Sometimes You Smell Things You Cannot See

An excerpt from my new book, Affective Knowledge in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas

Moral reasoning about the practical order (agibilia), maintains Aquinas, is the work of an active intellect that proceeds discursively and by way of speculative inquiry. It is otherwise with the connatural knowledge of prudence. The “gut feeling” about a practical truth is not, in the first case, active, but passive and receptive. A particular reality can elicit a response from the appetites—a response that is often visceral, one of repugnance or delight, of electricity or execration, and the intellect follows. Prudence’s determination of how to respond well to a singular, practical reality is informed not only by universal principles, but also by attending to the intuitive, interior inclinations of an upright will as a trustworthy barometer for how to act. Rectified dispositions of attraction or aversion are honed and rendered more perceptive and acute with experience.

Such a judgment is one of connaturality. Prudence attends to the felt sympathy (or lack thereof) between its own nature and the nature of a particular action. A noble and honorable action reverberates sympathetically and harmoniously in the appetites of a noble and honorable person on account of a common nature. The connatural attunement of the heart to justice allows the just man to make a just, that is to say, true, judgment about a singular, practical course of action by attending to his inner sense of justice. Such a heart reverberates in joyful harmony with the justice seen outside of himself and, when confronted with injustice, feels its dissonance acutely.

Yves Simon gives an everyday example of how the judgment of prudence can at times run counter to the weight of reason. A business proposition is made to an honest and experienced businessman. The proposal seems both immensely lucrative and utterly secure. While the deal is perhaps too good to be true, the businessman can find no fault with the proposal. Nevertheless, his rejection of the proposition is definitive and resolute: “No.” When asked why he rejects such a seemingly scintillating scheme, he cannot spell it out—no arguments can with sufficient suasion counter such a compelling offer. And yet his decision is firm, “No.” When pushed to give an account, his response turns to metaphor: “Yes, it is not easy to see what is wrong with his plan, but sometimes you can smell things that you cannot see.”

Consider the common expression, “something smells fishy.” It indicates precisely the type of connatural aversion that an experienced and honest businessman might have in the face of such an incandescent proposal. He adverts to his own intuitive sense or inclination for direction. By a judgment of the heart that seems to run counter to arguments of reason, he decides, “No, that smells off.” The metaphor is not accidental. Whereas seeing—a sense that engages reality far off—is a common metaphor for intellectual understanding, smell, taste and touch express sense engagement with reality immediately at hand; as a metaphor, it bespeaks knowledge of the heart derived from direct experience. Prudence proceeds by attending to the connatural “inner sense” of the appetites that respond affectively to a particular reality.