God, Man, Economy, and State
The major difference, of course, between the state of nature of Hobbes and Locke and the state of innocence of Aquinas is that whereas the state of nature is by definition a pre-political state, Aquinas’s claim is that the state of innocence is an already political state. Is his argument a good one? We begin …
Continue reading "Political Angels Does Not Mean Political Men (ST I, q. 96, a. 4)"
Inasmuch as the task of government is to lead the thing governed to its proper end, there will be as many forms of government for a thing as there are ends. Thus, the task of the pilot is to direct the ship to its destination, the task of the repairman to repair what is broken, …
Plato’s Republic is arguably the foundational text in the history of western philosophy in general and in the areas of ethics and politics in particular. The influence this single book has wielded on subsequent thought would be impossible to calculate. For in this work, Plato attempts to provide nothing less than a comprehensive and integrated vision of …
(The following are my opening remarks in a recent informal public debate over libertarianism held at New Saint Andrews College between myself and Pr. Douglas Wilson.) "When is it moral for a civil society to permit, authorize, or use coercion?" This, I contend, is the foundational question of all political philosophy, and the answer I’m …
The Reasonability of the Judicial Precepts, part 12 One manifestation of Aquinas’s confusion of the common versus private nature of possessions is in his account of Mosaic inheritance law. His explanation of why the judicial precepts determined that, upon a man’s death, his property should pass to his next of kin is the social utilitarian …
Continue reading "Aquinas on Old Testament Inheritance Law (ST I-II.105.2)"
The Reasonability of the Judicial Precepts, part 11 In the previous post I critiqued Aquinas's argument for why the "care" of goods in the Old Law was "common." Much the same critique might also be made of Aquinas’s scriptural prooftext for why, in addition to their care, the enjoyment or “fruits” of private possessions are …
The Reasonability of the Judicial Precepts, part 10 Similarly questionable are Aquinas’s scriptural prooftexts for his second Aristotelian principle of good property relations, namely that while the ownership of things should generally be private, the use of things (usus rerum) should nevertheless belong to all in common. Aquinas divides this communal use of things into …
Continue reading "Communal care is in the service of private use (ST I-II.105.2)"
The Reasonability of the Judicial Precepts, part 9 Not having found a theory of personal property acquisition in Aristotle, neither, in his defense of the judicial precepts, does Aquinas look for, much less find, one in the Law of Moses. On the contrary, the scriptural prooftext he cites for the Aristotelian principle of a bare …
Continue reading "The division of the land was political, not praxeological (ST I-II.105.2)"
The Reasonability of the Judicial Precepts, part 8 One example of inconsistency on Aquinas's part, I submit, is the very issue of private property at the heart of the present article. According to the Aquinas, both reason and revelation confirm that the power or right to dispose of one’s own property belongs to the will …
The Reasonability of the Judicial Precepts, part 7 The significance of Aquinas’s division of human relations into those brought about by private will and action and those brought about by public authority would also be difficult to exaggerate, as it implies the existence of a distinct sphere of individual human initiative and enterprise that is …
The Natural Law Libertarian 