History as past ethics; an introduction to the history of moralsMyers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness)
Philosophy
History as past ethics; an introduction to the history of morals
Myers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness)
Ethics -- History
The ethical history of the friars or the preaching orders mingles with
the ethical history of Scholasticism. The ethics of the Schoolmen was
a syncretism of two moral systems, the pagan-classical or Aristotelian
and the Christian. With the four classical virtues of wisdom, prudence,
temperance, and justice were combined the three Christian virtues
of faith, hope, and love. But these two moral types, the classical
and the theological, each being taken in its entirety, were mutually
inconsistent ideals of virtue. The pagan code was a morality based on
the autonomy of the individual reason; the Church code was based on an
external authority. The one was inner and natural, the other outer and
supernatural. The scholastic system was thus an incongruous combination
of naturalism and supernaturalism in ethics, of native virtues and
“virtues of grace.” This dualism is the essential fact in the history
of the ethics of Scholasticism.
As it was the great effort of the Schoolmen in the domain of dogma to
justify the doctrines of the Church, to show their reasonableness and
consistency, so was it their great effort in the domain of ethics to
justify the Church’s composite moral ideal, to show all its duties
and virtues to form a reasonable and consistent system. The best
representative of this effort of reconciliation was the great Schoolman
Thomas Aquinas. But a perfect fusion of the diverse elements was
impossible. There were ever striving in the system two spirits--the
spirit of Greek naturalism and the spirit of Hebrew-Christian
supernaturalism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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