STUDY GUIDE FOR AQUINAS

Part I. Basic Interpretation of Aquinas

If you are interested in the thought of Thomas Aquinas after reading Dr. D’Andrea’s essay, please go to the Primary Source Documents to read some of the essential passages of the Summa Theologiae that relate to the article. Please also refer to the biography. As you go back to the primary sources, keep in mind the following questions:

1. In what sense is the natural law “natural”?
2. What is the relation between natural law and positive law? Why do people need to create positive laws?
3. Does Aquinas think that the knowledge of God is necessary for knowing the natural law?
4. How does Aquinas define “law”? What is the difference in obedience to the law for humans and for non-rational creatures?
5. What is distinctive about Aquinas’s view on human nature?

Part II. Connections to Other Thinkers

In order to understand Aquinas, it is important to place him in his proper context. While Aquinas inherited the Aristotelian-Platonic tradition, he was also one of the pioneering figures of the natural law tradition and has been one of the most influential natural law thinkers over the past seven hundred years. By comparing Aquinas to thinkers before and after him, his own unique philosophical position will be more greatly illumined.

1. For Aquinas, the proper effect of law is to lead its subjects to virtue. In contrast, contemporary liberal thinkers such as John Rawls or Ronald Dworkin argue that the state and its laws should not take any position on moral matters but rather should try to let each citizen pursue his own conception of virtue and the good. To justify this position, these thinkers invoke the “harm principle,” according to which the state should make illegal only those action which would harm other people. Compare this liberal notion with Aquinas’s ethics. Are these positions directly at odds, or is there some common ground? Do Rawls and Dworkin adopt Aquinas’s idea that law should lead men to virtue, but just the virtue of tolerance? Or does Aquinas adopt a version of the harm principle, but just a more comprehensive version of it?
2. Locke and Hobbes argue that people give up rights by contract when they enter into society. Consider Locke and Hobbes in relation to Aquinas. For Aquinas, do people give up their rights upon entering society? Does the notion of a “right” even make sense according to Aquinas’s moral framework?
3. Hobbes explicitly rejects the "old moral philosophers" who use such teleological notions as Finis Ultimis (utmost aim) and Summum Bonum (greatest good) to describe human nature individually and in society. However, the ostensible end or aim of Hobbes’s system of natural rights is to attain “civil peace” for society. How does Hobbes’s “civil peace” differ from Aquinas’s notion of “common good”? And how do their respective understandings of law contribute to those formulations of what is good for society?
4. Aquinas is one of the greatest philosophers to write in the Aristotelian tradition, appropriating and expounding Aristotle’s views on physics, metaphysics, politics, and ethics. What are some of the ways in which Aquinas’s theory of natural law crucially differs from Aristotle’s?
5. As D’Andrea writes, Aquinas held that “[a]ny human law . . . that directly contravenes a dictate of the natural law ipso facto fails as a law and has the status of an irrational command instead.” So it seems that, for Aquinas, what is immoral is also irrational. Compare this to the position of the New Natural Law Theory that immoral acts are nevertheless rational acts.
6. According to Aquinas, man is a “psychosomatic unity” composed of body and soul. This view stands in contrast to Hobbes’s mechanistic view that man is only a machine, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. What differences do these divergent premises of Aquinas and Hobbes lead to in their respective philosophies?
7. Thinkers like Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini have argued that a ruler must assume that men are evil and capricious. Thus, for Machiavelli and Guicciardini, in order to preserve the order of the state, certain brutal measures have to be enforced because people cannot be made virtuous and will not obey without coercion. Moral laws must be suspended to preserve the state. Compare this view to Aquinas’s position that moral laws must always be obeyed in every act, and that the aim of law is to make men virtuous and good. Is politics that follows morality (like Aquinas’s) practical? Is “practical” even the right criterion for judging a political system?

Part III. Critical Interpretations of Aquinas

With a basic understanding of Aquinas’s thought, let us examine his work more critically. Are his arguments persuasive? Can we expand on Aquinas’s thought and determine what he would say about issues that he did not directly address? Use the questions below as your guide:

1. As D’Andrea says, law for Aquinas is “an extrinsic source or principle of human perfection.” At the same time, however, the natural law is based on human nature. Indeed, Aquinas says elsewhere that if man’s nature were different, so also would be his duties. It would seem, then, that natural law is intrinsic rather than extrinsic. How would Aquinas respond to this apparent contradiction?
2. Aquinas argues that the human mind can grasp precepts of natural law as self-evidently good. Being self-evident, these precepts cannot be proven from any other principles; they are fundamental. So how does Aquinas justify holding to these principles when they cannot be proven? Moreover, how could they really be self-evident when many people doubt them?
3. For Aquinas, it is “normative or rational” to obey human laws if they are not in conflict with the natural law. Moreover, should laws against the natural law “be observed for prudential reasons”? Isn’t obeying an immoral law itself immoral?
4. According to Locke, a government is legitimate only by consent of the governed. Does Aquinas hold a similar view? Consider a scenario in which a man, by immoral means, takes control of a country and declares himself dictator. Suppose further that, having seized power, the dictator implements laws that are perfectly in accord with natural law. Since those laws are reasonable and ethical, it seems that, according to Aquinas’s philosophy, the citizens of that country would be obligated to obey those laws, and therefore would not be justified in leading a revolution to re-establish the old system of government. Thus it would appear that Aquinas’s ethics could justify a tyrannical or dictatorial system. Do you think this conclusion follows from Aquinas’s position? If not, what would Aquinas say in response?
5. D’Andrea writes that “law does not recommend or suggest, it binds and commands.” In Aquinas’s view, this applies not only to positive law, but also to natural law. Is Aquinas convincing in arguing that natural law is binding? Indeed, in what sense is natural law binding? Does this view only make sense with God as the divine lawgiver?   

Part IV. Contemporary Connections

Aquinas has had a tremendous influence on moral and political thinking in Western society. Therefore, let us now turn to some contemporary issues and see how Aquinas’s thought may be applied to them.

1. In modern society, one alternative moral system to natural law is utilitarianism, which holds that we should seek to maximize happiness or pleasure and minimize their opposites. A clear example of utilitarian reasoning concerns the issue of torture. Supporters of torture argue that the pain inflicted is ultimately used for a greater good, namely, gaining important information in order to save more innocent lives. While utilitarianism is usually placed in contrast to Aquinas’s natural law ethics, it still seems to follow Aquinas’s most basic precept of natural law: “anything good is to be pursued, and the opposite of this good, evil, is to be avoided in all human acts.” Indeed, it would seem that the torture is performed for the sake of pursuing some greater good and avoiding some greater harm. This raises the question of whether natural law can be used to justify performing evil for the sake of good. While one might be tempted to say no, Aquinas does hold that immoral laws should (only) be “observed for prudential reasons, such as to avoid some greater harm that might arise in the social order.” Is Aquinas a utilitarian? If not, what does Aquinas say that would indicate otherwise? Are some acts intrinsically evil, and therefore not to be done?
2. Is a natural law approach viable in contemporary society, when there is great disagreement over both what the precepts of natural law are, and whether the natural law approach is even the best form of ethics? Or is natural law viable only for the medieval Europe of Aquinas’s day, which was united under a shared set of moral standards?
3. Much political debate has focused on whether the good of the individual or the good of the state should be given priority. On the one hand, proponents of individualism often contend that individuals are persons and therefore have absolute worth, while the state is merely an abstract entity with no inherent worth. On the other hand, proponents of statism argue that the state, because it is concerned with everyone in society, aims at the greater good and should therefore be given priority. What would Aquinas say about this debate? Are the goods of the state and of the individual necessarily in conflict?
4. With the advances of science and technology, many people would argue that the world can be understood in purely physical terms. Is such a materialistic view of the universe compatible with Aquinas’s natural law philosophy? Is Aquinas’s natural law dependent upon his metaphysical and theological views, or can it still be defended apart from them?
5. As the world becomes more globalized, the issue of international relations becomes increasingly important. Organizations such as the United Nations and international codes such as the Geneva Convention have attempted to regulate actions in the global community. This brings up crucial issues related to natural law. For instance, what role should natural law theory play at the international level? More interestingly, the question that the case of international law raises is (a) under what conditions a law becomes binding, and (b) whom it binds. According to Aquinas’s philosophy, is one obligated to abide by the U.N.’s proclamations simply because one lives in the world? Or can one choose not to obey them because one does not recognize the U.N. as an authority? In brief, when does a law legitimately apply to oneself, and when can one rightly reject it?