Abstract

This book questions whether a philosophic Thomistic ethics is possible. In so doing, it stands alongside Wolfgang Kluxen’s Philosophische Ethik bei Thomas von Aquin which was, until now, the most thorough and original treatment of the issue. Kluxen argued that one could not simply extract certain “philosophical” passages from Aquinas’s theological works; rather, a philosophical ethics would require a work of interpretation. Still, he thought the project attainable. Bradley, in explicit contrast to Kluxen, argues forcefully that not only is it impossible to extract a philosophical ethics from Aquinas’s own works, but it is also impossible to develop any systematic philosophical ethics that could be properly called “Thomistic.”