0521864739 cambridge university press aquinas aristotle and the promise of the common good sep 2006

This page intentionally left blank Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good 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 Summa Theologiae, showing how this serves as the missing link for grasping Aquinas’s understanding of Aristotle’s thought in relation to Aquinas’s own considered views 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 foundations and proper purposes of society and politics Mary M Keys is associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame She has received fellowships from the Erasmus Institute at the University of Notre Dame; the Martin Marty Center for Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago, the Earhart Foundation, and the George Strake Foundation, among others Most recently, she has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research on “Humility and Modern Politics” in 2006–7 Her articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science and History of Political Thought Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good MARY M KEYS University of Notre Dame cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521864732 © Mary M Keys 2006 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published in print format 2006 isbn-13 isbn-10 978-0-511-25658-5 eBook (EBL) 0-511-25658-2 eBook (EBL) isbn-13 isbn-10 978-0-521-86473-2 hardback 0-521-86473-9 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate To My Teachers, Especially My Parents Contents Acknowledgments 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 2.2 2.3 page xi part i: virtue, law, and the problem of the common good Why Aquinas? Reconsidering and Reconceiving the Common Good The Promise and Problem of the Common Good: Contemporary Experience and Classical Articulation Why Aquinas? Centrality of the Concept and Focus on Foundations An Overview of the Argument by Parts and Chapters Contemporary Responses to the Problem of the Common Good: Three Anglo-American Theories Liberal Deontologism: Contractarian Common Goods in Rawls’s Theory of Justice Communitarianism or Civic Republicanism: Sandel against Commonsense “Otherness” A Third Way? Galston on the Common Goods of Liberal Pluralism 15 21 29 32 41 48 part ii: aquinas’s social and civic foundations Unearthing and Appropriating Aristotle’s Foundations: From Three Anglo-American Theorists Back to Thomas Aquinas 3.1 Aristotelianism and Political-Philosophic Foundations, Old and New 3.2 Aristotle’s Three Political-Philosophic Foundations in Thomas Aquinas’s Thought 3.3 The First Foundation and Aquinas’s Commentary: Human Nature as “Political and Social” in Politics I vii 59 59 63 67 viii 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 Contents Reinforcing the Foundations: Aquinas on the Problem of Political Virtue and Regime-Centered Political Science The Second Foundation and Aquinas’s Commentary: Human Beings and Citizens in Politics III Faults in the Foundations: The Uncommented Politics and the Problem of Regime Particularity Politics Pointing beyond the Polis and the Politeia: Aquinas’s New Foundations Finishing the Foundations and Beginning to Build: Aquinas on Human Action and Excellence as Social, Civic, and Religious Community, Common Good, and Goodness of Will Natural Sociability and the Extension of the Human Act Cardinal Virtues as Social and Civic Virtues – with a Divine Exemplar 87 89 99 102 116 118 124 130 part iii: moral virtues at the nexus of personal and common goods 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 Remodeling the Moral Edifice (I): Aquinas and Aristotelian Magnanimity Aristotle on Magnanimity as Virtue Aquinas’s Commentary on the Magnanimity of the Nicomachean Ethics The Summa Theologiae on Magnanimity and Some “Virtues of Acknowledged Dependence” Remodeling the Moral Edifice (II): Aquinas and Aristotelian Legal Justice Aristotle on Legal Justice Aquinas’s Commentary on Legal Justice in the Nicomachean Ethics Legal Justice and Natural Law in the Summa Theologiae 143 144 147 153 173 175 179 185 part iv: politics, human law, and transpolitical virtue 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Aquinas’s Two Pedagogies: Human Law and the Good of Moral Virtue Aquinas’s Negative Narrative, or How Law Can Curb Moral Vice Beyond Reform School: Law’s Positive Pedagogy According to Aquinas Universality and Particularity, Law and Liberty Thomistic Legal Pedagogy and Liberal-Democratic Polities 203 205 208 216 223 ... blank Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good claims that contemporary theory and practice have much to gain from engaging Aquinas s... i: virtue, law, and the problem of the common good Why Aquinas? Reconsidering and Reconceiving the Common Good The Promise and Problem of the Common Good: Contemporary Experience and Classical... Science and History of Political Thought Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good MARY M KEYS University of Notre Dame cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid,