Thomas Aquinas On Virtue And Human Flourishing

Author : Stephen Theron
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 123 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2018-04-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781527510296

Get Book

Thomas Aquinas on Virtue and Human Flourishing by Stephen Theron Pdf

Thomas Aquinas offers teleological systematisation of the habits needed for human flourishing. His metaphysical jurisprudence remodels ethics upon this, rather than on a moral precept. “Eternal law” governing the world determines “natural law”, reflected in human legislation (a variety of the “anthropic principle”). Finally, law, unwritten, is infused spirit as self-consciousness, “universal of universals”. Acquired virtues elicit this, become effusion, represented in religion as gifts or graces. But mind’s or spirit’s omnipresence, necessarily “closer to me than I am to myself”, supersedes the abstractions of heteronomy versus autonomy. The habitual well-being brought by prudence, justice, courage and temperance prompts this picture of gifts and graces. The “theological virtues”, faith (explicit or implicit) and hope fulfilled in love, “crown” our natural rationality, set toward as being the universal. “Become what you are”. Heteronomous law is thus “defused” at root by grounding it entirely upon immovable spiritual (mental) inclination towards universal fulfilment as naturally desired, reflection shows. Virtue, finally, is best assessed as a capacity for the individually beautiful yet habit-based action, Aristotle’s to kalon. Aquinas puts this picture as summed up in the beatitudes of the “Sermon on the Mount”.

Author : Andrew Pinsent
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2013-10-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781136479144

Get Book

The Second-Person Perspective in Aquinas’s Ethics by Andrew Pinsent Pdf

Thomas Aquinas devoted a substantial proportion of his greatest works to the virtues. Yet, despite the availability of these texts (and centuries of commentary), Aquinas’s virtue ethics remains mysterious, leaving readers with many unanswered questions. In this book, Pinsent argues that the key to understanding Aquinas’s approach is to be found in an association between: a) attributes he appends to the virtues, and b) interpersonal capacities investigated by the science of social cognition, especially in the context of autistic spectrum disorder. The book uses this research to argue that Aquinas’s approach to the virtues is radically non-Aristotelian and founded on the concept of second-person relatedness. To demonstrate the explanatory power of this principle, Pinsent shows how the second-person perspective gives interpretation to Aquinas’s descriptions of the virtues and offers a key to long-standing problems, such as the reconciliation of magnanimity and humility. The principle of second-person relatedness also interprets acts that Aquinas describes as the fruition of the virtues. Pinsent concludes by considering how this approach may shape future developments in virtue ethics.

Author : Matthew Levering
Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2019-11-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780268106355

Get Book

Aquinas's Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance by Matthew Levering Pdf

In Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Matthew Levering argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey God’s law for human flourishing as individuals and communities. He has reoriented our lives toward the goal of beatific communion with him in charity, which affects the exercise of the moral virtues that pertain to human flourishing. Without the context of the inaugurated kingdom, Catholic ethics as traditionally conceived will seem like an effort to find a middle ground between legalistic rigorism and relativistic laxism, which is especially the case with the virtue of temperance, the focus of Levering’s book. After an opening chapter on the eschatological/biblical character of Catholic ethics, the ensuing chapters engage Aquinas’s theology of temperance in the Summa theologiae, which identifies and examines a number of virtues associated with temperance. Levering demonstrates that the theology of temperance is profoundly biblical, and that Aquinas’s theology of temperance relies for its intelligibility upon Christ’s inauguration of the kingdom of God as the graced fulfillment of our created nature. The book develops new vistas for scholars and students interested in moral theology.

Author : Andrew Pinsent
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2013-10-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781136479137

Get Book

The Second-Person Perspective in Aquinas’s Ethics by Andrew Pinsent Pdf

Thomas Aquinas devoted a substantial proportion of his greatest works to the virtues. Yet, despite the availability of these texts (and centuries of commentary), Aquinas’s virtue ethics remains mysterious, leaving readers with many unanswered questions. In this book, Pinsent argues that the key to understanding Aquinas’s approach is to be found in an association between: a) attributes he appends to the virtues, and b) interpersonal capacities investigated by the science of social cognition, especially in the context of autistic spectrum disorder. The book uses this research to argue that Aquinas’s approach to the virtues is radically non-Aristotelian and founded on the concept of second-person relatedness. To demonstrate the explanatory power of this principle, Pinsent shows how the second-person perspective gives interpretation to Aquinas’s descriptions of the virtues and offers a key to long-standing problems, such as the reconciliation of magnanimity and humility. The principle of second-person relatedness also interprets acts that Aquinas describes as the fruition of the virtues. Pinsent concludes by considering how this approach may shape future developments in virtue ethics.

Author : Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung,Colleen McCluskey,Christina van Dyke
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : UOM:39015080858601

Get Book

Aquinas's Ethics by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung,Colleen McCluskey,Christina van Dyke Pdf

This work places Thomas Aquinas's moral theory in its full philosophical and theological context in a way that makes Aquinas accessible to students and interested general readers.

Author : Joseph Earl Bender
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 116 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 1924
Category : Ethics
ISBN : UCAL:$B44202

Get Book

The Relation Between Moral Qualities and Intelligence According to St. Thomas Aquinas ... by Joseph Earl Bender Pdf

Author : Magdalena Bosch
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2020-07-23
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9783030470012

Get Book

Desire and Human Flourishing by Magdalena Bosch Pdf

This book discusses the concept of desire as a positive factor in human growth and flourishing. All human decision-making is preceded by some kind of desire, and we act upon desires by either rejecting or following them. It argues that our views on and expressions of desire in various facets of life and through time have differed according to how human beings are taught to desire. Therefore, the concept has tremendous potential to affect human beings positively and to enable personal growth. Though excellent research has been done on the concepts of flourishing, character education and positive psychology, no other work has linked the concept of desire to all of these topics. Featuring key references, explanations of central concepts, and significant practical applications of desire to various fields of human thought and action, the book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of positive psychology, positive education, moral philosophy, and virtue ethics.

Author : Thomas L. Spalding,James M. Stedman,Christina L. Gagné,Matthew Kostelecky
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 178 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2019-12-13
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9783030339128

Get Book

The Human Person by Thomas L. Spalding,James M. Stedman,Christina L. Gagné,Matthew Kostelecky Pdf

This book introduces the Aristotelian-Thomistic view of the human person to a contemporary audience, and reviews the ways in which this view could provide a philosophically sound foundation for modern psychology. The book presents the current state of psychology and offers critiques of the current philosophical foundations. In its presentation of the fundamental metaphysical commitments of the Aristotelian-Thomistic view, it places the human being within the broader understanding of the world. Chapters discuss the Aristotelian-Thomistic view of human and non-human cognition as well as the relationship between cognition and emotion. In addition, the book discusses the Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of human growth and development, including how the virtue theory relates to current psychological approaches to normal human development, the development of character problems that lead to psychopathology, current conceptions of positive psychology, and the place of the individual in the social world. The book ends with a summary of how Aristotelian-Thomistic theory relates to science in general and psychology in particular. The Human Person will be of interest to psychologists and cognitive scientists working within a number of subfields, including developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and clinical psychology, and to philosophers working on the philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, and the interaction between historical philosophy and contemporary science, as well as linguists and computer scientists interested in psychology of language and artificial intelligence.

Author : Stephen Theron
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 119 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2008-09-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783640152513

Get Book

Thomas Aquinas: Happiness, Desire, Virtue by Stephen Theron Pdf

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Ethics, grade: No specific grade, Stockholm (Sankt Sigfrids Prästseminarium), course: Given as a course in ethics for seimarians, 1994, language: English, abstract: The crisis of ethics in our time calls for a synoptic view capable of kindling confident teleological motivation, in persons and societies. It is futile to search for the "clear and distinct idea" in a field of such universal importance as ethics, for which the ordinary discourse of humanity is well suited. Rather, our notions must be open, open to the analogies in things and situations, and open too to the real human situation in all its depth and breadth, such things as the desires of the human heart, the burdens of finitude, misfortune and death, the polarization of the sexes, the insights and traditions of religion, the exigences of politics, the compelling witness of the arts and of literature. The reason for this universal importance, such that a field of discourse considered especially intractable or even, recently, "queer" (J.L. Mackie), cannot be isolated as if somehow less scientific and hence inherently problematical or "emotive", was clearly stated by Aristotle when founding this science, this theoria of praxis. It is that ethics is concerned with the nature and end of man, with man, that is, in view of his characteristic action or praxis. That is to say, to take the short way for the present, it is the science of human happiness, of how to be happy. But this is the object of all human endeavour without exception. Hence, if its content be ever identified, e.g. as the vision of God, then it will follow that this content is the ultimate aim of all our civil and social arrangements, a conclusion that St. Thomas unhesitatingly draws.1 1 Summa contra gentiles III 37.

Author : Stephen Theron
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 130 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2008-09
Category : Desire
ISBN : 9783640154654

Get Book

Thomas Aquinas by Stephen Theron Pdf

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Ethics, grade: No specific grade, Stockholm (Sankt Sigfrids Prästseminarium), course: Given as a course in ethics for seimarians, 1994, language: English, abstract: The crisis of ethics in our time calls for a synoptic view capable of kindling confident teleological motivation, in persons and societies. It is futile to search for the "clear and distinct idea" in a field of such universal importance as ethics, for which the ordinary discourse of humanity is well suited. Rather, our notions must be open, open to the analogies in things and situations, and open too to the real human situation in all its depth and breadth, such things as the desires of the human heart, the burdens of finitude, misfortune and death, the polarization of the sexes, the insights and traditions of religion, the exigences of politics, the compelling witness of the arts and of literature. The reason for this universal importance, such that a field of discourse considered especially intractable or even, recently, "queer" (J.L. Mackie), cannot be isolated as if somehow less scientific and hence inherently problematical or "emotive", was clearly stated by Aristotle when founding this science, this theoria of praxis. It is that ethics is concerned with the nature and end of man, with man, that is, in view of his characteristic action or praxis. That is to say, to take the short way for the present, it is the science of human happiness, of how to be happy. But this is the object of all human endeavour without exception. Hence, if its content be ever identified, e.g. as the vision of God, then it will follow that this content is the ultimate aim of all our civil and social arrangements, a conclusion that St. Thomas unhesitatingly draws.1 1 Summa contra gentiles III 37.

Author : Robert Miner
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2009-04-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1139479180

Get Book

Thomas Aquinas on the Passions by Robert Miner Pdf

The Summa Theologiae is Thomas Aquinas' undisputed masterwork, and it includes his thoughts on the elemental forces in human life. Feelings such as love, hatred, pleasure, pain, hope and despair were described by Aquinas as 'passions', representing the different ways in which happiness could be affected. But what causes the passions? What impact do they have on the person who suffers them? Can they be shaped and reshaped in order to better promote human flourishing? The aim of this book is to provide a better understanding of Aquinas' account of the passions. It identifies the Aristotelian influences that lie at the heart of the Summa Theologiae, and it enters into a dialogue with contemporary thinking about the nature of emotion. The study argues that Aquinas' work is still important today, and shows why for Aquinas both the understanding and attainment of happiness requires prolonged reflection on the passions.

Author : Melanie L Dobson
Publisher : Lutterworth Press
Page : 151 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2015-02-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780718843403

Get Book

Health as a Virtue by Melanie L Dobson Pdf

How are we to care for our bodies and our health as part of faithful Christian living? Melanie Dobson excavates from Thomas Aquinas an answer for how contemporary Christians might live well in the midst of a very sick culture. Through a close reading of Aquinas's 'Treatise on Habit', Dobson reveals that the moral practice of habit does indeed include health. Thomas's keen understanding of the human person and of human longings supports the book's argument for a practice of health that directs us deep into the heart of God. Field research with clergy and missionaries offers concrete examples of the implementation of habits of health as part of the life of Christian virtue. The stories from the Clergy Health Initiative and Word Made Flesh missionary organization exhibit transformations that ushered Christian leaders into deeper love of God, neighbor, and themselves. In the end, the theology of habits of health means that our quotidian care of our bodies is not only faithful, but directs us into a life of flourishing.

Author : Thomas Aquinas
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 70 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2016-10-13
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1539489086

Get Book

Treatise on Law by Thomas Aquinas Pdf

According to St. Thomas, law, far from supplanting virtue as a basic principle of action, serves as an independent principle of action that complements virtue and is itself capable of being factored into practical deliberation. The reason is that all of God's precepts, prohibitions, and punishments are aimed at promoting the good of the whole universe and, more particularly, the good for human beings, both individually and within the various forms of social life. Because of this, law serves as both a restraint on bad actions and a spur to good action, i.e., a restraint on actions that take us away from virtue and genuine human flourishing and a spur to actions that promote virtue and flourishing.

Author : Lee H. Yearley
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1990-11-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781438424590

Get Book

Mencius and Aquinas by Lee H. Yearley Pdf

Offers a detailed comparative analysis of two thinkers from different traditions.

Author : Colleen McCluskey
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781107175273

Get Book

Thomas Aquinas on Moral Wrongdoing by Colleen McCluskey Pdf

A comprehensive examination of the moral psychology of wrongdoing from a major historical figure, Thomas Aquinas.