American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Following the Second Vatican Council, the predominant trend in Catholic moral theology has been decidedly antagonistic toward the tradition that dominated moral theology before the Council: namely, the use and formulation of ecclesiastically-approved “manuals” or “handbooks” of moral theology, the contents of which chiefly involved general precepts of morally good and bad behavior as well as the extension of those precepts to particular cases. In this paper, I will oppose the dominant anti-manual trend. More particularly, I will first sketch what I take to be the central aspects of the manual tradition. Second, I will provide several arguments in favor of this tradition. Last, I will raise and respond to objections to this tradition that feature prominently in the works of Pinckaers and Cessario.

One of the conventions when it comes to discussing the thought of John Duns Scotus is that he postulated a “formal distinction” between the divine essence and the divine persons in the Trinity. This study challenges the truth of that convention in two ways. By analyzing parallel passages from the three primary works in which he discusses the Trinity (the Lectura, Ordinatio, and Reportatio), it makes apparent that Scotus does not propose the phrase “formal distinction” as part of his explanation for the Trinitarian formula. More centrally, though, this study shows how the Subtle Doctor develops his thought along a consistent line, from theology through metaphysics to logic, that has as its centerpiece an argument for production in the divine. This argument is the real story behind Scotus’s account of the Trinity, as his ultimate conclusion is that God, in order to be God, must be a Trinity.

In this article, I address the question why God would create a world with damned human beings in it when (presumably) he could create a better world without damned human beings. Specifically, I explain and defend what I call the “perfection of the universe argument.” According to this argument, which is Augustinian and Thomistic in origin, it is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create a world with damned human beings in it or a damnation-free world so long as God ensures that each world is good as a whole. I then respond to two different objections to this argument. Finally, I show how the perfection of the universe argument leaves room for hoping that we live in a world in which no human being is damned and God affords every human being a life that is good as a whole.

A central thesis in the ethics and epistemology of St. Thomas Aquinas is that both speculative and practical reason proceed from first principles in their search for truth. According to Aquinas, the first principles of both orders are analogous and share common features. However, it is not always easy to understand the extent of this analogy. In this paper we intend to analyze two common properties of the first principles to show similarities and differences that exist in the way these analogous properties are verified in each order of principles. Firstly, we expound which characteristics correspond to the knowledge of both orders of principles. Secondly, we examine the idea that the knowledge of all the first principles comes from sense knowledge. Finally, we address the idea that all other knowledge, of both the speculative order and the practical order, depends on first principles.

One typical route to justify abortion rights is to argue that human fetuses and embryos are not persons—call this the no-person strategy. Arguments for this strategy aim to justify a psychological account of the person and this is done by appealing to various thought experiments, particularly brain-transplant experiments. I argue that both (i) a hylomorphic account of the person is consistent with the intuitions these experiments generate; and (ii) the hylomorphic account is compatible with persons coming into being prior to the exercise of a psychological power. Thesis (i) suggests that thought experiments are not exclusive motivations for a psychological account (i.e., the hylomorphic account can be true assuming everything we learn from the experiments). Thesis (ii) suggests that only one of the two theories justifies abortion-rights. It follows that the no-person justification for abortion rights is under-determining.

The categories of formal and material cooperation with evil have shifted in meaning since they were employed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in the eighteenth century. I attempt to recover their original meanings by showing how Liguori’s choice of terms reflects a Thomist conception of human action. Relying on the work of Elizabeth Anscombe to elaborate that conception, I advance two theses about the distinction between formal and material cooperation with evil that I believe are not generally accepted, even among Catholic philosophers and theologians. The first concerns when acting intentionally under the description “doing what the other intends” constitutes formal cooperation with evil. The second concerns when material cooperation with evil is justified by the principle of double effect.

To defend the idea of everlasting punishment in hell, some philosophers of religion have suggested that hell’s punishment lasts forever because the damned continue to sin forever. This suggestion raises a further question: Why would a being keep sinning forever? In this paper, I examine Thomas Aquinas’s attempt to explain why demons keep sinning forever. According to Aquinas, demons cannot stop sinning because they cannot revise the judgment that caused them to sin. At the end of the paper, I argue that if we accept retributivism, then we have good reasons to think creatures such as Aquinas’s demons would deserve everlasting punishment.

While our common sense seems to tell us that intention matters to ethical evaluation, there is considerable disagreement among ethicists regarding why and how it matters. In this article I argue that intention matters to act evaluation in much the way that the principle of double effect (PDE) implies. First, I identify five propositions—one epistemological and four ethical—that the proponent of PDE holds regarding the ethical relevance of intention. Second, I give two general arguments for the ethical relevance of intention. Third, I offer preliminary arguments for each of the five propositions outlined in the first section. Together, these general and more specific arguments are meant to place the burden of proof on one denying intention’s relevance to act evaluation. Fourth and finally, then, I show that recent critiques of PDE and of the ethical relevance of intention fail to carry that burden of proof.

This essay consists of some clarifying remarks on the doctrine of double effect (DDE). After providing a contemporary formulation of the doctrine we put special emphasis on the distinction between those aspects of an action plan that are intended and those that are merely foreseen (the I/F distinction). Making use of this distinction is often made difficult in practice because salient aspects of the action plan exhibit a felt “closeness” to one another that is difficult if not impossible to articulate with the precision we might like. The essay goes on to examine an especially adroit criticism of DDE best articulated by J. J. Thomson. We conclude with a brand new double effect case (new to the philosophical literature anyway) taken from medicine and Roman Catholic pastoral ministry.