Thomas Aquinas on Virtue and Human Flourishing (eBook)

Thomas Aquinas offers teleological systematisation of the habits needed for human flourishing. His metaphysical jurisprudence remodels ethics upon this, rather than on a moral precept. "e;Eternal law"e; governing the world determines "e;natural law"e;, reflected in human legislation (a variety of the "e;anthropic principle"e;). Finally, law, unwritten, is infused spirit as self-consciousness, "e;universal of universals"e;. Acquired virtues elicit this, become effusion, represented in religion as gifts or graces. But mind's or spirit's omnipresence, necessarily "e;closer to me than I am to myself"e;, supersedes the abstractions of heteronomy versus autonomy. The habitual well-being brought by prudence, justice, courage and temperance prompts this picture of gifts and graces. The "e;theological virtues"e;, faith (explicit or implicit) and hope fulfilled in love, "e;crown"e; our natural rationality, set toward as being the universal. "e;Become what you are"e;. Heteronomous law is thus "e;defused"e; at root by grounding it entirely upon immovable spiritual (mental) inclination towards universal fulfilment as naturally desired, reflection shows. Virtue, finally, is best assessed as a capacity for the individually beautiful yet habit-based action, Aristotle's to kalon. Aquinas puts this picture as summed up in the beatitudes of the "e;Sermon on the Mount"e;.