Aquinas and Kant on the virtues

[CAM228]

Hello all,

I need some help getting my thoughts in order for a paper that I am writing. It is an argumentative paper. I am trying to use Aquinas to show that the virtues are important for living a happy life. If I am understanding my sources correctly Kant believes in a duty bound ethic based totally on human reason.

If someone could present these two ideas in a different way to get my creative thoughts moving I would greatly appreciate it.

God Bless,

Craig

 

[Luke_Arredondo]

The primary text source you’d need to look up to read Kant for yourself would be the Foundations for the Metaphysics of Morals. In the first section, he essentially lies out his duty theory, which he synthesizes with the “categorical imperative” as follows:

Nothing which cannot be made a universal maxim should be done by any individual (paraphrasing).

The basic idea is that we have a duty to do that which is right; and that if we want to determine whether or not an action is morally acceptable, all we need to do is consider whether or not it makes sense for us to recommend that EVERYBODY should ALWAYS do whatever we are considering.

His example is lying; there are circumstances that may lead one to desire to promise to do something he really has no intention of doing. So, he considers whether it would be acceptable as a universal law for everyone to make promises that they have no intention of keeping. Considering the result of this universal maxim (that, in effect, promises would be completely void of meaning), he sees that lying can’t be a universal, and as such, cannot be morally condoned.

That’s the main thrust of his rule; now as to duty, he has a particularly strong view that all moral duties should be done out of duty, but not from duty. What he means is this: Suppose somebody has a natural inclination to tell the truth. He tells the truth at all times. This is in line with one’s duty as a moral agent to be truthful, because lying has been shown to be unacceptable. Well, if he is telling the truth simply because he enjoys it, he is acting in accord with duty or from duty, but not out of duty.

In a similar vain, the ancient view of virtue as “the golden mean” has to be thrown out because someone could place their actions within the golden mean but because of selfish reasons such as they enjoy the respect that comes with being an honorable, virtuous person. So, Kant has no use for virtues, because he sees them as a circumstance that can give way to selfish motives. The only thing that makes an action morally acceptable is that it is done out of duty’s sake alone.

Continued below

 

[Luke_Arredondo]

Aquinas, on the other hand, views virtue as central to the ethical life. He follows in the same path that Aristotle did, seeing the object of human life as “human flourishing” or the greek eudaimonia. Basically, a human is only truly human if he lives an ethical life. The way to live the ethical life is to follow the virtues of moderation, etc.

But Aquinas develops his theory of human flourishing more when he goes into his Natural Law theory. This form of ethics goes beyond Aristotle’s because it is fundamentally accessible to all. For Aristotle, the supreme virtue was contemplation or philosophia, and for one to do so, he needed to have time to sit in contemplation. Not all Athenians had the time to do so, and as such, were kept from reaching true eudaimonia.

Aquinas bases his Natural Law theory on the fact that all men know, by God’s design, the simple law that “Good is to be done and evil is to be avoided.” It is in the nature of man to be aware of this rule. His nature, then, allows him to find the foundation for an ethical system. With rational reflection on this simple rule, some principles can be derived, namely, the right to life, reproduction, life in community, education, etc. (See the Summa Theologiae ((or theologica depending on the publisher’s title), Part I of Part II, questions 90-98 or somewhere around there).

So, we have the simple law “good is to be done and evil is to be avoided,” and by use of our human reason, we are able to find several concrete applications of it. The simple, obvious applications are easily understood and hold true without question in any case. It’s when you get down to complex individual situations that it gets more difficult.

Hope some of this information was helpful.

God Bless

 

[Greg27]

I’m not so sure about the works of Aquinas, but there are plenty of good introductions to his works. Anthony Kenny gave some good accounts of Aquinas, and I’d also recommend reading Stump’s large book on him. Kant’s main work on moral philosophy is the ‘Metaphysics of Morals’, though he also deals with ethical theory in other works. In terms of the two thinkers having commonality, Aquinas and Kant are very similar in their thoughts about the role of conscience and also in their ideas about natural law, though Aquinas’s ideas about natural law are based on a greater faith in our ability to know God and his will revealed to us by reason reflecting on the created order, while Kant believed natural law was simply what practical reason (our normal mode of deliberating on something rationally) could discover without needing to know God or the divine will. Kant also had a strong focus on the notion of moral duty, and being individually independent against external institutions and their claims to authority, while Aquinas would insist more strongly on the need to obey legitimate authority. Still, the thinkers have much in common in a lot of areas.