Major Sources: Works By Hume
Yet a short survey of the virtues that hinge on justice reveals an account that is richer than the foregoing paragraphs may suggest. For Aquinas, justice is principally about our relations to others, and so he thinks that “all the virtues which might be directed to another individual might by reason of this common facet be annexed to justice” (ST IIaIIae eighty.1).
By contrast, thegift of wisdom allows us to see that God is the “sovereign good, which is the final end…” (ST IIaIIae 45.1 ad 1). Those who are sensible have a more complete grasp of God’s goodness and might due to this fact decide and govern human actions in accordance with divine principles (ST IIaIIae forty five.three). Understood this manner, the present of knowledge consists not only in a theoretical grasp of divine things, however it additionally offers one with the normative steering necessary for ordering one’s life according to Goodness itself (Ibid.).
5 The Significance And Place Of Moral Theory
Knowledge of these causes might embody knowledge of God, who’s the best reason for things. Yet the virtue of knowledge can’t disclose a few of the more important features of God’s character.
The virtues Aquinas has in mind right here are not merely people who regulate our relationships with different human beings, however with God. Thus he insists thatreligion is a advantage that falls beneath justice, because it includes providing God his due honor (Ibid;ST IIaIIae 81.1). The similar can be stated forpiety andobservance, since they seek to render to God service and deference, respectively. Finally, Aquinas contains bothliberality andfriendship as components of justice. The former is a virtue whereby we profit others by giving or sharing with them the goods we possess (ST IIaIIae 117.1, 2, and 5).
Those traits of which we approve naturally , such as beneficence, clemency, and moderation, also are inclined to the nice of people or all of society. So our approval of these may be defined in precisely the same means, via sympathy with the pleasure of those that receive benefit. Linked with these meta-ethical controversies is the dilemma of understanding the ethical life both because the “ancients” do, in terms of virtues and vices of character, or because the “moderns” do, primarily when it comes to ideas of duty or natural regulation.