Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness

Argues that common happiness, with a novel understanding of individual happiness built into it, stands at the core of Aquinas's ethics.

Joseph Stenberg (Author)

9781108478434, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 August 2025

334 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.62 kg

'This text is crucial for scholars who study the nature of happiness in Aquinas. The range of the research is truly impressive and well explained, not only for scholars but for all readers interested in Aquinas's accounts of ethics, law, and salvation. Essential.' J. C. Swindal, Choice

Aquinas sees the key elements of his ethics – happiness, law, virtue, and grace – as an interconnected whole. However, he seldom steps back to help his reader see how they actually fit together. In this book, Joseph Stenberg reconsiders the most fundamental ways in which Aquinas connects these major elements of his ethics. Stenberg presents a novel reading of Aquinas's account of individual happiness that is historically sound and philosophically interesting, according to which happiness is exclusively a matter of engaging in and enjoying genuinely good activities. He builds on that reading to offer an account of common happiness. He then shows that Aquinas defends a unique form of eudaimonism, Holistic Eudaimonism, which puts common happiness rather than individual happiness at the very heart of ethics, including at the heart of law, virtue, and grace. His book will appeal to anyone with an interest in Aquinas or the history of ethics.

Introduction
Part I. Aquinas on Individual Happiness: 1. Three kinds of perfectionism
2. The heart of happiness: enjoying good activities
3. Perfect happiness
4. Natural imperfect happiness
5. Graced imperfect happiness
Part II. Aquinas, Happiness, and the Unity of Ethics: 6. From individual happiness to common happiness
7. Happiness and law
8. Happiness and virtue
Conclusion
Bibliography of works by Thomas aquinas with abbreviations
General bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600 [HPCB]