1B: The Role of Virtues and Goods in Supporting Moral Behaviour Flashcards
What Greek philosopher did Aquinas agree with?
Aristotle
What did Aquinas agree with Aristotle about?
there is a link between happiness and virtue
For Aquinas, what did developing virtues help a person to do?
fulfill their human function and live a moral life, thereby meeting their final purpose of living eternally in heaven with god
What are Aristotle’s 4 cardinal virtues?
prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice
What are Aristotle’s 3 theological virtues?
faith, hope, charity
How did Aquinas believe the 7 virtues can be obtained?
received by people through divine grace. cannot be obtained by human effort
What does the virtue of prudence mean?
- being able to make sound judgements in reasoning
- involves being aware of both moral principles established through natural law
- responsible decision making, thinking first THEN acting
What does the virtue of temperance mean?
- involves balance and restraint and self control
- can refine and purify physical pleasures
- knowing how to respect oneself in a correct and balanced manner
What does the virtue of fortitude mean?
- involves discipline, patience, endurance and perseverance in the face of difficult circumstances whether physical, moral or spiritual
What does the virtue of justice mean?
- focuses on actions towards others
- fairness, teamwork, leadership
- ensuring the well-being of others
What does the virtue of faith mean?
belief in god and his truth
- obedience
- involves the whole person
- reflects a total outpouring to the divine as an active assertion
What does the virtue of hope mean?
- consistent truth in the beatific vision
- pure form of desire, focused on the highest aim alone
- underlying virtue that supports the active participation in other non theological moral values
What does the virtue of charity mean?
- agape
- selfless, unconditional and voluntary loving
- kindness for others in response to god’s life
- love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves
What did Aquinas say practicing these virtues would help us to do?
fulfill the primary precepts
What did Aquinas mean by interior and exterior acts?
- he thought the act itself and the intention behind it are important and must aim to observe the primary precepts
- acting in the right way for a bad reason is seen as a good ‘exterior’ act, but a bad ‘interior’ act (example: helping an old lady cross the street to make yourself look good)
What is an example of good intentions not leading to good actions?
stealing money to give to a charity
What is the doctrine of double effect?
an act may have secondary unintended bad consequences but the act is still right to carry out
What is an example of the doctrine of double effect?
a doctor having to remove a cancerous uterus from a pregnant woman in order to save her life. although this would result in the death of the foetus it would still be considered a right act because the intention is to preserve the woman’s life
How do interior and exterior acts link to intentions and acts? (apply this to the helping the old woman cross the road)
if you want to help an old woman cross the road to genuinely help her, then you have good intentions and are committing both a good interior and exterior act. however if you only want to help the lady to look good, the intentions are harmful and so it is only a good exterior act
What 3 conditions must be met before the doctrine of double effect can pronounce an act with bad effects as a good act?
- we do not with the evil effects, and make all efforts to avoid them
- the immediate effect is good in itself
- the good effect is as important as the evil effect
Why did Aquinas believe human nature was essentially good?
all people have the natural law written on their hearts. believed everyone is oriented towards the achievement of perfection and would never knowingly pursue evil
Explain the distinction between a ‘real’ good and an ‘apparent’ good
real:
- meets primary precepts
- absolute
- deontological
- objective
- known as recta ratio
apparent:
- seems good, actually isn’t
- mistake in reasoning
- subjective
- will not be in accordance with divine and eternal law
- not in the pursuit of perfection
- linked to the concept of sin
Why is choosing an apparent good an error?
because it ultimately isn’t really good for the person (example, someone might commit adultery because they have confused the sexual pleasure they get out of it as real good)
Why did Aquinas argue humans do not actively choose evil?
because our fallen nature leads humans to act according to desire rather than in accordance with our god given purpose
What are the deontological aspects of ANL?
- suggests morality is judged by how an action conforms to doing one’s duty
- four levels of law: eternal, divine, natural, human
- primary precepts: universal and permanent set of deontological rules
- secondary precepts: created by judging whether an action either upholds or breaks one of the primary precepts. it can be argued the sp do not always have to be upheld (doctrine of double effect)
What are the teleological features of ANL?
- purpose of natural law: universe was created by god with an end purpose (telos). aquinas designed natural law to illustrate what the telos was
- rational thought: we can find out the telos through using our god given reason
- the highest good: to become ‘more like god’
- primary precepts
- getting to heaven by achieving the highest good
- secondary precepts
