Thomistic Perspective Research Articles

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By JeanPorter. Pp. xiii, 286, Eerdmans, 2016, £26.99/$40.00.

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By JeanPorter. Pp. xiii, 286, Eerdmans, 2016, £26.99/$40.00.

On the limits, imperfections and evils of the human condition. Biological improvement from a thomistic perspective

Transhumanism is a scientific and philosophical movement that proposes to overcome, through new technologies, the restrictions imposed on us by our biological condition. Some transhumanists assume that the struggle against natural limits could lead to a radical change in our body or even to its replacement (Kurzweil 2000; 2006; Kurzweil & Grossman 2005). Other authors, such as Nicholas Agar, propose a moderate enhancement that does not exceed the framework of what we understand to be human (Agar 2010; 2014). In this article, I will offer a plausible interpretation of the project of human enhancement from a Thomistic perspective. To carry out my analysis, I will focus on three fundamental metaphysical and anthropological questions: (i) How do advocates of radical enhancement understand the relationship between limits, imperfections and evils in human nature? (ii) How is this relationship understood from moderate positions? And (iii) Is any of these proposals compatible with Aquinas’ anthropology? I will conclude that the identification of limits with imperfections and evils assumed by radical positions is incompatible with Aquinas’ anthropology. Nevertheless, this does not entail that any bio-modification is unacceptable. Aquinas’ peculiar metaphysics, together with its anthropology in which the natural, the supernatural and the preternatural realms intertwine, can offer an interesting framework to assess the human enhancement project.

Art and the Desire for God: A Thomistic Perspective in Aesthetics

Abstract“Aesthetics” is mainly devoted to the description of an assumed aesthetic experience. My intention is to try to show that this modern account, defining a large part of Aesthetics as a discipline, does not allow a correct description of our aesthetic life. Criticism of this modern and contemporary conception will be followed by the defence of a completely different thesis according to which we are made to apprehend in natural things and works of art those properties by which they signify, and in particular their aesthetic properties. Apprehension and appreciation of works of art presuppose the ability to respond to the aesthetic properties of things and works of art. We need to exercise virtues, intellectual and moral ones, to answer appropriately to aesthetic properties of works of art and natural things. Good in general, and good in our aesthetic life and in art, can be understood according to what Aquinas calls “the gradation to be found in things”. I will try to show that it is a reason to think that a successful aesthetic life is a form of desire for God as the source of all perfection.

Is Free Movement a Natural Right? Between Modern State and Aristotelian-Thomist Utopias

In these times of walls and razor-wires, open borders appear to be more utopian than always. Nonetheless, philosophers like Joseph Carens and, similarly but earlier, Timothy King and James L. Hudson, famously argued that the major philosophical perspectives in the Western world—libertarian, egalitarian, and utilitarian—would support a right to freedom of international movement of people. What would be the relative default position from the standpoint of natural law theory? In this article, I present a general introduction on natural law theory and its role in and outside philosophy, before presenting claims specific to the migration debate. I then recall the defence of a right to free movement by two authors sympathetic to the natural-law tradition, Ann and Michael Dummett: a defence which is grounded in principles of fairness and reciprocity and develops elements belonging to international law. I also outline John Finnis’s more critical and nuanced position. Finnis is eager to legitimize state authority and the “special relations” binding fellow countrymen: however, I claim that the classic Thomist perspective in which he situates these claims ensure his respect of a right to international movement which could be characterized as a version of “open borders,” with some definitional restrictions and qualifications of this latter phrase. Finally, I deal with the theory of Alasdair MacIntyre. Trying to infer MacIntyre’s attitude toward migration from the classic but short article on patriotism, might turn out to be no less dif ficult than potentially misleading, especially if that article is not read in its details. Complementary elements are offered in MacIntyre’s account of natural law “as subversive.” On these grounds, I claim that, contrary to simplistic misreading of MacIntyre’s alleged “communitarianism,” MacIntyrean Aristotelian Thomism would endorse a theory of migration more compatible with reasonably conceived open borders. I conclude my chapter with a presentation of Aquinas’s concise intervention on the subject, and I show that it further supports my reading of the natural law tradition.

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Reviewed by: Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter Jason Heron Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), xiii + 286 pp. Students of Thomistic moral philosophy will be grateful to Jean Porter for her contribution to conversations regarding justice's place in both the virtue ethics tradition and modern liberal thought. It is gross understatement to say that justice is complex. But the complexity is amplified in our context, where justice is imagined as fairness in the organization of institutions and distributed goods. Add to this the effort one must spend when we attempt to speak in Aristotelian terms of the mean or when we try to describe justice as a personal perfection of the will, and one discerns Porter's motivations in offering us a Thomistic account of justice. Porter exposits Aquinas's account of justice as a virtue perfecting the will and rightly ordering our social relations. The upshot of this analysis is a rich treatment of justice as both an external moral ideal and the relationship of that ideal to the perfection of the person's will. Porter's objective in chapter 1 is twofold. First, to demonstrate the coherence and relevance of Aquinas's account of the virtues. And second, to set up the problem animating her inquiry: the fact that justice as a virtue stands apart from the other cardinal virtues, especially as an ideal. We typically conceive of virtues as habitual dispositions, internal to the agent and judged praiseworthy or blameworthy according to a "rational mean" that, while potentially functioning normatively, is also internal to the agent and her circumstances. Thus, the courageous or temperate person acts courageously or temperately according to very specific—maybe even unrepeatable—contingencies that require prudence, practice, and knowledge of what other courageous or temperate persons have done in similar situations. But when it comes to justice, we judge agents and their acts according to the "real mean" of the right (jus), which is necessarily external to the agent, her circumstances, her knowledge, and so on. In other words, the tension between justice's relationship to a "real mean" and the other virtues' relationship to a "rational mean" seems to throw us into unhelpful binaries: law/virtue, rules/ideals, universals/particulars, and the right / the good. But as Porter demonstrates, the tension between these binaries lessens when we recognize that the tension is not between two different ways of evaluating action. Rather, the divisions characterizing these binaries "track the fundamental division between the virtues of the passions, which observe a rational mean only, and justice, which observes a real mean" (41). The concept of a rational mean guiding our evaluation of courage and temperance is relatively straightforward (as a concept!), and is squarely at home in a conventional account of virtue. But the concept of a [End Page 608] real mean guiding our evaluation of justice is decidedly more complex and requires careful attention to the faculty perfected by the virtue. Thus, chapter 2 exposits the Thomistic doctrine of the will as the causal principle of voluntary action. The hope here is that if we adequately represent the faculty of the will, then we will have some insight into the virtue that is supposed to perfect it, even if that virtue seems oddly out of place among the rest of the perfective habits. Aquinas's account provides valuable insight into the rational agent's participation in the appetitive orientation of all natures toward their perfection. But in humans, we see this appetite exercised in a distinct way that makes action susceptible to personal and social reflection and evaluation. Human actions are susceptible to such evaluation because they are voluntary—the result of complex processes of deliberation and choice among myriad goods proposed to the rational appetite. At this point, Porter considers whether the will is completely subject to the dictatorial intellect. Her treatment of the issue unsurprisingly defends the liberty of the will. But in attempting to make this case without recourse to theology, one may wonder about the significance of her contribution to the infinite regress inherent within the question. Porter then asks: why must the...

What Do God and Creatures Really Do in an Evolutionary Change? Divine Concurrence and Transformism from the Thomistic Perspective

Many enthusiasts of theistic evolution willingly accept Aquinas’s distinction between primary and secondary causes, to describe theologically “the mechanics” of evolutionary transformism. However, their description of the character of secondary causes in relation to God’s creative action oftentimes lacks precision. To some extent, the situation within the Thomistic camp is similar when it comes to specifying the exact nature of secondary and instrumental causes at work in evolution. Is it right to ascribe all causation in evolution to creatures—acting as secondary and instrumental causes? Is there any space for a more direct divine action in evolutionary transitions? This article offers a new model of explaining the complexity of the causal nexus in the origin of new biological species, including the human species, analyzed in reference to both the immanent and transcendent orders of causation.

Book Reviews: Jean Porter, Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective

Book Reviews: Jean Porter, <i>Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective</i>

Jean Porter, Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), pp. xiii + 286. $40.00/26.99.

Jean Porter, Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), pp. xiii + 286. $40.00/26.99.

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective <i>by Jean Porter</i>

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Reviewed by: Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter J. Brian Benestad Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2016. Pp. xiii + 286. $40.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-7325-5. Porter describes her book as "a study of the virtue of justice as Aquinas presents it in the Summa theologiae, developed in such a way as to bring out the contemporary significance of his account" (x). Porter does not attempt to summarize in any way what Aquinas says about justice in his other extensive writings. She thinks "that Aquinas's overall account of justice and the virtues is the true theory of morality" but will not attempt to prove this statement conclusively in her book (ibid.). She does make clear that she "will offer a constructive expansion of Aquinas's views on justice . . . developing Aquinas's theory in some way, rather than simply interpreting what he says" (6). In other words, readers should be aware that she may depart from Aquinas's account of justice or add new things to it. The remaining parts of chapter 1 focus on the basics of the Thomistic presentation of justice. Justice is a personal virtue of individuals rather than a characteristic of society's basic institutions. It is a perfection of the will, the most excellent of the moral virtues, but inferior to the supernatural virtue of charity. For Aquinas, "the will is perfected through right relations to others" (27). In order to understand justice as a virtue, we need to understand the fundamentals of Aquinas's understanding of virtue. Porter notes that Aquinas begins his analysis with Peter Lombard's definition of virtue, which was, in turn, drawn from Augustine's writings: "Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God [End Page 317] brings about in us, without us" (18, quoting STh I-II, q. 55, a. 4, which is quoting II Sent., d. 27, q. 5). The last part of the definition only applies to the infused virtues. The word "quality" in the definition refers to a habit or stable disposition inclining a person to do the right thing. Porter also makes her readers aware of the complexity of justice by distinguishing different kinds of justice: general, or legal, justice and particular justice, which is subdivided into distributive and commutative justice. To put justice into practice, a person will always need prudence, she adds with emphasis. More examples of these three kinds of justice and a more discernible order of the book's five chapters in relation to each other would have helped Porter's readers. Already in the second paragraph of chapter 1, Porter notes correctly that Aquinas's treatment of justice as a virtue and a perfection of the will is totally foreign to the theories of justice expounded by John Rawls and his interlocutors. Porter rightly sees that Rawls's "theory of justice . . . proposes an account of the ways in which institutions ought to operate, which kinds of structural arrangements are acceptable, and which kinds of outcomes are acceptable, given basic criteria of fairness and respect" (2). Although Porter says that "Aquinas gets justice right," she immediately adds that "he does not raise, much less address, questions pertaining to social and institutional structures that are central to most contemporary theories of justice" (5). Despite her great appreciation of Aquinas's thought on the virtue of justice, she never says that Rawls and his interlocutors should draw upon Aquinas in order to raise questions pertaining to the practice of the virtues by individuals responsible for the reform of institutions and structures. The constraints of a short review will not allow me to deal thoroughly with the main points of chapters 2 through 5. In the remainder of this review, after briefly mentioning a few insightful points made in these four chapters, I will focus on Porter's nonacceptance of Aquinas's way of evaluating the morality of the human act. In sum, she thinks that his analysis leads to more prohibitions than are acceptable today. In chapter 2, Porter directs...

The Ethical Impermissibility of Cross-Sex Hormone Therapy in Gender-Dysphoric Minors

Gender dysphoria in children has become a hot-button topic; however, clinical data still remain sparse on the effects of hormone therapy and transitional surgery on the physical and psychological well-being of those children. The American College of Pediatricians (as opposed to the American Academy of Pediatrics) cites studies indicating that anywhere from 77 to 94 percent of boys and 73 to 88 percent of girls desist in GD; that is, following puberty the majority of children who experience GD will identify with their assigned biological sex. After reviewing the clinical studies, this paper addresses the notion of gender from a Thomistic perspective, locating gender as a differentiation in the matter of the person flowing from the essence of the soul, resulting from the power of generation as opposed to other differences such as sight, which functions the same regardless of material differences. As a result, the paper concludes that hormone therapy cannot be morally licit for children.

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Justice as A Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter

Justice as A Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter . Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016. xiii + 286 pages. $40.00.

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter . Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016. xiii + 286 pages. $40.00.

Jean Porter, Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective

Jean Porter, <i>Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective</i>

Book Review: Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective

Book Review: Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective

Soul or Brain: A False Dilemma? The Thomist Perspective

In this article I will claim that from a Thomist perspective the question “Soul or Brain: What makes us human?” presents us with a false dilemma and hence must as such remain an unanswerable question. In order to corroborate this claim I will do two things. First, I present the framework of a Thomistic anthropology in so far as it relates to the unity of soul and body in the human person. Next, I deal with the question that immediately results from this unity, i.e. the subsistence of the soul. From a Thomist perspective this question can be answered apart from any findings from neuroscience.

Could A Good God Allow Death Before the Fall? A Thomistic Perspective

Could A Good God Allow Death Before the Fall? A Thomistic Perspective

Origin of the Human Species by Dennis Bonnette

Reviewed by: Origin of the Human Speciesby Dennis Bonnette Earl Muller S.J. Origin of the Human Speciesby Dennis Bonnette, ed. Peter A. Redpath, 3rdexpanded edition (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2014), xxviii + 266 pp. T he third editionof Dennis Bonnette's Origin of the Human Speciesis substantially the same as the first edition, which came out in 2001. There has been a minor emendation of the text, and the footnotes and bibliography have been corrected where that was necessary. This expanded edition includes two articles by Bonnette published since this work first appeared: "The Myth of the 'Myth' of Adam and Eve," from a Polish publication edited by Mary Helen Klinge-Drucker, Humanistyka i realizm, which has not yet appeared, and "The Philosophical Impossibility of Darwinian Naturalistic Evolution," in Faith & Reason33:1–4 (2008): 55–67. The index has been revised to include these two appendices. This is fundamentally a philosophical and theological analysis of the issues underlying the theory of evolution from a Thomistic perspective. Bonnette is well-informed on the scientific data brought to bear on the question and the positions taken by atheistic naturalists and "scientific creationists." Intelligent design proponents are also represented—indeed, Michael Behe wrote the foreword to the second edition. Bonnette will side with paleoanthropologists on the antiquity of true humans. The artistry of the Acheulean tools, for instance, indicates true intelligence but is associated with Homo erectus(and not Homo sapiens). Recent earlier dating of these tools has proved awkward for some theories of evolution, and Bonnette reports the arguments from all sides with considerable detachment, tracing the debate from Darwin's original theory of gradualistic transformism to the theories of "punctuated equilibrium." As a philosopher, Bonnette examines the logical, epistemological, and metaphysical foundations of various, at times conflicting, claims of natural scientists. He notes that the process of classifying fossil remains, or of connecting them into a series, is itself a "mental, not an extramental, act," an interpretation imposed on the empirical data (11). This interpretation is based on a convergence of evidence that "persuades ' beyond a reasonable doubt'" (13). Bonnette does not challenge this as such (though he is conversant with the inconsistency in the evidence), but he points out that "perinoetic speculations, especially as they extrapolate from present data to prehistorical conclusions, forever foreclose the possibility of apodictic certitude" (14). [End Page 345]Metaphysics, on the other hand, is able to achieve such certitude. Thus, for example, metaphysics can establish that there is a Creator. Any theory of evolution that purports to do away with the necessity of God is philosophically incoherent. This does not preclude the possibility of an evolution that "may give greater glory to the First Cause by preserving the natural efficacy of secondary causes" (18). Bonnette's study begins in earnest in the second chapter. Anti-evolutionists are generally willing to concede that there is variation within a given species and that there can be development in these variations (intra-specific evolution). The problem enters in with claims that "a form has transcended its species" (extra-specific evolution). Bonnette sets himself the task of determining whether "natural species" exist and "how inter-specific transformism, if it occurs, can be compatible with traditional philosophical principles." The nominalist understanding of "species" as "only convenient words to describe mid-ranges of ever-blending series of unique individuals" (28) is rejected. The "biological species concept" is likewise set aside: "The biologist seeks perinoetic knowledge: knowledge in which, by purely descriptive substitute signs, we conceptually grasp an organism's sensible or common accidents. The philosopher pursues dianoetic knowledge in which, by careful examination of essential properties or proper accidents, we understand a thing's essence or nature" (30). He concludes that "several progressively more perfect natural species exist" and that "more than one natural species of animal exist" (38–39). This philosophical definition of species would place mice and elephants within the same species (possessed of five senses) but oysters (not possessed of those senses) in another. He examines only the most important natural species—plants, animals, and human beings—to determine whether they are truly distinct and to determine...