In On the Highest Good, or On the Philosophical Life, Boethius of Dacia argues that the highest good possible for humans is the knowledge of truth, the operation of good, and the pleasure in both. This constitutes human happiness, which is the ultimate end of human life. The art of war is ordered in society so that citizens can be free to contemplate the truth through intellectual virtues and to practice good through moral virtues, which ultimately leads to a happy life. A person who desires a long life for the sake of making themselves more perfect in this good desires it reasonably. The highest good owed to man is according to his best virtue, which is reason and intellect. Therefore, the highest good that is possible for man is owed to him according to his intellect. The highest good that is possible for man according to speculative intellect is the knowledge of truth in all things and the delight in it. The virtuous philosopher speaks morally for three reasons: they understand the ugliness of a sinful action, they have tasted a greater pleasure and reject lesser pleasures, and there is no sin in understanding and contemplating. The philosopher leads a very pleasurable life, in accordance with the natural order, and has the greatest love and admiration for the first principle, which is God.
The greatest good that is possible for humans according to practical intellect is the operation of good and the pleasure in it. For what greater good can happen to a person according to practical intellect than to work on the medium that is chosen in all human actions and to delight in it? For no one is just unless they find pleasure in the works of justice. And the same can be understood about the works of other moral virtues.
From what has been said, it can be clearly concluded that the highest good that is possible for humans is the knowledge of truth, the operation of good, and the pleasure in both.
And since the highest good that is possible for humans is their happiness, it follows that the knowledge of truth, the operation of good, and the pleasure in both constitute human happiness. For this reason, the art of war is ordered in society by the lawmaker so that citizens, after expelling enemies, can be free to contemplate the truth through intellectual virtues and to practice good through moral virtues and live a happy life, for in these two things consists a happy life. For this is the greater good that a person can receive from God and that God can give to a person in this life. And that person who desires a long life for the sake of making themselves more perfect in this good desires it reasonably. For the more perfect a person is in happiness, which we can know through reason to be possible in this life, the closer they are to happiness than we expect through faith in the future life. And since such a great good is possible for humans, as has already been said, it is worthy that all human actions be directed towards it, so as to conclude in it. For just as all actions are right and proper in some law when they tend towards the end of the law, and they are better according to how close they are to the end of the law, and actions that are opposed to the end of the law or that are diminished—not perfected according to the precepts of the law—or even indifferent—namely, not opposed to the end of the law nor according to the precepts of the law—all such actions are sins in that law, albeit more or less, as can be seen from what has been said, so it is in humans because all intentions, counsels, actions, and desires of a person that tend towards this highest good that is possible for humans, as has been said, are right and proper as they should be. And when a person operates in this way, they operate naturally, for they operate for the highest good to which they are innately drawn. And when they operate in this way, they are well ordered, for then they are ordered towards their best and ultimate end. But all actions of a person that are not ordered towards this good or that are not such that make the person stronger and more disposed to operations that are ordered towards this good are sins in humans. Therefore, a happy person does nothing but the works of happiness or works that make them stronger or more able to do the works of happiness. That is why a happy person lives more happily, whether they sleep or stay awake or eat, as long as they do things that make them stronger for the works of happiness.Of all the actions of humans that are not directed towards the highest good of humans, which has already been mentioned, whether they are opposed to it or indifferent, they are a sin in humans, but in varying degrees, as is evident from the actions themselves. And the cause of all those actions is disordered desire, which is also the cause of all moral evil. Disordered desire in humans is also the main cause that impedes them from achieving their natural desires. For although all humans naturally desire to know, very few of them, to their own detriment, are engaged in the pursuit of wisdom, hindered as they are by disordered desire from such great good. We see some people following a life of laziness, others despising sensible pleasures, and sometimes desiring good fortune. And so, today, all humans are hindered from their highest good by disordered desire, except for a few honorable men whom I call honorable because they despise sensory desire and follow the delight and desire of intellect, exerting themselves to gain knowledge of the truth of things; whom I also call honorable because they live according to natural order. For just as all lower virtues in humans are naturally for the sake of the supreme virtue - for the nutritive is for the sensitive, since sensitive perfection is the perfection of a certain living body, and a living body cannot exist without nourishment, and the nutritive virtue is what alters and converts nourishment, hence nutritive in humans is for the sake of the sensitive - so the sensitive is for the sake of the intellective, because what we understand is from what we imagine, and it is therefore more difficult for us to understand those things that cannot be imagined to exist in us. But imagination comprehends only after sense, and its proof is that everyone who imagines is affected sensibly. Therefore, according to the Philosopher, imagination or phantasy is a motion made from sense according to an act - thus the operations of all the lower virtues that are in humans are for the sake of the operations of the supreme virtue, which is the intellect. And among the operations of the intellective virtue, if any is the best and most perfect, all are naturally for the sake of it. And when a person is engaged in that operation, he is in the best state that is possible for a human. And these are the philosophers, who place their lives in the pursuit of wisdom. Therefore, all the virtues that are in a philosopher operate according to natural order: the prior for the posterior and the inferior for the superior and more perfect. But all other humans who live according to lower virtues, choosing actions and pleasures that are in those actions, are unnaturally ordered and sin against natural order. For the deviation of humans from natural order is a sin in humans, and since the philosopher does not deviate from this order, he does not sin against natural order.
Since in every species of being there is a possible highest good, and man is a certain species of being, it follows that there is a possible highest good for man. I do not mean the absolute highest good, but the highest good for man himself, for possible goods have an end for man and do not proceed to infinity. But let us investigate by reason what this highest good is that is possible for man. The highest good that is possible for man is owed to him according to his best virtue. Not according to the vegetative soul, which belongs to plants, nor according to the sensitive soul, which belongs to animals, from which the sensible pleasures of animals arise. But the best virtue of man is reason and intellect, for it is the supreme guide of human life both in speculating and in acting. Therefore, the highest good that is possible for man is owed to him according to his intellect. And those who are so attached to sensible pleasures that they neglect intellectual goods should be pitied, because they never attain their highest good; they are so devoted to the senses that they do not seek what is good for their own intellect. Against them the Philosopher cries out, saying: "Woe to you men who are counted among the number of beasts, not attending to that which is divine in you!" And in man he calls the intellect divine; for if there is anything divine in man, it is worthy that it be the intellect. For just as that which is the best in the whole universe of beings is divine, so also what is best in man we call divine.
Furthermore, since the human intellect is one power speculative and another practical, which is apparent from the fact that man is speculative about some things in which he is not active, such as eternal things, and is also active in governing the intellect through which he chooses the middle course in all human actions, from this we know that these two intellectual powers are in man in general. But the highest good that is possible for man according to the power of speculative intellect is the knowledge of truth and the delight in it. For the knowledge of truth is delightful. For the intellect delights the one who understands, and the more admirable and noble the intellect is, and the greater its power to comprehend perfectly, the greater the intellectual delight. And he who has tasted such delight rejects all lesser delights, such as those that are sensible, which are less true and less valuable. And the man who chooses such delight is of lower value than the one who chooses the first. Hence, because the intellect delights the one who understands, the Philosopher wants to say in the eleventh book of Metaphysics that the first intellect has the most delightful life. For since the first intellect is of the greatest power in understanding, and what it understands is most noble, because it is the essence of the first principle itself - for what can the divine intellect understand more noble than the divine essence? - therefore it has the most delightful life. Hence, since no greater good can come to man through speculative intellect than the knowledge of the universality of beings that are from the first principles and, therefore, of the first principle itself, and delight in it, then it follows from the above conclusion that the highest good that is possible for man according to speculative intellect is the knowledge of truth in all things and the delight in it.
The virtuous philosopher speaks morally for three reasons. First, they understand the ugliness of a sinful action, in which vice lies, and the nobility of a virtuous action, in which virtue lies. Therefore, they can easily choose one of these and avoid the other, always acting according to reason, and thus never sinning. This is not possible for the ignorant, as it is difficult for them to act rightly.
Second, one who has tasted a greater pleasure rejects all lesser pleasures. The philosopher has tasted the intellectual pleasure of contemplating the truths of beings, which is greater than the pleasure of the senses. Therefore, they reject sensory pleasures. Moreover, there are many sins and vices that arise from an excess of sensory pleasure.
Third, there is no sin in understanding and contemplating, for in the truly good, excess and sin are impossible. The philosopher's action is the contemplation of truth. Therefore, the philosopher is more easily virtuous than others.
The philosopher lives as a human being is naturally meant to live, in accordance with the natural order. All inferior virtues and their actions are for the sake of the higher virtues and their actions, and all are ultimately for the supreme virtue and its ultimate action, which is the contemplation of truth and the pleasure derived from it, especially from knowledge of the first truth. For the desire to know the divine intellect is a natural desire of all people, as the Commentator says. For the desire for any knowledge is a desire for knowledge of the first things, as is proven by the fact that the more closely things approach the first things, the more we desire to know them, and the more we are drawn into their contemplation. Therefore, by contemplating the caused entities in the world and their natures and their order to each other, the philosopher is led to the contemplation of the highest causes of things, for knowledge of effects is a kind of guidance to knowledge of their causes, and by knowing the higher causes and their natures, the philosopher comes to the knowledge of the first cause. And the pleasure of contemplation is greatest when the objects contemplated are more noble. Thus, the philosopher leads a very pleasurable life.
Moreover, the philosopher, by considering that this first cause must be the cause of its own being, that is, it must not have another cause, and that if there were nothing in the world that did not have another cause, then there would be nothing at all, comes to the conclusion that this cause must be eternal and unchanging, always existing in the same way. For if it were not eternal, then nothing would be eternal. And since some things in the world are new, and one new thing cannot be the sufficient cause of another new thing, as is clear, it follows manifestly that all new things in the world are universally from an eternal cause. And this cause is also unchanging, always existing in the same way, for change is only possible in imperfect things, and if there is anything most perfect in the world, then it is worthy to be the first cause.
Also considering that it is necessary that the whole being of the world, which is apart from this first cause, exists from it, and that just as this first cause is the cause of the production of beings, it is also the cause of their order towards each other and their conservation in being. Some beings, according to their number, exist without any change, such as separate substances, and some beings exist with change, such as the bodies of the sky, and some beings exist only in their species, such as those which are under the orb, as they are the lowest degree of beings.
Also considering that just as all things are from this first cause, so all things are ordered to it. For that being in which the principle, from which all things, is joined to the end, to which all things, that is the first being according to philosophers and according to the blessed saints, God. However, in this order there is breadth, and beings that are closer to this first principle in this order are nobler beings and more perfect images. But those that are further away from this first principle are diminished beings and less perfect. For this first principle in this world is like the head of a household in a home, the leader of an army, and the common good in a city. And just as an army is one because of the unity of its leader, and the good of the army is in the leader himself, while in others it is according to the order they have to the leader, so from the unity of the first principle of the earth, there is the unity of this world, and the good of this world is in this first principle itself, while in other beings of the world it is according to their participation from this first principle and their order towards it, so that there is no good in any being of the world unless it is participated from this first principle. The philosopher, considering all these things, is led to admiration of this first principle and love for it, because we love that from which good things come to us, and we love it most of all when the greatest goods come to us from it. Therefore, the philosopher, knowing that all his goods come to him from this first principle and are preserved for him as long as they are preserved by this first principle, is led to the greatest love for this first principle, according to right reason of nature and according to right intellectual reason. And because everyone is delighted in what he loves, and he is most delighted in what he loves most, and the philosopher has the greatest love for the first principle, as has been shown, it follows that the philosopher is most delighted in the first principle and in the contemplation of its goodness. And this alone is right delight. This is the life of the philosopher, which whoever does not have does not have the right life. But I call a philosopher every person who lives according to the right order of nature and who has acquired the best and ultimate end of human life. However, the first principle, of which this discourse has been made, is the glorious and sublime God, who is blessed forever and ever. Amen.
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