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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Aquinas' moral arguments move from 'good/reasonable/right' to 'therefore natural', not from 'natural' to 'therefore good'

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aquinas explicitly defines natural law as participation of rational creatures in eternal law, grounding normativity in an ontological order prior to human reason.
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    • 2.The precepts of natural law track the natural inclinations (inclinationes naturales) ordered by God, making 'natural' a theologically prior category, not derived from rational reflection.
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    • 3.In ST I-II q.94 a.2, Aquinas derives the good from what human nature is inclined toward, reversing the claimed direction of inference.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.John Finnis's reconstruction of Aquinas, which the SEP claim echoes, has been contested by Lisska and others who argue it imports a neo-Kantian rationalism foreign to Aquinas's Aristotelian essentialism.
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    • 2.Aquinas's hylomorphic account of human nature means that 'natural' functions as a thick normative concept already laden with teleological goodness, making the natural/good distinction artificial rather than directional.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Aquinas grounds moral evaluation in rational goodness, not in naturalness as a primitive
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    • 2.The natural is derived from the reasonable and good in Aquinas' framework, not the reverse
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