The Morality Of The Exterior Act

This text addressed how we know what we are doing morally. It includes a discussion by St. Thomas and other moralists regarding the nature of the object of the moral act, the distinction between a natural and moral species of an act and how one goes from the natural species of an act to the moral species of the act as conceived by reason. The text also includes a detailed discussion of circumstances as well as the fundamental option.

This is the doctoral dissertation of Fr. Ripperger which covers the distinction in the writings of St. Thomas between object of the moral act, its natural species and its moral species. It covers how, in the mind in St. Thomas, one derives the moral content of the moral species and how one goes from the natural species of the moral act to the moral species which one chooses.

This book sets out a thematic presentation of human action, especially as it relates to morality, in the three most significant figures in Medieval Scholastic thought: Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham

St. Thomas is not only the king of theologians, but the prince of moralists, and it has seemed a pity that his own words on matters of daily practice should have been so long inaccessible to the English reader. Technical Latin is not attractive to those who are unversed in it, and the student of ethics might be easily bewildered by the large admixture of speculative theology in the Summa. In this translation the separation of ethics from theology has been carried out in the main, and the English has been made as simple as the subject-matter permits. This is volume one out of two and a a translation of the principal portions of the second part of the Summa Theologica including more than three hundred endnotes.

In this comprehensive anthology, twenty-seven outstanding scholars from North America and Europe address every major aspect of Thomas Aquinas's understanding of morality and comment on his remarkable legacy. While there has been a revival of interest in recent years in the ethics of St. Thomas, no single work has yet fully examined the basic moral arguments and content of Aquinas' major moral work, the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae. This work fills that lacuna. The first chapters of The Ethics of Aquinas introduce readers to the sources, methods, and major themes of Aquinas's ethics. The second part of the book provides an extended discussion of ideas in the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, in which contributors present cogent interpretations of the structure, major arguments, and themes of each of the treatises. The third and final part examines aspects of Thomistic ethics in the twentieth century and beyond. These essays reflect a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of intellectual perspectives. Contributors span numerous fields of study, including intellectual history, medieval studies, moral philosophy, religious ethics, and moral theology. This remarkable variety underscores how interpretations of Thomas's ethics continue to develop and evolve-and stimulate fervent discussion within the academy and the church. This volume is aimed at scholars, students, clergy, and all those who continue to find Aquinas a rich source of moral insight.

The Perspective of the Acting Person introduces readers to one of the most important and provocative thinkers in contemporary moral philosophy

This collection of specially commissioned new essays explores the philosophical issues and subjects of Aquinas's major work.