The relationship between the individual person and the political community has been intensely debated by disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas. On the one hand, St. Thomas teaches that the whole is more perfect than the part, which suggests that the individual is ordered to the city as to an end. On the other hand, he holds that man's happiness consists principally in contemplation, which might seem to imply that the city is ordered to the private happiness of the individual. In (...) order to understand St. Thomas's account of the relationship between the individual and the city, one must recognize contemplation itself as a common good that is the chief goal of the city and that is engaged in by the city as such. For St. Thomas, the common good of the political community is the shared life of virtue. This shared life of virtue is realized most fully when citizens delight in the truth together. This shared contemplation finds its supernatural perfection in the act of Christian worship. This understanding of the relationship between contemplation and the common good reveals that it is precisely in the act of contemplation that one most fully fosters and participates in the common good of the city. (shrink)

Welfare internalism holds that "for any intrinsic good φ for a person p, it must be the case that φ 'fits' p, resonates with p, fails to alienate p, and so forth." This "resonance constraint" is often employed in arguments against objectivist theories of well-being. Many philosophers argue that, because objectivist theories ground a person's good in sources other than that person's subjective attitudes, such theories fail to satisfy the resonance constraint. And because welfare internalism and the resonance constraint seem (...) so plausible—at least to these philosophers—they therefore reject objectivist theories. A person's welfare or well-being is, they claim, subjective. I push back against such arguments. I argue that many objectivist theories can (and do) adopt the resonance constraint. Looking to a historical example—Thomas Aquinas—I argue that an objectivist can put forward a theory of value that preserves an affective/motivational link between a person and his good, without sacrificing the objectivity of value. I therefore claim that the argument from internalism, when waged against objectivist theories of well-being, generally fails. Moreover, I argue that this sort of internalist-objectivism can explain things that subjectivism cannot; for example, why we claim that φ is good for p despite p 's beliefs and actions suggesting the opposite, or why valuing is important for humans in the first place. In short, certain objective approaches to welfare—such as Thomas Aquinas'—are more plausible than their subjective counterparts. (shrink)

The science of being as being for Thomas Aquinas acquires distinct modalities based on distinct paths of reasoning, either from principles or towards principles, and based on distinct domains of discourse, either according to extrinsic causes ( secundum rem ) or according to intrinsic causes ( secundum rationem ). "Metaphysics" proceeds by resolution secundum rationem towards the universal principle of being, and "first philosophy" proceeds by way of composition secundum rationem from the universal principle of being. In another sense, "first (...) philosophy" proceeds by resolution secundum rem to the universal cause of being as such, and theology, divine science, or "philosophical theology" proceeds by composition secundum rem from the universal cause of being, namely, God. I respond to arguments against the possibility of philosophical theology by showing how some arguments for the real distinction and for the existence of angels proceed by way of composition secundum rem. We can argue from an imperfect notion of God insofar as we assume philosophical insights already gained about God through another mode, namely, through first philosophy, by way of resolution secundum rem. Finally, I have shown how this mode assumes only a suppositional necessity in God's operation with regard to creatures. (shrink)

In the Summa theologiae II-II, q. 2, a. 7, Aquinas argues that faith in the mystery of Christ is necessary "at all times and for all persons," even for those existing prior to the Fall into sin. This teaching appears to stand in tension with Aquinas's well-known position on the motive of the Incarnation. If, according to Aquinas, redemption from sin is the primary motive of the Incarnation, such that if humanity had not sinned God would not have become incarnate, (...) how to make sense of his teaching on the necessity of Adam's explicit faith in Christ prior to the Fall? In this paper, I explore the surprising development of Aquinas's teaching on Adam's faith from his early Scriptum on the Sentences to the Summa theologiae and show how his later teaching, far from betraying a momentary lapse in judgment, in fact highlights the strongly 'christocentric' character of his thought. (shrink)