Journal of the History of Philosophy

Thomas Osborne's study is doubly successful—first, as a careful account of the historical sources and multiple layers of concerns shaping thirteenth-century debates about whether God can be naturally loved more than oneself. Second, it is also an excellent articulation of the metaphysical and conceptual gaps between ancient and medieval eudaimonistic ethical theories and contemporary morality. Both thirteenth-century thinkers and contemporary thinkers have to wrestle with the ethical value of self-love. However, Osborne builds a convincing case that ancient and medieval teleological accounts of human nature and natural inclination (for the medievals, the will as inclination to the good) are untranslatable into contemporary ethical frameworks. These problems greatly overshadow the difficulties faced by medievals trying to reconcile Greek philosophical eudaimonism with a Christian theological ethic, which requires loving God above all else, including oneself.

Osborne's detailed and nuanced history shows how medieval conceptions of the natural inclination to the good (called 'love') are impacted by differences in metaphysics, moral psychology, and theology—such as the acceptance (or not) of participation as characterizing God's relation to creatures, varying understandings of the will's object, interpretations of Aristotle on friendship and the relation of political to contemplative virtue, and the impact of sin and grace on human nature. Osborne carefully delineates several meanings of 'natural' prevalent in medieval debates: 'natural' is opposed to 'rational' in some cases, and to [End Page 329] 'gratuitous' in others. This helps him sort through different positions on, for example, the relation of natural inclination to will, or natural love to charity, with admirable clarity.

The upshot of all the history is to show that Aquinas and Scotus agree not only on the Augustinian assumption that "one loves oneself more by loving God even more than oneself"(10), but also, and more importantly, on a teleological view of human nature and the natural inclination of the will to the good. They thus stand in contrast to later medievals, like Ockham, and to modern deontologists and utilitarians, who use a libertarian account of freedom (God's or ours) or self-interest to explain moral action and obligation, rather than the natural inclination of the will to the good.

Osborne's most original contributions are his claim that the medieval debate turns on different conceptions of natural inclinations to love, and his argument that Aquinas believes natural inclination tends foremost to the common good—including the common good of the entire universe, God. Aquinas concludes that God is naturally loved more than the individual's good, even though the individual's good is always contained in the common good. Scotus, by contrast, bases love for God over self in the will's natural object—goodness per se—which is God, absent any relation to creatures, including the agent. But the agent loves herself, by virtue of a natural inclination to her own good, since nature seeks its own perfection most of all. These two natural inclinations give rise to the two affections, one for justice and one for advantage. Although Scotus does not hold that these two loves come apart in fact, the seeds of later views in which they do have been planted. The reader may be surprised to find Aquinas's position a more strained interpretation of Aristotle than Scotus's, due to Aquinas's Augustinianism, which, in Osborne's treatment, is more apparent and thoroughgoing than Scotus's, as Scotus rejects participation and deemphasizes the impact of sin on natural inclination.

With admirable clarity, the book's historical analysis traces debates about self-love and natural inclination from its Augustinian background (chapter 1), through early medieval discussions of the will (chapter 2), to Aquinas's synthesis of Neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Christianity (chapter 3), through late thirteenth-century disagreements (chapter 4), and finally to Scotus's position (chapter 5). It is to Osborne's credit that, while his own interpretation favors Aquinas, the treatment...