Ralph M. McInerny - Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas
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Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas
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Ethica Thomistica : The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas
author
:
McInerny, Ralph M.
publisher
:
Catholic University of America Press
isbn10 | asin
:
0813208971
print isbn13
:
9780813208978
ebook isbn13
:
9780813210667
language
:
English
subject
Thomas,--Aquinas, Saint,--1225?-1274--Ethics, Ethics, Medieval, Christian ethics--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.
publication date
:
1997
lcc
:
B765.T54M392 1997eb
ddc
:
171/.2/092
subject
:
Thomas,--Aquinas, Saint,--1225?-1274--Ethics, Ethics, Medieval, Christian ethics--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.
Page iii
Ethica Thomistica
The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas
REVISED EDITION
Ralph McInerny
Page iv
Copyright 1982, 1997 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information SciencePermanence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McInerny, Ralph M. Ethica thomistica : the moral philosophy of Thomas Aquinas / by Ralph Mclnerny.Rev. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8l32-0897-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?1274Ethics. 2. Ethics History. 3. Christian ethicsHistoryMiddle Ages, 6001500. 1. Title. B765.T54M392 1997 171'.2'092-dc21 97-11164
Page v
For Alasdair MacIntyre
Page vii
Contents
Preface
ix
1. Morality and Human Life
1
2. The Good for Man
12
3. Ultimate End and Moral Principles
35
4. The Structure of the Human Act
60
5. Good and Evil Action
77
6. Character and Decision
90
7. Prudence and Conscience
103
8. Religion and Morality
114
Bibliographical Note
123
Index
127
Page ix
Preface
This little book has been out of print for several years, and it is pleasant to hear that it has been missed. It is about as elementary as a book on ethics can ethically be, but for all that it is true, although not the whole truth. By which I mean that much more could be said, not that what is said here would need to be unsaid.
As the Preface to the original edition explains, this book arose from an assignment to lay before a summer institute the way Thomas Aquinas did moral philosophy, in its broad lines. My effort was well-received and, when it eventually became a book, many found it useful as a capsule statement of Thomistic Ethics. I am delighted that it is to be granted a new lease on life.
It should be said that Thomas had no sense that he was doing ethics, or indeed philosophy, in a personal way, or in one way as opposed to others, at least if such pluralism were taken to be radical. Thomas did philosophy, not Thomistic philosophy, just as Aristotle did philosophy and was not intent on fabricating an unusual and personal system.
Modern philosophy sometimes looks like one effort after another to be original, to be different, to go where no man has gone before. Greek philosophy began as verse and became prose; modern philosophy began in Latin and then turned to the various vernaculars and to the nationalism they often involved. Once there had been simply philosophy, and a lingua franca in which to express it; now there was French Philosophy, German Philosophy, British Philosophy, and so on. And within each of these philoso-
Page x
phies, every philosopher seemed intent on fashioning a patois quite different from ordinary French or German or English.
Poets, it is thought, are under obligation to be original and difficult; their readers must submit to them and see the world as they do. One can argue this assumption, or at least modify it, as T. S. Eliot did in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," but we now see this assumption being openly applied to philosophers, who are urged to become "strong poets." Self-assertive, that is, there being nothing else to assert, it seems.
The seeds for such nonsense were present at the beginning, when Descartes fashioned what he called Methodic Doubt. Doubt was necessary if Descartes was to know that he knew anything for sure. Whatever passed successfully through the fire of doubt could lay claim to being an item of knowledge. This is a familiar story, but notice a fundamental assumption of it. Until and unless I subject my views to methodic doubt, I have no right to say I know anything. Now, methodic doubt is something philosophers doapparently not before Descartes, however, which is not insignificantand this means that people who do not have time or talent for philosophy cannot be numbered among those who know.
It is doubtful whether Descartes, by all accounts a nice fellow, a good Catholic who attended a Jesuit college, intended this elitist consequence. But there it is. What the mass of mankind say is of no epistemic value in the quest for truth.
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