great thinkers, great ideas

74 Moral Philosophy: Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong

only have to know the good to do it (remember Plato?), but man
is imperfect, flawed by original sin, and needs to develop and
perfect moral and intellectual virtues in order to do good.
Aquinas contends that a good act has four criteria:

1. the intrinsic value of the act;


2. the intention of the actor;


3. circumstances which affect the actor and/or the act;


4. the end result of the act. For an act to be perfect (in a moral
   sense) all four of these criteria must be met.
   For example:


5. A person wishes to give food to the poor


6. because his intention is to do good and help others less
   fortunate than himself.


7. He proceeds to buy the food and delivers it to the local soup
   kitchen


8. where the poor are fed. Thus, it is a perfect act in intrinsic
   value, intent, circumstance, and result. We can also write many
   scenarios in which most of the conditions are present and some
   good results. A perfect act, however, must meet all the criteria.
   For example:


9. A person wishes to give food to the poor


10. because his intention is to do good and help others less
    fortunate than himself.


11. He proceeds to buy the food and delivers it to the local soup
    kitchen where it is destroyed by a fire,


12. so the poor are not fed.
    There is great merit in many aspects of the act described, and
    much moral good, but it is obviously not a perfect act—the good
    result was lacking.
    The perfect and the less than perfect acts described above
    seem fairly easy to distinguish. There are, however, some acts
    that are more difficult to judge. For example:


13. A person wishes to give food to the poor


14. because his intention is to win the next political election.


15. He proceeds to buy the food and delivers it to the local soup
    kitchen,


16. where the poor are fed.
    A perfect moral act? Not according to Aquinas. A perfect
    moral act must satisfy the demands of reason both in intention
    and ends. We could get into some really fine-line arguments