Online research in philosophy

I argue that the strongest form of consequentialism is one which rejects the claim that we are morally obliged to bring about the best available consequences, but which continues to assert that what there is most reason to do is bring about the best available consequences. Such an approach promises to avoid common objections to consequentialism, such as demandingness objections. Nevertheless, the onus is on the defender of this approach either to offer her own account of what moral obligations we do face, or to explain why offering such a theory is ill-advised. I consider, and reject, one attempt at the second sort of strategy, put forward by Alastair Norcross, who defends a ‘scalar’ consequentialism which eschews the moral concepts of right, wrong and obligation, and limits itself to claims about what is better and worse. I go on to raise some considerations which suggest that no systematic consequentialist theory of our moral obligations will be plausible, and propose instead that consequentialism should have a more informal and indirect role in shaping what we take our moral obligations to be.

The historical context of the philosophical work of St. Thomas Aquinas, by D. Knowles.--Form and existence, by P. Geach.--Categories, by H. McCabe.--Analogy as a rule of meaning for religious language, by J. F. Ross.--Nominalism, by P. Geach.--St. Thomas' doctrine of necessary being, by P. Brown.--The proof ex motu for the existence of God; logical analysis of St. Thomas' arguments, by J. Salamucha.--Infinite causal regression, by P. Brown.--St. Thomas Aquinas and the language of total dependence, by J. N. Deck.--Divine foreknowledge and human freedom, by A. Kenny.--Intellect and imagination in Aquinas, by A. Kenny.--The immortality of the soul, by H. McCabe.--Aquinas on intentionality, by P. Sheehan.--The scholastic theory of moral law in the modern world, by A. Donagan.--The first principle of practical reason, by G. G. Grisez.

The historical context of the philosophical work of St. Thomas Aquinas, by D. Knowles.--Form and existence, by P. Geach.--Categories, by H. McCabe.--Analogy as a rule of meaning for religious language, by J. F. Ross.--Nominalism, by P. Geach.--St. Thomas' doctrine of necessary being, by P. Brown.--The proof ex motu for the existence of God; logical analysis of St. Thomas' arguments, by J. Salamucha.--Infinite causal regression, by P. Brown.--St. Thomas Aquinas and the language of total dependence, by J. N. Deck.--Divine foreknowledge and human freedom, by A. Kenny.--Intellect and imagination in Aquinas, by A. Kenny.--The immortality of the soul, by H. McCabe.--Aquinas on intentionality, by P. Sheehan.--The scholastic theory of moral law in the modern world, by A. Donagan.--The first principle of practical reason, by G. G. Grisez.

The paper proposes a new version of direct act consequentialism that will provide the same evaluations of the rightness of acts as indirect disposition, motive or character consequentialism, thus reconciling the coherence of direct consequentialism with the plausible results in cases of indirect consequentialism. This is achieved by seeing that adopting certain kinds of moral dispositions causally constrains our future acts, so that the maximizing acts ruled out by the disposition can no longer be chosen. Thus when we act we do the best we can, which is all that is required for rightness according to act consequentialism.

Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good claims that contemporary theory and practice have much to gain from engaging Aquinas's normative concept of the common good and his way of reconciling religion, philosophy, and politics. Examining the relationship between personal and common goods, and the relation of virtue and law to both, Mary M. Keys shows why Aquinas should be read in addition to Aristotle on these perennial questions. She focuses on Aquinas's Commentaries as mediating statements between Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics and Aquinas's own Summa Theologiae, showing how this serves as the missing link for grasping Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle's thought. Keys argues provocatively that Aquinas's Christian faith opens up new panoramas and possibilities for philosophical inquiry and insights into ethics and politics. Her book shows how religious faith can assist sound philosophical inquiry into the foundation and proper purposes of society and politics.

This essay compares Aquinas' understanding of the precepts of justice with the various accounts of moral rules developed in the debate over proportionalism among contemporary moral theologians. It is argued that both sides in this debate oversimplify Aquinas' account of moral rules so drastically as to misread him. Moreover, it is argued that because Aquinas' account reflects a sense of the communal context for moral discernment, it is superior to both traditionalism and proportionalism.

I argue that we should reject all traditional forms of act-consequentialism if moral rationalism is true. (Moral rationalism, as I define it, holds that if S is morally required to perform x, then S has decisive reason, all things considered, to perform x.) I argue that moral rationalism in conjunction with a certain conception of practical reasons (viz., the teleological conception of reasons) compels us to accept act-consequentialism. I give a presumptive argument in favor of moral rationalism. And I argue that act-consequentialism is best construed as a theory that ranks outcomes, not according to their impersonal value, but according to how much reason each agent has to desire that they obtain.

This essay focuses on three interpretations of Aquinas influenced by Continental philosophy, those of John Caputo, Jean-Luc Marion, and John Milbank/Catherine Pickstock. The essay considers the well-worn question, whether Aquinas is an onto-theologian in Heidegger’s sense, but looks more broadly at the point of contact common to these interpretations: Aquinas’s relationship to modernity.As Continental thought has put into question the nature of philosophy through a critical look at modern philosophy—questioning its self-representation as progress and characterizing the present as post-modern—Aquinas is of interest to Continental thought in his anti-modernity. The author considers three issues: (1) What does Continental philosophy bring to the study of Aquinas missing from analytic approaches? (2) What is highlighted about Aquinas as he is seen by Caputo, Marion, and Milbank/Pickstock? (3) Can Aquinas escape both the limitations of modernism and the deconstruction of postmodernism, as some claim, and would he want to?

Brian Leftow sets out to provide us with an account of Aquinas’s metaphysics of modality.1 Drawing on some important recent work, which is surely close to the spirit (if not quite the letter) of Aquinas’s thought, he frames his discussion in terms of “truthmakers”: what is it that makes true claims about possibility and necessity—that is to say, what serves as their ontological ground or ultimate metaphysical explanation?2 Leftow’s main thesis is that, for Aquinas, all true modal claims are made true by one and the same thing—namely, God. Along the way, however, he also attempts to show that Aquinas’s endorsement of this thesis commits him to an objectionable form of Platonism about possible worlds.

When modern ethical contractualists defend their view against “teleology,” they typically have in mind utilitarian or consequentialist theories according to which valuable states of affairs are to be promoted. But if we look to older teleological theories e.g. that found in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas we will find a kind of teleology that can be incorporated beneficially into contractualist ethics. In this paper I argue that Scanlon would be well served, on grounds to which he appeals, to make a teleological modification to his theory of what we owe to each other. Drawing not only on Aristotle and Aquinas, but also on the thought and life of Martin Luther King, I argue that Scanlon's contractualism can and should be modified to incorporate the ancient and medieval teleological emphasis on personal fruition and legitimate self-assertion.