Course Description
Modern moral philosophy and theology have been fractured since the Enlightenment. The contemporary virtue ethics movement rightly points to virtue as the proper focus of ethics, but is usually just as fractured and individualistic as other theories, often intentionally distancing itself from its own rich tradition. Part of the problem is divorcing ethics from the natural essences of what things are. It is time to recover the Aristotelian tradition appropriated and developed by Chrisitans throughout history, most notably Thomas Aquinas. This is an ethic rooted in the natural law, how God designed humans to function and reflect his character. Ethics is based on physics. What things are determines what they ought to do.
We will first form a foundation in the natural law with short excerpts from various works of Plato and Aristotle. Next, we’ll delve into an analysis of key texts in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Next, we will study Aquinas’s explanations of the natural law, happiness, the beatific vision, and virtue in his Summa Theologiæ with some short excerpts from other works.
This course will be followed by a later course on Reforming Virtue: Vermigli & Edwards.