Disputed Questions On The Virtue By Thomas Aquinas
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Thomas Aquinas had an outstanding concept of virtue that he wanted to pass down to the up-coming generations to use and strive. There are many questions that revolve around virtue today in our society. In Disputed Questions on the Virtues, Aquinas asks several questions in order to break down virtue into several understandable main points. The main questions that the paper is going to examine are “Whether the virtues are dispositions”, “Whether the will is a possessor of virtue”, “Whether virtues are in us by nature”, “Whether some virtues are infused into us”(Aquinas 3). These are very important questions about what virtues are and how we come to acquiring them. Aquinas also wrote a volume set of books called the Summa Theologiae. These books…show more content… Society constantly battles back and forth about whether a person is dictated by their environment or are they dictated by their caregivers. This is relevant to human virtues since our virtues are dictated by our actions. Most actions and reaction are products of the environment that we grow up in. Aquinas answer his question with the statement “ Human beings are more valuable and perfect {i.e. elevated} than other, non-rational, creatures. However, other creatures receive from nature enough to perfect {i.e. complete} them in their own way. Therefore since the virtues are a kind of perfection of a human being, it seems that they are in us by nature.”(Aquinas 42). Non-rational creatures are presented all the keys to success in nature and are expected to use them to survive, while making the best judgments to events around them. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Human’s are more valuable and are closer to perfection then the non-rational creatures. Therefore since virtues are a form of perfection for a human being, human should be able to obtain their virtues from nature. Solidifying the argument that virtues are in us by nature. Besides a natural view of virtues in nature, there have also been references of virtues being present since birth. Aquinas also states to bring more credit to his argument “If the seed of something is natural, that…show more content… Therefore, these should not be called the four cardinal virtues. (Aquinas 106)
These virtues are generalized to be considered the cardinal virtues also these virtues overlap each other and can’t be considered individual pillars of their own. Aquinas also explains why these virtues can be mistaken for being cardinal. The virtues mentioned seem to be cardinal because they are principles of other virtues, explaining the reason why some people call it cardinal while others call it principle.
Thomas Aquinas goes into an in-depth analysis on virtues. He examines the basic questions that become apparent when scrapping the surface of what virtues are and how we have obtained them. He brings in other philosophers to strengthen his points of arguments seamlessly. Virtues are not dispositions but instead actions that we learned from our nature or environment that we grew up in. Also any other virtue that is imposed on a person isn’t righteous virtues to complete a person but instead virtues of others trying to imprint theirs onto yours. The cardinal virtues aren’t truly cardinal but instead principal, these virtues are too broad to be considered pillars to live