(NOTE: Your name should appear only on the back of the last page, written in pencil)
Read the first two books of St. Augustine's Confessions. Then re-read very very carefully (two or three times, at least) Augustine's famous reflection on the "pear-tree incident" in chaps. 4-10 of book 2 (pp. 26-31 of the Hackett edition).
St. Thomas, following Aristotle, asserts that even when we act badly or immorally, we do not perform the action in question simply because it is wrong or evil or sinful. Rather, we act because we are seeking some good (e.g., pleasure of food or drink, sexual pleasure, power, wealth, fame, knowledge, emotional security, the approval of our peers, etc.) that through our own fault we mistakenly believe to be conducive to our ultimate happiness. By contrast, St. Augustine seems to claim here that he stole the pears out of sheer perversity of will, i.e., that he performed this action precisely because it was evil or sinful and not in order to attain any good at all.
In your paper you are to answer the following three questions:
(b) Does Augustine retreat from this strong claim when he later conjectures that he wouldn't have committed the sin if he had been by himself? In other words, does this conjecture indicate that there was indeed some good for which he was (sinfully) striving when he stole the pears?
(c) What do you think? Is it indeed possible to do evil for no reason other than simply to do evil? Whichever answer you give, what are your reasons? Be sure to respond to possible objections against your position.