St.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

 Summa Theologiae

The Summa Theologica focuses
on religious matters pertinent to the
organization and doctrine of the
Catholic faith, discussions of virtues
and the Sacraments, and the nature
of the Christian triune God and His
creation.
According to St. Aquinas,
VIRTUE is a habit which
perfects a power that a
thing has.
Aquinas argues that the end
of the moral virtues is the
human good. And since the
human good is simply to be in
accordance with reason, it
follows that the end of the
moral virtues must “pre-exist
in reason
Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas' ideas
about the will are a complex of
three powers of the human soul,
which can be described as the
intellect (perceptive, apprehensive,
cognitive), the will (motive,
appetitive, conative) and the
passions or feelings (sensitive,
emotive).
Aquinas offers several
definitions of virtue.
According to one very
general account, a virtue is a
habit that “disposes an agent
to perform its proper
operation or movement”
These virtues are
prudence, justice,
temperance, and
courage
Three Categories of Virtues
Intellectual Virtues
Moral Virtues
Theological Virtues
INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE
Aquinas argued that the intellectual
virtues (apart from prudence)
are virtues only in a qualified sense but
he considers them superior to the
moral virtues. ... Wisdom as
an intellectual virtue concerns God,
as he is knowable by natural human
reason, that is, as he is investigated in
the science of metaphysics.
Aquinas distinguishes wisdom and practical
wisdom
 Thomas Aquinas a wisdom is a virtue of
greed with Aristotle the intellect for
that practical Aquinas—an excellent
quality of the thinking
wisdom was an part of our minds—
essential virtue for and the intellect is not
human flourishing. the only thing involved
in choosing
Dr. Shane Drefcinski
 Moral virtues
Perfects the
appetitive powers
of the soul
Virtue of temperance
Concerns the pleasure come
from table and the bedroom
Virtues that perfects the
concupiscable appetite
Greatly to be desired or lusted
after; exciting concupiscence.
Pertaining to concupiscence or
lust; characterized by strong
desire
Virtue of courage
Concerns the emotion
of fear and confidence
Perfects the irascible
appetite
The irascible appetite is
aroused precisely to
overcome the obstacle.
 Virtue of justice
• Concerns the
interaction of people
with each other
• Perfects the will
THEOLOGICAL VIRTUE
The theological virtues come
first because they are the ones
that get us into the habit of
correctly setting the ultimate
context for the rest of our
actions.
Aquinas defines FAITH
as a habit of mind,
whereby eternal life is
begun in us, making
intellect assent to what
is non-apparent
VIRTUE OF FAITH
The virtue of faith is so-
called the first of all
virtues, since it's the faith
in the existence of God
VIRTUE OF HOPE
It is the habit of embracing a
higher standard of behavior
because we believe that if we do,
we will in fact turn into better,
happier versions of ourselves,
even if we know we'll never be
perfect.
VIRTUE OF CHARITY
Charity is the habit of
choosing to be vulnerable
enough to be drawn to the
good, to love it, and to act
accordingly.
 DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN
ARISTOTLE AND
AQUINAS
The moral philosophy of 
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-
1274) involves a merger of at
least two apparently disparate
traditions: Aristotelian
eudaimonism and Christian
theology. On the one hand,
Aquinas follows
Aristotle in thinking that an act is good
or bad depending on whether it
contributes to or deters us from our
proper human end—the telos or final
goal at which all human actions aim.
That telos is eudaimonia, or happiness,
where “happiness” is understood in
terms of completion, perfection, or
well-being.
Achieving happiness,
however, requires a range of
intellectual and moral virtues
that enable us to understand
the nature of happiness and
motivate us to seek it in a
reliable and consistent way.
CARDINAL VIRTUES
The cardinal virtues are the
four principal moral virtues.
The English
word cardinal comes from the
Latin word cardo, which means
"hinge." All other virtues hinge
on these four
Types of Cardinal Virtues
Prudence
Temperance
Fortitude/Courage
Justice
PRUDENCE
St. Thomas Aquinas
ranked prudence as the
first cardinal virtue
because it is concerned
with the intellect
TEMPERANCE
Temperance, Saint Thomas
declared, is the fourth and final
cardinal virtue. While fortitude
is concerned with the restraint
of fear so that we can act,
temperance is the restraint of
our desires or passions.
FORTITUDE
The third cardinal virtue,
according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is
fortitude. While this virtue is
commonly called courage, it is
different from what much of what
we think of as courage today.
Fortitude allows us to overcome
fear.
JUSTICE
Justice, according to
Saint Thomas, is the
second cardinal virtue,
because it is concerned
with the will
2 types of Justice
Legal/Particular
Commutative/
Distributive
LEGAL JUSTICE
The purpose of legal
justice is to govern our
actions according to the
common good
 Commutative justice

Commutative justice
concerns the “mutual
dealings” between
individual citizens
Distributive justice
Distributive justice concerns
the way in which collective
goods and responsibilities “are
[fairly] apportioned among
people who stand in a social
community
This last point nicely reflects
the way Aquinas weds
Christian moral theology and
Aristotelian philosophy. More
generally, it exemplifies the
way in which Aquinas took
faith and reason to be
perfectly compatible.
Of course, the extent to which
Aquinas was faithful to Aristotle in
his grand synthesis is a subject that
must be left for others to address.
This matter aside, it is clear that
Aquinas’s endeavor has left us with
one of the richer and more
enduring accounts of the moral life
that philosophy has to offer.