Aquinas, Aristotle, and the promise of the common good / Mary M. Keys.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Keys, Mary M., 1966- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274--Political and social views.

Thomas.

Aristotle--Political and social views.

Aristotle.

Common good.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 255 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Aquinas, Aristotle, & the Promise of the Common Good

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good, first published in 2006, 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 own Summa Theologiae, showing how this serves as the missing link for grasping Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle's thought. 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 foundation and proper purposes of society and politics.

Contents:

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 common-sense "otherness"

A third way? : Galston on the common goods of liberal pluralism

Unearthing and appropriating Aristotle's foundations : from three Anglo-American theorists back to Thomas Aquinas

Aristotelianism and political-philosophic foundations, old and new

Aristotle's three political-philosophic foundations in Thomas Aquinas's thought

The first foundation and Aquinas's Commentary : human nature as "political and social" in politics

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

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

Remodeling the moral edifice : 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 : 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

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 of virtue according to Aquinas

Universality and particularity, law and liberty

Thomistic legal pedagogy and liberal-democratic polities

Theological virtue and Thomistic political theory

The problematic political promotion of theological virtue

Infused moral virtue and civic legal justice

Thomistic and Aristotelian moderation for the common good.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-16957-7

1-280-70982-0

0-511-25706-6

0-511-25756-2

0-511-25601-9

0-511-31945-2

0-511-49821-7

0-511-25658-2

OCLC:

171140143