The Nature of the Practical Intellect according to Saint Thomas

Naus John E. “Analecta Gregoriana” 108 1959, pp. 222 An inquiry into the nature of the practical intellect will obviously be primarily psychological. However, the psychological insights which one derives from such a study will extend into other areas of philosophy. This is particularly true of the influence which correct or false notions about practical knowledge have on ethics. For example «Situation Ethics» propose that they find the kernel of their subjective system of morality in the doctrine of St. Thomas on the twofold truth. «For truth of the speculative intellect means conformity of that faculty to the thing…But truth of the practical intellect means conformity of the intellect to right appetite». This bifurcation of truth, conclude proponents of situation ethics, justifies the antithesis which often appears between universal principles of speculative ethics and existential judgment of conscience which a man makes in concrete circumstances. Situation ethics is in great part a reaction to all moral philosophy which is exclusively, or even excessively, a priori, deductive, and universal. In the sweep of their condemnation, they find little need to distinguish between Kantian rationalism and scholastic ethics.