Virtue's Splendor: Wisdom, Prudence, and the Human Good

by Thomas Hibbs

Overview

In recent years, there has been a remarkable resurgence of interest in classical conceptions of what it means for human beings to lead a good life. Although the primary focus of the return to classical thought has been Aristotle's account of virtue, the ethics of Aquinas has also received much attention. Our understanding of the integrity of Aquinas's thought has clearly benefited from the recovery of the ethics of virtue.Understood from either a natural or a supernatural perspective, the good life according to Aquinas involves the exercise not just of the moral virtues, but also of the intellectual virtues. Following Aristotle, Aquinas divides the intellectual virtues into the practical, which have either doing (prudence) or making (art) as an end, and the theoretical or speculative, which are ordered to knowing for its own sake (understanding, knowledge, and wisdom). One of the intellectual virtues, namely, prudence has received much recent attention. With few exceptions, however, contemporary discussions of Aquinas ignore the complex and nuanced relationships among, and comparisons between, the different sorts of intellectual virtue. Even more striking is the general neglect of the speculative, intellectual virtues and the role of contemplation in the good life.In Virtue's Splendor Professor Hibbs seeks to overcome this neglect, approaching the ethical thought of Thomas Aquinas in terms of the great debate of antiquity and the Middle Ages concerning the rivalry between the active and the contemplative lives, between prudence and wisdom as virtues perfective of human nature. In doing so, he puts before the reader the breadth of Aquinas's vision of the good life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823220434
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2001
Series:	Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology , #3
Edition description:	2
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Thomas Hibbs is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction: Obstacles to the Recovery of Aquinas's Teaching on the Human Good	1
1.	Returning to the Human Things	26
	Nature and Human Nature	26
	Problems of Soul and Body	44
	Person and Nature: The Dilemma of Freedom	55
	Law, Freedom, and Nature	65
2.	Precepts, Prudence, and Politics	86
	From Law to Prudence	88
	From Prudence Back to Law	108
	Justice: Its Scope and Limits	119
	Friendship, Politics, and Human Excellence	129
3.	Contemplation and Prudence; Philosophy and Politics	138
	Wisdom and/or Prudence	139
	Negative Philosophy: The Limits of Metaphysics	155
4.	Contemplation, Action, and Divine Artistry	163
	The Ultimate End: Revelation's Dialectical Engagement of Nature	166
	Prudence, Contemplation, and Charity	192
	Beauty and Theological Pedagogy	200
	The Narrative Shape of Creation and Redemption	207
	Conclusion: The Good Life as the Practice of Truthfulness	222
	Bibliography	229
	Index	245

Editorial Reviews

For anyone wishing to understand the Thomistic perpective on human action, this book is well worth a careful reading.

Nova and Vetera