Medieval Metamorphosis of Nicomachean Ethics: the Singular Case of Thomas Aquinas

As is known, the insight of ethical thinking of Aristotle in the Latin West was processed at a slow pace. Only in the XV century the three Ethics attributed to Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Magna Moralia) are fully known by Western scholars. The biggest influence is due to the Nicomachean Ethics, known in full in 1246-47 (lincolniensis translatio) and giving rise, then, a philosophical ethics, side by side with a traditional ethics. This is how the medieval ethics (i.e., the mediation of the medieval history of ethics) can be divided into two distinct phases: before and after the dissemination of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle in the schools of the Latin West. The first phase is characterized by the preponderant influence of Augustine, although authors like Boethius, Gregory the Great, Anselm and Abelard have left important contributions. But Aquinas will build, in the Summa Theologiae, a specifically moral theory adopting the Aristotelian approach, giving rise to a new conception of the moral law (moral consideration in the strict sense, i.e., not specifically theological). In fact, the influence of the Nicomachean Ethics gives rise to two distinct streams, namely, the theological current, within the Theological Faculties, for which the key issue is to reconcile Aristotelian ethics with Christian tradition, and the philosophical tendency, present in the Faculty of Arts at the Universities of Paris and Oxford, which aims to recover the Aristotelian tradition of eudaimonia crowned by philosophic contemplation, that the incidence of the syllabus of 1277 eventually confirmed (Ethics is explicitly mentioned in Article 157 in respect of virtue and the theme of happiness).

The aim of my presentation, is to recall the originality and novelty of the moral philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. In fact, many scholars of moral philosophy of Aquinas, although consider that ex professo is only in recent writings (Summa Theologiae and his commentary on the X Libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum), that appears a “full body of morality”, do not call into relief enough, the novelty of these later writings, especially the Summa, compared to previous writings. It is true that since the beginning of his intellectual career (i.e., with little more than twenty years), he knew the background text, because he was chosen to collect in writing the course that in Cologne (1248-52) Albertus Magnus gave about the Latin translation of 1246-47 (lincolnensis versio), showing thus, his innovative character. But, together with the importance, attractiveness and novelty of moral text of the Stagirite, Aquinas should have also given account of the problems that such a text could give rise to use it in Theology, problems, openly face in the writing of II Pars of Summa (Paris, 1269-1272). Until then, even the three largest works, Scripturum super Sententiis (Paris, 1253-1255), Quaestiones disputatae De Veritate (Paris, 1256-1259) and Summa Contra Gentiles (Orvieto, 1261-1264), drawing here and there ethical issues do not represent profound novelty compared to traditional Augustinian ethics. In this, the view is of the divine law that guides the action of consciousness that apply the law to particular cases and virtues that facilitate the proper law enforcement − all in order to obtain the Augustinian vita beata. That is, the view is not yet as clearly as it will be later in II Pars, or an ethics in first person, i.e., an ethic of moral subject as author of his own act s, mastering, for the same reason, the perspective of divine wisdom lawmaker. Thomistic ethics, inspired by the Aristotelian ethics, is a philosophical-theological analysis of the praxis rational and free human being. We will see the specific beatitude or happiness case, fundamental notion of ethics according to Thomas’s understanding of the Ethics. Thomas Aquinas distinguish between imperfecta and perfecta beatitudo. While the first corresponds to the Aristotelian notion of “finis quo” (end by which, i.e., actio humana), the second corresponds to the “finis cuius” (end in itself/final end). The finis ultimus obiectivus is God, while the finis ultimus subiectivus is the happiness. And this fundamental question of all ethics clearly emerge as the contact points and distancing from the Nicomachean Ethics. The second part of the Summa Theologiae introduces, as part integral and articulated, an consideratio moralis, an operative scientia, whose subject (subiectum) are human acts. The object continues being of God, but as the beginning and end of human acts. This research, however, takes place within an ethical (moral constitution of a science). Anthropology Ethics of Thomas Aquinas is thus a theology which never becomes an anthropology. Therefore, we can say that Aristotle’s Ethics, such as interpreted by Aquinas, depends on the belief in God, and also excludes any reference to Revelation.

In summary we want to highlight two points interrelated: 1. the novelty of Pars II compared to the first works; and 2. a change of course in the last Thomistic ethics against the traditional Augustinian framework − according to the Thomistic receipt of the Nicomachean Ethics.

[26] Oleg Dushin

Saint Petersburg State University, Russia