While reading Aristotle and Aquinas I noticed what appears to be a similarity between the former’s functions and the latter’s inclinations. In Nicomachean Ethics I.7, Aristotle identifies the distinctive human function as an activity of soul in accordance with reason (or not apart from reason), distinguishing human flourishing from merely nutritive and perceptive forms of …

In the opening chapter of Ethica Thomistica, Ralph McInerny presents Aquinas’s view that human actions are moral actions. What this means is that human acts that are conscious, deliberate, and voluntary are the proper objects of moral evaluation. Humans are not responsible – or rather less responsible – for acts lacking these qualities. As with …

In chapter 3 of Whose Justice, Which Rationality, MacIntyre argues that post-Homeric Greek society inherited two different types of goods: Goods of excellence are achieved through the cultivation and exercise of the virtues. They are connected with what it means to excel as a human being and as a citizen. Goods of effectiveness are goods …

I enjoy reading lists of virtues and was particularly interested to find that Nigel Biggar has recently published a list of virtues for academics, which he terms nine intellectual virtues. These are: temperance respect carefulness patience charity, or generosity humility docility or teachableness thoughtfulness courage Biggar is right to question whether universities can remain ‘eloquent …

In the preface (p. xi) to Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (1999), Alasdair MacIntyre refers to a prayer by Thomas Aquinas ‘in which he asks God to grant that he may happily share with those in need what he has, while humbly asking for what he needs from those who have’. …

In Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, MacIntyre writes that any answer to the question what are universities for? should begin with this: They are, when they are true to their own vocation, institutions within which questions of the form ‘What are x’s for?’ and ‘What peculiar goods do y’s serve?’ are formulated and answered …

Patient: Do you think I have low self-esteem? Therapist: No, it’s about right. How do we know whether our own evaluation of ourselves, and of our lives as a whole, is accurate or justified? How can we tell if we’re genuinely living a good life? MacIntyre (2016, p. 222) makes the bold claim that at …