Exposition:

Overview of the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas

by Stephen J. Pope
(pp. 30-50)

THE WILL

An act can be said to be morally good only when it fulfills three conditions:
-when the act itself is morally good or indifferent in kind.
-when it enacts a good intention.
-when it is done in a way that is morally appropriate given the circumstances.

It is bad when one or more of these aspects of the act are bad. For example, giving
money to a needy person out of vainglory. A kind of act that is good or indifferent in itself can
be bad in a specific instance if done with the wrong end in the mind or in the wrong way.

VRTUES

Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. (CCC 1803)

Virtues are:
-habitual and stable perfections of the intellect and the will.
-govern our actions.
-order our passions.
-guide our conduct according to reason and faith.

Virtues are simply stable dispositions to act in ways that are good. Virtue disposes the
agent to its ordered and proper acts. Intellect, will, and emotions are all potential subjects of
vices and virtues. We have the Cardinal Virtues and the Theological Virtues.

LAW

Law is the ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him, who has care of the
community.
Eternal Law
-the providential government of the universe, and all that is in it, by the Divine Reason.
Natural Law
-the “participation” of the intelligent and free human being in the eternal law living according
to “right reason”. Do good and avoid evil.
Divine Law
-the Old and the New Law (the bible)
 Interpretations of Aquinas’ Ethics Since Vatican II
by Thomas S. Hibbs
(pp. 412-422)

“To study human action is therefore to study the image of God and to operate on a theological
plane. To stud human action on a theological plane is to study it in relation to its beginning and
end, God, and to the bridge between Christ and his sacraments.”
-Leonard E. Boyle’s thesis: The Setting of the “Summa Theologiae” of Thomas Aquinas

-Hibbs presented the most intriguing debates and schools of interpretation.

What are the main lines of interpretation?

-Proportionalism and Absolutism (a debate b/w proportionalists and absolutists on Aquinas’
understanding of the status of the moral precepts and over how one should determine the
morality of action in concrete cases)
-Debate over the Natural Law of Aquinas (natural law, nature and creation, nature of practical
reasoning itself, an extension of the debate b/w props and abs)
-Retrieving the Virtues (different interpretations on the concept of virtue of Aquinas)
-Theological Intention, Structure, and Content of Aquinas’ Ethics

PROPORTIONALISM AND ABSOLUTISM

Proportionalism is a theory of moral norms; considers truth w/c direct action towards
human goods (benefits and harms/it depends on the intention, the situation, and the means).
“Proportionalism promises a model of practical deliberation open to historical
development and sensitive to concrete situations and to the personal dimensions of moral
choice.” What a person ought to do in the concrete.

Absolutism: what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. Particular actions are
intrinsically right or wrong regardless of the intention and the means. One begins from the
interior act and the object and judges on the basis of the following principle: “what we do has
to be proportioned to the end in the sense that it must be able to really be an effective means
to an end” (material element). If the end is good and the means proportioned to it, an action is
licit (permissible).

What is the Thomistic basis of proportionalism?

Louis Jansesens pointed to the distinction in Aquinas’ between an action’s formal
component (the interior act of the will) and its material element (the exterior act). In judging
whether it is moral or immoral, what is right: the formal component or the material element?
For example, a street child who has nothing to eat steals one peso from a billionaire for his
food…, will you consider that wrong? Another example is almsgiving, it can be rendered evil by
the disorder act of the will; you give out of vanity and out of love.

An approach of the outsider with no access to the interior movements of another’s will
(formal component), one considers “all the observable circumstances and other perceptible
elements in the situation”. All proportionalists insists that values other than consequences are
to be taken into account.

DEBATE OVER THE NATURAL LAW

John Finnis and Gremain Grisez (both are proportionalists) attempt to reconstruct
Aquinas’ account of natural law in such a way as to avoid the most pressing modern objections
to it. They abandoned the traditional grounding of natural law in the telos of human nature (the
natural law is always grounded on the telos of man: happiness) and the hierarchy of goods.
In place of the hierarchy of goods, they provided a list of goods. Each good is important.
Christian reason’s rule is to choose the lesser evil. What makes this view attractive?
First, it frees Aquinas’ account from the impression that is crude and mechanical
derivation of rules from an abstract concept of nature. Second, it corrects the impression that
there is only one way of life conducive (possible) to the good life. Third, it allows one to see the
rich and endless variety of ways in which happiness and excellence can be achieved.
Recasting of the natural law:
Any ranking of good is “made” so by individual choice in accord with a personal life-plan
or conception of human fulfillment.
It can provide both a justification for limited government and criteria for determining
when government has overstepped the bounds of its legitimate authority.

Virtues are constitutive elements of human happiness and excellence.

RETRIEVING THE VIRTUES

“The whole structure of good works originates from the four cardinal virtues.”

Cardinal Virtues:
Prudence (careful good judgment: allows us to judge and distinguish correctly what is right and
what is wrong)
Justice (moves us to give the rightful due)
Fortitude (courage)
Temperance (self-control)

Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love

There is an argument: Is Thomas’ ethics solely about virtues and vices?

In Alasdair McIntyre’s After Vitue, there are some things worth noting:
-he rejected the modern “is/ought” distinction. Description cannot be severed from explanation
and evaluation. Example, if a person possesses the virtue of courage is to evaluate
simultaneously that person’s character as good or bad.
-he locates the virtues within practices, cooperative forms of activity wherein participants come
to pursue and to value those goods internal to the activity itself.
-he rejected as outmoded Aristotle’s “metaphysical biology”. There is a need for an ethics of
the virtues to retain the metaphysical language of potency and act.
-he suggested a way to conceive of the place of rules in an ethics of the virtues. Rules are
typically a set of prohibitions that identify the performance of certain acts as inherently
frustrating of the ends constitutive of the practice itself.

The virtues thus differ in accord with their proper objects.

THE THEOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THOMAS’ ETHICS

INTERPRETATIONS:
-Leonard Boyle
-John Finnnis
-Germain Grisez
-Bernard Hoose
-Peter Knauer