Displaying: 81-100 of 1056 documents

0.217 sec

81. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 3
Bernard G. Prusak Aquinas, Double-Effect Reasoning, and the Pauline Principle
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper reconsiders whether Aquinas is rightly read as a double-effect thinker and whether it is right to understand him as concurring with Paul’s dictum that evil is not to be done that good may come. I focus on what to make of Aquinas’s position that, though the private citizen may not intend to kill a man in self-defense, those holding public authority, like soldiers, may rightly do so. On my interpretation, we cannot attribute to Aquinas the position that aiming to kill in self-defense is prohibited where so aiming is the only way to stay alive. Instead, for the private citizen though not for the public authority, it is aiming to kill as an end in itself, over and above the aim of saving one’s life, that is prohibited. Accordingly, we also cannot attribute to Aquinas the third condition of the principle of double effect in its textbook formulation.
82. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 3
Neil Delaney The Doctrine of Double Effect: Some Remarks on Intention and Evaluation
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
83. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 3
Christopher Tollefsen Double Effect and Two Hard Cases in Medical Ethics
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Two hard cases have generated controversy regarding the application of the principle of double effect in recent years. As regards the first, the case of the conjoined twins of Malta, there has been considerable convergence: most natural law ethicists seem to agree that separation of the twins was morally permissible. By contrast, the so-called “Phoenix case,” involving an abortion at a Catholic hospital for a woman with pulmonary arterial hypertension, has become a touchstone of disagreement between defenders of the so-called “new” natural law theory, and more “traditional” Thomists. I argue in this essay that, contrary to widespread opinion, the two cases were alike in the following respect: in neither need the principal agents have intended the death of anyone.
84. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 3
Philip A. Reed How to Gerrymander Intention
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Essential to the doctrine of double effect is the idea that agents are prohibited from intending evil as a means to a good end. I argue in this paper that some recent accounts of intention from proponents of double effect (such as by Michael Bratman and John Finnis) cannot sustain this prohibition on harmful means. I outline two ways to gerrymander intention that mark these accounts. First, intention is construed in such a way that an agent intends only those states of affairs that she cares about or finds motivating for their own sake. Second, intention is construed in such a way that what counts as intended is determined sufficiently by the agent’s beliefs.
85. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 3
T. A. Cavanaugh DER and Policy: The Recommendation of a Topic
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
If viable, DER justifies certain individual acts that—by definition—have two effects. Presumably, it would in some fashion (at the very least, redundantly) justify policies concerning the very same acts. By contrast, acts that sometimes have a good effect and sometimes have a bad effect do not have the requisite two effects such that DER can justify them immediately. Yet, a policy concerning numerous such acts would have the requisite good and bad effects. For while any one such act would lack the relevant two effects, a series of such acts and a policy governing such a series would have them. This paper addresses DER’s justification of policies that apply to such acts. It shows that there are certain acts which DER mediately justifies by justifying policies (having the requisite two effects) concerning them. Thus, it recommends the larger topic of DER’s bearing on policy.
86. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Brian Besong Reappraising the Manual Tradition
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
87. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Paul A. Macdonald Jr. Hell, the Problem of Evil, and the Perfection of the Universe
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
88. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Ryan Thornton, OFM From Theology through Metaphysics to Logic: John Duns Scotus’s Account of the Trinity without the “Formal Distinction”
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
89. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Stephen Napier The Justification of Killing and Psychological Accounts of the Person
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
90. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Patricia Moya Cañas, Alejandro Miranda Montecinos First Practical and Speculative Principles in Thomas Aquinas: Common Elements and Differences
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
91. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Joseph Suk-Hwan Dowd Aquinas on Demonic Obstinacy
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
92. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 89 > Issue: 4
Charles F. Capps Formal and Material Cooperation with Evil
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
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.
93. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 1
Chad Engelland Perceiving Other Animate Minds in Augustine
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper dispels the Cartesian reading of Augustine’s treatment of mind and other minds by examining key passages from De Trinitate and De Civitate Dei. While Augustine does vigorously argue that mind is indubitable and immaterial, he disavows the fundamental thesis of the dualistic tradition: the separation of invisible spirit and visible body. The immediate self-awareness of mind includes awareness of life: that is, of animating a body. Each of us animates his or her own body; seeing other animated bodies enables us to see other animating souls or minds. Augustine’s affirmation of animation lets us perceive that other minds are present, but Descartes’s denial of animation renders others ineluctably absent. Augustine’s soul is no ghost because his body is no machine.
94. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 1
John G. Brungardt Charles De Koninck and the Sapiential Character of Natural Philosophy
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In his early career, Charles De Koninck defended two theses: first, that natural philosophy (understood along Aristotelian-Thomistic lines) and the modern sciences are formally distinct; and second, that natural philosophy is a qualified form of wisdom with respect to those particular sciences. Later in his career, De Koninck changed his mind about the first thesis. Does this change of mind threaten the coherence of his second thesis? First, I explain De Koninck’s original position on the real distinction between natural philosophy and the sciences and his reasoning for why natural philosophy possesses a qualified sapiential office. Second, I consider De Koninck’s change of mind and defend the conclusion that, even if the modern sciences are a dialectical extension of natural philosophy, the latter is still wisdom in relation to the former. Finally, I discuss both examples of this sapiential function and its limitations.
95. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 1
Lukáš Lička Perception and Objective Being: Peter Auriol on Perceptual Acts and their Objects
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This article discusses the theory of perception of Peter Auriol (c. 1280–1322). Arguing for the active nature of the senses in perception, Auriol applies the Scotistic doctrine of objective being to the theory of perception. Nevertheless, he still accepts some parts of the theory of species. The paper introduces Auriol’s view on the mechanism of perception and his account of illusions. I argue for a direct realist reading of Auriol’s theory of perception and propose that his position becomes clearer if we use the distinction between the first- and third-person perspectives that he seems to presuppose.
96. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 1
Domenic D’Ettore “Not a Little Confusing”: Francis Silvestri of Ferrara’s Hybrid Thomist Doctrine of Analogy
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Fifty-plus years ago, Ralph McInerny’s The Logic of Analogy characterized Francis Silvestri of Ferrara’s doctrine of analogy as a confusing hybrid of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and of Thomas Cajetan. Since then, scholarship on fifteenth-century Thomism has flourished, thanks especially to the efforts of Ashworth, Bonino, Hochschild, Riva, and Tavuzzi. In light of these decades of scholarship, in this article I reconsider Francis Silvestri’s doctrine of analogy. I attempt to show the merits of his contribution to the Thomist tradition’s ongoing reflection on analogy, especially the dispute among Thomists and with Scotists over abstracting an analogous concept, the unity of the concept used analogously, and the use of analogy in demonstration. I argue that Francis’s hybrid succeeds in finding a place for analogy of attribution in names said analogously of God and creatures while still meeting Cajetan’s standards for answering Scotist objections to demonstration through analogous terms.
97. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 1
Turner C. Nevitt Aquinas on the Death of Christ: A New Argument for Corruptionism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Contemporary interpreters have entered a new debate over Aquinas’s view on the status of human beings or persons between death and resurrection. Everyone agrees that, for Aquinas, separated souls exist in the interim. The disagreement concerns what happens to human beings—Peter, Paul, and so on. According to corruptionists, Aquinas thought human beings cease to exist at death and only begin to exist again at the resurrection. According to survivalists, however, Aquinas thought human beings continue to exist in the interim, constituted by their separated souls alone. In this paper I offer a new argument in favor of corruptionism based upon Aquinas’s repeated discussions of a central though so far neglected topic: the death of Christ. To the question, “Was Christ a human being during the three days of his death?” Aquinas always answered, “No.” Examining his reasons proves that corruptionism, and not survivalism, is the right interpretation of Aquinas.
98. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 1
Han-Kyul Kim A System of Matter Fitly Disposed: Locke’s Thinking Matter Revisited
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper, I address the controversial issue around Locke’s account of a “superadded” power of thought. I first show that Locke uses the term “super­addition” in discussing the nominal distinction of natural kinds. This general observation applies to Locke’s account of thinking matter. Specifically, I attribute to him the following three theses: (1) the mind-body distinction is nominal; (2) there is no metaphysical repugnancy between them; and (3) their common ground—namely, substratum—can only be characterized in terms of its functional role. Examining each thesis and their interconnections, this paper casts light upon the Lockean type of mind-body union in “a system of matter fitly disposed.”
99. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 2
Anthony Kenny Elizabeth Anscombe at Oxford
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Anscombe first became famous in Oxford for her opposition to the awarding of an honorary degree to President Truman. Very soon thereafter, however, the publication of Intention established her as an important figure in British philosophy. “Modern Moral Philosophy” marked her difference from contemporary Oxford moral philosophers and introduced a set of ideas that subsequently had great influence. At Oxford she was a singular figure but extremely welcoming to graduate students. While she gave much time to the translation, interpretation, and teaching of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, she also doubted its compatibility with the Catholicism, to which she had converted and to which she was staunchly committed.
100. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 2
Sarah Broadie Practical Truth in Aristotle
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
An interpretation is offered of the Aristotelian concept of “practical truth” in the wake of Anscombe’s very interesting exegesis. Her own interpretation is considered and its merits noted, but a question is raised as to its plausibility as an account of what Aristotle himself intended in speaking of “truth that is practical” (he alētheia praktikē).