I. Natural Law Reconstructed

The influential modern-day reconstruction of Thomistic natural law (so-called ‘new natural law theory’)^{Footnote 7} began with a commentary upon Quaestio 94.2 of the Summa Theologiae’s prima secundae pars.^{Footnote 8} Here, Aquinas gives his response to the question ‘whether the natural law contains many precepts, or only one.’ In the main reply, he affirms that the natural law contains a variety of precepts, all of which are based on a primary indemonstrable precept, that ‘the good is to be done and pursued, and the bad is to be avoided’. The variety of the other precepts has an order to it which corresponds to the order to be found in natural human inclinations: the most basic inclinations pertain to one’s survival, so it belongs to natural law that one ought to pursue one’s own life, and avoid threats to life; one’s inclinations to beget and educate offspring are similarly reflected in natural law precepts; and the more sophisticated inclinations that are distinctly human, such as the desire to know the truth and to live peacefully in society, are likewise contained in precepts of natural law.^{Footnote 9}

Among the points that the new natural lawyers wish to stress, are the following: 1) Aquinas preserves the practical orientation of moral thinking by founding all natural law precepts upon a primary indemonstrable practical precept: ‘ought’ is not being derived from ‘is’, morality is not being derived from ‘nature’ or any injunction to ‘follow nature’; (2) the references to good [bonum] and bad [malum] in the primary precept do not denote moral ideas; even the very wicked reason on the basis of these precepts for ‘end’ has the intelligible significance of ‘good’, and every person who acts, acts for the sake of some end; (3) Aquinas’s response sets out the first principle of practical reason (i.e., natural law), but there are many others, of the form ‘X is a good, to be pursued …’, or ‘Y is contrary to good, and so to be avoided …’; (4) Aquinas does not give an exhaustive list of such goods, although some are mentioned later in the reply; (5) the reply leaves open to question the identity of the moral principles which ought to govern the way in which individuals should devote themselves to the fundamental human goods.^{Footnote 10}

From this it should be noted that the new natural lawyers have succeeded in capturing the eudaimonist orientation of Aquinas’s ethics, which is fundamentally concerned with our end and good. In this, they successfully steered natural law theory away from the narrow legalism that had come to dominate in the early twentieth century (points (1)-(3)). The main effort of reconstruction was with points (4) and (5), the moral theory or ‘action theory’: these concerned matters, to quote Finnis’s words, of which Aquinas gives a ‘highly elliptical, scattered’ and even ‘seriously underdeveloped’ account.^{Footnote 11}

This effort of reconstruction depended upon premises that seem reasonable enough. In order to grasp even the most basic moral precepts, such as that one must not harm one’s neighbour, it is first necessary to understand what is good for one’s neighbour; and both these goods and the practical principles which identify them, cannot then themselves be moral in character, for they are the necessary prelude to morality. Aquinas calls them quasi fines praeceptorum ^{Footnote 12} [more akin to the ends of the precepts] and seminalia virtutum ^{Footnote 13} [roots of the virtues]. The initial work of practical reason is thus with the identification of basic human goods, those genuine and self-evident forms of human flourishing, of which Aquinas gives only a few examples (preservation of one’s existence, procreative union, knowledge, sociability), and of which perhaps some exhaustive account can be given.^{Footnote 14} Since these goods are incommensurable (in being basic), there is no overall vantage point from which one sort of life is intrinsically better or more morally excellent than another. There are therefore many legitimate and reasonable ways in which persons may devote themselves to the basic human goods. Only circumstances render a given choice between basic goods reasonable or unreasonable (I should not read books as the house burns down around me). Having once elaborated the human goods that it is valuable to pursue, the central and foundational moral questions then become: (i) given the infinite variety of ways in which it is possible to devote oneself and one’s life to combinations of these goods, and the very finite time, capacities and opportunities at one’s disposal, which goods or which combination of goods ought I to devote myself; and (ii) in what ways must I act so as to ensure that I do not directly harm, diminish, or otherwise qualify such goods, or prevent or restrict others’ participation in them?

It is with the second question, in particular, that new natural lawyers have been concerned. The end or goal for the human being is ‘all-round flourishing’ or ‘integral human fulfilment’, tantamount to Aquinas’s notion of beatitudo imperfecta.^{Footnote 15} Its achievement is obtained by accordance with the requirements of practical reasonableness, but above all with the ‘master’ principle of morality, that one should not directly attack any basic good. To use the classic example from Catholic moral teaching, a doctor can morally surgically intervene to save the life of a pregnant woman, even if the fully certain and foreseen consequence of the intervention is the termination of the life of the unborn child, i.e., as long as it is not part of the doctor’s intention to abort the unborn, which is merely accepted as a foreseeable side-effect. This obviously makes moral demands on two aspects of action: (1) the external form of the act (that it is reasonable, proportionate, etc); and (2) that the interior act of intention is morally licit. This must of course involve more than simply compliance with the above precept, for instance it must involve some notion of distributive fairness and commutative justice, among other things. But there is no present need to spell out these further requirements, for my concern is with the basic form of the theory, and the role of good or goodness within it.

II. Criticism of this Reconstruction

It is taken for granted by new natural lawyers that Aquinas’s purpose in Quaestio 94.2 is to found all of the precepts of natural law upon a first indemonstrable principle. Proceeding from this principle (that the good is to be done…) it is possible to attain all of the subsequent precepts of natural law, including (eventually) the moral precepts discussed earlier. But there are two puzzling features of Aquinas’s thought, if we accept this explanation. The first is that Aquinas does not use the opportunity, either then or subsequently, to spell out these precepts: they remain ‘scattered’, ‘elliptical’ and ‘underdeveloped’. The second is that this Quaestio sits in the midst of the Summa’s ‘treatise’ on Law; but by this point Aquinas has already given a detailed treatment of ethics in the ‘treatise’ on Beatitude (i.e., human ends), (QQ.1-5), in that on Human Acts (QQ.7-21), on Passions (QQ.22-48) and on Virtues and Vices (QQ.49-89). If we include the treatise on Grace (QQ.109-114) in an account of Aquinas’s moral theology (as we ought to do), it is impossible not to notice that the questions on law (QQ.90-108), in which natural law itself is but one subject, are situated in a far more wide-ranging ethical treatise: one which is taken up immediately again in the Secunda-secundae’s detailed discussion of particular virtues (numbering 189 questions). Why should the foundational precepts of Aquinas’s ethics (moral theology) be hidden away in his discussion of law?

These mysteries disappear if we accept a different interpretation of Aquinas’s purpose: he simply was not looking for a foundation to ethics in Quaestio 94.2. Its question (‘whether there are many natural law precepts, or only one’) is in fact Aquinas’s reworking of a standard topic of scholastic philosophy, whether there are many laws of nature or only one: a question which, despite its contradictory appearance, arose out of the scholastic method of seeking illumination in the writings of opponents by extracting from them what is true, on the basis of which a reply is constructed and mistaken views explained and corrected. In this case, the scholastic writers were faced with numerous divergent conceptions of the natural law. From the stoics they drew the idea of natural law as right reason in accord with nature; from the Roman jurists (in Ulpian’s famous definition), that which nature teaches to all animals; from Scripture and patristic sources, a specifically Christian idea; and—in Aquinas’s case—Aristotle’s ethical philosophy. Aquinas’s reply harmonises all of these conceptions by explaining that they all depend upon the ideas of ‘good’ and ‘end’.^{Footnote 16}

Proceeding from this interpretation, it becomes clear that Quaestio 94.2 is not, as modern-day Thomist natural lawyers believe, the cornerstone of Aquinas’s entire treatment of ethics. If we want to identify anything as the foundation of Aquinas’s ethics, the place to look is in the prologue to his discussion of ultimate end. This comes immediately after the short prologue to the Prima-secundae itself, which identifies the subject-matter of the ensuing discussion as human action, ‘insofar as the human being is the source of his own actions [homine … est suorum operum principium], in possessing free will and control over his actions.’ Aquinas says that the inquiry will be: what is our ultimate end, and by what means do we advance toward the end, or otherwise deviate away from it? At no point in the long discussion of ethics in the Summa Theologiae (or elsewhere to my knowledge) does Aquinas ever raise the question of a ‘master moral principle’ or of an ultimate foundation of ethics. The reason is simple: he endorses a eudaimonist ethics, in which the important questions concern the identification of the final end; and it is from an understanding of the end that we, derivatively, come to have a knowledge of the steps we have to take in order to attain it. The term Aquinas uses for this ultimate end is ‘beatitude’ [beatitudo]; and the various subordinate goods which we have to realise as steps on the way to it, Aquinas usually describes as ‘imperfect beatitude’ [beatitudo imperfecta], or merely ‘happiness’ [felicitas]. The nature of these subordinate goods is determined by the nature of the final end: ‘for the end is the rule of whatever is ordered to the end.’^{Footnote 17}

Aquinas’s reference to the means of advancement to the end, and the reference to subordinate (human) goods, is a reference to the virtues: in answer to the question whether imperfect happiness in this life can be lost, he replies that it can, either because extraneous circumstances impede one’s efforts, or because ‘a person degenerates into vice from virtue, in the actions of which this happiness principally consists.’^{Footnote 18} By contrast, the basic human goods which are at the heart of the modern-day reconstruction of Aquinas’s position are not virtuous goods [bonum honestum] but natural goods [bonum naturale], such as health and knowledge.^{Footnote 19} Moreover, the virtues are relegated to the status of ‘ways … of pursuing’ the basic natural goods.^{Footnote 20} Yet even here, the virtues are subordinated to moral principles, for virtues ‘are a response to reasons, and reasons are propositional’;^{Footnote 21} and ‘the relevant propositions are the first principles of practical reason(ing)’.^{Footnote 22}

Again, it is never explained why such a careful thinker as Aquinas should have failed so entirely to identify the relevant principles, nor why his discussion proceeds through a discussion of mere ‘modes’ of participation in fundamental goods which he nowhere exhaustively describes. The reason is that, for Aquinas, the virtuous goods of friendship, charity, justice and compassion are the fundamental goods in which happiness consists: ‘the virtuous good is the fundamental human good [honestum sit principale hominis bonum] … whereas those goods which pertain to the body or external goods which benefit the body, are secondary goods.’^{Footnote 23} On the subject of natural goods, Aquinas’s standpoint is the same as that of Aristotle: ‘they do not belong to the very essence of happiness, but are necessary instruments in the service of happiness, which consists in the work of virtue.’^{Footnote 24} Also of relevance is Aquinas’s firm reminder that beatitude does not consist in any created good [bonum creatum], i.e., those goods which bring to rest man’s natural desires.^{Footnote 25} In this he follows St Augustine’s teaching that the love of created goods as one’s ultimate end is a mortal sin.^{Footnote 26}

Finnis and other new natural lawyers invert this order. For in regarding virtues not as basic values but as ways of pursuing and obtaining basic values (such as knowledge or life), they consider the human good to consist in basic goods that remain incommensurable, in that any hierarchy amongst them could only ever be temporary and for the sake of some specific purpose or ordering. This contradicts Aquinas’s own view of the matter, for he regards acquired virtues as the greatest of human goods, though not absolutely speaking: the absolutely greatest good is infused virtue, because it guides us toward our supreme supernatural good.^{Footnote 27} There exists, then, a clear hierarchy in which virtuous goods occupy a higher place than natural goods; indeed the incommensurability of natural goods arises because there are numerous ways of living and pursuing a virtuous life. But in each instance, the basic natural goods assist us in pursuing virtue, not virtue assisting us to obtain natural goods.^{Footnote 28}

The extent to which the new natural law reconstruction severely limits the scope of Aquinas’s ethics should begin to become clear. As a first step, it limits the importance of the virtues to aspects of reasonableness in pursuing basic natural goods. In practice, this means that one can inquire into the external form of an act (e.g., whether it is proportionate to the end it aims to achieve), or into the interior quality of the act, in terms of the reasonableness of its intention. As a second step, the reconstruction restricts Aquinas’s ethics to his theory of natural law. In consequence, Aquinas’s ethics appears to possess at once a legalistic character (in that it concerns a morality of principles to orchestrate the ways in which goods can be legitimately pursued) and a highly analogical conception of natural law (in that natural human goods and modes of pursuit are identified by demands of practical reasonableness that are only roughly akin to laws in the strict sense).^{Footnote 29}

Natural law cannot play this expanded role in Aquinas’s ethics, however. This much is apparent from the fact that our ultimate end is not natural but supernatural: the vision of God in the afterlife.^{Footnote 30} The whole of Aquinas’s ethics (moral theology) is centred upon a return to God [reditus],^{Footnote 31} a purpose which cannot be gathered from natural instincts alone but requires revelation.^{Footnote 32} In the following two sections, I examine both aspects of Aquinas’s ethics: the meaning of its articulation in terms of virtues, and the place of natural law within it. As I shall argue in part IV below, natural law fulfils three functions in Aquinas’s ethics: (1) it explains how natural human inclinations are toward the moral virtues, even for people who lived without divine revelation; (2) it explains why universal moral truths are compatible with many different ways of living seen across the world; and (3) it explains the basis upon which unjust state law must be obeyed. These are important matters, but as I will explain later, they are far from being the whole matter of ethics for Aquinas.

First however, I will clarify the importance of the virtues in Aquinas’s thinking.

III. Virtuous Goodness in Aquinas’s Ethics

A reader of Natural Law and Natural Rights directly encounters virtue only once in the book, for the purpose of being told that virtue is an entirely subordinate concern of natural law: the book itself seems to constitute evidence that Thomistic ‘ethics’ (i.e., natural law) can be presented entirely in other terms in which there is no mention of the virtues. In sharp contrast Finnis’s later book Aquinas is filled with references to the virtues. A reader of both works may find this change puzzling. But there is no real difference in the substance of Finnis’s argument, because he continues to treat the virtues as a subordinate issue, for inasmuch as they are rational aspects of moral deliberation, it is thought that they must be a response to reasons that are propositional (see Part II above). In fact, in a recent essay Finnis argues that the virtues are hiding in plain sight in the earlier book: for it treats extensively of two virtues in particular, justice and practical reasonableness. The latter is Finnis’s own term for Aquinas’s prudentia, the guiding virtue of practical reason that is simultaneously intellectual and moral.^{Footnote 33}

The shift is not a mere terminological one, however. For Aquinas is as clear as he can be that the work of practical reason (if we substitute this phrase for prudence) cannot be accomplished without the full range of moral virtues: prudence cannot assist us in judging well unless it is supported by moral virtue.^{Footnote 34} For Aquinas, rightful choosing requires both an inclination to a due end, and the correct choice of the things conducive to the end. These choices are made by exercising the intellectual virtue of prudence [prudentia], i.e., ‘practical reasonableness’. In Aquinas’s classic phrase this is ‘right reason concerning things to be done’.^{Footnote 35} But he clarifies immediately that ‘one cannot have prudence unless one has the moral virtues, for … reason originally proceeds from a grasp of the end of the thing to be done, to which we are rightly orientated by the moral virtues.’^{Footnote 36} Furthermore, Aquinas holds it to be possible to possess the virtue of justice without that of prudence (although it will not be a perfect virtue), and acknowledges that virtues such as temperance and fortitude can exist ‘in some way’ [aliqualiter esse] without prudence: the difference is between doing a good work, and doing a good work for the right reasons.^{Footnote 37}

The importance of the virtues in Aquinas’s thought is made clear in his Disputed Questions on the Virtues, where in his response to Quaestio 2 he draws attention to the fact that virtue, in disposing us to acts that perfect us, obviates the need to reason our way to goodness from the beginning on each occasion.^{Footnote 38} If reason is the root of all the virtues^{Footnote 39} and is active in fulfilling all of virtue,^{Footnote 40} nevertheless only God can completely align our appetites with reason, by infusing certain virtues into us and by shaping our appetites and inclinations toward the good.^{Footnote 41}

Aquinas also holds that virtues demand a rule or measure, and the new natural lawyers rightly notice that he devotes some effort to state the precepts that correspond to each virtue: for example, in the case of justice, ‘giving to others what is due to them’, or in the case of charity, ‘loving God above all’ and ‘loving one’s neighbour as oneself’. But they are mistaken to think that the precepts suffice to determine virtuous courses of action. On the contrary, Aquinas warns that the precepts are meaningless unless one possesses the corresponding virtue, since moral virtues are rightful dispositions of will, whose function is to guide practical reason to the correct objects. For a person who has the corresponding virtue, its precept serves to specify its point or end; yet a theoretical knowledge of the end will not specify (without the corresponding disposition) the thing to be done in a given situation, to progress to the end. This is clearly affirmed in Aquinas’s treatment of charity, where it is said that charity does not govern reason as a rule or precept, but by a kind of affinity.^{Footnote 42}

An example will explain the distinction. In the response to the question, whether beneficence is an act of charity, Aquinas observes that the giving of a gift includes two aspects, the external object that is given, and the inward state of heart associated with delight in riches. The virtue of liberality works upon the inner passion so as to moderate inordinate desire and love of one’s own, and to make a person more willing to part with one’s wealth. Thus, if a person donates a great gift, yet with an excessive desire to retain it for oneself [concupiscentia retinendi], this act of giving is not an instance of liberality. But in regard to the outer gift itself, an act of beneficence belongs to friendship or charity, and therefore it does not diminish a person’s friendship if one gives to a friend, from love, something which one strongly desires to retain for oneself. Rather this demonstrates the perfection of one’s friendship.^{Footnote 43} Neither the interior work, in which one learns to moderate the desire or love of one’s own, nor the external act of beneficence, properly involve following a precept. Aquinas is very specific, that an act of beneficence arises ‘from love’, which is a kind of charity. This does not mean that virtues are, to borrow Finnis’s phrase, ‘sub-rational’: friendship with others, like other virtuous goods, consists in a rational disposition [habitus] rather than only an emotion [passio]. So, persons who have the proper rational inclinations will spontaneously perform noble acts, even if they do not consciously have the relevant precepts. The precepts merely assist the virtues, by specifying the end (as in love of God and neighbour).

It seems that one reason for the modern-day misconception of Aquinas’s teachings on the virtues lies in a narrower idea of reason than that assumed by the scholastics. I refer again to the idea that practical rationality consists in a response to reasons, which are propositional. This idea is not the same as the scholastic idea. As we have seen, Aquinas is concerned with actions that arise from virtuous dispositions, which are not mere passions. The new natural lawyers are right to say that a person’s interior deliberations are in the form of propositions (it should also be added: as well as questions, doubts and guesses). But it would be wrong to think that virtue is equivalent to any set of propositions. A useful analogy is with a statement of the common law: a rule of the common law is never captured in its entirety by the propositions which try to express it. At most, very classic formulations express something that is timeless in the rule, but there is always an additional need to interpret the rule for the circumstances. This means that a law is always formally distinct from the propositions that interpret it. Similarly, a virtue is not merely another (less useful) way to talk about moral reasons for action. For it is—like a law—a source of reasons. Accordingly, much of the treatises on particular virtues in the Secunda-secundae are taken up with questions in which Aquinas is obliged to explain and reconcile apparent contradictions between the demands of the different virtues, as with the relationship between liberality and beneficence, above. For this reason, he affirms that, ‘since charitable love ought to be extended to all, beneficence should also be extended to all, but according to place and time; for all acts of virtue are shaped according to their due circumstances.’^{Footnote 44}

Given the importance of the virtues and virtuous goodness for Aquinas’s moral theology, it is necessary to understand the importance and purposes of natural law in his thought. These purposes are limited, but significant as I shall now argue.

IV. The Limited Scope of Natural Law

In the second step of Finnis’s approach to Aquinas, he associates natural law [ius naturale; lex naturalis] with the whole field of ethics or moral theology. In fact, natural law doctrines occupy only a limited space within Aquinas’s ethics. These purposes can be divided into three, as follows.

V. Moral Theology

The subject of ethics, for Aquinas, is concerned with the qualities of heart and mind that lead to God. As a eudaimonist, Aquinas conceives ethics to be the study of ends as well as means. In a way that is not open to natural intellect without revelation, the whole of ethics concerns the human being’s return to God, who is the first beginning and the last end of all things.^{Footnote 77} This does not mean that natural law itself is entirely ‘secular’: Aquinas concedes that human beings have a natural inclination to ‘know the truth concerning God.’^{Footnote 78} In all things that act for the sake of an end, there must be an inclination toward that end. This means that there must be an inchoate presence of the end [inchoationem finis] in the thing acting, without which it would not act for the sake of that end.^{Footnote 79} But in the case of the ultimate end, enjoyment of the vision of God is elevated entirely beyond the power of created natures. Consequently we human beings do not of our own capacity have a sufficient inclination to the ultimate end, and need God to infuse into us the virtues that lead to Him.^{Footnote 80} These include the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, but charity (Christian love, in Latin caritas) infuses all of the other virtues, in order to direct them toward the correct ultimate end.^{Footnote 81}

It would not be practical to give a full account here of Aquinas’s moral theology. I will instead discuss only a few matters which demonstrate how the subject of ethics in Aquinas goes beyond the more limited purposes of natural law. These examples will also serve to show the extent to which the ends and goods at the heart of Aquinas’s ethics are virtuous goods rather than non-moral goods. The examples will mostly concern the workings of charity, but I will begin with a point concerning the virtue of hope [spes].

The virtue of hope concerns the eternal happiness of the beatific vision, and not the glory of worldly states.^{Footnote 82} It represents the Christian person’s devotion to God and ‘hatred’ (i.e., disregard) of earthly things. Aquinas’s discussion of natural law, like Aristotle’s Ethics, makes clear that suffering and misfortune affect the virtuous person so that pre-moral goods such as health are necessary instruments in the effort to attain happiness. A person who lacks these goods cannot truly be happy.^{Footnote 83} Aquinas is able to surpass Aristotle’s rather bleak conclusion, for Aristotle did not possess the theological concept of hope in eternal rest. Aquinas points out that the reference to happiness must be understood as a reference to natural happiness, in other words to the works of the virtues. For persons who possesses hope, suffering and misfortune do not threaten their progress toward the ultimate end. Rather they will interpret their suffering as an opportunity to exhibit virtuous patience and fortitude, and to dedicate their efforts to God’s glory. In the absence of hope, life’s sorrows are merely what Aristotle says they are: potentially depriving the virtuous person of happiness, or even of opportunities to exercise virtue.^{Footnote 84}

I will now turn to the infused virtue of charity. The requirements of charity are in addition to natural law, for natural law is a type of ius, whereas charity is concerned with Christian moral obligations that extend beyond what is due to one. It consists of the love of neighbours and enemies, and the forgiveness of wrongs for which it would not be unjust to seek recompense (the imitation of Christ). Charity is not simply an additional virtue to the theory of natural law, because it infuses all of the virtuous goods that are the subject of natural law. It does this by directing the works of all the virtues to the ultimate end of friendship with God. To do so it not only transforms the end, but also the very basis of virtues such as justice, compassion, prudence and so on.^{Footnote 85} This clearly shows the importance of charity for Aquinas’s ethics. Natural law directs us to be just in our dealings toward others: we should give to every person what is rightfully theirs, and refrain from that which belongs to another.^{Footnote 86} As we have seen, natural law also directs that virtuous persons should sometimes forego their right in order to avoid public scandal or disturbance. In addition to this, natural law specifies that one should exercise one’s rights compassionately: sometimes one will be guilty of a lack of compassion [immisericordia] unless one refrains from one’s right, for example, where an insolvent debtor’s other creditors are in greater need. Compassion is exercised on the basis of the harm caused to another by the exercise of one’s rights. Christian charity goes beyond this because the love of one’s neighbours and enemies may sometimes necessitate relinquishing one’s rights even where there would be no harm in asserting them: this is clearest in the case of forgiving one’s enemies instead of prosecuting them.^{Footnote 87}

It is plain to see how Aquinas’s ethics goes beyond the natural law in this instance. By refraining from one’s right, the exercise of charity results in a harm to oneself: one does not get what was justly (naturally) due to one. But this does not mean that the workings of charity are unjust, because charity infuses the natural moral virtues, including justice. One’s charitable works are therefore (supernaturally) just.^{Footnote 88}

The needs of Christian charity inform not only justice, but all the other virtues as well. Charity is the true measure of all acts of virtue, because (in Aquinas’s example) a person is not just merely by performing acts of justice, but by performing acts of justice with a just heart and will.^{Footnote 89} Indeed, acts of other virtues do not contain merit except insofar as they are informed by charity.^{Footnote 90} As a theological virtue, charity directs all works to the final end of friendship with God, but it also includes the love of other people because God created them and exists in them.^{Footnote 91} Accordingly charity motivates a person to assist others and display benevolence towards them according to the love that is due to those with whom we share in Christ’s love, not the ‘natural affection’ that exists between family members and friends.^{Footnote 92} A person with charity does not only withdraw from sin but exerts herself to good works, i.e., to acts of virtues plus Christian beatitudes and the promptings of the Holy Spirit.^{Footnote 93} There are many possible examples of such good works, such as putting oneself at risk in order to save another’s life, doing good to an enemy, or donating to public causes. But a very obvious case is giving alms to the poor, an act which has become synonymous with ‘charity’ in modern times. At the same time, it should be remembered that Christian charity involves much more than ‘charity’ in the narrow sense.

The requirement to love one’s neighbour from charity involves many outward acts as well as inward states.^{Footnote 94} Being ‘well-disposed’ to others involves not only peaceful intentions but also concord, i.e., a positive willingness to assist others and join with them as a single community. It involves the readiness to interpret the motives and actions of others in the best light (the benefit of doubt), and a readiness to forgive others for their faults. But it also calls for the defence of the poor, which concerns the hunger and thirst for justice, and the courage to oppose injustices even when one is not personally affected by them. A benevolent disposition toward others also demands that one control one’s own inward states, by refraining from anger and restraining oneself from looking at others with lust or envy.

Aquinas makes explicit in his treatment of law, that these requirements are in addition to lawful obligations for the Christian. Interpreters have invoked Aquinas’s distinction between lawful precepts and ‘counsels of perfection’ in order to be dismissive of counsels, as optional additional obligations that a person may choose to obey (supererogation).^{Footnote 95} They have not fully understood that counsels form part of ethics, i.e., that ethics for Aquinas goes beyond the matter of one’s lawful obligations.^{Footnote 96} Virtuous goods such as charity do not lie above or beyond the scope of duty, but they perfect one’s duty. This can be clearly seen in the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ’s statement of the beatitudes is linked with injunctions against retaliation and impurity of thought (uncharitable thoughts) and duties of mercy, beneficence, etc.^{Footnote 97} Aquinas follows Augustine in regarding the Sermon on the Mount as the crowning pinnacle of Christian moral teaching.^{Footnote 98} This confirms that for Aquinas, ethics is concerned centrally with virtuous goods: Christ first enumerates the beatitudes, the true forms of happiness for which humans should strive, and then warns against inferior or mistaken impressions of goodness which humans find attractive, i.e., inward states or exterior acts which destroy beatitude rather than fulfil them. The virtues of penitence and humility are therefore a necessary foundation of one’s effort to perfect the virtues.^{Footnote 99} All of the Prima-secundae is structured after the Lord’s Prayer which Christ teaches as the correct order of petitions for which human beings should hope: it begins with the identity of the ultimate end (Thy Kingdom come), then discusses human habits and passions (Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven) and ends with the treatise on Grace (deliver us from evil).

The importance of charity in Aquinas’s ethics shows us that human loves are supposed to be ordered to the love of God. If persons disconnect their love of earthly goods, such as knowledge, wealth or play, from the ultimate source of goodness (cupidity), they are really acting in hatred of God: ‘Love is naturally the first act of will and appetite; therefore all other movements of appetite presuppose love as their root and origin. For nobody desires anything nor rejoices in anything, except as a good that is loved; nor is anything an object of hate except in being opposed to the object of love.’^{Footnote 100} The true goods of human life, as this shows, must be the virtuous goods that are connected with charity: joy and peace, mercy and beneficence, the giving of alms and correction of one’s brothers; and a rejection of the contrary vices of hatred and contentiousness, intolerance and envy, luxury and seduction.^{Footnote 101} Aquinas speaks of this as the order of charity [ordo caritatis]. By contrast, the fundamental human natural goods mentioned by Finnis and other modern Thomists do not conform to any order, for they are irreducibly distinct from one another: even in a life of ‘integral human fulfilment’, one’s enjoyment of play or aesthetic enjoyment is not an aspect of ‘religion’.^{Footnote 102} In fact a careful reading of Aquinas’s treatments of the progress of charity and its decrease, reveal that progress in morality is only made by detaching oneself from the love of created (natural) goods.^{Footnote 103}

When it is viewed in the terms suggested here, Aquinas’s ethics accomplishes two things. First, through the virtues, it establishes common ground between Aquinas’s and Aristotle’s ethics—between Christian and non-Christian modes of life. Second, through the theological virtues, it explains how ethics for the Christian preserves personal freedom, because it does not require that everybody adopt the same way of living in respect of human natural goods, whilst describing the highly exacting moral standards to which all persons must conform themselves. Just because it is agnostic about which natural goods a person should prioritise, the proper concern of ethics is with the demand for each person to devote oneself to the moral good—the perfection of charity.^{Footnote 104}