Bonnie Kent

Transitory Vice: Thomas Aquinas on Incontinence

Akrasia, incontinence, moral weakness, unrestraint , weakness o f will: there are at least as many names for succumbing to temptat ion as there are theories about what the agent must be thinking when he caves in. This study presents the views of Aquinas, both as a phi losopher and as an in terpre ter o f Aristotles teachings. In both capacities T h o m a s spoke o f incontinentia, and for that reason we shall call ou r topic incontinence. Should this term be less familiar to readers than Aristotles akrasia, so much the better. It may serve as a r eminder that Thomas not only wrote in Latin but also read Aristotle in Latin translation. Some peculiarities o f the Latin Aristotle will be discussed below. Here we must consider the historical Aristotle, who presents puzzles o f his own.

Our inalienable ability to sin: Peter Olivi’s rejection of asymmetrical freedom

ABSTRACT From the time of Augustine to the late thirteenth century, leading Christian thinkers agreed that freedom requires the ability to make good choices, but not the ability to make bad ones. If freedom required the ability to sin, they reasoned, neither God nor the angels nor the blessed in heaven could be free. This essay examines the work of Peter Olivi, the first medieval philosopher known to reject the asymmetrical conception of freedom. Olivi argues that the ability to sin is essential to creaturely freedom and remains even in heaven. While Anselm is the nominal target of Olivi’s arguments on this topic, they form part of a wider critique directed even more at Aquinas and his followers. Olivi faults them for misunderstanding the nature of the created will and for failing to provide a foundation for a particular kind of moral responsibility: personal merit.

The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study. Volume I: From Socrates to the Reformation (review)

‘The Development of Ethics’ proves a rather misleading title for Terence Irwin’s latest book. He describes it more accurately as “a selective historical and critical study in the Socratic tradition, with special attention to Aristotelian naturalism, its formation, elaboration, criticism, and defence” (1). ‘Socratic’ refers to Irwin’s method: not merely describing “a collective Socratic inquiry” historically but also evaluating it and taking part in it (3). Unlike Alasdair MacIntyre and J. B. Schneewind, who think that “a moral theory cannot be assessed timelessly, and there are no timelessly appropriate questions that different moral theories try to answer,” Irwin declares that history reveals substantial agreement on the main principles of ethics. The historian’s task is to discover them (7). Small wonder, then, that Development does so little to illuminate how ethics changed over time. When an author seeks unity among moral philosophers of the past, or at least all the good ones, he can hardly be expected to highlight significantly new issues or approaches, let alone differences in historical context. Irwin’s focus on “Aristotelian naturalism”—above all, on Thomas Aquinas as its finest exponent—does much to explain what volume 1 covers, what it omits, and how it unfolds. Neo-Platonists, “pagan” Roman philosophers, Jews, Muslims, Church Fathers other than Augustine, and Aristotle commentators in medieval faculties of arts (as opposed to theology) are scarcely even mentioned. After a twelve-page introduction, we find about 345 pages on Greek philosophy, including about 45 pages on Plato, 120 on Aristotle, and 75 on the Stoics. The volume proceeds with a chapter on “Christian Theology and Moral Philosophy” (under 40 pages) and a chapter on Augustine (under 25 pages); then it skips over 800 years, concluding with nine chapters on Aquinas (about 220 pages), two chapters on Duns Scotus, one on William of Ockham, one on Machiavelli, and one on “The Reformation and Scholastic Philosophy.” The last part of volume 1 includes extensive discussion of how Aquinas would, or at least could and should, reply to arguments in works composed in the three centuries after his death. Given the author’s quest for relatively permanent principles, it would be unfair to protest that these later thinkers were arguing mainly with contemporaries, or thinkers more nearly contemporary than Aquinas, and quite often about issues of little interest to Aquinas himself. Irwin’s overarching aim, however, should never be forgotten. The entire book is shaped by his judgment that Aquinas’s works present the best statement of Aristotelian naturalism, beginning with his broad characterization of “Aristotelian naturalism” as the view that “identifies virtue and happiness in a life that fulfills the capacities of rational human nature” (4), and continuing with his assertion that Aquinas “derives his ethical theory from conditions on rational agency” (437). This strangely Kantian but now-fashionable reading of pre-modern ethics belongs to a pattern prominent in Development as a whole, though controversial even among specialists in ancient philosophy. According to Irwin, Aristotle teaches that all virtues aim at “the fine” (kalon), and it is characteristic of the virtuous person to choose virtuous actions Book Reviews