Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics

This book discusses Aquinas's reception of Aristotle's work, exploring how Aquinas adopts, corrects or transforms key themes from Aristotle's ethics.

Tobias Hoffmann (Edited by), Jörn Müller (Edited by), Matthias Perkams (Edited by)

9781107576407, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 November 2015

286 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'The volume is well-edited, well-conceived, and well-executed … It will be useful for scholars of Aquinas and Aristotle but the philosophical focus, in addition to the exegetical one, should rightly attract other scholars as well.' W. Scott Cleveland, Journal of Moral Philosophy

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the text which had the single greatest influence on Aquinas's ethical writings, and the historical and philosophical value of Aquinas's appropriation of this text provokes lively debate. In this volume of new essays, thirteen distinguished scholars explore how Aquinas receives, expands on and transforms Aristotle's insights about the attainability of happiness, the scope of moral virtue, the foundation of morality and the nature of pleasure. They examine Aquinas's commentary on the Ethics and his theological writings, above all the Summa theologiae. Their essays show Aquinas to be a highly perceptive interpreter, but one who also brings certain presuppositions to the Ethics and alters key Aristotelian notions for his own purposes. The result is a rich and nuanced picture of Aquinas's relation to Aristotle that will be of interest to readers in moral philosophy, Aquinas studies, the history of theology and the history of philosophy.

1. Introduction Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller and Matthias Perkams
2. Historical accuracy in Aquinas's commentary on the Ethics T. H. Irwin
3. Structure and method in Aquinas's appropriation of Aristotelian ethical theory Michael Pakaluk
4. Duplex beatitudo: Aristotle's legacy and Aquinas's conception of human happiness Jörn Müller
5. Aquinas on choice, will, and voluntary action Matthias Perkams
6. Losable virtue: Aquinas on character and will Bonnie Kent
7. Aquinas's Aristotelian defense of martyr courage Jennifer Herdt
8. Being truthful with (or lying to) others about oneself Kevin Flannery, SJ
9. Aquinas on Aristotelian justice: defender, destroyer, subverter, or surveyor? Jeffrey Hause
10. Prudence and practical principles Tobias Hoffmann
11. Aquinas on incontinence and psychological weakness Martin Pickavé
12. Philia and caritas: some aspects of Aquinas's reception of Aristotle's theory of friendship Marko Fuchs
13. Pleasure: a supervenient end Kevin White
14. Aristotle, Aquinas, Anscombe, and the new virtue ethics Candace Vogler.

Subject Areas: Christian theology [HRCM], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600 [HPCB], History of Western philosophy [HPC]