In ethics Abelard laid such great stress on the morality of the intention as apparently to do away with the objective distinction between good and evil acts. It is not the physical action itself, he said, nor any imaginary injury to God, that constitutes sin, but rather the psychological element in the action, the intention of sinning, which is formal contempt of God. Catholic Encyclopedia
In his Dialectica Abelard takes up, among numerous other topics, the question, widely discussed in the Middle Ages, of the relation between human freedom and divine providence. If God, who is omniscient, knows that we are going to perform a given act, is it not necessary that we perform it, and in that case how can the act be free? Abelard's answer is that we do indeed act freely and that it is not merely our acts but our free acts that come under divine providence. God's foreknowing them carries no implication that we are not free to avoid performing them. OCP
Encyclopedia Entries
Peter Abelard Oxford Companion to Philosophy Peter Abelard Encyclopedia Britannica Peter Abelard Encarta Peter Abelard Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) Pierre Abelard Wikipedia
Letters History of my Calamities (latin) Peter Abelard georgetown.edu The Story of My Calamities Peter Abelard Medieval Sourcebook Scito Teipsum, seu Ethica
Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals, ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Hackett, 1994);
John Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge, 1999);
Letters of Abelard and Heloise, ed. by Betty Radice (Penguin, 1998)
Abelard was more impressed by the pagan philosophers in the area of morals than in divinity, however, and it is in their ethical concern that he sees the center of their philosophical effort. Indeed, the pagan philosophers were far closer to Christianity than were the Jews, because Jewish law is largely an external matter, whereas pagan philosophers saw the importance of interior justice, of chastity, of contempt for this world. This assessment of pagan moral philosophy betrays the salient feature of Abelard's own moral teaching.
In his Ethics, the subtitle of which is Know Thyself, Abelard insists on the priority of the interior in morals. It is our inner intention, our consent, that makes an external act good or bad and not vice versa. The measure of morality thus firmly located in the interior act, in intention and consent, Abelard had opened himself to the charge of subjectivism. And indeed among the propositions condemned at the Council of Sens was the contention that those who crucified Christ did not sin because they acted in ignorance, and we cannot ascribe guilt to those who know not what they do. Another stated that a man is not made good or bad by his acts, presumably his external actions.
Is Abelard's ethical position subjectivistic? He appears to be maintaining, not that our interior intention constitutes what is good or bad, but rather that one must personally recognize what is good and bad. The emphasis, nevertheless, is on the inner man. Purity of heart is what must be striven for, since, once it is had, perception of the true end is possible. Abelard will distinguish between vice and sin. Vice is a tendency to perform bad actions, but sin consists in consenting to the tendency and acting in accord with it. What this distinction enables Abelard to do is to separate himself from the position that sin resides in the will. This is not so, he maintains; it is possible to sin while having a good will or disposition and not to sin while having a bad will. The nub of the matter lies in consent and intention.
Abelard's ethical doctrine, with its strengths and weaknesses, has always been regarded as remarkable and as a further sign of his genius. It would not be long before ethical discussions would be carried on within the framework of the Nicomachean Ethics, something which will enable them to advance rapidly beyond the tentative steps Abelard took. And yet, when it is considered that Abelard's work on ethics was composed in the almost complete absence of a model, we must marvel at his accomplishment. This is not to say, of course, that Abelard did not draw on previous authors. The point is rather that, surprising as it may seem, there is a case that can be made for the contention that Abelard was more original in ethics than in logic. His logical writings consist either of glosses or commentaries on the writings of others or, in his Dialectica, a more or less independent presentation of the contents of the works which had been previously commented on and largely in the same order as the commentaries. The Dialectica is, so to speak, a commentary without the text. The Ethics is Abelard himself, from beginning to end: the form is his, the problems and their order are his. If, as is charged, he emphasized the subjective in such a way that he seems to cut it adrift from adequate criteria of good subjectivity and bad subjectivity (a charge which is surely an exaggeration), it would have to be added that such an emphasis is always a salutary balance to the tendency to an excessive exteriorization of the criteria for good and bad action. Ralph McInerny
Story of Abelard and Heloise