In her most recent book, The Image of God: The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Mourning, Eleonore Stump deploys Thomas Aquinas to produce an account of the true self, human flourishing, and the felix culpa view of evil such that it is possible for the suffering of a human life to make that life more glorious than it otherwise would have been. Stump¡¯s argument is compelling but contains the vexing premise that human relationships are not necessary for human flourishing. I argue that, because Stump fails to distinguish between human flourishing and the conditions that are necessary for a human being to become capable of flourishing, she is left with the unlikely conclusion that it is possible for a feral child to flourish. On the contrary, I contend that human relationships are a necessary precondition for a person to become capable of flourishing.

The question of whether the human person immediately survives death has been the subject of considerable recent dispute among Thomists, between corruptionists who argue that the human person is indeed destroyed by death (temporarily, until he comes back into existence at the general resurrection) and survivalists who argue that the human person lives on constituted by his soul alone in the interim state between death and the general resurrection. In this paper I give a strengthened version of the standard argument (as given by Toner 2010) for corruptionism from Aquinas¡¯s own principles that examines the full logical space of what could happen to the human person upon death, and show that none of the possibilities that lead to survival are consistent with Aquinas¡¯s substance monism about the human person and his metaphysics of death.

The nature of personhood is not only an important discussion in contemporary philosophy but is also of central importance to the Thomistic philosophical and theological system. Yet the precise nature of personhood on this Thomistic system remains unclear, specifically as it concerns relationality. Some have argued that relationality, particularly interpersonal relationality, is intrinsic to what it is to be a person. But recent authors have either ignored or rejected this claim. In this paper I reintroduce and defend the idea that relationality is essential to personhood on a Thomistic model. Focusing on the nature of the second-person relation, as well as on the theological concept of the Trinity, I suggest that we cannot present a Thomistic account of personhood without reference to our capacity to enter into intrinsically reciprocal interpersonal relationships. This ultimately reveals that to be a person is to be essentially relational.

There is something puzzling about the notion of the ¡°human person.¡± Do human persons possess dignity by virtue of their being human, or by virtue of their being persons, or by virtue of some combination of humanness and personhood? This paper offers some first steps towards reconciling or uniting ¡°naturalistic¡± accounts of human personhood (accounts which focus on the human being as one among many members of a shared natural kind) with ¡°personalist¡± accounts of human personhood (accounts which focus on the radical individuality and uniqueness of the human person). These accounts can be united, I suggest, if one develops an adequate metaphysics of the human being as an intellectual being; if one appreciates how human beings are capable of a ¡°complete¡± and immaterial return-into-self (reditio ad seipsum), one will also be able to appreciate how the human being is also radically individual and radically unique.

The current integralist thesis sees a necessary subordination of the state to the Church because the Church has a vested interest in man¡¯s eternal salvation whereas the state has concern merely for his temporal goods. This paper will argue that the integralist position is indeed correct based upon the substantial unity of man¡¯s nature as body and soul, but needs to be developed and understood according to two principles: the Strong Integralist Principle (SIP) and the Weak Integralist Principle (WIP). The SIP will be applied within the Church, and the WIP will be that principle of action lived out in societal involvement and can be broken down into uncompromising and compromising subsections. The application of the WIP provides for the protection of personal development in both the family and society, while allowing for the freedom necessary for genuine religious conversion lacking in the original integralist thesis.

Do non-human animals know universals or abstract concepts? Many animal researchers would answer in the affirmative because various animals have shown the ability to sort objects appropriately into different groupings. Closer examination of such studies, however, indicates there may be another explanation. Utilizing the cognitive framework of Thomas Aquinas on the interior senses, particularly the estimative power, this work endeavors to challenge the dominant narrative regarding such cognitive acts in animals. In particular, a proper understanding of the estimative power in light of the biological writings of Aristotle and Albertus Magnus indicates that there is a much simpler explanation as to how animals can sort objects without anthropomorphizing or attributing to them higher cognitive abilities or actions than is necessary. Cases of animal sorting can be explained by a comparing of sensible accidental features to sortals, which is the highest type of phantasm possible for non-human animals.

Of all the topics pertaining to the mystery of the human person, few are more perennially piquant than questions surrounding human salvation. This project presents a novel exegetical analysis of the character Virgil from The Divine Comedy and proposes that despite his narrative role as the virtuous personification of human reason, Virgil is actually an inhabitant of Hell. In addition to providing the requisite evidence to substantiate this claim, this paper also explores salient questions concerning Virgil¡¯s fate. For instance, how is it possible that a virtuous, ostensibly sinless individual like Virgil could be denied access to Heaven against his will? The ensuing excursus reveals hidden depths in Dante¡¯s work while simultaneously underscoring the premise that union with God entails more than intellectual understanding. Relationship requires an act of the will.

I have previously argued that piety can be properly understood as an Aristotelian natural moral virtue. In this paper I will argue that piety should also be understood as contributing to the proper operation of the intellect. In other words, even though piety is properly understood as a moral virtue of the will, it nonetheless has important implications for knowing. After briefly reviewing how and why piety is a natural moral virtue I will discuss how piety has important epistemic implications in that it functions like a ¡°virtue of attention¡± similar to St. Thomas¡¯ virtues of studiositas and docilitas. I close with some remarks about why this aspect of piety receives little explicit discussion in the texts of Aristotle and Thomas even though I am confident that it fits into their conception of knowledge and its relationship to moral virtue.

This paper argues that Aristotle in De anima is a direct realist about sense perception: the senses immediately perceive not only accidental qualities but independent beings. This thesis is supported primarily through an analysis of Aristotle¡¯s condensed argument in DA III.1 that there can be no separate sense for common sensibles (such as number, shape, or motion). Against a more common reading of this passage, I argue that Aristotle intends to demonstrate that positing a separate sense for common sensibles entails a contradiction. This reconstruction of Aristotle¡¯s argument in III.1 requires that Aristotle holds that the unity of simultaneous perception is grounded in the unity of objects perceived. I then show that this position helps us to understand the logical progression from DA III.1 to III.2, and to find in III.2 a theory of perception according to which perceptual activity is at once perception itself and the activity of the thing perceived. This principle grounds Aristotle¡¯s position that the senses perceive things themselves directly.

In a series of publications spanning over two decades, William Hasker has argued both that (1) human beings have souls and (2) these souls are not directly created by God but instead are produced by (or ¡°emergent from¡±) a physical process of some sort or other. By contrast, an alternative view of the human person, endorsed by the contemporary Catholic Church, maintains that (1) human beings have souls but that (2*) each human soul is directly created by God rather than produced by any kind of physical process. Hasker argues that given what we know from evolutionary biology, (2*) is a much less plausible position for believers in souls to take than (2) is. If Hasker is right, then there is a serious tension between the Church¡¯s teaching about the human person and evolutionary biology. In this article, I challenge Hasker¡¯s reasoning. I argue that those who hold the Catholic view that each human soul is directly created by God face no more difficulty reconciling their view with evolutionary biology than those who maintain, as Hasker does, that human souls are instead produced by some kind of physical process.

Ontological pluralism is the view that there are ways of being. In this paper, we build a case for ontological pluralism in the form of three contributions: (1) We offer a theoretically useful definition of ¡°way of being¡± as a positive principle of similarity and difference that is distinct from¡ªand a prior condition for¡ªhaving properties. (2) We develop a test for distinguishing ways of being from properties: features of entities that are conceptually redundant when represented as predicates in standard predicate logic are ways of being. Finally, (3) we argue that there are ways of being, i.e., there are features of entities that satisfy the definition in (1) and pass the test outlined in (2). Along the way, we develop replies to objections against pluralism raised by Peter van Inwagen and Wouter Cohen.

I argue that physicians can save women from life-threatening pregnancies by performing a craniotomy, placentectomy, or salpingotomy without intending death or harm. To support this conclusion, I defend the relevance thesis about intentions (a person intends X only if X explains the action). I then criticize the identity thesis (if a person intends X and knows that X is identical to Y then the person intends Y) and three mistakenly strict moral principles: (1) one may not intend something that is a serious harm for an innocent person, (2) one may not intend to terminate pregnancy before viability, and (3) one may not act on a person¡¯s body in a harmful way in order to benefit another person. (1) would prohibit procuring organs from living donors, (2) would prohibit treating hepatic pregnancies and other ectopic pregnancies, and (3) would prohibit procuring organs from living donors and performing many prenatal surgeries.

It is universally acknowledged that, for St. Thomas, there is a distinction between human persons or supposits and their natures or essences. But it is usually thought that there is no parallel distinction between the angelic person or supposit and its nature. Yet, as this paper argues, Aquinas consistently puts forward just such a distinction. This paper surveys Aquinas¡¯s arguments for the unique identity of God with his essence and the corresponding distinctions between created persons and their essences, showing in the process how the distinction found in angels differs from that found in material substances. It is important to recognize the distinction between supposit and nature in angels not only for its own sake as it touches on his understanding of created persons¡ªhuman or angelic¡ªbut also insofar as it sheds light on Aquinas¡¯s understanding of divine simplicity and of other act-potency compositions in creatures.

I begin by explaining why individuality in persons is something different from and something stronger than individuality in non-persons. In the second part I offer a metaphysical account of this distinctly personal individuality of a human being, an account that comes to us from Edith Stein. I consider her proposal that each person has, besides the common human essence that we all share, an unrepeatable essence as this person. In the third part I provide some historical setting for Edith Stein¡¯s idea; it is a setting that makes her idea more understandable and more plausible. And in the fourth and final part of my paper I consider two objections to Edith Stein¡¯s position, and I attempt to respond to them, thereby clarifying her position and making it more convincing.

This paper proposes a non-realist account of finite arithmetic in which basic numerical propositions implicit in Catholic doctrines such as monotheism and trinitarianism are logical truths and so require no metaphysical (as distinct from logical) preamble of faith.

Many scientists and philosophers of science think that beauty should play a role in theory selection. Physicists like Paul Dirac and Steven Weinberg explicitly claim that the ultimate explanations of the physical world must be beautiful. And philosophers of science like Peter Lipton say that we should expect the loveliest theory to also be the most likely. In this paper, I contend that these arguments from loveliness bear a striking similarity to Thomas Aquinas¡¯s arguments from fittingness; both seem to presume that the most beautiful theory is also the most probable. To do this, I first layout the explanatory virtues that are commonly thought to be constitutive of a lovely theory. Second, I elucidate Aquinas¡¯ arguments from fittingness and show how they work in light of his account of beauty. Lastly, I connect the two kinds of aesthetic arguments and show the extent to which they overlap.

Thomas Aquinas holds that we have a natural duty to offer God external sacrifice, in which something is destroyed or killed. I propose a metaphysics on which that claim makes sense. I first consider the Thomistic grounding for this duty in relations between spiritual and bodily acts, and between natural sacrifice and Christ¡¯s sacrifice; these groundings are a preamble to the Faith. I draw an objection from Francisco Su¨¢rez to the anthropological grounding, and another objection from Ren¨¦ Girard to the claim that natural sacrifice prefigures Christ¡¯s sacrifice. I respond by developing the Thomistic anthropology that grounds this duty, using the paleoanthropological, evolutionary theory called the ¡°hunting hypothesis¡± (especially using the ways this hypothesis has been joined to an analysis of ancient myth and sacrificial practice by Roberto Calasso) to argue that we have a natural teleological orientation fulfilled through destructive sacrifice. I argue that we are naturally priests, who offer creatures back to God; grasping this shows how our natural duty to sacrifice prefigures Christ¡¯s sacrifice.

When considering the metaphysical preambles to faith, the existence of God is surely preeminent. While investigation of preambles is often a feature of the generally Christian and particularly Catholic entr¨¦e to theology, they also concern the other Abrahamic religions. The present study explores ¡°necessary¡± and ¡°possible¡± as metaphysical preambles in the thought of Avicenna. Though compelling, Avicenna¡¯s account has not escaped criticism, most notably from Averroes, who rejected both these concepts and Avicenna¡¯s subsequent argument for God, the Necessary Existent. Rejecting ¡°necessary¡± and ¡°possible¡± as metaphysical preambles can have far-reaching consequences, not only for the cogency of Avicennian metaphysics, but for any natural theology that seeks to employ these concepts. The present study, first, defends ¡°necessary¡± and ¡°possible¡± as formulated in the metaphysics of Avicenna. Second, it shows how these concepts serve as preambles to arguments for God. Third, it addresses and refutes Averroes¡¯ criticisms.

One possible approach to the preambles of the preambles of faith is to consider Aquinas¡¯ philosophical sources. It is by situating an author in their context with a view to their sources that one can best understand their thought, appreciate their philosophical debts and innovations. While it has been widely acknowledged that Aristotle is an important source for Aquinas, I argue that through his Neoplatonic and Arabic sources certain Plotinian themes have a key influence on Aquinas¡¯ understanding of God. Viewed in this light, we can understand Aquinas not merely as an Aristotelian, but as the inheritor of a rich classical metaphysical tradition which, while beginning with Plato and Aristotle, proceeds through Plotinus, Proclus, Dionysius and the Arabic works of the Liber de Causis and Avicenna.

This paper argues that St. Thomas distinguishes between what natural reason can know about the interior Word in God and what can be known by faith alone. I will argue that reason can show that verbum names a pure perfection that must exist in any intellectual nature and that verbum is therefore, in this sense, predicated properly of the divine nature. Thus, our natural understanding of verbum serves as a preamble to faith. But the real procession of the Word within God (and the distinction of persons that follows from real procession) is revealed by faith alone. But even here, reason can be used in the service of faith to show how the procession of the word in the human soul functions as a fitting likeness or analogy to help manifest the procession of the eternal Word.

Scotus¡¯s theory of the univocity of being and other divine attributes is openly indebted to St. Anselm. Anselm has five methods or argumentative strategies that he combines to arrive at a common definition of attributes said of God and creatures, and Scotus references all of them. This paper will examine these methods, showing their interrelation, and how Anselm develops them into a theory of common definitions. This reading explains Anselm¡¯s insistence (in Reply 8) that his Proslogion formula does involve inferences from concepts drawn from creaturely experiences, despite several centuries of interpretation that deny this. Scotus uses these same methods, in ways that Anselm scholars often overlook. The fact that Anselm¡¯s methods are developments of Augustine¡¯s Neoplatonic One-over-many argument in De Trinitate 8.3, and Scotus¡¯s arguments are developments of Anselm¡¯s, suggests that Scotus¡¯s arguments for univocity can be seen in relation to the Platonic tradition, which is not typically done.

Thomas Aquinas¡¯s doctrine that being is the first conception of the intellect is supported by his position that the intellect grasps the more universal or common prior to grasping the less universal or common in an act of confused cognition. John Duns Scotus argues to the contrary that the intellect grasps the less common before the more common or universal in its first acts of confused cognition. This paper engages Scotus¡¯s criticism at Quaestiones De Anima 16 that Aquinas¡¯s main argument in ST I, 85.3 falls into a fallacy. The paper also proposes a solution to Scotus¡¯s charge that Aquinas¡¯s argument falls into a fallacy as well as a line of further inquiry into an ambiguity within the position of Scotus on one of the modes of confused cognition that is key both to his own position and to his critique of Aquinas.

Christian Smith has described the religious attitudes of American youth and many adults as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. In this formulation the word ¡°therapeutic¡± does much work, and is meant to indicate that the goal of life is to be happy, to which end religion is instrumental. Martha Nussbaum has argued that Hellenistic schools of philosophy were therapeutic and instrumental in much the same way, and that this is a possible mode of philosophy even today. Appealing to the historical investigations of Pierre Hadot and Giovanni Reale, this paper shows that Neoplatonism was an even more successful form of therapeutic philosophy, a fact which Augustine recognized and to which he responded in his therapeutic masterpiece Confessions, through his depiction of his mother as a sage. This suggests that Catholicism can be powerful when presented therapeutically, which might be a more appropriate mode for evangelism in our therapeutic age.

One of the standard objections against the impossibility of infinite regress is associated with David Hume and Paul Edwards, but originates with William Ockham. They claim that in an infinite regress every member of the series is explained, and nothing is unexplained. Every member is explained by the one before it, and the series as a whole is nothing over and above its members, and so needs no cause of its own. Utilizing the well-known Thomistic distinction between essentially ordered and accidentally ordered causal series, I show that the Hume-Edwards-Ockham objection fails to touch Aquinas¡¯s argument against the impossibility of infinite regress in an essentially ordered series. However, Aquinas also argues that accidentally ordered causal series can only regress infinitely if supported by an everlasting essential cause. The Hume-Edwards-Ockham objection does raise a question about this thesis, but I show how St. Thomas can reply to it convincingly.

Pascal, in his Pens¨¦es, applies philosophy to a theological problem: reconciling (a) Christianity¡¯s demand for absolute faith with both (b) the motives of credibility¡¯s inability to justify absolute faith on their own and (c) the moral obligation to avoid superstition. This reconciliation hinges upon distinguishing two cognitive faculties: reason, and the heart. I will first discuss Pascal¡¯s view of the difference between reason and the heart, and specifically how they each relate to evidence and certainty: reason discursively and probabilistically, the heart holistically and with certitude. Then I turn to Pascal¡¯s view of the role which the heart plays in religious faith, and apply this view to the problem of basing absolute assent on limited evidence. Finally, I will examine Pascal¡¯s view of reason¡¯s important supporting role in faith, and apply it to the obligation to avoid superstitious belief

Aquinas famously held that only intellectual beings can grasp the natures or essences of things and cognize universals per se. Below these intellectual beings, however, were the non-human animals who shared many of the interior sense faculties in common with man; such animals¡¯ highest sense was merely what is called the estimative power. Aquinas¡¯s account of animal cognition has largely been ignored in contemporary biological research, although hopes for a resurgence have been emerging in the Thomistic world. In this paper I seek to explicate Aquinas¡¯s account of animal cognitive activities, particularly by explicating a more detailed account of animal cognitive action as found in the biological works of Aristotle known by Aquinas. I then turn to various contemporary biological findings to show that many purported modern discoveries (like dolphins rescuing a man or recognition of social hierarchies) shouldn¡¯t be so surprising after all. Many such cognitive acts were already there in the texts of Aristotle read by Aquinas.

Effective Altruism is a rapidly growing and influential contemporary philosophical movement committed to updating utilitarianism in both theory and practice. The movement focuses on identifying urgent but neglected causes and inspiring supererogatory giving to meet the need. It also tries to build a broader coalition by adopting a more ecumenical approach to ethics which recognizes a wide range of values and moral constraints. These interesting developments distinguish Effective Altruism from the utilitarianism of the past in ways that invite cooperation and warrant a fresh look from Thomists. Nonetheless Effective Altruism¡¯s fundamentally consequentialist and aggregative model for ethics precludes more foundational agreement with Thomistic ethics in ways that limit the extent of practical cooperation.

Debates between contemporary platonist and nominalist conceptions of the metaphysical status of mathematical objects have recently included discussions of explanations of physical phenomena in which mathematics plays an indispensable role, termed mathematical explanations in science (MES). I will argue that MES requires an ontology that can (1) ground claims about mathematical necessity as distinct from physical necessity and (2) explain how that mathematical necessity applies to the physical world. I contend that nominalism fails to meet the first criterion and platonism the second. I then articulate an alternative, Aristotelian approach to mathematical objects and defend such a view as meeting both criteria.

In his massive 2019 work on the history of the faith-reason discourse in the West, Habermas replies to Kant¡¯s question of rational hope with the prospect of an eventual intercultural agreement on cosmopolitan principles of justice. To warrant such hope he points to the growth of democratic institutions and human rights across the globe. Habermas¡¯s answer thus relies on political structures that foster transformative social movements¡ªbut not on modern moral attitudes, which he regards as too individualistic to generate collective action. I argue that Habermas, following Kant, relies on flawed assumptions about social movements. As a result, his structural approach provides an incomplete basis for hope. In the spirit of ongoing dialogue between religion and secular thought, I translate Aquinas¡¯s treatment of fraternal correction into an ethics of moral leadership that can fill the gaps in Habermas¡¯s project.

The systems perspective, as applied to biology, involves regarding organisms as systems consisting of biological molecules in motion; its goal is to determine which interacting molecules make up the organism and how their interactions change over time. I argue here that Nicanor Austriaco¡¯s attempt at reformulating Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism in terms of the systems perspective fails because it looks to systems biology to answer questions that only natural philosophy can answer. These questions include whether an organism is collection of parts having accidental unity or is a substance, what constitutes an emergent property, and what role the final cause plays in understanding organisms. In addition, insufficient attention is paid to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tenet that the soul can only be united to a suitably disposed body, namely, one with organs. Nothing is offered to show that this tenet can be accorded with a perspective that views organisms as networks of interacting molecules.

Understanding traditional natural law requires us to understand the concept of intrinsic nature, as well related concepts such as intrinsic inclination to an end and nature fulfillment. In this paper, I argue that proponents of traditional natural law theory should be attentive to the work of Martin Heidegger. If Heidegger is right about what he says concerning modern technology, then modern technology poses a threat to our understanding of the concept of intrinsic human nature and other associated concepts, and thus a threat to our understanding of natural law. Heidegger may also provide an insight into how proponents of traditional natural law can respond to the threat of modern technology. Advocates of traditional natural law theory can respond to the threat of modern technology by engaging in, and promoting, certain arts, trades, skills, and activities that reveal natures. I show that farming is a paradigmatic example.

Proponents of ¡°broad scope¡± theories of intention argue that agents cannot intend to achieve given ends without intending certain inevitable or probable consequences. I shall argue that some Thomistic variants of these theories collapse into the Expectation View (EV), i.e., that we intend to produce all of the consequences that we expect to result from our actions. I shall then raise four objections to EV. First, EV falsely implies that we intend to produce all of the expected beneficial consequences of our actions. Second, EV falsely renders altruistic self-sacrifice a species of suicide. Third, EV falsely implies that medical interventions with probable fatalities must involve intentional killing even when, of the available options, they offer the most likely prospects of long-term survival. Fourth, EV falsely implies that foreseeably fatal actions must involve intentional killing even when they will foreseeably prolong the agent¡¯s life before killing him.

The present work argues that value is a properly philosophical concept, the study and understanding of which therefore requires philosophical inquiry. It does so by bringing together two, quite different, philosophers: R. G. Collingwood and Dietrich von Hildebrand. From the former, this work takes its account of what differentiates philosophical concepts. From the latter, it takes the concept of importance as differentiated into intrinsic value, objective goodness, and subjective satisfaction. After explicating the distinctive features of philosophical concepts (the intensional overlap of their classes and their situation on a ¡°scale of forms¡±), it argues that, despite prima facie difficulties, von Hildebrand¡¯s categories of importance can be arrayed as a scale of forms, in which the categories of importance are not only differences in kind, but also differences in degree. The overall result is one illustration of how philosophers can argue for philosophy¡¯s special domain of competence.

One desideratum for contemporary theories of emotion both in philosophy and affective science is an explanation of the relation between emotions and objects that illicit them. According to one research tradition in emotion theory, the Evaluative Tradition, the explanation is simple: emotions just are evaluative judgments about their objects. Growing research in affective science support this claim suggesting that emotions constitute (or contribute to) evaluative judgments such as moral judgments about right and wrong. By contrast, recent scholarship in two historical emotion theories, Augustinian and Thomistic, emphasize their sharp distinction between cognitive judgments and affectivity or between reason and emotion. For these historical models, reason, not emotion, is responsible for moral judgment. Are the evaluative and historical models at irreconcilable odds? Should we discard old models that fail to satisfy intuitions about the intricate role of emotions in moral judgment? This paper compares these research programs and suggests a roadmap for collaboration.

The PDH is an argument for atheism that has generated a sizeable literature in recent analytic philosophy. However there are relatively few treatments of patristic, mediaeval, and early modern approaches to it. This short paper contributes to remedying this dearth as it pertains to the high middle ages, surveying some relevant material from Bonaventure (1217/1221¨C1274).

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant claims that ¡°the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good.¡± In this article I offer an interpretation of this claim. According to Kant¡¯s conception of a symbol, the form of judgment operative in judgments of beauty can also be applied to morality. This parallel application highlights that we are directed at an end which cannot be determined by theoretical cognition. I argue that beauty¡¯s symbolism of morality depends upon the solution to the Antinomy of Taste, and Kant¡¯s conclusion that judgments of taste are grounded in the concept of the supersensible. Such an interpretation renders intelligible Kant¡¯s remark that judgment makes possible a transition from nature to morality. Namely, beauty demonstrates to us nature¡¯s openness to transcendence, and thus is a symbol, a making-sensible of our own transcendence and practical determination of nature.

Robert Nozick argues that the problem of the meaning of life is caused by limitations, especially death. Consequently, attaining meaning in one¡¯s life requires connecting to something larger than oneself. Since anything can be conceived of as meaningless from a wide enough perspective, meaning will ultimately depend on connecting to ¡°the unlimited.¡± Although initially plausible, this theory of meaning is vulnerable to a number of objections. One is that ¡°the unlimited¡± is an incoherent notion due to the necessity that it include ideas that are contradictory to each other, and another is that the meaning of life ought to include internal goods, which Nozick ignores. I will defend Nozick¡¯s theory against these two objections by bringing in elements of the thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas.

Sexual realism has traditionally held that our categories of sex refer to something real about our biology. Sexual non-realism, on the other hand, either partially or wholly rejects this position. Sexual non-realists typically point to intersexuality as evidence that our categories of sex are not inherent to nature but are culturally constructed. This paper makes use of the work of Carrie Hull in her book The Ontology of Sex to explore the philosophical backgrounds of sexual non-realism and to make a general case for sexual realism from a Thomistic framework.

Neoplatonic commentators found in Aristotle¡¯s Categories a basis for participation and self-predication (or reflex predication). Although Simplicius seems to accept a certain type of self-predication (e.g., ¡°quality is qualified¡±), Pseudo-Dionysius gives arguments against self-predication among caused things, making exception only for the divine nature insofar as the predicates preexist in their Cause (e.g., ¡°God¡¯s Beauty is beautiful¡±). Theologians such as Philip the Chancellor (1165/85¨C1236) and Thomas Aquinas adapt the Neoplatonic view of divine transcendence while also elaborating a transcendental conception of metaphysics. These theologians in effect make ontological space for created substantial goodness. One sign of this second beginning in metaphysics is the ability to make reflex predications about creatures (e.g., ¡°goodness is good¡±). Philip the Chancellor argues for this reflex predication in Summa de Bono (q. 9), and Thomas defends it at length in De veritate (q. 21, a. 4 ad 4).

What picture of reality emerges from the attempt to hold together the following three claims? (1) For temporal beings only the present, not the past or the future, exists. (2) For God, all times are present. (3) For temporal beings, what counts as present varies from individual to individual, as described in the theory of relativity. These claims jointly suggest that reality is always reality for¡ªfor God, or for this or that creature. This is neither relativism nor anti-metaphysical phenomenology; instead, it looks more like a modest but insistent development of the Thomistic doctrine of participation in being. Being is not a neutral and amorphous glop spread out before just any observer; rather, it belongs to and is measured by particular beings. Created being as a whole belongs to God (and, eventually, to the saints in God), whereas the share in being assigned to any creature is limited.

Thomas Aquinas consistently maintains that there are two kinds of beauty: bodily or sensible beauty and spiritual or intelligible beauty. Due to the lively debate over whether intelligible beauty is a transcendental for Thomas, discussions of his aesthetics have tended either to ignore his views on sensible beauty or to mention them only in passing. The present paper will therefore give a brief overview of Thomas¡¯s thought on bodily beauty. The first section will discuss the objective aspects of sensible beauty for Thomas, i.e., its definition and three conditions, while the second will present his views on its subjective aspects, i.e., how we experience it, why it pleases us, and its importance for human flourishing. The third and final section will examine how Thomas¡¯s account of sensible beauty affects his views on the beauty of the glorified human body and of the universe as a whole after the Last Judgment.

For Dietrich von Hildebrand beauty invites us to transcendence and leads us before the face of God, or in conspectu Dei. In order to elucidate what this means attention will be focused first on the objective importance of beauty, which carries with it according to von Hildebrand a message such that it speaks to us. The meaning of beauty as a ¡°word¡± needs to be grounded in a metaphysics of the Logos which is in fact Light and Beauty, making everything a participant in its light and beauty. If beauty as that which is important in itself or as value speaks to us, then a response is needed on our part, but responses to beauty can vary as von Hildebrand indicates in distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate responses; why this is so will occupy briefly the second part of this paper. And lastly, the ¡°call¡± of beauty to us is related to the final perfection of the human person, where true identity is achieved and where we will at last stand before the face of God.

An oft-neglected issue in Plato¡¯s Euthyphro is the problem of how human beings can reciprocate the gods¡¯ gifts if nothing we do can benefit them. This problem is relevant to a Christian faith that proposes to ¡°serve¡± God in some way, while also maintaining that God is perfect and in need of nothing from human beings. In this paper I propose a solution to this problem using the concept of divine glory as suggested by several texts of St. Thomas Aquinas. I believe that Aquinas¡¯s claim that God seeks not profit but glory from human acts explains how human beings can reciprocate God¡¯s gifts without detracting from his perfection and self-sufficiency.

I shall defend Augustine¡¯s holistic aesthetic response to the problem of evil by considering the variety of ways in which our vision of the cosmos is limited and how this is similar to the kinds of limitations on viewing a work of art that would make negative criticism unreasonable. At the same time, I identify an interesting asymmetry: we may be justified in making positive, but not negative, judgments about the creator¡¯s skill on the basis of a mere partial perception.

Classical authors were generally artistic realists. The predominant aesthetic theory was mimesis, which saw the truth of art as its successful representation of reality. High modernists rejected this aesthetic theory as lifeless, seeing the truth of art as its subjective expression. This impasse has serious consequences for both the Church and the public square. Moving forward requires both, first, an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the high modernist critique of classical mimetic theory, and, second, a theory of truth which makes adequate reference to both subject and object. This paper argues that Lonergan offers just such an account of truth, and so cashes out the high modernist rejection of classical mimesis in Lonergan¡¯s terms, thereby creating the opportunity for a synthesis of the two views.

Some recent philosophers of religion have argued that no divine attribute sufficiently grounds an obligation to worship God. I argue that divine beauty grounds this obligation. This claim is immune to the objections that have been raised to claims that other divine attributes ground this obligation, and can be upheld even if, for the sake of argument, those objections are granted. First, I give an account of what worship is. Second, I consider reasons for and against the claims that the obligation to worship is rooted in God¡¯s having created us, God¡¯s being our final end and lawgiver, God¡¯s numinousness, and God¡¯s goodness. Finally, I show how divine beauty grounds the obligation to worship, by drawing together accounts of beauty from Thomas Aquinas, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Plato, Aristotle, and others.

Alasdair MacIntyre once famously asked ¡°is patriotism is a virtue?¡± but never quite answered the question. In this paper, I seek to provide a more concrete response by analyzing whether patriotism fits the model of an Aristotelian natural virtue. Since Aristotle himself does not offer an extensive discussion of patriotism as a virtue, I take my inspiration from St. Thomas who does clearly regard something like patriotism as a part of the natural virtue of piety. After exploring the significance of Thomas¡¯s key claim that patriotism is owed to the ¡°sources of our being,¡± I sketch the structure of moral virtue in Aristotle with an emphasis on his claim that all the virtues are . Finally, I show how patriotism fits the model of an Aristotelian natural moral virtue and conclude by addressing a few natural objections.

In dialogue with Stephen Hawking, Martin Heidegger, and Thomas Aquinas, I argue that there are three different and compatible ways to understand the question, ¡°Why is there something rather than nothing?¡± (1) The scientific way asks about the origin of the cosmos. (2) The transcendental way asks about the origin of experience. (3) The metaphysical way asks about the origin of existence. The questions work independent of each other, so that answering one version of the question does not affect the other two versions. Hawking and Heidegger are therefore mistaken to think that the scientific and transcendental questions render otiose the metaphysical question concerning the origin of existence.

I argue that the romantic notion of ¡°understanding better,¡± as the ideal of interpretation according to Schleiermacher and Schlegel, is not a ¡°meliorative¡± understanding, retrospectively situating the work in a broader conceptual or historical context and thus surpassing what the original author meant. The qualification ¡°better¡± is ethical insofar as it indicates a future-oriented task of responding for the authors and contributing to the continued life of their work. What guides interpreters in such an ethical task is benevolence or love, both toward the object of interpretation¡ªthe work¡ªand the author of the work. Love is a hermeneutic imperative that has two sides: first, interpretation ¡°augments¡± the work or brings it to its ¡°second power;¡± and, second, interpreters need to put themselves in a certain attitude of non-understanding so that the work will not be constricted in pre-established categories and, instead, susceptible to challenge interpreters.

However much scientific paradigms shift, the shifts are not so arbitrary that we would relinquish without need the simpler, more economic and elegant theories for more complicated ones. This is not just a matter of convenience but implies an objective fact about the universe, namely a reliable perfection that can only be assumed on the basis of the intelligent design of a benevolent creator God. Earlier thinkers may have been more aware that this is an assumption (e.g., Kant) and presupposes God¡¯s benevolent intentions (Leibniz). This assumption of a unified order of reality in general constitutes itself a perennial consensus through the ages, whether in Aquinas, Leibniz, the German Idealists or American Transcendentalists. Dissenters such as William James or Nietzsche serve to highlight the assumption as theological¡ªan assumption that is fortunately confirmed by our best available evidence, as well as by the way we do science and live our lives.

Aristotelian commenters have long noted an apparent contradiction between what Aristotle¡¯s says in Posterior Analytics I.2 and Physics I.1 about how we obtain first principles of a science. At Posterior 71b35¨C72a6, Aristotle states that what is most universal (¦Ê¦Á¦È?¦Ë¦Ï¦Ô) is better-known by nature and initially less-known to us, while the particular (¦Ê¦Á¦È¡¯ ?¦Ê¦Á¦Ò¦Ó¦Ï¦Í) is initially better-known to us, but less-known by nature. At Physics 184a21-30, however, Aristotle states that we move from what is better-known to us, which is universal (¦Ê¦Á¦È?¦Ë¦Ï¦Ô), to what is better-known absolutely, which is particular (¦Ê¦Á¦È¡¯ ?¦Ê¦Á¦Ò¦Ó¦Ï¦Í). This paper turns to two of Aristotle¡¯s most notable medieval commentators¡ªAlbertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas¡ªto resolve this apparent contradiction. The key to Thomas and Albert¡¯s solutions, we will argue, is a twofold distinction between a sense-perceptive and scientific universal, and the particulars as sensed individuals and as differentiating attributes. Our Synthetic treatment of these distinctions contributes to the ongoing scholarly effort to understand the Stagyrite¡¯s complex theory of knowledge.

Aristotle employs three distinct but interrelated concepts of rest: kinetic rest, energic rest, and telic rest. The third variety, telic rest, is crucial to Aristotle¡¯s natural philosophy. Anything that moves or acts by nature does so in part for the sake of realizing its form more completely. There is, in the fullest attainment of this good, a kind of rest without cessation or destruction. The peace that telic rest affords is not a kind of stasis; it consists in perfect and complete activity. By clarifying the varieties of rest Aristotle employs, I aim to provide a richer understanding of Aristotelian natures. By emphasizing the role of telic rest, I aim to illuminate a universal and perennial aspect of the human condition, an aspect that both drives us to gain knowledge of the natural world and unites us with that world¡¯s divine cause.

Evolutionary debunking arguments, whether defended by Street (2006), Joyce (2006), or others against moral realism, or by Plantinga (1993, 2011) and others against atheism, seek to determine the implications of the still-dominant worldview of naturalism. Examining these arguments is thus a critical component of any defense of a theistic philosophy of nature. Recently, several authors have explored the connection between evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism (hence: EDAs) and Plantinga¡¯s evolutionary argument against naturalistic atheism (hence: EAAN). Typically, responses in this vein have been critical of EDAs, arguing that they are in some way self-undermining. Different critics have argued that, in the course of defending the EAAN, the theist loses her best response to the probabilistic argument from evil for atheism. Here, I provide the first systematic comparison of all three arguments¡ªEDAs, the EAAN, and the problem of evil¡ªand suggest that the first charge succeeds while the second fails.

In Dependent Rational Animals, Alasdair MacIntyre claims that human beings need the virtues. This attempt to claim that human nature is the source and standard of living well does not fully meet John McDowell¡¯s challenge to those who would claim that human nature is ethically normative. A being with practical reason, McDowell explains, can step back from and judge natural impulses. Why, then, should nature have any normative authority over a practically rational being? While MacIntyre¡¯s descriptions of why human beings need the virtues are largely correct, I contend that his position can be fully vindicated by supplementing his account with an Aristotelian value-laden metaphysics. By exploring why Aristotle maintains that goodness is coextensive with ¡°that for the sake of which¡± and a being¡¯s nature, it is possible to see why virtues are proper objects of practical reason and why it is normatively better for humans to contribute to communal networks of care.

Thomistic commentators agree that Thomas Aquinas at least nominally allows for ¡°to be¡± (esse) to signify not only an act contrasted with essence in creatures, but also the essence itself of those creatures. Nevertheless, it is almost unheard of for any author to interpret Thomas¡¯s use of the word ¡°esse¡± as referring to essence. Against this tendency, this paper argues that Thomas¡¯s In V Metaphysics argument that every predication signifies esse provides an important instance of Thomas using ¡°esse¡± to signify essence. This reading of In V Metaphysics, which this paper defends against Gyula Klima¡¯s alternative interpretation, suggests significant reinterpretations of Thomas¡¯s technical terms ¡°esse substantiale¡± and ¡°esse in rerum natura¡± as well as Thomas¡¯s use of?¡°is,¡± both as a copula and as a principal predicate.

Hylomorphism is a word for Aristotle¡¯s belief that matter and form constitute a unity in natural things. Engaging with the work of R¨¦mi Brague on the cosmos, I propose hylomorphism as central to the contemporary philosophy of nature that Brague seeks. Between the pre-philosophical standpoint and philosophy, there is an intermediate cognitive stage of making initial distinctions that ground philosophical truths. Philosophy of nature is the home of many of these initial distinctions. A key theme introduced in Physics 2.2 is the thinking of things in the way they are capable of existing. Analyses of Physics 2.2. and De Anima 2.3 exhibit the recognition of being as something different from the sheer existing of things. Aristotle points out mistakes in thinking about form and elucidates ontological dependencies. There are implications for the understanding of human disability.

Discussions on Aristotle¡¯s account of homonymy in natural philosophy have not paid attention to its distinct use in the Generation of animals. I show that Aristotle¡¯s use of homonymy in this treatise is relevant to the question of how to name living substances in the process of generation. In the GA, Aristotle uses homonymy to argue that embryos must have soul. These embryos, when the heart has been distinctly set apart, satisfy the criterion set in Metaph. IX.7 to be an animal in dunamis. In the GA, Aristotle refers to this embryo as an animal¡ªalbeit incomplete, because it cannot yet carry out all the functions signified by the name¡ªand not as a homonym. The phenomenon of generation thus calls for a refinement of the principle of Functional Determination, according to which something is what its names signifies only if it can carry out the functions signified by the name.

Attempts to find perennial elements in Aristotle¡¯s cosmology are doomed to failure because his distinction of sub- and supra-lunary realms no longer holds. More fruitful approaches to the contemporary importance of Aristotelian cosmology must focus on parities of reasoning rather than content. This paper highlights the striking parallels between Aristotle¡¯s use of symmetry arguments in cosmology and instances of Noether¡¯s First Theorem in contemporary physics. Both observe simple motion, find symmetries in that motion, argue from those symmetries to notions of conservation, and then conclude to cosmological structure. These parallels reveal an enduring relevance for Aristotelian cosmology that does not depend on positing an enduring content to his cosmological claims.

Working within the Aristotelian tradition, I argue that relation is not a category but a transcendental property of being. By this I mean that all substances are actualized, and hence defined, relationally: all actuality is interactuality.Interactuality is the locus for the relational categories of substance, action, being-affected, number, and most types of quality. The interactuality of corporeal beings is further conditioned by relations of setting; here we find the relational categories of place (where), quantity in the sense of size, quality in the sense of shape, and time (when). In offering a relational account of substance, I distinguish between external relata (physical environment, objects of sensation and knowledge as external) and internal relata (one¡¯s body, objects of sensation and knowledge as internal). This distinction between external and internal relata is transcended in the case of the Trinity, insofar as the divine persons are both perfectly distinct and perfectly united.

Notwithstanding Aristotle¡¯s own relative silence on the matter, in this paper I argue that piety is a natural (not supernatural) virtue of the Aristotelian kind. I begin with St. Thomas¡¯s discussion of the virtues of religion and piety in which he shows how they both involve a recognition of human contingency and our radically dependent nature. Building off of this Thomistic analysis, I offer both an account of Aristotelian virtue in general and a phenomenological analysis of piety in particular, in which I situate piety with respect to the other Aristotelian virtues. Finally, I close with a discussion of a few natural objections, including questions about the limits of natural reason as well as considering why Aristotle himself did not explicitly treat piety as a moral virtue.

Aristotle¡¯s division of living things into three categories has been challenged of late as to the distinction between plants and animals on the grounds that plants too are sentient. I argue that the life activities that plants carry on go on in us without sentience and would not be carried on any better with sentience, and thus are reasonably thought to go in plants in a non-sentient manner. Complementing this expectation is the fact that research on the various movements of plants accounts for them without reference to sensation, but rather by specifying various physical causes. I also show that certain proponents of plant sentience engage in faulty reasoning, including the fallacy of the accident (e.g., the plant responds to something having a quality that a sentient being would sense; therefore it senses) and equivocation (e.g., plants sense different external cues; therefore they are sentient).

I contend that the classical approach of Thomists to internecine Thomist debates about the requirements for initiating the enquiries of natural philosophy and metaphysics generates an epistemological crisis which this classical approach cannot overcome on its own terms. Furthermore, the failure of this classical approach to resolve these intractable debates has all too often distracted and stymied Thomists from contributing to the real enquiries of philosophy of nature. This explains, in part, why the most cogent and influential defenders of a return to Aristotelian ideas concerning nature and their relevance to modern science, has come from analytic philosophers unconcerned with these classical Thomist debates. But Thomism need not render itself irrelevant to the philosophy of nature; or so I argue in this essay. I first present a surview of how a classical interpretation of Aristotle¡¯s division of theoretical sciences generated these debates about the relationship between the subjects of metaphysics and natural philosophy. I then argue neither Wippel¡¯s ingenious efforts to secure the autonomy of metaphysics from natural philosophy nor the arguments for the existence of an immaterial being of the natural philosophy first proponents succeed. Hence, the intractable stalemate between these Thomists. Drawing upon the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre I argue for an alternative approach that overcomes this epistemological crisis and helps to secure the relevance of Thomism to the enquiries of philosophy of nature.

In God Without Being, Jean-Luc Marion infamously argues that Thomas Aquinas is the progenitor of modern onto-theology and thus conceptual idolatry. Yet in 1995, Marion published an intensive study of Aquinas arguing he cannot be called an onto-theologian. Nevertheless, he reiterates a suspicion about the identification of God and Esse¡ªin particular, how it has been understood by those following Aquinas. He ends with a challenge for Thomism as a living tradition: Divine Esse will not be onto-theological to the extent that it avoids ontological significance. We will argue that Aquinas would reject the exigency of speaking Divine Esse without ontological significance precisely because it is through it that he articulates God¡¯s transcendence and incomprehensibility. Despite this opposition, there is a surprising and deeper complementarity to be seen: ontological significance for Aquinas carries its own veil of darkness which makes it more amenable to Marion¡¯s demand than might be suspected.

Do advances in the natural sciences leave the followers of Aristotle and Aquinas without a cosmos? Is their natural philosophy irrelevant to modern cosmology and its Big Bang theory? The following essay answers these questions and argues that natural philosophy is perennially relevant to cosmology. It defends the idea that Aristotelian-Thomistic natural philosophy reaches a true, general definition of the universe: the unity of order of all mobile beings according to place, duration, and agent causality. The essay defends this conclusion while answering three opposing views, those of Jonathan Schaffer, Peter Simons, and Immanuel Kant. The true account is attained through reasoning about the nature of place, duration, and agent causality. Objections against these lines of argument are answered to clarify their continued relevance. Since it provides even our modern scientific cosmology with the necessarily assumed notion of the universe, Aristotelian-Thomistic natural philosophy is perennially relevant to cosmology.

Beginning from the apparent failure of Aristotelian natural philosophy in the last centuries, I propose key questions internal to that tradition, most importantly this: Are the central theses of Aristotelian natural philosophy true and do they continue to contribute to our knowledge of the natural world in light of modern discoveries in the sciences? In this paper, I answer this question affirmatively by drawing on the most general mathematical theory used in the sciences to study natural change. I propose an Aristotelian extension of that theory to include substantial change. With such an extension, it becomes possible to see the physical aspect of substantial form, the role that each natural thing plays in making the cosmos what it is. Understood this way, substantial form allows the cosmos itself to be seen in a new way, one that integrates modern scientific discoveries with an Aristotelian approach to nature.

In this paper I will apply the Moorean response to external world skepticism to moral skepticism, specifically to the evolutionary debunking argument against morality. I begin, in section 1, with a discussion of Mooreanism. In section?2, I proceed to a discussion of metaethical Mooreanism, which is the view that some moral facts are Moorean facts. In section 3 I apply metaethical Mooreanism to the evolutionary debunking argument against morality. If the arguments of the paper hold up it will turn out that it is no more rational to abandon the existence of moral facts than it is to deny that one knows that one has hands.

Thomas Aquinas recognizes natural inclination to be present everywhere in nature, and this inclination is always toward what is good both for the natural thing itself and also for the universe as a whole. Thomas¡¯s primary example of natural inclination is found in the four simple elements, which have natural inclinations to their natural places. The inclination of these non-living elements is then the basis for understanding that natural human inclinations are towards goods for the human person and that the whole world shows a universal intelligent ordering toward what is good. I argue, however, that the natural inclination of non-living, natural bodies to ends that are good for the elements themselves makes good sense in Thomas¡¯s cosmology, but not in ours. Natural substances still show finality in our cosmos, but in a more restricted way than what Thomas was able to find.

The Catholic Church has increasingly invoked the principle of human dignity as a way to spread the message of the Gospel in the modern world. Catholic philosophers must therefore defend this principle in service to Catholic theology. One aspect of this defense is how the human person relates to the universe. Is human dignity of a piece with the material universe in which we find ourselves? Or is our dignity alien in kind to such a whole? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between? The metaphysics of creation properly locates the human being in the universe as a part, ordered to the universe¡¯s common good of order and ultimately to God. Human dignity is possible only in a cosmos; that this is concordant with modern scientific cosmology is briefly defended in the conclusion.

Is the institution of private property part of the natural law? Leo XIII seems to say simply that it is, and many modern Catholic thinkers have followed suit. Aquinas presents a more nuanced view. On the one hand, he denies that the institution of private property is ¡°natural¡± in the strict sense¡ªunlike the ordering of physical goods to general human use. On the other hand, he maintains that private property does belong to the ius gentium, which is founded directly upon natural law in the strict sense. I argue that this relegation of private property to the ius gentium is necessary in order for Aquinas to coherently maintain that it is licit to ¡°steal¡± when in dire need, but that this relegation nonetheless does not deprive private property of the kind of ¡°natural¡± character which Leo XIII ascribes to it.

Debate over whether health care institutions or individual providers should have a legally protected right to conscientiously refuse to offer legal services to patients who request them has grown exponentially due to the increasing legalization of morally contested services. This debate is particularly acute for Catholic health care providers. We elucidate Catholic teaching regarding the nature of conscience and the intrinsic value of being free to act in accord with one¡¯s conscience. We then outline the primary positions defended in this debate and respond to critics of Catholic teaching. In so doing, we show how Catholic health care providers¡¯ claims to conscientiously refuse to offer specific health care services are not essentially faith-based, but are founded upon publicly defensible reasons. We also address the question of whether conscientiously refusing health care providers may become complicit in moral wrongdoing or potentially cause scandal by means of disclosure or referral to another provider.

Claims of religious conscience that run counter to prevailing cultural trends are increasingly met with bewilderment and disbelief. The author argues that this should not surprise us given the ways in which the rational and liturgical status of religious beliefs and practices (especially those tightly tethered to the Christian faith) are widely misunderstood and misrepresented by jurists and legal philosophers. To make this point the author discusses some recent arguments found in court cases as well as in legal scholarship on religion. He encourages Catholic philosophers¡ªwho typically do not work in this area--to enter the fray by contributing to the jurisprudential literature that touches on issues of faith, reason, and religious liberty.

Public philosophy is typically conceived as philosophical engagement with contemporary social and political issues in the public sphere. I argue that public philosophy should also aim to engage with existential issues that arise from the human condition. In other words, we should engage in ¡°humane philosophy.¡± In the first section I fill out and show the attractions of this humane conception of philosophy by contrasting it with a rival scientistic conception. In the second section I demonstrate how the practice of humane philosophy is important for engaging with contemporary social and political issues and how it offers the best path for religious engagement with these issues. Contra John Rawls and other liberal political philosophers, I argue that public engagement with controversial issues such as abortion, assisted suicide, and genetic engineering requires engaging competing existential stances and I show how this can be done.

Prof. Alberto Urquidez, in an important recent article that appears in different form in his book, Redefining Racism, offers an informed, sustained, careful, multi-pronged, and sometimes original critique of the volitional analysis of racism (VAR), which I have proposed in a series of articles over the past two dozen years. Here I expand and improve VAR¡¯s analysis of paternalistic racists and their beliefs, clarify its ¡®infection¡¯-model¡¯s explanation of racism¡¯s spread and variety, and lay out what it is for something to be ¡®characteristically¡¯ racist, an understanding that I then use to offer a unified account of the way in which both certain physical objects and certain abstract objects can properly be called racist. Identifying and engaging some presuppositions behind Urquidez¡¯s social, political, and moral criticisms of VAR, I respond to complaints from him and others, showing that VAR¡¯s content is neither politically conservative nor dependent on religious doctrine, and point out that race theory would in fact profit from taking more seriously and internalizing the Christian morality of most African-Americans.

I argue that one of the fundamental conflicts between Socrates and his interlocutors (Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles) in the Gorgias concerns the nature of human freedom. Against the increasingly grandiose and aggressive claims of his interlocutors, Socrates sees true freedom as requiring discipline in speech and deed. Plato has Socrates argue for a concept of human freedom that finds its fulfillment in happiness only by being channeled through the funnels of philosophy and justice. Central to this Platonic understanding of freedom is the role of eros and imitation. Socrates¡¯s love of truth is the foundation for freedom because it motivates the search for a vision of the true good and therefore provides a formation in justice, creating the space for friendship in community life, that is, for civilization. By contrast, Callicles¡¯s love of the d¨¥mos is an extension of disordered self-love, impelling him to seek the means to placate the masses so that he can enlarge his appetites and continually fill them. Such love enslaves Callicles, corrupts political life, and vitiates the possibility of friendship. Finally, I connect these Platonic insights to central themes in Catholic Social Teaching.

There has been recent epistemological interest as to whether knowledge is ¡°transmitted¡± by testimony from the testifier to the hearer, where a hearer acquires knowledge ¡°second-hand.¡± Yet there is a related area in epistemology of testimony which raises a distinct epistemological problem: the relation of understanding to testimony. In what follows, I am interested in one facet of this relation: whether/how a hearer can receive testimonial knowledge without fully understanding the content of the testimony? I use Thomas Aquinas to motivate a case where, in principle, the content of received testimony cannot be understood but nevertheless constitutes knowledge. Aquinas not only argues that we can receive testimonial knowledge without understanding the content of that testimony, but that we have duties to do so in certain cases.

It is widely thought that it can be permissible to persuade someone set on a greater evil to commit a lesser evil instead, though the question is not without controversy. I argue that a version of this kind of Principle of Counseling Lesser Evil can be derived from the Principle of Double Effect and some considerations about the way human choices work. As an application, I argue that giving bribes to officials who otherwise would not do their job might be considered a special case of this counseling principle.

In this essay, I defend rights of conscientious objection against various objections raised on deontological grounds of rights and entitlements as well as on consequentialist, utilitarian grounds. Udo Schuklenk and Ricardo Smalling in their article, ¡°Why Medical Professionals Have No Moral Claim to Conscientious Objection Accommodation in Liberal Democracies¡± raise various objections, including the Objection from the Rights of Patients, the Objection from Monopoly, the Objection from Religion, the Objection from Untestability, and the Objection from Inconsistency. This article also responds to the concern about ¡°unconstrained conscientious objection.¡± It suggests that we can distinguish legitimate from illegitimate conscientious objection in part by means of distinguishing objection to particular kinds of procedures from objection to treating particular kinds of persons. Perhaps the most promising way of differentiating legitimate from illegitimate conscientious objection in healthcare is by means of the goal of the medical art understood as the promotion of health.

In this paper I argue for a Thomistic alternative to Martha Nussbaum¡¯s justice for animals as outlined in Frontiers of Justice (2007). I argue that an account of analogous justice between humans and animals can generate real and robust obligations towards animals. I first show how Aquinas¡¯s treatment of nonhuman animals in the questions on law evince a wider, shared community between humans and animals by which we see animals and humans as equally under divine providence. I then argue that while Aquinas¡¯s definition of justice excludes animals in its proper sense, his treatment of animals (or irrational creatures) in questions such as those on theft and charity prove that there is room to understand at least an analogous or metaphorical sense by which we can see them as recipients of justice. Finally, I examine Nussbaum¡¯s own account and illustrate key similarities between her view and that of Aquinas.