Aquinas and Scotus on the Metaphysical Foundations of Morality

J Clanton,Kraig Martin

doi:10.3390/rel10020107

Abstract

This paper retraces some of the contrast between Aquinas and Scotus with respect to the metaphysical foundations of morality in order to highlight how subtle differences pertaining to the relationship between the divine will and the divine intellect can tip a thinker toward either an unalloyed natural law theory (NLT) or something that at least starts to move in the direction of divine command theory (DCT). The paper opens with a brief consideration of three distinct elements in Aquinas’s work that might tempt one to view him in a DCT light, namely: his discussion of the divine law in addition to the natural law; his position on the so-called immoralities of the patriarchs; and some of his assertions about the divine will in relation to justice. We then respond to each of those considerations. In the second and third of these cases, following Craig Boyd, we illustrate how Aquinas’s conviction that the divine will follows the ordering of the divine intellect can help inform the interpretive disputes in question. We then turn our attention to Scotus’s concern about the freedom of the divine will, before turning to his discussion of the natural law in relation to the Decalogue as a way of stressing how his two-source theory of the metaphysical foundations of morality represents a clear departure from Aquinas in the direction of DCT.

Highlights

Within the Christian tradition at least, Thomas Aquinas is clearly the thinker most closely associated with natural law theory (NLT), according to which moral obligations arise in connection to facts about the sort of creatures we are by nature—facts that God is responsible for, facts that we can discover and reason about for ourselves
It is at least somewhat anachronistic to talk about Aquinas as a proponent of NLT in the first place: It is not as though he was, for example, a participant in the crisply defined debates between contemporary advocates of NLT, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, contemporary advocates of divine command theory (DCT), according to which moral obligations arise more directly in connection to God’s commands or some other prescriptive act of the divine will
This paper, retraces some of the contrast between Aquinas and Scotus with respect to the metaphysical foundations of morality in order to highlight how subtle differences pertaining to the relationship between the divine will and the divine intellect can tip a thinker toward either an unalloyed NLT or something that at least starts to move in the direction of DCT

Summary

Introduction

Within the Christian tradition at least, Thomas Aquinas is clearly the thinker most closely associated with natural law theory (NLT), according to which moral obligations arise in connection to facts about the sort of creatures we are by nature—facts that God is responsible for, facts that we can discover and reason about for ourselves. This familiar depiction of Aquinas can start to seem less straightforward in light of two considerations. We turn our attention to Scotus’s concern about the freedom of the divine will (Section 5), before turning to his discussion of the natural law in relation to the Decalogue (Section 6) as a way of stressing how his two-source theory of the metaphysical foundations of morality represents a clear departure from Aquinas in the direction of something more akin to DCT (Section 7)

Aquinas on the Divine Law and the Natural Law

Aquinas on the Immoralities of the Patriarchs

Aquinas on the Divine Will and the Divine Intellect

Scotus on Contingency and Will

Scotus on the Natural Law and the Decalogue

Two Sources of Moral Obligation