Thomas Aquinas on Virtue [Hardcover]

A comprehensive account of Thomas Aquinas's understanding of virtue, for scholars in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology.Thomas Aquinas's work on moral theory focused on the status and value of the virtues, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them. This book charts the development of his moral thought in its historical, philosophical, and theological contexts.Thomas Aquinas's work on moral theory focused on the status and value of the virtues, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them. This book charts the development of his moral thought in its historical, philosophical, and theological contexts.Thomas Aquinas produced a voluminous body of work on moral theory, and much of that work is on virtue, particularly the status and value of the virtues as principles of virtuous acts, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them schematically. Thomas Osborne presents Aquinas's account of virtue in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, to show the reader what Aquinas himself wished to teach about virtue. His discussion makes the complexities of Aquinas's moral thought accessible to readers despite the differences between Thomas's texts themselves, and the distance between our background assumptions and his. The book will be valuable for scholars and students in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology.Introduction; 1. The Definition of Virtue; 2. Intellectual and Moral Virtue; 3. Divisions of Moral Virtue; 4. Natural and Supernatural Virtue; 5. The Properties of Virtue; 6. Thomistic Virtue and Contemporary Thought; Conclusion.At just over two hundred pages, this study offers a crash course on virtue in Aquinass thought that will serve anyone conversant with medieval philosophy. For that matter, even specialists in Aquinass ethics who want to disabuse themselves of their misreadings will find a friend in this book. Eschewing a novel inroad into this oft-treated topic, Osborne instead treal#y