Abelard inherited two different sorts of vocabulary for analysing the morality of human behaviour. His predecessors and contemporaries talked in terms of vices and virtues, and also in terms of sin and merit. Vices and virtues, as Abelard's reading of Aristotle had taught him, are settled states; sin and merit, by contrast, however they are analysed, must be seen in terms of individual moral choices. Abelard's understanding of ethical acts is structured around this distinction, which at once unites his analyses of good and evil behaviour and separates them. Just as he draws a sharp contrast between vice and sin, so Abelard distinguishes virtue from merit. But whereas, in examining wrongdoing, he concentrates his attention on sin, and discusses the vices only in order to explain why sin must not be confused with them, Abelard approaches good behaviour mainly by examining the virtues and their relation to the supreme virtue of charity and treats merit rather as an afterthought. It is for this reason that it is clearest to examine his views on acting badly separately from those on acting well (Abelard himself makes such a separation when he presents his ethics systematically in the Sententie). And it is for the same reason too that it is for the most part in connection with sinning that Abelard investigates the relation between action and moral judgement. This chapter will consider Abelard's distinctive view of this problem, which provides the starting point for his wider treatment of human morality.

INTENTION

Abelard considered that true moral judgement (such as that which God makes) is according to what he calls the agent's ‘intention’ (intention).