HABIT, HABITUDE. — A stable quality by which an agent, indifferent to acting in different ways, acquires facility and readiness to act in one way or another. For example, when it is said that a person has become accustomed to a particular diet or climate, it means that, thanks to past experience, they can now endure that food or climate with ease and without further effort.
OUTLINE:
1. Psychology
2. Physiology
3. Ethics
4. Pedagogy
5. Moral Theology.Habit (a.), called ἕξις by the Greeks and habitus by the Scholastics, is more than a mere disposition (διάθεσις); while disposition is in itself unstable (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 49, a. 1), habit is a stable quality, so much so that Aristotle, in De memoria, calls it a second nature (ὡσπερ γὰρ ψοῦσις ἡδὴ τὸ ἔθος), and Cicero, in De finibus, asserts that “custom almost becomes a second nature.” The fundamental division of habits distinguishes between entitative and operative habits. The entitative habit is commonly defined as a “qualitas stabilis secundum quam subiectum bene vel male se habet in seipso”: such would be health or infirmity; the operative habit, on the other hand, modifies the powers in their manner of acting. The operative habit is further divided into supernatural, which transcends the pure possibilities of nature (e.g., grace), and natural; this in turn may be innate—such, for example, according to St. Thomas, is the habit of first principles (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 51, a. 1)—or acquired, arising from the repetition of acts. The operative, natural, acquired habit, which is the subject of the present discussion, is further subdivided in various ways, particularly by modern psychologists, according to the perspective from which they observe II. Thus, habits are commonly spoken of as good or bad, active or passive (Maine de Biran), general or special (Egger), speculative or practical, intellectual or volitional, moral, religious, professional, etc.
Habit may be studied from the standpoint of psychology, physiology, ethics, pedagogy, or moral theology.
5. PSYCHOLOGY
a) Subject of habit. — Authors debate whether animals are capable of acquiring operative habits. The negative view is held not only by advocates of Cartesian mechanism, who deny any animal psyche, but also by many Scholastics. In general, brute animals are conceded only the capacity to form a habit of acting in a certain way, which is regarded as the result either of a spontaneous perfecting of faculties or of training by man. However, as we shall immediately note, the question is tied to the more or less restricted meaning given to habit.As for the possibility for man to acquire operative habits, it is well to premise a guiding principle. Since habit modifies a power, it necessarily presupposes a certain pliability in the faculties that it reshapes. Only those powers that possess a certain indifference are capable of habit in the strict sense (cf. Scotus, Opus Oxoniense, II, d. 3, q. 10, n. 18). For this reason, the Scholastics concluded that vegetative and sensitive powers do not acquire habits. Peillaube and Chevalier, however, dissent, but they understand habit in a much broader sense than that commonly accepted by the Scholastics. Indeed, if habit is taken to mean any permanent modification, not only psychological but also physiological, which determines in the principles of organic activity a constant inclination toward a given action or series of actions, there is no obstacle to extending the possibility of habit to all vital activities, including sensitive and vegetative ones. This is particularly true in man, where the development of organic life, and especially sensitive life, is not entirely subject to the necessity of instinct but in part dependent on free determinations of the will.
It is in fact in the will and the intellect, the higher principles of human spiritual activity, that habits find their elective field of formation and development. Once freedom is admitted, it follows that all virtues and vices (which are by definition good or bad operative habits) are constituted by the will’s determination or at least under its influence. When the will conforms to a judgment of value, it thereby creates a tendency to repeat the same judgment, and if this conformity of the will occurs frequently in relation to the same object, a habit is born. The intellect, moreover, having not only capacity but also indifference toward every kind of knowledge, acquires facility and readiness only through habit. This explains the common saying that one has a mentality, an individual vision of the world and things; and likewise every specialization. Naturally, in this acquisition of habit, the intellect, like other faculties, is influenced by the will, which is thus the cause not only of its own habits but also of those inherent in other faculties.
b) The three vital phases of habit. — Psychologically, three stages may be distinguished in the life course of a habit: its formation, development, and cessation. Habits are formed by virtue of the law of the reviviscence of psychic states. “Past psychic states have a tendency to reproduce themselves, and they do in fact reproduce themselves to the extent that this tendency to reviviscence combines with the tendencies corresponding to the present state of consciousness” (Janet). The Scholastics, rather than investigating the psychic mechanism that induces the repetition of acts and consequently the acquisition of habits, affirm the experiential fact of the enormous importance of repetition. Modern psychology, in turn, has emphasized another effect of repetition, namely the achievement of uniformity and mechanical execution, which is especially important when habit involves the fusion of physical and psychic elements (Baudin). Even a single act, as St. Thomas affirms, can, if sufficiently intense, establish a habit. It must also be borne in mind that the formation of habits often, if not always, testifies to a preexisting aptitude, frequently hereditary; if this is lacking, the full effects ordinarily produced by operative habits—especially the sense of pleasure accompanying action—will not be realized. Given man’s greater receptivity and pliability during the period of development, it must be inferred—and experience confirms—that this stage is the most conducive to the formation of habits.
For the growth of habit, the laws governing learning apply in part, so that the first repetitions have the greatest fixing power, a power that gradually diminishes until a kind of saturation is reached, producing uniformity and making further improvement in action impossible. Among the psychic factors whose influence is evident in the consolidation of habits, attention, constancy, and tension of the will are important (De Sanctis, Ferrari); paramount among these is interest, for it constitutes the motive that sustains them. Here interest is understood in the broadest sense, so that in analyzing the establishment of any habit we will always find its intimate reason in the satisfaction of the subject’s interest. Physiological conditions play a notable part as factors in the development of habits exercised through the senses. Through repetition, the resistance of the organism is gradually overcome, and a more perfect coordination of movements is achieved, which results in relative physiological automatism.
The diminution or cessation of any of these physical and psychological conditions and the formation of contrary habits bring about the relaxation of the habit (Sum. Theol., 1°-2°a°, q.53, a.3). When the repetition of acts ceases, the functional adaptation produced by the reiteration of the same actions is diminished, and likewise the tendencies and general needs of the habits become less tyrannical. Pedagogically, in this regard, the influence of the will must not be underestimated, for it can suddenly sever inveterate habits, as is demonstrated in sudden and lasting conversions. As a general rule, however, the following principle can be stated and accepted: the weakening or exhaustion of a habit is in inverse proportion to its vitality and duration, so that the more recent and less dominant habits are also more easily overcome. All else being equal, the habits of childhood are more easily acquired than those of mature age. Modern medicine has developed an entire therapeutic approach to cure habits harmful to health, such as alcoholism, smoking, morphinomania, and the like. We shall only mention those cures that have gained wider acceptance, namely, hypnotism, suggestion, and psychoanalysis.
c) Effects of the habit. — St. Thomas (Quaest. disp. de virtut. in communi, q. unica, a. 1, c), in discussing the necessity of habits, summarizes their effects as follows: 1) they bring about uniformity in action; 2) the habit produces a perfect and swift action; 3) this action will be performed with delight.
Modern authors, especially psychologists, have extensively treated the effects of habit, and it is interesting to note how its importance is increasingly emphasized. It is also asserted that character is the sum of all moral habits, and it is certain that the individual personality is forged and most clearly revealed through habitual acts. Moreover, in psychic life, habit is a prominent factor of conservation and progress. Without it, we would be incapable of stable learning, whereas through it every action survives within us in the form of a tendency, so that the past is summarized in the present. This same conservative action is also an instrument of progress. Voluntary activity, once acts become habitual, remains free to focus on other objects, since attention is now largely superfluous. It is true that stability and ease somewhat mechanize human action because they entail a decrease in consciousness, but they do not thereby eliminate psychological awareness and hence voluntariness. Moreover, this defect is amply compensated by the speed and precision that accompany habit.
The effects of habit are also evident in moral and social life in the same sense of conservation and progress (Peillaube). Every virtuous act leaves a trace of virtue, which, by the law of association, becomes a facilitation for its reproduction. Logically, this also occurs for bad acts, but not with the same intensity, because grace and natural and positive laws act as a counterbalance to the inclinations and passions of nature. Since the community is but a multiplication of individuals, the contribution of habit to the formation of social custom is natural. As a conservative agent, by the simple law of inertia, it maintains the limits of order and the characteristics both familial and national, so that it is not incorrect to say that a people is guided at least as much by its dead as by its living. The progressive effect of habits in social life is determined by the fact that once ideas are acquired and become common patrimony, they allow for a leap toward new achievements.
6. PHYSIOLOGY
The constant repetition of acts, as has already been noted, deposits and crystallizes within us, both in terms of our psychological consciousness and our physical organism, a greater facility and indeed the need to perform the act in question again. In this way, a disposition develops within us that ultimately becomes stable, almost merging with our nature in the form of a habit. Just as acts of knowledge remain our patrimony in the form of memories in the imagination and memory, leaving on the other hand, by virtue of the particular mixed nature of the subject that experiences them, traces within the organs that constitute our nervous system, particularly the brain (v. MEMORY), so too does this occur with all our actions, from the most insignificant or rare to the most important for our relational life, especially if repeated frequently: “action can fix our energy in habit” (G. Payot, op. cit., p. 167).The question of habit and habit-formation must be studied not only from the perspective of psychology but also from that of medicine (biology, neurophysiology, neuropathology).
Indeed, a deeper understanding of the problem and the mechanism of the aforementioned phenomenon can only be achieved by studying the organization and function of the nervous system, particularly the central nervous system. Given the principle that “when soul and body are united, the relationships between them are not extrinsic and superficial, but intimate and profound” (A. Zacchi, op. cit., I, p. 441), we must a priori admit in the psychological phenomenon of habit and habit-formation a direct, intrinsic instrumental participation of the physical organism, particularly the nervous system. Indeed, physiology and clinical medicine reveal the reality of this psychosomatic correlation, demonstrating the existence of particular cortical and subcortical zones in which it is possible to localize the sensorimotor mechanism of many “symbolic acts,” whether instinctive or not, but automatized through constant repetition (correlation between thought or speech and mimicry; particular investigative or defensive postures; walking; writing; manual skills, etc.). The progressive facilitation that develops in relation to the habitual nature of acts and that can reach the point of true automatism is precisely linked to the myelination of nerve fibers, the grouping of neurons into synergistic clusters, the association of centers into coordinated complexes, and the shifting of functions from the cerebral cortex to subcortical zones (v. EXTRAPIRAMIDAL, SISTEMA). In this context, it suffices to consider, for example, walking, which is so laboriously acquired in the early stages of our relational life through the constant repetition of certain postures and acts initially supported and guided by the will, then gradually passing into the domain of subconsciousness and automaticity; the becoming automatic and habitual of certain particular professional skills acquired in the manual labor of the finest crafts; the marvelous automatism of a pianist’s finger movements, which can enable him to play the most difficult pieces while conversing with those around him.
We may therefore admit that every form of habitual training, from the lowest organic levels to the highest in the realm of our psychological activities, is always a mixed phenomenon of a physical-psychological nature, as observation demonstrates when these habits change or even disappear in relation to organic or functional damage to the nervous system (intoxication, fatigue, etc.) or in relation to particular negative emotional states of the individual (pain, despair, fear, etc.). (v. PASSIONS)
7. ETHICS
The principle stated above, that habit, while it may attenuate, does not in itself remove the freedom of the human act, has important implications in the ethical sphere, primarily with regard to the degree of imputability, and thus of merit or demerit, inherent in actions performed under the influence of a good or bad habit. Normally, therefore, moral habit does not attain such a strong automatic character as to compromise, along with freedom, the immediate essential morality of the act; nevertheless, it is certain that, to a greater or lesser extent, it does reduce II. The ethical value of the act must then be judged according to the principle of mediate morality, dependent on indirect and causal voluntariness.It is certain that a habit contracted unconsciously—and the same must be said of every purely natural and involuntary psycho-physiological disposition—does not modify the actual morality of the act either positively or negatively; the act will have that ethical value conferred upon it by the degree of awareness and freedom with which it is actually performed. Unconscious and involuntary habit (understood as such, it may be so only with regard to the moral character of its object), as long as it remains such, may be considered in relation to the human act and to the extent that it influences it, in the same way as invincible ignorance. Quite different must be said of a habit contracted with full awareness (as to its moral character) and deliberately. In this case, even the consequences of the habit are in a certain way foreseen and willed at least in their cause: the ethical value that attaches to the arising and formation of the habit thus indirectly affects all the acts upon which the habit itself will exert its influence or dominion. If the habit is a good one (virtue), often acquired through intense and long-continued moral effort, the acts, having become spontaneous and almost natural, will have the same value, the same human dignity, the same merit that accompanied the arduous formation of the habit. Similarly, if the habit is a bad one (vice), the acts that derive from it will bear the same full responsibility as the habit itself, until such time as a free act of the will intervenes that effectively renounces the habit through a moral return: effectively, that is, with a sincere rejection of the heart and at the same time with the practical use of the means required for the gradual destruction of the habit. When this action of the will intervenes, the bond of responsibility that linked the act to the habit is broken, and its ethical value will then be determined solely by the degree of awareness and deliberation with which it is currently performed. In practice, it need hardly be pointed out that, beyond the two extreme cases analyzed, the responsibility of habits and therefore of the acts that derive from them admits of infinite degrees, according to the variation and interplay of the manifold factors that concur beyond free will, such as temperament, education, the degree of individual culture, and the other countless circumstances of the educational-social environment.
With regard to moral life, it must finally be noted that bad habits, if not opposed, exercise a strongly negative influence, in the long run, on the very rectitude of moral conscience (v. CONSCIENCE). By virtue of the bond that unites the spiritual life of man, deviations in the ethical sphere, fixed by long-standing habits, end by being reflected in practical reason, determining the gradual obscuring, and at times almost the extinction, at least partial, of moral conscience (v. VIRTUE; VICE; WILL).
8. PEDAGOGY
The preceding psychological and physiological observations suggest the most useful applications in the field of pedagogy. We restrict ourselves to the following points: a) The first duty of the educator is to enrich his pupils with a complex of habitsThey may be useful to life. Gradually, the child and the young person can acquire certain attitudes toward life: (a) toward physical life (practice of hygienic norms, restraint in gluttony, a sense of personal decorum, rules of etiquette); (b) toward intellectual life (attention, reflection, application to study); (c) toward the life of the will and morality (practice of duty, courage in overcoming difficulties, boldness, victory over inertia).
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