however, is precisely what will be the base upon which onecan start to examine the entailments that flow from thephilosophically more plausible notion of Augustinianconcupiscence. Before beginning this examination, however,it is obvious that the first task will be to try to come to abetter understanding of evil in itself, since the negativetask of clearing away the religious entailments ofAugustinian concupiscence has shown that Augustine’sdefinition of evil is inadequate. The aim of the discussion,then, is to find a definition of evil which, while notstrictly Augustinian, remains faithful to the spirit ofAugustine, and at the same time does not openly contradicthis intentions. As a first step towards providing such a definition ofevil, one that will serve as a base for seeing concupiscenceas the inclination toward evil, one might begin with theconcept of harm . If evil can be seen as connected withharm, then the next question to ask is, what harms what? Andhere one comes back to a distinction that was alluded toearlier, namely the distinction between what is often calledhuman or moral evil and “natural” evil. One obvious way toparse this distinction is to see human evil as involving onlyhuman beings, that is human beings harming human beings. >From here, natural evil can be seen as involving naturalforces causing harm for human beings. Examples of naturalevil, then, would be a volcano erupting and killingeverything in its path, or cancer afflicting a human being.To relate this distinction to the Augustinian definitionof evil as privation, one should note that, although, as hasbeen mentioned, this is a purely formal definition that hasnot been made explicitly morally relevant, when one realizesthat implicitly this definition of evil is equivalent to ahuman being turning away from God or sin, one can see thatthe Augustinian definition of evil does not explicitlyaccount for natural evil. Evans says as much of Augustinewhen she states that “animal pain, disruptions to the naturalorder such as earthquakes, traffic accidents”, that is,natural evil, is seen by Augustine as a subset of his beliefthat the “problem” of evil is “man-centered” . What is meanthere is that Augustine, as has been seen, really believedthat evil came into the world as a result of the Fall,brought about by human free choice. Before the Fall, theworld was paradise where there was neither natural nor moralevil. After the Fall, the world itself also became hostileto human beings as part of God’s punishment. Thus, forAugustine, natural evil must be the result of human evil. Once again, this view is problematic because of its religiousentailments. That is, one must accept that natural evil isthe result of the punishment meted out by God for human evil. If one does not accept this, Augustine’s explanation ofnatural evil is inadequate. In any case, to return to the issue at hand, one mustask oneself whether the definition of evil that is underconstruction here needs to take natural evil into account. If one were giving a full account of evil, the answer to thisquestion would obviously be yes, but since the task here isto give an account of evil in keeping with the definition ofconcupiscence as the inclination toward evil, the answershould be no. The reason for this is that for Augustineconcupiscence as an inclination toward evil refers to humanbeings. With this stipulation, one can now say that evil as harmmeans human beings harming human beings. The next questionone might ask, however, is: is it possible to imagine asituation in which harm might be justified, and thus, mightnot be considered evil? Causing someone physical harm bythrowing him out of the way of a speeding car might be such asituation. It is clear in this case that although physicalharm was indeed caused by this action, it is justified inthat this person is better off with the slight physical harmcaused by being thrown out of the way of the car than if hehad been hit by the car, in which case grave physical harmwould have been the result. Another example is thatpsychological therapy often requires potentially painful orharmful realizations about one’s self. Yet, thispsychological harm is justified in that the ultimate goal isoverall better psychological health. Thus, since there areclearly cases in which causing harm might be justified, onemight adjust the definition to include this distinction. Thus, evil is unjustified harm inflicted on human beings byhuman beings. Before moving on, however, one must ask what does harmmean? In answer, it should be noted that for harm toconstitute evil, the harm caused must be serious. Further,harm is serious when it prevents its victim from normalfunctioning for an extended period of time. Next, one mightsay that this damage can be physical or psychological. Inother words, the definition of harm can not just includephysical harm, there must be a recognition that there is alsopsychological harm, such as humiliation or exploitation. A full acount of evil would require further analysis. The task here, however, is not to give such an account, butto provide an adequate and compatible basis on which the ideathat concupiscence is the inclination toward evil can beconsidered. The next step in that direction is to considerwhether this notion of concupiscence has any plausibility ofitself. Are human beings inclined toward evil? As a firstattempt to answer this question, one might note theprevalence of evil in the world as an indication that humanbeings are inclined towards evil. The ruthless slaughter ofmillions by Hitler’s Nazi Germany, the cruel authoritariandictatorship of Stalin, the violent ethnic hatred in thecivil war in the former Yugoslavia, rampant crime in largeurban areas; these are all examples of how prevalent evil isin the world. What Augustine’s view of concupiscence also seems toentail, however, is that human beings are fundamentally evil. One can see how this might follow from the fact that humanbeings are inclined toward evil, yet the two are notsynonymous. Being inclined toward evil seems to imply apotentiality, whereas being fundamentally evil seems to implythat this potentiality has been actualized. However, itseems that, for Augustine to remain faithful to theChristianity he had embraced, the only way for thispotentiality not to be actualized is for the human being tohave sufficient freedom to overcome this inclination towardevil. Yet, as has been pointed out earlier, this isprecisely what is inconsistent in the Augustinian view. Ifthe inclination toward evil radically weakens the will, thenit would seem that concupiscence radically diminishes one’sfreedom. Thus, it would seem that it is impossible for oneto overcome this potentiality for evil and in the end, theinclination toward evil inexorably leads one to becomefundamentally evil. Yet the view that human beings arefundamentally evil is problematic, as will be argued at theend of this chapter. It is time now to examine more closely this fundamentalinconsistency in the Augustinian treatment of concupiscence. If concupiscence radically diminishes one’s freedom, then whydoes Augustine ignore this fact in his moral theory andbelieve that only actions which are freely chosen are morallyculpable? The most likely reason for this is that he was notaware of this inconsistency. Yet, if these views areinconsistent, then one must choose one of them over theother. To do this reasonably one must ask which is moreplausible. In answer to this question, it should be clearthat since this whole thesis is about concupiscence, and notabout Augustine’s moral theory, the viewpoint that isentailed by concupiscence will be chosen as the moreplausible. In trying to say why the view entailed by concupiscenceis more plausible, one might begin by examining the moralimport of both viewpoints. In the view entailed byAugustine’s moral theory, only chosen actions have moralimport. In the view entailed by concupiscence, on the otherhand, the inclination towards evil is itself unchosen, or,put another way, it is part of human nature, and leads toactions that are unchosen. Unfortunately, this fact seems totell one nothing about the moral import of these unchosenactions. The fact, however, that concupiscence is aninclination toward evil, indicates that the evil actionswhich flow unchosen from this unchosen inclination do indeedhave moral import. Thus, if one follows the implications ofwhat concupiscence entails, then in this view unchosenactions have moral import. In distinguishing the two views in this way one is ledto an interesting question that runs parallel to the questionof which view is more plausible, that is, are only chosenactions alone morally culpable, or are there grounds forincluding unchosen actions within the domain of moralculpability? In answer to this question, one might considerthe example of Oedipus . On the surface it seems thatOedipus is unjustified in condemning himself for the horriblecrimes of patricide and incest that he has committed, sincehe was ignorant that the man he killed was his father, orthat the woman he married was his mother, and in fact, hemade every attempt to avoid these actions. Yet, if one goes deeper than the level of whether hefreely chose to commit these actions, one will see thatOedipus was indeed right in condemning himself. Oedipus mustsee these actions as morally culpable since they flow from adefect in his own character, as a result of which hehabitually goes against his moral tradition by asserting hisindividuality. In other words, Oedipus had at the core ofhis personality an inordinately headstrong pride whichcontinuously made him go against the limits of his moraltradition. This defect was partially unchosen in that hischaracter was formed to a certain extent by forces that werebeyond his control, like his upbringing, which gave him acertain moral outlook. What should be noted in this example is that thepartially unchosen defect in Oedipus’ character has led himto unchosen actions that are nonetheless morally culpable. At this point one might distinguish between this unchosendefect which is part of Oedipus’ character as a moral agent,and the unchosen actions which flow from this feature of hismoral agency. Oedipus is culpable for both his unchosencharacter and the unchosen actions of killing his father andmarrying his mother which flow from it. Is this a defensible position? In answer to thisquestion, one might ask how is it that Oedipus can committhese horrible crimes and still not be morally culpable? Inone sense it seems that the very nature of these crimes criesout for some sort of culpability. In other words, Oedipusbecause of these crimes is in a very different position fromthose who have not committed such crimes. And indeed,Oedipus himself felt culpable for the heinous nature of hiscrimes and acted on it by gouging out his eyes. Oedipus sawthat there was something in the objective nature of what hehad done that was evil and morally culpable. To return to the definition of evil provided earlier,Oedipus had caused unjustified harm to human beings, and onthat basis felt morally culpable for his actions, even thoughthey were unchosen. One should note that this answer to thequestion of whether Oedipus should be held culpable has up tothis point dealt with his unchosen actions and why it seemsright that Oedipus was morally culpable for these actions. Yet, as has been said, Oedipus is also morally culpable forthe partially unchosen character defect from which theseunchosen actions flowed. The reason for this is preciselybecause these objectively evil and therefore morally culpableacts flow from this defective character. In the end, one must realize that if one is to be amorally committed agent, then one must be committed to theminimization of evil. People, like Oedipus, who habituallycause evil are morally culpable, even if the defectivecharacters that they have are unchosen, and even if thecharacteristically evil actions which flow from suchdefective characters are unchosen. However, one must realizethat what is at issue here is the appropriateness of moralculpability, not the degree of moral culpability. In otherwords, it may very well be that those who choose to havedefective characters and those who choose to do evil may beeven more morally culpable than those who do not so choose,yet that is not the issue being discussed here. The issuehere is that moral culpability is appropriate, in somedegree, for those who have unchosen defective characters andwho perform unchosen evil actions. How does this case relate to the issue at handconcerning concupiscence? It would seem that, as in theOedipus case, concupiscence is an unchosen defect of themoral agent that carries with it moral import. Here thedefect is not in the character of a certain individual, butis an overall defect of human nature. This defect, namelythe inclination toward evil, leads to unchosen actions forwhich the moral agent is culpable, precisely because they areobjectively evil, that is, causing unjustified harm to humanbeings. Furthermore, to return to the larger issue raisedearlier, if the unchosen defect in human nature known asconcupiscence leads to unchosen actions that are morallyevil, then it is clear that this view flowing fromconcupiscence is to be preferred over the view fromAugustine’s moral theory that only chosen actions are morallypraiseworthy or culpable. What this treatment leaves out, however, is the questionof whether the view entailed by concupiscence rules out thepossibility that there are any freely chosen actions at all . This must be left as an open question precisely because ofthe inconsistency of Augustine’s views. If taken to itslogical conclusion, the fact that concupiscence radicallyweakens the will entails that there are no freely chosenactions. Yet the very fact that he has posited another viewwhich is inconsistent with this one leads one to think thathe was struggling with this issue in such a way that heperhaps implicitly wanted to capture something of value inboth views, even though he may have been unaware of theirinconsistency. Thus, since Augustine left this, perhapsunwittingly, an open question, this treatment of the clearentailments of Augustine’s treatment of concupiscence mustleave this question open as well. Yet there is one major problem with Augustinianconcupiscence that remains. The problem is that the moralentailments which flow from concupiscence as the inclinationtoward evil necessarily focuses on the negative task of the”minimization of evil” while ignoring the positive “good-producing” task of morality . In other words, such a view ofhuman nature leads to a morality which is focused mainly onavoiding evil, but pays little attention to trying to dogood. For Augustine, one might point out that his view thatone can perform good actions only with the grace of God isthe good-producing aspect of his morality. Yet thesereligious claims are not philosophically defensible, and thusone is left with the view that human beings are inclinedtoward evil, and thus with a view of morality that focusestoo heavily on the avoidance of evil. The next chapter willconsider a subtle reinterpretation of concupiscence, based ona modern reading of Thomas Aquinas, to see if the moralconsequences that follow from it suffer from the same defectas those that follow from the Augustinian conception.CHAPTER 3: AN EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS OF THOMISTIC CONCUPISCENCEIn examining Aquinas’ conception of concupiscence, thedetail that was exhibited in putting forth Augustine’s viewwill not be duplicated here, since Aquinas is largely building on the work of Augustine. To begin with, then, itwasn’t until this century that anyone fully appreciated howAquinas “slightly shifts” Augustine’s prior conception ofconcupiscence . What this slight difference entails issuccinctly explained by Karl Rahner, widely regarded as oneof the greatest Catholic theologians of this century,although Rahner did not explicitly mention Aquinas as theimpetus for his new treatment of concupiscence. Rahner feelsthat there are two distinct traditions in Christianityconcerning concupiscence. As he states it:On the one hand concupiscentia must be seen as … a power weighing down on man, with all the shattering impetus attested to by … St. Augustine and Luther …. If from this first point of view concupiscentia appears as a power oppressing man in his very depths and driving him on to moral transgression, from the second point of view it presents itself as something immediately given with human nature, and so really a matter of course … indeed almost necessary. The first view spoken of here, is the one dealt with in thefirst and second chapters of this thesis, namely Augustine’sview that concupiscence is the inclination toward evil whichdrives one to “moral transgression”. Yet this second view of concupiscence, as “immediatelygiven” and somewhat “necessary”, is one which Conan Gallaghercorrectly links originally to Aquinas . In the PrimaSecundae of Aquinas’ masterwork, the Summa Theologica, in thearticle entitled “Whether Original Sin Is Concupiscence” hebegins by stating that:The whole order of original justice consists in man’s will being subject to God: which subjection, first and chiefly, was in the will … so that the will being turned away from God, all the other powers of the soul become inordinate. Here, Aquinas agrees with Augustine in that original sinfirst affects the will and from there moves to the rest ofthe faculties of the human soul. A discussion of what thesespecific faculties are for Aquinas is unnecessary. It issufficient to note that what Aquinas means by the facultiesof the human soul is roughly equivalent to what Augustinemeant when he said that original sin first affects the willand then through the will affects the mind and the body.Thus, Aquinas is in agreement with Augustine on thispoint. As a next step Aquinas states that “theinordinateness of the … powers of the soul consists chieflyin their turning inordinately to mutable good; whichinordinateness may be called by the general name ofconcupiscence” . Here Aquinas again seems to be agreeingwith Augustine, in that what Aquinas means by “turninginordinately to mutable good” is roughly equivalent to thestripped down conception of Augustinian concupiscence as theinclination toward evil.To flesh out Aquinas’ meaning here a bit more, to saythat these powers of the soul are inordinate is to say thatthey are directed to the wrong goal, in this case turningtowards a mutable good, which means a good that is fleeting,such as the pleasure taken in eating, sex, or some othertransitory activity, as opposed to immutable goods that havelasting value, such as learning, and are in keeping with theimmutable good, namely, God. This is not to say that thesemutable goods are not to be enjoyed. Mutable goods aregoods, when taken in the proper proportion. The problemarises when they are turned to inordinately. One mightrightly suspect here that by turning inordinately to mutablegoods, one is turning away from God as the immutable good. Turning away from God constitutes for Aquinas, as it did forAugustine, sin. Sin, as has been shown, in its turning awayfrom the good, God, is a privation of the good and is thus,for Aquinas, like Augustine, evil. Thus, to say thatconcupiscence is turning inordinately to mutable goods is tosay in a basically equivalent way that concupiscence is aninclination toward evil. Up to this point then, Aquinasshares all the weaknesses of the Augustinian view that werediscussed in the last chapter, as well as all the strengthsof the Augustinian view if cut free of all its religiousentailments. Once again, up to this point, Aquinas is in agreementwith Augustine. So where is the difference between the twoviews? Shortly after the above quoted definition ofconcupiscence Aquinas goes on to say:Since, in man, the concupiscible power is naturally governed by reason, the act of concupiscence is so far natural to man, as it is in accord with the order of reason; while, in so far as it trespasses beyond the bounds of reason, it is, for a man, contrary to reason. Such is the concupiscence of original sin. With this mention of how concupiscence is in one way”natural” to human beings, one is confronted with the secondview of concupiscence that Rahner mentioned earlier. Whatthis statement means is that if concupiscence is in line with”reason” or rationality, it is in this way natural, whereasif it is not in line with reason it is thus inordinate andthus inclined towards evil. Yet what does Aquinas mean by “concupiscible power”here? In answering this question, one should note thatearlier on, in talking about appetites, Aquinas hasdistinguished between the sensitive and intellectualappetites . What he means by appetite here is any “conativepotency” or, more simply, desire. From here, then, thedistinction of the sensitive and intellectual appetitesroughly corresponds to the desires generated by the body(sensitive) and the mind (intellectual). Aquinas then goeson to divide the sensitive appetite into the irascible andconcupiscible powers . The concupiscible power is what is ofinterest here, which Aquinas defines as the power “throughwhich the soul is simply inclined to seek what is suitable,according to the senses, and to fly from what is hurtful” . Thus, it would seem that generally speaking thisconcupiscible power or appetite involves desires to seekpleasure or avoid pain. To put the two thoughts together, then, any act ofconcupiscence, that is, any act that flows from desires toseek pleasure or avoid pain, is natural and good if it is inaccord with reason, and inordinate and evil if it is not. Atthis point one must ask whether or not this new view ofconcupiscence has any plausibility. There are two majorproblems with this new view as Aquinas presents it. Thefirst is with the notion that the concupiscible power isgoverned by reason, and the second is with the notion of aconcupiscible power in itself. In reference to the first problem, one might ask, doesnot original sin also affect a human being’s rational powers? Indeed, as has been shown, Aquinas says that original sinfirst affects the will, and then it affects the other partsof the soul, one of which is the rational part. Thus, whyshould one think that reason should rule the other facultiesof the human being, when reason is itself infected byoriginal sin? It seems here, that Aquinas falls into thesame type of inconsistency that Augustine did, except thatAquinas’ weak point is his emphasis on reason, whereasAugustine fell into inconsistency in his emphasis on thewill. To reiterate, the inconsistency here is that Aquinaswants to give reason pride of place in ruling over otherhuman faculties such as the will or the emotions, yet reasonhas been affected by original sin just as the will and therest of the human faculties have, and thus, there seems to beno clear notion of why reason should have such pride ofplace. Aquinas might try to counter this objection by sayingthat the effect that original sin has on reason is not asradical as the effect Augustine felt it had on the will, andthus, there is room for seeing how on some occasions reasonmight correctly guide the desires of the concupiscible power. Yet, on what occasions? For Aquinas, those occasions wouldbe ones in which God’s grace aids human reason to help itdiscern what would be in accord with God’s will. Yet thisreligious occasionalism is once again indefensible from aphilosophical point of view, and without it there seems to beno real reason to believe that reason should have any realpower over the concupiscible power. If reason is in any wayaffected by original sin or, non-religiously, inclined towardevil or inordinateness, it is hard to see why it should takeprecedence over any other human faculty. Any such precedenceseems somewhat arbitrary. To make this objection even clearer, one might considersome possible counterexamples to the view that in the normalstate of affairs reason is to guide the desires of theconcupiscible appetite or power. For example, how would thisview deal with cold, calculating, rational killers likeprofessional “hit” men? One might suppose that certain ofthese people do not kill for enjoyment, but, on a rationallevel, kill because they have to, that is, it is part oftheir job. In fact, on the level of their desires, they mayhave some sort of compassion or wish that they did not haveto kill anyone. In these cases, the desires have beencontrolled by reason. Yet, it would seem that in instancessuch as these, the desires of such people are morepraiseworthy than their cold, calculating rationality woulddictate. Thus, in such cases, if one accepts Aquinas’ claimthat reason should rule over one’s desires, one would be leftin a morally more culpable position than if one had allowedone’s desires to dictate over one’s reason. In other words,”hit men” who suppress their compassionate desires and killpeople in a cold, calculated and rational way because it istheir job are more culpable than someone who is paid to killsomeone but who allows these compassionate desires tooverwhelm their cold, calculating, reason.The second problem with Aquinas new view ofconcupiscence concerns the nature of the concupiscible powerin itself. Why is it that only the desires of theconcupiscible power are mentioned in this revised notion ofconcupiscence, when just shortly before this Aquinas haspointed out that all powers of the soul are susceptible toturning inordinately to mutable goods as a result of originalsin? To be consistent here, it would seem that any desire,rational or sensitive, should be affected by original sin andshould thus come under the heading of concupiscence. With these objections stated, what is left of Aquinas’new interpretation of concupiscence? Once again, not verymuch, except perhaps a very general claim that concupiscenceis the pool of all human desires, which can be inclinedtowards either good or evil, and which possesses thepotential to be acted upon and thus become morallypraiseworthy or blameworthy. One might wonder at this point,however, how Aquinas in the passages cited at the beginningof this chapter was able to go from a conception ofconcupiscence that was essentially concomitant withAugustine’s to a view of concupiscence that was quitedifferent than Augustine’s. What one is faced with here is the use of the word”concupiscence” by Aquinas in two different senses. Thefirst is a more general sense that accords with theAugustinian conception as an inclination of the whole humanbeing toward evil, and the second is the pool of humandesires, good and evil, that flow from the concupisciblepower. Yet one should notice that these two senses seeminconsistent, in that one sees concupiscence as aninclination toward evil, whereas the other sees concupiscenceas desires which can be good or evil. The only possible wayto make the two usages consistent is to hold the second usageas the more general one, which includes all the casesentailed by the first. In other words, one must see thesecond sense of “concupiscence” as including all those caseswhere concupiscence leads to evil actions, and, in addition,all those cases where concupiscence leads to good actions. Yet, by making the second sense of concupiscence morerestrictive, Aquinas has made any attempt at a reconciliationof the two senses seemingly impossible. In any case, it is clear that Aquinas probably meant forthe two senses to be consistent, if indeed he even realizedthat he was using the word in two different ways. With thisin mind one must attempt to carve away the inconsistency forhim, which, in effect, has been done in that the twoobjections raised to Aquinas’ new reading of concupiscenceeffectively remove the restrictive nature of the second senseof concupiscence and broaden the claim to be in the end thatall human desires are inclined towards either good or evil. Thus understood, concupiscence, as has been said, includesall cases, and thus reconciles both usages. This being said, one might next wonder where the realbasis of difference between the Augustinian and Thomisticviews of concupiscence lies. The difference on the surfaceseems to be that, as has been stated, the Augustinian wouldstate that every desire, whether it comes from the mind(rational) or body (sensitive), is inclined toward evil,whereas the Thomist would say that some desires are inclinedtowards good, and some are inclined toward evil orinordinateness. Yet what is the basis of this difference? The fundamental difference seems to be in the implied degreeto which Augustine and Aquinas feel that human nature hasbeen wounded by original sin. Augustine, it would seem, is more pessimistic in thatoriginal sin radically affects all human faculties such thatthe human being is fundamentally oriented toward evil. Thisview of Augustine’s is borne out by the fact that by the endof his life, as has been said, he believed that one could dogood only if upheld in God’s grace. No cooperation of thewill is admitted here because no free will is possible. Aquinas, on the other hand seems to have a moreoptimistic outlook on the effect of original sin. One mustgrant that for him as a result of original sin all the humanfaculties have become disordered, yet the degree to whichthey have become so seems far less radical than in Augustine. This leaves open the possibility that human beings can havedesires that are inclined toward good. And just as theinclination toward evil is unchosen, the inclination towardgood is in this way also unchosen. Furthermore, just as wasstated in the last chapter, the unchosen actions that flowfrom these inclinations are morally blameworthy orpraiseworthy. Thus, in the end, for Aquinas human beings aremore of a “mixed bag” , with potentialities for both good andevil. Now that the problems with Aquinas view of concupiscencehave been examined, and the basis of his difference withAugustine probed, it must be asked next what is right aboutthis notion of concupiscence? First of all, one should notethat this Thomistic definition of concupiscence, in itsrealization that human beings are “mixed bags” capable ofboth good and evil, overcomes the problem with Augustinianconcupiscence stated at the end of the last chapter. Theproblem with Augustinian concupiscence is that one consequence of the view that human beings are fundamentallyevil is that the morality thus entailed will focus tooheavily on the minimization of evil. For Aquinas, however,the moral consequences of his admission of the possibility ofhuman goodness, are that they allow for the positive “good-producing” task of morality, as well as the negative task ofminimizing evil. Yet one might ask, is Aquinas right about there beinginstances of human goodness. In the last chapter it waspointed out that the presence of horrific evil in the world,such as in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia, makesAugustine’s view seem plausible. Yet the fact that therestill exists examples of heroic human goodness, as well ashorrific evil, in the world makes Aquinas’ view perhaps moreplausible. People like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas areacknowledged by their faith community as having performedmany good deeds during their lifetime, and as having sterlingcharacters, such that this faith community has declared them”saints”. Such saints are actualizations of the potentialityof human goodness. In the beginning of this chapter Rahner was quoted assaying that, in opposition to the view of concupiscenceadvanced by Augustine, there was the view that concupiscencewas “natural” and “necessary”. The notion of concupiscencebeing natural has already been discussed, but how is one tounderstand the claim that it is necessary? In closing thistreatment of Thomistic concupiscence one might offer anexample of how seeing it as necessary can be taken in theright and the wrong way. The example is taken from popularculture, namely an episode of the original 1960’s futuristicscience-fiction television series Star Trek. In the episodeentitled “The Enemy Within”, the Captain of the StarshipEnterprise, James Kirk, is transported to an alien planet bya process called “beaming down” in which every molecule ofthe persons body is converted to energy on a ships platform,and is then reassembled into matter at the appointed place. Unfortunately, in the process of “beaming” back to the shipfrom the planet, the transporting device malfunctions andsends back two Captain Kirks, one good and one evil. What isof interest here is that by the end of the show, the goodKirk and his crewmates realize that he cannot survive withoutbeing reunited