About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unread


Post 0

Sunday, August 30 - 5:49amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

 

Aquinas argues that ultimate human happiness cannot consist in acts of moral virtue. To be ultimate, happiness cannot be directed to a further end. All moral acts are directed to a further end. For example fortitude in times of war is directed to victory and peace. Justice is directed to keeping the peace.

 

In our virtues, we observe the mean (which is the right) in the passions within us and in things outside us. The moderation of passions or of external things cannot be the ultimate end of our life since passions and external things can be directed to things less than our highest end and highest happiness.

 

Man is man through reason, and his proper good, which is happiness, must be in accordance with that which is proper to reason. That which reason has in itself is more proper than that which reason effects in other things. The good of moral virtue is a good established by reason in something other than itself, it cannot be the greatest good of man which happiness is. Rather, this good must be a good that is in reason itself.

 

Happiness is man’s proper good, that is, the good appropriate to the rational being that is man. Man’s ultimate happiness consists in the ultimate contemplation of truth, which is sought for its own sake, not directed to anything further. Man stands in little need of external things in this ultimate contemplation. All other human operations make way for that ultimate end. Moral virtues and prudence defend against disturbances by the passions.

 

Ultimate happiness consists in contemplation of the most noble intelligible objects. Such happiness consists in wisdom, based on consideration of divine things. The more perfect the object of intellect the more perfect the intellect.

 

(Summa contra Gentiles)



Post 1

Sunday, August 30 - 5:51amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

Contra Aquinas

 

In Rand’s philosophy, there are no perfections beyond the context of living things, including us and our creations. And there is no living God luring all in the cosmos to its likeness. For Rand there is rather the living-mind likeness of a diesel-electric locomotive. That living mind and its creations is our right glory and worship. In our virtues we observe not a mean, but consonance with human life. Observation of life from within and as external existential action. The good of moral virtue, the good of rationality, is a direction from and to external things, not simply from within oneself, and this direction to external things in the service of life and its human enjoyments could be part of the performing our end in itself and the occasioning our highest happiness. Rand’s philosophy, I should conclude, leaves open the possibility that moral virtue is not disqualified from being a constituent of the ultimate human end that is human life and its happiness. The employed tools of living and enjoying oneself can be part of that living and enjoyment. 



Post 2

Tuesday, September 1 - 5:36pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

We exist in context. You cannot be virtuous in and of yourself except as your actions further your goals to improve your life. Virtue is in the method of achieving the goals. 

(I wrote a lot more without saying more, so I deleted it.)



Post to this thread


User ID Password or create a free account.