14. Love as the First Cause of All Human Action

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Love as the Universal First Cause of Action #

• Every agent acts for some end
• The end is the good desired and loved by each agent
• Therefore, every agent acts with some love
• Love is the foundational orientation of the will toward the good
• This applies to all creatures, not just rational beings

The Connection Between Good and End #

• The Good: What all desire or want (first notion of the good)
• The End: That for the sake of which something is done
• These two concepts are fundamentally identical
• If something is good, people act to obtain it (making it an end)
• If people act for the sake of something, they regard it as good
• Love unites lover and beloved through the shared orientation toward the good

The Objections to Love as Universal Cause #

1. Love is only a passion - Love is emotion/passion, but humans act from choice and ignorance
2. Other passions cause action - Fear, anger, desire also cause action independently
3. Hate causes action - Some actions come from hate, not love

Thomas’s Resolution #

• Love must be understood not merely as passion but as an act of will
• Love exists in three forms: natural love, animal/emotional love, and rational/intellectual love
• Love as the first cause (causa prima) is distinct from other passions as proximate causes (causae proximae)
• Proximate causes are not superfluous; they are necessary for complete action
• All other passions can be reduced to love as their foundational cause

How All Passions Arise from Love #

• Desire/Wanting (concupiscentia): arises from love when the loved object is absent
• Joy/Pleasure (delectatio): arises from love when the loved object is present and possessed
• Sadness (tristitia): arises from the absence of what is loved or the presence of what is opposed to love
• Hate (odium): arises from love; we hate what is contrary to what we love
• Hope and Despair: arise from desire when the good is difficult to obtain or impossible
• Fear and Boldness: arise from aversion to something bad that is difficult to avoid
• Anger (ira): arises from sadness when one believes one can overcome the obstacle

The Case of Hate #

• Hate is not a primary emotion but presupposes love
• Because I love my body’s health, I hate sickness
• Because I love virtue, I hate vice
• Therefore, hate proceeds from love of something opposed to the hated thing
• Even those acting from hate ultimately act from love (of what the hate opposes)

Key Arguments #

The Primary Argument for Love as First Cause #

1. Every agent acts for some end
2. Every end is a good that is desired and loved
3. Therefore, every agent acts with some love
4. This love is the first cause from which other passions derive

The Reduction of All Passions to Love #

• Desire presupposes love (we desire what we first love)
• Joy presupposes love (we rejoice in what we love)
• Sadness presupposes love (we grieve at loss of what we love)
• Hate presupposes love (we hate what opposes what we love)
• Hope/despair, fear/boldness, anger all presuppose love
• Conclusion: Love is the fundamental passion from which all others flow

The Distinction Between First and Proximate Causes #

• When a lover acts from multiple passions, love is the first cause
• Other passions are proximate causes
• Example: One must not only desire wisdom but also have hope of obtaining it
• The proximate causes are not rendered superfluous by the first cause
• Both the fundamental orientation (love) and the specific passion (hope, fear, anger) are necessary

Important Definitions #

Love (Amor) #

• As emotion/passion: An affection in the sensitive appetite (concupiscible part)
• As act of will: A rational orientation toward the good, fundamental to all intellectual creatures
• Three forms of love: Natural (plants), animal/emotional (animals and humans), rational/intellectual (humans and angels)
• Love of wanting (amor concupiscentiae): Desiring something for oneself
• Love of wishing well (amor amicitiae): Desiring the good of another for their own sake

The Good (Bonum) #

• What all desire or want
• That which is suitable or perfective to a thing
• The object toward which all action is ultimately directed
• Cannot be defined more fundamentally; it is a basic notion we all understand

The End (Finis) #

• That for the sake of which something is done
• That for which something is or something is done
• Fundamentally connected to the good; good and end are practically identical
• Can be either extrinsic (external to the action) or intrinsic (the action itself as its own end)

Passion (Passio) #

• An emotion or affective state in the sensitive appetite
• Distinguished from acts of the will, which are not passions
• Can be caused by love and can in turn cause human action
• Examples: desire, joy, sadness, fear, anger, hope, despair

Examples & Illustrations #

David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) #

• David’s love for Dora inspires him to work with vigor and purpose
• The quotation shows how love transforms difficulty into opportunity: “I began the next day with another dive into the Roman Bach and then started to highgate. I was not dispirited now.”
• Love gives him the energy to “turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account by going to work with a resolute and steady heart”
• He transforms the metaphor of clearing a forest: cutting through difficulty “until I came to Dora”
• Illustrates Augustine’s principle: “Where there is love, either no labor is felt from what you do, or the labor itself is loved”

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) #

• Romeo’s love causes him to act in ways that lead to tragedy
• Shakespeare’s insight: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love”
• The feuding between the houses is ultimately caused by love, not primarily by hate
• Love is the first cause; the fighting and hatred are effects of competing loves

Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare) #

• Cressida’s love for Troilus becomes the center of all her actions
• Her declaration shows the totality of love’s influence: “The strong base and clothing of my love is as the very center of the earth. Drawing all things to it, right? So, just as all things are drawn towards the center of the earth, right? So everything she does is influenced by her love of Troilus.”
• Demonstrates how love unites the lover with the beloved

Augustine’s Succinct Statement #

• “Where there is love he says, right? Either no labor is felt from what you do, right? Because of the love. Or the labor itself is loved.”
• This concise formulation captures how love transforms the experience of action

The Pole Illustration #

• If someone pushes you off a cliff with a pole, who is responsible for your death?
• Technically the pole caused the physical contact, but the person wielding it is more responsible
• Similarly, other passions may be the proximate cause of action, but love is the more fundamental cause
• Demonstrates how first causes are more responsible than proximate causes

Questions Addressed #

Q: Can love really be the cause of all actions when humans also act from choice and ignorance? #

• Response: The objection confuses love as passion with love as an act of will. Students initially think of love only as emotion, but Thomas shows love operates at the level of the will’s fundamental orientation toward the good. Choice and ignorance do not negate this; they operate at a different level.

Q: How can love be the cause of all actions if fear, anger, and other passions also cause action? #

• Response: These other passions are proximate causes, not first causes. All of them presuppose and flow from love. The pole pushed you off the cliff, but I caused it more fundamentally by wielding the pole. Similarly, anger may be the proximate cause of an action, but the love of something opposed to what angers us is the first cause.

Q: How can hate, which seems opposed to love, also proceed from love? #

• Response: Hate is not a primary emotion but an aversion arising from love. Because I love my health, I hate sickness. Because I love virtue, I hate vice. We hate what is contrary to what we love. Therefore, hate itself presupposes love and cannot be a source independent of love.

Q: What about people who act from hate, like those engaged in terrorism? #

• Response: Even those acting from hate ultimately act from some love—a love of what the hate opposes, or a love of some twisted good (power, dominance, revenge). The fundamental issue is not that they lack love but that they love something bad or love it in a bad way.

Q: If love is fundamental, how do we reconcile the order of the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity) where hope seems to come before charity (love)? #

• Response: There must be different kinds of love operating at different stages. Before hope of God, there must be some love of wanting God (desiring to see Him). After hope, charity develops as a love of wishing well (friendship with God). The distinctions between these forms of love resolve the apparent contradiction.

Pedagogical Notes #

The Confusion About Love #

• Students initially understand love only as emotion/passion
• Berquist notes this from his experience teaching: “If ever you teach a love and friendship to a bunch of college kids and you ask them on the first day of class what is love and they’ll call it an emotion, right?”
• The objection Thomas addresses reflects this common student confusion
• Spiritual retreats sometimes reinforce this confusion by speaking of “falling in love” with God, which leaves people thinking there’s something wrong with them if they don’t feel the emotion

The Connection to Virtue Ethics #

• The discussion of love connects back to earlier discussion of virtue
• Friendship itself is either a virtue or operates with virtue
• This provides continuity in the ethics course: happiness → virtue → friendship

Literature as Philosophical Illustration #

• Berquist uses Shakespeare, Dickens, and other literary figures not as ornament but as philosophical illustration
• These examples make visible and concrete what the abstract philosophical argument shows
• Shakespeare is presented as philosophically wise: “So you see what happens if you read the story, huh? This is Shakespeare’s black satire on humanity.”