae, quia habitus distinguuntur secundum obiecta. Sed res exteriores sunt materiae iustitiae distributivae et commutativae.

Ergo non sunt materia liberalitatis.

Sed Contra

Sed contra est quod philosophus dicit, in IV ethic., quod liberalitas videtur esse medietas quaedam circa pecunias.

Corpus

Respondeo dicendum quod, secundum philosophum, in IV ethic., ad liberalem pertinet emissivum esse.

Unde et alio nomine liberalitas largitas nominatur, quia quod largum est, non est retentivum, sed est emissivum. Et ad hoc idem videtur pertinere etiam liberalitatis nomen, cum enim aliquis a se emittit, quodammodo illud a sua custodia et dominio liberat, et animum suum ab eius affectu liberum esse ostendit. Ea vero quae emittenda sunt ab uno homine in alium, sunt bona possessa, quae nomine pecuniae significantur. Et ideo propria materia liberalitatis est pecunia.

Ad 1

Ad primum ergo dicendum quod, sicut dictum est, liberalitas non attenditur in quantitate dati, sed in affectu dantis. Affectus autem dantis disponitur secundum passiones amoris et concupiscentiae, et per consequens delectationis et tristitiae, ad ea quae dantur. Et ideo immediata materia liberalitatis sunt interiores passiones, sed pecunia exterior est obiectum ipsarum passionum.

Ad 2

Ad secundum dicendum quod, sicut Augustinus dicit, in libro de doctrina christ., totum quidquid homines in terra habent, et omnia quorum sunt domini, pecunia vocatur, quia antiqui, quae habebant, in pecoribus habebant.

Et philosophus dicit, in IV ethic., quod pecunias dicimus omnia quorum dignitas numismate mensuratur.

Ad 3

Ad tertium dicendum quod iustitia constituit aequalitatem in istis exterioribus rebus, non autem ad eam proprie pertinet moderari interiores passiones. Unde aliter pecunia est materia liberalitatis, et aliter iustitiae.