“Aquinas, the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, and Augustine’s Axiom.” International Philosophical Quarterly. (original) (raw)

"Aquinas and the Epistemic Condition for Moral Responsibility." Res Philosophica.

There has been much discussion in the past few decades concerning Aquinas's views on free will and moral responsibility. Scholars have been split on a number of questions, most importantly, whether Aquinas thinks free will is compatible with determinism. 1 Although this has been a fruitful area of discussion, other elements of Aquinas's view of moral responsibility have been neglected. Perhaps most notable in this regard is his view of the relationship between knowledge and moral responsibility. Like most philosophers, Aquinas is committed to the view that assessing the epistemic states of an agent is relevant to assessing whether the agent is morally responsible. Although his account is complex and sometimes puzzling, it has been largely ignored.

AQUINAS'S THEORY OF DECISION AND ITS ARISTOTELIAN ORIGINS: THE ROLE AND NATURE OF CONSENT

Aquinas presents his account of human action in questions 6-17 of the Prima Secundae. According to Aquinas, human action can be broken down into a series of steps leading to the performance of a given act. The degree of sophistication of his account has repeatedly led critics to call into question its plausibility. Some have put down his views to the uncritical acceptance of components which derive from, and originate in, different and heterogeneous traditions. This article focuses on Aquinas's understanding of consent (consensus) as part of his account of human action (q. 15). Contrary to what commentators have claimed, it is argued that consent is not a useless duplication of decision (electio). On the contrary, Aquinas has a perfectly plausible story to tell about the distinction between, and the respective roles of, consent and decision. To defend this conclusion, the article draws attention to the Aristotelian origins of Aquinas's understanding of consent.

Aquinas on Free Will and Intellectual Determinism

Philosophers' Imprint, 2017

From the early reception of Thomas Aquinas up to the present, many have interpreted his theory of liberum arbitrium (which for Aquinas is free will specifically as the power to choose among alternatives) to imply intellectual determinism: we do not control our choices, because we do not control the practical judgments that cause our choices. In this paper we argue instead that he rejects determinism in general and intellectual determinism in particular , which would effectively destroy liberum arbitrium as he conceives of it. We clarify that for Aquinas moral responsibility presupposes liberum arbitrium and thus the ability to do otherwise, although the ability to do otherwise applies differently to praise and blame. His argument against intellectual determinism is not straightforward, but we construct it by analogy to his arguments against other deterministic threats (e.g., the one posed by divine foreknowledge). The non-determinism of the intellect's causality with respect to the will results from his claims that practical reasoning is defeasible and that the reasons for actions are not contrastive reasons.

Beyond a Dichotomy. Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law as a Form of Autonomous Theonomy

Moral Heteronomy. History, Proposals, Reasons, Arguments, special issue of «Dialegesthai. Rivista telematica di filosofia» 19 (2017). https://mondodomani.org/dialegesthai/msv01.htm

Due to his theory of natural law, it is easy to take Thomas Aquinas, in a simplistic reading, as the champion of moral heteronomy, as Kant is that of moral autonomy. If, following Kant, we take as autonomous only a system that justifies moral duty by means of reasons internal to the transcendental structure of the practical agency – i.e. a system that roots morality in maxims that can be deemed universal, and makes no reference to the individual's particular contingent experience (ethical formalism) – there is obviously no way to assume the presence of an autonomous reason in Aquinas' thought. However, if we take a slightly broader account of autonomy than Kant's, as the capacity to deliberate and to give oneself the moral law 1 , rather than merely heeding the injunctions of others, we can claim Aquinas' practical reason not to be heteronomous, since it states the validity of the precepts of natural law by itself. The thesis of my paper is that there are at least two main strategies to foster a non-heteronomous reading of Aquinas's theory of natural law and practical reason. The first, that I consider a weaker strategy, amounts to a " evolutionary " reading of his moral theory, aimed at showing that most of the heteronomous claims we can find in it belong to a juvenile period of his work, characterized (as we will see in a moment) by a philosophical and theological frame, influenced by St Augustine and St Anselm, focused on the idea of participation in the divine rectitude. However, according to several scholars, Aquinas' latter works are based on a significantly different paradigm, which emphasizes Aristotelian practical reason, taken in its autonomous power of deliberation and command. The second strategy is quite stronger. It is aimed at criticizing those who read mature Aquinas as a proponent of moral heteronomy, and thus it consists in deepening the very concepts of moral autonomy and heteronomy, as well as those of practical reason and natural law, so to show the intrinsic possibility of an autonomous reading of Aquinas's major works. To develop such an attempt, I will hark back to a very influential interpretation, namely, that proposed by the Swiss philosopher and theologian Martin Rhonheimer. According to his reading, Thomistic moral law is called " natural " not insofar as it mirrors an external natural order, but as it emerges from a reason which is integral part of human nature 2. Thus, the theory of natural law is to be seen, according to Rhonheimer, as a theory of practical reason that leaves large room to autonomy and to the non-deductive character of moral experience. a. Questioning the Priority of Synderesis In the present section, I shall outline a brief sketch of the first strategy, namely, that of following Aquinas' path from the paradigm centered on the priority of synderesis (the intellectual knowledge of the first practical principles) to a much more complex account of the interplay between practical reason, virtues and first principles of the natural law. As I have anticipated, natural law is often 1 As it should be evident from this definition of autonomy, I am among those who think it possible to take Kant as a kind of moral realist, rather than espousing a constructivist reading of his moral thought. 2 Cf. Rhonheimer (2001), p. 16.

"You Should Have Known": Aquinas on Negligence and Moral Culpability

Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 2022

Judgments of moral culpability play a crucial role in our lives, providing a basis for practices of accountability that are essential to a just society. Yet when they exceed their proper limits, such judgments can breed resentment and mistrust, thereby undermining the social bonds that they are meant to preserve. In this essay, I explore this tension in cases where the person being judged is sincerely ignorant of having done anything wrong. Drawing upon Aquinas’s discussion of negligence as a cause of sin, I argue that individuals can sometimes be accountable for sins of which they are completely unaware, but only when this ignorance is of something that they could and should have known. Such a perspective, I suggest, offers a helpful way of addressing contemporary concerns regarding social sin and systemic injustice from within the Thomistic tradition.

The Multifarious Moral Object of Thomas Aquinas

Thomist, 2003

C ONTEMPORARYETHICS tends to simplify the moral universe by recognizing relatively few factors as determinants of morality. A person is virtuous if he is respectful of others, reliable, industrious, tolerant of differences. Or he is immoral if he acts uncharitably, lacks compassion, or is disrespectful of the rights of others. Even if, for instance, a violation of the rights of another is brought about by means of particular type of action-by, for instance, failing to respect a contract previously agreed to-the determining factor is not the lack of correspondence between what is done and what was promised but rather the attitude that leads to acts of that type, which attitude could just as well be understood as a lack of compassion or of fellow-feeling. The moral universe that Thomas Aquinas depicts in his ethical writings is a much more complicated affair. 1 Of course, the more general virtues are important in his theory: faith, hope, and 1 See Thomas's De Malo, q. 2, a. 9, where he argues against the Stoics who saw all sins as one: going against reason. He argues that such an approach finishes in a sort of legalism. Since there are no real distinctions among sins, sin comes to be associated with crossing lines: that is, the various boundaries between reason and unreason. "And they say similarly that, given that someone in erring goes beyond rightness of reason, it makes no difference in what manner and for what reason he does this: as if to err were nothing other than to cross certain preset lines" ("Et similiter dicebant, quod non refert dummodo aliquis peccando rectitudinem rationis praetereat, qualitercumque vel ex quacumque causa hoc faciat, ac si peccare nihil esset aliud quam quasdam positas lineas transire").

The Validity of Aquinas' Third Way

This article argues for the formal validity of and the truth of the premises and conclusion of a version of Aquinas' "Third Way" that says: If each of the parts of nature is contingent, the whole of nature is contingent. Each of the parts of nature is contingent. Therefore, the whole of nature is contingent--where "contingent" means having a cause and not existing self-sufficiently.