Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics by Steven J. Jensen

Abstract

Reviewed by: Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics by Steven J. Jensen John Rziha Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics by Steven J. Jensen (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), ix + 205 pp. In LIVING THE GOOD LIFE, Steven Jensen attempts to elucidate Thomas Aquinas’s basic moral philosophy and, along the way, refute several prominent objections (both scholarly and popular) to this philosophy. Inasmuch as this book is an introductory text, Jensen succeeds in summarizing a number of the foundational principles underlying Thomas’s ethics while at the same time showing the reader that Thomas’s understanding of ethics is true and of perennial value. Jensen begins by noting that the modern world is in need of moral wisdom and that the ethical system of Saint Thomas of Aquinas is a [End Page 1040] good starting point because it presents many relevant ethical truths with very few errors (3). Jensen intends this book to be an introduction to the thought of Thomas and not a detailed account of his ethical system. Nonetheless, he asserts that the little that is presented will show how Thomas’s ethical thought is “intricately ordered and systematic” in nature (6). In chapter 2, Jensen introduces the primary theme of the book by asking whether the just man or the unjust man is happier (8–9). He notes that all people do seek to be happy but most people do not see the connection between ethics and happiness. He then explains that ethics is the science of determining which actions are fulfilling (lead to true happiness) and which actions are not (11). To look at which actions are truly fulfilling, we must look at the authentically human capacities of reason, emotions, and will (13–14). This interior teleological approach to ethics will undergird the rest of the book as Jensen examines the traditional Thomistic powers of the soul (the intellect, will, and emotions) and shows how virtues perfect these powers to perform authentically human actions that result in happiness. The third chapter addresses the relation between reason and the emotions. He notes that many people believe that if something feels good, then it must be good. In other words, if they want something, then it must have value (19). However, Thomas says the opposite: if something is good, then we should want it (20). Jensen notes that people often want things that are bad for them and that humans should order their emotions so that true values shape their desires (21). Human reason perceives the true good and evil in the world and should direct the emotions to those things that are truly good (22 and 27–30). Jensen concludes that, to live a life of fulfillment, reason must direct the emotions so that they are truly humanized. In other words, the emotions should be true human desires and not just animal impulses (30–31). The fourth chapter seeks to explain the necessity of moral knowledge to live a happy life. It further refutes the view that to do right actions humans need only to do what they believe is right (in other words, follow their conscience). By means of a discussion involving a number of different distinctions between the voluntariness and involuntariness of actions, Jensen concludes that humans must follow their conscience, but they must first inform it (45). He explains that the happy life requires that we seek the truth about what is good and evil (46). [End Page 1041] In chapter 5, Jensen seeks to refute the view of deterministic behaviorism (that there are no free choices) and to explore the nature of human freedom. He goes on to give a few arguments showing that humans are capable of determining their own course of actions and are thus free (49–52). Up to this point, he has examined the emotions and reason, and he now introduces the will in order to explain the notion of freedom. The will is a spiritual capacity that is like the emotions in that it is a loving or desiring power, but unlike the emotions, the will is the appetite of reason. The emotions can be led by...